#hitting post is always a bit scary - did I forget something?!

[domaystic]

It's Domaystic 2024!

Hello, hello! This is the third year of DOMAYSTIC, a domestic trope based prompt event running in May :D

This is the main post for the event and in the picture above there are the prompts.

They're 31 prompts (no alts this time), but they are also divided in three main categories, which I loosely labelled as "people from everyday life" from 1 to 10; "things from everyday life" from A to J; and "general-container-stuff that can be bent to one's own desires" from roman number I to X. Plus, at the very end, a free choice option (we never had one and the days are not even ahahah).

List of prompts

Category: people from everyday life 01. driver 02. shop assistant 03. plumber 04. public servant 05. teacher 06. receptionist 07. mechanic 08. health professional 09. baker 10. landlord

Category: things from everyday life A. konmari B. me/us time C. shopping points D. odd appliances E. building renovations F. frozen G. memento H. wild animal I. ritual J. dreadful weather

Category: general-container-stuff I. proverb II. tutorial III. poll IV. numbers V. emergency VI. quiz VII. cliché VIII. art IX. official document X. song

* free choice

Guidelines, tags example, AO3 link under the cut!

General rules and guidelines

Domaystic is open to any fandom or original content.

Any kind of media is welcome. You choose your way of expression.

There are no limits/restrictions on how your fill should be.

There’s a total of 31 prompts for 31 days.

To join the event one can do a prompt a day following the list as it is; or following the sequence they prefer; or only the ones of their liking, even just one.

Or, and this is my challenge proposition for anyone who wants to take it: try to combine one prompt from each one of the three categories + the free choice. Which in total would produce 10 fills + 1 if all are done.

Share your work anywhere you want or keep it to yourself, that's fine. If you share it on tumblr and tag this blog, I’ll reblog it.

If you also want to combine these prompts with another fandom event, that's okay.

Domaystic runs actively throughout May; if you join or tag the blog on a later date, that's fine too, I just reblog on a lower pace after May is over.

In case of lengthy posts on tumblr, use the "read more" option: ctrl-shift-k on rich text; [[*MORE*]] on html (remove asterisks)

AO3 collection

The domaystic2024 collection is open from May, 1st: click here - info and prompts are also on the profile page.

Tagging your tumblr post:

Mention the blog in your post @domaystic - tracked tag: #domaystic2024

State the fandom name or if it is original content

State if it is sfw or nsfw

Please, always TAG PROPERLY for any trigger warning. I will base my own reblog on your tags so, please, take even a moment longer to carefully tag it. I hope all participants to stay safe in this event.

Here’s an example:

It took me 2 nights to write this @domaystic, look at my stuff! #domaystic2024 #[fandom name or original content] #[sfw or nsfw] #[trigger warnings that I get from your post] tw

And this is it! For any question, doubt, etc. the askbox is always open :)

Hi @thebigbangblogproject, can you reblog this? Thanks :D

#domaystic #domaystic2024 #post about the event #domestic trope #domesticity #prompt event #prompt list #prompts #fanart #fanfiction #multifandom #I was quite overjoyed by these three categories when I thought of them but now I'm also nervous bc do they make sense?! I hope so XD #hitting post is always a bit scary - did I forget something?! #fandom #fanvids #edits #podfic #prompt challenge #fanmix #thebigbangblogproject #fandom events #events #may #fandom event

[alexanderlightweight]

Hi, hope both of you are doing great. This is for Writing Wednesday. Can you write where Alec is the Trueblood heir because he has some sort of Family gift, like sentient hadow wielding? Sentient shadows that are VERY attached to Magnus because they feel safe around him or something? Always felt that it was a damn shame the series never delved more into this other than the Fairchild's

Also because I forgot in my effort to post before I ran out of energy but you’re so sweet so an answer!

We are both doing good! Just tired and a little sore from keeping up with a puppy. Nightshade is very uh… emotional and he punished @saeths because I woke up to give the puppy kisses when Nightshade asked and saeth pushed him away so we have a very grumpy pup that is only angry with saeth. So when saeth woke up to take meds, Nightshade decided to tap dance on their body and then try and eat their toes in revenge for being ignored. Mind you, he’s ten months so he’s still learning manners but boy his little toe beans know exactly where to poke to cause the most pain.

And then Saeth crashed again and Nightshade went into the bathroom to cry in the tub and now he’s outside ‘guarding the house with his favorite stuffie’ and sulking.

(Btw, Nightshades preferred method of waking someone up is getting on the bed and staring at them until the sheer panic of being stared at hits your instincts and you wake up… though that might just be me since it never works on saeth, they just push him away while I give Nightshade kisses and end up getting my face washed)

okay so this might be my last fill for the night because this was quite a bit heavier than i expected to go but like. it went far different than what i'd planned so i hope you like it and uh. warning for shitty lightwood parenting (child abuse)

this is gonna need a second or third and possibly fourth chapter and i love your prompt anon, i really do. but everyone keeps giving me these glorious ideas that turn into wips and i just. you all are on point with the prompts. this is like the 10th one thats turned into a two shot or more

oh also baby alec

-

Alec knows he’s the Lightwood heir. It’s why his parents married, to bring new blood into the Lightwood lineage and while the Trueblood’s had once been just as powerful, their powers had faded through the centuries.

Alec is supposed to be the culmination of two ancient bloodlines. Born of a bridal sacrifice from a marriage between an already diminished bloodline to the fading Lightwood house.

And it works. 

Just not in the way anyone thinks of hopes.

Alec is seven the first time he’s struck for no reason. It’s not training, it’s not sparring, it’s not anything except he disappointed his parents.

He feels cold after, the pain fading but the betrayal lingering and the next day, he feels dazed. Like the world is a new place and he is rediscovering it. 

Alec doesn’t show his face all day. Not to anyone, even Izzy and especially not to his parents.

He ignores when they finally notice he’s missing, screaming and calling him until they upgrade to threats. He doesn’t notice the disturbed looks being sent at his parents, or the concern that is growing as Alec continues not to be found.

Alec stays hidden, alone and sustained by the shadows until he feels strong enough to face them. He doesn’t know what he looks like, when he crawls out of a hidden alcove and takes the shadows to the observation room. 

His mother looks pale, almost frail when he sees her and he doesn’t really get it. She doesn’t look as scary now, as when her palm had connected with his cheek. It’s the same with his father, from the glimpses he’s seen, the man looking smaller, not as tall and menacing as he did when he’d cuffed both of Alec’s ears and yelled at him for an over for forgetting an answer the same day mother struck him. 

Of the two, it’s his mother he’s willing to face first because even if she struck first, her blow was the softer of the two so he steps out of the shadows and speaks for the first time in longer than he knows has passed.

“Mother.”

—

Maryse turns, relief flooding her even as anger fights to overwhelm it. 

It’s been nine days.  Nine days since her heir, her son — the very reason for her marriage has been missing — and Maryse doesn’t understand how or why he disappeared.  She turns, ready to berate him, to scold him, to make him understand that whatever happened is unacceptable and can’t happen again. Because she has to make him know he can’t ever disappear like he did again, and then she’ll take him to her private quarters and hold him close in a way she hasn’t allowed herself since Izzy was born.

But when she turns to look at him, words already formed on the tip of her tongue, she can’t.

Because her son is truly her son, she realizes as she shakes and grips the railing and tries not to wail.

The son in front of her is not the heir she birthed, nor the heir she was married to Robert for.

The son that is in front of her is a Trueblood heir, through and through and Maryse’s soul aches with the loss she knows she’s been dealt.

Because Alec doesn’t trust her.

Maryse understands that in an instant. Can tell by the way that shadows flicker around him and dance at his feet, daring her to come close enough for them to strike.

“Alec—” she whispers and ignoring all the shadowhunters watching her, she carefully slips out of her heels and gets on her knees. “Hi baby.” She says, just as quietly but Alec doesn’t react, like he doesn’t understand the meaning of the endearment. In that moment, Maryse feels more hollow than when she realized she wouldn’t survive the Circle, that her heir and unborn baby wouldn’t survive Valentine.

Because Alec is looking at her like she’s the monster he needs to hunt, to watch for, to be wary of, to kill.

And Maryse can’t remember the last time she was soft enough to him for him to trust her, what words or gestures will bring him back to her and not further away.

He tilts his head, beautiful hazel eyes hidden behind the darkness of shadows and watches her like a predator watches a possible opponent. 

“I’ll be in my room, mother,” he says and he nods like he’s a shadowhunter giving a report. Like he’s telling his commander his whereabouts and not his mother who has been missing and grieving him for over a week.

“Alec,” she calls after him hesitantly, forcing herself not to follow him. “Baby—” she tries again to no avail, “have you eaten? Have you drank anything?” 

Because Maryse hasn’t let herself worry about her son, her first baby, and now she sees his wane face and she wonders if it was less because she was focused on finding him, or if it was because it was easier not to care about him. 

“I take care of myself.” Alec says, his little voice too young and high for how cold it is and he refuses to turn his back to her as he walks past. “You taught me that.”

And Maryse barely manages to wait until he leaves hearing range before she’s covering her face with her hands and screaming in anger and rage and pain. When she’s hoarse and exhausted she gets herself up, slips her shoes back on and turns her face as cold as adamas and goes to find her husband.  When she sees Robert and she knows he’s heard that Alec’s reappeared and she notices that just like her, his first reaction is anger, not relief. 

And maybe, it would make her a better wife, to warn him of what he’ll find when he ignores her suggestions to wait until Alec approaches him. But their relationship has never been about spousal support beyond that of respect and politics. So she follows, at a distance and while she’s prepared for a lot when he finally enters Alec’s room and she stays outside, she’s not prepared for Robert’s angry bellow and then a vicious, loud crack.

She runs in, hand on her blade and fearing the worst but it’s both less and more awful than she thought. 

She realizes, as she makes it through the door that she thought it would be Alec, lying on the floor and it sickens her, to realize some part of her had expected and allowed Robert to go after him in violence. 

It’s not though. It’s Robert, eyes dull with pain and his breathing heavy and he’s lying in a broken heap. 

His spine has been shattered, in a multitude of places, Maryse has seen similar injuries during her time in the Circle, but even then she’s never seen any so brutal. 

Alec, her baby is watching her though, eyes just as cold as earlier but something more dangerous in them and she realizes he thinks she’s about to attack him too. She lets go of her hilt and unstraps it’s sheath, letting it fall to the floor and she drops her stele too. Then she takes off her shoes like she did when he reappeared and she realized everything had gone wrong, so she’s closer to him.

“Are you okay, baby?” She asks, soft as she can and then she wails internally when Alec looks at her with even more suspicion. “It’s okay, Alec. You did good okay, you protected yourself and the—” Maryse swallows, her mouth suddenly dry, “the shadows protected you too. Just like a Trueblood, my blood.” Because she needs to connect with him quickly, before she loses him forever.

“If you hit me again.” Alec says and Maryse wants to cry at the fact that it’s again, that she didn’t even realize it had ever happened. “You won’t have a hand to hit me with anymore.” And he shrugs, “they say so.”

Around him the shadows writhe around in possessive, covetous agreement and Maryse remembers the stories of her family. The ones that were spoken of less and less as their powers diminished. 

“I won’t, Alec. I won’t and if I do, then that’s your right. Their right to protect you. Even if it’s from me.” Especially if it’s from her because those shadows recognize blood and they’re furious with her. Maryse can feel it in the slight echo of resonance that if she doesn’t prove herself. They will kill her and raise Alec themselves, like they’ve done for so many Truebloods orphaned by war. 

“You didn’t react like him. When I came back, I thought you would.”

And Maryse wants her little boy back. The one who promised to protect his baby sister and to be a good hunter and who followed Maryse around like a little shadow.

He was always meant to be a Trueblood, she realizes mournfully and she reaches out a hand, letting it be coated by shadows that could rip it off as easily as she breathes. Hesitantly, more for Alec’s sake than her own fear, she presses her fingers to his tiny face and wonders how she ever could have hit him.

“I’m here, okay Alec. I’m here and I’m sorry.” Because she is and it’s not enough, not with the way he still is wary but that’s okay. He doesn’t have to forgive her, ever. He just has to let her stay, let her try. “Come with me, baby?” She begs, “we can light the fire in my room. Give the shadows plenty of room to dance in, you can tell me how they feel and I’ll tell you stories, okay? Of where they’re from—” her lip wobbles as he nods, a little tiny movement she feels against her palm more than sees. 

“Okay, okay. Just, let's go okay? I’ll have someone else deal with your—” and she pauses when Alec bristles, “with Robert. Okay?” 

He relaxes a bit then and when Maryse steps past her shoes and sword and stele and into the hallway and holds out her hand, he follows, the shadows pulling up her stele to drop into his tiny grip.

“We’ll need it. To call for cleanup.” He says, calculated and callous and sounding so much like her and Maryse realizes how blind she’s been. Because becoming like her is never what she wanted for her children, especially not her firstborn who loved so eagerly and trusted so wholly. 

— and she broke that, her and Robert and it may never be fixed and they’ll have to live with that, she’ll have to live with that — 

Alec keeps a hold of it, even as his tiny, too-thin fingers take her hand and Maryse doesn’t care how much pain Robert is in. He can suffer until Maryse first gets Alec secured and fed and if someone hasn’t found him by then, then she’ll call him aid.

He won’t die from a broken spine.

Valentine’s nephilim victims never did, not until he wanted them to.

They walk slowly, and Maryse gives the first shadowhunter she sees a warning look and they nod and it’s the last of her hunters that they see.

Alec seems to relax the further they get from Robert and Izzy is sleeping in Robert’s room and Maryse doesn’t know how Alec will react to going in there, so she leaves Izzy safe where she is.

The fire is easy to light even without a stele, because Alec won’t give it up yet and Maryse doesn’t want him to risk using it so young and with his Trueblood newly awakened. 

The shadows dance and writhe with contentment and Alec relaxes the longer they play.

“I’m not the Lightwood heir anymore, am I?” Alec asks and he sounds less cold and more confused and Maryse watches with her heart in her mouth as he finally picks up a glass and she could weep when he finally, finally takes a sip of water.

He seems surprised by how thirsty he is and Maryse wishes she needed to tell him to drink slowly but it seems he already knows, drinking half the glass with careful sips and then setting it down. Even though it’s clear he wants to pick it back up and finish it off. 

“No, you’re the Trueblood heir, my heir.” She tells him because she needs that claim to him before it rips away.

“But you’re not a Trueblood anymore.” 

And it’s just a statement, but it hits harder than a blow and Maryse takes a deep, centering breath.

“Well, I will be.” Maryse says and she knows it’s true the moment she says it. “You’re father and I are going to break our union. He still has an heir, Izzy and now I have one as well.” And because Alec still looks confused she reaches out and very carefully, brushes his hair out of his eyes. “We didn’t marry for love,” and with a sinking suspiciounn when Alec doesn’t even blink she adds, “but you know that.” 

And he nods and says, “you married and had me because you were told to.”

He says it so matter-of-fact, like he isn’t breaking Maryse’s heart the way she must have broken her son’s. And then a terribly, heart-wrenching thought slithers into her mind.

 “Alec, do you think?” And Maryse’s heart hurts to even voice it aloud, “do you think you were born for duty? And Izzy for love?”

Alec shrugs and in the comfort of his shadows, he gives in and swings his little feet on the too-tall chair.

It’s adorable and Maryse vaguely remembers scolding him the last time she’d seen it.

“You had me for politics. Izzy could’ve been a spare, but you told me I had to protect her. That she was special and precious and needed to be kept safe above all else, including me. So I figured she must have been made for love.”

Maryse is crying, she realizes, silent tears rolling down her cheeks as she wonders how she and Robert broke apart their family so very completely, in that Alec’s original pure devotion to his sister has turned into a self-sacrificial mantra based on her and Robert’s failures. 

Because Izzy was hope and love. She was an attempt to renew a broken relationship and an excuse to leave the Circle and she was so innocent, when Alec was already becoming jaded from the world around him. She wants to deny it but she can’t and she rattles out a shaking breath, because she’s going to fix this.

Somehow, soon, she’s going to fix this. Even if she has to break apart herself, and Robert and her own world.

“I’m going to take care of this, all of it. I’ll fix it okay. What do you want, baby? What do you want me to do?” And Maryse is being cruel, asking Alec to help her help him but she doesn’t know what her son wants, what his dreams are, or if he has any.

“Can we stay here?” He asks finally, “the angelic core is really nice and the shadows like it. I think it likes me too.” And oh, if Maryse doesn’t shudder to hear that, if she doesn’t swear the clave will never know how precious her child is, “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want him here either.”

“Then I’ll make it happen. If, if Robert goes, Izzy might go with him.” Maryse 

“So I’ll be here by myself?” He asks, and he seems a little disappointed but not surprised and MAryse shakes her head fiercely. 

“No, alec. It will be you and me here, and we’ll visit Izzy.”

“You won’t go with Izzy?” He asks, like he’s surprised staying with him is even an option. “No baby, she’s Robert’s heir now and while I love her.” Alec doesn’t seem surprised by that, but his eyes light up in surprise and awe when she says, “but I love you too, baby. And you’re my heir now, that means you’re my priority, and she’s his.”

Because Maryse is the only parent who can protect and love Alec left, Alec has effectively cut himself off from the Lightwood line and disowned Robert as his parent. 

“I’m your priority?” He asks, like he’s never heard anything so wondrous in his life and Maryse leans over and doesn’t care if her bones are broken or her flesh is torn as she carefully, like she’s embracing something as delicate as a butterfly's wing, wraps her arms around her son.

“Yes, Alec. You’re my priority, my Trueblood baby, even the clave won’t argue with your shadows, Alec. I love you and I’m going to keep you safe now.”

Because she hadn’t before. 

#writing wednesday #writing wednesdays #shadowhunters #shadowhunters au #lumine writes #my fics #my fanfics #my ficlets #alec lightwood #maryse lightwood

[tech-sapphy]

hi dndads tumblr

post-s2e39 - ‘hey, dude!’ (major spoilers ahead)

enough

scary-centric

——

——

scary couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard she tried. not after everything.

after willy teleported away from the church and hermie and taylor’s dad had taken care of all the doodler’s acolytes, they took the night to recuperate in the catbus. it’s a good thing the doodler- dude- had bonded with the catbus. they had fallen asleep while petting it, and it was purring up a storm from the affection, making the bus extra warm and comfortable. it’s nice, and helps the physical exhaustion she feels from everything that happened with the doodler… taking a physical form today. the purring also makes for a comfortingly predictable rhythm of sound that blocks everything else out, a soft lull that makes scary feel as safe as she could possibly feel right now.

but she still couldn’t sleep.

she was just tossing and turning. in her peripheral vision she saw link and taylor snoring away, not far from normal, who was leaning on hermie’s shoulder. god, she wishes she could sleep like that.

she thought about putting the sleeping cap on. but- whenever she did that she always saw him there. that fuckwad, willy. god, she felt stupid for ever trusting him, or wanting to confide in him, or seeing a… father figure in him.

she’s lost any chance of having that now, hasn’t she.

she couldn’t do anything right- and anything she did do right would never be enough to deserve it.

it’s all too much to think about. she just wants to forget. to not care. and if that means seeing willy again- well, whatever. he’ll probably just ignore her anyways. she considers whether she can cast spells while in her dream state. if not, she could just punch him right in the face.

she puts the cap on.

——

when scary puts the sleeping cap on, she ends up in the same place.

to her great relief, she sees someone new. the old man she became when they found that weird time-thing at the church of the doodler. her step-step-grandpa, she guesses.

okay, so she feels relief tinged with annoyance, a little bit of disgust, and… comfort? ugh, where is that coming from?

he looks around, confused- he seems surprised by his surroundings, and then while cocking his head around, he sees her. his eyes widen with what scary can tell is recognition, and… something else that she can’t quite make out. but it’s not bad.

‘it’s you.’

that hits a raw nerve, and frustration washes over her. she grimaces.

‘…who even is ‘me’ anymore?’

this guy… ron, she remembers, he looks regretful. he starts to stumble over his next words.

‘well, you’re you. you, uh, might not know who you is right now, but you’re going to figure it out. you’re a smart girl, i know you will.’

on those last few words, his tone of voice changes to something familiar, too familiar. it hits on a fresh wound. her heart sinks a little- out of (what she wants to think is) dread. or resentment. just... anything but sadness.

she’s drawn out of her thoughts by the change in his cadence as ron says ‘…and for now, you are you. and you’re always gonna be you, and that’s enough, kiddo.’

that bit doesn’t help, but scary’s heart warms a bit at the attempt. ugh. she hates this feeling.

out of nowhere, ron snaps his fingers, and looks a lot happier all of a sudden. ‘oh- oh yeah! by the way, terry says he loves you, and also hi. oh, hi, i’m ron. you might’ve heard of me, my name gets around, just like me. heheh.’

(he tried to sound cool with that, she could tell. it came out a little smug, but just… more awkward than anything. not that she really processed the words that he was saying after that first sentence. so she ignored them.)

‘could you, uh…’ she could feel tears coming on, the familiar tension and blur behind her eyes that she hated, because it meant that she cared, and she didn’t want to, damn it. it hurt.

ron looked at her patiently, waiting. she steeled herself.

‘… tell terry i said hi, too, or…’

she chokes up. she shoves down anything else she wanted to say- she can’t find words for it anyways.

‘yeah, whatever. just hi.’

ron smiles. ‘okay. oh, and remember: you’re enough-‘

scary’s eyes widen as another voice starts to impose itself over ron’s. he puts his hands on her shoulders, and she swears she sees a flash of a painfully familiar face donning a warm smile.

‘-as you are.’

—

she wakes up with a sense of peace. it feels weird. she wants to hate it, and tries to think of everything that makes it hard to be her. thinks back to her poetry and concept albums.

there’s a lot of bad feelings, but she still doesn’t hate that peace.

she also feels stronger. her hands are warm in a familiar way. her patron bond was broken, but maybe…

sure enough, when she looks at them, they’re glowing with magic.

everyone else is still sleeping, and the sky is dark. sneaking out of the catbus, the first thing she sees is the smattering of stars littering the dark blue sky- not pitch black, like she’s used to.

the stars are pretty. pretty cool looking, she guesses. she read about how stars were balls of fire, basically, and that’s pretty damn cool. she doesn’t want to stop looking at them.

so she doesn’t, as she lets the magic coalesce in her hands.

she can’t quite control the feeling that arises in her as she’s looking up at those stars that maybe… things are gonna be alright.

——

——

#dungeons and daddies #dndads s2 #dungeons and daddies spoilers #dndads spoilers #dndads s2 spoilers #scary marlowe #ron stampler #terry jr #ficlet #because funny haha dnd podcast would Never make me sad

[frenziedslashers]

Ayo! Ima be honest there, this fic with wounded Handsome Jack x Reader was the first one where I didn't skip a single word, like aaa u did it so great!

I had a thought about something oppsite - where it is the reader who gets hurt, and HJ is the one saving them and taking care... likeeee AAA.... it could be fluff, or something more dramatic and bloody, whatever you thing would be great :D I just can see it written great by your talented hands

This literally made me smile so much??? I am so scared to post Jack content because I always feel like I butcher his character (I have a couple drafts that I have been working on. They are pretty much ready to post, I'm just a little scared. I swear I am not ignoring the Jack asks 👹). I am honored that you liked it that much though! As someone who has read nearly all the xReader Borderlands content on ao3, I totally get that... Some nice I had to skip paragraphs because it was either too ooc or just... Odd... I forget how scary some borderlands fans are 😟 There are a lot of pics on there that I adore, but I feel like every fandom has those pics that you just physically cannot finish. So I am glad that my Jack was good enough 💪💪 ALSO thank you for the love homie. glad you sent in a request! I love me some angst that leads to fluff 😌

Flying Bullets:

"More incoming!" Jack screamed over your com, a grunt leaving your throat as you slammed your body against a crate in a poor attempt to avoid the bullets that flew overhead. You had no idea how you got yourself into this mess. Let alone with Handsome Jack. You knew he was bad news. Everyone despised him, but you still saw him as John, who simply worked with you for Hyperion and was incidentally your best friend as well.

You saw him as the guy who you would sit with alone for lunch break. The both of you talking and laughing over nothing. The friend that would take you out for drinks after a hard day of work and even hit on you here or there. Though, nothing serious ever happened between the two of you.

"Kiddo, answer me!" You snapped out of your thoughts when you heard Jack's voice screaming into your ears. It made you flinch, a cringe settling on your face. "I hear you, Jackie." You responded, shooting a couple times at the Raiders that ran out into your line of sight.

"Are you able to get to where I'm at?" You huffed a bit. As if you would know exactly where he was without him sharing his coordinates. "Where's your location?" "I'm up near the front gate. If you get here we can get to a ship out of this shit hole and back to Helios!" He spoke, and you groaned again. Your shield was low and broken. It wasn't recharging anymore. A problem that you were almost scared to tell Jack. The confrontation would go either one of two ways. He'd freak out, worry, and throw himself into the line of fire to make sure you were safe. Or he'd freak out, worry, and then yell at you for being so stupid and agreeing to go with him to Pandora with a shitty shield.

"Can you do that?" You pondered, "I can try."

It was a hard task to complete. You figured if you did die in this fight you may as well go out guns-a-blazin'. Shooting round after round into the Crimson Raiders that tried to take you down. You nearly made it to Jack, too. If it weren't for a Raider you missed shooting you once, breaking your shield. Then twice, a fatal shot to your back.

The scream that ripped from your chest had your head pounding, and Jack's heading whipping towards you.

"Kid," He stammered, "Kiddo? Pumpkin?" His voice wavered, and then something clicked in the guy. If your vision wasn't blurry from the pain as you lay on the ground. You would have seen the glint of rage behind the mans eyes. The way his face shifted from concern to pure rage. It made the few remaining Crimson Raiders freeze up. Knowing Jack was going to be putting up a hell of a fight.

Screams and gunfire were all you could hear in your ringing ears. You could hardly decipher the screams of the dying to Jack's war cries. If you weren't dying yourself, you might actually feel a bit scared, but right now you could hardly care. Gasping and wincing while lying helplessly on the ground. You could hardly move without your whole body sending shocks of pain through itself.

"Hey, hey," His hand on your back made you cry out again. You hadn't even noticed that Jack was at your side now. Attempting to tend to your wounds to get you back home. Back to Helios where you would be safe and someone could save you. "I know, I have to look at it!" He snapped, but quickly cleared his throat. "Dammit, sorry. I just need to see it. I'm not trying to hurt you, pumpkin." He told you, trying his best to be careful while he moved your clothing up so he could see the wound a bit better. Your cries making him wince himself. You'd think he would have been shot, too. Just from hearing the pathetic noises you were making.

"Oh shit, God this is bad. Why didn't you tell me your shield was low? I could have came to you!" There it was. Option one of how you expected him to react if you would have told him your shield was down. You wanted to smile, laugh a little at how well you knew your friend, but your thoughts were quickly pushed aside when Jack decided to apply pressure. A scream left your throat, and your vision went blurry. It was too hard to stay awake no matter how much Jack pleaded with you to keep your eyes open. You hadn't realized how much he really cared for you until you were nearly meeting your Maker. Vision finally blurring enough that all you could see was black. Your senses dulling, succumbing to the darkness once you passed out in his arms.

Jack had no idea that you had just passed out, though. He thought you died, but that didn't stop him from picking your body up from the ground to carry you back to the ship. He was just thankful that he had people on there to pilot it for him, and some health to at least give you a slight boost until the two of you made it back to Helios.

He refused to let you go until those doors opened. Continuing to apply pressure after he had wrapped his belt and one of his jackets awkwardly around your middle to help stall the bleeding. There was so much blood. His clothes were soaked. His skin was sticky with sweat and blood. The thing of it is, he didn't even know if it was all your blood. Some of it had to be from the Raiders he killed after you were shot. His anger getting the best of him like it regularly did.

"Sir, you need to let them go." He looked up at the nurse in front of him. "What?" His voice was shaky. "I need you to let them go and put them on the table now before they lose any more blood. I need to get them into the infirmary, now." They stated sternly, and Jack nodded with understanding. Laying you reluctantly on the bed. These were his own men and women working for him, but he was so scared to trust them with you. You were the only good thing he had left that was connected to his old life, rather than Angel. You were almost a better memory holder than she was, though. With her being the reason her mother died and all.

It wasn't until later that night, nearly five hours later that Jack was informed that you were in Critical, but stable condition. He knew you wouldn't be able to help him with his plans for the next coming weeks, and honestly, he was glad. Not that he didn't enjoy your help, he just always worried about your safety. This call was too close for comfort. It nearly made him postpone his plans of finding the Vault, too. If it weren't for the fact that he was literally the man's most wanted by the Vault Hunters themselves. That didn't stop him from trying to take care of you to the best of his abilities, though. Even going as far as sending people to check up on you when he was away from Helios.

"Jack," you would say his name, and he would be there. Holding your hand, offering food, water, entertainment, whatever it was you asked. He was giving it to you. You were his light after all. The brightest star in his galaxy. Even if he didn't show you how much he cared, often. He truly did.

It was almost weird for you. He was always so snarky and rude with you. Even if you knew that was just how he showed his affection. How he told you that he loved and appreciated you as a friend without telling you those exact words. You almost weren't sure if you liked how nice he was being with you.

"Why haven't you called me an idiot." He looked up from the book in his hands over to you with raised brows. "Excuse me?" "When I nearly got myself killed. I expected you to at least call me stupid for it. I didn't tell you my shield was broken and not recharging, and yet here you are. Being all sweet and nice to me. It's kind of scary, honestly... You aren't a doppelgänger, are you?" Jack smiled as he placed his book down in his lap. "Well, now that you say it. I did forget to tell you how utterly idiotic that stunt was and if you ever go pulling it again I will personally revive you just to shoot you again." Jack told you, and that caused a smile to form on your own features. There he was. "Oh, so I should have just ignored direct orders?" He rolled his eyes with a sigh. "No, you should have told me what was happening and I could have come to help. You really think I like putting you at risk?" Well, it seemed like it. With the number of close calls you have had, and then this.

He sighed at your lack of a response. "I don't. I really don't. I only take you along because I know you'd find a way fighting those assholes without me or with me. I may as well be there to revive you when you decide to do something stupid." You rolled your eyes this time. "Didn't realize you actually cared about me." He froze up when you said that. You were only joking, and you thought that he could tell, but obviously that seemed to strike a chord with the man before you.

"Oh, so you think I don't care about you either? What the hell has the past few weeks been? I've laid off finding the fricken Vault for you! I've been by your side, making sure you don't die on me and you think I don't care about you?" He shouted, tossing his book to the side while standing to his feet. "Why don't you fill me in on what it is I feel about you then. Why every time I see you I want to blow my brains out because of how much I care about you. Shit, it's annoying, honestly!" Jack started approaching you. Slight more weight to his steps than usual. Obviously pissed and growing more so by the second. "I could have left you to die." He told you, a slight grin on his face as he laughed out of disbelief for himself. "Hell! I would have left any one of my other employees or skilled assassins there to die! But I just couldn't fricken leave you there, now could I? Not when you're the one real thing that I have anymore."

Your eyes were wide. Staring up at the man who was looming over you as you lay on the bed. You looked a little scared, but you were more so taken aback by his words. Yeah, he was basically saying he would have left you for dead if the two of you didn't have a connection, but he was also admitting things that you never thought you'd hear from him.

"I don't mean to yell," Even though that seemed to be the only thing he knew how to do. "I just... I hate that you would even suggest that I don't care about you. I mean, c'mon! Look at everything we've been through!" He exclaimed as he sat on the bed beside you.

Yeah. Everything the two of you have been through. Working together. Getting fired together. Jack gaining power. You gaining power through Jack. Late nights together. Even an attempted date before his ex had come along. It was a lot, and you regretted making him think that you thought he didn't care.

"Jack, I'm sorry. I was just joking around." You admitted, reaching out to grab his hand. His eyes darted down and then back up to study your face. "Could you ever forgive me?" He pondered, a smile creeping on his lips. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I could forgive a cute thing like you." A sigh left your lips, tapping the top of his hand. "If I didn't know any better. I'd say you were flirting with me, Jackie." The way you purred out his name in such a teasing way made his blood boil. Out of annoyance at the nickname, and slight excitement from just the sound. "Well, I could be if you wanna interpret it that way, pumpkin." His hand reached up to brush your chin with his thumb. "I think it's your turn to be called out for your ignorance of my own emotions." His brows furrowed, sighing at his dumbfounded expression.

"So... Was that a yes?" "Jack," "Huh?" "You're as oblivious as the day I met you." He stared at you for a moment longer. "I'm saying yes, Jack. Jesus Christ and you're supposed to be the flirt of Helios?" He let out a groan of his own before carefully maneuvering himself over top of you so he could lay on the other side of you on the bed. "Oh shut it, you're the one overcomplicating shit." He huffed, carefully pulling you close to him to hint that the both of you needed a nap. Whether you wanted one or not. "Just shut up and sleep. We can talk about our stupid emotions later. You ruined the moment by calling me an idiot." "Oh, like you haven't been calling me one for the past 10 minutes. Plus I didn't even call you one!" "Well, that's different, and yes you basically did. I'm not arguing further." "Fine."

#Handsome Jack #Handsome Jack x reader #borderlands #borderlands 2 #borderlands the pre sequel

[teamdarkweek]

Let us consult the text of origin together:

My thoughts under the cut, but you can just enjoy the video.

General observations:

Let us never forget Rouge's wings are pink here. In sa2 they were black, they have since been purple. I think it's possible she covers her wings in some kind of think fabric or latex to match her outfits and maybe protect her - but primarily for the matchy matchy

In the shiny toy-ish style of heroes, Omega looks incredible. He looks so much better than everyone else.

Team Dark take in turns to be the most determined; it genuinely feels to me like they all do want this. Nobody is just in it for the loyalty or ride.

Team Dark should get to fight Team Rose. I would love them to duke it out with the Girl Scout commander and his two most loyal members.

Opening Cutscene:

First let us appreciate: Rouge just broke in to Eggman's again. Iirc she inserts herself into SA2 basically the same way. Plot driving queen.

It is odd to me that Rouge had no idea what she was finding, but did know the code. This 'happening upon' Shadow has always seemed strange to me and I am suspicious of it. It seems to me they might have wanted her to be looking for him, but bottled it at the last chance. Especially because she doesn't seem to be working for GUN here, this is just very convenient.

Omega is legitimately scary when he's first introduced, with a lot of the hallmarks of classic horror monsters in this first sighting of him (the close ups, the prey-through-predators eyes shot, all the action shots to keep you confused, minimal speaking etc.. I have no statement on this, it's just neat.

It must be quite a traumatising thing to wake up to, but Shadow takes little time to react. I really like that he doesn't recognize his name when Rouge says it.

It is weird to me Rouge just sits in shock at being shot. Was she not expecting a trap? Perhaps she got hit in the head or something?

Omega's aiming just before Rouge splits them up is so funny. I said I wouldn't use screenshots so this post doesn't become too slow to load but look at this:

His hands just circle around wildly. Shadow is going straight for you. Either you're not aiming for him or you're not calibrated correctly my love.

Rouge's exhausted and shocked face is adorable and I love it so so so much. This is peak Rouge IMO

The fact we see Eggman's base trashed - loudly trashed - and he does nothing about it could be a first nod at his current predicament we see in the Chaotix story, but I may be reaching.

I love the start of the chorus as they're coming to an understanding. I love This Machine, maybe more than I love my boyfriend but not more than I love my cat. It's so up there though.

Rouge bounced Shadow off Imega when she scooped him over and he rebounds into a defensive stance. No notes just cute.

Shadow's eye roll as she makes them all put hands together. You just woke up how are you so sassy? Amazing. No notes.

The actual skipped conversation must have been quite short, since Shadow knows nothing and Omega is a new robot, but I hope it included Omega inteoducing himself at least a bit. They don't say his name in this cutscene, or Rouge's but the audience probably knows her. Its just odd to me because I feel like team sonic say eachothers name a lot, but my memory may be faulty.

Seaside Hill + Ocean Palace + Egg Hawk

"Immediate destruction if distracted." Omega fully threatens to kill them if they don't work hard enough. I am not complaining, but he is a scary boy and we should remember this.

We should have known this wasn't Eggman because he reacts to Omega (an obvious E series robot) and not Shadow (a literal living weapon he had had locked away that should not be walking around). But me personally was a dumb kid who was too bad at video games to get to play team darks story before I had to go home so here we are.

Grand Metropolis + Power Plant + TC

Rouge has the least reason to be targetting Eggman, but she is quite determined here. I would suppose it is on behalf of Shadow, since she doesn't know Omega that well to be heart broken for his plight. It's nice to see that she too expresses her sentiment by violence, something often reserved in fanon for Omega and arguably Shadow.

Further to the above: she starts a fight with Team Chaotix literally and only because she is in a fighty mood. They were fr walking away, minding their own business. I also think that Espio's assumption that they might have it in for the client is valid, since they've probably been jumped by enemies of clients before. Rouge is literally just on a warpath and mad at the world. Iconic of her.

Casino Park + Bingo Highway + Robot Carnival

I do wonder what Rouge was wondering. If she was wrong, perhaps? Or what the Chaotix were doing? She couldn't suspect they're working for Eggman, could she?

Omega works in metres because he is no fool

Shadow is actually very calm talking to Eggman here. It suggests that either Rouge has not filled him in on anything much about Eggman, and/or he wants to learn for himself and isn't taking her and Omega's hatred at face value. This may make him seem a bit dozy here, but I actually think it's a sign of how untrusting he is, and with good reason. I have often seen the take that Rouge should have told him what's going on, but I propose that it is possible she told him some, he didn't believe her easily, and so she stopped telling him before the crazier stuff, because he'd never believe that. A bit of a leap I know.

Rail Canyon + Bullet Station + Egg Albatross:

This is the first time I think Shadow seems really determined. I propose it's because Eggman snubbed and disregarded him, and that is literally a tortuable offense. Joking aside, it's nice to hear the change in his voice now he's more set on his target.

Rouge is less sure of herself now. Tbh, it's probably been a really stressful day for her. She may need a rest.

Shadow offering Omega his revenge instead of fighting him for it is a nice touch. What a good team player!

Omega's shaking fist at the fake Eggman gets me. I love it. It's so ott and goofy but also a great way to communicate with his limited face.

The Shadow Android scene is actually quite frightening, like with Omega's introduction it has a little touch of horror. Imagine how you'd feel, if it were my android clone I would feel pretty nauseous and scared.

'Ultimate Life Form Data' - Metal answers the question of 'is Shadow a Robot?' As soon as it was asked, but nobody has ever listened to Metal Sonic about anything, and they aren't about to start today 🥰❤️. But did Metal know what Shadow was? We presume it had seen the Shandroids, and knew they weren't him, otherwise Metal would have just copied one of them.

(Frog Forest + Lost Jungle) + TS

"Talk about being stubborn and full of surprises" is so uncalled for from Shadow's perspective. He's never met this guy, how dare he read him like that.

This fight is so stupid, I almost believe it's just them being friendly. You know Sonic's pretty freaked out at seeing Shadow again, but I have had kittens before and sometimes they just have to show their excitement with biting. I think this might be that? Because Rouge left no particularly bad blood with Sonic. Now if she and Knuckles started it, I would understand the hostility, but Shadow and Sonic totally start this one.

Do you think Sonic felt bad that he went straight in to fight Shadow when Shadow fully just had no facts in his head to help him make good choices? I'd feel bad lol.

Hang Castle + Mystic Mansion + Robot Storm

Shadow tefuses to answer Rouge's question then proceeds to loudly answer it to himself with her just metres away. Keep being you, Shadow.

I like that they refer to Omega to ask if it's the real one, even though he can't - nice team trust moment.

Egg Fleet + Final Fortress + Egg Emperor

'Even if I'm not real - I'm still the Ultimate Life Form' resolving Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) before it even begins. In seriousness, it's quite a contradictory statement, probably because he doesn't know much about what that means. Has Rouge told him? We haven't seen someone explain that in the cutscenes, so I presume so.

Rouge immediately turning away from Eggman's body is so funny to me. 'K cool bye'

The first time I'd forgiven her not seeing that it was clearly Shadow in the goo. But Rouge, come on now. Why would they all be the exact same alien goo container with a spiky starshaped thing in them? You have seen Shadow Android. This shock is not necessary.

Why is there not enough goo to cover the ears? They can hear you guys.

'Hey Omega, did I ever tell you that Shadow is a Robot? And, well, nevermind - good luck." ARE YOU TRYING TO GET HIM KILLED? I also have to presume she genuinely believes this here. It's such a weird line.

Omega is so smart. He has been dumbed down of late, but he's not stupid anywhere here. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the one kept separately with it's own guard robot is at least more important than all these mass stored without an E unit dedicated to protecting it.

"Some things never change, do they?" How would you know? Did she tell you this? That's such a funny portrait of herself for Rouge to paint. Forever unsuccessfully trying to steal chaos and master emeralds, generally predisposed to being rude and disobedient? Or did he just observe that himself.

They leave it off like Omega may not be a recurring character from here. I wonder if they weren't sure if he'd be liked, since in SA2 they killed off a character that ended up being the most popular thing they'd made since the series began. Nobody is competing with Shadow's cult fanbase, but I wish more people like me loved big robot boy.

#shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e-123 omega #team dark #text post #video #long post #Youtube

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Just got back! OMG I love these movies, Gunn you're awesome!!

Non-spoiler review: I loved it. Go see it. Bring tissues because you're gonna cry! There are 2 post-credit scenes.

Spoiler review ahead.

This is one of those movies that I enjoy because I hate spoilers. I spent the entire thing feeling anxious every time a battle erupted as I was sure some of them would die, so the fact that none of them did and they all survived in the end was an unexpected surprise (but a welcome one!). If I had known it wouldn't have been the same experience at all, but that's just me.

I love, adore and worship the ground Nebula walks on. I always loved her but in this movie she's absolutely perfect in every scene she's in. When she cries after hearing Rocket? Hell yeah, I cried with her. And that scene where they're seeing what they did to Rocket and she's looking straight at it... damn, that was tough. "What they did to him was worse than what Thanos did to me". Holy crap.

Nebula telling Drax that he wasn't born to be a Destroyer but a Dad... damn, that one hit hard, especially when it's Nebula the one telling him. Now I want him to act protective towards her. And my girl is ruling the city too! Val rules the Asgardians, Nebula rules those people... I have a (female) type, folks!

Also I love that Gunn keeps on throwing jabs at Thanos and how awful he was. Love him for that.

I really liked that Gamora is different and they let her stay that way. I was kinda worried they were gonna change her in the span of one movie back to who she used to be pre-EG so I'm glad they didn't. Oh and that chat she has with Peter about her being someone else and him having to move on... is it just me or there was a parallel there between Steve and Agent Brexit? Maybe it's just me but I will live my days happily enjoying my headcanon that that particular scene is a jab at EG's stupid ending.

Every flashback to Rocket's past was so damn painful to watch, good thing I brought tissues with me. Knowing they killed his friends right in front of him makes IW even worse, the guilt he must have felt... my poor little raccoon. Oh, and he said it himself! "Name's Rocket Raccoon". Hell yeah! And Lylla's quote "This whole story was yours and you didn't even know it" that's James Gunn stating the trilogy was Rocket's all along, loved that.

I also really liked that they showed Quill being an alcoholic and struggling to get it together... but the very second his team is in danger he's back just like that, in a split second he's trying to heal Rocket and flying the ship. I gotta say I really liked him, this is what character development looks like. You see how he was in GoTG and you see him now... he's so much better. Which is why I'm kinda worried that the credits say he's returning? Unless it's under Gunn's hand, I do not want him back.

Mantis was great, more outspoken this time than we've ever seen her before. I love that she keeps making men fall in love with Drax...

And the hallway fight? That was amazing! Oh, and the High Evolutionary? MILES better than HWR. That's how you introduce a new villain, develop him then kill him off at the end.

Adam was okay. So much for a warlock but the dude was pretty damn scary at the beginning of the movie. He then turned into comedic relief but still... he was okay.

If I have something negative to say though... the farewell came out of nowhere. I get they needed to disband because this is the last movie but I think it could have been written a bit better.

The ending... F+TM is my favourite band so to have the "Dog Days Are Over" song playing when all the team is dancing and having a great time was AMAZING.

I think I'm forgetting some things but that's it from the top of my head. I really liked the movie and I'm so watching it again soon.

Gunn, THANK YOU!

#gotg #james gunn #guardians of the galaxy

[no-droids]

Home

gif credit: @javier-pena

Part Eighteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.5K

Warnings: SMUT, religion kink (maybe?), squirting, consensual stalking/pursuing, canon-typical violence, mention of underage drinking, uhh I believe that’s it but as always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything please!

A/N: Hey yall!!!  So I know this chapter has been a long time coming and though I’m not completely satisfied with it, I hope it brings a little happiness to you for an hour or two while you read!  School has been kicking my ass and I’ve been in a bit of an emotional slump recently, but I pulled a few all-nighters to post this on time and it’s finally finished!  Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and sent me encouraging words over the past month or so, I hope you enjoy the end of the Sanctuary arc💕

Also like last time, part 2 of my collaboration with @followwhereshegoes will be posted after the chapter!!  As a reminder, sweet girl is a reader insert and every imagining of her will be different—this is Lisa’s interpretation of her and her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, so please go give her a follow!

Day 5–11:13am:

You zone out again in the early morning, but that happens a lot.  Din always keeps you up so late, all the time, and without any caf here, the rising sun just makes your eyes droop instead of flutter brighter and wider.  You helped a bunch of younglings find their way into their robes when it was still dark out, tying sashes and fitting masks while holding back your yawns.  The walk into Nariss is close to three hours, probably more with all these tiny little legs, and you almost forget to change into your new digs before everyone grabs breakfast.

Even though your ragtag entourage leaves for Nariss just as soon as everyone finishes eating, you don’t reach the city until nearly lunchtime.  Mostly because the kids walk about as fast as the elderly holy women chaperoning the trip.  You and Naydee lag behind the group, forcing yourself to meander slow as fuck when you nearly sprinted this same exact path just a few days ago.  On the way there, you listen to children of all sorts sing happily as they walk, chatter about their excitement for the parade, complain about wearing the fabric mask they made themselves, and more than once, somebody takes a tumble onto the ground and is left in teary sniffles and dirt stained clothes.  Likely for this reason, the robes are designed to be two pieces—a long tunic with a hood and a separate pants portion to prevent tripping instead of a draping skirt, but the smallest ones are clumsy and find a way to fall anyways.

It’s a colorful bunch—a chaotic rainbow of babies running around, and you share easy conversation with your new friend about the plans for the day until she asks something that makes you nearly trip and join the dirty robe club.

“Sister Drya said your family is meeting you in the city,” she tells you, ignoring your immediate subtle toe stub and the awkward shuffle you have to do to make up for it.  “There’s going to be lots of people downtown, I’m worried it might be hard for them to find you.”

Your heart thuds in your chest and you feel a bit short of breath at being abruptly confronted with the need to lie, but at the same time, you kind of love it.  Having a secret, hiding the truth from others, and just the reminder that you’re almost guaranteed to see Din and the baby before midnight pours warmth and tingles through your tummy.  Everything together is a hit of spice, filling you with a kind of excitement that used to be foreign to you.  Having fun, experiencing new things isn’t quite over yet, but home is calling and you miss it with every fiber of your being.

“I don’t think so,” you eventually respond, hoping she can see your kind smile and the sentiment it carries even as light, shimmery fabric wraps right around your mouth.  “If I disappear, you’ll know why.”

Naydee’s eyes crinkle in the corners to match yours.  “Hopefully you’ll be able to see the fireworks first,” she nudges you, her skin glowing against the pale cream fabric she has wrapped around her own mouth and the hood laying delicately over her braids.  “They start at eight.”

The fireworks, you almost forgot.  You know what?  Today is a good day.  You hear yourself think the full sentence multiple times, and the words put a spring in your step after every single one.  The road gradually becomes wider and filled with more travelers, and you feel safe in the back.  Like some kind of sheepdog bringing up the rear of this migrating cluster of children, making sure none of them drift off by themselves and start eating grass or something.

Surprisingly, the kids manage to be relatively patient and well-behaved once they’re in line at the gates.  The Sisters shuffle them along one by one as everyone moves up slowly, taking even longer to get into the city than it did a few days ago.  The entrance is packed already—so many people visiting for the festival, and they’re all dressed in costumes or robes of sorts, or at least a mask.  Most are beautifully crafted, but some manage to look slightly scary even with the soft springtime color schemes.  It’s a completely different world, a different life for each person as you pass them by.  Your stomach is starting to growl by the time you finally make it to the front, and luckily the guards just let the kids through without any ceremony.  Just you and the rest of the caretakers in light robes need to hold still for the retinal scan, matching each other perfectly except for differing shades of fabric, skin, and eye color.  Once the gates open for you and you step through, though… it’s… Maker.

Extravagant, magnificent are both words.  Floral is another.

It’s like they hung up bouquets wherever they could think to fit them, and this is just the edge of the city.  As the group moves through the streets and closer to downtown, it becomes more and more overwhelming.  The air itself is a warm fragrance wafting all around you, sunshiney and breezy and perfect, flowers of all kinds lining the modern buildings and archways like they were planted there from the very beginning and it just took this long to bloom between the cracks in the concrete.  You wish you had names for all of them so you could list them—the only thing you can offer is the color and vague descriptions of the ones that stick out to you.  Tiny yellow ones that are so small, they need to be bunched all together in massive quantities to even resemble normal flowers.  Up overhead, elaborate arrangements of enormous blue and purple and pink ones, wrapping around each other and hanging down from rooftops.  Some don’t even have petals, it’s like they’re big green cups that are big enough to hold things inside them.  You’re fascinated by every single one, wanting to stop and smell them all individually but needing to keep up with the large group and not allow any stragglers to be left behind, including yourself.

About an hour later, when you’re almost in the middle of the city and there are people everywhere, it’s time to eat lunch.  There isn’t much to it because of how expensive it is, and you’d normally feel bad for accepting the small meal each one of the children gets, but you donated all of your credits to the Keja and left absolutely zero for yourself.  Good intentions, terrible idea.  Still, you pull your mask down and snack on some deliciously fried food, trying not to eye anyone else’s platter after you finish yours.  It’s so good and it’s gone in an instant; you couldn’t even say what exactly it was besides which stall you got it at.  Whether it’s just the brilliant atmosphere or if the food on this moon is really just that good, you’re not really sure, but you’re still slightly hungry afterwards with no extra money to sneak a snack.

Soon after, the kids all line up to get their faces painted, or whatever portion of their face is visible behind the cloth masks and hoods they’ve got on, and music blares from at least four different directions and none of the songs are even in the same language.  Depending on the part of town, it seems like the celebrations are all different.  It makes sense, considering most if not all of these individuals were victims of the Empire’s wrath, spread far and wide across the galaxy.  Here, they’re free, and they want everyone to know it.  Spring festivals of some sort are likely common for most cultures, at least those from planets with seasons, not like Arvala-7 where it was arid and hot year-round, and you’re assuming there are multiple things being celebrated today depending on which street you live on.  There’s chanting in different tongues, dancing and drums, outfits and masks from different cultures every single time you look.

At some point, the children spot a crowded street with flowery rails set up all along them, and you stand behind the tiny heads while everyone waits for the parade to begin.  You think your heart has just been beating slightly faster than normal all day today, but when you finally hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance and cheers begin to pour out from the gathered crowd, it kicks up and you feel like you’re just as wide eyed at the spectacle as the waist-high babies all huddled together up against the railing.

A flurry of people and things pass in slow succession.  First, New Republic officers with their blaring holobikes, bright orange as always.  Then come large groups of people walking behind banners in languages you can’t read, some of them waving, some of them making different sounds and songs.  Bands marching in formation, dancers in dresses and masks and gorgeous flowers in their hair like crowns, and then brilliant hovering vehicles decorated in bright colors and festive depictions.  The craftsmanship and cultural significance is stunning to witness, it’s so insanely loud, there’s so much going on, and yet…

Through it all, you think of Din.  No matter the faces, the sights you see.  There’s someone juggling.  There’s either a very tall man and woman walking together or they’re both on stilts.  There are enormous balloons being led through the air, people are riding atop an assortment of animals you’ve never seen before, there are traditional costumes and spectacular stunts being performed.  Stalls with games and prizes line the stretches of concrete on the cross streets, people are laughing and celebrating and drinking in equal parts, everything is so lively and festive and fun, and yet, though it all, you think of Din.  Him and the baby, they’re always in the forefront of your mind, occupying your thoughts and making your tummy stir more and more as the time passes like the parade in front of you.  You don’t think this environment would ever be his favorite, and in some far away galaxy, perhaps if you lived other lives together and called a beautiful moon exactly like this home, then you might have to drag him out to see all the with you and the kid every year.  You’d have to bat your eyelashes and kiss his cheek and snuggle up to him all nice and pretty like, and he’d probably grumble and complain about it while wrapping his arms around you—all the people and the noise, sweet girl—but he’d go.  For you, he’d go.

Your thoughts suddenly stop short and you blink for a second.  Why… Why was that scene so vivid?  So wistful?  You used to preoccupy yourself with fantasies about Din all the time, back before you even knew him as Din.  But in every single one, it was sexual and likely came from a place of boredom, a lack of external stimulation.  Here you are amidst bustling surroundings, and you’re daydreaming about domesticity with him.  Why?  You want to travel the galaxy, right?  You want to see things you’ve never seen before, right?

For some reason, you think of the floor, and you miss it.

***

Day 5—5:04pm:

It’s late afternoon at this point and nobody can find the teens.

More people have made their way into the city and it’s starting to get extremely fucking crowded, especially where you are downtown, and the handful of them must’ve slipped away with all the excitement happening and how difficult it is to keep the young ones together now that the parade is over.  You don’t know how long they’ve been gone—one second they were walking around just slightly detached from the rest of you, you assumed because the boisterous younglings fucked with their cool vibe, and then the next Naydee is gasping out to you that they’re gone.

“Sister Drya is going to kill me,” she hisses, her dark eyebrows furrowed in self-admonishment and stress.  So many fucking people here, you know her pain.  “I was supposed to be chaperoning them, they were just here—”

She shakes her head under the loose, cream-colored hood, groaning and then speeding up her gait to catch up with the woman in charge, but you decide to grab her wrist before she can relay the bad news.  

“I can go find them,” you offer, speaking as low as you can with the blaring noise surrounding you.  “Before anyone knows they’re missing.  Is there a way to convince everybody to stay in one spot for a little while?  You won’t get in trouble, but I need to know how to find you again.”

Naydee’s eyes widen in surprise, and even though it’s likely a bit out of character for you, you have a feeling it’ll be a deceptively easy task.  Even with the masses right now and how atrociously big this city is, you already have a general idea of where they’re likely to be.  Besides, you’re not even sure your absence will be noticed if Naydee is the only one who figured out the teens were gone—the other Sisters can thrive without you while missing anyone else would be noticeable, and you owe your new friend a thousand favors for helping you out these past few days.  The least you can do is save her from the scolding of one of the scariest old ladies you've ever met.

“Be as quick as you can,” she finally agrees.  It’s a lot of trust to put into you, but you’ve had experience in reading the most unreadable man in the entire galaxy, some teenagers shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes or somebody notices, I’ll have to say something.”

You nod, silently breaking away from the group without another word.  You think you can hear her announce to everyone that it might be best to eat dinner now to skip any long lines later—smart—but you’re out of their hearing range and line of sight almost immediately.

***

Day 5–5:17pm:

“Really?”  You raise an eyebrow since they won’t be able to see the way your mouth is twisted up underneath your mask, crossing your arms and tapping your foot against the ground to further illustrate just how not fucking impressed you are.

Seven teenagers freeze, and slowly—depending on how much bravery they can individually muster—they turn around on their stools to face you.  The atmosphere in the tavern is bustling and cheery, booze being passed around a large crowd that laughs and mingles, but your vibe is stone cold and quiet.  The contrast doesn’t feel wrong on you like it normally would; the negative and disapproving energy you’re emitting makes you feel powerful, untouchable, armored and strong.

“How did you find us so fast?”  One of the twin boys squeaks out behind a light blue robe, sounding worried.

“Had a hunch,” you grumble, glaring sternly at each of them in turn.  Your tone is dry, your voice sits lower in your throat when you’re pissed off.  All you had to do was look for the closest bar that doesn’t have any orange jumpsuits poking around waiting to card underage younglings, it wasn’t that difficult.  “You’re not exactly unpredictable.”

“Are you gonna rat us out?”  The other twin asks you, in a voice that’s oddly deep compared to his brother.

“I should,” you snap, quickly reaching out to push their drinks away.  “I should let Sister Drya rain down her holy fury on your asses, got good people all twisted up over you for nothing and I’m missing dinn—”

You don’t know why, but you suddenly cut yourself off and jerk upright, spinning around.

The sounds of glasses clinking and boisterous voices fill the bar, but they seem to fade out for a second.  Your eyes fly around the crowded space, your heart lodged in your throat and looking for anything reflective.  Every flash you see is a false alarm—belt buckle, wristwatch, cocktail shaker—

He’s here… isn’t he?

Only, there’s nothing.  Nothing is out of place, nothing jumps out at you the way you’re assuming it will.  You’re braced taut and ready to bolt at the first sign of a chase, but it never comes.

It’s so… unexpected, this feeling.  It’s not like you’re being hunted anymore, but instead, you’re the hunter.  You’re feeling the weight of him from this far away and it’s like he’s calling for you to come find him, teasing the wild adrenaline rush you get from just feeling his presence, as if he absolutely knows it happens.  Whispering soft in your ear and then vanishing the second you’re able to turn around, like he’s here but he’s not.  Playing with you from so far away.

This… this is a taunt.  

The whole thing at the inn was leagues below this, that was rudimentary.  Teasing, getting even, having fun with each other, whatever you want to call that, that’s what it was.  This is scarily sophisticated.  Fluid and practiced and the best kind of frightening, stark and dangerous compared to the carefree and upbeat setting surrounding you.  You’re not making it up, it’s not just you being paranoid.  You know him with your eyes closed.  You know he’s here somewhere watching you, just like you know the starlight that streaks across the pitch black horizon of hyperspace.  Not because you can see it, not really, not directly.  But because by it, even in the vastest and darkest and emptiest of voids, you’re suddenly able to see everything else.

“You okay, Nerida?”

The volume gradually comes back up and you blink, suddenly remembering where you are, who else is with you.  The chatter becomes slightly louder than it seemed before.

“Yeah,” you eventually say, slightly airy while continuing to stare emptily at the crowded room.  He’s not here, you don’t think, not anymore at least.  But you’re not stupid, you know what this means.  You’re already caught, there’s nothing you can conceivably do that will delay the reunion for the next—you look down and pull the loose sleeve up to check your communicator—seven fucking hours, there’s no way.  He’ll pull back and follow you, keep up with you from a distance and then snatch you away right when you let your guard down.  You at least need to get the kids back to their guardians before that can happen, though.

“Let’s go,” you quietly tell the group of foundlings, grabbing elbows and hauling them out of their stools.  “Naydee was the only one who knew that you were gone when I left.  Here’s to hoping she managed to keep it that way.”

***

Day 5–5:32pm:

Against all odds, you’re able to rally the wayward teens and successfully lead them through shoulders that are beginning to move closer together as the crowd grows and grows.  You stay towards the back and don’t look behind you once—not only do you not want to give the younglings an unnecessary reason to become paranoid or to question your actions, but you can still feel Din lingering.  Moving like a shadow, probably fitting in perfectly with the masked festival-goers, nothing drawing any attention to him with all the spectacular sights and noise occurring.

Soon you return to the same spot from before, and you and the teenagers seamlessly integrate yourselves back into the rest of the group without anyone noticing a thing is out of place.  When you move to stand beside her, Naydee’s bone-deep sigh of relief is palpable even behind the concealing fabric; she squeezes your hand incredibly tight in a silent gesture of thanks, and then pulls something from the deep pockets of her robe and passes it to you sneakily.  A purple fruit.  She must’ve saved it for you.

Maker, fuck yes.  It’s not much but it’s more dinner than any of the seven troublemakers get, but Naydee quietly assures you they’ll be able to eat something once they return to the Keja around midnight, just not the tasty expensive treats they’re selling at the vendors.  As the sun goes down, you try not to stain your pretty fabric a deep maroon as you chomp and feel your lips start to curl upwards.  It sounds so fucking stupid when you put it like this, but you keep going back to Din and revelling in knowing that he’s so close, like you’re just mentally checking in on him.  You don’t get the sensation by thinking, though—more like you just focus really hard on your heart and feel him there just a second afterwards.

Is that how pure, stupid, shameless love feels when you’re completely entrenched in it?  It’s not like it’s surrounding you, it’s not suffocating you or making you float.  It’s just a thing.  Like… a thing inside your chest, a physical thing you can search for and find, something you can point to on your body and say it’s right here, this is where my love for him lives.  Right at the bottom of your heart, right where it curves and beats strong when other hearts meet flat at sharp angles.  You do it over and over again, reconfirming its existence every single time.  You don’t know what else you’d call it.  Love is the only word.  To love, to know.  To hold in the heart.

Soon, you start to notice that people are slowly moving around your stationary group.  You look up and watch the crowd begin to walk, some of them giving soft smiles to the cute children as they pass by, but all of them following the same unspoken direction.

“Where is everyone going?”  You ask Naydee, standing on your tiptoes to watch the crowd migrate like a giant system, an organism or mechanism of thousands (or tens of thousands?) of smaller moving parts all traveling in tandem.  It’s fascinating—you’ve been to crowded places, you know what it looks like when a lot of people are packed into one area, but you’ve never seen what it looks like when they all move together.  They would normally be bumping into each other, slipping in between, fighting and never really getting anywhere, interacting individually and thinking separately.  Now they’re progressing in one single direction, so many with the same mindset and understanding of what comes next.  A second parade, almost, with New Republic officers directing the flow of pedestrians as they pass.

“The eastern part of the city!”  Naydee yells over the noise and points, and beyond her extended finger, you can barely see the light of a dusky body of water in the distance beyond the buildings.  “The fireworks are going to go off over the bay, but it takes awhile to get there!”

“Is…”  You blink for a second, suddenly caught off guard, trying to think back to the holomap the concierge pulled up at the front desk of the inn.  Surely you would’ve noticed it, but your sudden childlike hope makes you ask anyway.  “Is it part of an ocean?”

Naydee shakes her head.  “A really big lake!”

Your shoulders drop just the slightest bit in disappointment but still, you ache to see it.  You can’t even imagine—the fireworks are likely going to reflect across the water, giving everyone double the view.  And luckily, after all the children and caretakers are individually accounted for, you start to behind the slow-moving crowd towards the docks you know lie beyond.  

Naydee scurries ahead to keep the kids together, ushering them forward and preventing any drunk passer-bys from accidentally stepping on them, and you quietly bring up the very rear of the entourage.  You take the time to observe more than anything, walk in the back and experience instead of trailblaze.  So many people, so many stories to be told, so many differences and diversity around you.  Your face is partially concealed and you don’t move your head too much, just your eyes.  They flick around to take in everything, the crowd thinning little by little as you make it out of the confined space downtown.  You’re able to make out full bodies and outfits again instead of just heads and shoulders, allowing you to breathe just a bit easier under your mask.

And then at one point—and it’s almost a little startling because it happens all at once—the organizers must decide that the sun has officially gone down, because the lights come on.  All of a sudden, paper lanterns and bulbs flicker into existence all around you and the world decides it wants to glow, glint and twinkle from the inside out.  They’re everywhere, draping across rooftops and tangled around street signs and stuffed into the flower bouquets overhead, raining soft colors down on everything.  You’re in complete awe, trying to keep walking but also needing to look at as much as fucking possible in the suddenly luminescent city.  It’s so colorful, so vernal and warm and you feel like you’re… Like when you took a shower on the Crest for the first time and spent a few happy moments just playing with the water and soap for your own enjoyment, it’s as if all the brilliant rainbow of colors the bubbles would make under the fluorescent light decided to surround you at the same time.  You’re inside stained glass, blinking at the flowers and wondering if Din can even smell the air or if it’s filtered, processed and reduced to nothing under the helmet.

And that’s when you see him.

But with the way your chest rapidly constricts and you can count your heart beats as they pound, blaring white noise through your ears and adrenaline through your veins, it’s like he's just allowing it to happen.  You immediately understand that you don’t have fucking anything the second your eyes land on him; this isn’t a heads up that you caught wind of early, it’s not a gift or an advantage you’ve incidentally gained over him that you should be thankful for.  Being able to see him directly like this, being able to make out all these fucking details from this far away…  This just feels like you’re being informed of the endgame right before it comes.  If you were anyone else, if you were a real bounty and this was a real hunt, his armor glinting and reflecting the lanterns overhead would feel like a knife you're about to be on the wrong side of.

You have a decision to make, very quickly.  Either keep in this same direction, head straight towards him and just pretend like you are who you’re dressed as, a random caretaker for a bunch of rowdy foundlings during a spring festival on Nariss, or disappear.  Drop back, move through the crowd and use the distance you have between you right now as your only hope of getting away in time.  Neither one gives you a particular advantage—your chances of being caught have already skyrocketed exponentially just being able to see the reflection in his armor, the hovering shield at his side with big black eyes… staring directly at you.

You almost trip over your pantlegs, gasping.  Baby.  He beams at you and you think he calls out through the passing crowd, his tiny arms extending out, and your chest feels like you’re pulling organs as if they were muscles, cramping up and seizing with emotion.  You want to run to them even though you’re meant to be running from them, call out over the noise and wave even though you’re not supposed to.  You want to hold the kid again, squish his little forehead with kisses, walk around with Din’s hand pressed against your lower back and see the fireworks with him.

Your hands clutch at the draping fabric covering your chest, pulling and twisting it uncertainly.  What do you do, what do you do?

No matter what, you know it’s over.  Keep your head down and try to move past him, or break away from your group and try to escape—both are different paths that lead to the same result.  What’s the point of running when he’s the one chasing you?  The heart-pounding thrill is the only reason you’re even considering it, but his body stands so tall amongst the crowd, not moving while people ebb and flow like a river passing around him.

Except then you can hear his voice repeat the last thing he said to you in person as if he says it directly into the comm in your ear.  When you do see me… try to outrun.

You should run—run, it’s better than just hoping he doesn’t see you when you already know he does.

Unless…

Out of a trillion different possibilities, you soon realize that there is exactly one situation in which this could turn out in your favor.  You can immediately picture the scenario in your mind, but there’s just too many variables to conceivably rely on getting them all right.  This maybe has a… two percent chance of working?  Maybe?  Everything would have to go perfectly, just fucking flawlessly, but what other choice do you have?  Two percent is better than whatever odds you’re dealing with now.

You walk silently behind the group of foundlings as you approach closer and closer, keeping your head purposefully down as they skip and giggle and dance ahead.  He knows you’re here—he has to know, you’re counting on him knowing.  Walk right in front of him, pretend like you don’t see, make sure you keep left.  Keep left, keep left, keep your head down, keep your head down—

A leather glove suddenly catches hold of your wrist hard enough to tug you backwards.

Your gasp is audible over the sound of the crowd and you spin around, jerking your head up to look at him in fear.  Your heart slams as the beskar reflects your mask and hood back at you—you’re terrified and it shows, you can see it in your eyes.

You quickly try to yank your hand away, even as your index finger stretches up towards the communicator around his wrist.

“Miss Nerida?”  A child’s voice cries, and then small hands grab at you from behind as you bury the urge to actually fight him.  Your instincts are demanding you attack when his grip is this strong, but you just whine and struggle, slapping weakly at him with your free hand and feeling more of the younglings begin to pull at you, their high pitched voices calling more and more attention to the scene.

Your gaze flicks to the side, suddenly landing on a pair of New Republic officers helping direct the thousands of moving bodies from the closest street corner.  They’re looking at you, pointing and beginning to speak into their own comm units.  Din’s helmet snaps sideways to follow your gaze, and then he’s immediately dropping your wrist and stepping back, retreating as quickly as he caught you.  Though you don’t want to—though you don’t want to give yourself away even more, you want to pretend fully that he was a complete stranger and the children were right to try to help you get away—your eyes fall to your son in the hovering crib by his side and you feel yourself crumble just a bit.

Just a few more hours, kid.  A few more hours.

Children pull you away while your pursuers both disappear into the crowd, and you quickly turn to soothe the tiny babies instead of chasing after the one you miss so terribly.

“I’m alright,” you tell them, scooting them up and encouraging them to continue walking.  Blend in, blend in, don’t let anybody think anything is wrong.  “Come on, we’re fine, come on, we have to catch up.”

They take your lead as soon as one of the caretakers turns around and sees the small group crowding around you.  You think she asks what happened, but you just tell her a man mistook you for someone else and nothing more comes of it.  She’s able to settle the chaos better than you are, and by the time you’re continuing to travel forwards once more like nothing happened, the communicator suddenly flicks on in your ear.

“What did you do?”  He breathes out, his footsteps moving fast through his voice.  He’s traveling much quicker than you expected—is he still being followed?  The officers are gone from your sight, they might be going after him right now, weaving between bodies and calling out to the perpetually vanishing glint of armor as he navigates his way out of danger.

You look down at the comm on your wrist and your heart nearly soars with victory.  It worked.  It worked.  You just have to outlast a bit longer, don’t draw any extra attention to it—he’s preoccupied and he certainly doesn’t sound happy, but you hope that’ll be enough to make him slip.  Use his frustration to your advantage, let him think the only thing you were successful at was momentarily escaping him.

“The cops weren’t part of the plan,” you admit quietly, keeping your head down as your loose hood billows in the twilight breeze.  “Don’t get caught.”

There’s a few moments of just his breathing, his footsteps, and the noise floor humming through the comm, before he finally responds.  “You look beautiful.”

You stare unseeingly down at the concrete under your feet, still feeling your hand tingle from where he caught you.  The line abruptly mutes on his end and you just keep moving forward, onward, wanting to look back but knowing he’s already long gone.

***

Day 5–5:24pm:

Din is fucking furious.

He had you.  You were right there, right in front of him, and even if he hadn’t been subtly trailing you all day, seeing the red footsteps get covered and flicker out of existence just a few moments after you make them, he would’ve recognized you anywhere.  In black and white, in the fading light, with your face covered, children calling you by a different name and attaching themselves to you like they’ve known you forever—doesn’t matter, he would’ve known you.  Your eyes have always given you away, always so expressive and starry and soft, but able to see right through solid steel whenever you look at him.

But then you slipped from his grasp, and then more guards pushed him further and further away from you.  They must all be in constant communication, because every single jumpsuit he sees immediately spots him and starts following.  It’s fucking exhausting, and he thinks of you the whole time.

He waits in a dark alley with the kid and taps the side of the helmet a few times to bring up the time on his comm, but then relaxes just slightly when he sees the hour.  It’s earlier than he thought it was, he’ll be able to find you again.

Though, something tugs at him while he’s looking at the clock ticking away in front of his eyes, counting down each second that passes.  There was… a moment.  Back in the square, when he was holding onto you again, when you were looking directly into his once more—everything in his helmet— 

No, he shakes his head while the kid looks up at him curiously, it can’t be.  It was just a split second, it was gone so fast.

But he can’t get rid of it.  Though there’s no explanation, he thinks the display screen flickered.  The sky behind you looked different for a single frame, your footsteps weren’t bright red and visible anymore, your eyes weren’t grey and he stopped wondering what shade of fabric you and your friend decided to choose for you to wear.  It was silvery, he’s almost certain.  Like his armor, it only reflected the color of everything around it.

Color.  Everywhere.  Bursting for a blink of an eye, and then gone just as quick, before he could actually figure out what it really meant.

***

Day 5–6:59pm:

This water is quiet here, but it sparkles.

It doesn’t ever really get truly dark thanks to the enormous hanging moon and ringed gas giant dancing with Sanctuary II, constantly reflecting light back onto the surface and reacting with some of the trace chemicals up above the atmosphere, and you think the sky just might be the prettiest you’ve ever seen it.  Must have something to do with the equinox, the glimmering angles of light being played with by celestial bodies in this stunning system, but it’s a dream.  The Maker apparently couldn’t decide which colors he wanted tonight so he just splashed all of them together all at once, let them run and blend like ink in the gentle water below, like the various people who call this moon home.

That view in front of you, coupled with all the flowers and lanterns lining the streets behind you, and you’ve lost track of time the exact same way you hoped Din would.  You think you’ve stood for about an hour or so in this one spot, half-listening to excited chatter from the babies, mostly just gazing across the stretch of water and being able to just barely spot the docks in the distance, but it feels like it’s only been minutes.

You check your watch—the fireworks should be starting any second now.  You don’t know what to expect, just that in your experience, explosions tend to be loud.  You've decided you’re not going to plug your ears, though.  Tummy twisting with nerves and another inexplicable feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, you resolve to experience the unknown exactly the way it’s meant to be.  Fully, without worry or fear.

Then, lacking any warning or ceremony whatsoever, a single flare launches silent and high from one of the small boats skimming the bay, and the crowd seems to hold its collective breath as the dim light disappears into thin air for a split second, before—

It’s… quite possibly the most dazzling thing you think you’ve ever seen.  So shamelessly decorative just for the sake of it, not serving any other practical purpose besides celebration and visual spectacle, and you’ll probably never know another extravagance like it.  You grew up with dust pelting against tired eyes, you never thought they’d get to reflect such gorgeous bursts of color back up at the sky, glassy and childlike amongst a group of equally wide-eyed children.

As expected, a deafening boom follows closely behind the singular display, but just witnessing it is incredible enough to make you forget to brace yourself for the sound and you jump almost violently in response.  There comes a loud cheer from the people standing around you, a few delighted gasps and children who decide now is the best time to start crying, but then more flares begin to launch from the boats and the subsequent show will sear itself into your memory to replay over and over again.

Still, you think the endless sky and dark water below would have to light on fire to stop him from coming to mind.

Din.

You click the comm on, continuing to stare in stunned awe but wanting nothing more than to hear his voice right now, feel his hand rest on your lower back and the kid’s three fingers squeezing one of yours while the stars rain down from above.  You’re only continuing to run from him because it’s expected of you, that’s the reason you’re here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to argue with yourself.  “Do you always see in black and white?”

It takes him just a few seconds to respond, but he always does.  “Only when I’m tracking someone.”

The loud booms can be heard over the earpiece, happening maybe a second after they crack and sparkle above you.  You can’t tell if the latency is due to the electronics or if he’s just that far away from the source of the sound itself, but… you don’t think he is.  He feels close again, like he could just walk up right next to you any second, or maybe that’s just how he always feels now.

“Does that mean you haven’t seen the sky here?”  You ask after a moment.  This whole time, everything has been grey for him?

“I saw it,” Din murmurs, and even though it’s quiet and explosions are thundering loud enough to deafen more sensitive ears, his quiet voice somehow breaks through it all.  “When you left the Crest, I saw it behind you.”

For some reason, you suddenly feel like crying.  Whether it’s the way he phrases it or the sentiment in the words, you’re close to tears without even knowing why, looking up at the sky illuminating spectacularly.  He says it like he wasn’t the one who parked on this moon and told you to go on without him.  “Can you… turn it off for just a second?”

He takes a second, before clarifying for you.  “I turn it off and I lose your footprints.”

So that was the ultimatum.  He doesn’t want to turn it off until you’re back with him again.  Does he not understand?  Does he not know what you know?  Maybe you just happened to feel it first, this overwhelming physical sensation inside you whenever you think about him.  It’s like the exact opposite of a hole in your chest.  And it’s so odd, so counterintuitive.  Being comforted in his absence, feeling him with you when he isn’t.  Falling in love in the dark, knowing him without ever seeing him.

“You never needed them,” you say, reaching up to pull your mask down under your jaw and chin for a moment, wanting to freely breathe the freshwater and flowers while stars explode and fracture across the sky.  It’s a truth you’re acknowledging, something you’ll carry with you, something you fundamentally own at this point.  “You’d find me without the helmet.  And I’d find you.”

The fireworks continue to bleed into the water beneath them, multicolor splashes rippling into existence and disappearing just as quick.  You could’ve never imagined a more colorful, magnificent landscape—besides your waterfall on Naboo, of course.  That was a pure product of nature though, a place hidden away and untouched by people, completely sacred.  Light refracting against mist, natural glass that would shatter under your weight.  This is a celebration of life and family.  Loud in a different way, affecting you in a different way, but just as wonderful and touching.  A cultivated paradise, designed to be beautiful and safe only because they wanted it to be.

“Think so?”  He asks softly.  He sounds so deep and warm, but… a little distant.  You’re able to hear it in his words.  You don’t know why, though.  Doesn’t he believe you?  Perhaps… perhaps this isn’t The Way.  Perhaps this is part of a completely different oath, one where knowing and loving somebody isn’t the same thing as looking at their face, not at all.  Where you can have them exist entirely separate from each other, because this is love.  This is real, enduring, bone-deep love, and you haven’t ever seen his face, so how would he explain that?  How would the Mandalorians reconcile that?  You bear the mark of the mudhorn, you’ve moved through time and space with him, you’re a mother to his son, and you’ve never seen his face.  It defies both the Mandalorian oath and traditional understandings of love, or it meets them right in the middle, depending on how you look at it.

“I know so.”  For the first time, you think you might sound more confident and certain than he does.  Maybe he doesn’t fully get it yet, but then you suppose he’ll just have to trust you.  “Will you look at the sky?”

“I see it,” Din tells you, but you know he doesn’t.  Not the way you want him to.  And stars, you just want so many things for him, don’t you?  The sky, fresh air, water, light, food, rest.  You want him to see the galaxy the way you do—have a new appreciation for the gifts that are given just because you’re alive to experience them.  All the physics and mathematics aligned perfectly for it to happen—all the chemistry, the systems, the dynamics that dictate the universe, they all got together and crafted a world where you, him, and the kid all exist together at the same time.  You want him to know the significance of that.

“With color?”  You ask, knowing his answer before he seems to.

“I…”  Din wants to argue, or at least say it again.  He can’t or he’ll lose you, he already told you he doesn’t want to turn the setting off.  It’s such an unnecessary conflict, but you want to respect it so much that you’re willing to give up things of your own to make it happen.

“How do I fix it then?”  You whisper, so desperately wanting this one thing for him, this one grandeur to behold.  How do you fix this problem?  How do you convince him to look with you?  You’d offer to just go and find him instead of continuing to run away for the next few hours, but you know the show will be over soon and you don’t have much time left.  “Do you want me to come look for you?  It’ll be too late by then, you’re too far away.  Look at the sky.”

It’s silent for a moment—truly silent, even though colorful bombs are going off above the bay.  You don’t know why you’ve attached yourself to this so strongly, but it’s almost devastating when you don’t get a response.  You look away from the spectacle for the first time in an eternity, gazing unseeingly into the crowd of onlookers with a sudden sadness taking hold of you.  He won’t look, he’s too stubborn, he holds onto things too tightly.

But then, a flurry of flares start launching in rapid succession from the distant boats, screaming and crying on their way up and then igniting into showers of light, and the abrupt increase in activity manages to catch your attention once again.  This must be the end, they saved the best for last.  Every corner of the horizon flashes and sparks, and you’re mesmerized at how bright it is, how many colors they’ve managed to fit into one single frame.

“It’s beautiful,” comes his voice, and the smile that you break into feels just right for the brilliance of the view above you.  Maker, it is, isn’t it?  Now you can hear it—he sounds like he’s looking at it too, with color, in all its breathtaking glory, and you feel like you’re flying.  Like he picked you up and let you watch up close, like you can feel his armor under your fingers right now as he carries you through the sky.

It swells up inside you, a rising wave similar to the ones you can see in the distance, and you know you probably shouldn’t say it because it’s not in your best interest to say it right now, but you have to say it anyways.  It’s an unknowable compulsion, a need to connect and communicate directly with him but for your sake, not presently, not at this exact moment in time.

Luckily, you mute your comm just in time and simply give the words to him from very far away.

“Hurry up,” you say, sending the sentiment into the sky with all your love, and the conflicting hope that he won’t take the advice until a bit later on.  “Come and find me.”

***

Day 5–7:37pm:

After the fireworks are over, people start to drift off in separate directions, clearing the traffic and congestion from the streets around you.  Someone puts their hand on your shoulder and you blink a few times, spinning around and almost stepping on a bunch of tiny little feet by accident.

Stars, that’s a lot of children.  They’re all crowded around Naydee, who pats a few heads and almost buckles under the younglings clinging to her leg.

“Figured you would be long gone by now,” she grins at you from behind her mask, and you’re reminded to pull yours up over your face just from looking at her.  “It’s late—we’re going back to the Keja.”

“Oh, shit,” you breathe in surprise, but the noise of the gradually dispersing crowd manages to cover it up.  At least from younger, more easily distracted ears, but you think Naydee hears you.  Her dark eyes roll good-naturedly, looking happy but exhausted from the long day.  You’re going to have to say goodbye now.

“What happened to your family?”  She asks after a moment, and you think she’s being careful with the way she says it, likely because family is a difficult topic to navigate in general around some of the children hanging on her and begging for her attention.  “Have you been in touch with them?  If not, I’m sure you can come back with us.  It’ll be late by the time we get there, but at least you’ll be safe.”

You open your mouth to automatically decline her offer, knowing Din is still in the crowded city looking for you and wanting to stay where there’s lots of people.

But then… well, he would expect you to do that, wouldn’t he?

There’s more people here.  More danger, but better places to hide.  It’s the obvious choice, it’s the one that makes the most logical sense.  But you’d also be completely alone and you’re assuming the only reason he hasn’t snatched you up yet—which you know he could’ve done multiple times by now, is likely because you’re with a group of innocent foundlings, moody teenagers, and very stern older women.  He probably doesn’t realize you’ve told them about him and the kid, though you were slightly vague on the details.

It’s also a little over three hours to get back, but you’re banking on it being closer to four with how whiney and tired some of the small voices sound, others sounding like they’re an enormous sugar rush contained into a tiny little capsule.  Would he have the gall to try and get you right from under their noses?  Will he even know you left the city, or will he assume you made the smartest decision possible and simply account for it ahead of time?  No, you're overthinking it, just make a decision and stick with it.

“There’s also free food,” Naydee shrugs while you’re still considering, but… well, that settles that.  Almost three days of friendship and she already knows exactly how to win you over in the end.  Sustenance for your empty tummy, an escort the entire way there, and heavily guarded walls beyond.  Din will have to get creative in response—you flaunted your imagination for days, coming up with dozens of evasion tactics to outlast him, but this one just seems… incredibly practical.  Exploiting a weakness of his—isolating it, having it be reinforced by precedent, and then taking advantage of it.  You bet he’ll catch on, but still, it’ll make it more difficult for him, and you’re grasping at straws to hang on just a little longer.

“I…”  Quick, come up with something.  You clear your throat.  “The city is too crowded, I haven’t been able to find them.  I could just… tell them where I’m headed and see if they can find me along the way?”

Naydee smiles and nods.  “Sounds perfect.”

Yet, the entire walk back… you keep thinking you’re going to feel Din trailing behind you, waiting to feel the nerves twist in your tummy and your palms to sweat, but you don’t.  You keep glancing over your shoulder and then down at your wrist, needing to talk yourself out of addressing him through the comm to let him know exactly what the plan is.  You like maintaining a sense of secrecy from the new characters you’ve met on your adventures—Naydee, Karga, Peli—almost everyone you’ve been introduced to, you found a way to find a subtle enjoyment in hiding certain things from them.  But with Din, you don’t have any walls.  They crumbled nearly a full year ago when he silently pushed a cauterizer in your hand and took his armor off for you, and you’ve felt the inexplicable need to bare yourself to him in return ever since.  It would be to your extreme detriment to do it now, but you still have to fight the urge.

Even if you don’t feel him following, you still find yourself acting like he is.  Constantly turning back to double check the road behind you, drifting off in the middle of shallow, distant conversations with tiny foundlings who can’t tell the difference, keeping towards the middle of the pack this time to avoid being picked off towards the back.  The belltower at the orphanage is loud and will ring for quite a distance, so your timing has to be utterly pristine for this to all work out.  You eye your comm the entire way there, trying to stall just the right amount to avoid any realizations or fall into any traps he may be setting for you.

You eventually leave the city walls far behind you, and now you have no clue where he is.  You lost him, and maybe that’s why you feel your heart beat insanely fast the whole time.  He could be anywhere now.  Behind you, adjacent, parallel—you can’t decide where to look, but it keeps you wide awake and focused while the group tiredly travels back to the temple.

***

Day 5–11:32pm:

You can see it in the distance, the brick buildings slowly coming into view.  One might think your stress would have worked itself out by now, been brought back to a manageable level after four hours of walking, but you’ve been on red alert for the past hour or so.  Any movement or rustle that doesn’t come from the sleepy children or exhausted caretakers, you’re on top of it, snapping your attention to the offending tree or animal and not being able to relax even after affirming it’s just nature, it’s not shiny metal bounding after you in the darkness, ready to take you down.

The infants are all likely snoozing away in the nursery, and the Sister who volunteered to stay behind and look after them comes to greet the group at the gate as you approach.  Like always, two Brothers open the iron bars to allow you inside, and you feel the anxiety dig its claws into your tummy.  If Din is going to get you, this is the very last moment to do it.  These walls are guarded and you’re nervous for him, you’re nervous for yourself—you’re just fucking nervous.  Jumpy and worried, not being able to pinpoint him anymore and feeling all the more anxious because of it.

It doesn’t feel right.  Nothing feels right about this, but you can’t figure out specifically what’s wrong.  This was the exact plan, this was a way for you to just survive these last few hours and yet, it doesn’t feel right that you actually succeeded in doing so.  It doesn’t make sense that he’d allow you to return all the way here, especially when he was close enough to touch you earlier.  Din has had so much time to snatch you up, so many opportunities to lure you away, confront you—anything to catch you, and he hasn’t done it yet.  Why?  Either you truly did escape and he has no idea where you are, which doesn’t feel right, or he’s choosing not to get you for whatever reason, which also doesn’t feel right.  What’s he waiting for?  You can’t have won.  It was all too fucking easy, you’re expecting to see him around every single corner because he should be there, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

When someone gently touches your elbow, you’re so on edge that you nearly whip around in surprise.

“Sorry!”  Naydee immediately apologizes, taking her hand back to lift her hood and remove the mask covering her face.  “Didn’t mean to scare you!  I was just going to say that the commissary is still open,” she offers, and you watch the small group of hungry teenagers break off from the group to make their way there.  “It’s going to take awhile to get the children ready for bed, so we’ll be in the dormitories if you need to sleep.  Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll see you again.”

You stare at her and blink a few times, trying to readjust your focus.  She’s your new friend, she just said this was likely the last time you’ll see each other, but you can’t stop thinking about Din.  Imagine he’s hours away in the city right now, still looking for you.  You’re trying to evaluate your priorities here, but you truthfully never expected to get this far.  Inside the gates, surrounded by brick buildings and silent guards.  You know your way around here, you know hiding spots, you know how to outlast—it’s incredibly advantageous for you to be inside these walls.  What is he doing?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you give Naydee a quick hug and she happily accepts it.  “I’m sure we’ll meet again at some point.”

She smiles and nods, pulling back and letting a couple grumpy foundlings catch her robes and yank on them impatiently.  The loud group eventually disappears into the dorms, and the door shutting behind them cuts off the tired crying and chatty voices determined to stay awake, leaving you in silence that feels slightly unfamiliar after going without it for so long.

Fuck, you just need to breathe.  As soon as the dead quiet grips the air around you, you realize you need to relax.  You’re way too fucking wound up; you want to bolt at the smallest thing and the sudden silence of being alone multiplies it to the point where you have to remind yourself of its importance.  Breathe.  Focus.  There’s about fifteen minutes before the bells ring, fifteen more minutes and the chase will be all over.

Can you eat?  You thought you’d want to, but you think you’re too fucking antsy.  You can’t stay here alone, that’s for sure, but you also don’t want to be around all the children right now.  The commissary will have a handful of people wandering around, teens snacking and maybe a Brother or two standing guard.  It’s the best place to wait the clock out, so you make your way there.  The gentle breeze billows around your loose robes, your pantlegs swishing as you walk.

A few minutes later, you’ve got a plate of food in front of you but your mask is still up, and you’re just sitting there.  Towards the back of the large room, sitting by yourself at one of the tables and staring down at your communicator.  Five minutes.  You have five fucking minutes left before he finds you.  Can you feel him?  Is he closing in?

You sit up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath.  Focus on that feeling from earlier.  The presence in your chest, the weight that didn’t used to be there months ago—focus on that feeling and branch it outwards.  Can you feel him?

Something catches your eye.

Or no… it doesn’t, does it?  Nothing is out of place here, nothing is visibly wrong or amiss.  The only thing that’s changed from all the times before is how dark it is through the windows, and how there are only a few kids in here grabbing a midnight snack instead of being packed like usual.  Nothing else.

But there’s… there’s an acolyte in the far corner, standing guard with his back to the wall.  It’s not his presence that gives you pause—you expected him to be here, there’s always been at least one present whenever you’ve sat down to eat.  He doesn’t look any different from the rest of the Brothers you’ve passed by this evening or the days before—tall, silent, dark brown robes, hooded and mysterious—so why do you suddenly feel yourself break out into a cold sweat as soon as your eyes land on him?

Bubbling laughter and chatter echoes through the large room from one of the tables near the entrance—seven teenagers stuffing their faces with food and sharing animated conversation with each other now that it’s late and they’re alone—but your stomach twists and your fingers start to tremble as you slowly rise from your seat in the back.  You want to keep your head down and be casual but it’s impossible, you desperately need to keep looking at that silent guard in particular and your heart kicks up in your chest—

—and then it wrenches sideways when you’re carefully backing away from the table and the offending acolyte takes a single step forwards.

Run.  Everything in you screams for you to run, and it’s rarely done that before, but you can’t.  Not yet, you don’t want to draw attention, and the logical part of your mind rages against your gut instinct to haul ass.  He’s here—of course he is, the thought screams through your veins as you try to weave quickly in between tables, feeling light on your toes and readying yourself to run as soon as you can.  The dark figure seems to find a careful pace behind you, staying just far enough behind and walking in perfect silence, and you have so many fucking questions but you can’t even think a single thing beyond run away, run away.  Where’s the kid?  How did he get those robes?  Did he actually take his helmet off just to get to you in a room where anyone could confront him?

Your feet propel you forward as soon as you make it out of the door, you break out into a sprint—just flat out bolting because you know how fucking fast he is and you need as big a headstart as you can get.

You race down the stairs and through the courtyard, the beautiful surroundings contrasting drastically with the way you’re running for your fucking life through them.  It’s not beautiful to you right now; you feel clumsy and physically unable to move fast enough no matter how quick you go, your eyes are wide and every nerve is on fire and you can’t even tell if he’s behind you anymore with how silently he moves, but you just trust that he is and keep barreling forward.  Your breath puffs against the clinging fabric of your mask as you keep sprinting, willing your legs to pump faster.  Get to the belltower at least, get to where you have the smallest chance of being caught by the people who guard this place.

As soon as you allow yourself to even conceive the possibility, two Brothers in dark hooded robes suddenly turn the corner a little ways in front of you and your reaction time is perfect—you jerk to a halt and take a single step forward as soon as they spot you.  Since your momentum already committed you to it, you just have to walk, keep your head down, move directly past them and hope Din disappeared from behind you in time.

Step, step, step—keep going, control your breathing, you’re okay, you’re allowed to be up late tonight and they shouldn’t stop you.  Walk right by…  Stars, you feel their silent stares as you casually pass, and it just feels so cold and analytical compared to the kind of danger Din is gives off when dressed in the exact same clothing.  He’s hard and tangible and an unrelenting force, where they just feel like ghosts that haunt this place.  The threat they present is impersonal and detached, but the terror currently chasing after you is so real that he can read your mind.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as soon as you turn the corner, and your feet are already starting to speed up on their own knowing you’re out of their sight.  Run, get to the belltower before Din does, you can see it standing tall about a hundred feet away.  The stairs leading to the door come closer and closer, but you hear something behind you and it propels you faster.  It’s like you can feel him right at your heels even though you haven’t seen him, snapping at your ankles even though your footsteps are the only ones you can hear anymore.

You scramble up the stairs and close the door behind you, spinning around and facing it even as you slowly retreat backwards into the moonlit tower, trying to stay quiet.  Breathing through your nose, eyes shifting around the enclosed space, continuing to back up and away from the door.  Where is he?  There are so many windows that allow you to look outside, but why can’t you spot his movement through them?  Wasn’t he right behind you?

Behind you.

There’s no reason or logic at all to it; you just react.  Spinning around and throwing a mean punch.

Din jerks back just in time to miss it, twisting and dodging at the very last second to avoid your next few hits—but… things seem to slow down, even if they’re happening so fast.  The moonlight cascades through the dozens of windows lining the circular walls and it shines just enough to reveal small glimpses of him.  With every aggressive strike from you, you see something else—you see a flash of his chin when you try to uppercut, you aim for his chest and you see a bit of his jaw.  When you go for his jaw, he steps sideways and catches your wrist, and you see the bend of his nose catch the light this time.

But then it’s like he finally figures out that you’re actually fighting him, and now he’s coming for you.  Trained and ruthless, not weighed down by any armor and lightning quick, launching perfectly aimed attacks that you’re only able to avoid from reaction and muscle memory alone.  You block or move whenever he strikes, you attack whenever you see an opening, you sidestep at the same time he does—

Until you land a spin kick directly to the center of his chest and snap your leg to shove him back, your heel smashing into that soft spot right above his stomach with dead precision and brute force.  He exhales sharply and takes a few more steps back to steady himself while you pause to catch your breath.

Din abruptly comes back and you fall into it with him again, keeping a sharp rhythm with each other that’s faster, harder, and way more real than any sparring match you’ve ever shared.  The hours and days in hyperspace you spent practicing with him are but a fraction of what he’s throwing at you right now, the combinations so rapid and blurred that you just have to trust your knowledge of him and his movement through the dark.

But then, your downfall.  Bells begin ringing an earsplittingly familiar melody above you, and it shatters your concentration—you falter just as he grabs you and sweeps your feet out, and though you know how to get out of that, you’re not quick enough on the jump nor counterswing to prevent it.  He takes you to the ground, hard, and then your wrists are being pinned together above your head and your mask is being tugged down.

Din’s mouth on yours makes you want to cry.

The whole thing is like coming home.  You spent a week surrounded by strangers and having them call you by a name not given to you, fending for yourself, and now here he is.  Someone who knows who you really are, someone that wants to care for you.  Tears come to your eyes even as they're pressed tightly shut, and Din kisses you like he’s never known anything else.  His mouth fits to yours as if the Maker made your lips before ever considering the rest of you, his bare hand clutching your jaw and forcing you to open for him, letting him lick deep inside after going so many days without it.  It might feel dominant and overwhelming if it happened to any other person, but through it, you can also taste his desperation and weakness, how soft he is even when he’s squeezing your jaw and squishing your wrists together too tightly.

Rigid steel that bends only for your touch.

He pulls back and your heart throbs at how moonlight continues to bathe just the smallest glimpses of him under the hood—never the full thing, never the whole face, but enough.  The quiet light that brushes the arch of his nose, how it bathes the hard line of his jaw so that you can barely see his scruff when he turns his head the right way.  His eyes are hidden in near darkness but there’s the faintest glimmer where they should be, and it’s the closest you’ve ever been to looking at him without the helmet.  You can see him, you can see shadows of his chin, his neck—dear stars, his fucking neck.  You’re pinned and paralyzed under him and the ringing bells, yet you feel like you just might float if he wasn’t holding you so tight to the floor.

“Where’s the baby?”  You finally lift your chin and ask, needing to raise your voice over the melody clanging loud throughout the tower.

“Making friends,” Din pants back down at you, and… stars, then you just start giggling.  Adrenaline turning into pure joy, imagining the kid wreaking havoc with all the other babies in the nursery right now.  It feels more light and airy than anything your body should know.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, swallowing and then continuing on with the same quick gasps.  “You lost, I caught you in time.”

“Did you?”  You drop your head to the brick floor and ask, biting your lip as he stares back down at you.  Suddenly—

—Bong—

Din holds utterly still over you while you take a quick breath and wait for the next eleven bells… 

…but then break into a slow grin up at him when nothing but utter silence follows.

There’s a moment.  Just a single moment where the cogs turn rapidly under that shadowy hood, one where the faint reflection of light in his eyes flickers down to the communicator on your wrist that says midnight and back to you, one that solidifies the longer it takes for another bell to ring.  It’s not going to.

One o’clock.

You think he puts it together.  The one moment he was never able to figure you out—when you tried reprogramming the comms just a few days ago.  The one trick up your sleeve that you resigned to throw away and almost forget about because the circumstances for pulling it off were never realistic.  Fuck with the electronics and set the clock back just one hour—all you’d need to do is reset his communicator, the timecode is synced together.  He told you before that it’s connected to his helmet, but all the buttons still work.  Rapid, panicky thinking and a wild surge of bravery in the face of certain downfall is the only reason you were able to pull it off, and you’re perfectly willing to admit you just got lucky… especially when he’s still holding dead still over you.

But then Din moves so suddenly.  You can’t account for it because there’s no build-up whatsoever—it’s so fast, you yelp while he grabs your knees and throws them both to one side.  You flop over sideways and large hands reach up under the draping length of your tunic to yank your pants down over the curve of your ass, before he’s fitting his palm up between your legs and pushing two thick fingers inside you.

Your head thunks back against brick with how unexpected and merciless it is, but his other hand is grabbing your jaw and twisting, forcing you to look up, stare right into the dark shadow under the loose cowl.  The whole thing is too overwhelming—you’re trying to keep quiet but your breathing feels like thunder crashing inside this tall, echoing chamber.  He’s touched you so many times, he knows exactly how to do it by now, but it feels like so much more than that.  Probably because you can see the way Din’s mouth silently falls open as he feels you, stretching his fingers up and hooking them tight inside.  You can tell when he closes his eyes, the smallest glint slowly disappearing into nothingness while the hand around your jaw blindly moves up.  It catches your chin and lips, and then two fingers push over the bottom edge of your teeth to slip into your mouth.

Your entire leg twitches and jerks while you lay sideways on the ground and open up for him, your neck twisted at a sharp angle to keep your eyes on him and his fingers in your mouth, giving you something to bite to stop making noise.  Din makes room for himself inside you two different ways, and you just choke on his fingers and try to stay quiet, praying he’ll go deeper.

But then you’re not expecting his whole fucking arm to start moving the way it does—oh fuck, what is that?  First you just feel jostled and displaced, but then suddenly a wicked, deep, burning pleasure starts to roar through you, radiating outwards from the rapid motion of just two fingers inside you.  It’s not in and out, it’s up and down so hard and quick against your g-spot that your eyes cross and your hands go numb.

You think you grab at him, clutch onto his arm or chest and open your mouth to moan at the new and overwhelming sensation, but his hand pushes up against your chin and closes it for you, the bend of his fingers caught hard between your teeth but you don’t think he cares.

“Quiet,” Din hisses the word down at you while his arm continues to work, your toes starting to curl as the feeling overwhelms you.  Fuck, what is happening, what is happening?  It’s like he’s just shoving unfamiliar sensation at you so forcefully that you can’t even think straight anymore, not even ten seconds in.  You can only feel the pleasure, fire blurring hot and shapeless through your entire body as your eyes clamp shut, his fingers isolating that perfect spot and stimulating it directly, relentlessly.

Something dull and white hot presses up tight against all the muscles you have down there and you’re almost afraid of how strong it is.  You gasp and choke and he has to take his fingers out of your mouth and just clamp down around your entire jaw, sealing the whole thing shut with his large hand.  And then Din’s fingers leave your pussy too—and stars, you should be embarrassed by how desperately it clamps around nothing for as long as it does.  He’s not even inside you anymore but your body is on such a delay from the hot, twisting pleasure, and he doesn’t put them back in until your muscles are finished spasming.

Everything comes back full force as soon as he starts moving again.  Noise starts to come from your throat, humming in your vocal cords to deal with the arcing, swirling build, and so Din just moves his hand there instead.  He finds where it’s vibrating from your neck and he pushes up against it, trapping the sound right at the source.  He’s fucking perfect at it for some reason… how many times must he have done this to know how to cut noise out without stopping airflow?  You clutch at his wrist and silently mouth his name, feeling his arm work between your legs—faster, faster, harder, pushing you higher, higher—

Din pulls his fingers out again and this time, one of your thighs suddenly feels warm and wet while you spasm and you hear him growl out a ragged, “Fuck yes.”  Everything is sparks zapping through you long after his touch is gone, you cry out but it’s all trapped under Din’s expert grip.  His fingers soon push back inside you and you dig your nails into his forearm, your sounds muffled and quiet enough to hear his raspy groan.  

“Let me see it again,” Din breathes, his arm starting to work up and down once more, and you don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore.  What does he want to see?  You losing your mind again?  Being reduced to an utter mess in front of his shadowy but unobstructed gaze just because you managed to pull one over on him?

Fucking… apparently.  It’s what happens, after all.  You’ve never seen him like this before; whenever he’s worked up and taking it out on you, there was always something in it for him, too.  He’d hammer into you and rock your world until his eventually shattered, and then you’d both lay exhausted afterwards, equally affected and satisfied.  This isn’t like that—this is just cruel, targeted retribution on his behalf, coaxing the molten pleasure out of you with his fingers and keeping his other hand locked around your throat.  You blink helplessly up at him, your vision starting to blur by the time he leans down to whisper to you.

“I missed you, sweet girl.  Did you miss me?”  It’s so soft and quiet compared to the strength and relentlessness of his movements.  You can’t speak even if you wanted to, but when he finally pulls away to yank his hand out and you feel all your muscles automatically flex outwards and push against the sudden emptiness inside you, his voice groans long and satisfied while your thighs get wet again  “Yeah you did,” he breathes, pushing your shaky legs to the brick with his hand and watching you struggle through the aftershocks.

Did you just cum?  You don’t even know, that’s how fucked up you are right now.  The whole thing felt like an orgasm from the very beginning, just a boiling hot tornado ripping through every single cell in your body, never really having a peak.  If you didn’t cum, then why do you feel so weak?  You feel heavy, your limbs don’t work properly, and you barely even register Din pulling at the fabric of his own robes until he fits himself up against your entrance.

When you do realize it, though… your body burns with it, wrecked already but wanting him to take what he wants from you.

“Oh, plea—” you gasp but you don’t even have enough time to get the full sentence out.  He’s already pushing his hips forward, pressing you tight into the ground and opening you up after what feels like a fucking eternity without him.  It’s the hottest, slickest welcome you could give him, you hear it in the whispered curse his lips brush up under your ear, the wet noises your body makes that get louder the longer you hold the moan in your throat and bury your head into his shoulder.  He throbs thick and perfect inside your tight, spasming cunt, stretching you and smacking the rough ground near your head with how fucking good it is to be back, finally, finally—

Your hands grab uselessly at his chest while you try to acclimate, try to breathe while you’re blind with sensation.  It’s so fitting for him, isn’t it?  That your reunion should be just as physically debilitating as it is mentally.  Din’s voice scrapes on a groan like he’s dragging it across the brick ground as quiet as he can, catching when you clamp down on him and shuddering when you clamp down harder.  That’s just it—you don’t ever loosen, you just keep tightening and tightening around him, threatening to break and cum again.

This feels different from before, though.  It’s deep, purposefully so.  His hand reaches up to push the fabric of your hood back, lifting himself up over your body and wanting to start as deep as he can.  You feel him in a place you’d never be able to reach and that’s just the beginning—that’s before he starts thrusting into you, hitting a dull sensation at the apex of each movement so hard that it becomes sharp.  His hips don’t make practically any sound smacking into you because they don’t really smack, they just rock downwards and fuck you into the floor without needing to pull out really at all.  You know he’s just trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but what he lacks in speed and agility he makes up in power.

You don’t even realize you’re making too much noise until a palm wraps tight around your mouth and the room gets a little emptier.  Din keeps you all to himself on the floor, silencing as much as he’s working you up, smothering as much as he’s freeing you.  There’s no easing up, no dragging it out, no gradual build or climb—it’s just there all of a sudden, pleasure and pain pummeling you all at once, engulfing you in flames.

You reach up to grab at the loose fabric of the hood over his face, catching a fistful of it before his hand suddenly snatches your shaky wrist and pins it back to the ground.

Maker, you forgot—oh, you completely forgot about how many people could find you right now if they ever decided to look in the right place.  You’re not in hyperspace; your body is rocking against rough brick, you’re probably going to have a lump on the back of your head from how terrible you are at trying to map out heaven while holding still.  He’s pinned down what he can with one hand; your fingers are the only things that can move besides how tight you can curl your toes, but you feel your moans turn into words against his palm.  They garble indistinctly and you’re not really even sure what you’re saying, but Din decides it’s worth hearing.

“Shh,” he whispers, slowly lifting his hand from your mouth.  “Shh, tell me—”

“W-wanna look,” you hear yourself whimper, trying your best to keep quiet but wanting to scream it while he fucks you hard and slow on the ground, “—I wanna see, I wanna look at you—”

“Fuck,” Din gasps, and though his grip tightens on your wrist and you know he can’t do it right this second, the words seem like they shatter something inside him, “Keep—oh fuck, please, k-keep saying…”

“I want to marry you,” you nearly whine for him, feeling his hips kick up rapidly and start hammering in and out, in and out, in and—“I want to see your face, I wanna be yours, I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I-I—”

You think he drops his head into your neck to muffle his own sounds.  Though they start out rough and quiet and indiscernible, but they gradually become louder as he repeats himself over and over again, growling and fucking you rough.  You only catch it on the peak, when he pulls his mouth away from your skin and gasps them raggedly one last time.

“—ve you—I l-love y—”

He kisses you to stop himself.  But it’s not really a kiss, it’s more desperate than that.  Though it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a different light.  It’s not rejoicing at having you back with him once again; it’s a last prayer begging you to stay by his side forever.  He loves you.  He gives it everything—it feels even more concrete and simple than taking the hood off him and revealing his face would.  You told you that you'd know him without ever seeing him, and you did.  You picked him out and found him when absolutely nothing was giving him away, and this feels like a manifestation of that.  Even if you’re not in a place where he can show you his face, his beautiful brown eyes, something still feels like it changes.  He loves you.  You gasp into his mouth and his tongue sinks deep into yours, tenacious and brave and unyielding.  

When you finally cum, you almost bite him on accident.  

Everything surges hot and molten while he pulls back and keeps fucking you through it, and you can’t tell where you’re touching him anymore, just that his skin is blazing hot under your hand and he feels like everything the armor isn’t.  He loves you.  You’re looking into his eyes right now.  You can’t see any of the details, not really, but the moonlight flickers like silent stars moving through dark depths, staring right back at you and giving you an anchor for the euphoria rocketing through you.  He loves you.  Your nails dig in sharp and slowly drag downwards, scratching hard red lines into whatever thick muscle that is—

The back of his neck, making his hips stutter and when he cums for you, he does bite.

You lift your head just in time to feel his teeth catch your chin instead of your mouth, and his entire body shakes while you keep dragging your nails down the side of his neck and his throat.  Din fucking lives for it, he releases you and arches into the pain and owns your marks like he wishes you made them deeper, stretching his neck and lifting his chin into the moonlight and—

Maker.  You can see it, with direct light, you can see more of it than ever before.  You can see his soft lips and white teeth gritting the sound of your name as quietly as he can, the dark facial hair dusting across the lower half of his face.  A fucking gorgeous jawline and throat extended long over you, flexing hard with his cock pulsing inside you.  You can just barely see the bottom of his nose from under the brown hood, the dark curls brushing up under his ears.

Stars, you still never see his eyes, the fabric of his hood acts like a blindfold draped over them, but you think you cum again.  Even if it’s on accident, it’s mean—Din tries to keep from squishing you and his hand pushes down hard against your lower tummy while he shoves his hips deep one last time, and you cum while staring at half of his face in the moonlight.  Completely lovestruck.

How can he be this beautiful when you’ve only seen fractions of him?  You have everything but the eyes now, everything but the most mysterious thing about him, the reflection into his deepest self, but you feel like you’re hypnotized by every single feature you do see.  His tongue coming out to wet his lips, the vein pulling under his sharp jaw—he’s gorgeous, he’s gorgeous, and your body agrees.  It shakes and shudders under him and eventually, Din finishes and you keep looking as his chin slowly lowers, face disappearing into the shadow once more.

Stars.  He’s so handsome and no one has ever told him, fucking dreamy and the biggest grump you’ve ever met.  Without being able to see him, you already want to reach your hands out and touch him, drag your nails through his scruff and force him to extend outwards into the moonlight again for you.  Whenever he does end up showing you his face, you know right fucking now that you’ll never be able to look away.  For the rest of your life, you’ll be staring at him, apologizing blankly for your rudeness but not feeling sorry at all.

Din leans down and gives you a slow, gentle kiss, finally relaxing into a slouch and breathing hard with the effort it took to shatter you with pleasure.

“The kid is with the other foundlings,” he whispers against your lips.  “You… you’ll have to go get him, I need to grab my armor.”

You squeeze around his cock, pulling at the fabric of his robes and ignoring him for just a second.  He fucked you in robes belonging to one of the guards and nobody has mentioned it, you need to say something.  “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” he tells you after a moment, kissing up under your jaw.  Oh fucking Maker, he feels so good and perfect inside you, shoulders so broad and crowding you on the floor, and his lips are plush and hot, brushing and fitting your skin like it’s just an extension of his own.  “Some guy was wearing it.”

It takes you a second.

“Mando,” you suddenly gasp in quiet horror, pushing at his chest and trying your best to detach his mouth from your throat.  It’s so much more difficult than it needs to be, but you eventually succeed.  “What did you do to him?  Where is he?”

He lifts his neck up just the tiniest bit, turning his face towards yours under the hood and holding still for way too fucking long.  He’s too close to see the expression he’s making, but you know the tone of his silence.  He’s in trouble and he knows it before you do.

“Ma—”

“They’re in a closet,” he admits at the very same time, completely monotone.

You don’t know which word to emphasize.  A fucking closet?  They’re?  Plural?  Instead of stressing any particular word, you decide not to do it at all and it ends up just coming out in the same exact blank tone as him.  “They're in a closet.”

“Inside the Temple,” Din continues on when you lay still as a statue underneath him.  His head slowly dips down once more, pushing his hips against you just the slightest bit to make you remember the cock still inside you instead.  Your eyelashes flutter with it—fuck, focus—“I didn’t know there’d be more than two.”  He kisses your neck so gently.  “It was an accident.”

You don’t say anything at all, your mouth pinching down at the corners because it should but your heartbeat galloping with how… fucking sexy he is.  You shouldn’t encourage this, this horrible behavior just to get close enough to catch you, but your curiosity overtakes you and you ask a question you’ve asked yourself before.  “Did they put up a fight?”

“Mm,” he whispers noncommittally, rocking his hips down once more.  “You did.”  Your nails dig into his chest, making him falter just slightly before slowly kissing your neck again.  “Did so good.  Fought hard, outsmarted me.  Pretty fucking girl.”

And then your eyes pop open as you feel it.  His cock suddenly beginning to harden once again inside you, twitching and gradually gaining a thicker shape, and for a moment, you actually fucking consider it.  He’s the only one in this galaxy that could not only ruin you on these sacred grounds, but then coax you into doing it more than once—stars, are you actually considering it?

“We can’t,” you automatically tell him, but it’s fucking pitiful.  Zero effort, absolutely no umph behind it, leaving it entirely up to him and how much he wants it.  Your logic reminds you that the kid is probably wreaking havoc in the nursery and there are tied up guards in the fucking temple that could be discovered any second.  You shouldn’t have even let him fuck you here in the first place, but…  “Mando, we can’t—”

His mouth opens against the crook of your neck and his tongue brushes velvet hot on your skin, tasting the glistening sweat there and not moving his broad figure a single inch over you besides getting closer, deeper.  Your nails dig into his collarbone, aiming for reason one last time.  It’s apparent that you’d be better off rephrasing, knowing the challenging streak in him and how much telling him what to do doesn't help.

“It’s not a good idea,” you attempt instead, breathless and trying not to move under his mouth and lazy hips.  “Not smart.  Bad idea to fuck again.”

Din’s body stops moving, even though he keeps getting harder.  His jaw opens and then his teeth scrape softly against your flesh, making you tilt your neck back and gasp.

“Later,” he lifts his head to state aloud, committing it to truth now that it’s been spoken and heard by another person.  “Later, I’ll fuck you on the ship, in our bed, when I can get you naked and have your taste in my mouth.”

Tingles rock through your body and you squeeze around his cock just as he pulls it out and tucks it back into his pants.  Your lungs quiver when you inhale—it’s shaky, but it reminds you of how long it’s been since you’ve been able to breathe correctly.

“Later,” you finally agree, combing your fingers through your hair and glad you have this hood to cover your freshly fucked dishevelment.  He came inside you and you don’t want to be leaking and getting your nice pretty robes all wet and stained, but then of course, without any prompting, Din quickly scoots back on his knees and drops his head down to take care of it for you.

***

Commotion.

After Din helped you clean up the way he sometimes likes and then disappeared to change back into his armor, you put your mask and hood back on and tried to look as casual as possible walking to the nursery.  Your knees wobbled slightly and you couldn’t stop smiling under the mask the entire walk there, but when you arrived, you just saw a dim room with sleeping infants—not what you were expecting.  Soon, however, you hear it: down the hall, distant and coming from the dormitories, you hear a loud commotion.

Fuck, you’re nearly wincing with every step you take now, and not because you’re sore.  Well, you… are, a little bit, but in a great way.  No, you’re just dreading the ridiculous shinanigans you already know are well underway, wondering if Din actually dropped the kid off in the dorms from the beginning or if he somehow migrated his way there to cause trouble.

When you walk inside, the first thing you see is a handful of crying and shouting toddlers, and while you can’t immediately spot your favorite floppy-eared monster, you don’t have to see him to know he’s probably standing tiny directly in the middle of this tense showdown.  Automatically, you’re taking a few steps forward to rescue him, but then you stop as soon as you see what the other babies are so mad about.  A large piece of chocolate leftover from the festival levitating just beyond their pitiful little reaches.

Hm.  Who could possibly be responsible for using demon powers to steal snacks and hold them hostage from a sizeable group of hostile children.  A mystery that may never be solved.

It makes you take a second.  The sheer… the… stars, you can’t even think straight—how fucking typical it is just hits you right in the chest, sends your heart into orbit.  Of course.  Of course this is what he’s gotten himself into without immediate supervision, of course this is the shipwreck you’d walk into, and you’re holding back a chuckle before making a single move to intervene.  In the midst of everything, you can hear adults approaching distantly from behind you.

“—don’t know where it came from, I was helping the younglings into bed when I heard the ruckus and I—”

The voices gradually grow louder, and you snatch the floating piece of candy out of thin air and whip around right before Sister Drya and Naydee walk in.  Their hushed, concerned conversation is cut to an abrupt end, and you clear your throat as they take you in, standing in front of chaos central continuing to go off behind you.  Do you… look as freshly disheveled as you are?  You’re not supposed to be here, you know, but hopefully the only strange thing is your presence itself and not anything concerning your appearance.

“Nerida,” the older lady suddenly announces, the name alone holding so much expectation, and the younglings missing their candy have now turned their ire towards you and the crinkly food wrapper hidden in your fist.  “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, yeah,” you stand up a little straighter, letting the chocolate casually fall out of your grip behind you, and a stampede of feet suddenly kick up to recover it.  It’s fine, nobody will know, it’s fine.  “It’s just…”  Your head tips behind you to the cause of the uproar, feeling a bit sheepish yet so incredibly fond.  “My… kid.”

Sister Drya stares at you for a few seconds, before tipping sideways and staring at the culprit.  “That is your child?”

You turn around just in time to see him, now abandoned by the angry mob of children, finally notice you.  All of a sudden, his pitch black eyes light up something bright and sunshiney, and you just start beaming in return.  What an adorable little creature, apple of your eye and pain of your ass.

“Yep,” you sigh, dropping into a squat and watching him barrel towards you, catching him right before he can trip over his brown potato sack and scooping him up into your arms.  “Hiya, bug,” you murmur with a grin, lifting back up and plopping him in his favorite spot in the universe—your left hip.  “You making friends?”

He giggles and it’s like sparkles and bubbles fill the room instead, wrapping tiny arms around the largest surface area he can get and clinging.  He laughs with a tiny open mouth, bless him, clearly not understanding the sarcasm, and suddenly your eyes feel just the slightest bit wet.  No, you’re not crying, don’t be fucking ridiculous, but you missed him like hell and he’s just the cutest fucking thing—why do you feel like crying?

“Sorry about that,” you apologize to the two women while slowly turning around, brushing your thumb over one of his cheeks and smiling as it squishes.  “He’s… uh.  Not great at sharing.  We’ll work on it.”

Takes after his dad, you purposefully leave out, just a different kind of sharing.  Din hasn’t shown you his full face yet and the kid performs magic tricks to taunt a roomful of children a fraction of his age for a single piece of chocolate, completely different kind of sharing.

Sister Drya says something in response, but when you look up to address her, all you see is Din standing silently behind her and Naydee, slowly dropping his hand from his helmet to his side.  They don’t seem to notice he’s there and you automatically try your best to pay attention to the Sister speaking to you, but your eyes get caught on the silver reflecting in the dim light beyond.  Fuck, he’s a presence.  An immediate distraction, taking all your focus with a single glimpse.  Seeing him fully armored again, staring at you from the silent shadows behind everything… you melt a little bit, knowing that you’ve seen more of what’s underneath than anyone.  Your shoulders settle and your entire body burns warm, wobbly like the air around a fire, and one of the kid’s hands leaves you to reach out towards his dad.

You watch the metallic helmet tilt sideways after a moment, saying everything without saying anything.  Come on, make up an excuse, let’s get out of here.

Looking at him in the quiet shadows, you’re reminded once again about how much you love him, how much softness you have inside you for a man so hard, so guarded.  And, for the first time, a voice in your head finishes a poem you didn’t realize you were writing, adding its own verse and bringing everything back around to the beginning.  He loves you, too.  How much he lets his guard down for you, the way he’s revealed more of his face to you than not.  You love each other.  You’re family.

So, all at once, you decide to mess with him, because that’s what family does best.

“Don’t be shy, come say hello,” you suddenly urge his silent figure, taking a step forward and speaking directly to him.  “Sister Drya, Naydee, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

It’s remarkable, you see it happen in front of you.  Like he has powers of his own, Din just literally fucking disappears.  Like magic, he’s nowhere to be found within a blink of an eye.  You know he’s capable of it; he’s done it plenty of times during the chase just to fuck with your head, but you’re staring straight at him when it happens this time and it might just be the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever seen him do.

Sister Drya and Naydee both turn around to an empty hallway bathed in shadows and you laugh.  A deep, shameless, loud belly laugh.  Where the fuck did he go so quick?  You were staring straight at him and you have no fucking clue.  He’s just out, and you’re left alone with his child and the unspoken understanding that he’ll just catch up with you later.

You’re giggling even as you shake your head and give the women your genuine thanks for keeping you and feeding you these past few days, grabbing your backpack with all your belongings and eventually using three green fingers to wave goodbye to them.  The very first thing Din says when he seamlessly joins you outside the Keja later is, “That wasn’t funny,” which just makes you laugh harder.

***

About a half hour has passed, and you’re walking along a dirt road, cradling a very happy baby in your arms and giving the grown man next to you an incredibly hard time.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, your back twinging slightly at the way you’re leaning about as sideways as you can get without falling over.  You think you’re basically just the hypotenuse between the ground and Din, who easily supports almost your entire weight with your backpack slung around his far shoulder and readily allows you to rest against him.

“They’re fine,” he grumbles in response, squeezing you tight to his side.  You just have to focus on moving your feet; it’s like he’s practically carrying your upper-half anyways.  “I gave them the night off.”

“You stuffed them in a closet,” you hiss, feeling his shoulder shrug under your cheek.

“I gave them the robe back,” he says, not really defending himself and more just throwing it out there to see if it helps any.  “I’m sure someone’s found them by now, they’re fine.”

Your eyes suddenly go wide, absolutely mortified at the thought.  “Wait.  What do you mean you gave the robe back?”

He shrugs once more, apparently not seeing the problem yet.  “I borrowed it, so I gave it back after I put my armor back on.”

If you could plant your feet on the dirt road and screech to a halt, you would, but all your weight is already resting on him and you’re working solely off his forward movement.  You just hope your tone holds the same amount of shocked disapproval your body language would’ve conveyed if you weren’t so completely attached to his hip like a parasite he adores.

“You fucked me wearing it, though.”  Your voice is strangely flat, so fucking confused and horrified by the mental image of him just tossing the soiled garments haphazardly somewhere in the temple behind you, or even worse, leaving them somewhere respectful, and Din soon stops in the middle of the deserted road.

“Oh,” is all he says, emotionless and blank through the modulator.  Did he not even consider this?

“I had to promise them I was a virgin just to sleep there, you know,” you admit, and you can tell that’s brand new information to him with how still he goes as you continue to lean against him.  You’re getting the feeling that he probably knows a lot more about your experiences on this moon than you think he does, but can tell that this is brand new information to him.  “And you locked three of their holy men in a closet, chased me across the temple grounds, fucked me in one of their robes, and then.  You gave it.  Back.”

Din stays perfectly silent for quite some time.  You can never go back to that place, you know this for a fact.  You’re banned forever now, it’s what you deserve.

Never one to be outdone but not actually having anything to say for himself, Din suddenly decides to just scoop you into his arms and boost up into the sky without a single word like an actual fucking maniac.

You squeal and damn near drop the baby because of it, but he cinches you tight to his chest and refuses to loosen with your struggle.  Eventually, after you realize he’s completely locked you in and you won’t fall to your death with this poor innocent child in your arms, you glance over the shiny pauldron on his shoulder and watch the kid’s crib disappear by the abandoned road as Din takes you higher and higher.

The crib—he forgot the crib—

“D-Din,” you stammer out through the whistling air, stiff as a board.  Stars, you have such a different sense of adventure than him; an explorer and a daredevil, one who gets a thrill from discovering the existence of the edge of a cliff and one who’ll take a running dive off of it without thinking twice.  He’s hit with blaster fire some days, he faces down death completely fearless like it owes him one every single time, and you’re stiff as a fucking board while he carries you through the sky.  It’s stunning up here, it’s exciting and wonderful, but you’re so scared that you can barely even look.  He’s giving you the most fantastical view, everything your budding adventurous streak could ever ask for, and your terror is crushing.  It would be different if you could hold on, but you’re responsible for not letting the baby slip through your arms and you just have to trust that he won’t let you slip through his.

You raise your voice.  “Din?!”

“I won’t drop you,” he automatically reassures, and well you sure as fuck hope not, but there’s something else.

“What about the crib?”  You call out over the wind whipping, tucking the baby tight to your chest and settling your hands over his ears to avoid them flapping and whacking you repeatedly in the chin.

“We’ll come back for it,” he responds, just as easily.  Maker, you wish decision-making came that easy to you, that commitment and choice should be so simple as to just fly away from things on the ground and promise out loud to come back for them.  You know he will, but still, his spontaneity shocks you after spending the past week thinking every decision through meticulously, and you’re taken aback by the casualness of it all while soaring through the sky, committing such spectacular feats without a single thought beyond it.

Soon—incredibly soon, which honestly kind of blows your mind—you spot Nariss glowing in the distance and then you’re flying overtop of the city, slowly dropping altitude in the middle of a quiet little side street.

Din carefully allows your feet to settle on the ground before letting go, but you still stumble a bit stupidly after flying so high without any sort of safety measure besides him, prioritizing the steadiness of the baby in your arms instead of your feet underneath you.  His gloves catch at your clumsy body and pull you along with him without another word, leading you out of the quiet alley and into the middle of a beautiful, luminescent street.

What’s he doing?  He seems slightly hurried, and you’re clueless but you go with it, clamoring along behind him to wherever he’s leading you.

Though, you suddenly remember one of the very last things you told him last night right before he steps up in front of a vendor.

“Caf,” Din grunts, sliding a few credits towards the man standing behind the counter. “The… biggest one you have.”

Okay, well.  You could just about fucking cry.

“Y’sure?” The vendor asks skeptically, jerking his head at the large thermos behind him.  He’s balding, wearing a white outfit with his eyes scrunched up and forehead sweaty, likely working all day.  “It ain’t fresh.  Closin’ up soon, was just about to trash it and go home.”

The helmet turns to gauge your response to the news, the sharp angles and contours looking so sleek and dangerous as they reflect the colorful lamplights, but just filling you with comfort beyond anything in the entire galaxy.  He’ll take that armor off for you tonight and you’ll sleep next to him.  He’ll call you by your given name, or the fond name he’s given you, and you’ll cuddle your baby on a metal floor in hyperspace with him, and all will be well.  Even if he needs to leave again soon—even if you don’t get to go with him, you’ll always have these small eternities with each other, and that’s more enough for you now.

You’re completely zoned out while staring at him, and Din turns back to the vendor before you can even remember the conflict he was attempting to defer to you.

“Yeah, just empty the whole thing in there for her,” he mutters, and you want to marry him.  It’s been a long week, and in your haze and delight of being with him in this gorgeous setting, your brain turns to cavewoman mush.  Big man, makes me happy.  Strong man, loves me, knows me.  Provider, makes me feel good, protector, loves me.

Din hands you the large cup of steaming caffeine, clueless to your grunted inner monologue but knowing better than to reach out and grab the kid from your other arm.  You’re just fine like this, hands full, the little frog snuggled up against your side and blinking up at your face instead of any of the shiny or glowing things around you.  When you look down at him, you can see the world through his eyes—quite literally, they’re reflective and gigantic—and his father’s hand quickly finds its preferred spot on your lower back.

“Try to drink it quick,” Din advises you gruffly, pulling you snug into his side and sloshing the big cupful of piping hot liquid in your hand.

“It’s a thousand degrees,” you protest, trying to balance your three favorite things in the universe all begging for your direct attention at once.  “It has to cool down.”

He gives a dismissive hm in response, and you frown even as your heart soars with how tightly he’s gripping you, how little leeway you have to even move without him.  Part of you is so thrilled at being reunited with him that you consider snarking something back at him, excitement making you brave.  He could probably chug boiling hot liquid in thirty seconds and doesn’t see the point in letting it sit any longer, and you could make some stupid joke about filtering it through his helmet or having a built in bendy straw but you decide to keep it to yourself.

So then you just stand there together, under stringed lights and flowers everywhere, and he waits.  Holding you glued to his side, completely silent and clearly just waiting for your caf to stop steaming so threateningly in your hand so you can drink it.  For some reason, the fact that he’s wanted by the New Republic doesn’t really register at this second—you’re not looking for cops, though he may be.  You’re just lost in this beautiful, fancy city that’s on the edge of finally quieting down after a long day, and you’d like to see more of it with him next to you.

“Well, do you wanna just…”  You ask, tilting your head around at all the vendors.  “Shop around for a bit?”

“Shop… around,” Din repeats slowly, sounding the words out like they’re not common Basic.  Admittedly, they do sit a bit awkward in his voice when put together like that, describing a phenomena he’s likely never even considered a thing before, but it’s so fucking pretty here and you’d like to show him something this time instead of the other way around.

“Yeah, like,” you shrug a shoulder, tipping your head in a random direction.  Anywhere, you’ll go literally anywhere with him, the three of you can go explore.  “Just wander around, and look at all the pretty things.”

From where you’re standing right now, you can already see glittering crystals and jewels being sold at the tent across the street, there’s a booth dedicated entirely to floral arrangements and crowns next to it, you can hear a distant quartet playing melodically in the distance and a couple is being painted by an artist on the corner.  Bars are in full swing at this point, as if they weren’t all day, and even though the merchandise is all different, the multicolored tents look slightly similar when they’re underlit with multicolored lights.  It’s less slightly lively than it was in the daytime, but also… more beautiful, in a sense.  Muted, softer, more romantic.

“I don’t have any more credits,” Din admits casually, finally turning to look around at everything.  You get the feeling that he’s just now seeing it, even after spending the entire day here.  “That stale caf was the last of it.”

Money well fucking spent, you can assure him of that.

“It’s okay,” you tell him automatically, gently bumping your hip into his.  “We don’t need credits, we can just look.”

So that’s what you do.  Even though it’s completely not his fucking style, for the next hour or so, you just walk around downtown with him and sip your caf, looking at anything and everything new and experiencing it with him.  At first, you think he’s just entertaining you, following you while you discover new streets and attractions, but then he points out different things and you know he's looking, too.  There are large animals harnessed up and pulling carts for people to ride, there's an enormous spinning wheel set up in the distance, its colorful lights flickering out as soon as you ask what the fuck that is and why anyone would ever get inside one.

You eventually end up finishing your caf around the time he’s leading you back through a quiet, abandoned alleyway, and you hand him the empty cup to throw away in one of the trash cans on the corner.  The conversation has faded to a comfortable quiet and you don’t really need to ask—you go willingly, not requiring anything beyond his hands on you and the baby dozing in your arms.

“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs, gently sweeping you up into his.  You sigh, glad he’s giving you a moment to prepare yourself this time, holding the sleeping kid securely to your chest and resting your head on his shoulder.  “Let’s go home.”

After you’re comfortable, Din rockets up from the ground and climbs high up into the canvas sky.  He disappears with you and the baby into the pastel clouds above, making it back to the Razor Crest in probably about an hour, maybe less.  You and the baby do nothing more than climb into the comfy floor blankets while Din starts up the engines, and you think you’re dozing off together by the time he makes the pit stop to collect the crib and the jump into hyperspace.

You think he might shower?  You’re not sure—you just know he moves up behind you in bed at one point without any armor, burying his face in your hair while you cuddle the sleepy kid to your chest.  It’s dark in the hull, Din’s palms are bare and warm as they slide around the front of your body and he breathes you in, and there isn’t a single place that can touch you here, not a single place you’d rather be.

Home.

***

@followwhereshegoes​ Thank you for the stunning artwork! 💕To anyone interested in possibly doing an art collab in the future, please message me!!

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mando x reader #mando x you #smut #reader insert #fanfic #star wars #rough day #no-droids

[bubbledumbbinch]

Hi, there! I'm new here! Can I get the dorm leaders' (including Jamil's) reaction to their fem! s/o who suddenly passes out due to stress and when she wakes up, she tearfully confesses that she was traumatized by their Overblots. What can they do to comfort her? Fluff/angst combo. Please and thanks!

Yes yes! I will only be including the people who have overblotted so far so no Ignihyde or Diasomnia yet!

I also am sorry I just didn’t want to make s/o faint in all scenarios? I did in most tho!! Sorry >< I hope this is okay!!

Also also, sorry I haven’t posted in SO long!! I just came back from 2 vacations including a week long trip to Disney world!!

Warnings: angst, spoilers for everyone’s chapters I guess?

Riddle Rosehearts

In the following weeks of Riddle’s overblot, he was working to try to be a better leader to Heartslabyul. However, old habits don’t die very easily. You saw Riddle’s wrath once again when he scolded some students who had gotten into a fight and had promptly used his unique magic.

“OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!” His voice resounded off the walls and the harshness of his voice brought awful flashbacks into your mind. Then, everything went black.

When you wake, Riddle is over your body, his large grey eyes were scanning over you panicked. When he asked what happened, you broke down and told him that you remembered his overblot and fainted.

Riddle’s guilt would skyrocket. He never intended to hurt so many people including one of his closest friends Trey and especially not you. Even after a few weeks he didn’t realize it would weigh so much on so many others.

Riddle would turn red from shame while hiding his face in the crook of your neck. As he starts to chant “I’m sorry”s over and over, he starts to sob shakily, also making you start to release the tears that were in your eyes.

Riddle takes care of you personally - brings you to bed, attempts to cooks for you, studies with you, anything he can do to gain your trust back.

“I- I’ll be better. A better person. For you, for everybody in Heartslabyul, for me.” Riddle was hiccuping from crying. You kissed Riddle’s cheek and stroked it, trying to wipe his tears from his face. “I know, Riddle. I can see you trying every day and you’re getting better and better.” It was true. You personally saw him interacting with students and knew his relationship with everyone was improving. With time, things will get a lot easier to process emotions and the feelings from that eventful day.

Leona Kingscholar

Leona’s practice session for Magift wasn’t going as planned. You noticed he was getting angrier and angrier with his poor plays while sitting on the sidelines.

When he finally had enough he grabbed the disc and turned it into sand, growling in anger. He shouted at his teammates and physically threatened them.

You felt your heart stop as your boyfriend continued to scream. The last thing you saw before falling was Epel’s shocked face as you hit the ground.

When you woke up, the team members were all circled around you, only to be scared away by Leona’s growling.

When you admitted you had PTSD from his overblot, he looked away in shame. The beastman didn’t say much - it’s not like he COULD say anything. He knew he was wrong at that moment but he was only frustrated at the game.

Leona tries to spend more time with you by pulling you into his arms when he naps. He mumbles softly about being sorry and telling you he loves you. You know that it’s a lot for him to even do that, so it means a lot to you.

As Leona held you in his arms, you couldn’t help but tighten your arm’s grip on his. “My little herbivore… I’m sorry..” It was a whisper. Almost quiet enough to the point of you not hearing it. Soon after, the soft rise and fall of his chest indicated he was asleep. Leona’s pride was high. He never expressed his feelings through words - but feeling his arms embrace you protectively, you knew how sorry he was and how regretful he was to make you feel so upset.

Azul Ashengrotto

It had been a few months since you’d seen Azul overblot. You figured everything had gone back to normal - you were dating steadily, which was going well, and Azul treated you well.

One day though, he lost his control. Under his own stress and when his business affairs weren’t going as well as planned, he blew up and you heard him scream at someone from the outside the VIP room - all too familiar to the yelling he did when he overblotted.

You felt stuck - your feet were planted outside of his office and your nerves got the better of your motor functions. You knew you loved Azul but that moment when you saw his insecurities and too much power getting a hold of him, you were truly scared. You barely remember registering any memories as things started to fade.

“Shrimpy wake up!!” You were suddenly being shaken about, earning a gasp from you. Azul sighed next to Floyd and Jade. He asked you what had happened - he found you outside his office in a daze.

Once you truthfully told him about your memories of his overblot his expression fell. Azul was emotional and his feelings of rejection would flare up. You would need to tell him you still love him because something in him will tell him you don’t.

Azul spoils you a bit and makes sure you are not present or in the area, working in the lounge only when he isn’t dealing with complicated contracts.

Azul is also happy you weren’t traumatized due to the fact you saw his octopus form - he was very worried about that possibility.

“Angelfish, tell me, what is it you want? Anything, I’ll give it to you, please just forgive me…” Azul tearfully grasped your hands in his, glasses fogging up. It was seldom at times you saw Azul break his smile. “A-Azul, you can’t just give me something to make me forget. I need to process this and I wouldn’t be surprised if other people need to, as well. Just… be there for me.” You spoke, rubbing his cheek with your thumb as your hand cupped his face. Azul freely let his tears run down his face. “Of course, angelfish. I promise.”

Jamil Viper

You were simply looking over at the view of the desert sand from the common room of Scarabia. It wasn’t long after Jamil’s overblot.

Things have changed in the dynamic of the dorm - him and Kalim were closer now that suppressed feelings could be free, Jamil gained the trust back from most if not all the members, and you both started dating.

The more you stared into the distance, the more it reminded you of that fateful day. Visions of the dark red stormy sky invaded your thoughts while you swore you could hear Jamil’s sinister laughter growing louder and louder.

Memories being hurled from the dorm to the cold desert sand invaded your senses as you fell to the ground.

When you opened your eyes, you flinched back when you saw Jamil so close to you, making his eyes look hurt. Jamil would surround you with soft pillows and a silk sheet he must have borrowed from Kalim.

Once he finally pries your feelings out of you after you don’t want to tell him the truth, Jamil looks pained. He didn’t want to hurt you.

Jamil would give you time to think, knowing how much alone time is valued. Whether you want him to give you space or spend time with him is up to you.

“I’m, I’m sorry, y/n…” his eyes dropped to look at the floor, ashamed. “I’ll give you some time alone to think about our relationship, if that’s what you want.” The weight he added to the bed was lifted as the raven haired boy started to walk away. “No, Jamil, please stay with me.” Your voice seemed to shock him. He turned and looked at you, surprised. “I like you for you. I know you were having a hard time, and it was scary for you too. We can get stronger together! So please… don’t leave me.” You pleaded, cursing your voice for sounding weaker than you intended. Jamil’s brown eyes softened and a smile, a genuine one at that, made its way to his face.

Vil Schoenheit

Surprise surprise, Vil was checking the internet search results to see who the most beautiful one of all was. Vil had recently shot a movie and the trailer had come out an hour prior.

When the phone had still said the name he dreaded, he threw his phone down in frustration, making you flinch. He didn’t even know you were in the vicinity, you were in the hallway looking into his room as his back faced you in his room.

When you spoke his name softly, he replied callously in his response, making you freeze. His demeanor was mean to say the least, his eyes looked tired and he just looked angry.

It reminded you all too much of his overblot, which happened a few weeks back. You slowly backed into a wall and started to whimper.

Vil would realize his errors quickly and come running to your aid. He coos and strokes your hair, telling you he was sorry for lashing out. When you tell him it reminded you of his overblot, guilt racks through him.

Vil hugs you tightly and apologizes over and over. He would definitely be one to spend an entire day devoted to spoiling you, taking you to your favorite restaurant, giving you personalized facials, and shopping with you.

Vil knows this won’t resolve the issue, but he’s going to let you know how much you mean to him and how sorry he is, over time.

Vil looked over your shaking form with trembling hands. His soft, slender hands came to grasp your own. “Y/N, Y/N please answer me..!” You could only look away. “Vil, it reminded me of your… your overblot! I’m sorry…” your tears flowed freely now, staining your cheeks. You always thought you looked ugly when you cried so this only felt like salt in the wound. When Vil looked at you now, his eyes were looking into yours, deeper into you than what you physically offered. “I… that must have been scary for you, Y/N. I’m truly, so sorry. You had to see an ugly side of me that I never want to come out again.”

#twst x reader #twst headcanons #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #twst imagines #riddle rosehearts #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto #jamil viper #vil schoenheit #twst x you #overblot #twst dorm leaders

[violettelueur]

— (EX-YAKUZA!AU) NANAMI KENTO || WAY OF THE HOUSE HUSBAND 

↳ featuring : nanami kento from jujutsu kaisen

↳ warnings : mention of violence + grammar issues

↳ form : headcanons

↳ published : 23 may

↳ pronouns : she/her

↳ request : Hello~Could I request ex-yakuza Nanami and his wife? Especially since The Way of The House Husband is coming out (ex-yakuza husband turned house husband and his working badass wife) and the VA for Nanami is voicing the husband from the show! Headcannons of their domestic life together? Nanami deserves to rest and just be a house husband （＾＿＾）☆

↳ barista’s notes : so i have begin to notice that none of my work shows up on the tags and i’m beginning to wonder if i am shadowbanned or i did something on my settings...so i shall check after posting this ʕ ᵒ ᴥ ᵒʔ other than that, i hope you enjoy your cup of classic black coffee and come back soon ʕ•ᴥ•ʔﾉ♡

When you first met Nanami...let’s just say that no one knows how you both met at all except for the both of you...and no one ever brings it up when having a conversation with you both.

The grey suit with the blue shirt and leopard print yellow tie is a common sight for you to see (and you ain’t complaining at all) - add a little yellow apron on, shall I?

Nanami is a surprisingly good baker as he always makes sure to bake a loaf of bread in the morning for your lunch that he is going to prepare for you next.

If you ever forget about your lunch, he will deliver it to you in his classic bike and when he comes in, he does scare some of your co-workers since they instantly can sense the Yakuza vibe from him.

To be honest, even being married to him for how ever long you have been married, it is still very scary how clean the house is when you come home from your job...like it was clean before you left but for some reason, you can tell the difference instantly -  you always say ‘scary’ when you observe the house.

When you ever go outside to do something, you are always greeted by the older ladies within the area you are in because Nanami is well aquatinted with them from the sports activities you encouraged him to do - he did mumble something about sessions going overtime a bit too much.

When your parents come to visit the both of you, just know Nanami will go into the whole chef mood like he is in the Masterchef TV show to impress them - even though he already did when you first started dating since his gentlemen like mannerism sometimes cover the fact that he was a yakuza.

Nanami will make you stray away from housework because if you do it...what the hell is he going to do to fill his ‘househusband’ role - though he does hate work, housework is something he loves doing since it’s his way of appreciating the hard work you do that he hates (like a job)

Whenever he goes out, police do look at him in the weirdest way and do get the wrong message on what he is doing from time to time and it’s funny to you because of the way he plays it off so seriously - his glasses makes it funnier.

Even though you told him many times to quit, you can’t help but find him smoking really sexy...just the bad boy vibes you want to keep but want to take away at the same time.

You are the only person that can hit him physically without getting any repercussions because you are his wife, who dreams to be someone that no other person can be - like when he compliments you in front of someone and you get embarrassed, you can’t help but spark him in the door.

There are times when Nanami keeps his Yakuza habits to the point where you have to physically stop him like one time he had gifted you something but you already got it - if you know, you know.

When you go in public with him, people will come up to you and ask if you are okay once Nanami goes to fetch something he had forgotten and when you inform them that he is your husband...they will assume that it was some way to pay off a debt you didn’t have enough money to pay back for.

During shopping trips for him, he is always wary of your health and all the good nutrients that you have to have in a balanced diet like if you drop a bottle of Fanta, he will say you already have some and ‘stoking up’ isn’t a good excuse.

You both will lightly argue about what you need and what you don’t need when shopping because we both know that you both set up a budget that you are willing to break - always make sure to hold his loyalty card for him because sometimes he will forget.

Since he is an ex-yakuza, he is wary about your safety and what’s to make sure that wherever you are, you are okay and safe - expect a few calls here and there.

Overall, Nanami converting from a yakuza to a househusband really tells you how much he is devoted to you and how much he loves you to the point he will quit having a normal life with you - it really does warm your heart to the point where the are times when you would cry in his arms in appreciation and he will ask ‘who does he need to kill’.

© violettelueur 2021 : written and published by violettelueur - do not steal or repost

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen headcanons #jujutsu kaisen headcanon #jujutsu kaisen hcs #jjk headcanons #jjk headcanon #jjk hcs #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #nanami kento #kento nanami #nanami kento headcanons #nanami kento headcanon #nanami kento hcs #kento nanami headcanons #kento nanami headcanon #kento nanami hcs #nanami kento x reader #kento nanami x reader

[xpeachesncream]

bands | sixteen

[ series masterlist ]

summary: jeon jungkook has it all: the looks, the fame, the money, the women. being considered the sexiest man in the industry, he finds no complaints about the way his life is going nor does he find any reason to apologize for the way he approaches it. he is a force to be reckoned with - until he meets you.

pairing: stripper!reader x idol!jjk

genre: (18+) strip club/nightlife au, post grad au | fluff, angst, smut

words: 5.0k

warnings: cussing, mature language/implied sexual content, angst, anxiety, alcohol consumption, slight intoxication, physical abuse, slight verbal abuse, belittling, mentions of cuts/wounds but nothing too graphic, mentions of coke

tags: @brightcolorsoffendme @min-nicoleee @eggbutnotyolk @ra-mun-e @miinoongi @jimidol @ppeachyttae @thebeebi @bluesharksandfish @kooafraid @liriaus @thisartemisnevermisses @ggukkieland @preciouschimine @sunniejinnie @cypheruby @cyb3rbab3 @masterlists101 @awhnamjoon @redhedhoseok @wooya1224 @taeismydeath​ @jikookiekosmos​ @un2-verse​ @aynsx​ @wearenot7withu​ @knjeuphoria​ @bringitseijoh​ (closed!)

Jungkook laid on the dorm couch, legs sprawled out as he wore his hood and covered his face as much as possible. He shut his eyes, trying to make sense of the cryptic texts you had sent him.

"We shouldn't do this anymore."

"I can't do this, Jungkook."

"You don't deserve this."

"I'm only trouble."

"We aren't going to work."

He repeatedly called you, asking for an explanation, a way to help make things better because none of this should have been the reason for you to want to call it 'quits' like that. He asked for you to talk to him. He'd call and after two rings, it'd bring him straight to voicemail. It never failed. Indeed, there was much more to the text but he only fixated on a few lines, and those few lines seem to be circling his head time and time again with no sign of leaving him alone.

"I think I'm falling in too deep and I need to stop this while I can. You hear them, you hear the shit they say. I would never let them ruin you, I don't want them to. You deserve better. Maybe it's true that I don't fit into this."

It frustrates him, every single time. Where the hell did he go wrong? Why was there a sudden change? Something was off, and god forbid if his assumptions were right. But, everything was leading right back to it. The way you called in sick, the way you shut everyone out. The way you texted him these things, wouldn't pick up his calls just to tell him you're busy or whatever the hell it was. It didn't sound like you. It didn't seem like you at all.

All things led right back to the club. To Bigs. Where you felt high and mighty. Wanted. Like no one could ever hurt you the way they did outside of the club because they worshipped you in there. They knelt down to you. The way you were so fucking tough there. He knew this is where you would fall back if things got rough. He couldn't help but think that you had been forced into it though, because he knew you didn't give a shit about that anymore. Ah well, forced or not, it just felt so off. Unusual.

"Hey." Namjoon sits on the floor near Jungkook's head. "You good?" He asks even though he's fully aware he's not. Joon hates those people who ask if something's wrong when clearly, something is wrong — however, he wasn't really sure how else to open up this conversation without coming off too pushy or forward. Too insensitive, even.

"Nope."

"What's going on?" Jungkook sighs as he tries to lower his hood even more, although there's no more of his hood to lower. He keeps his hand on his face, trying his hardest to keep himself together.

"I don't know." Now, going back to earlier — everyone can tell Jungkook isn't happy. They've tried to butter him up and make him feel better even though they knew you were the only person who could truly make him happy again. They've tried to talk to him in one way or another, but they never forced him if he didn't want to. The only person that really hasn't said much was Jimin, and that also pisses him off because if he had anything to do with this, he will surely fuck him up for ruining his happiness.

"You hear from Y/N? She still sick? Does she need anything?"

"She's not sick."

"Hm?" Joon slightly turns back, confused.

"Something else is wrong."

"Like what?"

"She's not picking up my calls. Not answering my texts the way she normally does. When she does, it's super blunt or one worded."

"Maybe she's really not feeling well, or just caught up with things—"

"No, hyung. I know her, she always has her priorities straight. Even if she was sick, she wouldn't do this. She wouldn't go as far as to shutting her own brother out."

"Idol life too overwhelming? I get it." Jimin jokes as he walks into the kitchen, making Jungkook shoot his head up to glare at him.

"The fuck, can you not? I don't see why you feel the need to joke around right now."

"Jeez, sorry. I just thought I'd lighten up the mood somehow."

"Come on, dude." Namjoon looks at him with disappointment, Jimin only returning the gesture by rolling his eyes and walking away. "How can I help you?" Joon asks, returning his attention back to Jungkook.

"Maybe I was being selfish bringing her into all of this. These people— they're fucking mean, and she's already had her fair share of dealing with mean people. How am I supposed to protect her all while not feeling selfish about it?"

"You're not selfish, who told you that?"

"Jimin." That's like strike.. whatever to Namjoon at this point. Why the hell was Jimin being so fucking weird?

"Look, I know it's not easy in this industry. But I think what you can do is prove to her that you won't hurt her, especially with everyone around her doing nothing but hurting her. You need to show her that you're different from the rest of them, that she can fully trust you. If I were in her shoes, to be honest, it would be scary for me. You got a whole lot of shit going on in your life. You're expected to provide a lot, and on top of that, you haven't had the best reputation with women."

"Yeah, I hear you."

"Then, nothing else matters. You keep fighting for her if she really matters to you. Does she?"

"Of course she does, I mean, can't you tell? I've never been this way over someone." Joon nods.

"You sure as fuck haven't. It still catches me and the guys by surprise. But, I'm happy to see someone helping you become a better person. She's been nothing but genuinely sweet, and I know she already does a hell of a job taking care of you."

"She's— I don't know. She's become so important to me."

"I know she has, and I'm happy to hear that. I really am." Joon sighs. "So tell me, what can I do? I hate seeing you like this."

"Well, I'm sure as hell not allowed at the club. Bigs will do anything to get back at me for what I did to him. He won't hesitate."

"I won't let him. We won't. You really think she went back?" Jungkook nods.

"Positive. Something doesn't feel right. It feels weird. And I feel like she was egged into this. I don't like it one bit."

"Want me to go check out the club tonight?"

"Yeah, please?" Jungkook says. "But don't be too obvious. Bring Jin hyung or someone who could use a lap dance or two."

"Sooo Jin hyung?" They chuckle.

"Yeah, exactly."

"And if she's there?"

"Then I'm going straight to her tomorrow night. I just need to make sure I do this right because I don't want her or Kai to get hurt. I'll stay out there if I have to just to make sure she doesn't go back. What else do I have to do—" Jungkook pauses to stop himself because this clearly wasn't you. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Who the fuck made her do this?"

"Bigs, who else?"

"No, she wouldn't listen to just Bigs. He's definitely working with someone and using shit against her."

"Okay, let's just not assume the worst. I'll head there tonight and drag Jin hyung with me."

"Thanks hyung, I really appreciate it."

"No problem." Joon gently massages his shoulder before getting up from his spot to make his way back to his room.

All Jungkook can think about doing is sleeping more right now. He'll send the occasional text to check on Kai and see how he was doing, but they both worried too much about you and Jungkook would hate to tell him that you ended up going back to the club. He didn't think he would tell him, he didn't think he'd have to because he was gonna make sure to get you out of there before shit hit the roof again. If it hasn't already, and he's hoping it hasn't.

And so when Namjoon and Jin hyung [obviously in need of that lap dance or two] head out to the club, Jungkook stays in his dorm room, suddenly feeling the adrenaline rushing through his body even though he can't do shit besides sit here and wait. He goes through the random pictures he's taken of you - the cute, candid photos he had of you, the cute candid photo of you as his lock screen. He deletes all the texts in his inbox even though he knows it might have been a little late. It honestly hasn't mattered to him in such a long time, but he just never got around to wiping his inbox clean since he was so caught up with you - his baby.

"Is this going to turn into some kind of action movie? We bust through the doors, take down all the guards and steal Y/N?"

"No, hyung. Jesus. Do you forget you're an idol? That's probably the very last thing we should do."

"So, what do we do?"

"We just walk in there like we normally do?"

"Boring."

"Plus, we can't have Bigs onto us like that. We have to act like we don't know anything."

"Do you really think he's using something against her?"

"I don't know. I have to be honest though, I think Jimin's involved."

"W-what?" Jin says, furrowing his brows. "No, he can't be."

"Trust me. He always acts so weird around her, and he's probably the one person who hasn't taken this as seriously. He hasn't said anything to Jungkook."

"But why though?"

"I don't know, beats me. I just don't think he respects her. Or, likes her. Whatever it is."

"She hasn't done anything to him though."

"That makes it worse, doesn't it?"

"How could you be so sure?"

"Look hyung, I'm not. I just think he's involved. My gut says so. We'll find out whether I'm right or not, right?"

"I hope you aren't. That'll really mess Kookie up."

"Well. I love him, but he'll have to learn the hard way for butting into someone else's business like that. No matter what the reason is." Namjoon parks the car and fixes his rolled up sleeves before adjusting the Rolex on his wrist. He looks at Jin once more, nodding in approval once they both feel like they've fixed themselves enough to look presentable, not questionable.

Meanwhile, you had just finished up your time on stage so you headed to the back to take a break. Bigs hadn't given you the option to secure private bookings knowing damn well there would be opportunity for Jungkook and some of his boys to slip through and try to work their magic in private. As much as possible, you were just trying to protect Jungkook, even though you knew he wouldn't back down without a fight. You knew Bigs wasn't all that tough, but right now, he seemed to hold a lot of power with Jimin being on his team. And you knew damn well it was Jimin all along. Did you have concrete evidence? No. But your gut feeling might as well be enough with the way he talks to you. Why else would Bigs all of a sudden feel all mighty? Bigs had threatened Jungkook and your brother enough to keep your mouth shut. Enough to keep your attitude level at a 0.

The scene played in your head over and over again—

"I gave you a better life, you ungrateful piece of shit. You do as I say and your little Jungkook and your little Kai won't get hurt. You think I'm scared of them, sweetie? You think I'm scared of you? Your stepfather don't give a damn about you two. I can easily send my men down to do their magic, especially after how Jungkook treated me. Is that how he repays me after all the special treatment I've given him?" Mr. Bigs hunched over you. "You two wanna play me like a fool, I'll show you two what it's like to be played like a fool." He pulled on your hair before aggressively releasing and spitting to the side.

There was no way they would get dragged into this. Not anymore. They didn't deserve to be included in this no matter what it was.

Boy, did you miss Jungkook. Everything about him. It took everything in you not to come running back. It took everything in you not to answer those calls or texts like you normally would.

You chose him, every single time. You wish he knew that. Him and Kai.

You sighed, sipping on the flask you snuck in. The alcohol relieving you of any pain, helping you feel numb as the night goes on. You didn't want to feel tonight, you just didn't. Why would you, when everything had just been hurting you lately?

You had just finished dancing out on the main stage, throwing your ass back to some Megan and Cardi. A few other dancers were gathered at a vanity, sneakily sniffing lines of coke while Bigs and his men were busy paroling the main stage.

"You want some of this, sis? In celebration of you coming back?" One of the other dancers smirks at you. You simply shake your head no and return to the flask in your hand.

"I'm good, thank you."

"Alright, well it's here if you want it. Just let me know, babe." Her and the other dancers go back to their business on the vanity. However, another dancer continues to eye you, sympathy filling her expression as she approaches you while you sip on your flask once more. You were starting to feel pretty tipsy again, hoping you could just hide out in the back 'till the very end of your shift.

"Y/N." She says, her hand gently on your arm. "You okay?"

"I'm good." You purse your lips together to prevent yourself from tearing up. Those words were triggering for you because you were not okay, whatsoever.

"Why did you come back, babe?" She genuinely asks, worried about you. "Did Bigs do something?"

"No." You lied. "Things just didn't work out elsewhere I guess, and I need money."

"Didn't work out? I saw the way Jungkook handled Bigs that night." If anything, she was probably the one dancer who paid attention to the environment around her. Everyone else was oblivious to the shit that's been happening and that's because they didn't give a fuck about anyone else. Her stage name was Trixie, but her real name was Miki. She too didn't really enjoy being here but her parents talked so much about how she was useless and couldn't make it out in the world, especially as a vlogger. She loved it. She loved being in front of the camera and talking to the world thru the lens. But her parents thought it was dumb— that she was dumb for even wanting to grow a career online like that. Besides all of it, she remained sweet, and she was always super nice to you. You wouldn't be surprised if she knew about you and Jungkook, and you honestly wouldn't have a problem with it. She never treated you wrong. She knew Bigs had a tendency to overstep and abuse the power he had with his status and his money. However, she knew he was a big coward and that he was all talk, no play — especially if it was outside of the club. He may be a big honcho here, but outside, he had no chance. And she couldn't wait until the day he'd get his for all the mess he's caused.

"Yeah well, things happen." She shakes her head.

"Y/N, you can talk to me. Look, as much as I love seeing your face, you have so much potential. You don't deserve to be stuck here. Let me help you figure this out."

"I'm okay, Miki. Thank you, though." She nods, not wanting to press you any further.

"Well, I'm here for you." She gives your arm one good squeeze before walking off.

Eventually, the rest of the dancers retreat back out onto the floor, leaving you to hide away in the back room as long as possible — which is why Namjoon can't get a glimpse of you anywhere out in the main area. Bigs is actually a little taken aback to see both him and Jin walking through the club, even after everything that has gone down. But hey, business is business— and if they weren't gonna cause any trouble, so be it. He knows though, he knows full well there's a possibility they're here for you.

"Boys! Long time no see!" He greets them, Joon and Jin giving him a toothless smile in return. "How've you been? What brings you in?"

"Mr. Bigs." Namjoon says, smoothing down his shirt. "Ah, we're good, just getting busy prepping for the tour. Wanted to take a little breather tonight."

"Well, I'm glad you guys came here to do so. Can I get you two anything to drink?" The both of them shake their heads. "Anything to help relieve that stress?"

"We're good, thanks. Just gonna sit out on the floor for a bit."

"You two let me know if there's anything I can do for you, at all." Bigs smiles at them as he begins to watch them walk away. "Make sure she's covered." Bigs slightly turns his head to speak through the headset mic, alerting his men to keep an eye out. He thinks he's said it low enough so that Jin and Namjoon don't hear, but Jin catches the movement in his peripherals, causing him to pinch Joon's bicep.

"Back room." Jin says, subtly nodding towards the backroom as he keeps his gaze out on the main stage and adjusts his tie. Namjoon looks around to see Bigs has welcomed himself to the other side of the club, speaking to a few customers, looking distracted.

"I'm gonna go see if I can talk to her."

"Talk?! You said we were just scoping her out. Don't cause any trouble, Namjoon-ah. Please."

"Oh, now you suddenly don't want this action movie to come alive?! You sure were talking a whole lot about it in the car."

"Since when do you even take me seriously?!"

"I always take you seriously, hyung!"

"How about you just sneak towards the back door and get her attention? You said we can't go all out like that!"

"There's guards there too."

"Look, I just don't want you or Y/N to get hurt. Maybe we should just lay low and figure out how we can approach this better."

"Hey, can I get you two anything?" Miki interrupts, fully aware of who they are and what they're here for.

"No, sweetie. Thank you." Jin responds, flashing his 100-watt smile.

"You looking for Y/N?"

"Depends who's asking?" Namjoon says, trying to keep his guard up.

"Look, I'm not gonna rat you out if that's what you think." She puts her hand on her hip, tray still balancing on her free hand. "She's in the backroom. But there's no way you can get to her. Bigs is watching her for whatever reason."

"Yeah, we're aware. Can you send her a message for me?"

"Sure. You have 10 seconds though or else Bigs is gonna be onto you." She points towards Bigs slowly making his way back.

"Just tell her that Jungkook is worried about her and wants to help. Or, we want to help. We just wanna know what's going on."

"I'll try, but she didn't let up when I asked earlier."

"Thanks." Joon sighs.

"Shoo, I'll find you guys around." She says, sneakily walking off towards the bar with her empty tray as Bigs starts to eye the main floor. Jin and Namjoon welcome themselves to a seat on the side of the stage, acting normal as possible by throwing bills onto the stage for the dancers. Miki tends to her customers before she's setting her tray down and pretending to take a cigarette from her bra to take a quick "break." She heads to the back to see you still sitting at your vanity, head resting against the palm of your hand.

"Babe." You turn to look at her, eyes slightly glossed over.

"Hm?"

"RM and Jin are here. They said they want to help you, and if you can tell them anything, that's all they'd want."

"Miki—"

"Girl, look. Don't let this man keep running your life like this. I don't care what he said or did, this isn't you. You need to get out of here and you need to let people in. People who genuinely care about you." You sigh.

"How is that possible when Jungkook's own bestfriend doesn't even like me? And ontop of that, Bigs even dragged my little brother and my evil ass stepfather into this. I can't let anything happen to him, he's the only thing I have."

"I get that, and I'm sure Jungkook will do whatever it takes to protect you both. Why are RM and Jin here then? Whatever Jungkook's other friend's issue is, he needs to figure it out. It's obviously his own problem, something he created himself for no reason."

"I know he's helping Bigs keep me away from Jungkook. All the hurtful shit in the media, all the shit he's been tossing in my face. Whatever, I get it. He wins. I don't belong."

"Don't say that."

"It's true, and I know even if I chose Jungkook, he'd choose his bestfriend over me. Why would he go against that? They've been together for so long. I'm a fucking nobody." Miki knows this is all the alcohol running through your veins, but at least now, she knows Bigs isn't doing this on his own [as she assumed, he's a fucking pussy for the most part - he's a pussy who got handsy with the dancers cause that's all he can do to feed his ego].

"I don't think that's true, and I don't think it's a fair assumption when he's stayed by your side, hasn't he? He hasn't given up on you." She says before walking out. Really, things were just completely scrambled in your head. Just fucked up. Your questions, your uncertainty was strong enough to pull you towards the negative - the what if's, the assumptions, the rumors, the shit-talking. After all that, the positives were dim.

Miki grabs her tray and serves the first couple of customers in dire need of their drinks before she heads over to Jin and Namjoon to spill the information she received from that conversation.

"She won't budge. It sounds like a lot of this shit talking got to her head, so she came back to make herself feel better but then Bigs ended up turning this around on her, threatening Jungkook and her brother. If I were you, I'd get Jungkook to her before she can even come back here. Make sure her brother is with him too. Bigs is all talk but being the guys that you are — I wouldn't take any chances to ruin your reputation and all that." She smacks on her gum. "And I hate to tell you this, but one of your little friends has been working with Bigs. I don't know who, but you better let that little shit know he was wrong for getting in her head like that. She deserves way better." She says with a punch of attitude before walking away.

"Jimin?" Jin mouths out to Namjoon, who only shrugs in response.

"Let's go." Namjoon tosses a couple of more bills before they head out.

"Have a good evening, boys." Bigs yells out, causing the two of them to return a tight-lipped smile.

"Are we going to tell Kookie about Jimin?"

"No? Because we don't even know ourselves. His name was never dropped, and we'll look dumb if we acted on assumptions."

"This is so fucked up." Jin sighs, looking out the window.

"You're telling me."

When they finally arrive back at the dorm, Namjoon and Jin find Jungkook pacing around in his room, tossing a rubber ball against the wall to keep himself occupied. His doe eyes dart over to them, letting the ball drop to the floor while he nervously walks closer to them.

"So?"

"I'm sorry, dude." Joon sighed. "From what it sounds like, all this mess just got to her head so she went back to the club to make herself feel better. But Bigs ended up bringing you and her brother into the situation so, I'm assuming she's distancing herself to protect you in some way?" Namjoon runs his hand through his hair. "Honestly, I really don't know, that's as much as we got."

"We didn't even talk to her or see her, some other dancer helped us out. I guess she's a friend of hers? Or maybe she just likes Y/N. She wanted to help." Jin says.

"Fuck!" Jungkook groans, slamming his hand down onto his bed. "Why couldn't she just talk to me? We could have figured this out."

"Look, I'm sure there's a lot more to it and I'm sure it's difficult for her. Promise me you'll hear her out when you see her."

"I mean, yeah I know, I will. But, how did this get to her head so easily? I really can't wrap my head around it, I—" He catches how tense Joon and Jin suddenly get. He watches them nervously looking at each other, making him cock his head to the side and furrow his brows. "Wait, what is it? You know something else, don't you?"

"I mean there's really no concrete facts behind it so we can't necessarily say it's true."

"Well?" Jungkook asks, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles are turning white. But, before they could go any further, Jungkook's ringtone echos in the room. He quickly turns in case it's you calling, but he picks up anyway because it's someone equally as important.

"Kai?"

"C-can you come pick me up? My sister isn't picking up. I'll send you Eric's address." Jungkook worries when he hears the shakiness in his voice, his tone low to a whisper.

"Yeah, sit tight. I'll be right there." He hangs up, darting out of his room, Namjoon and Jin following after him.

"Where are you going?"

"I need to get to Kai."

"Let us come with!"

"Look, it'll be quicker if I go myself—"

"Jungkook-ah, stop. We're not gonna let you go alone." Joon and Jin make it just in time to join him in the elevator, heading straight for his car even if it's nearing 1am. Jungkook pulls up Kai's location, pressing on the gas to rush over there just in case Kai was hurt. And yes, Jungkook was going to give it to your fucking stepfather if he sees anything on Kai. He will fucking destroy him, he promises.

Jungkook, Namjoon and Jin walk into the house quietly, seeing Kai putting his finger up to his lips when he meets them near the kitchen.

"What happened?" Jungkook whispers, handing his bags over to Namjoon and Jin. Jungkook looks at the small hint of blood pooling near his nostrils and the cut near his eyebrow.

"I'll explain in the car, can you just take me to—"

"Really? Calling your sister's boyfriend and his friends over to save you? You really are a helpless little shit." Namjoon, Jin and Jungkook are all shielding each other and Kai from Eric, Jungkook's blood boiling seeing him standing there, clearly very drunk and not in the right state of mind.

"Aye, don't fucking talking to him like that." Jungkook's spits out, making Eric laugh.

"First you fall for my slut of a daughter, now you help rescue him? I thought you were so much better than that, Jungkook. You aren't the person people portrayed you to be. Shittiest idol I know. All of you."

"You don't know me." Eric snorts.

"You guys do know I help sponsor your shit right? I play a big role for you, don't come into my house acting like—" He slurs his words.

"Yeah, well fuck the contract." Namjoon's jaw clenches. "Better yet, don't fucking worry about it, I'll make sure to take care of it for you."

"You need me." Eric says, almost at a growl.  "You need me and Bigs—"

"Since when?" Namjoon responds in a mocking manner as he begins to usher Jin, Jungkook and Kai towards the front door. "If you wanna send your people over, you can let them know I'm free tomorrow in the late afternoon. I'll be more than happy to tell 'em what kind of sick person you are."

"You can't just take him—" Eric tries to flip the script, obviously unaware that Kai has already turned 18. He grips onto Kai's arm and tries to pull him back, except he's intoxicated, so Jungkook easily pushes him off. He watches as Eric hits a bar stool, stumbling over himself before he drunkily falls on his ass.

"You're such a sad excuse of a stepfather, you aren't even aware he's 18 already. He doesn't need you." Jungkook scoffs. "I'm gonna send people for the rest of Kai's shit tomorrow. And let's get this straight - we never needed you or Bigs. You both aren't shit without us and yout fucking empire thrives because of us. And if you do anything to Y/N, if you even think about working with Bigs on doing anything to her, I fucking promise you I will bury you alive. I won't stop until you have nothing left. Don't underestimate me."

everybody's angry and they're coming for me, but i can't give them energy that i won't receive; so i brush 'em off, i got a lot on my sleeve, like i'm moving backwards, but it's all on repeat; this place is getting crowded, i got no room to breathe

track twelve: hundred - khalid

#bts #bts fanfiction #jeon jungkook #jungkook #kook #jeongguk #bts jeon jungkook fanfic #bts jeon jungkook #bts jungkook #bts au #bts au fic #bts imagines #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jjk x reader #bts jungkook x reader #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #jeon jungkook fluff #jeon jungkook smut #jeon jungkook angst #jjk smut #jjk fluff #jjk angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #writing #bands series

[honeymilkk00]

Haikyuu Boys: You Flinch

yooooo so my first post on tumblr,,, kinda scary but here goes nothing. if the characters are too ooc i apologise but it’s because this is my first time writing a haikyuu one shot. also i’m fucking obsessed with angst to comfort hmu with some good ones (hopefully i haven’t read them). also pleaseeeee this isn’t an attack on the reader, you all are so fucking gorgeous. i’m trying to write this angst with my personal insecurities in mind so it can be more realistic. remember to drink water and eat 3 meals a day.

characters:

-tanaka

-ushijima

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

Tanaka

Recently, you had noticed a strain in your and Tanaka’s relationship. Of course, you were always pretty self-conscious in the relationship- he always hung out with Kiyoko when he went to practise and spoke about her like she was a goddess.

That didn’t mean you didn’t like Kiyoko. In fact, you looked up to her a lot, heeding her advice every time she spoke to you. But, who wouldn’t be insecure? Kiyoko was everything you were not. She was smart, she was pretty, she was organised, and she had a great personality to go with it. Sometimes, you’d sit thinking that maybe Tanaka would be happier with her. 

And today was one of those days. It was lunch and, as usual, Tanaka was at practise. You didn’t mind and grew pretty accustomed to it, often sitting to the side of the sports hall, watching and cheering. You were happy that your boyfriend had such a deep interest in something. 

As you sat next to the coach, taking small bites out of an apple, you noticed Tanaka’s wondering gaze. Following his eyes, you frowned slightly when you noticed him staring at Kiyoko with a small blush on his face. An uneasy feeling in your gut made you stop eating, just watching. When Tanaka walked over to her and tucked her hair behind her ear after helping her pick up spare balls, you felt bile rise in your throat. Suffocating. It felt like suffocating as you watched your boyfriend touch and blush around your friend whilst right in front of you. 

Biting your lip nervously, you packed away your lunch and stood up. There was still 10 minutes left of lunch. If Tanaka asked, you could’ve dismissed it as simply wanting to get to class early. Nodding to Coach Ukai and Daichi, you swiftly exited the sports hall and walked to your next lesson.

_

Somehow, you had avoided Tanaka for the rest of the day. You knew you were probably overreacting, but the way he looked at her with such a loving gaze made you feel sick. He didn’t even look at you with that much compassion, and you were his girlfriend. 

So, you slung your backpack over your shoulders and made your way home. Normally, you would walk with your boyfriend, but not today. It was silent without Tanaka making small comments here and there and laughing. Insecure thoughts filled your mind, and, with no one to distract you from them, you listened.

You listened to every single thought that crossed your mind.

Why were you not pretty enough?

Why did Tanaka love Kiyoko more than he loved you?

Why were you so petty?

Why were you running away instead of talking to him?

Why were you not good enough?

You swallowed the bile that slowly rose in your throat and looked down at your hands that clenched together.

Just get over it. You can’t be better than her. 

A hand placed on your shoulder, snapping you out of your thoughts. Swiftly, you head diverted to look at whoever touched you right in the eyes. 

Shit.

“Hey, you’ve been ignoring me since lunch. Did something happen? Why are you walking home without me?” Tanaka let go of your shoulder and raised a curious brow at you.

You weren’t ready to talk to him yet.

Forcing a smile, you looked down at your hands instead of his gaze-his piercing gaze that left you weak and helpless. “Nothing is wrong,” you started, pausing for a second to recollect your thoughts. “I just wanted to get to class quickly after lunch... And I was walking home by myself because I have a lot of homework to do.” You lied smoothly, but of course, Tanaka saw through it.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, Tanaka sighed and tilted his head, “are you going to tell your boyfriend the truth or continue to lie straight to my face? We’re partners- a team- you’re meant to trust me and communicate. Wasn’t it you who said that was important?” His voice gradually got louder with every sentence, his patience wearing thin. 

You looked back at him and opened your mouth, before closing it. Of course, trust and communication is key in relationships but... Your eyes glanced up at Tanaka. Opening your mouth again, you spoke, “It’s just...” You started and licked your lips, taking a deep breath, “You seem to be close with Kiyoko. Very close..” You whispered the last bit, but he still caught it. 

Clenching his fists, Tanaka frowned, “well excuse me, but she’s been my friend longer than I’ve dated you. I don’t see why it’s an issues now.” His voice was firm and loud, making you shrink into yourself.

“I get that, I do. But you can’t just get all close like blushing and tucking her hair behind her ear when you’re in a relationship.” You tried to reason with him. Yes, you know they were friends longer than you and Tanaka had been in a relationship and you respected that. That was why you never mentioned anything before. 

Tanaka made a ‘tch’ sound and took in a deep breath, glaring down at you. Like this, he looked like an alpha- strong, in charge, dominant. In normal circumstances, you might’ve blushed or even squirmed, but in this situation, all you felt was your fight or flight impulse going crazy. “Well I’m sorry, but just because you’re insecure about yourself doesn’t mean you can be a selfish bitch! Grow up (Y/n)!”

That was what made you snap.

“Excuse me!? Tanaka, you told me to communicate and so I did, but when I do my opinions and feelings are immediately shut down!? I’m not saying you can’t be friends with Kiyoko! You can! Just please don’t keep touching her intimately because it makes me think you’d rather be with her!” You shouted back.

Letting out a deep growl, Tanaka leaned over you with a menacing glare and quickly lifted his hand, which made you flinch violently and close your eyes tightly, lifting you arms to shield yourself. 

Snapping out of his rage, Tanaka’s eyes widened.

You flinched. You flinched at him.

Did you seriously think he was going to hit you? 

Taking a shaky breath, he gently placed a hand on your cheek, which made you flinch more and slowly open your eyes to look into his. Your eyes held nothing but pure fear. You couldn’t help it- Tanaka was big, strong and intimidating. Tears gathered in the corners of your eyes.

“Please don’t look at me like that, baby.. I’m sorry.. I’ll never hit you.” Tanaka whispered softly and pulled you in for a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry I scared you like that..” He murmured lightly.

Shakily, you took a breath, letting your tears slip down your cheeks. “Ngh.. ‘M sorry I annoyed you Tana...” You whispered softly, crying into his shoulder. “’M just... Scared. Kiyoko is beautiful and has the best personality and I’m just... Me.” You admitted, finally calming down when you realised that Tanaka would never ever hurt you, no matter how much you angered him.

Tanaka’s eyes softened and he gently stroke your hair. “Exactly. You’re you. That’s why I love you, baby.” He whispered gently and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. 

Slowly, you leaned into his touch more, “Okay...”

Tanaka sighed gently, “I didn’t realise I was being too touchy with her, but I’ll stop for you baby. I love you.”

“I love you too.” You smiled weakly back.

“Icecream?” He asked.

“Please.”

__________________________________

Ushijima

You always knew volleyball was his passion. It was his everything, and you respected that. 

Still though, when you became his girlfriend, you thought that maybe you’d at least tie with volleyball in importance. However, you soon realised three months into the relationship that what you believed didn’t seem to be the case. In fact, it seemed as if you were more of a chore for Ushijima than something he enjoyed spending his time on. 

Eventually, it all got too much.

You watched him practise from the side-lines, frowning since he barely even glanced at you, let alone said hello. Of course, you didn’t mind. He was focused on practising, so it would make sense if he didn’t acknowledge you.

Ushijima paused his practise to get a small drink and you took this opportunity to encourage him and drop off his lunch since he had a tendency to forget his. “Ushi, you’re doing so-” You started, but was soon cut off by your blunt lover.

“(Y/N), can’t you see I’m focusing right now? I’ll talk later, but right now volleyball is all that matters. You’re irrelevant right now.” He retorted swiftly, before shrugging you off and going back to practise his spikes. 

Biting your lip slightly, you swallowed thickly and looked down at your feet in shame. Those words hurt, even if they weren’t the most aggressive. Maybe he did only see you as a burden. The thought made you shiver and deepen your frown. The last thing you wanted was to hold your boyfriend back, even if it hurt you. Taking one last glance at Ushijima, you set his lunch down by his bottle and turned away, hiding the tears in your eyes by looking at the ground. 

It felt as if someone was squeezing your heart in your chest, and a lump soon formed in your throat. You choked on a sob and headed home, turning off your phone completely. 

Once you had reached the comfort of your house, you collapsed on your bed and sobbed silently into a pillow, curling tightly into a small ball. 

_

You were unsure as to how long you had been crying for, but you soon awoke from a slumber when you felt the bed dip and a large arm wrap around your waist. Biting your lip, you turned your head to come face to face with Ushiwaka. “Ushi...” You whispered quietly.

“My love, you have been crying. Your eyes are red and puffy.” He stated and frowned lightly. “What happened?” The male gently brushed his thumb against your hip, caressing it tenderly.

Tensing up, you sat up and pushed his hand away lightly. “Ushijima..” You started and looked down, clenching your fists together. “Is volleyball really that important to you..?” You whispered out, barely loud enough for him to hear.

The brute frowned and also sat up, narrowing his eyes slightly, “(Y/N), why are you so annoyed over my passion?” He asked and let out a scoff. “What, are you jealous of a ball? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” Ushijima’s voice raised slightly, but he soon shut up when he noticed you flinch and sink deeper into the bed. 

You avoided eye contact from your lover and gripped the sheets tightly in your hand, “’M sorry..” You whispered out as tears filled your vision. “Maybe I am being ridiculous.. I just think that...” You choked on a sob. “That you’d be better off with someone else. All I seem to do is hold you back from doing what you love. ‘M just a pain..” Hurt filled your voice and you swallowed thickly.

Ushijima’s eyes widened slightly and he frowned, gently taking your hands into his large ones. “Darling... You are all I want. I am sorry if those comments I said earlier made you feel insecure, but I truly do care for you. You are the only person I want in my life.” Gently, he placed his forehead on yours and kissed away your tears. “You are anything but a pain, my love.”

Looking into your boyfriend’s eyes, you smiled lightly and pressed your lips against his delicately. “You’re forgiven, Ushi..”

#haikyu #haikyuu #haikyu x reader #haikyuu angst #angst #haikyuuangst #tanaka angst #ushiwaka angst #ushijima wakatoshi #ushijima angst #requestsopen #haikyuu comfort #tanaka ryuunosuke

[belphies-cuhm-sluht]

Vacation (Belphie x GN!Reader) Slight NSFW

(Did I go extra hard on the beach fic? Yes. Yes I did. Are my posting hours absolutely horrid... also yes. It's 3:30AM and I finally finished this fic though! YAY! I also did not read through this before I posted. I'll read it when I wake up to check for mistakes. I need a nap.)

Word Count : 5.1K

You loved the beach, everything about it was so relaxing. The sound of the waves crashing onto the shore, the smell of saltwater that was carried to your nose with the ocean’s breeze. The only thing that made being there right now better was the fact that Belphie was there with you. You loved Belphie, everything about him screamed perfection, even though he disagreed most of the time you said he was. His disregard for most of humanity aside from yourself, his constant scowl which he probably thought was menacing and scary but you just found it adorable.

It was shocking at first that he actually agreed to go with you, and you thought for sure that he’d want to stay home and just sleep while, but, much to your surprise, he jumped at the opportunity to go to the beach with you. He even said that it would be fun, which… well he wasn’t wrong… but hearing him say something like that… even if it was mumbled, it was kind of shocking.

“You got a room… in a hotel… that’s on the beach… with a balcony that overlooks the beach?” Belphie said, looking around the room as the two of you walked in. As soon as the door was shut, you dropped your bags to the floor and ran to the balcony doors, throwing them open and running out to lean over the railing with Belphie following close behind and quickly wrapping his arms around you. “Don’t do that. You could have flipped over the edge… dork.”

You could only laugh at his worry, but then again, according to him you were fragile, and humans were inherently clumsy most of the time, so you didn’t really blame him for thinking that you’d accidentally lean too far over and do a front flip over the railing… but it was still kind of funny. “I’m not going to fall over the edge, Belph. I’ve done this a lot. And…” You turned in his arms so you could wrap your own around his waist. “Yes, a balcony with an ocean view. The weather said there would be a thunderstorm this week, and I’m hoping they’re right. I love watching the lightning hit the water… the thunder is so loud. It’s amazing.” He chuckled softly, rolling his eyes as he grabbed your hand and dragged you back into the room, not wanting to leave you on the balcony unattended any longer.

“The storm better not hit until the last day. I want to go surfing.” He said as he grabbed his own bag off the floor and moved it onto the bed, quickly pulling out his bathing suit. You were stuck on the whole surfing thing though because… well… it doesn’t need to be explained. It’s just fucking hot. He snapped his fingers to get your attention after you hadn’t responded, rolling his eyes when you blinked a few times and focused back on him. “You alright? You zoned out for a second there.”

“Mhm… I’m good.” You whispered shyly, dragging your own bags away from the door so you could pull out your own bathing suit. “It’s a good time to go down… everyone is clearing out for the day and the sun isn’t going to be beating as hard.” You weren’t really sure if he was listening, you could still hear him rummaging through his own bag as you talked. You were mainly talking to yourself though, looking up out the balcony doors and watching as the umbrellas on the beach slowly dwindled as everyone started heading back to their own hotels.

“You still need sunscreen.” It actually sounded like he was scolding you, and it wouldn’t be the first time he called your ass out for not wearing it. “I’m not having you get burnt on our first day here. You’ll spend the rest of the vacation in pain, and then I’ll have to hold back from saying I told you so because you won’t be in the mood to hear it. Plus…” He tossed the sunscreen onto the bed that was closest to you before squatting down behind you, trailing his fingers along your neck and down your shoulders. “If you got burnt… you wouldn’t enjoy me touching you as much…”

God damn if he wasn’t right, and you hated that he was right. “Hmph… fine.” You groaned, and honestly, you just hated the way the sunscreen felt. It made your arms stick to your sides and you just felt… sticky… and you could never get it off your hands after putting it on. It was a pain in the ass… but he was right, and you wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything if you got burnt, and you definitely weren’t going to spend an entire week in a nice ass hotel with an ocean view and not at least cuddle with him. “You’re putting it on me though.”

“I never said I wouldn’t.” He said it teasingly, kissing your neck before standing back up. “Go change. The waves look pretty good right now, I want to get down there.” He had already started pulling his shirt off and unbuttoning his shorts as you got up off the floor. It was one thing for him to change in front of the balcony doors, he didn’t really care if anyone saw him naked… But he didn’t want anyone else to see you that way. Only he could, and if someone did happen to see you that way, he’d have to kill them and then it would ruin the vacation and neither of you wanted that.

Of course he held your hand on the way down the beach. He wasn’t going to let anyone else look at you, and even if they did, they’d see that your hand was in his and you were his, so they better just fuck right off with their thoughts and their intentions because it isn’t going to happen and you aren’t going to do the things that they are thinking with anyone but him.

“I hate walking in the sand with flip flops…” You mumbled as your feet sunk into the sand with every step, struggling to take steps because the sand kept basically absorbing your flip flop which is the most annoying shit.

“You could always go barefoot.” He said, as if you didn’t already know that… but also walking barefoot on the beach after the sun had been beating on it for hours wasn’t the most pleasant experience either.

“I’d rather not burn my feet… How close do you want to get to the water anyway? I usually stay close to the top so I don’t have to be around all the people.” Which was the truth. You hated being surrounded by other beach goers, and most of them smelt an awful lot like spray tan or beer or both. The ocean breeze would miraculously always start up whenever they were spraying their spray tans on and it would get in your eyes or your mouth, and you’d just rather not be anywhere near them. Plus… who puts on spray tan at the beach? Just lay in the sun. It’s easier and looks more real because it is real. Ugh… people.

“Close enough that I can still see you from the ocean. Right here should be good…” He stopped right at the middle of where the line of umbrellas started and where there was nobody. It was like an invisible line in the sand, and Belphie decided that he wanted his spot to be on both sides of it. He stuck the umbrella into the sand to mark the spot and you finally let yourself sit down before even putting down the towel. You were tired. Walking through the sand is a workout. “Don’t get too comfortable. You’re forgetting something.” He practically cooed the last part to you, and you knew exactly what he was talking about, but you wished that he had forgotten.

He started digging through the bag that you had loaded with drinks and snacks because the beach experience isn’t complete unless you’ve tried to eat a sandwich while a multitude of seagulls stand at the edge of your towel and squawk at you to feed them. (But you don’t because it’s not healthy for them. Please don’t feed the seagulls your food.) “I don’t need sunscreen. I’m just gonna be sitting under the umbrella the whole time.” He hummed softly, knowing that you were wrong. Who goes to the beach and sits under the umbrella the whole time? You knew that you weren’t going to, but damn… you really hated the feeling of sunscreen. It makes you cringe. Why is it so sticky????

You laid out the towel and decided that it would be pointless to even try to argue against him. He was right in the hotel room about the sunburn, and it wouldn’t be as bad if he was the one rubbing it on you. “I’m sure a little sunscreen is better than a sunburn…” He said as he squirted it onto his hands. “Lay down, I said I’d put it on you.” You quickly obliged, laying on your stomach and resting your head on your arms as he rubbed it together between his hands before placing them on your shoulders. The feeling sent a shiver through you, and you weren’t sure whether it was just because the sunscreen was cold or if it was his touch that made your body respond that way. “You’re cute… relax babe… this isn’t the first time I’ve touched you.” He teased as his hands made their way down your back, squeezing your sides lightly before rubbing slowly over your entire back and then working down to your legs. Luckily your face was hidden in your arms so he couldn’t see your blushing. His touch was doing things to you that you knew you couldn’t act upon on the beach so it would probably be a while before you got up anyway. “Alright, roll over.” He didn’t really wait for you to roll over, taking it upon himself to do it and then smiling smugly when he saw the flustered look on your face.

“I think I’m just gonna…. Stay here for a little bit… while you go out and…” He had already started running his hands over your chest which had made your sentence get cut short. It would be too noticeable that he was making you flustered if you just covered your face now, so you tried to keep calm as his hands continued to work. You let out a gasp as his thumbs accidentally flicked over your nipples, a quiet hum escaping him as he watched them perk up. “Belphie…” You whined, but he only laughed in response, moving his hands lower until they were at your hips. Your eyes grew wider, and he knew exactly why, and for a second you thought he’d just tease you more, but he knew that if he did that you’d just be begging him to take you back to the room and those activities were for later.

He had finally finished, and part of you wished that he hadn’t because obviously you loved having his hands on you like that, but also you were in public and it couldn’t go any further than that either. “So do you want to go down there with me or do you need a minute?” He joked as he got up, grabbing his surfboard and holding it under his arm. “Would you rather me stay up here wi-”

“You can go! I just… Just need a second.” Your voice cracked as you said it, further accentuating just how flustered he had made you. You ran your hands over your face and sighed, to which he laughed at. “Don’t laugh, it’s not funny.” You grumbled. You were now thoroughly turned on, it was hot out, you were covered in sunscreen, and he looked really good standing above you like that.

“It actually is really funny. I’ll meet you down there… oh wait… hold up…” He leaned over, booping your nose with his pointer finger which still had sunscreen on it. You wrinkled your nose at him, sticking your tongue out before rolling over onto your stomach. “Aww, you’ll thank me for it later when your nose is sunburn free and not peeling.” He started walking off, that much you could tell as the sun that he had been blocking finally hit your back.

It didn’t take too long for you to gain back your composure. Now that he was off walking down to the ocean, you could actually focus on calming down and relaxing in the sun that was practically baking you because the umbrella wasn’t blocking out anything now that the sun was setting. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the warmth of the sun against your skin had you close to dozing off, but you wanted to see him, you wanted to watch him, so you fought off the urge to fall asleep and pushed yourself up off the towel and started heading down.

The beach had almost completely cleared out aside from the few people who, much like yourself and Belphie, wanted to enjoy it without the screaming children who’d run through the sand and kick it back onto the towels and bodies of unsuspecting people. It was a lot calmer during the evening, and Belphie had a lot of room to do what he wanted to do. Not a lot of people here actually surfed, it was mainly people boogie boarding close to the shore line and riding the smallest waves inland. You on the other hand, you didn’t use a board at all, instead wading out into the deepest part of the ocean until your feet could barely touch the floor, and then when a wave came, you’d jump and ride that shit up to the shore… or get knocked out completely and wash up on the shore looking like you’ve just seen death itself. Either way it’s a blast, and boards held no appeal to you… BUT…

Belphie on the board was a completely different story though. There was something about… him in general that made you so fascinated. Your eyes were basically glued to him, watching intently as he got onto his board and started paddling out deeper. You saw the wave that he was going for, it was forming further back, almost on the horizon line and you knew that it would be huge, which is exactly what he was going for. Go big or go home was always his thing, whether it was with food, pranks against his brothers, and with this as well…clearly. Were you worried, even though you knew that as a demon, he couldn’t actually get severely hurt? Absolutely. He’d probably laugh at you later for worrying, but you also cared about him a lot, so could he blame you? Absolutely not.

You watched as the wave drew closer, and for a second you were beyond worried that it would just crush him since he was sitting there just wading in the water, but as it started closing in, he began paddling again, his board rising with the crest of the wave until he reached the top and stood up. Now, it’s not that you had never seen people surfing before, it’s just that everyone else was boring and you didn’t like them and they weren’t interesting, and they were just… people. Belphie was different. This was your demon and here he was absolutely fucking ripping it, and not only was was he doing it flawlessly, but he looked so fucking good doing it. You wanted to cheer for him, but you also didn’t want to throw him off or anything, so you let out a quiet “yay” as you continued watching. The wave crashed down and broke around him, pushing him closer to you and for a second you thought that he’d ride it all the way up to you, but then he saw you. He pointed at you, the typical finger guns, and then promptly decided to purposely fall back off his board, which made you gasp because like… what the fuck man? Why?

BUT ALSO GOD DAMN. When he reemerged from under the water, he looked fucking…. Hot. And not like, “oh shit it’s summertime and the sun is making things hot” kind of hot… no, it was “holy hell I need to get this man back into the hotel room before I fuck him right here on the beach” type hot, which is still an understatement because there is no way to actually capture the essence of how absolutely hot he is through words. He’s just fucking… hot. He quickly pushed back his hair which was soaked and hanging in his face, and now it was slicked back, which wasn’t a look that you’d usually go for, but on him, again… HOT.

Were you aware that you had been holding your breath as he walked up to you? Nope. But as soon as he reached you, you exhaled sharply and gave him a sheepish smile. “That was… you did… it was great…” You couldn’t think straight and you couldn’t form coherent sentences, and the way you were acting had that smug little smile returning to his face. He knew damn well the way you were feeling, the way he made you feel. He didn’t have to wait for you to fall asleep and see your dreams to know what you were thinking either. But he wasn’t going to let you have it that easily either, he was going to tease you and drag it out as long as he possibly could.

“Come on…” He grabbed your hand, pulling you out into the water which was freezing. It was so cold, your entire body kind of froze up as soon as it reached your mid calves. “It’ll be more cold if you try to slowly get used to it. Just dunk yourself under real quick.” He stopped pulling you long enough to watch you, and what he was suggesting was quite possibly the number one thing you didn’t want to do right now. “I can do it for you if you won’t do it yourself.” He coaxed, stepping a little closer to you. He was serious too, he’d dunk you, whether you were holding your nose or not.

“I-I got it… I can do it…” You mumbled, slowly lowering yourself and then shooting back up when the water reached an area that had been dry before. You could almost see the timer in his head ticking down to the moment where he’d just take over and sweep you off your feet in the most unromantic way just to get you used to the water faster. “Don’t look at me while I… You’re making me nervous!” It was a good excuse. He scoffed and turned away from you, humming the jeopardy song which only made you feel more rushed. “Shush! I’m doing it… I just need a second.”

“You’ve had many seconds. It’s gonna be dark soon.” He joked, tapping his fingers along the water as he started humming louder. You groaned loudly before taking a deep breath, holding your nose, and dropping under the water. And, not surprisingly, it was fucking freezing, and when you quickly pushed yourself back up, the breeze that had really picked up didn’t help… like at all. “There you go. It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“No… it was worse.” He snorted softly, shaking his head. You couldn’t understand how he wasn’t fazed by it. Whenever he was in bed he’d complain about it being too cold when he was too lazy to reach down and grab his blankets… but swimming in an ice cube tray apparently doesn’t affect him. It made absolutely no sense, but… he looked happy, and he was having fun, and as numb as your body felt from the water, seeing him this way made you feel warm, at least in your heart, where it was important. “So why am I actually in the water right now?” You would have been perfectly fine staying just above where the waves broke, but he must have had something in mind.

“We’re tandem surfing.” He drummed his hands lightly on the board as he looked excitedly over at you as if you knew what that meant. He could see the confusion on your face though, and he sighed softly, pulling you closer to himself and the board. “You’re gonna be on the board with me.” That… sounded like a trainwreck waiting to happen. It would not go well, you knew that much. You wouldn’t be able to even sit on the board without wobbling, and you sure as hell wouldn’t be able to stand on it. “You’ll be fine.” He could see how put off by the idea of it you were. No amount of his arms wrapped around you would make flipping off a surfboard in the middle of a wave worth it.

“Mmmm… Nope… that’s not gonna… Nuh uh….” You were shaking your head quickly, trying to keep your footing even when you were flat on the ground as the waves crashed around you. They were strong, as was the current that was pulling you deeper into the ocean without you even realizing it. “I can just go stand back up there… I’ll watch you. That sounds like a good idea.” You nodded to yourself, turning to start walking away, but his arm was around your waist, holding you close against him and keeping you from walking away.

“I’m not gonna let you fall off. We’re not going far out… and we’re both sitting the whole time.” He murmured against your neck, knowing exactly what he was doing. “Plus… It’s cold out there… and I want to do this with you.” He made you so weak, it wasn’t fair at all. His fingers brushed lightly across your hip as his lips lingered against your skin. He was waiting for an answer, but he already knew what it would be, he just wanted to hear you say it, and he was having way too much fun teasing you like this. “Fine… just… hold it still.” His hand quickly moved away from your waist and he was wearing the biggest smile as he held the board in place as best he could. The waves crashing around it were the biggest issue, and every time you were about to jump up onto it, another wave would push it against you and make you stumble back. “Belphie… It’s not gonna work.” You whined, your head falling back as you sighed loudly.

“I’m holding it as still as I can, you just need to get on. I’ll tell you when, so the waves won’t knock you off.” He was being really persistent with it, which, in it’s own way, was kind of cute. Either he really wanted you on the board with him, or he really wanted to see you fall off. Sure, he liked you, but even you knew there was something… comical… about watching someone fall off a board… especially if they were just sitting. That’s even funnier. “If you do it… we can go right back to the hotel after we’re done… I know you want to do that.” He’s god damn right you want to do that. Not just for… reasons, but the thought of warm dry clothes and being under a blanket and cuddling with him sounded so amazing right now.

It was motivation enough for you to try again, timing your jump before the next wave came and then gripping onto the board like your life depended on it, because you really thought that it did, once you were on. “Okay…. Now what?” Your voice was kind of shaky, and really, you thought you should be rewarded with the hotel just for getting on the board alone. The waves were rocking you, and you felt like you were going to tip at any moment if Belphie let go, and you were really hoping that he wouldn’t, but when you turned to look at him, he was already behind you, getting ready to jump on the board. “Sh-Shouldn’t I be in the back…?” It was a pretty bad time to realize it considering you were already on it, but you still had time to jump off and switch positions.

“Oh… No. If you’re in the back, you’ll just hide your face in my back as soon as the wave starts pushing us, and that’s the best part.” He climbed onto the back of the board, scooting as close to you as possible. “Now hold on, okay? I’m gonna get us a little further out.” Your head whipped around to look at him, your eyes going wide. You were pretty sure he just said that you wouldn’t go out far, but now he’s saying he’s gotta get out further? He chuckled lightly, shaking his head as if he knew what you were thinking. “Not as far as I went. Just far enough to actually have a wave. The swells aren’t going to do much except rock us around a little bit.” He was already paddling out and your hold on the board turned into a death grip.

Once he felt like it was far enough out, he turned the board around, and that’s when you realized just how far you actually were. “I’m gonna die…” You whispered, which only made him laugh more, leaning in to kiss along your shoulder. “That’s not gonna make me feel better.” Your nails were practically digging into the board and your knuckles hurt from how tight you were holding it, but you didn’t really care, you just didn’t want to fall off.

“Oh, the waves coming! Hold on.” As if you weren’t already doing that, and you couldn’t possibly hold on any tighter than you already were. The wave began pushing you up, and you didn’t, not even for a second, enjoy the sensation of it. “Keep your eyes open.” His arms were wrapped tightly around you, and even with his urging, your eyes were shut as tight as possible, already prepared for when you’d fall off. You didn’t want salt water in your eyes, it burned, it hurt, and you were like 99.5% sure that you’d be falling off at some point.

His arms stayed wrapped around you, as tight as possible, ensuring that you wouldn’t fall off the board and you were beyond thankful for that. In a strange way, it didn’t last that long, but at the same time it felt like you were riding the wave forever. You had opened your eyes once, but the sight of the beach growing closer and closer to you was terrifying and you didn’t like it. “Is it done?” You quietly asked, not wanting to open your eyes yet, but you also felt like you’ve slowed down and you could feel the rocking of the waves beneath you again.

“Yes, it’s done. Your eyes were shut the entire time, weren’t they?” He joked, squeezing your hips which made you squirm and fall off the board anyway. His laughter was so loud you could hear it from under the water, and you quickly pushed your feet up against the edge of the board to try to tip him off as well, which didn’t actually work. You got back up, wiping the water from your eyes and glaring at him, still sitting on the board and smiling down at you. “You thought you’d be able to tip me over… that’s cute. You’re cute. Come, we’ll go back now. We can both take a nap before dinner.”

The sand had finally cooled off now that the sun had practically set behind the horizon line, lighting the waves up in pretty pink, orange, and blue hues. If you weren’t so cold, you’d have loved to stay on the beach and watch the sun continue to go down with Belphie right beside you. That could be done another night though, and you were aching to get back inside and take a shower to get the sand off of you, and then just relax in bed.

“I call dibs on the bathroom first.” You called out as you swiped the card to get into the room, rushing ahead of him to drop your beach bag on the floor and run straight into the bathroom. The sand was sticking to you, not just from being in the water, but also the damned sunscreen. It was itchy and it was everywhere, and you wanted to get it off of you as quickly as you could.

“You don’t have to call dibs, I could just get in there with you.” He said it so matter-of-factly that it made you pause for a second. He wasn’t wrong, and it’s not that you’d mind him getting in with you, so you weren’t going to say no. He walked in just as you were getting into the shower, and no matter how many times he had seen you that way, you still got really shy, which he would constantly say is adorable, but it just made you flustered and even more shy than you already were. “Did you have fun?” His voice was soft now, and you could hear that he was becoming tired. You were sure that he’d end up falling asleep on the beach after being in the ocean, it was enough to even knock you out most of the time, but he held onto enough energy to get up into the room.

“Mmhm… I liked watching you more though…” You heard him hum quietly behind you, his hands roaming over your body as he helped get some of the off. You could have done it yourself, but he did it so much better. “Did you have fun?” It sounded like he had fun, and it definitely looked like he had fun. He was laughing and smiling the whole time which was enough for you. His happiness made you happy, as cringy and dorky as that may sound… which is why you never told him that. He’d call you a dork and laugh it off which would just make you flustered and feel silly.

“Mmhm… I have one more thing to do though.” You were confused because you were pretty sure he was talking about dinner and that was supposed to come after the nap. He finished rinsing the sand and soap off you and himself before turning off the shower and stepping out. He didn’t bother with towels, grabbing your hand and pulling you out of the bathroom and pushing you down on the bed, situating himself between your legs and smiling up at you. “I teased you enough on the beach… I think I should finish what I started.”

#obey me #obey me! shall we date #obey me shall we date #om! shall we date #obey me! swd #om! swd #obey me fic #obey me scenarios #obey me headcanons #obey me imagines #obey me x reader #obey me x gn!reader #obey me x mc #obey me Belphie #obey me Belphegor #obey me Belphegor x reader #obey me Belphegor x mc #obey me Belphie x reader #obey me Belphie x mc #Belphegor x reader #belphegor x mc #belphie x reader #belphie x mc #belphie x gn!reader #belphegor x gn!reader #belphegor avatar of sloth

[blu-joons]

When Sasaengs Are Scared Of You ~ BTS Reaction

Jin:

He couldn’t help but chuckle as he read through the article, glancing across at you beside him. “You’ll never guess what I’ve just read,” he blushed, closing down his phone.

“I have no idea,” you smiled, feeling yourself cheery up at the wide smile on his face, “are you going to show me, or do I have to guess?”

“It was an article from a sasaeng,” he informed you, watching as your heart dropped for a few moments. “No, it’s good, in fact it’s the best thing I’ve ever read.”

You hit his hand to try to stop him from worrying you, “can you tell me what it is before I grab your phone and take a look for myself.”

“They were just saying how they watched the video I put on of you cooking last week, and with your knife skills, they’d never want to be rude to you.”

Your brows knitted together, “I didn’t even do anything, all I did was chop of a few veg. Are you sure this isn’t some sort of wind up?”

His head quickly shook, “I’m being serious, apparently you must be pretty scary.”

“If I knew that was what I had to do to scare them off, I would have done it sooner.”

“That’s the secret, we know what to do now.”

Yoongi:

Your body tensed up as you spotted a couple of fans, you’d recognised from several of your social media pages. “What is it?” Yoongi asked as soon as he noticed your fear.

“Saesang,” you whispered, nodding your head in the direction of the crowd. “They’ve been in my comments for weeks making remarks.”

“Alright, well let’s just walk past them calmly and show them who’s in charge,” he encouraged, carefully guiding you over to the row of fans, looking away as you approached them.

You smiled softly as you felt their eyes fall on you, “Y/N,” one of them called out, making your body jump. “We just wanted to say we’re sorry.”

“Sorry?” You questioned, forgetting all about Yoongi’s advice to ignore them. “How come you’re suddenly so sorry after what you all said?”

The fan sighed softly, “we realised that you’re harmless and our behaviour was uncalled for. The two of you look really good together tonight.”

Your head turned to Yoongi, “I’d appreciate if you all left my girlfriend alone from now on.”

“We will, we know now that we made a mistake, we were just being protective of you.”

“I’ve got someone else to protect me now.”

Hoseok:

A look of confusion washed over his face as he read through a few of the comments on his live. “Apparently you’re trending on twitter jagi,” he called out to you.

“How come?” You asked, sitting yourself just off of the camera so that you could see what was going on. “I’ve not even done anything today.”

“No, it’s a good thing,” he quickly assured you, “remember the other day when you replied to that sasaeng, apparently it’s done the trick and scared them.”

You looked at him in surprise, remembering the incident he referred to. “I didn’t even think I did anything, I just asked them to stop.”

“But no one has ever done that outrightly before, to reply to a comment is huge and now it seems they’re all very scared of you,” he chuckled.

Your own smile grew, “who knew confronting a sasaeng was the answer,” you grinned, feeling his hand rest against your thigh gently.

His head nodded in agreement, “it seems you’re a bit of a hero amongst the army now.”

“Anything has got to be better than them hating me I suppose.”

“I’m pretty sure that they all love you now.”

Namjoon:

A piece of paper fell into your lap as Namjoon joined you in the bedroom. “Read through this,” he instructed, as your eyes read through the letter he’d been written by a fan.

“…and lastly, I want to say sorry for attacking Y/N, now I see she’s a good person…” you read out as you got to the end of the letter.

“In all the years I’ve been active I’ve never seen a sasaeng apologise,” he pointed out to you, taking a seat next to you, “you must have some sort of magical powers or something.”

Your head shook, resting against his broad shoulder. “I wonder if it was when I posted that photo of you? Feeding their thirst was maybe the trick.”

“So, all you had to do was give them more Joon content,” he laughed, placing the letter on top of his table, “I never thought that would solve all of this.”

You nodded, “neither did I, but clearly it must have done the trick. You know how desperate some of your fans are, they really will take anything they’re given.”

His smile grew, “I can always give you some more Namjoon content to post if you want it.”

“I think that’s content that I’d much rather just keep to myself, thank you.”

“I tried to help; the fans would be thankful.”

Jimin:

You jumped at the figure that stood directly in front of you in line to a concert, smiling gently. “You probably have no idea who I am, but I think I owe you an apology.”

“Do you?” You questioned, reaching into your back pocket to pull out your phone. “I’m not sure what you think you’ve done.”

“I’ve been pretty rude to you on social media,” she admitted, looking down shamefully, “I was always behind a screen though, but I should at least apologise to your face.”

You weren’t quite sure what to say, feeling your heart and head scream out at you. “I really need to get going, but I appreciate your apology,” you smiled, quickly excusing yourself.

“There’s no need to be scared of me,” she called out as you began to walk away, “you’re the scary one, why else would I have stopped being rude to you?”

You smiled back at her once again before heading off to find Jimin in his dressing room. “You’re never going to believe what has just happened?”

His eyes darted to you, “has someone hurt you or anything? Do I need to do something?”

“The exact opposite actually, one of your sasaengs just apologised to me.”

“Really? Well, that’s a good thing…I think.”

Taehyung:

He thought his eyes deceived him as he walked towards the front door, glancing back at a young girl walking back down the path. “What’s going on?” He asked you.

“She just appeared out of the bushes over there,” you pointed out to him, “said she wanted to see you, but I quickly sent her on her way.”

“How did you manage that when there’s no security around here?” He continued to question, safely making sure that you got back inside of the house.

Your shoulders shrugged innocently, “maybe I’m more intimidating than we think. I just spoke to her for a bit and eventually she backed away.

“But they never walk away, do you know how long I’ve been trying for?” He groaned, closing the front door behind you both with a bang.

Your eyes fell on his soft pout, “I’ll just have to sit you down and train you on how to handle a sasaeng properly I suppose.”

His eyes rolled, “I can’t believe you’re the one that they’re all scared of, not me.”

“Tae, no offence, but you’ve not got a single bad bone in your body to be scared of.”

“That’s true, I guess you can be the scary one then.”

Jungkook:

You could barely see him as he walked through the front door carrying a large box, “I hope you appreciate me bringing this all the way from the studio for you.”

“For me?” You challenged, helping him to put it down on the floor. “But I’ve not sent anything to the studio, unless you’ve been ordering things again.”

“None of us know who it’s from, but apparently they were pretty adamant you received it,” he sighed, shaking his arms out to get rid of his aches.

You cautiously opened it up to see several gifts inside with a large card on the top, opening it up. “It looks like an apology of some sort.”

“Let me see,” he smiled, taking the card, and reading through it properly. “It’s from a group of sasaengs, the ones who showed up at your office last week.”

You snatched it from him to read through it once again, “sasaengs never apologise, what could I have possibly done to get an apology from them?”

He glanced across at you, “I really have no idea, I’ve never seen them do anything like this either.”

“I don’t want to jinx it, but do you think maybe they’ve realised I’m not so bad?”

“I hope they have, how nice would that be?”

---

Masterlist

#bts #bts imagine #bts reaction #bts scenario #bts reactions #bts scenarios #jin imagine #yoongi imagine #hoseok imagine #namjoon imagine #jimin imagine #taehyung imagine #jungkook imagine #jin #yoongi #hoseok #namjoon #jimin #taehyung #jungkook #bts drabble #bts one shot #bangtan #bangtan sonyeondan #kpop #kpop imagine

[biisexualemma]

drunken night. klaus mikaelson

word count: 1698

warnings: none just a bit of swearing

requested: no something i wrote ageees ago

plot: your night is spoiled and klaus comes to the rescue

a/n: something different? let me know if you like or not oop— i have many more. also some kol imagines and bucky / peter p / marvel imagines i could post??? dunno lemme know whatcha think i’m nervous

masterlist

“oh, hey klaus," your eyes shifted around the compound when you stumbled across the wrong mikaelson brother. you'd been looking for your best friend, kol, you were supposed to go out drinking tonight. you'd had a particularly lousy week at work, and you were certainly ready to start the weekend off right by getting absolutely drunk out of your mind. and kol was the perfect person to do this with. "is kol around?"

klaus' eyes shifted from the book in his hands to you when you entered the compound. you wore your hair down which you didn't do often, and dressed up just a little more than usual. klaus couldn't keep his eyes off you, you didn't notice as you were preoccupied with kol's whereabouts.

"can't say i've seen him, love," you nodded. pulling your phone out your back pocket you began to dial kol's number when a message popped up. it was from kol.

i'm caught up with something. rain-check?

you huffed when you saw the message. you understood but it was still annoying. you really needed this night out. you just responded with a quick no prob. see you later. before shutting off your phone.

"kol?" klaus raised an eyebrow when he heard your phone ding, followed by your sigh. you nodded.

"he's cancelling on me," you frowned slightly, looking up to see the hybrid was watching you with a smile. you ignored it, he always wore a smirk on his face. he was always amused, or ready to tease you about something, it was in his nature.

"he's always been a bit flaky, that brother of mine," he shrugged, putting his bookmark in between the page he was on and put it down. his full attention was on you now. "what did you have planned?"

you trudged over to where klaus was sitting, and plonked yourself next to him like a child throwing a strop. klaus smirked in amusement. he always had a bit of a soft spot for you, not that he'd ever tell a living soul. but ever since you became friends with kol a couple years ago, klaus had his eye on you. he always made an effort to talk to you when you weren't preoccupied with his brother. he liked the way you smiled when he spoke to you. you were kind and inviting, and funny. but you held your ground, and defended yourself and the people you loved fiercely. he just felt better when you were around.

"we were supposed to go out drinking," you wore a slight pout. you were always oblivious to the way klaus behaved around you. you thought he was handsome, no doubt, and his accent always made you feel a little weak, but he was kol's brother. and he had a reputation, so you never went there. you just figured he was nice to you because he had to be. kol was very protective over you, he wouldn't stand for klaus, or any of his siblings, being rude to you. "and boy do i need a drink."

you rested, ready to up and leave after you spent a moment being angry with kol so you could move on from it. you just needed to get it out your system quickly and then you could go home and mope about it. "you know, i work hard at my job," suddenly you found yourself unloading everything on klaus. "and do i get any recognition? does my hard work pay off?" you couldn't stop now you'd started. klaus was the next best thing to kol, and he wasn't complaining yet so you kept going. "no! you know what i get? a big fat load of nothing.”

"and then i think— you know what— screw them. what do i care? i can spend the night getting drunk, forgetting about my shitty job and my shitty coworkers, and my shitty boss. but what happens?—"

"kol dumps you," klaus intervened.

"kol dumps me!" you repeated. you huffed, sinking back into the seat.

"you really should find better company than my brother, he's always been a bit of a letdown," klaus shrugged, teasing in hopes to ease the tension you were feeling. instead, you slapped his chest, giving him a look that made him think that was the wrong thing to say.

"he's your brother, and my best friend, don't be mean," klaus stifled a laugh and nodded his head. he didn't dare argue with you, you were on a roll. you could easily rip into him and he didn't want to hear it right now. "anyway," your attention moved away from klaus again and you sighed, your shoulders slumping. "point is, i'm sick of people."

he smiled, nodding again. "welcome to my world, love."

you glanced at him for a second. you always liked when he would use that nickname with you, it made you feel a little bit nervous. he was this big, scary hybrid, that so many people feared. but he would sit with you and let you rant about work, tease you and call you love. it was almost comforting. you liked klaus, despite what anyone said. which worried you.

"i should go," your eyebrows furrowed the longer you lingered. "sorry for unloading all that on you," you let out an uncomfortable laugh, realising you'd been sitting hear talking his ear off whilst he was being so polite and taking it all in. you stood up, making your way towards the door. "see you around, klaus."

as you turned to leave through the front gates, you found klaus now standing in front of you. you jolted backwards, caught off guard by his fast movements.

"stay and have a drink with me," klaus proposed. you furrowed your brows again, taken aback.

"i think i should probably go home.”

"come on love, you made it pretty clear what you needed is a stiff drink and some company. and here i am, offering you both," the smirk on his lips was enough to entice anybody. you couldn't resit accepting him.

you were quiet for a moment. klaus shook his head. "i'm not all bad, promise."

"ok, fine."

hours later and you were absolutely rotten drunk. your words slurred, your eyes stung, and you laughed at anything that klaus said at this point. but you were enjoying yourself. klaus turned out to be pretty good company after all. his tolerance was obviously much than yours, so he watched in amusement as you got more and more intoxicated as the night went on. he was just glad you were feeling better.

"i hope you told him where to shove it," klaus responded to your story about this man that had cat called you on your walk to the compound earlier.

you rolled your eyes, wearing a soft smile. "of course i did. i'm not completely helpless," you were lying down on the couch, klaus sat on the chair next to you, watching you stare at the ceiling and occasionally stealing glances at him. he only found himself growing more and more fond of you, the more time he spent with you. you let out a content sigh, your eyes drooping slightly the longer you lay flat on your back staring up at the ceiling. you were growing tired, it was pretty late now. "you're not as mean as people say you are, klaus," you mumbled quietly, your eyes glancing upwards to where he sat watching you with a drink in his hand. "in—in fact, you're perfectly nice," you hiccuped.

"well, if i was this nice to everyone, i wouldn't have much of a reputation, now, would i?" his quirked his eyebrow and sipped his drink. you sat up, turning around so you could face him.

"huh, i guess," you hummed as you thought about it. he was right. but why you? "you know, when we first met, before i knew who you were, i thought you were pretty hot," you chuckled, holding your stomach as it began to feel unsettled. you weren't thinking about anything that was coming out of your mouth at this point.

"before you knew who i was?" he frowned for a split second, you always didn't catch the expression.

"yeah, before i knew you were kol's brother," you shrugged. "kol's like a brother to me and i couldn't go around crushing on my brothers brothers— brothers best friend?— best—best friends brother? yep. that's the one," you smiled, your eyes fluttering. it didn't occur to you that you were admitting this all to klaus.

"crushing?" klaus teased. he knew you were drunk, but he also knew you'd never have the confidence to say any of this to his face sober. so he was revelling in it a bit. "you crushed on me?"

you pointed a finger at him, wearing a smile. "don't make fun of me."

"i'm not," he shook his head, still wearing a soft smirk. "but you do need to get to bed i think, come on," he held out his hand, helping you onto your feet. as you stood up you felt the blood rush your head. klaus clutched onto your arms as you wobbled. "yep. bed time for you, love."

you didn't argue. you allowed klaus to guide you up the stairs, carefully, one step as a time. his arm wrapped around your waist, and you clutched onto both his arms tightly. he guided you to the guest room where you'd spent many drunken nights, after nights like this with kol.

"i got it from here," you turned to face klaus, his hand lingering on your waist as you now stood face to face. you swayed forwards, grabbing his forearm. you wore a soft smile, your face inches apart and you couldn't stop yourself. you leaned closer, pressing your lips to his. his lips moved against you, pushing you backwards until your back hit the doorframe and he pulled away. his hands on your hips and yours just touching his chest. you let out a smile. your faces still pretty close together. "don't tell kol i did that."

klaus mimicked your smile. "i won't tell if you don't."

did klaus like you back?

#klaus mikaleson imagine #klaus mikaelson #klaus mikaelson x reader #klaus mikaelson x y/n #klaus mikaelson masterlist #masterlist #niklaus imagine #niklaus mikaelson #niklaus x reader #the originals #the originals imagine #the originals masterlist #the vampire diaries #the vampire diares imagine #tvd fanfiction #tvd imagines #elijah mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson #kol mikaelson #finn mikaelson #freya mikaelson #damon salvatore #stefan salvatore #elena gilbert

[ahjustroza]

I saw a hc post abt how Last Legacy love interests react to MC actually going back to Earth,so can I ask some hcs abt this one? I'm curious of what you come up with!!

I actually made the same request to @lucigucci !!

For this ask, I had to play the entire game once again because I couldn't come up with anything. Hope you'll like it!

MC Going Back to Earth Headcanon

Warning: Sad feelings and pain...

Anisa

Before giving in to her emotions she will make sure to not miss anything important for your return to Earth

She'll check with important magical necessaries for the portal

Check if you have everything you would possibly need

If you ate well

Will check twice everything she prepared for you to take with you to remember her

She will also give you the Orlando postcard

It is important to her but also you two shared many memories together talking about Earth looking at the postcard

She knows when you visit Orlando you will remember her

After she is done with everything

The realization of you actually leaving her will hit her HARD

She knew you for only months but fell for you in a way with no return

You became her breath

The meaning, the cause she wanted to live further

The center of her life

Her priority

Her peace

Her shelter, and safe place

If only she could stay in your arms for a little longer...

If only she could find a way to see you again

The smell your scent while she buried her nose to your neck

To your hair...

She misses you always

Even for a couple of minutes without you within her eyesight makes her feel troubled

She misses you to death before even you leave her...

She will use all her strength to not cry in front of you

But the moment you hugged her and kissed her the last time she broke

She never struggled like this

Never felt hurt like this

The devs mentioned that each character will have multiple endings, so I headcanon two different happy endings in this situation

One is being Anisa letting you go while she stays in Astraea

She knows that she might not be able to fit in

You are people of two different worlds

Quite literally

And it shows

Anisa however will never love again after you

She will refuse every potential partner both in her romantic life or in her bed

She will confess her feelings for you and give you her hair ribbon as well as the most painfully mesmerizing kiss...

The other ending being Anisa leaving Astraea with you.

She is half-human and can tell people that her marks on her face are tattoos on Earth

She will see this as an opportunity to start a new life

Without the guilt of who her parents are and what they have done

Without the danger of magical monsters or assassins tracking her all around

She is smart, a quick learner, and curious about Earth

With your support, she can get used to life on Earth and get a job

I am thirsty for Anisa as a workout or martial art trainer

But I can also see her going to college and finish it quicker than expected to work in a school

Counselor Anisa

You two will travel the world together

No matter the lifestyle you live Anisa is happy

She doesn't need a lot of money

All she needs is you

Also another surprise, she doesn't miss Astraea one bit

You are what she calls home now.

Sage

I am a Sage hoe myself but I can't see him leave Astraea with you

He can't fit in to Earth

He has to be free and living on Earth means he has to follow so many rules that he struggles to understand

Also Sage will absolutely refuse to leave Tulsi behind

There are only two people he actually cares about in this world

You and Tulsi

You two are his family and home

He is a family guy

And oh my god does he want to make his family larger secretly

Sage is a character that struggles with emotional confessions

He is also a good liar

So even tho he wants a future with you

If you want children, raise your children together (adopted/surrogacy/biological/a found family...)

Finally settling down and actually live in a home

Sage will experience the feeling of home with you the first time

He never felt safer and not worried about being vulnerable to someone

Having family dinners, family meetings with auntie Tulsi...

Celebrating anniversaries

Getting yourselves in trouble and moving to a different town

Even though he would fight the gods themselves to have this future with you, he will not tell you to stay

He will not say anything at all

He'll watch you and make sure to prepare everything for your return

And to make sure of your security during the process

You will look into his eyes each passing hour, hoping him to say something

Anything

But he will not

He'll only give you his signature soft half-smile with tired eyes

He will drink the entire day before your depart

Spend the whole night with you

Watch you sleep

Memorize your face

Your body

Will listen to your breathing

He will take everything he can get to never forget you

Also, cry too

Silently

Without you noticing

Tears will fall down to the pillow one by one

He wants to scream and tell you to stay but he can't force you to do anything you don't want

Any word out of his mouth might make you change your mind and do the opposite of what you want to do

You have a family too and you have to see them

A life you have to return to...

So if you don't say that you want to stay he will stay silent forever

If you choose to leave, do give him something to remind him of you

A necklace? Your laser pointer? Your foam sword?

He will carry whatever you give him with him

Always

Until the day he dies

Let's say you gave him a necklace, anyone who knew you will feel the pain in Sage when they see him still wearing the necklace after all those years...

He will never love again. It was a one-time thing.

He will not open up to anyone

He will not let anyone see the real Sage the way you did

He might have bed partners but it is not emotional

He is in pain and will either drink or throw himself somewhere to spend the night without thinking anything

But that can only happen if he is too drunk to remember what happened the night before

If you choose to stay, he will feel relieved

Guilty too but mostly relieved

He will build the future he desires with you

But will also look for ways to make you visit Earth and come back

Felix

I don't think Felix can fit in the Earth either

He grew up as the Arcmage's son and spent all his life studying magic

He can't live in a world where magic doesn't exist

He can't live a lifestyle where he will have to learn everything anew

I just think he is too sensitive for our world.

But unlike Sage and Anisa, Felix will ask you to stay

He'll ask you to stay and live a crazy but full of love life with him

He'll promise to take care of you since he is filthy rich

Then admit his fears of losing another lover

If you decide to leave he will feel betrayed and abandoned at first

He'll cry, then disappear for a while, then appear and tell you that you gave him a lot of hope

And disappear once again

He'll get drunk and then cry loudly too...

After Rime, you taught him how to love again

You made him feel safe and supported

Accepted for who he is...

You taught him how to properly love someone

No toxicity

No lies

No rivalry

He only wants to sleep in a bed in your arms around him not wake up for years

The idea of you leaving him hurts like someone stabs a dagger into his heart

He'll start to believe that this is his cruel destiny

To be the one stays while the other leave

He wants to follow you but he knows he can't live with you on Earth

He couldn't even fit in his own house yet...

Once he cooled down he'll admit how important your life back at home to you

And how it is his fault to steal that life away from you by bringing you to Astraea

He will open the portal for you himself

He is not trusting anyone else for this work

Before you leave he will tell you that he loves you and promise to never forget you

Here comes the pain

But he might fall in love again after you

You will always have a different place in his heart and in his memories though!

Felix did try to bring someone he fell for back from death then fall in love with someone else

I just think he will be more flexible with what life brings in front of him

And get even more depressed with time...

If you accept his offer and choose to stay his eyes will see nothing but you from that day and forward

You are officially his spouse now, no ceremony necessary

You will go on the vacation you both need and deserve then get a house to live together

You two will be the scary power couple

People will talk about you two as "the small necromancer and his spouse- yes the spouse. They are the one that fought the Lord of Shadows and the undead Rime. I also heard they got a relic the moment they stepped on Astraea- I KNOW it is crazy..."

Felix will share everything he owns with you, even his thoughts

He is so open to you that he knows you understand him the best

#fictif felix #fictif anisa #fictif sage #fictif last legacy #fictif games #sage last legacy #sage lesath #sage headcanons #felix escellun #last legacy felix #anisa anka #anisa last legacy #anisa headcanons #felix headcanons #last legacy headcanons #some writing

[stardustincarnate]

CONFESSION // Mello x Reader

word count : 4016 genre : fluff a/n : i haven’t gotten over my writer’s block, so yes -- here i am, once again posting old fics from my wattpad account. 

Today is the day.

After contemplating about it for a couple of weeks and confiding it to his best pal, Matt, Mello has finally decided to confess his feelings for you tonight, exploiting the situation where you two will normally go riding on the city streets during Friday midnights such as this one.

To say the least, he isn't the best in this kind of thing— love, that is. Before, all he could think about was one thing which was proving that he's better than Near, and besides, no one really piqued his interest. But then the enigma that you are came.

You can be cunningly evil at times if you want to. You'll often say to the ones you've fooled or to the other mafia members, "It's nothing personal, it's just business." You also have a harsh mouth as he would like to describe. Anything that comes out of it may sound derisive or blatant, but it's basically the truth. You don't sugarcoat things— you don't even try to. Although sometimes you seem to make the truth more cruel than it really is, which makes you look too intimidating for the others. They're only thankful that you don't talk very often and only will if you have something conducive to say.

But that's not all that you are. Mello could feel it, so he grew curious of you. Just a mere speck of curiosity, but then it grew. He wanted to talk to you, but then he asked himself what's the point of doing so, thus he disregarded the idea. That's why you developed a friendship with Matt, who you think is really fun to be with, first. Then as your friendship grew, he thought of introducing you to Mello, and that's when it began. To be frank the beginning of your friendship wasn't easy, and to think that friendship only started growing not until you celebrated a year and a half of being with the mafia.

It was a long process, but in the end, it was worth the wait. Day by day he started lowering the walls he barricaded himself with, and same as you. He became really outgoing and deep down truly caring as your friend, like he is with Matt, because after all you two are the only family he has. And— let's not forget his strange addiction with chocolates! And, well, you like it.

You like him.

Mello knows this as well. He knows that his feelings are reciprocated and he's happy with that. But the question is, who's going to make the first move? Certainly not you. Between fighting the devil and confessing your feelings for someone, you'd probably choose the former. You don't seem like the kind of person who will make the first move. He as well is like that.

And that leads us to his acquiescence of doing it instead. Did he have a choice? Well, maybe, if one considers you doing it instead, but that will definitely take several months, or even years, from now. And he can't wait that long! What if you suddenly start to develop feelings for another person? He can't lose you, you that is just in front of his eyes, one step away from him. He needs to grab the opportunity while it still is there.

Because with you, he feels happy and contented. And for the first time he finally feels like he is number one.

And he really is, in your heart.

"Wooh!"

Matt exclaims after slamming the door, causing Mello to jolt upwards from his reverie. "You know I almost got caught by another mem!"

"Is it done?"

"Of course."

"Hm. You sure this suggestion is for the better? You know how scary that woman can be when she's mad. Especially after finding out that her tires have been flattened."

"Didn't you say you wanted something more romantic tonight? So, I thought of flattening her tires so she can't use her own scooter, that way she can ride with you."

"Uh-uh... Is it romantic though?"

"You two will be close enough. And—no perverted thoughts—she gets to wrap her arms around you while riding. If that's not romantic, I literally don't know what is."

"I'm having qualms about this one."

"What? I'm just as clueless as you are when it comes to romance. I'm doing my best here to help you ya know?"

"I know, I know. Sorry."

"It's your fault you fell in love with her." Matt jests, chuckling. But he immediately behaves himself when he sees that deadly glare of his friend. "Hey! I was only kidding! Don't look at me like that, Mels. You're creeping me out."

"Hah. But I guess you're right. My fault. And great— now I'm having more doubts than before and feeling.. tentative."

"The almighty Mello is nervous? Wow. I never thought I'd live to see this day!"

"Say one more word and I'll make sure it's the last you'll ever emit."

"HE-HE-HEY! Now you're just being belligerent. Don't worry. I'm sure you two will come back here as a couple. Swear it on my life. So stop doubting yourself. And just.. don't act awkward and dorky when confessing towards your little devil."

"Just how am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. Just don't."

Mello heaves a sigh. "Sometimes I do wonder if you're really the smart Matt they used to talk about back in the orphanage."

Matt only grins. He's about to reply, but then they both hear footsteps—angry footsteps—coming closer.

"Oh, speaking of the devil. Here she comes. In three.. two.. one.."

With that, you kick the door open and look around. You look like you're about to whip someone's ass and the men can almost laugh at your reaction knowing the reason behind it. You give them a steely look when they unknowingly start to curve their lips to a grin. They quickly change their reaction.

"This has gotta be one of the worse days of my life!" You exclaim as you slump on the sofa beside Mello. "I can't go with you. I've got a flat tire, and I have no idea why. Someone must've done it.."

"Who would do such a terrible thing? Especially to you, the devil no one else even bothers to approach?" Mello momentarily glances at Matt before taking a bite of his chocolate, which you then steals from his grip. "But don't worry, I gotcha. You can ride me... with me I mean! You can ride with me, NOT RIDE ME—good Lord I'm sorry."

'Aha, and there goes Matt's reminder that I shouldn't act awkward.' He looks away with a blush.

"I think [Y/N] is okay with either of that—"

You raise an eyebrow at Matt. "Oh, you mean you Mathematics. You can ride him all you want so don't be shy and put my name in your shoes."

"That's not—!"

"—ANYWAYS, Willy Wonka, you sure you okay with me riding with you? You won't mind?"

"Jesus, stop calling me that! And yes. You're my friend so I won't mind."

"Thanks mate!" To his surprise, you hug him from the side. And you are hugging him a little too much. "You know I've always wanted to ride your motor. It looks cooler than mine."

"Ah.. well— you're squeezing me a bit too much.. don't you think?"

You pull away and snicker. "Sorry. You're like a marshmallow that I just want to squeeze sometimes."

"EHEM. Pardon me, will you? I need to go to the restroom."

Matt stands up, thinking that his job here as cupid is done—or not quite yet. He has one last plan in mind. And even he isn't sure that that plan is going to make things better or worse.

"Enjoy taking another dump!" You shout as he leaves the room, making sure to lock it. Now you and Mello are completely alone, facing one another in utter silence. And it's too silent that you can hear some of the other mafia members arguing in a distant room. You can even hear someone moaning. Mello can hear it too.

You both give each other a look that only you two can understand.

"Oof. Must be nice. Err, so anyways," you start. "The usual place tonight?" And by that you mean stopping by to go atop a dilapidated building in a forsaken road to stargaze with him for ten minutes. You two make sure to always include going there to find tranquility in the stars and with each other. It temporarily removes all the problems and worries you have.

With Mello ruefully shaking his head, you frown. He puts an arm over your shoulder and nods reassuringly instead. You hide a smile.

"We can do that next week or earlier if we're not too preoccupied so don't be so glum. I'll be taking you somewhere new. I'm sure you'll like it."

"I hope so. Otherwise I'm gonna kick your ass."

"You'll be the one getting your ass kicked it if you don't give me back my chocolate right now."

"But I need chocolate too! Chocolate makes you happy. So I need it, 'kay?!"

"As far as I know that chocolate is mine and not yours???"

"But I'm your friend aren't I? You still have a lot of stock in there I'm sure."

"I'm running out of chocolates so give it back you little demon."

He hastily maneuvers before you can even stand up and try running away. He seizes your wrists and places your arms behind your back to prevent you from moving. Since you two are facing each other instead of him being behind you, the position is rather awkward. The proximity of your faces makes both of you blush and in an instance he backs away. You cackle in triumph as to his dismay of not getting his chocolate back.

You look at your wristwatch before taking a bite of the sweet. "Well Marsh-Mello, what are we waiting for? Let's hit the road! I'm already bored." You hold his hand the moment he stands up and you two run outside.

Mello throws the helmet to you which almost hit your face, earning an irked look from you. He then starts the engine as you wear your helmet.

When he starts to move just before you can take a seat, you panic. Of course he only wants to toy with you. He stops at a corner and waits for you, who's running and ready to smash his face. You pant as you finally reach him.

"You little bastard! Why'd you have to make me suffer?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"You groan and then sit behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist. The closeness of your bodies make you both blush. He makes sure you're all set before once again driving in a high speed that made you hug him tighter. You've always known that he drives this fast, but to experience it yourself? It feels like your skin is being blown away and seperated from your bones.

"W-Would you mind slowing down, just a bit?"

"Come on [Y/N], that's not fun."

"So you call this fun? You're gonna kill us both. I'm too beautiful to die right now!"

"Tsk. You're no fun." You're about to make a rebuttal but he slows down reluctantly and matches the speed you will normally drive at. You sigh in relief and absently rests your chin on his right shoulder, looking at the stores, buildings, and a few people walking on the sidewalk which you are hastily passing by. On your left you see numbered vehicles and a few more buildings.

You're enjoying the ride, however, you hear the tire from behind pop. That is already bad, and worse comes when the front one pops too. He goes to the side before halting.

"Shit! Just our luck!"

"Haha seems like you and I share the same fate, huh? Goals."

Mello sighs as a realization dawns him.

'Matt.. you little shit.'

"Whadda we do now?" You worriedly ask.

"We're still halfway to the place I'm taking you and this happens.. I suppose I can just park this somewhere. You wouldn't mind walking, would you?"

"Sounds fine with me then."

He nods and parks the motor beside a bicycle and a car in front of a store, placing a tracker in it just in case it gets stolen. But if it ever does, he can just get another one. Legally or not. Doesn't matter.

In silence, you and Mello start walking side by side. Arriving upon a city bridge you can't help but stare at the river. The limit to what you can see on its side is a lively city despite the hour, with skyscrapers and billboard signs lit up. You can hear the occasional, distant sounds of car engines.

You avert your gaze back in the front, meeting chatty people on your way who are walking opposite to you and Mello. You realize that they're mostly couples who are matching clothes and openly talking, not caring if they're to be heard by others. Mello also notices, and not only that but the way you two undeniably look like one. Without any intentions, your clothes match. Not that it's a big deal since everyday you two wear black, but because of your surroundings, he might as well seize the opportunity.

Beaming from ear to ear, he holds your hand and intertwines your fingers together. You're confused, but at the same time liking it, a blush creeping on your face.

"Don't mind if I do. We don't wanna look like a couple who can't bear with each other after some kind of quarrel, do we?"

"But we're not a couple."

"No, not yet."

You stop and raise an eyebrow.

"Oop. Did I say that out loud? My bad."

He cheekily grins. It's only a joke, you think, but at the same time you wish that he's not joking—which he really isn't.

"Hey, how long are we going to walk?"

"Why? Are your feet giving up already? Want a piggyback?"

You completely turn red. He smiles at that.

"Nah.. I—"

"Don't waste the opportunity. I might change my mind later."

"I don't care. This is enough."

You squeeze his hand tightly—too tight that he swears he feel his phalanges breaking—but unexpectedly, he just moans. And people look at the two of you.

"The fuck was that?!? I didn't know you were some kind of masochist!"

"DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO SAY IT OUT LOUD?"

"AHA so you do admit being a masochist!!"

"WHAT? NO! I'M NOT!"

"Why so defensive now?"

"Because people are hearing you???"

"Let them! HAHAHAHA! MY BOYFRIEND IS A MASOCHIST! ISN'T THAT CUTE??"

But after realizing what you just said, you stop and gnaw your lower lip.

"Oh earth swallow me right now.. Sorry! God I'm embarrassed. You're not my boyfriend—"

"Didn't I tell you? Not yet."

You punch his shoulder playfully. "Stop joking around! I might actually believe you ya know?"

"Who said I was joking?"

"..Of course you are—"

"—OH, here we are!"

He diverts the topic, leaving you to slightly pout to yourself as he turns left to an unoccupied and dark area, pulling you to the railing where you two halt and see the perfect angle to view the city and the river from. The water and its light ripples glimmer under the moonlight as the brisk wind hits your skin, making you slightly shiver. Mello notices this and takes off his jacket, insisting you should wear it instead. You don't argue.

"Mello, this is.. magnificent. And a nice spot to stargaze as well! It's pretty wherever I lay my eyes on."

"Except behind us, maybe. You don't like trees that much."

You cackle. "They give me the creeps, especially during night. But at least we don't have to face that way, do we?"

He shakes his head as he laughs, inclining himself closer to you. He places his hands just beside yours on the railing, looking up and then looking at you, who's still busy admiring the sky.

He can't help but smile admiring you in your adorable placidity.

"The stars are pretty tonight." You say as you notice him looking at you in your peripheral vision.

"You always say that. They're always pretty. Sparkly."

"Mesmerizing to look at." You add. He nods, still staring at you.

"That's why I love the stars.."

"Uh huh. And chocolate." You grin.

"And you."

You stand flabbergasted, daring not to look at him directly. Your heart feels like it's about to jolt out of your chest. Your fingers begin to tremble on their own as you feel something intangible whirling inside your stomach. You know what it is—and he's making your heart flutter. But you can't trust this feeling as you aren't even sure if he's joking or not. And if he is, you kinda hate it. You want it to be real.

"Aye, don't flirt with me. That's so not you." You snap, rolling your eyes.

It doesn't take him too long to perceive what's on your mind. He taps your shoulder before sitting on the railing, inviting you to join him. You're a little hesitant for the fear of falling to the water. And when it comes to this kind of thing, you don't trust Mello. You're sure he'll eventually push you. The number of times he had done this to you in some places before is something you can't even count anymore.

"C'mon [Y/N]. Don't be scared. I won't push you. Or if I do, you're free to drag me as well."

"Tch. So you do intend to push me." Nevertheless, you sit beside him and grip the bars tightly with your clammy palms. Luckily the concrete extends six inches after the railing.

Mello feels like you two aren't physically close enough, and he thinks it's not 'romantic' enough, so he slides even closer to you until his palm is already above your hand and your shoulders bump.

"Oh, no. You keep your distance, Mr. Wonka."

"It's not like we're having social distancing here you know?"

"You're too close."

"And I'm going to get even closer.."

He whispers, his hot breath tickling the side of your neck. You sigh and face him, and your noses bump. You urgently back away and you almost slip if not for him.

"What's gotten into your system for you to act so flirty all of a sudden?"

"You."

"MELLO!! I'm damn serious. Like, all the jests can wait but for now, just.. don't flirt with me. I'm in no mood."

"Aww, trying to shoo me away huh? After stealing my heart and my chocolates, here you are suddenly breaking my poor, poor heart."

"One more attempt and I'm going to drown you."

"Heeeeeeey. Don't be so vicious now." He softly bumps your shoulder with his. You only click your tongue in annoyance.

"Seriously. Stop messing with me. I hate you."

"No you don't. I'm not messing with you. I'm serious—"

"Tch. Serious my ass."

"..You don't have one—"

"See? You little fucktard. You keep on messing with me. So just stop flirting with me. I swear I'll kill you if you continue."

"Whaaat? Seriously, I'm not messing with you. You gotta—"

"Mels, no, no, no. You can poke fun of me, push me off right now or anything but just don't flirt with me. You're a bastard for torturing my feelings. That's not cool at all. Damn it," you spat. He keep his silence, his mouth starting to gape.

"Don't make me assume things because I really, really, really like you!"

The words pour out unbidden. Your voice resonates and immediately you shut up and look down with a furious blush.

'That's it, congratulations for possibly ruining your friendship.' You think as you bite your lower lip.

Your blush vanishes as the fluttering feeling in your chest does, being replaced with instant regret, as if your heart has dropped to your stomach.

The look of surprise in his face turns to a cheeky grin. With much glee, he chuckles.

"I've always known this devil is a pure softie inside..."

"M-Mello.."

You are about to tear up, but then he says, "Do you know what you just did? You ruined my plans, [Y/N]! But I suppose I can forgive you for that."

"What?? Plan?? Damn you, damn you, damn you! I knew you were up to no good! Damn it, Mello! Pretend this night never existed. I'm outta here—"

"No no, it's not what you think. 'I like you' was supposed to be my line, not yours!" He can't help but burst out laughing, leaving you momentarily dazed, but then when you realize what he possibly meant by that, it's as if your heart has come back to life. Your face turns red.

"I was going to confess to you tonight, but it looks like the tables had turned. You are a.. partypooper! Do you know how many times I've practice saying that in front of Matt, just to end up with you saying it instead of me? Unbelievable!"

He wheezes, catches his breath, then looks at you. "And look, I'm not complaining, alright? Haha.. but the way things turn out to be in the end is just so.. whimsical. But I'm gonna say it anyway: I like you. I like you a lot."

You scrutinize his facial expression just to be sure that he's serious, and you confirm he truly is. He's absently smiling, and just from staring at you is the reason. Rapture dances in his eyes. He looks genuinely happy and candid at the moment. And here you are left speechless, only staring at him as a sheepish smile slowly invades your face.

You almost lose your grip on the railing when he briefly kisses your cheek. And again, nothing comes out of your mouth.

"Do I also need to say that I wanna be your boyfriend? Because, isn't it obvious?"

"Mello..."

"No pressure, [Y/N]. If we both like each other but you're not yet ready for a relationship, I understand and I can wait."

"Well.." You hide your face on his shoulder because you feel like the longer you stare at him, the more probable it is that you'll faint. "Uhm.. Err... Have you ever been.. in a relationship?"

"No, not really. You will be my first one. If you accept."

You smile. "Well, same as you here."

"Really? I thought you already had a partner or two before."

"I had no time to be in love. Add that some of the people I was acquainted with sucked, and the kind ones.. well, let's just say that they seemed to be missing something.. something that, I suppose, only you have. And.. it will really make me happy if you are to be my first," you lift your head up to meet his eyes. "So I accept."

"You serious?? Right here?? Right now??"

"Need I repeat myself, partner-in-crime?"

"Haha! Course not!"

You peck his cheek as your warm smile broadens. You then rest your head on his shoulder, your eyes never leaving the distant city as he wraps an arm around your waist, meticulous so that you two wouldn't slip from the railing and fall down.

"I think it's safe to assume now that you're the one behind flattening my tires. And just so I can ride with you. You're a cunning man, so I suppose you also did something with your own scooter just so we could walk together, like couples in movies. Haha I never thought you'd think something like that!"

"It was Matt's idea. Swear. He thought it was more romantic that way. And he's probably the one who rigged my scooter. He really can be a huge pain in the ass sometimes."

"Like you are."

"Aw come on. Take that back you little demon!"

"Noooopeeeee! Pfahahaha— AAAA SHIT!"

And with that, you both plunge into the frigid water with a loud splash.

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