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ahoycaptainautumn · 9 months

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Fated Mates Part 9

Synopsis: you, a vengeful vampire slayer, cross paths with the devious and handsome Astarion. Instead of a stake through the heart, Astarion finds something he thought impossible for vampire spawn. A mate.

Astarion, unable to deal with the consequences of the mating, flees. You however learn a great deal with the help of a certain book.

The echoes of your combined panting pound against the granite walls of the ancient temple. Your heart rate still sky high as you try to remember how to breathe. Once finished, Astarion had rolled over to lay next to you. Both of you without a proper word to say after that. You felt like you had a million thoughts racing through your head. So many feelings and sayings you wanted to burst out of you. But all that came was a jumbled mess in your head that fell flat on your tongue. Sex had never been like that before. Sure you have had good lovers, talented ones even. But this. This was different. It stirred something else in you. A closeness that you felt in your bones the moment his teeth sank into your flesh. That this vampire, this agonizingly cocky, arrogant, self serving vampire, was someone you now… cherished. A bloom of affection took root in your stomach and was furrowing out into every section of you. You turn your head to look over at him. His eyes closed as if in thought.

Astarions mind races just as fast, but for entirely different reasons. His whole body is screaming to run. Fight or flight shocking his system into overdrive. To leave this, whatever this is, hard and fast. This was the beginning of his doom. Of the downfall in his tether free, master free, lifestyle. For all his years of honing his skills in manipulation, Astarion finds himself being the one wrapped around your finger. His body throbs with the reminder of what he had sealed with his actions. The words mate mate mate repeating over and over again somewhere deep in his mind. The words used to describe mating bonds from passing vampires or that book compared little to the experience of it. It was something stronger than even the pull Cazador has. Something built into his DNA. Every fiber, every muscle wired now to be attuned to you. But how could he do that to you? He may be callous, Gods know he isn’t one for caring, but he found himself doing so with you. Of caring what this meant for you. To you. That without your choice, without your consent, you had unknowingly stuck yourself to someone like him. You’re a vampire hunter for Gods sake! You would be degrading yourself for being with him. It was below you, even if you couldn’t see it for yourself. Astarion prays to whatever God would even listen to him that you would not feel the bond's presence. That the pull would bounce off of you. That you both could go back to insulting one another with maybe another romp or two. But when Astarion opens his eyes he finds you already looking at him.

“That was..” you trail off. Astarion pleads your next words won’t be kind. That you’ll break his heart into two and say something horrible. That you’ll demand to never do it again. So in his wallows he could know you would move on. Find someone worthy of you. Someone not to live for eternity as a manipulator, a puppet in a grand plan that would surely cast him aside. At least broken, he could still watch out for you. Could make sure your every need met, that his mate would be safe. Safe and far away. Far away from him. Far away from Cazador.

“Amazing. Not bad, blood sucker.” Your eyes twinkle as you finish your sentence. For the jest you put in your last sentence he can see the meaning behind it. The affection behind your eyes. You attempt to wrap your hand in his. Fingers interlocking in a warm embrace. No, no. No, he had to stop this at once. He couldn’t do this to you. He puts on his mask, that face that looks as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He wringes his hand out of your grasp and hoists himself up. With his scarred back to your questioning face he steadies himself. He squeezes his eyes shut, as if to not be present for what is to come out of his mouth. The poison he knew you would one day come to appreciate. Even if his mind screamed to stop.

“It was alright but I will take the flattery, now if you’ll excuse me. I’m off to find a comfortable bed.” He throws a hand out as if to shoo away the conversation. He takes a steadying breath and lurks over to his discarded clothes. He doesn’t dare look up to see your face. He can feel the hot stare on the back of his head already. He knows if he looks back at you; if he sees the way your face morphs into confusion and sadness, it will surely break the facade. That he will run back to you and take back his actions. But he trudges on, getting dressed faster than he believes he ever had before. Within a wink he’s already stranded you there naked on the table. You look around, as if your environment would give you any clue. What had just happened? One second your flirting, the next fucking, then he’s just.. gone? Sure maybe he wasn’t a cuddle type. You could deal with that. But he felt so cold. Unfeeling, as if this was a decent enough fling and he had had his fill. Was that all it was? Putting action to words spoken this entire adventure? A passing bit of fun? Now done, he could discard you? You scramble to get your clothing back on. You hurry out of the temple hoping to catch him before he’s gone. But it is as if he rode the wind and disappeared.

You hoped and prayed he would be back at camp once you made your way back. Though unfortunately, all companions were accounted for minus one vampire. Karlach had been the last into camp so you went to her to see if she may have seen him out and about.

“Karlach! Hey! You hadn’t seen Astarion by chance have you?” You run over to her, panting as you bend over to catch your breath.

“Woah woah woah. Breathe soldier. I think I saw him at one of the taverns in town. What’s going on?” She asks. Her strong arms crossed over her chest as she looks you over. Since meeting you she’s had a protectiveness about her when it came to you. Only an idiot couldn’t see how Astarion and you flirted back and forth. From the look on your face, something was up. And it was not good.

“Which one?” You ask impatiently. She shakes her head and leads you over to her tent.

“First you’re going to tell me what’s going on.” She returns. You make yourself comfortable on a plush pillow as she sits cross legged in front of you. Once you’re sat you fall into your hands. Forehead resting on your open palms.

“I don’t know! I wish I could explain it!” You start. You grasp at your hair, searching your mind for what even had just happened. You tell her everything that has transpired. Her face changes from excitement to anger by the end of your tale.

“I knew it! He couldn’t be trusted! Once I get my hands on him-“ Karlach starts. You throw up your hands and shake them wildly in front of you to stop her sentence. Something in you screams to protect Astarion. You knew how Karlach could rage, he didn’t deserve that. At least, not until you spoke to him.

“Karlach no! I just- I just want to talk to him.” Your voice falters. You feel deflated, listless. If you could just talk to him you could figure this out. Right? Karlach studies you. The way you wrung your hands back and forth anxiously. How your eyes look big and lost, nearly wet with tears. Gods you must be falling for the vampire. She groans and picks herself off the floor.

“Fine, fine. Since you look like a love sick puppy i'll tell you. But one misstep and it’s his fangs next time I see him!” She warns, wagging her finger in your face. You give your best smile albeit it still looks drained. She tells you the tavern she had seen him last. You give her an air hug as a thank you and scamper out of the camp. Karlach watches as you race off towards the town center.

As good a pickpocket Astarion is, he didn’t quite manage to steal enough to buy a decent enough wine. But this vinegar concoction would have to do for the evening. He sighs to himself, watching as he swirls the red liquid absentmindedly in his glass. His head rests on his hand he has propped up on the bar counter. The bar top is sticky with sloshed beers, people chatting and cheersing away around him. The mood is cheerful, gleeful even; with a band of barbs playing loudly in the corner. Elves and tieflings alike dancing away the night. Bartenders move swiftly, collecting orders from the numerous parched dancers and bar regulars. Astarion had paid enough upfront for the bar maid to leave the whole bottle with a sultry wink. Normally he would have chased it down. Gotten free wine and romp out of one exchange. But her beauty, her want of him, was nothing if not pale to him. His mind is entirely wrapped in thoughts of you. His stomach ached against the feverish bond pounding away inside of him. It gnawed at him. Begging for him to find you, check on his mate, to inhale your scent and never let go. It pushed into his throat and he swallowed around the lump of misery. Just as he put the glass to his lips once more he caught a familiar scent. The wafting of that familiar lavender, the bounding pulse that was so distinctly you. His ears perked up and he whips his head to look around. You were bounding towards the tavern, he could tell. His heart sang, brimming with life at the thought of you close. He shuts down the feeling as quick as it comes as he scampers to find a way out of this. He was not ready for this conversation. He needed one night to steel himself in the misery he needed to cause. The bar maiden notices Astarions nervous glances around and walks over to him.

“Need something handsome?” She does her best to push her breasts close together as she leans over the bar. She gives an award winning smile, looking Astarion up and down. Your scent grows stronger in Astarions nostrils.

“You don’t happen to have somewhere private by chance? I’ve got an angry lover on my tail, and I have a feeling she’s going to be here quite soon.” Astarion explains to the bar maiden with a cheeky smile. She gives him another look up and down. She muses this must be a very bad pick up line and wiggles a come hither at him. Astarion follows the woman towards the back, desperate to be hidden. Just as he is out of sight, you barge into the tavern. You look the place over at lightning speed. Nothing is a miss, a quite normal tavern. Joyful dancing to the band playing for the night. People in different small crowds socializing with one another. There is only one seat open at the busy bar with a forgotten glass of wine. Something inside you whines that he must be here. You damn near feel like you can smell him. I must be going crazy, you think. You look for him once more over the crowd before falling into the empty seat. A tiefling man sits to your left nursing a large stein of ale. It’s quite obvious from the numerous empty glasses surrounding him that he had been here for some time. You decide to try your luck and ask if he had seen Astarion.

“You didn’t happen to see an elvish man with white hair here recently? Tall, slender, reddish eyes?” You describe to him. He brings a finger to his chin to ponder. He sways slightly back and forth on the stool as he scrunches his nose in thought. You just about thank him for wasting your time before his eyes widen.

“Ah yes yes! He was- he was uh. Yeah he was just here.” He replies, gesturing to your seat.

“Where did he go? Did he happen to say?” You ask, hope growing in your heart.

“He followed the bar lady- went behind. Back room.” He pieces together, belching between each word. You give him a quick thanks before you hop off the stool. Your heart in your throat, you round the bar. The other bartenders are too busy with patrons to notice you diving back towards the employee only section. The back hallway only hosts tankards of ale, barrels, and cleaning supplies. You nearly given up before you notice a wooden door in the darkened corner of the hallway.

Astarion follows the elf bar maiden to a back hallway. There’s only one other room beyond the supplies littered about. Low candle light flickering large shadows across the hall. She takes his hand in hers and leads him to the door. He thinks nothing of it as your scent hits him harder, announcing your arrival. Anything to scurry away would be a luxury right now. She thrusts Astarion into the closet before shutting the door behind her. The room is small, filled with shelves of food supplies, more ale and wine bottles, and other miscellaneous items. It’s quite dark, a few old candles nearing their end in random spots. A leak from the roof trickles rhythmically at the far corner. Before Astarion can take a breath of relief the woman pounces on him. Her hands twine around his neck as she pushes him into a kiss. Astarions hands flare up in shock, eyes wide as if stuck in place. She takes his moment of shock to thrust her tongue into his mouth, moaning into his lips. Her hands twirl into his feather soft hair. This was nothing like his kisses with you. Those sparked lightning in his body, brimming his undead body to life. This was just skin to skin, pale in comparison. Astarion grabs her hips, hoping to politely decline with a nudge. Though before he can make space between their bodies another person comes tumbling into the closet. Astarion curses the Gods above that he chose to drink his sorrows away with piss-drunk patrons and horny bartenders. But with a glance over the woman’s shoulders his eyes fall on yours. Your foot propelling you forward, stuck in motion. Your hand is still gripping the doorknob as gasps of exertion leave your lips. Your eyes say it all. Blown wide in shock before cementing into pure pain. Even in the dim light Astarion can make out the way hurt curls in on your face. A crack whips up the bond. He can feel his breath leave him at the nauseating feeling. The bartender turns from her kiss with Astarion to investigate who came into the room. She gives an annoyed look over her shoulder, nose curling in disgust.

“Um employees only. Can’t you read? Kinda busy right now.” She scoffs. Just barely can Astarion hear the hiccup you let out. A fat wet tear rolling down your soft cheek before you turn and walk away. Astarions body moves of its own accord. He shoves the woman away from him as he makes haste to the door. He barely catches your disappearing scent as he walks back out on the crowded bar floor.

Cold night air slaps harsh against your skin as you dash from the tavern. Tears roll freely down your cheeks as you attempt to catch your breath between cries. Your heart pumps in your chest as you run down alleyways and streets. It feels as if your mind is sputtering, engine dying and failing to compute. So that’s what he had meant about finding a comfortable bed? Someone else’s? Jealousy and rage thunder in your veins, turning your body to pure ice. You had been so stupid! So naive! Here you were, a strong and capable vampire hunter, being distracted for games by a spawn! Tears dry in your eyes as the fury takes hold of you. That delicate piece of you that held Astarion begins to crumble into a ball in your heart. The tether to him you had started to feel in the temple engulfed in flames. Your feet move quickly, taking you right into camp and into Astarions tent. You wanted to rage. To put your hands to use and shred everything in sight. To destroy and put fire to anything he cared about. How dare he use you! How dare he toy with you! Your head whips back and forth in attempts to find something to bring your vengeance upon. You eye the large ornate trunk Astarion keeps his personal belongings in. You kneel before it before ripping the top open. Inside lies a scattering of things. Clothing, mirrors, art pieces and a few books. You dig around a bit before your eyes land on that gaudy romance book he had been insistently reading. Any moment he seems to be on his own his nose is buried in that book. Several times you had stolen glances his way or happened to peer in his tent only to find him reading and rereading that very book. What good is a romance book to someone playing the games he does! It’s ludicrous! It nearly makes you laugh in anger at the thought of him reading such a loving novel when he himself had shattered your heart. You tear the book from the chest just as you hear hurried footsteps coming towards camp. Most everyone had gone to bed already so you assumed it’s Astarion. You exit his tent and plunge into your own. You zip the entrance tight, making a very obvious do not disturb before you scuttle back onto your sleeping pad. A few minutes later you hear Astarions feet coming towards your tent. The scent of bergamot and rosemary wafting in. The scent encompasses your senses, relaxing you. You almost let the feeling carry you, to snuggle into the familiar scent. Before that rage takes hold once more. You turn from the tent entrance and lie on your side. You float in and out of sleep as you dream of Astarion.

Astarion putters before your tent entrance, half tempted to rip it open. His mind pleads to do just that. To try him damnedest to plead his case. To show it was all a misunderstanding and should be shoved to the past. But he could see how it looked. He had taken you, left coldly and then is found kissing another woman. It looked bad. It was royally fucked. One part of his brain reminds him that he should be happy. That this is what he wanted. Distance between you so you could flourish without the weight of him holding you down. But the ache of your misery and hatred stabbed Astarion sharper than any blade. He felt like his throat couldn’t open all the way. His muscles aches, heart crying out. How on earth did any vampire get anything done with the waves of emotions the bond made one feel? He finally decides, against his heart's judgment, to go to his own tent.

Breakfast was tense. More than tense, cut throat. Astarion did his best to stay clear of you, avoiding you every moment he could. Seemingly having something to do when you came near. A black cloud followed you, rage nearly palpable near you. Everyone stepped on their toes around the two of you, no one bringing up the obvious. Karlach attempted to talk to you, to try to soothe you. But you wanted none of it. As much as you appreciated your friends' attempts you wanted to sit in your anger. To let your body go through the emotions it needed to feel. You had hidden the book you stole from Astarion in a secluded spot near camp. In case he noticed it missing and decided to ransack your tent. You were childishly hoping he would notice it missing and confront you. Just so he would acknowledge you. Gods you just wanted to argue. To yell and fight and curse and then make up. You wanted it so badly you could nearly picture it, a daydream rewinding in the back of your mind. If Astarion felt the same he certainly didn’t act like it. He ignored you as best as he could. Once or twice you tried to confront him yourself. Foolishly thinking to be the bigger person. Even if the bigger person punched him right in his jaw. But alas, he swerved away from you like the plague.

Your first attempt was at camp after trying to settle your mind and eat something. But the moment you went where he had just been in the forest he was already gone. You then tried again when everyone had dispersed into town. You had all decided to stay one more night in the city, to prepare for your trip to the next destination. You tracked him through the city streets. You followed unnoticed behind him, watching him turn and go behind a shop. Just as you round the corner, words ready at your tongue, he was nowhere to be seen. You tried to find him again but it’s as if he had disappeared from the city. Fed up, you let the sorrow take root once more as you tucked tail and went back to camp.

Astarions chest puffs with anxiety as he lays flat against the building wall. Squeezing his eyes shut in silent prayer. He had smelled your scent the moment you started to follow him into town. He had tried to ignore it at first. Hoping that you would give up once you noticed he wasn’t paying you any mind. Then he tried to shake you, turning down streets quickly with no real rhyme or reason. But still your pulse and scent felt as if it bites at his heels. Finally he decided to dive behind a shop and hide behind an alleyway wall. Thankfully you had given up the search as you made your way behind the shop as well. He sighed in relief as he slumped to the ground. His heart ached, throbbing in pain. This couldn’t keep going on. But he didn’t really know what else to do but return to his old habits. Hide.

Eyes wet with tears, you made your way to the secluded spot you had found near camp. Nestled in between thick trees and a flowing stream was a short jagged rock formation. The rocks sat on one another creating a craggily diamond head. A perfect spot to get away, and to hide someone’s book. You rest against the rocks as you watch the steam go by lazily. Fat tears plop onto the group beside you. You tried to wrap your mind around what has happened. What do you even do? You think it’s best to just forget it. Forget any of it happened and move on as if it never occurred. But at the thought your stomach lurches. Pain sharp as ice cinches your heart. To forget that night? To forget Astarion? Who were you kidding. The vampire had come and twirled himself into your heart strings. So tangled you don’t recognize who is who. Your relationship or even your feelings, for another never felt so strong before. As if the world’s axis tipped at the point of where Astarion stood. Your center of gravity in a reality you found completely upside down. A year ago you would have been hunting his kind down. Forcing them to out the man who had butchered your family and left you to witness it all. You too weak to even be dealt with. But now you would strangle who would do the same to Astarion. Yes he had his flaws, giant glaring flaws. But there was someone full of grief and loneliness under the facade. Of someone who had bared torment from your tormentor.

You tilt your head back and close your eyes. The rocks cool on the back of your head. You take a deep breath and sigh, tears finally leaving you. You reach behind you to grab hold of Astarions book you hid in between the rocks. The raunchy book cover greeting you. You shouldn’t have taken it. It was childish, done in anger. You should just walk back to camp, toss it in his tent, and leave well enough alone. But as you grab the book in both hands you notice the cover slip. The hardcover underneath is worn with old leather. You slide the rest of the cover off. The title reads “Mates in Five Different Species: Fate Driven Partnership”. Something sparks in your mind. A sense of deja vu. Like a long forgotten memory scratching at the precipice of your brain. You open the book and start to flip through. You find a certain page dog-eared, obviously reread from the worn feeling of the pages. It’s the beginning of a chapter titled “Vampiric Mates”. As you read the words it hits you. A sudden all powerful wave that would have surely swept you off your feet. Your skin tingles as goosebumps ride along your extremities. Your mouth is dry as your throat constricts. You can only think of one thing. Mates.

Part 8 here

Part 10 here

#smut #reader insert #astarion #astarion x mc #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #bd3 #mates #balders gate 3 #baldurs gate iii #baldurs gate astarion #baldurs gate 3

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finniestoncrane · 24 days

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Sitting my ass down in the front row for this sci-fi movie. Yeah, can I get me a uh- bubble tea, sweet popcorn, and uh- Slater it in pickles. My date's Cooper Howard, yeah he's not here willingly. Don't worry about it.

god what i wouldn't give to be his to do what he wanted with so we are on the same page here ;-; 💚🩷 cw: posessiveness, dubcon-ish, master/servant dynamics kinda, humiliation, degradation, boot licking 🔞minors dni🔞 send a request • masterlist • kofi link • tag: finnie2k (to follow or to block)

You stood before him, infamous bounty hunter Cooper Howard, more legend than man at this point. Your entire body trembled, mind racing in confusion as he tried to clarify what he had just asked of you.

"Well, now don't be embarrassed, darlin'. It happens to the best of us out here."

Raising an eyebrow, you kept your vision on him as he paced in front of you.

"Just one of those things you get accustomed to over time, but everyone's fallen for it. You're desperate for something. Money, food. You take on a job out of necessity, don't ask what it might entail, and then you find out it's a lot more than you were ready for."

Cooper stopped, a smile gathering in his dry, ridged cheeks as he watched your pupils widen when caught in his gaze.

"I wouldn't have hired you if I didn't think you were up to it, though."

Still shocked at what he'd asked you to do, a definite line-crosed between employer and employee, you were unable to argue much, which meant Cooper held the floor.

"But, you will note that the contract I had you sign stated that you were mine for the duration, and that you will do as instructed by me, or else..."

His thumb tapped the barrel of the shotgun on his right leg and he winked to you.

"... I'd hate for it to come to that."

You considered the many opportunities he had up until now to pull that trigger, each little mistake you made. And as though he could read your thoughts, he decided himself to highlight this.

"Besides, you've proved that you're not worth much more than that slit between your legs, so spread 'em wide and start doing whatever it takes to get yourself in the mood."

Rattled by his unshakeable confidence and his answer for questions you hand't even asked, you did as you were told, easing your hand down the front of your pants and beginning to rub between your already thick, swollen lips, spreading your embarrassingly copious slick around as he watched you.

"Good girl. You get nice and wet, or I'm going in rough and dry. Your choise."

As your breath hitched, he chuckled.

"Yeah, I thought as much. You strike me as the weak-willed and desperate type. I can read you like a book, darlin'."

Cooper's hand was under your chin, lifting your face up so your eyes could meet his.

"Now, so I know you're ready to obey my instructions, I want you to get down there and lick my boot, girly. Show me you know your place."

With a slight grimace, a tension in your stomach you couldn't place as either arousal or irritation, you found yourself sinking to your knees regardless. One long, slow swipe of your tongue over the tip of his boot, the dust and grime of the wasteland tingling your tastebuds, and you lifted your head back up quickly.

"That's it. Now keep that mouth open, and try not to think about how embarrasing this might be for you."

#finnie2k #finnie writes #cooper howard #the ghoul #x reader #cooper howard x reader #the ghoul x reader #fallout prime #fallout amazon #fallout tv series #walton goggins

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writefightandflightclub · 3 months

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Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Five (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)

Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but will you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running?

Genre: a LOT of angst, some smut, best friends to… lovers?

Warnings: see collated series warnings, here. Please note this series is 18+. Minors / ageless blogs interacting will be blocked.

Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. All chapters are written and queued. Posting schedule is here (includes series master list).

Author’s note: This is SO VERY ANGST. More angst than any other chapter so far. STRAP IN GIRLIES (GN). I'd love it if you feel like sharing what you think - your feedback means the world to me. ILY :-* Reblogs, comments, and asks are literal power-ups in my day and I appreciate every single one!

Word count: 8.3k for this part.

Tag list info: will reblog separately tagging those on taglist. You can request to be added to taglist if you are 18+. Send me an ask, please, so I can keep track :)

You’re spiralling.

You’re pissed off and you’re hurt and you’re somehow still horny as hell (somehow, perhaps even more horny since Santiago helped you out in that very particular way of his). You feel all in a tizz, like you don’t know which way is up; but even so, you’re pretty sure you’ve simply been going around in circles, and it’s dizzying. Santiago makes it easy to do that when you follow his lead, after all – all the more reason that you’d had to get out finally, all those months ago.

Safe to say, you’re a little bit worked up. Too many thoughts are racing through your head. Resentment that he could get you all riled up like that, have you come undone, and then straight up deny you. Like it was some power play all along and that all he wanted was the satisfaction. On the other hand, a dreadful longing spikes at the thought that maybe he really did just want to protect himself, because he wouldn’t know how to find his way out this time if he got lost in you all over again.

The main thing you’re feeling though – a bitter shard of pain stabbing through any sense of pleasure you may be left with - is a singular fear.

What if he really doesn’t want you anymore?

He wants you, yes, on some level. His admissions in the kitchen about wanting to kiss you confirmed that much. But his desire for you had always felt like an unstoppable force. Like something he couldn’t help or hope to control. Like a raging fire. He had told you that he loved you, wanted you, needed you, all those months ago. And while you are sure that remains true at least in part, you are terrified that all you leaving had achieved was to teach him how to live without you. And, contrary to that, his touch had simply confirmed how hopelessly consumed by him you still are, all your progress - moving on and rebuilding and forgetting - unravelled in mere moments by his fingers.

You resent that too. His power over you, when you always prided yourself on being strong – needing no-one. You have never liked to feel like the one who is compromised, in any situation. You always prefer to be the hunter as, that way, you’re not the one who gets hurt. But Santiago? Santiago is lethal, and he has always known your weak spots.

Maybe that’s why you had stormed angrily to your room, subduing your heavy footsteps reluctantly, only for the sake of your dear buddies sleeping soundly in their beds. Maybe that’s why you had hastily cleaned up, throwing on some fresh clothes from your case – a low cut top and some obscenely tight jeans. A splash of perfume. Some lipstick. All in the hopes of heading out to the local bar and searching for the kind of late-night attention which feels in your control. Seeking a desire which feels manageable. Trivial almost, instead of the kind which burns.

Part of you – a small part of you, at least - recognises you’re being ridiculous, irrational, reactive, even as you zip on your boots. But there is another part of you that simply can’t stay here in this house with him a moment longer, feeling like he doesn’t want you the way you want him.

You feel like, while you’ve been breaking apart for all these months, he was healing. It’s cruel maybe, that you would wish for his desire to burn him as much as it has a hold over you – but perhaps you’re not perfect. Perhaps you’re only human.

Whatever. It doesn’t all need to make sense right now. Your head’s all over the place. You’re not really thinking straight at all. You don’t know whether you want to cry or scream or get your brains fucked out (or maybe all of the above - not in that order). And so, you’re definitely not thinking when you throw open the door to the bathroom, recalling that you’d left your necklace on the counter. If you were -thinking- perhaps you would have heard the rushing of the water. Perhaps you would have heard the muffled, bitten back groans emanating from the shower cubicle.

Fuck.

If you weren’t thinking straight before, every thought falls right out of your head altogether when you swing open that door. Namely, when you see Santiago, his body slanted into the wall as he palms his thick, straining length in something of a frenzy.

You should retreat, probably. In fact, yeah. That's exactly what you should do. But, the sight of him there arrests you, and you can’t help but devour every detail of him. Your eyes skim over him only fleetingly, and yet your memory of his body fills in the gaps, meaning you’re able to see far more of him than you could otherwise in the split second your eyes rove over him.

He is stripped down, his body curled into the tiled wall, his forehead and one shoulder bracing himself as the stream of water thunders down on the back of his neck and his broad, lightly muscled shoulders.

His thighs are slightly spread and his full glutes are clenching as he fucks his hard, veined cock into the circle of his left hand, squeezing tight and showing no mercy, his pace relentless.

From the way his nipples are pebbled and the way you observe the tightness of the muscles coiling in his back, you can guess that the water is cold. Perhaps, that he had attempted to cool off after what had happened downstairs, seemingly to no avail. His need is heavy and urgent and burdening his hand, the veins popping in his slick forearm as water sluices over every contour of him and still, his want is evidently raging.

The most important detail of all, however, is that his eyes are closed, droplets of water beading in his long lashes, and a wracked moan sounding from around his own fingers as he shoves them over his tongue.

Fuck.

He’s licking them clean. He’s tasting you. Tasting your juices from his fingers and pumping himself raw from the thought of it.

Holy shit.

He wants you.

You see it now, clear as day. He wants you to the point of desperation. Helplessness. To the point of coming undone with his need for you. His want rages even beneath the stream of a cold shower, taken in hopes of subduing himself. He works himself urgently in his fist, in hopes of finding his release. You find him here, like this.

Unfinished.

You can see it much more clearly now. You see how he wants you. You see what you do to him. What you still do to him.

You see now that saying no to you likely took every scrap of control he had, and now that is gone, there is nothing left for him but you.

As you enter, Santiago hears the door creak open – you weren’t exactly sneaking- and he immediately tilts his body to the wall. It’s automatic - showing his ass rather than his dick in his hand, likely in case one of the boys had just walked in on him. But, when he sees it’s you stood there, all slack-jawed and honey-eyed, he foregoes the need to hide. He turns towards you instead, his length twitching as it grows even more rigid and more ruddy at the sight of you. Santiago’s eyes hooded and desolate with want as he looks you up and down in your ridiculous, come-fuck-me clothes.

Santiago knows fine well that you only wear red when you want to be shown a good time. You feel like a flare, on display, and maybe you’d feel stupid -like scrubbing this red paint from your mouth – if his need was not blatantly on display too. If his predicament did not seem even more dire than yours.

Finally, though, as you look and he lets you, you register the intrusion, and with a series of stunted vowel noises which barely make it past your teeth, you are dragging your eyes away from his. Your legs like jelly and skin flushed beneath your tight clothes, you are clasping the door handle and turning on your heel. Your only objective is to make it out of there, even if you turn to vapour in the hallway after the fact.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Santiago asks gruffly, and you are not sure what he means. Not sure whether he means to ask where you’re headed out to so late, or to inquire why in the hell you’re leaving the room now that you’re here, but God, you’re not sure anymore that you could answer either question in any way that would make the slightest bit of sense.

You’re just not thinking straight. Can you be blamed? Look at him. Look at this, all for you.

So, you freeze, breath held in your lungs as you grip the handle – your back to him, and about to swing the door open to hasten your exit. Instead, though, against every shred of good sense you have, you push the door closed, ever so gently, with you still on the inside. You turn, preposterously slowly back towards him, and when the sight of him stood there, wet and dripping, face all stern and languidly palming himself in the circle of his hand hits you, you flatten your back to the panelled door. Truth is, your legs feel so weak that you could barely stand without it.

And, as if that wasn’t quite answer enough, Santiago continues to look at you insistently.

Well? The quirk of his thick brow seems to enquire. Where the fuck are you going?

Your voice comes out all breath. “Nowhere.”

You’re going fucking nowhere, apparently. Only ever around and around in circles with Santiago “Pope” Garcia – but suddenly, you could care less.

Your eyes lock then, and it takes less than moments for him to be on you, his wet hands fisting everywhere - in your hair and your clothes - and dragging your mouth onto his in a sudden, consuming crush. Your hands snake into his hair, squeezing cool shocks down your forearms as you wring rivulets of water from his grizzled curls, grabbing handfuls of the length at his crown to pull him deeper into you, his tongue hot and supple and buried in your mouth. Your top sticks to you, wet and sodden in all the places he has grabbed up handfuls of your flesh, or pressed his hot body flush against you.

He drives you back, into the door and the awkward mess of towels hanging there on hooks.

“Fuck,” he bites off into your mouth, and you surge forward with this barrelling want, walking him backward and slamming him against the cool tiles with a thwap and enough force that he grunts. Still, it barely slows him down at all, his hands all over you and his kisses still devouring, ripping the air from your mouth.

There is no romance in this, you think. Only need, raw and animal, and you are surprised that you show enough restraint not to tear each other down to the floor and go at it right on the tiles. Still, you barely show any more restraint than that.

“Shit. Fuck. Turn around. Turn around,” Santiago rasps, entirely wrecked already, barely able to get the words past his mouth. His cock looks almost painfully hard, and entirely insistent against your ass as he spins you and roughly bends you over the counter, pots of toothbrushes knocked into the sink and soap rolling who knows who cares where.

“You want this?” he asks as he presses you into position, little precision or ceremony in it – just a rough, raw urgency, entirely untamed.

You can see yourself reflected in the mirror above the sink, blurry and steamy and bent over, and that’s exactly how it feels. Everything; blurry and steamy and close and tight. He’s as hard as the cool marble surface digging painfully into your hips, and you’re as hot as steam and as wet and slick as this mirror and you’re melding into one another – not single bodies anymore but shapes and a mood and a feeling, and there is nothing else.

“Princesa?” Santiago pleads, even as he tugs your jeans down over your ass, removing the bare minimum of clothing to give him access where he needs, the garment still tight and unforgiving around your thighs, not allowing you to move - barely at all. “You need me?”

“Yes. Fuck me. Need you,” you beg, and you hear him spit unceremoniously into his hand -not that he’d need it- and slather it all over his length, groaning as he makes contact with his sensitive, needy dick as though he might spill over his knuckles with the anticipation of stuffing you full alone.

Still, he holds on -by a thread – and your eyes roll back into your head as you finally feel the blunt tip of him notch clumsily at your need-swollen entrance.

Then – ohhhhhh- then, there is the dull ache shortly after as the girth of him pushes through your wanting folds. You grunt at the initial stretch as he works himself inside of you, but pinned between the counter and his surging hips there is nowhere for you to go, and his need sinks into you inch by inch until he fills you all the way.

You succumb to your ragged breaths and mewl for him, you arms practically giving way beneath you as you press them into the cool surface to keep you standing. He fills you, and God, you’ve missed this. Have missed how full you feel with him inside of you - in every sense of the word. The way his hands grip your hips in that specific spot he likes.

You have missed his girth. Could swear you can feel every inch of him pressing outward against the tight grip of your heat as he fucks his cock into your hole, bottoming out with a delicious, wracked, stuttering moan, the sound alone causing pleasure to bloom around the drag of him deep inside you.

Still, despite this fullness - you also feel the give of your walls to him, your slick and eager heat actively suckering him in. He stutters his hips as you clamp tightly around him and then, so help you, he finally begins to move.

Jesus, this feels even better than his fingers, even better than you remember, and you relish every moment as he fucks into you, bareback and desperate, your pleasure coiling up impossibly quick as the straining mass of him works you open, hitting all of your sweet spots. Your legs tremble beneath you with adrenaline and want, and you feel Santiago’s thighs flush against the back of your legs, his hips snapping against the cushion of your ass as the counter edge bites painfully into your hinged hips.

He's not taking his time with you. Not teasing or planning or thinking. You can tell by the undone grunts and groans he’s submitting to you already, that -for once- he is far too consumed by his own need to contemplate yours. Can tell by the sloppy pace of his thrusts and the lack of attention to your clit or your breasts or anything else but filling you - his hands fisting in the meat of your hips as he takes what he needs, gives what you crave – that he’s not even trying to make you come… but goddamn it if he isn’t going to get you there all the same.

Soon too.

God, the head of him is rubbing exactly where you need, and you can’t remember the last time you felt this good with a dick inside you. Your cunt is primed for him, still sensitive from where his fingers fucked you open and it isn’t going to take you long at all to reach your peak.

Even without seeing him properly, in the misted-up mirror, you can tell that Santiago is going feral behind you. Filling you deeply and haphazardly, his fingers leaving imprints on your skin.

You hear a snarl, and see a pearly flash of teeth as his lip curls up from how good you’re making him feel.

“Fuucckk,” he groans, his head tipped back now, that pretty chin pointing up to the sky and his mouth dropping open – you can vaguely see in the mirror

His broad hand smooths firmly down the middle of your back and over your ass - grabbing handfuls of you- before he retraces his path, sliding his hand up between your shoulder blades and winding his hand in your hair, grabbing and pulling until your spine is curled back for him like a bow, your ass arced up and allowing him a deeper angle of penetration which sends tingles all the way to the tips of your toes when he hits just right.

You practically yowl for him, your whole body trembling and shaking, sweat trickling down the centre of your cleavage as the layers you did not have time to dispense of overheat your skin. As your clit is nudged into the lip of the counter in a way that shouldn’t work for you, probably, but totally does, the intermittent slap of Santiago’s hips against you providing a pleasing rhythm.

It’s uncomfortable, and hot, and cramped, and in some ways painful to be rammed up against the surface like this, but you wouldn’t tell him to stop for the world. You wouldn’t tell him to stop because the way he’s taking you feels divine, Santiago burying his want for you as deep as it will go, releasing his punctuated, abortive gusts of breath in time with his thrusts.

You feel drips land on the small of your back, and whether its water cascading from his dampened curls or beads of sweat from the exertion rolling down his temples you do not know or care.

You only know that you want more.

Determined as ever, you plant your hands firmly on the counter as he fucks you near boneless, driving through your hips until you meet his thrusts, working him up higher, finding the angle which hits just right and-

“Unnnngggg.” A whimper falls from his pretty mouth and his thrusts are suddenly far more shallow, slow, nudging against your nervy, sensitive entrance. His breaths are coming in deeper, heavy gusts now and you might be afraid that he was about to stop - if you weren’t so sure that he was, in fact, gearing up.

“Santiago,” you complain as he blunts the sharp edge of your precipice with the break in rhythm. You urge him to give you more, and he uncurls his fingers from your hair and adjusts position.

Obligingly, he wraps his stronger arm around your chest to guide you closer to standing, pressing his chest to your back, his head hooking over your shoulder. And, with his other arm, he reaches forward towards the steamed mirror, using his palm to clear a window from the condensation.

“I wanna see you,” he rasps, a hoarse, gritty whisper in the shell of your ear. “Wanna watch you.”

God, it’s too much. The way his arm is wrapped around your front, strong and yet tender as his forearm braces across your chest and his fingers dance tenderly over your jaw. The wracked, undone voice of him, whisper soft. The contrast between this and the certainty of his thrusts as he finds a new rhythm. As you find a new rhythm together, entirely in sync.

Slowly, so slowly, he draws out of you, ensuring you can feel every single inch of him, the tantalising drag of him through your folds making your quiver. Then, he snaps back into you all at once, so suddenly shoving himself up into you, balls slapping against your ass, each repetition of this pattern building you up. God, you want him to spill himself inside you, and you think vaguely that it is the only thing which could quench you.

It is your undoing when his eyes find yours in the mirror, and this all becomes real. No longer fantasy like your unreliable recollections of him all these months. No longer shapeless, tangled, blurry bodies, but now so very suddenly, you are looking at you and him, with all that means.

The look in his eyes gives form to this act, as though the love settled in them is the very thing giving form to the way he fills you. He is at once stern - his brow burdened, heavy-lidded with need, his eyes sunk into a pit of desire - yet soft. His strong nose is crushed up against you as his lips caress your neck. His eyes dance over your face, taking you in as you languish up against him.

His eyes are molten when they find you again, dancing with a soft, subtle heat not unlike firelight, long lashes fluttering in disbelief at the sight of you. At the feel of you wrapped around him. No longer just a body or some carnal need, shapeless and intangible.

Instead, Santiago and you, and your bodies moving as one.

His soft lips and rasp of stubble break from the column of your neck as his thrusts become sloppy, and you feel his hot breaths come thick and fast against your skin now.

He missed you.

He missed you, and this is what he’d meant. Had meant he needed to feel you wrapped around his dick. Moaning his name. Needed to see you being his. Missed you being his. God, you missed that too, in so many ways.

A moan rips through you as you approach your peak, and you plead profusely with him.

“Don’t stop. Santi. Please.”

You don’t ever want him to stop.

As you clamp down on him, your fluttering core wrings his own orgasm from him too, and then he’s pulsing his load into you, thick and warm and abundant, his thighs quaking against yours and his arms gripping on to you more tightly – this time for purchase – as though this might be the time his knees finally buckle if he doesn’t hold on to you.

You can feel his racing heartbeat hammer from his chest to yours as he holds you flush to him. Can feel his mouth suck at the column of your neck, his tongue sliding along your pulse point and tasting your perfume.

You come down from your high, thrumming with it. Wet and messy between your legs as Santi drags his softening dick out of you, letting your juices and his seed slip down your inner thighs.

You feel good. Blissed out. But, as ever, with you and Santiago, there’s always a catch. The joy is immense, but, guaranteed that one of you - if not both - will find a way to ensure it is short-lived.

Indeed. All too soon, you begin to feel that creeping sense of regret hollow-out your stomach.

You can see it on his face too. The uncertainty. The lack of understanding of what this all means. About what to do next. It is evident from the way he so quickly moves away from you, picking up his shorts and t-shirt and covering up his body. Similarly, you hike up your jeans without even cleaning up, and as much as you might have hoped for a joyful, intimate moment, you know that it’s already too late for that. The moment that the insecurity, doubt and uncertainty had crept in on each of your faces it had become self-reinforcing. A spiral. Running in circles.

“Shit,” you sound out, in a clear peal of regret, planting a hand over your face in distress - despite everything.

“Sounds about right,” Santiago agrees in a monotone, brows drawn down and his gaze fixing on a spot of tile, unable to look you in the eye, despite having been buried inside you only moments ago.

“No,” you stress, bringing a second hand to your face. There’s something else. Something that makes you feel stupid and sick. “I…. I mean, shit. I changed my birth control up and I… I mean we…” Santiago snaps his eyes back up to you now, alright. You curse when you note the writhing of his taut jaw, set and a little annoyed. Your softly puffed expletive which follows is contrite, but it doesn’t help.

It’s not like you -or him- to make a mistake like that. And yet, you had all the same.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

You bristle at his harsh, accusatory tone. How quickly things sour. “It’s not like you checked!” It is his turn to bristle now, and so you opt to be harsher still. “Besides, I didn’t exactly think you were going to be quite so quick on the trigger, Santi.”

He narrows his eyes at you, his riposte about his stamina not even required. He got you off, didn’t he? So, your attempted distraction is futile, as he manages to stay alarmingly on topic. You fold your arms across your chest as he steps towards you, feeling on the back-foot as his flattened palm nags through the air to punctuate his words. “It didn’t occur to you to mention that before we fucked?”

“I forgot. I switched up my method and I’m not technically covered yet. It’s marginal, you know. Most likely fine. I mean, what’s another 24 hours? Besides, I didn’t exactly plan on this, did I?”

He scoffs, then he purses his mouth until much of the colour drains from his lips. “Oh yeah. Sure you didn’t.”

You raise your eyebrows, and jut a hip out to the side for good measure. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Santiago shakes his head softly. Plants his hands on his wide hips, making himself larger. You don’t shrink back from him, but you note it. “For real?” He flashes his line of teeth now, a lopsided, disbelieving lilt of his lips – no happiness in it. Not at all. “I know you love to pretend like I’m the bad guy, right? That serves your narrative or whatever? Bullshit, honey. You knew exactly what you were doing tonight.” You snort out a huff of air through your nose, your look all steel as you prepare to deny his claims. You falter though, with his next words. “I can’t get off without you, Santiago?” he mimics, and your comeback dies on your lips. “You wanna put this all on me now? Believe me, I gave it everything I had to stay out of-“

“-My vagina? Yeah, great job, Pope.” You throw your hands up in the air and they slump right back down again. “You’ve had everything up in there except your damn tongue.”

“Let’s go then, sweetie,” he challenges, nodding to the rear of you, his voice taut rather than inviting. “Hop up on the counter and spread your legs, I’ll make it 3 for 3.”

It’s unfamiliar to you, this tone of his. It makes your heartbeat rage. You swear you can even feel the pulse of it in your tongue. “Fuck. Whatever. I’m not having this conversation with you.” Your adrenaline spikes at the prospect of another argument and you turn on your heel, looking for an exit.

However, before you can retreat, Santiago’s broad palm contacts your arm to stop you – open hand, no force applied – and you turn your head over your shoulder. “At least tell me you’re going to take care of this,” he bites off, with a clear attempt to restrain his aggravation, expression sullen.

“Of course I am.”

“How?”

You think. “I’ll go to the pharmacy in the morning. I’ll deal with it.” You pump your brows emphatically. “Okay?”

You shrug his hand off of you then with apparent disdain for his touch, and in spite of his (relative) tolerance of your acerbic tone, that is apparently the move which fractures his composure. “You know what actually blows my mind? The way you can be nice to me just long enough to get yours. Pretty fucking convenient.”

You feel your face twist with the weight of a sour expression, mirroring his. “Why are you always like this?” You don’t wait to hear his answer, the adrenalin propelling you away, down the hall and closer to your room, but his footfalls follow closely behind you, hot on your heels. Your voice is a whispered hiss, as, somewhere in the back of your mind, you are vaguely aware of the need to keep it down – the other boys are lights out by now. “Why can you never just fuck me and be happy about it, huh?” You spin to face him, chest to chest and facing off.

“I knew this was a fucking mistake.”

Your pulse is in your throat. “Right. Maybe it was. That’s all I ever was to you, I guess.”

Your voices raise, slowly creeping up in volume as you each get lost in this intimate bubble of angst. Of resentment. On some level, you know you could stop now - before it gets worse and you say things you will only regret (or worse, hear things you’ll wish you hadn’t). You know that you should stop, but it feels… oddly necessary.

Like it’s inevitable. Like you’ve been waiting all this time to fuck and fight because it’s all you know how to do with him anymore. At least, it’s all you know how to do when loving him heart and soul seems off the table.

The space your bodies create is tight, leaning into each other’s circle of personal space.

Santiago’s fingers bridge like a claw and he taps them against his own chest, his eyes needling you like he could sew this up once and for all. Tie off all those loose threads of blame which sit frayed between you. He’s angry. Angry and riled and pissed and even so, there is still this eerie sense of calm about him.

You’ve seen him really let loose. You’ve seen him kill, for Christ’s sake, and yet he’s still measured and restrained in the face of you. That should make it easier to bear the brunt of his sharp edges, but that’s not quite so. There’s something about the precision of his anger when it’s focussed on you. The fact it feels so considered, so targeted only makes it cut deeper. “You know what? I’m tired as shit of always being the fucking bad guy here. You wanna get into it, huh?” His voice breaks now, splitting like shrapnel, lodging in your chest. “I told you I love you and you fucking left me.”

“That’s fucking bullshit!”

He’s not happy that you said that. He rocks from foot to foot like he’s priming for something. Scoops a hand over his jaw, around his taut mouth. You’re close enough to hear it rasp, the fleck of his stubble bristling against his palm. “Oh, it’s bullshit?”

Your voice comes out hot now, your words bitten off between your teeth, flecks of spit cast from your mouth. “Yes! Because if I hadn’t left you never would have told me! You told me because I left you! You told me to fucking punish me. To try and drag me back in.”

“Wow. Jesus fucking...” He laughs, but it is a cold, brief sound. “That’s fucking rich, cariño.” His eyes glint like knife licks, and he plants his hand indignantly against his chest, jutting up his chin. Puffing up his chest and making his body all angles. Protecting himself. “That’s really what you think of me, huh?” You try to look away from him, but his eyes chase you for an answer.

Is it? Is that what you genuinely think of your best friend? Is that what you think he’s done to you? Tried to do?

If so, no wonder you’re so fucking angry. No wonder your body is trembling with it.

But the truth is, when pushed on it, you have no intelligible retort you can form. No evidence you can offer. So, instead, in your panic over losing ground, you opt to minimise. You throw your hand up dismissively and you turn on your heel, stomping towards your door at the end of the hall. “Fuck this.”

This time, his footsteps do not follow, even if you can still feel his eyes boring into your back. You think that might even be the end of things, until…

“No,” he sounds. A forceful, robust note which fills the whole hallway. A command to wait. This isn’t over.

With you and him, it’s never going to be over, is it?

You turn towards him and he is fixed in position, stance set wide and chin dipped down, eyes blackened half moons as he looks at you. “Just let me get this straight. If I’m the one who drags you back in? What the shit do you call what you just did?”

You scoff. “You were a very willing participant, Pope. Or, I dunno. Why don’t you just consider it payback for all the times you fucked me around?”

He’s biting words back as he listens to you now. You can see them, in the tilt of his head and the flare of his nostrils. In the flip and curl of his tongue settled around his upper lip, dragging back and forth just below his filtrum. “Revenge, then? Really? Is that what this weekend has been about for you? You really that vindictive?”

“No. Don’t be ridiculous.” You dismiss him again, as though not one of his complaints about you can possibly be valid. Or, rather, revealing you are currently unwilling to admit it even if they are. After all, you’re as stubborn as he is. Each of you trying so desperately to palm off the blame for how fucked up this became.

Santiago paces towards you then, footfalls rhythmic and steady as he swallows the space between you in the hall. “Jesus. You don’t even give a shit, do you? Think I deserve to have my heart crushed into fucking dust?”

Hot, angry tears spike at the corner of your eyes as you spit your words, jabbing his shoulder with your pointer finger. “Like you give a shit that I left?”

His dense brows draw down, his whole face a grimace, his voice practically booming throughout the hallway, close enough that the sound of it rumbles in your chest. “I don’t know how else I can say it. I never wanted to lose you.”

“Yeah? Well you never fucking had to!”

Santiago is the one who turns from you now, pacing back in a loop, both hands lifting and dragging backward through his grizzled curls, flattening them to his head in disbelief. He rounds back to you, spittle glistening on his lower lip from his tirade. He’s waving his arms now, everything being thrown upward just like the hideous lurch in your stomach. “You’re the one who ran from this!”

Well, that’s the biggest pile of shit you ever heard. You fold your arms to your chest, becoming guarded and taut where he becomes more frenzied. “Oh ho ho,” you scoff. “Now that’s a grade A delusion, right there.” He mumbles something under his breath, shaking his head from side to side in a long, disbelieving drag. In denial. Still. “You’ve been running, Santiago. You’ve done nothing but run from this. Even the whole time I was right next to you. Especially then.”

He steps towards you, driving your body back into the door without making a scrap of contact with you. From the force of him alone. He leans his face in real close, his movements disconcertingly slow - cautious and deliberate. It’s not threatening – you don’t feel physically unsafe at all - but you can tell from the flare of his nostrils and that gunpowder glint in his eye that while his movements may be constrained, he’s still arming himself with a coming barrage.

You flatten yourself – your back to the shut paneled door- and Santiago lifts his hand, reaching up to you. Pincering your chin deceptively tenderly between his thumb and forefinger, making sure you look at him. “Right. And you’ve been so perfect, huh?” His eyes needle you, making it impossible for you to wheedle out of this one. To dismiss him. He’s making sure you take at least some accountability for your part in this. “Fucking other guys to get back at me? Insisting we keep it a secret? Pissing off to another fucking continent, two days early, by the way, before we’d even put things right?” You break eye contact, your vision of him blurred by wilful tears. He releases your chin from his grip then, but the space between you remains tight. Close, even as you feel a million miles from him. “Christ - it’s like you never fucking wanted this to work. Never believed I was worth it. How am I supposed to work with that?”

Hot, spiking tears spill over onto your cheeks. You scrub them away with a flattened palm but it still doesn’t slow them down.

“Please,” you beg limply, shaking your head from side to side. You want him to stop this. You just want this to be over.

“I was never the guy someone would bring home to their mama, was I? Too fucked up and too broken for that? Hands too bloody, right, to be good enough for you?” You balk audibly in protest at his words, but even so, it sends a hot flash of heat to your cheeks.

Is there some truth in it?

Had you been afraid of what he’d done, even though the blood on his hands matches yours? Or… maybe because of it?

Your lower lip begins to tremble as the ire in Santiago’s eyes burns you, hot like coals. But he has more to say. “I get it. It’s easier to blame me for everything that got fucked up, right?” He beats his palm emphatically against his chest and flattens it there. “I’m hardly a fucking Saint, I’ll admit that much. But do you honestly think that I ever wanted to hurt you? That this doesn’t fucking hurt me?”

No. You want to say “no”. No. That’s not what you believe at all, but instead the words that find their way out are cruel and petty. “Well you did. You hurt me!”

You wish you could get rid of it, this anger in your chest. You only want to love him… but you tried that, and since it didn’t work, it somehow feels like the anger is all you have left to fill this hole in your middle.

His eyes tighten, and Santiago jabs his finger back and forth, his voice hoarse as he pushes the words out from the pit of his chest. “It never mattered, what I did or didn’t do. It was never going to be good enough for you.”

“That’s not true. At all!” You spit back. “It’s you who thought that. Not me. Not me. You wouldn’t even fucking try.”

Santiago scrubs a tear away from his own cheek now. His voice creaks and cracks apart. “I tried. I did. But you only want me under certain conditions right. If I quit. If I get out. Maybe if I’m someone fucking else.”

“That’s not fair, that’s not how it is. For fuck’s sake, Santi.”

You are both entirely undone now with this ugly rage, tears wetting your cheeks, and this resentment and blame twisting your words and your faces into something unrecognisable.

That makes it all the worse when Frankie’s torso pokes out of his door in the hallway. You know that the two of you are not yourselves. Frankie’s face twists with disappointment and concern in equal measure, and you fold your arms across your chest defensively, feeling embarrassed that he is seeing you this way. At your worst. Why do you and Santiago always seem to bring out the worst in each other? You’d swear blind to anyone that he’s the best person you know.

“Guys. What the fuck?” Frankie ventures. His voice is grogged by sleep, and you get the feeling he would step out into the hall if he wasn’t entirely nude behind the door frame.

Feeling suddenly ashamed, with the contrasting softness of Frankie’s eyes on yours, you feel the urge to run from yourself and what you’ve become, all twisted up like this. You push past Santiago in the hallway, storming down the stairs as tears now cascade freely down your cheeks. You don’t even make an attempt to mop them up now, letting them course down and drip from the point of your chin.

Then, with an aggravated sigh, Santiago follows you too, in pursuit, despite Frankie’s barked pleas that he “leave it alone, cabrón”.

You push out of the threshold and into the night, the cooler air a welcome relief. You pace away from the house, wanting to leave it, to leave him entirely, but your body will not let you. Will not carry you far enough away, and your steps quickly run out of steam.

When Santiago finds you, you are stood with your back to him, looking out towards the white crash of waves. He comes and stands next to you, hands gently clenched by his sides.

“Look,” he begins, staring out at the expanse of water. You feel your anger cresting and with it comes a wave of sadness. “I love you. But maybe you’re right. Maybe… we’re not good for each other. Maybe we just… can’t make each other happy.”

You shake your head softly. Tip your eyes to the sky to stave off yet more tears. “I just wish we’d never changed things.” You wish more than anything that you could simply swallow it. Go back to how things were before.

“Don’t,” Santi implores, turning to you with his hands cupped as though in offering, soft and haphazard and trying to catch on your elbow, your shoulder, your hand. “Don’t say that. Please. No matter how fucked this got… You’re the best thing I ever-”

But, your anger is not done. Your palms raise in the air, forming a barrier between your bodies - a defence against his brutal love - and you snatch yourself away from him. Your voice is once again harsh as it rings in accusation, words tearing from your lips like bullets. “-Let go?”

There is a beat.

“Seriously. You’re gonna stand there and tell me I could I have fucking stopped you?”

You raise your palms and plant them to your face, splayed fingers tugging in disbelief from your temples, sliding down to your mouth - drawing your cheeks into a grimace. You look at him and his face is once again taut with blame. His mouth a thin, downturned line. But even now….. Somehow, even now, you want to kiss him. Want to kiss him until he is soft again, like you know he can be.

Why would he never turn soft for you - not all the way? Soft in your arms? Why would he never?

He shifts his weight from foot-to-foot under your scrutiny. He sees the anger melt away from your face, but his is not done. “I mean, fuck. What do you want from me, huh? You want me to come with you? Just drop everything?”

“Just stop, Santi,” you plead, weakly, but there’s no way he heard you over his own tirade.

“My whole career. This shit I’ve got going on with Lorea. Pick-up and move here? Huh? Tell me? What do you want from me?”

You fold your arms across your chest, closing yourself off to him. “Please, just drop it.”

“You want me to have dinners with you and your family on Sundays? Take the nephews to the playpark, huh?”

He won’t stop. He won’t stop talking, stop pushing you, and you can’t take it. You’re going to snap.

“Go fucking grocery shopping? And get married and have babies and-?”

“Yes!” you finally yell, your whole body craning forward as you fire your answer out through your throat, the word coming out scuffed and sudden; but nothing if not truthful. Your eyes go wide, quivering with tears as well as the shock of your revelation. The shock of revealing something you can barely even admit to yourself.

That is what you want. With him.

Santiago is evidently as shocked as you are too. Stunned into silence, in fact. He takes a perceptible step back from you, punching out a breath like he’s just been struck with a body shot. All the tension drops from his limbs, and his arms flop uselessly to his sides.

But, instead of backtracking, from somewhere, somehow, you finally find the courage to stand in your truth. “Yes,” you say shakily. “I want that, you asshole.” And, at those words, you interpret the most repulsive thing you’ve seen in his eyes all night. Pity. “And you, meanwhile? You’d rather get shot in the guts than do that with me, wouldn’t you? Something so mundane as being happy? Something so fucking worthless as loving me?” You tear your head away from him, whip your gaze away as you cannot bear to look at him. Cannot bear to see your true wants rejected. With a final question, you stab your pointer finger against your sternum with enough force that it hurts. “I’m not a mission, so I’m not worth it right? Not important?”

He shoves his hands in his back pockets, his gaze dropping to the floor, to a neutral spot between you. His voice all but cracks apart, small and broken. “I told you that I love you.”

“That wasn’t enough!” You bite your words off before you can even think, and his eyes snap back up to yours then. Wounded. Glassy. You regret the words as soon as you have spoken them, but it is far too late to recall them now. You can see that they cut him - and you can even understand why they would hurt. What an awful thing to have said, you think; that his love wasn’t enough.

It was everything.

Everything.

Wasn’t it?

Even so, here you stand, still waiting and hoping that he can offer you something more than that alone. A solution, perhaps. A way to fix this.

Instead though, Santiago simply nods slowly. Contemplatively. In resignation. He stands eerily still. Eerily quiet. Entirely stoic. “Right. Well.” His hand rasps back and forth over his stubble, and his voice is entirely sunken. Defeated. He’s a soldier. Your friend. Your lover. But most of all, now he’s someone who appears to have stopped fighting for you. He looks you in the eye, all of his anger dissipated. Voice scrubbed clean and entirely dispassionate. “That’s too bad then. Because I don’t have anything else I can give you.”

He turns from you now, and you grab onto his arm. “Believe me. The only thing I ever wanted from you… With you, was a future, Santiago.”

It breaks your heart when he quietly, slowly extricates his arm from your grasp, slipping through your fingers like fine sands. Did you really think that you could do that? That you could keep on pushing him, without eventually pushing him away?

A divot notches in his brow. “Mmm-hmm. Well I guess we fucked any shot at that now, didn’t we?”

You search his ashen eyes - almost in desperation - for some of that all too familiar fire. For any sort of spark for you.

Godammit, as soon as the anger has gone, you want it back. You want something; only because it seems a damn sight better than nothing at all.

You can’t handle it - the thought that any future with him is being taken off of the table once and for all. You know - if you step back from this - that you’ve been far from perfect. That you’ve been bitter, volatile, reactive. Maybe even cruel, at times. You know, in truth, that you shouldn’t be so hung up on the past -on what happened all those months ago and beyond- but it’s the only thing Santiago has ever given you to dwell on. How were you supposed to move on, when he’s never been able to look ahead with you?

Still, all of a sudden, being faced with any and all possibilities of a future with him being ripped away from you, it is all you want to talk about. The past and your grievances and the blame now seem wholly irrelevant. You feel bile rise into your mouth. “Listen. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Just… How do we get past this, Santiago? That’s what matters.”

He stops, halting his retreat back to the house. He turns, slowly. And, Santiago takes your hands into each of his. Looks at you solemnly, as your eyes flit over his face in doubt and fear and regret. He bundles your hands up together, sandwiching them together between his warm, steady palms and he gives them a squeeze - full of finality. “Maybe… Maybe we don’t,” he sounds, flatly, voice scrubbed clean of emotion. And, the only thing worse than hearing his words out loud, is that he looks like he believes them.

For once, Santiago “Pope” Garcia seems cold, and it hurts more than any of his fire has ever burnt you. Maybe the anger, horrible as it feels, is better. Because it is better than nothing. Better than losing him altogether.

After all, what is it that happens when the fire goes out?

Well, you suddenly feel like you’re about to find out.

You suddenly feel like it’s truly about to be over.

And so, you clasp your hands over your mouth and you sob, fleeing towards the interior of the house, because you have no place else left to run but away from him.

#santiago pope garcia x reader #triple frontier #santiago pope garcia #oscar isaac #ride or die series

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dindjarindiaries · 21 days

Text

Senator's Shadow - Chapter 2

summary: You make your arrival on Eirus, and what you’re met with makes you even more glad you’ve brought Clone Force 99 with you—even with your conflicted feelings about the squad’s leader.

pairing: hunter (the bad batch) x fem!reader

rating: mature (18+)

tags: bodyguard romance, forbidden love, fluff & angst, emotional & physical hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, injuries & blood, trauma, eventual/mild smut

word count: 5.094k

chapter 1 ⟸ series masterlist ⟹ chapter 3

chapter 2 ⟹

There was a gentle knock on the door to your cabin before you heard the voice of your captain. “We’re about to drop out of hyperspace, Senator.”

You raised your voice enough to be heard. “Thank you Captain.” With an exhale, you set aside your datapad and tried to still your racing heart. It was no surprise that you had lost track of time; you were meant to be getting more rest, but all you could do was dive even deeper into your research on Clone Force 99.

Especially their leader, who had quickly gained your interest and your eye upon meeting.

There hadn’t been much on Sergeant Hunter in the battle briefings and write-ups you had gained access to, aside from successfully leading his squad in mission after mission. Their genetic mutations all made sense simply by their names, and the ARC trooper Echo at least had a background from his time with the 501st and the details of the mission on Skako Minor. Hunter’s seemed fairly straightforward, and there was at least the information that he was a master tracker of sorts. How exactly it worked, however, eluded you.

Much about him was already eluding you, mostly the way he seemed to reciprocate whatever nonsense feeling had caused your propriety to slip. You’d spent endless rotations learning how to fit in with the Senate, and all it took was once glance to forget it all. It seemed very much like the same had happened to him—at least, based on how all the other clones acted.

“Senator?” The same voice nearly made you jump as it broke through your reverie on the other side of the door. “We’ve arrived, and Clone Force 99 is trying to reach you.”

You blinked a few times and nodded to yourself, hurrying to brush out the wrinkles in your senatorial clothes as you headed for the door. The last thing you checked was the hidden holster on your thigh before you opened the door from the inside. The captain fell into place as you nodded at him. “My apologies for the delay. Thank you for making me aware.” The captain bowed his head, bringing up the rear as you headed to the cockpit.

Stepping inside and seeing the view of your homeworld through the viewport made your chest tighten, even as a wave of strong relief washed over you. You didn’t have to step foot on the planet to know that it was feeling less and less like the home you had worked to hard to save. With the information and intel you had gotten on the inner workings of the Separatists’ scheming, it wouldn’t be much longer until the free planet was yet again trapped by another unjust regime.

“Senator,” one of the pilots began, nodding towards the blinking light that indicated the comms, “Clone Force 99.”

You nodded, unable to fight the smile that tugged at your lips. “Patch them through.”

The pilot obeyed, and soon, a familiar voice was speaking loudly over the connection. “Is it actually the senator this time?” Wrecker boomed.

The pilots cringed, but you couldn’t help chuckling as you responded. “Yes, I’m here.”

“Good.” You fought the urge to smile wider when you recognized Hunter, but the effort was in vain. The sound of his voice alone was a vast comfort to your tightened chest. “We thought you’d want to hear this.”

“You thought correctly. Please continue, Sergeant.”

“There is no hostile welcome awaiting us onworld,” Tech spoke on behalf of the sergeant and his squad. “There are, however, some strange patterns in the way they are greeting vessels other than your own.”

You furrowed your brow at that. “Strange how?”

“It is an attack pattern we recognize from our own dogfights against the Separatists,” Tech continued. Your heart began to weigh heavier inside your chest. “Strangely, however, there were no ill intentions, as we were simply escorted more closely to the surface. I am not sure who is in charge of such protection on Eirus, but they have clearly—.”

“Thanks, Tech.” Hunter stopped him before he could continue. A wave of gratitude washed over you. While Tech’s thoughts would no doubt be important, it was already beginning to send you into a spiral about the current state of your homeworld. “We’ll get more answers for you later, Senator. For now, we’re awaiting you onworld.”

You nodded to yourself. “Thank you, Sergeant. We’re on our way.”

As soon as the comm connection was broken, you exhaled a light breath. Thankfully, you had long since mastered the art of keeping an emotional mask on at all times, something that came along with your role as a senator. The worry you felt for your world was strong, but somehow, knowing you had a group as effective as Clone Force 99 made you feel much better.

Once they got all the details, they would understand. It was very much the reason why you had chosen them in the first place.

Your ship was soon landing, and the captain and guards fell into place before the hatch opened. The ornate stairs led your way down to the surface, with you being the last to take them. You were ready to descend them with as much familiarity and confidence as you were used to, but this time, there was a hand waiting there to help guide you, the same one that had taken your hand on Coruscant.

You smiled in gratitude at Hunter as you accepted his hand and made your way down the steps. He remained helmeted, as did his squad, as he nodded. He only let go once your feet were secure on the surface. The helmets still did nothing to hide Clone Force 99’s reaction to their leader’s actions, especially with Crosshair accidentally grunting at Wrecker’s elbow jutting into his ribcage.

“Welcome home, Senator,” Hunter greeted you. He gestured with his helmet to the open hangar. “We’ve already cleared the area. The greeting party wasn’t too happy with us, but it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”

You chuckled at that and nodded. “I appreciate your squad’s thoroughness, Sergeant.”

Hunter returned your nod. “We’ll lead the way in.”

“Thank you.” You beamed as Hunter turned around to direct his squad ahead. Crosshair and Tech shared a glance while Wrecker directly followed the sergeant’s order. Echo paused for a moment to give you a small bow before he moved into position, which you returned with a smile of gratitude.

They were no doubt an effective clone squadron, but it was glaringly clear they were also a family. That only made you feel even more certain about your decision to bring them with you.

You swallowed back your dread and advised your captain and your guard to let you remain in front, placing you directly between them and Clone Force 99. The hangar reserved for you wasn’t large, especially compared to Coruscant’s, which meant that you were soon inside the planetary capitol.

You had to hold back your sigh at the sight of the diplomats awaiting you. While you had been specifically chosen by your people to represent Eirus in the Senate, the rest of the planet’s government was repurposed from that which came before it, and they had all been less than helpful in swaying your people from the Separatist cause. At the head of them all was the Prime Minister, a Rodian who was clearly less than happy to be greeted with the sight of Hunter and his squad.

“You clones again?” the Prime Minister scoffed. “I already told you that this is a private space.”

“Prime Minister,” you spoke up loud enough for the Rodian to hear. “That’s no way to speak to my chosen protection.” Clone Force 99 parted themselves to let you be seen, and you stopped to face the Prime Minister with an eyebrow raised. “I was hoping for a warmer welcome.”

“Ah, Senator!” The Rodian clapped his hands together. “My apologies, my apologies. I simply wasn’t expecting you to have… well, hired protection.”

“Just because I have a history of fighting doesn’t mean I should travel without protection, Prime Minister.” You had to hide your smirk when you heard Wrecker chuckle to himself proudly at your words. “Regardless, these brave men are much more than just ‘clones.’ They are soldiers of the Republic who make up the elite Clone Force 99.” You gestured to the two rows of black-and-red armored men on either side of you. “They deserve to be respected as such.”

You caught the visor of Hunter’s helmet for a moment and noticed the way he had tilted it at your words, as if he were attempting to express his gratitude—or admiration. A small smile stretched on the corners of your lips before you focused back on the Prime Minister. “Once again, Senator, my apologies.” The Rodian bowed his head. “Truly, I am quite glad and relieved to see you.”

“I wish I could say the same.” Your tone failed to hide your bitterness, even amidst your necessary diplomacy. “But this venture isn’t being made under ideal circumstances. I was hoping to avoid this.”

The Rodian looked less than impressed. “To avoid serving your purpose, Senator?”

There was no missing the slow movement of Hunter’s helmet at your side as he threw the Prime Minister a threatening glance. The sensation of comfort from before returned, despite the knowledge that you could handle yourself against this diplomat. “To avoid dealing with your government’s inability to follow through with my declarations from the Core, Prime Minister.”

It was Echo who snickered at that. You had to fight a smile as you heard it, especially with the way the Rodian’s face had twisted. “I fail to see how these horrifying riots are the result of what my government is doing.”

“Actually,” Tech began, much to the horror of Hunter—whose helmet whipped around to face his fellow brother, “research suggests that the weaker a government is, the more likely it is for such riots to take place. It would appear, Prime Minister, that it very well could be a weakness in your government that is either causing or allowing these riots to take place.”

“Tech,” Hunter hissed.

“It’s all right, Sergeant.” You waved a hand in his direction, though your gaze remained on the Prime Minister’s shocked face. “Tech is right. He’s simply said such it much more eloquently than I would have.”

“‘Eloquently!’” Wrecker repeated with amusement, giving Tech’s shoulder a nudge. “There’s a new one for you!”

Crosshair sighed at him. “He’s already gotten that one before, Wrecker.”

The Rodian scoffed in disbelief. “This is your ‘chosen protection,’ Senator?”

“It is.” You raised your chin at him. “And seeing as they will be looking after all of us during this venture, I suggest you begin to respect them, just as I told you before.” The Prime Minister was rendered speechless, allowing you to continue. “Now, I hope you’ve at least followed my desired accommodations?”

The Prime Minister snapped back into his role as host, as if the previous tense encounter hadn’t occurred at all. “Yes, yes, of course, Senator.” He took a small step back and gestured with his hand to the way ahead. “You can follow me this way.”

You nodded, stepping forward to follow him. On the way, you offered Hunter an apologetic glance, but he shook his helmet to reassure you that it wasn’t your doing. The warmth of comfort stuck to your chest as you returned your attention to the Prime Minister and followed him through the corridors of the planetary capitol.

While you remained attentive to whatever the Prime Minister was telling you, particularly regarding the most recent incidents, you also focused on your surroundings. You weren’t totally familiar with the layout of the capitol, seeing as most of your time spent on Eirus was in your own town prior to your appointment as senator, and having a familiarity with it was important to you. It would soon become a necessity.

“And here we are,” the Prime Minister announced as you came upon a dead end, where a set of double doors awaited. “Your room, and one for each member of your…” he hesitated, looking over Clone Force 99, “chosen protection.”

You nodded, satisfied for once at the words he said. “Thank you, Prime Minister. I appreciate you fulfilling this request.” You gestured with your eyes towards the double doors of your room. “I’m going to take some privacy for the rest of the evening so I may rest for tomorrow’s banquet.”

The Prime Minister bowed his head. “A sensible decision, Senator.” He began to back away. “I’ll make my leave for the evening.”

You returned the bow, waiting until he and his group had turned around to face your own guards and Clone Force 99. Your attention was fixed on the captain as you nodded to direct him. “You and your guard may rest for the night, Captain. Clone Force 99 will take things from here.”

The captain hesitated before ultimately giving in with a nod of his own. “Yes, Senator.” He led the way for his men, directing each one to the rooms further down the corridor.

A relieved exhale fell from your lips as you finally faced Clone Force 99. Hunter spoke up before you could. “You didn’t have to give us our own rooms.” His words were coated in gratitude, despite his insistence. “The boys and I are used to sharing.”

“Please, Sergeant,” you assured him. “It’s the least I could do to thank you for agreeing to this mission.”

“Mission?” Echo’s repetition of the word failed to hide his curiosity and his confusion. “You’re making this sound like it’s more than a protection job, Senator.”

“Echo,” Hunter began, barely holding back his sigh as he attempted to rein in his squad yet again. “I’m sure the senator’s just using the term loosely.”

“Actually, Sergeant, he’s right.” You cleared your throat, taking a quick glance around before lowering your voice. “We have a lot to discuss.”

The members of Clone Force 99 began to face one another, with Wrecker being the only one to speak on it. “Oh, yeah! I knew I would like her!”

You smiled at that and waved a hand towards your two doors. “If you follow me, I’ll brief you on everything.”

As you turned and led the clone squadron into your suite, the warmth of Hunter’s gaze through his helmet lit a blazing fire on the skin of your back. The turning of the gears within his mind was practically audible now that you had started to reveal your true intentions to them. Hopefully, he and his squad would remain on board once the details came to light.

Once the doors of the suite were secured closed, you gathered the soldiers around a holotable, reaching through the slit in your dress to take the datarod from your holster. You plugged it in, and instantly, a layout of Eirus’ main city illuminated in blue light, with red dots scattered throughout it. You exhaled in satisfaction that the map you had been making still worked as well here as it did on Coruscant.

Tech’s eyes brightened behind his goggles. “Fascinating.”

“Your approval means a lot, Tech,” you said with a warm smile. The entire squad seemed shocked by your drop in propriety as they shared looks with one another, but you kept going anyway. “I’ve been working on this for a while. It’s a layout of our capital city, where we are.” You pointed at the planetary capitol within which you stood. “The red signifies the places that the Separatists have been attacking.”

“Attacks?” Echo repeated. His namesake was beginning to make more sense. “You believe these are coordinated attacks instead of riots?”

“I know they are.” You twisted your lips and toggled the switches on the holotable, trading the image of the city with the man whose face alone made you scowl. “This is Lii Alvani, who was once our Prime Minister until our forces overthrew him. He was exiled, but the intel I’ve been receiving proves he’s struck a deal with the Separatists.”

“What kind of deal?” Hunter’s voice was low as he spoke up next. Your heart stalled for a moment in fear that he might withdraw his support from the mission, but the way he almost immediately softened his posture calmed you for the time being.

“If they fund his forces and provide him with backup if necessary to help him get the planet back, he’ll give the entire other side of our world over to them for droid production.” Your brow was creased in distress as you said the words aloud. Bringing this up to people who weren’t the ones you had once fought alongside was difficult, but the interest they showed was promising.

“Well, what’s the point of these attacks?” Wrecker pointed out next. “Wouldn’t the Separatists just launch a siege and call it a day?”

“That is not the point,” Tech chimed in. He was tapping on a datapad as if he was working out various probabilities, and you fought the urge to smile at the relief that washed over you at the sight of it. This was exactly what you needed; they were exactly what you needed. “Alvani does not desire to bring attention to the fact that the Separatists may soon be taking over the planet. Given the unrest that led to the senator’s appointment, Alvani is manipulating those who were not fully swayed to a side by laying the groundwork for the illusion that the Separatists can come in and offer a peaceful resolution at long last.”

“And the riots?” Crosshair questioned.

“Bait.” The room quieted as you spoke the word, and every helmet turned to you. “They’ve been wanting to lure me here because they know I’m the last strong link this planet has to the Republic.” You nodded at them dutifully. “I’m anticipating an assassination attempt.”

“Assassination?” Hunter was quick to lift his helmet from his head and tuck it under his arm as he repeated the word breathlessly. His brown eyes were the most expressive you had ever seen as they sent a strong amount of concern your way, his brow furrowed at the line between his tattoo and his warm skin.

“It wouldn’t be the first one I’ve had to avoid, Sergeant,” you reassured him, despite the odd sweetness his worry for you brought to your chest. “There were plenty before I was appointed as senator.”

“This sounds like a hell of a lot more than a protection job,” Echo muttered, though he didn’t seem upset about it.

“I’m deeply sorry I had to deceive you all at first.” Your words were sincere as you looked around the group. It was easy to catch Hunter’s eye without his helmet, which was focused on you with a new light of concern—and even a hint of understanding. The feeling of comfort swept through you once again as you went on. “There’s just an urgent need to keep this under wraps. I don’t know how far this scheme goes, and I need to give the illusion that I’m unaware of what’s really going on.”

Hunter’s brow raised before he asked his question. “Does your personal guard know about this?”

You shook your head. Hunter’s shoulders rose and fell in a deep exhale as the other members of the squad exchanged glances.

“Excuse my bluntness, Senator, but what exactly do you plan on doing about this?” Echo lifted his helmet to reveal his own concern and curiosity. “There are only five of us, and this looks like it could become a large-scale assault if we’re not careful.”

“I’m glad you asked, Echo.” The corners of your lips turned up as you prepared to reveal your full plan. “I’m aiming for two things. The first thing I need is time. There’s still a small chance to strike a deal that’ll satisfy the people the Separatists haven’t gotten a hold of.”

“And the second?” Wrecker asked, clearly hopeful for some action.

You couldn’t help smiling at him as you nodded. “Resistance. If we can counter some of these attacks and keep a low profile about it, then we can prove to the Separatists that Eirus isn’t worth the trouble.”

“‘We?’” Hunter gave you a pointed look. “Are you joining us on the front lines?”

You looked around the group with a more mischievous smile. “Of course I am.”

Wrecker laughed before pumping his fist. “Oh yeah!” Even Echo and Crosshair shared an impressed look with one other through their visors. You, however, could only focus on Hunter, who had started to raise the corners of his mouth in what could only be described as a proud smile.

But the light of concern still lingered in his dark gaze, one that was so sincere you found yourself appreciative of it. One of the hardest parts of becoming a senator had been others seeing you as helpless or defenseless, but this kind of concern was different. It was rooted in something else entirely, though you weren’t quite sure yet what that was.

“Again, I’m very sorry that you all had to be kept in the dark about the true nature of this mission,” you apologized, the guilt sweeping through you in a sudden and daunting wave. “I had no way of requesting your squad with the truth, and I hoped you would understand, even at this late stage.”

“We do.” Hunter’s response came without hesitation. His expression was fixed in steady severity as his gaze pierced your own. “Going off the books is what we do best.”

“That’s right, Sarge.” Wrecker crossed his arms and nodded at you. “Just give us our orders, Senator, and we’ll be there.”

Crosshair took his rifle from his back and assessed it as he shot Hunter a look. “I guess I’ll get to shoot something, after all.”

“Only if such actions are a necessity,” Tech countered, waving a careful finger in Crosshair’s direction. “In a situation as delicate as this, the wiser choice may be to keep our fingers off our triggers.”

You beamed at the excitement they were beginning to show. “Regardless, you were all chosen for a reason.” You took the datarod from the table and secured it back on your holster. “I’ve studied your missions, and it’s only further proven that each of your individual skills will be invaluable to my planet’s freedom.” Some of the weight began to fall from your shoulders as you nodded at them with deep gratitude. “I can’t fully express how much it means to me that you’ve agreed to help.”

“There’s no need to thank us,” Hunter assured you with a dutiful nod of his own.

“Hunter’s right,” Echo agreed, setting his hand on his hip. “We’re soldiers of the Republic, after all. It’s our duty to protect every single planet within it.”

“Still. This is a very unorthodox and even dangerous request, and it means everything to me that you’re willing to take it on.” You offered them one last smile before dismissing them. “All of you should get some rest for the night. Tomorrow will be a welcome banquet, and I’m expecting there to be some infiltrators. We’ll go over the plans then.”

The squad all acknowledged your words with their own nods before they turned to leave the suite. As Hunter went to follow them, you took a step towards him and lowered your voice.

“Sergeant,” you called for him, instantly earning his devout attention. “If I could speak to you privately for a moment?”

He nodded, turning his head to acknowledge a member of his squad. It was Echo who caught his eye, and no words had to be spoken as Hunter waved his hand to give his silent order. Echo looked between the two of you before tilting his helmet and leading the squad out of the suite.

You exhaled a deep breath once they had gone, focusing on Hunter and allowing his curious yet concerned gaze to relax you. “I appreciate your squad’s willingness to follow through with this mission, Sergeant.” You forced yourself not to break your gaze even as your inner strength began to falter. “But I also understand that, as a leader, you may see this as too much of a risk for your men.” You bowed your head. “I understand wholeheartedly if you want to withdraw from the mission.”

“I appreciate that, Senator, but you don’t have to worry.” You found Hunter’s gaze again as he took a small step closer to you. He lifted his chin in a resolve of his own. “We’re very welcoming to danger.”

You softly laughed at that, shaking your head as you raised your brow. “I really should’ve expected that from you all.”

The corner of Hunter’s mouth lifted in amusement. “Seems like you’ve done your research.”

You huffed and crossed your arms. “I’m not the only one who did.” You gestured with your head to the doors behind him. “Seeing as your squad had no reaction to my freedom fighting past.”

Hunter shrugged, the amusement still remaining on his expression. “We like to come prepared, even if we also like surprises.” He took a quick glance over his armored shoulder. “Research is Tech’s whole thing, anyway.”

You chuckled. “Yeah, that makes sense.” After a short pause, you released a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, your gaze falling to your feet as you attempted to put your thoughts into words.

You caught the movement of Hunter’s boots as they stepped even closer to you. “Senator?” You glanced back up and met his eyes, which had once again darkened in concern for you.

You offered him a small smile of whatever reassurance you could manage. “There’s another reason why I chose your squad, Sergeant.” Your grip on your upper arms tightened as you dared to go on. “I figured that out of any other clone squadron, yours would be the most willing to go against direct orders if necessary.”

Hunter raised an eyebrow at that. “What orders would we be disobeying?”

You held his gaze with newfound severity. “This is supposed to be a strictly diplomatic and peaceful conflict resolution.” You shook your head, at a loss. “But Eirus is well beyond that point.” You gave him a quick once-over. “Your agreement alone to help me fight will be disobeying a direct order from the Senate.”

You searched every inch of Hunter’s face for a single change, but his expression remained the same. After a few moments, he shrugged again, even offering a small smile as he responded. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

You blinked a few times in pure disbelief. “Are you sure?” Hunter nodded, remaining resolute. You exhaled a breath of relief and let a smile overtake your lips. “Thank you, Sergeant. I’m sure you understand that, as a leader, it’s hard to navigate the safety of your people with what you know is right.” Your hands slid down to your legs and your gaze followed them. “It’s a very isolating feeling.”

“I do understand.” When you felt the gloved hand upon your shoulder, it brought your eyes back up to his, which had exchanged all concern for the comfort that had gone from a vague rush of warmth in your chest to an overwhelming ache. “But you’re not alone, Senator. Not anymore.” Hunter nodded in further reassurance. “Just let me know what you need, and you’ll have it. Like Echo said, we serve the Republic, and that Republic includes you.”

There was no fighting the grin that his words brought to your lips as you returned his nod. “Thank you, Sergeant. That means more than I can say.”

Hunter returned your smile before lowering his hand. “I know.”

You held each other’s gazes for a long moment. It was becoming more and more clear that you understood one another in even more ways, and that this was only scratching the surface of it. The research you had done on one another was no doubt a factor, but it went beyond that, deep down to something neither one of you had the courage to air with only a few hours’ familiarity.

Eventually, Hunter broke your gaze to glance towards the double doors. “We’ll take shifts keeping watch outside your doors at night. I’ll assign them as soon as we’re done here.”

You shook your head at him. “I appreciate that, but it shouldn’t be necessary.”

Hunter’s jaw tightened. “With assassination attempts breathing down your neck? I beg to differ, Senator.” He tilted his head at you. “Don’t worry, the boys and I are used to keeping watch. We do it as a precautionary measure whenever we’re traveling through hyperspace.”

You let out a steady exhale and nodded. “In that case, thank you, Sergeant.”

Hunter bowed his head. “No need.” He prepared to set his helmet over his head. “I’ll get to it, then.”

“Yes, before your squad begins to get the wrong idea.” Your expression is written purely in amusement as you watch Hunter’s stunned face flush for a moment. He’s quick in securing the helmet over his head after that.

“You’ll find they tend to get the wrong idea about things pretty often.” Hunter chuckled before he turned to make his way towards the double doors. You watched him exit, only gaining the faith to speak once more when he was about to open them.

“Goodnight, Sergeant.”

Hunter paused, glancing over his shoulder as his helmet nodded at you. “Sweet dreams, Senator.” With that, he stepped through the doors, leaving you in your lonesome as they closed. You took a deep breath and turned towards your bedroom, smiling to yourself despite the darkness that still loomed outside the capitol’s walls.

There was still much left to do to save your planet, but Hunter’s words were already reassuring. For the first time since this crisis began, you no longer felt alone, especially with the sergeant’s promise to do whatever it takes for you and your people.

chapter 1 ⟸ series masterlist ⟹ chapter 3

hunter tag list: @zenrobbins0021 @cw80831 @yunggoblin @maddiedrmr

senator's shadow tag list: @violetlilly2020

#the next two we're amping things up so be READYYYY #tbb hunter #hunter tbb #sergeant hunter #tbb hunter x reader #hunter tbb x reader #the bad batch fanfiction #senator's shadow #dindjarindiaries

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sunandflame · 11 months

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Flame and Water, Chapter 1

A/N: Hello! After a poll decision I turned the 'The Water Pillars Tsuguko' into a full length fic. And a fresh start need a new blog as I can't interact with my sideblog (which sucks) So this is going to be an ongoing series from. I hope you enjoy!

Summary: You are the water pillars Tsuguko and you are training under him. One day you meet all the hashiras and when your gaze falls upon Rengoku, you are terrified to the bones.

Ship & Trope: Kyojuro x Fem!Reader (Water Pillars Tsuguko)

Warnings: none (yet)

Word Count: 1,9 Words

pinterest board of Flame and Water

spotify playlist for Flame and Water

crossposted on AO3

Masterlist of Flame and Water

"The Breath of Water is a technique that can adapt to all kinds of attacks. But to master it, you need to have the heart to always keep your breaths steady. Like a water surface. Think of your heart as the surface. If you wish to become the strongest Demon Hunter Swordsman, if you wish to become a pillar, you need to always keep your heart steady. Keep it calm and gentle, like the water's reflection."

Those were the words that Urokodaki-san passed on to Tomioka-san that he now passed to you before he started his first training lesson with you, before he started accepting you as his Tsuguko. You had anchored these words deep in your heart and reflected them on the outside. You have always been a very calm person, but as soon as you mastered all 11 forms of water, you became even more balanced. Yes, you even managed to master Giyuu's self-developed form Dead Calm. You were truly his Tsuguko and you both got along well, which could be thanked to your similar nature.

But just because the two of you got along didn't mean the other Hashira liked you, because as Tomioka's Tsuguko they had already formed an opinion about you and when you met them, they weren't particularly enthusiastic about you. The worry about having a second Giyuu Tomioka around them who wasn't talking or doing anything with the others seemed very likely. Added to that their presence intimidated you. Your gaze wandered over to each one of them and you could already guess what they were thinking of you, not that it bothered you much, even if the Sound Pillar said out his thoughts.

"You got yourself a Tsuguko that is just as dark and unflashy as you are Tomioka!"

Your gaze wandered to your teacher who didn't reply and this gesture hurt you a little even though you hadn't expected otherwise. There were some comments from the other Hashiras, but you weren't hearing them as your eyes were fixated on the one haori with the flames.

Horrible memories came up and your otherwise calm demeanor crumbled from one second to the next. A terrified whimper was heard and before you could realize it, you knew it was coming from your own mouth. With a quick movement you slapped your hand over it. But it was too late. Everyone had heard it and were now staring at you. Panic and anxiety filled your guts and you saw all the confused faces that exchanged looks between you and the Flame Pillar. Your eyes were searching for a quick exit and you fled so quickly, leaving some confused faces in their wake.

After y/n left the scenery, all eyes were on Rengoku. Sanemi was the first to speak. "What the actual fuck was that?"

"I- I think that she was whimpering...," said Mitsuri hesitantly

"Yeah, we all noticed that"

"But, why?

"It seemed like she was afraid of Rengoku-san"

And with that statement everyone turned to the blond who's smiling gaze didn't wavered., though there was a visible confusion behind his golden eyes. "I have never seen her once in my life! I can't explain to myself why she acted like this!"

There were a few comments, but this issue wasn't worth digging deeper into for the pillars. They just didn't care about y/n. But Rengoku's mind was racing. He just couldn't understand it. He tried to think about why you had reacted to him like that. Was it his looks? He couldn't do anything about it. After all, that's how he was born, and he was also proud of it because it showed him the connection to his ancestors.

Days had passed and he tried his hardest to forget the matter, since he knows that not everyone can like him, but fearing him? And it was pure terror he had seen in y/n eyes that would not let go of him anymore. He even approached Tomioka, tried to learn maybe the reason, but his answer was a simply "I don't know more than you." How was it even possible that he was training everyday with you and not knowing more? Rengoku had to realize that he couldn't let go of that matter and decided to get to the bottom of it.

Wood on wood met, the bokutos collided and you were completely focused on your opponent who was also your teacher until you suddenly saw something yellow in the corner of your eye. "Ouch!" A moment of inattention and you'd already received a hit on your shoulder. You rubbed the hit area and gave your teacher a confused look before looking away at the other person who appeared only to realize it was the Flame Pillar. Your whole body tensed up and you tried to dodge the next punches but got hit after hit. You could feel the bruises forming under your uniform and you kept fighting but you were not able to focus with the Flame Pillar watching you both and Tomioka could sense that too.

"Okay, that is enough training for today," were the words of Tomioka before he left the training ground and left you alone with Rengoku. He was not happy with your today’s progress, just like you, but he left without another comment. Again, your eyes darted around and looked for a quick exit. You gave Rengoku no chance to talk to you. Even if he had patiently waited for you and you were hoping with an anxious heart that he would not come back the next day. But you were so wrong. Rengoku proved himself determined as he came by every day to try to talk to you. And every time you would tense up, not being able to focus. One day you were hit so badly in the face that you saw the stars and you were on the verge of fainting from the pain, your nose wouldn't stop bleeding. You had seen Tomioka look at you with slightly widened eyes, asking if you were okay. You remained silent and your eyes darted immediately to Rengoku who also got up to ask for your well-being. “I-I am good…” Was the only thing you brought out, but the training was over for that day too as you were not able to stop the bleeding of your nose.

Rengoku showed such immense patience that he showed up at every single training session of yours. Much to Tomiokas frustration as you kept getting worse, making no progress at all, but he kept silent until he snapped one day.

“I don't know what your issue with Rengoku-san is, but if you don't sort this in any way out, I will not continue training with you as I see it pointless." Words that hit you hard and before you could even react to it, he was gone. You swallowed down your tears, hoping that it was a joke as your biggest wish was to become a Hashira like him. But it wasn’t

“CAAWW CAAWW! L/N-SAN! YOU ARE NOT GIYUU’S TSUGUKO ANYMORE CAAWW!”

It was as if your entire world had collapsed and the crow of Tomioka was the trigger. He was flying over your head and repeating the words. You'd been spitting blood to get this far and now it should just be over? Like a raging sea it roared in you. You tried to contain your calm exterior, but it was hard when your dreams got shattered like this and the waves of anger twirling inside you like a tsunami. Your hands were shaking, and you vented all your anger at the dummies. Destroyed them until there was nothing left. You didn't know how long you did this until you looked around breathlessly and realized that you just destroyed the whole trainings ground. You panted, sweating from every pore when you suddenly heard his voice, making your anger turn towards him.

“Hello l/n! I see Tomioka-san isn't here yet!” Rengoku was greeting you with his well-known bright smile. Yeah, it was because Tomioka didn’t even had the balls to tell you himself that you weren’t his Tsuguko anymore and only sent this stupid crow of his. But you only said that in your head. You were silent as always, but this time you didn’t run away and Rengoku was mildly surprised when you walked directly towards him. Finally, he thought in the first second, but your intentions were not good. He tensed up in the moment when he saw your eyes filled with anger, your hands ready on your sword.

"You...!" Your voice was sizzling dangerously taking your blue niichirin sword out of your sheath and attacking him in the next second, blind in your rage. For the first time in your life your fear towards him turned into an anger. As if the calm water in your mind turned hot and started to boil. Blue crashed with red and you were face to face. Rengokus face didn't hold his trademark smile anymore as he looked at you in surprise. "L/N! Calm down! Swordsmen are forbidden to fight among one another!” But you didn't care. You were so caught up in your anger and frustration that you didn't know what else to do then letting it out on the man in front of you. You blamed him for your shattered dreams. It was his fault! Why could he not leave simply leave you alone!

What was wrong with her? All the days he'd watched you practice just to exchange a word with you, he'd never seen you like this. He wasn't even sure if it was even possible to see you like this, as calm as you've always been. A calm that resembled Giyuu Tomioka. And he was impressed of your strength, but you needed to stop! “L/N! Stop it right now!” He put all his pressuring aura into his words, but it didn’t work. Your wrath built a wall around you, impossible to break through. That meant he had to find a different approach to having you listen to him and it seemed that there was only one way.

You took a big leap backwards after your blades crossed again and wanted to perform another attack, when you sensed a shift and immediately turning your attack into defense. It was now Rengoku who attacked you. Not to kill you, but more to force you to listen to him. Knowing that you could withstand him, he was not holding back. The attacks were fast and powerful and pushed you to your limits.

Suddenly you stumbled from exhaustion and lack of attention. Thats it, were your thoughts and you closed your eyes, waiting for the pain, but it didn't come. Only a breathless huff when you fell onto something rather… comfortable. Shouldn't the landing have been more painful? It should but Rengoku was able to react quickly that he withdrew his attack in the last moment before hurting you seriously and was even able to catch you in your fall. Unfortunately, he also lost his balance by catching your and you both fell. You on top of him. You opened your eyes just to see his face inches away from yours, hands holding you. You both looked at each other in surprise and if there was any anger left in you then it was gone it that very moment when you stared into his golden eyes that faded to red...

🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥🌊 🔥

I hope you enjoyed this so far! If you want to be tagged for the next part just reply down below! Every reblog and like is appreciated 💙

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satoru-is-the-way · 1 year

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SPOILERS FOR AVATAR 2!!

Avatar! Rick Quaritch x Na'vi Reader

"Given Enough "

Series Master list

Tag list: @anyzandy @kneelingforvillains @dioriez @mylovelyreblogs @dinobae-replyacc @the-wanderer-2022 @zootsutra @voodoogoul

Let me know if you want to be on the tag list.

Chapter 1 - The Invader

Colonel Rick Quaritch shamefully tucked his tail and flew off. His mission to kill Jake Sully failed drastically. Now it's just him flying out into the wilderness of Pandora. His body is weak and needs to rest. Rick landed on a nearby plot of floating land,' Ayram alusìng' as Na'vi called them. However, this was not the Hallelujah Mountains. Quaritch had no clue where exactly he was. He grunts, removing his Queue from the Ikran. He slides off the mountain banshee’s back boots landing on the ground beneath him. The Colonel glanced around for any natives lurking in the trees or behind the bushes around him. The cost seemed clear enough to let his guard down. Little did he know a female Na'vi had been monitoring him long before he entered her tribe's domain.

(Y/n) (L/n), the clan leader's firstborn. Her people were known as the Kamimaljuyú. The air tribe. They lived in the Ayram alsuìng and built their home there. Humans learned very little about their kind. Due to the terrain, it served as a natural shield against the sky people. Their technology did not last beyond a few miles before rendering them completely useless. The Kamimaljuyú made minimal contact with Sky people and preferred to keep it as such.

(E/c) orbs gradually examined the Avatar before her. She caught subtle differences between her people and the lab-grown organism. Their Avatar features included: eyebrows, a pronounced nose, a stout physique, one extra finger, and a toe. Their entire race intrigued (Y/n). How did it make sense to leave their dying world only to bring their problems here? Humans would not change their way of life. Not even to save their race. They rather force their ways on others while avoiding the real problem. She could not allow him to stay here much longer. (Y/n) feared Quaritch might bring others. The Kamimaljuyú knew about the sky people’s return but had no involvement in such a meaningless slaughter. They were after the mighty Jake Sully, not her people.

Her chest rose and fell, soaking in the air around her. With a graceful hand, she retrieved an arrow from her quiver. (Y/n) placed the string between the nock before pulling back. Her accuracy could rival any hunter in their village because she never missed. Everything around her accounted for; the distance, position, and wind speed. She let go firing her poisoned lace weapon. Suddenly a gust of wind hit the trajectory changed. Her eyes widen as the arrow lands right at the Colonel’s boots. She then felt a strong presence, Eywa. Maybe the path for this Avatar is not death. The great mother is never wrong.

Quaritch leaped up glancing in the direction the arrow came from. “Come on out. I might go easy on you.” He growled despite not being in the physical condition to fight. (Y/n) rolled her eyes before slowly emerging from the nearby bush. Her arrow is out as a precaution.

“You look ready to collapse at any moment now, demon.” Her ears go back hissing as a warning. “I take it you couldn't handle the Na'vi as you thought? You may have an Avatar body but your skills and technology are no match for our spirit."

Quaritch looked over the native female. He could not deny she was beautiful. The Colonel normally had no attraction to women of their race but. Her eyes, face, lips, and hair all came together perfectly. "You-you." He stutters before collapsing. The last thing he saw is (Y/n) rushing over to his body before everything went black.

---

Quaritch had no idea how long he was out. He woke up surrounded by thousands of Navi. He hissed looking frantically for a way you. However, he is bound and helpless. What choice did he have? Why did she not kill him? What did they want? He instantly could tell the leaders apart from the other Navi. ‘Oh, shit’ He thought realizing the pretty native woman is not just anyone. It was their daughter. How lucky could he get? It brought flashbacks of Jake Sully meeting Neytiri. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage. If Jake became one of them perhaps he could? Seduce the princess into falling in love. Oldest trick in the book. A mission he would be willing to extend if that meant killing the whole Sully family while Jake watched.

“Why have you come back to Pandora after Toruk Makto sent you flying back?”

“We come back in peace. Not all of us agree with what happened to the people all those years ago. Earth wants to make admins.” He looked down with sorrow as the lies spilled off his tongue. “I had gotten caught in a nasty fight with the water tribe. I tried to explain but they did not want to listen.” Quaritch looked up directly into (Y/n)’s eyes.

“How can I trust the sky people? The last time ended in bloodshed for both sides.”

“I will do anything.”

“Father…” He glanced at his daughter. Originally Cualli held great anger when (Y/n) returned from her hunt with this demon tied to her Ikran. That anger changed as (Y/n) told him Eywa gave her a sign not to kill the Avatar. “Yuum, leti' impidió ti' le flecha perforara u puksi'ik'al. In wojel ba'ax Eywa Ma'atech u equivoca.Yaan jump'éel plan ti'. In wojel jach jaaj.” (Father, she stopped the arrow from piercing his heart. I know Eywa is never wrong. She has a plan for him. I know it to be true). Quaritch listens closely not understanding this language. He knew about the Kamimaljuyú. They were one of the largest tribes on Pandora and preferred to stay isolated from the other Navi. It was mentioned in books their numbers are greater than the stars in the sky.

The people chatted amongst themselves. They had a right to be scared for the sky people. Other clans had not been so lucky with the alien invaders. Eywa had blessed them all this time. Now his daughter has brought the invader right into their home. His wife, Inez, placed a hand on the wounded Avatar's chest closing her eyes. The Navi went silent waiting for her judgment. “We have avoided war for over 30 years. We kept the sky people at a distance. Eywa has blessed us with protection. Now the great mother has given my daughter a sign. This Avatar has great spirits around him. Evil and good alike battling over his heart. Eywa now brings him here for reasons we do not know. In time she will guide us to find his path, his destiny.” Her voice traveled loud and certain of her communication with Eywa. (Y/n) sighed in relief he would not be harmed as of now. Cualli stepped up raising his staff. The crowd bowed down waiting for his final verdict. With a gesture (Y/n) walked to her father kneeling down.

“My daughter has been spoken to by Eywa. Told to spare his life for now. As we wait for his purpose my daughter will take on the responsibility of tending to his invader. He could be a threat or an ally. We have yet to learn his heart. Eywa sets everyone on two paths. It is his choice of which path to take. Rise, my daughter.” He spoke. (Y/n) rose to her feet ears back. She is left in charge of this man? “You are going to show him our ways. Teach him right and wrong. Then I will pass judgment on him. If he passes the test he will be welcomed as one of us. If not you will kill him yourself. Do you both accept?”

Quaritch held back his smirk,” I accept.”

(Y/n) sighed deeply,”Je'el in wóotik” (I accept.)

“Then go your time starts now,” Cualli announced

“ Ma' in falles waal.” (Do not fail me, daughter.) Inez whispered already knowing this will not work and (Y/n) will once more disgrace their family. (Y/n) nods looking at Quaritch.

“Follow me.” She instructed as the villagers went back to their daily tasks. She huffed once arriving at the edge of their first village. “You will have to wear our clothes, eat our food, and learn our language.” (Y/n) growled.

“I am not going to run around in one of those thongs or whatever you call them” He adds. Without warning (Y/n) pulls her knife out cutting his shirt. “You will change for this role. You will have to make accommodations or else my father will kill you.” She looked over him. “No boots, no guns, no shirt, but your pants can be cut short enough to still allow for mobility. We are air people there is still forest on our land. So we know how to climb the trees, and swing on the vines, and you will also need to learn our language.”

Quaritch sighed taking his cut shirt off. He kicked his muddy boots off and growled cutting his pants mid-thigh length. He did not like this one bit. “Is that better for you Princess?”

“Don’t call me that!” She hissed tail slapping him. “You are going to fail…Eywa sees something in you and I do not know why. It’s getting late supper will be soon then I will show you where you will rest.”

“With you, I hope.” He smirks moving closer to (Y/n). She growled and turned away with a sway in her walk. The Colonel knew this is going to be fun.

Chapter 2

#Spotify #avatar x reader #na'vi avatar #avatarmovie #avatar way of water #avatar #avatar x you #Avatar x navi #colonel quaritch x reader #colonel quaritch #Rick quaritch #jake sully #sully family

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slowthypiglordblr · 8 months

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The Owl House: Hexsquad Represented with Classes in Dungeons and Dragons (5th Edition)

Luz Noceda as the Warlock with a Paladins virtue and a hint of druid.

Amity Blight is The Artificer with a hand in Wizardry

Willow is the Cleric of the Nature Domain (plant magic), her Barbarian rage buried within.

Augustus Porter as the Wizard: Master of Illusions and Charismatic Magician (Bard)

Hunter as The Fighter/Rogue/Ranger, a highly trained soldier and warrior in every field imaginable.

Vee Noceda as the Monk/Druid, her heart and body are as fluid as water.

The Collector is the Dungeon Master, and thus the game is set.

This is a hypothetical take on what the Hexsquads' classes would be if they ever decided to play D&D. The artwork represents their base class with the symbols being their secondary classes.

(I'm not doing races cause that's way too up in the air for this.)

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katsukikitten · 1 year

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A zombie apocalypse au for @medusashima collab! Find the collab master list HERE! Be sure to give the others a read too!

Warning: graphic, violent, and sexual content intended for adults 18 or older.

Synopsis: Shelter isn't hard to come by in the End but good, untouched, shelter is. When you find paradise in the middle of a dead field in the shape of a 900 square foot home you start to break a few of your important rules. Always keep moving and don't help anyone. Especially if that anyone is a hot headed blonde bounty hunter sent to settle score you'd rather forget.

Peachy Keen Master List

Chapter One - Never overstay your welcome, keep moving

Winter

It scares you at first, the mummified body facing the door in the cramped living room of the home you found tucked away in a field of corn long past it's harvest.

Petrified you, like the farmers that sat facing one another. In wooden rocking chairs, gnarled fingers slack around the handles. Coming closer to inspect and seeing no signs of teeth marks or infection. Letting loose the held breath you kept as deft eyes looked over every liver spot and wrinkle in the leathery skin. No fluid on the hardwood floors beneath their rocking chair or in the blankets around their shoulders.

And by some miracle, the cold, the house didn't smell like rot.

You figure they must have died earlier this winter, it lasted damn near since October as the Earth naturally cooled in the fall of the human race.

With critical climate change hitting irreversible levels and long lasting damaging effects in just a few short decades, Mother Nature took matters into her own hands. Doing what she does best.

She evolves, she changes and grows, makes a deadly cocktail of pathogens and fungi that rids her realm of blight.

Humans.

You were just surprised a nuclear war didn't wipe humanity off the map first.

You hadn't meant to live this long, six whole years in the apocalypse, honestly you were one of the many who'd rather take their own lives. Least then you had a say in how and when you went.

But the body has a funny way of forcing you to survive. To dissociate in some feeble attempt to keep the body going for an organ that tortured itself daily with endless, grueling tasks and for what?

So you could experience your first kill? Watch your friends and family die when the Feds bombed cities instead of trying to quarantine sections? Of you walking until your feet bled, fleeing the city just to live in the outskirts to hear the screaming and wails as the undead met the living? Tied to a tree limb with your worn belt to sleep or maybe it was so you could loot the dead man for his tent but not without putting a bullet between his eyes as a parting gift first.

No longer does Grim accept the coins laid upon the eyes of the dead. Now payment for a safe travel down the river Styx is paid with the bullet lodged into the third eye of the deceased.

A tradition sure to be passed down to the generations to come.

Despite the rage you've aimed at yourself for still living, the home was a welcoming sight. The old farm house made of gray cinder block, stout in the field of the tall stalks that you yearned to see each sweltering summer when you were stuck in the city before the world went to shit.

Now the sight of the dried crop makes the nostalgia coat your tongue thickly, like the bitterant of a large pill.

You think you choke when you swallow.

Still even with the two harmless corpses it was an amazing find. The shingles of the roof are all in tack and the old wood stove holds the reminiscence of a charred log and ashes.

Logs lining either side that would last through the winter and then more still kept under an open awning out back. Plenty of birch wood to burn white smoke making you sigh in relief.

First things first and with the few hours of sun you had left you needed to get to work burying the couple. Half debating over taking their rings that were about to fall off before thinking better of it.

Grabbing the shovel from the makeshift shed and going to the edge of the corn field out back. Only you were stubborn, stupid enough to fight the frozen ground as you shoved the sharp spade into the Earth. Moving it to your will as sweat collects on the inside of your thermal undershirt making it stick to your back and the nape of your neck uncomfortably.

Your calloused hands protect you from the biting wood as you spend the better part of your day light going six feet down. Using the height of the shovel as a measuring stick.

I wonder if their kids and grandkids will visit. I'll have to make a good marker so they won't miss it.

And then it hits you. The realization of what you're thinking. Fat droplets blurring your vision as you chide yourself over wasting quickly dwindling time.

You hadn't even cried when you watched your friends being torn apart from the force of the bomb but here you were crying over two strangers and their imaginary family.

Except they weren't imaginary were they? They were hung neatly throughout the home.

Ya know the multi generational home that you planned to squat in. The one with the warped photos in warm senpia of when the family first arrived and built the modest country home to the vibrant color photo of the grandparents smiling ear to ear as their kids and their kids' kids stood on the still sturdy porch with corn cobs in their small hands.

Another sob racks through your body forcing you to take a break from carving out your last foot hold so you could climb out of the grave you'd just dug.

Should you start digging your own now too?

Since no one else was going to be around to do it.

Once you're back in the house you try to think of the logistics of bringing the pair out. You start with the wife, taking her delicately preserved body with the blanket around her shoulders.

"’Xcuse me." You murmur to her as you lift her up, surprisingly light compared to the other corpses you've carried or moved. Careful to avoid banging her up against the door jamb accidentally before you make it out the few yards to the edge of their little property.

Easing her down into the hole using the long and strong quilt that she must have made until you could slip it from beneath her to bring the fabric back up.

"Sorry." Another involuntary pleasantry as you scoop the husband and his quilt up. Repeating the same action until he rested beside her as much as he could be. Dropping the first and second quilt over them as if tucking them in. You just hoped they wanted their holy matrimony to be reflected in the after life as well.

Rooting around in your pocket for the few spare ammo you've got left.

"For the toll." You murmur dropping a bullet each before tackling the grueling task of shoveling dirt back into the hole you half killed yourself to dig. Returning to the house only to place their wooden rocking chairs at the foot of their grave before heading inside for the night.

Telling yourself not to look for their names, refusing to and that the wooden rocking chairs would have been enough.

But it gnaws at you as you move around their furniture to better suit you, as the old wood stove fills the home with a warmth, with a luxury, you've long since forgotten.

Knowing full well she would have been the type of woman to have a farmer's log.

A handwritten one or a more accurate family log written in the old bible that sat on her night stand.

You left it alone, thankful they hadn't died in their queen sized bed as you moved it into the living room frame and all.

The moon shining bright over head, peering in through the kitchen window over the sink as if to check on you. To see if you were still awake.

And of course you were, when was the last time you've ever had a restful sleep?

Your mind back to the "holy book" specifically the one with the worn leather and cracked spine. Even to the end the wife was a woman of faith, a bible open on the coffee table that you quickly used for kindling.

Because what has God ever done for you?

He sure as fuck wasn't as merciless as he claimed to be.

Although he'd given her and her husband an easy enough death hadn't he?

You were sure the rest of her family didn't meet the same gentle fate.

In the end there was only one true God and that was Death.

Ever waiting and watching, coming to steal you away before you could even blink with nothing to show you ever existed at all save for your own headstone, least til that crumbled away.

You jolt out of bed, rushing towards the book as if it whispered your name all this time and now it was shouting.

Screaming, demanding your undivided attention until you flip open the front cover. Old cursive greets you as the pages sigh, rolling over birth and death dates until you're forced to flip to the back, finding the first two names without death dates but plausible birth dates that would line up to their age and the End. Slamming the generations old book as you rise.

Finding yourself outside, bare foot. Knife in your hand and your breaths coming out in ragged puffs.

Scrapping along the tops of the wooden rocking chairs like a woman possessed, carefully carving the letters into the headrest of the rocking chairs.

Stepping back in a fever to admire your work, feet numb from the biting cold ground before you turn on your heel.

They echo back to you as if you'd carved each curving letter into your psyche instead of the smooth stained grain. Unsure if the haunting was that of thanks or scorn and you were sure a poltergeist was the least of your concern.

Even as you drift the names burn your retinas as if to remind you whose home you spent the night in.

ASTRID EMROY

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The next morning you find yourself trapped in the house by deep snow so you poke around the home. Rearranging some things here and there but not to disturb the personal belongings just yet.

Even though you know you won't stay long, never breaking one of your many rules that lead you to survive this long. But why not disturbing their belongs matters to you, you aren't sure.

Maybe it's the way that this home is untouched. Truly loved and lived in, while the other houses you've squatted in were long since looted. Ransacked and trashed, taken back by the unforgiving weather and those desperate enough to defile what was once someone's home.

For others, their Hell within four walls and maybe the big End meant nothing to them anyway. Besides, it wasn't like you weren't one of the many who rooted through homes and hissed when you found nothing of use, just fading photographs and old DVDs and CDs. Shit that didn't matter now.

Right now you were mostly looking for a good pen with a plan to roughly guess the year so you could add the rough date beside their names and put their bible up somewhere. As if compelled to end their chapter properly so that they may live on despite, their bloodline most likely having died long before them.

The couple really didn't have much and you were sure if you tried you could dedicate one small wall and bookshelf to their personal belongings to honor them. The thought makes you suck your teeth, so easily you cling to sentimental bullshit, out of spite now their things would be lucky to be stored away in a box.

On the dusty coffee table are two sets of coasters, tops well worn from sweating drinks, a black leather book and a copy of The Great Gatsby with a broken spine.

The book peaks your interest, hadn't read it since highschool and even then that felt like a foreign memory. Of harsh fluorescent lights that buzzed loud enough you were sure you'd go deaf to them after having lived in silence for so long. Tossing the tattered paperback onto the old wood top before your fingers grab for the worn leather spine, flipping the pages to see dozens and dozens of entries.

You settle into the old couch, the fire in the wood stove keeping the place warm as the sun lazily bleeds in through the windows to provide you with just enough light to read as you flip it open you're met with a threat.

If ya settle here ya better watch over our goddamn farm.

The cover page makes you snort, flipping the thick page to consume what you could, hoping there would be some hints on where they stashed their canned goods and supplies. Even if it didn't provide you with anything, at least it helped past the time.

Jan 31 20XX Six years after the "Rapture"

It's ain't all fucking peachy keen as I'm sure ya can see and I'm comin to realize that I ain't built to live forever.

And if I was, I couldn't imagine a worse hell than this.

If ya settled here in our little house I've got some rules.

No drinks on my damn coffee table without a coaster. I got plenty of 'em. The ones from my birthday (they got cats on em but the paint'll be rubbed off by now I'm sure) or the ones Emroy made outta small trees. Hell use a book if ya gotta.

Two, you best sweep this home. I don't care where ya came from or who ya came from, what god you do or don't worship but there is one thing for certain, house as old as this has a spirit and ya best keep it happy. Open the front and back door (good cross breeze in the sweltering summer) and you sweep my damn house.

Or I just might be the spirit that haunts ya.

Reckon that's it. So I'll quit my belly achin and step down from my soapbox to learn ya a thing or two.

Now if you're a country folk and from 'round these parts y'all'll know two things. When snows a coming, or rain, y'all can smell it real easy in the air. Can't tell ya the smell but if you know ya know. And the second being it always snows heavier in the next coming weeks before spring than it will in the dead of winter.

Now if you're from the city or just can't smell like ya used to, Bets the cow will be able to tell ya. She won't come out, simple as that and by the next day snow'll be up to your knees and Bets will look at you like she told you so.

Hopefully she'll live that long, seems this disease ain't affecting the animals like it is us folks. Reckon we didn't pray hard enough or some preachy shit Gran would've said. Now if the cow ain't there to tell ya, the farm log will. Use yer head, you'll see the pattern even with the blasted greed fueled heat spikes. It's best to prepare for the worst. We've enough canned rations to last us a lifetime in the cellar but Emory and I are old as dirt, it won't last forever but as long as these hands can can, they'll can what he grows.

Emory, my husband, says hello. Wants me to tell the "stranger" that's you I reckon, that the Great Gatsby is worth the read and that if ya find yourself with nothing to do, which ya will eventually, you should read it.

Go on now, get back to surviving and be sure to dust my damn picture frames too.

Yours truly,

Astrid & Emory.

Pushy. You think to yourself but relish in the fact that old folks like to ramble, even in written form. Quick to explore the home to find the cellar doors in the fading short lived light of winter before realizing the age of the home.

Shit, it's probably buried under a whole foot and a half of snow, you could exhume it now but you and twilight always seemed to have bad luck.

It's when you've been raided most and almost bitten more times than you can count and after finding this place you don't wish to push your luck. Even if the undead were few and far between in bumfuck nowhere.

Flipping open the cabinets in the kitchen you find a few manufactured canned meats. Fingers smoothing out the old label for any sign of denting or damage that could lead to botulism. Finding none makes you pop open the can to sit atop the old black wood stove, glass casting the room in a soft orange that rivals the sunset. It makes you pull the blinds closed in caution, not wanting any light to attract unwanted guests and when the wind howls you wrap tighter in one of the many blankets lying around.

Three days pass and there is only so many times you can study the farm logs and widdle wood into pitiful shapes with your dull knife before you drive yourself mad. Still avoiding the books for now in some sort of spite or rebellion to God knows who before you're outside and bundled up. Shovel in hand as you scrape the metal spade all along the foundation of the house until you hear a satisfying tink.

Your luck would be to start in the wrong direction and have to walk all the way back around the house just for the damn thing to be on the left side of the back porch instead of the right. Shoveling away the icy snow before coming across the wooden cellar doors. You wonder if you'll have to replace them soon but your curiosity of the future dies when you spy a combination padlock. Sucking your teeth pull a bobby pin from your hair, straightening it out and wiggling it between the rusting dials, scraping it around before feeling the soft give of the locking mechanism. You jab roughly and the lock pops open making you smile as if you hadn't picked anything ten times as hard.

Taking the steps into the deep cellar where the air was cool yes but warmer than outside. As if it were deep enough in the Earth to stay a balmy fifty degrees even in summer heat. Flash light paints the darkness in harsh white when you spy a candle and a box of matches into an enclave built right into the old cobblestone.

Once the fire flickers to life you switch your flashlight off, pocketing it as the candle washes the old glass jars and few metal cans aglow.

Jarred jerky catches your eye first as you snatch for that, then a small jar of syrupy looking strawberries, as bright red as when they were first picked, making your mouth salivate. The place neatly organized and labeled, the metal cans of all of those beef stews that were upstairs despite there only being enough of those left to last through this winter. Even if you stretched them out with water. Finger following the shelf lining to try to find more sweet fruit coming across the word peaches under a layer of dust.

Delight you look up, just to find the shelf empty and the sight of it makes you snarl.

But at least you had your strawberries.

They taste like late spring, like your childhood when you'd pick the berries at the local farm. How the sun beating down on your back made them taste that much sweeter in the field. A little reward paid by the sweat on your brow and the money your mother would toll out for the fresh fruit.

Well, well worth the price.

Spring is coming like her book says and you sweep and dust her house.

#bakugou x reader #bakugou Katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugo x reader #kitten writes bakugou 🖤🐈‍⬛ 🖋️

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weixuldo · 5 months

Text

Allow me// ch 14

Vader x Reader

a/n: so sorry for the delayyy rahhh i’ve been traveling for the holidays!! i’ve been cranking stuff out tho so dw!!! i’ve been working on enigma, allow me, and line cook ani pt 2 heheh also unconditionally epilogue// also words in font like this means vader is using the force to speak- not his normal voice

How much longer will it be before you hear from Lord Vader again? is he safe? is he alright?

warnings: cursing, angst, harm, medical procedures, cannon typical violence

_____________________

After what seemed like days of stumbling around fighting off any enemy he came against, Vader finally obtained a ship. It wasn’t much, but at least he was able to jump start it. As soon as he got the engine going- he set in coordinates for Hoth.

He was absolutely exhausted in every way someone could be; mentally, physically, emotionally… Not only did his broken body ache, but his mind raced with thoughts of what his master would do next if he were to defy him. Would he really be replaced?

As he flew the small ship towards the icy system, the failure of his suit became increasingly evident. After using so much energy and power from the force to fend off bounty hunters and fight opponents (all while his suit was damaged and with makeshift limbs), he was so completely exhausted that he could barely stay conscious as he drifted through space.

The flesh parts of his legs throbbed uncomfortably- the makeshift prosthetics weren't made to cushion his walk so he was putting too much pressure on his poor stumps. He desperately wanted to put the ship on auto pilot but sadly, it did not have that feature.

So he begrudgingly adjusted himself in the pilot seat and desperately tried to stay awake.

___________________________________

Your anxiety was through the roof the past few days; not only had you heard nothing from Vader or when he would return, but the Emperor seemed as if he were observing you much more closely now.

Thankfully you had finished your main tasks for the day and retired to your quarters earlier than normal (not that that really meant anything special. You were still just going to overthink).

You laid down and observed the same ceiling you had been looking at for months, only this time you were worried about Vader.

You pleaded with the force that he was ok and would return safely. You would rejoice once you knew he was safe and finally with you again. Would he feel the same about you?

____________________________________

The sight of his docked ship took an enormous weight off of Vader’s chest; he was back. He would no longer have to wonder how he’d get back or have to worry about conserving his energy.

He landed the ship as best as he could, but it was a rough landing; he had to opt for a landing in the snow. Once the ship was powered off, he slowly pulled himself out of the cockpit.

The freezing temperatures of the frigid planet whipped at his exposed skin and made his metal joints creaky. He was shutting down. His legs were barely able to hold his weight anymore- he was completely drained.

Even though he wanted so desperately to call to you through the force, he just couldn’t muster the energy.

Before he knew it, his world went black and he was left lying, face down, in the thick layers of snow.

Thankfully some stormtroopers saw his bumpy landing and came to check out the commotion. Without them he would not have made it back.

“Uhhh- You might wanna take a look at this” one of the white armor clad men said to the other.

“Lord Vader?!”

“Yea…. we should probably get him inside” another chimed in.

“Right away! We need to get him to the med chamber”

_______________________________________

You had taken a stroll around the living quarters to try to get your mind off of things (it wasn’t working), sadly everything in the damn ship just screamed Vader- it was his ship, after all.

As you walked the halls, a large group of troopers marched down the hall opposite to you.

They seemed rushed- their matters must have been important.

You thought nothing of it initially (There was always some drill or task they were running around to complete), but you froze when you heard it.

“Lord Vader is back”

“Really? Where is he?” a second asked.

“We’re pretty sure he's in the med bay- probably being checked for wounds” the first added.

You didn’t need to hear anymore, before you were off.

You rushed to the med bay where he was being held for assessment by the medical droids and Vanee.

You punched in the security code and swiped your card quicker than you ever had before and breathlessly entered the dark room.

You didn’t expect to see a pillar of light in the middle of the pitch black room; once your eyes adjusted you realized the pillar was actually a large bacta tank… with a limbless figure strung up in the middle, a sight you had never seen.

As you squinted you realized you recognized that face- it was Vader in there.

Was he injured so badly as to lose the rest of his limbs? No- you looked closer and his amputations seemed to be old wounds- you knew he had some prosthetics, but you didn’t realize he had lost all of them.

He floated in the healing liquid, only suspended by a black harness. The slight movement of the water softly carried his body up and down.

You observed more and noticed how muscular he was, his shoulders were just as broad even outside the suit. As much as you wanted to linger your gaze on his body, you felt that it was not the time to marvel at his impressive physique.

You began to walk forward to get a better look at his injuries when a pale faced man ran at you; “Get out! Do not dare disturb the Lord as he heals!” the elder screamed at you, which caused Vader to weakly open an eye.

Once he saw that it was you he panicked for a moment- he didn’t want you to see him like this… he wasn’t ready.

Surely you were frightened of him now, surely you couldn’t hold him in the same regard as you did before.

A look of worry found itself onto your face as you saw Vader’s scared face, but soon the pale man started getting violent with you.

He pulled, pushed, and even began to scratch you with his long nails but you wouldn’t budge, you needed to make sure Vader was ok.

Vanee, Stop.

What was that?

The pale man ceased his attack and stepped aside, “but my lord, she is-”

Let her be and leave us.

Vader was speaking through the force.

Vanee nodded and scurried out of the dark room.

Once it was just you and Vader left, you walked towards the glass tube and rested your palms against the cool surface.

“V? Are you going to be ok?” you asked with a small voice.

I will be, i’m so sorry

both of his eyes were open now.

“Sorry for what V?” What was he talking about?

I didn’t want you to see me like this

You were no medic so all you could offer Vader was your company and support as he endured a painful recovery process.

“Oh, Vader… please do not worry about that- I want you to focus on healing” you said softly as you pressed a gentle hand on the glass of the tank.

You felt a warm sensation wash over you and embraced the familiar force signature of the Sith; he was connecting with you the only way he could.

Thank you

_____________________________

You stayed by Vader’s side until he was done with his soak; the two of you were silent for the most part- for you it was just comforting to be in his presence once more.

Near the end he opened up about the past few days in small bits (you probably wouldn’t ever get the full story).

He briefly explained why his master sought to punish him and to you, it was an impossibly stupid reason.

You were disgusted by the Emperor- he tortured Vader for teaming with someone he thought fit to be an ally. Then Palpatine went so far as to destroy Vader’s prosthetics and dump him back onto the shores that once scarred him all those years ago.

If Vader weren’t as strong as he is… he surely would have died.

Palpatine is a cruel man.

W-would you help me lie down?

“I would rather you help me than the droids,” he admitted in his modulated voice.

You nodded and walked closer to the glass.

“Press that button and lift that switch” he guided you towards an operating panel that would drain his tank.

Once you had that done you went to search for some towels to dry him off with. He was left hanging from his harness with an embarrassed feeling.

The glass tube retreated below the floor and he was gently lowered to the platform; you laid a soft towel down and had another in your hands as you received his tired body.

You guided his body into your lap and held him in your arms once he was finally released from the suspending cords that attached to the harness around his torso.

He was so light in your arms compared to what you had expected; he was muscular, but the more you thought about it, he only had a torso, a head, and four stumps.

He allowed you to assist him to the steel examination table in the next room over. You could tell he was ashamed of his body and inability to do basic tasks in his state, but you quietly reminded him that you only wanted to help.

“Would you like me to unbuckle your harness? Or do you just want to keep it on, I assume you’ll be going back in the tank soon” You offered softly.

To your surprise, he shook his head- “No, my master won't allow me to soak again today until much later. Are you sure you would be comfortable touching… me?” He added the last part in pity.

You scowled at his master’s instructions, but your eyes softened when you answered him, “Vader, I have pledged myself to you, have I not?”.

“Y-yes?” he replied softly.

“Then you have nothing to worry about- You have nothing to be ashamed of,” you said.

Your words seemed to relax him slightly and he exhaled shakily before shutting his eyes.

You stayed by his calming him, helping apply cooling creams to his new burns, and helping him with the oxygen mask.

It hurt to see the one you loved in such a crestfallen state, but at least he was alive.

Once he was a bit more stable he spoke again.

“thank you, proceed”.

The ends of his limbs had metal ports that looked warped; to your best knowledge they must have been welded to another type of metal and then had to be cut off.

You jumped a little when you saw Vader begin to move his scarred legs from you; he refused to meet your gaze.

“It’s alright- I’m just examining your ports- I may be able to design new ones for you since these ones definitely won’t be able to connect to your new legs” you said in an attempt to quell his worries.

His eyes relaxed and he began to blink slowly again.

Thank you

He was speaking through the force again; his energy must have been depleting.

“No need to thank me V. I would do anything for you” you smiled softly before leaning in to kiss his temple.

_______________________

You worked on crafting new ports for Vader’s prosthetics to attach as he rested; you offered to leave and work in the workshop, but he insisted (more like begged) you to stay with him.

You had the transport droid he gifted you, bringing up the materials and your toolkit so you could start working as you sat with him.

Though, Vader did sense the surrounding area first to make sure Palpatine wouldn’t make a surprise visit- having you in his chambers would not be a good scene for the emperor to see.

You knew if Palpatine was so cruel as to make Vader relive his past trauma and suffering, he would definitely have no problems involving you in a nefarious scheme to get Vader to react in a certain way. It was beyond fucked up.

Soon you had finished his arm’s ports and walked over to the bed you laid him on.

His eyes were closed and a few tubes carrying nutrients and oxygen peeked from under the covers you placed over him.

You could hear his damaged throat rasping with every breath he took; you wanted nothing more than to take all of his pain away.

This was the longest you had ever seen him out of his suit and the only time you had ever seen his whole body.

He was covered head to thigh in poorly healed scars and new burns from his most recent brush with the unforgiving lava planet.

His chest and back had a few unnatural ports for his suit to connect his life support to, but other than that he was flesh (except for his organs, of course).

But sadly you would have to wake him from his slumber soon since he was supposed to be back to his duties in two days ...The Emperor heartlessly expected an impossibly speedy recovery- obviously that was just an outrageous request, but Vader couldn’t protest.

You knew the wounds that littered his face had been “healed” for years, but as you went to brush his forehead you hesitated.

Should you be touching him without his permission?

Seeing him outside of his suit seemed like you were gazing upon something sacred. Something you shouldn't.

Gently you placed a gentle hand on his cheek and waited for him to open his eyes. You bit your lip before placing your other hand on his other cheek.

“Vader,” you whispered.

Still nothing.

Slowly and carefully, you leaned down to place a tender kiss on his scarred forehead- that woke him up.

His yellow eyes opened abruptly-but when he felt it was you, he closed them once more. The next time he opened them, his eyes were the cerulean blue you had been chasing since the first time you saw them.

He let his guard down when he was with you.

You smiled at the man and gave him another peck. You pressurized the chamber so that he could be without the uncomfortable mask.

Gently you lifted his head and took the hard device off of his face.

“Vader, I have your arm ports and arms ready for you- The arm’s are just temporary, but I assumed you’d rather have some for now instead of none at all,” you explained softly.

He gave you a long blink to indicate his agreement before his brow bone furrowed and looked towards the cold table that stood in the harsh lighting only a few feet away.

“We do have to go there so that the doids can remove your warped ports” you said solemnly.

You knew he hated procedures, but he also knew they were a necessity. His chest rose and fell before he indicated he was ready.

“I could carry you over- or I can get the transpor-”

“Transport” his voice rang through the force.

You figured so.

He wasn’t quite comfortable being that vulnerable and you could understand that. You nodded, started up the pod, and left the room so he could complete the transfer in peace.

You felt the vibrations when he called for your return and promptly entered once more.

Vader was now lying uncomfortably on the sterile silver table; only his boxers covered his lower half. You stepped into the light and took out the tools that would be used to remove his broken ports.

This too had two options; you could take them off of him quicker than a droid could, but then you would be the one causing him pain- or it could take longer and hurt more, but a droid would be doing it.

Vader also knew this and could sense your dilemma.

You.

You sucked in a breath- you really didn’t want to do this, but it would cause him less pain (even if it didn’t seem to).

You shakily nodded and picked up the instrument that would be used to pry off his damaged port.

The process was simple, use a small beam to cut around the port to loosen it up and then use an instrument to pry the warped metal off.

The beam would be painful without numbing medicine (which Palpatine removed all of…), so Vader would have to endure the pain full throttle. Once again you cursed the pale man.

Thankfully you had a spur of the moment idea- you called for a small droid to collect some snow and ice from the banks of Hoth (where you were still stationed).

Vader looked at you curiously.

“There’s no numbing cream here and I don’t want you to feel the sting so I’m going to numb your arm with ice water”.

His eyes widened and he managed a small smile, “Thank you”

You nodded, “Of course, but it will be uncomfortable to put your arm in the water” you explained to which he simply nodded.

Once the droid returned and you prepared the ice bath, you helped Vader to the edge of the table so that you could submerge his stump.

“On three; one, two, three…” you counted before pushing his warped ligament into the freezing water.

His body lurched and he gasped as the frigid sensation coarse through his arm. You bit your lip to steady yourself, his arm needed to stay completely submerged for the numbing to work.

“I’m sorry V” you said as his muscles twitched all over his scarred body.

Soon time was up and you quickly pulled out his arm, dried it off, and grabbed the precision laser. You put on some goggles and began to outline the end of his stump. As you rounded the port you could smell a mix of heated metal and flesh.

Even so often you glanced up to see his face, thankfully he really had no reaction and nothing in his force signature indicated pain- your method was working.

The port was completely cut and you began to pry it off. You hated the feeling of his skin being used as leverage to pull his cybernetic part off.

Once the metallic connector was off, his stump was simply irritated, scarred flesh with screw slots to hold his ports in place.

His stump was warm to the touch so you decided to cool him in water once more (just to be safe).

In only a few more minutes his new port was secured and you helped put his temporary prosthetic on.

He tested the limb with great relief.

“Was that ok?” you asked worriedly.

He nodded and caressed your cheek with his new arm; to which you leaned over the table to kiss him.

________________________

You finished up the other arm before you stopped for the day- he didn’t really need his legs done until tomorrow and you weren’t going to be able to do those since they were literally welded into his flesh from how close he was to the lava.

So once you cleaned everything up, and got him back into bed, you took your seat once more. Your eyes felt heavy as you sat back in the stiff chair; just as you were drifting off to sleep you heard a weak voice.

Was that Vader?

No- it wasn’t the normal modulated voice you had come to love, but it also wasn’t the familiar voice of his force signature.

“W-wil you…”

There it was again! You promptly rose to your feet and surveyed the dark room.

“Who’s there?” you demanded.

Soon you felt a weak pull towards Vader’s bed… it was him- it was his voice.

You knelt by his bedside and took a metallic hand in yours. Never had he sounded so weak.

His vocal chords were completely damaged, he could barely speak above a whisper, and it sounded painful to speak.

“P-please..” he attempted before a coughing fit attacked him.

You brushed his face and cooed, “shh-shh, Don’t speak- I’m right here. It’s ok”.

He swallowed with great effort before conveying his request, “Lie with m-me… Please-”.

“Are you sure, I don’t wanna worsen your injuries-”

He shook his head and beckoned you once more. Looking at his desperate face, how could you refuse. Carefully you lifted the covers and entered the bed with caution; once you were under the covers he quickly pulled you closer to him, making you gasp.

Once the shock wore off, you relaxed in his arms and began to drift off.

_________________________

Vader’s burns stung with every movement, but nothing could stop him from hugging you close.

He wanted nothing more than to stay with you like this forever.

He was exhausted, but somehow having you here kept him invigorated.

He found himself pressing his scarred lips to your temple as you dozed off in his mechanical arms. Once you were fast asleep, he couldn’t pull his gaze away from your beautiful face.

Maker… What were you doing to him?

He was falling in love-

No, he was in love.

Everything about you lit up his world; your smile, your sweet voice, your soft touch, your intelligence, your passion… just you.

He could imagine a future where you and him ruled the galaxy, side by side.

One where the two of you left everything behind and completely started over.

Either way he knew he would be happy because he knew that as long as he was with you, everything would be alright.

***

a/n: i love love love whump :) as u can see hahah- i hope this chapter was good and sorry again for the delay 😭 thanks for the support:)

taglist: @vadersassistant @sxoulohvn @khaleesihavilliard @kashasenpai @darling-murdock @beautifulbearpolice @salvatoresister1 @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @blueninjablade3 @jujuba096 @missmannequin @jellydodger @mirastark @wyvernthekriger r @duckyhowls @monada43 @lauriidoesstuff @vienettacream @ray-rook @itswhatever06 @ilovenielperry

#darth vader #darth vader x reader #anakin x reader #vader #sw darth vader #anakin #star wars #darth vader fic #star wars x reader #anakin x you #darth vader fanfic #vader fanfic #vader star wars #darth vader x y/n #star wars darth vader #darth vader x you #allow me

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zoeykallus · 10 months

Note

Aloha,

First I want to tell you I love your works and how much work you put into your writing. I can't imagine how much effort goes into them!

If you are taking requests, how do you think the batchers would react to receiving naughty pictures of from SO? Maybe their meshla took the pictures themselves, or got boudoir style pictures? Did they get them in person, or maybe they got sent to them during a mission? And anything else you think would happen in this scenario?

If you're not taking requests don't worry about it, I just thought I'd ask 🤣

Aloha!

So sorry for the long wait! Finally, I'm here 😅 I think I got some ideas for this one 😁😁

"And anything else you think would happen in this scenario?"

So far it was tasteful, now you gave me ideas 😋

Now, as always, I remind you, if no gender is mentioned, I'm assuming a female reader.

The Bad Batch x Fem!Reader HCs (Shorts) - Picture Perfect

Warnings: Strongly Suggestive/Mentioned Nudity/Mentioned Masturbation/ Humor/Fluff/A Little Angsty (I guess)/18+

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What's Happening: You have been separated from each other by work for a long time. You come up with a salacious, wild idea. Sexy photos, from elegant to more than just charming, so that your lover can in no way forget you. Sent as a message, this erotic gesture makes for interesting events. "Hey darling, I miss you. I know you miss me too. That's why I have a surprise for you in the attachment. I love you!"

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Ko-Fi (If you feel like giving me some coffee)

>MASTER LIST<

Hunter

You are away on business for a long time, and he is currently on a mission with his squad and a few men of the 501. You promised him a surprise, for which he is already waiting impatiently, something to sweeten the waiting time until you meet again. On the new comm that Tech developed, he would receive a message. The men have set up a couple of tents that they share two at a time, with him lies Crosshair grumbling, "When are you going to stop staring at that thing? She's not getting back to you today" Hunter says unimpressed, "Yes she does, she promised. Just sleep." Then the comm beeps, finally. Hunter excitedly opens the message, it's a short voice message. "Hey darling, I miss you. I know you miss me too. That's why I have a surprise for you attached. I love you!" Hunter's heart beats faster, just hearing your voice releases tons of endorphins in his brain and gives him a deep sense of comfort. Automatically, he has your smell in his nose and his heart beats faster.

He can't wait to see you again, but he'll have to be patient. He opens the attachment and freezes for a moment as a picture of you pops up on the holo image, one of many you've taken. Very revealing, very raunchy, incredibly sexy, tastefully erotic, at least most of them, some even go a little further and Hunter feels himself getting hot. He licks his lips, already thinking about you, when he hears a blanket rustling next to him. He had completely forgotten about Crosshair for a moment. "Holy shit," the Sniper mutters, "Not bad." Hunter hastily turns away with the comm to hide it from him, a reflex reaction where he accidentally presses a wrong button. The next moment, the comms in all the other tents beep. Clearly he hears your voice repeatedly from the other tents, your message. Hunter has accidentally sent your message to everyone else, a newsletter to everyone present. He gets ice-cold, nauseous. Then he clearly hears Wrecker's voice, "WOAH!"

Hunter crawls out of the tent, accompanied by Crosshair's sneering giggle, and shouts in a panic, "DON'T OPEN THE ATTACHMENT!" From most of the tents he hears a "Too late" or "Woah" or some other astonished exclamation, of course no one has been able to resist opening the attachment. The men crawl out of the tents, some laughing, some blushing. "You're a complete idiot," Echo says dryly to the sergeant. Hunter's heart races in panic. He raises his hands and says urgently, "No one breathes a word about this, she can never know" Tech sighs and rolls his eyes like he's surrounded by idiots. He collects the comms without being asked, even against a protest or two, and deletes the message on all comms except Hunter's. Hunter feels a small surge of relief and says wearily, "Thanks Tech." This incident will be on his conscience for a long time. Sooner or later, he'll confess to you what happened.

Echo

He has locked himself in the refresher after receiving your message. He is standing in the shower with the comm on one of the trays in the shower directly in front of him. He knows that his brothers will only eavesdrop or spy if he doesn't retreat. He listens briefly to the message and smiles dreamily. Echo misses you very much, your voice, your smile, your touch, just everything. He misses spoiling you and cuddling with you. It seems to him as if you haven't seen each other for ages. He has undressed and turned on the water in the shower, starts to wash himself and opens the attachment on the side. Why not kill two birds with one stone? But he stops abruptly while soaping up when the first image of you appears on the holo imager. "Oh," he says softly. He blinks, slowly realizing the nature of this surprise. He glances around as if someone might have snuck into the locked refresher, then a grin appears on his lips.

Echo is excited, his pulse begins to race as he slowly clicks through the images. "Damn lady, now I miss you even more". He pauses at a picture he particularly likes. Your lips are slightly parted, a gorgeous bedroom look in your eyes, your hands on your breasts. Almost automatically, his hand moves to his swelling cock. His gaze jumps back and forth between your lips and your breasts as he begins to pump his hard length. Echo curses softly, in his mind he shoves his cock alternately into your mouth and between your breasts. It's not long before his hard length is pulsing, spurting his seed into the shower unit. Echo hastily makes everything clean, suddenly he is ashamed, somehow it seems dirty to him. But then again it doesn't. The next time you see each other in person, he confesses to you what he has done, as if he had committed a crime. Amused and flattered at the same time, you make it clear to him that you had hoped that your pictures would have this effect.

Wrecker

"Yeah, I miss you too, little lady!" he says to the message, even though he knows you can't hear him right now. Wrecker is not alone, though; communicative and cheerful as he is, he trumpeted loudly that he had received a message and opened it before anyone else. "Wrecker," Crosshair says quietly but admonishing, "I don't think you should open the attachment in public." It's too late, Wrecker has already opened the attachment and the first image appears on the Marauder's holoprojector, almost life-size. "Never mind," Crosshair murmurs, eyeing the holo-projection interested. For a long moment, the men stand around the projector, staring at your very salacious image. As if spellbound, all pairs of eyes are fixed on your exposed body. But finally Echo clears his throat and turns off the projection. "Wrecker", he says calmly, "I think this is only meant for you".

"Uhu," he says, still a little shocked. Of course, he's looking forward to seeing the other pictures and having fun with them, but he's worried that you might find out that his brothers all know what you look like naked. He has the data stick with your message in his hand, is about to pull back and stops once again. He turns around, looks into the round. All eyes are on him, as his brothers already sense he's about to tell them something. "Guys, can this stay between us? I mean, that she doesn't find out what just happened here?" Approving murmurs fill the small room. Wrecker smiles gratefully, then grins mischievously and says, "Well, I'm going to retire to the refresher for a while." Crosshair says sternly, "Please clean up properly afterward." The rest agree again, muttering. Wrecker rolls his eyes, "Don't worry, I'll clean up, but I'm not getting out of there anytime soon."

Tech

He is so excited when your message arrives that his hands shake. You haven't seen each other in over a month. Tech is alone on the Marauder and busy with repairs when the message reaches him. He sits down in the cockpit, puts the comm on the console in front of him and listens to it. "Hey darling, I miss you. I know you miss me too. That's why I have a surprise for you in the attachment. I love you!" Just hearing your voice makes his heart race and triggers a swarm of butterflies in his stomach. Expectantly, he clicks on the attachment and the first picture opens. A beautiful picture, elegant, in beautiful underwear. Tech takes off his helmet, places it on the ground next to him, and examines the picture more closely. He smiles dreamily, with slightly heated ears and cheeks. Then he sees that it is only the first of a whole series of pictures. He clicks further, another very nice picture in underwear, in a different pose this time. In the next picture, you are no longer wearing a bra. A soft "Oh", comes across his lips. Tech slides around on the pilot's chair because his cock is getting hard and the posture uncomfortable.

He continues to click through the pictures, fascinated. Until you are finally naked and the poses become more and more salacious. By now, he's so hard that he automatically takes off his codpiece because it just gets too uncomfortable. Absentmindedly, his hand strokes the bulge in his Blacks. Finally, he reaches under the waistband, pushes the pants down a bit and his fingers embrace his cock. He's so starved for you, hasn't touched himself once since you left. But here and now, he can't help it. You know exactly what he likes and have saved the best for last. Naked on all fours, you stretch out your ass towards him, casting a ravishing bedroom glance over your shoulder, one hand on your buns, like an invitation for him to take you from behind. And in his fantasy, that's exactly what he's doing as he starts pumping his cock, moaning and shaking with tense arousal. It doesn't last long, it's built up too much, too long. Tech cums so hard, so much so that his whole body jerks for a moment, his thighs quiver, and a thick load spurts onto his comm and the console.

It takes him a minute to come to and realize what a mess he has made. Hastily, a little panicked, he turns off the comm and the holo-projection, straightens his clothes and quickly cleans everything up properly. Not a second too late, because in the next moment he hears his brothers coming back.

Crosshair

You've been away for a long time, and today you finally meet Crosshair again. You can't wait to hear what he thinks about the little surprise you sent him a few weeks ago. You are all tingly, all excited. Your eyes keep wandering back and forth to the passersby looking for him. You are too early at the agreed meeting point, actually he still has time, but you are still nervous, can't stop looking for him. But suddenly you hear his voice behind you. "Hey Kitten" You should have known he would sneak up on you. Beaming with joy, you turn to him, fall around his neck and kiss him. He returns the kiss, but finally breaks away from your lips and says, laughing softly, "Slow down, save some for later". "How did you like my little surprise?" you ask with a grin. "Surprise?"

You blink and say, "Yes, my surprise, the message with the attachment." He looks at you blankly. "What attachment?" Slowly, panic rises in you. Did you accidentally send it somewhere else? "The pictures I took for you," you say, a little breathless with shock. "Pictures?" You ruffle your hair and say, "Yes, pictures." Slowly a smile creeps onto his lips and you realize he is teasing you. You sigh in relief and annoyance at the same time. "Cross, don't scare me like that!" He laughs softly. "Did you like them?" you finally want to know. "I love them, Kitten. Very appetizing, had a lot of fun with them. In fact, I don't think I need you anymore. I have the pictures and can do the rest on my own." You box him playfully and say, "Stop teasing me". He laughs again, then kisses your neck, his lips move up to your ear, and he whispers, "Actually, the pictures have given me a lot of ideas. Do you want me to show them to you?" Your ears and cheeks get hot, and you say with a grin, "Absolutely." He smiles with satisfaction and says, "Good, because I've reserved a hotel room for us."

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

@darkangel4121

@ttzamara

@arctrooper69

@padawancat97

@agenteliix

@allsystemsblue

@palliateclaw

@either-madness-or-brilliance

@ortizshinkaroff

@andy-solo1

@hunterssecretrecipe

@heyitsaloy

@greaser-wolf

@extrahotpixels

@hated-by-me

@hunterxcrosshair

@malicemercy

@bebopsworld

@echos-girlfriend

@cpnt616

@dangraccoon

@jediknightjana

@pb-jellybeans

@antishadow2021

@sleepycreativewriter

@projectdreamwalker

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pigeonpeach · 4 months

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I just want to be the one you love

Jean x reader

A/n: not my best work but i tried. Enjoy!

Summary: childhood crushes finding out they’ve been in love with each other the whole time.

It seems like as long as you could remember that you has been in love with Jean. Hopelessly pinning that you would be by her side forever, that you would wake up each day to see her next to you, kiss her goodnight, lay on her lap, hold her hand, take her last name… You knew that such things were outlandish. She’s the Acting Grand Master now, she hardly has time for you. But you still find yourself reminiscing in the past.

Jean always was a social girl. Everyday she’d study then go to the library to study, then go down to the bakery in Mondstadt’s city to meet with her best friend: you. Life as a kid was easy then. Her little sister was just born but she didn’t have much time to play with her. She is just a baby after all. But you were someone she liked being around.

“Jean! Jean!” You said holding with you a basket. “My mom says that the library just got some new fiction books! Lets go check them out!” You grabbed her hand.

“Oh but my mom says I need to study more-“

“Just switch the covers! Easy!” You smiled.

“Actually that’s smart.. i guess as long as she doesn’t know… lets go then!”

If you asked Jean’s parents, they tolerated you for her sake. But they were busy at each other’s throats to care about her personal life. You fueled her curiosity and fed into the little rebellious spirit she had. Of course she was always careful. But oh how she loved sneaking snacks with you during sleepovers.

“Your house is huge! Oh my god you guys actually have like hallways!” You smiled as you walked through the Gunnhildr manor. It wasn’t like Diluc’s home but still you lived in a cottage at springvale, luxury is always surprising.

“I’m glad you like it. My Mom says that you can stay over for the night, you can sleep in one of the spare rooms.” Jean held your hand as she guided you through the hallways. It felt like you were a mouse, everything was so huge and clean. Everything was so tidy, fresh flowers in every vase, family portraits with gilded framing, and detailed wallpaper. You loved it.

“Aw.. what good is a sleepover if we aren’t in the same room.” You pout.

“That was just a offer, I didn’t want you to sleep on the floor. But we have to be careful because Barbra is a light sleeper.” She said. You nodded excitedly.

That night you two were too excited to go to sleep. You chatted about this book from Inazuma about these two opposing samurai ladies who fell in love and ended up married. Before you knew it however it was getting dark.

“That’s weird, we should’ve had dinner by now..” Jean said. “I didn’t even notice we weren’t summoned for dinner. I’m sure we can go ask the maids whats up.” She hopped off the bed, with you following suit, the two of you making your way downstairs. There was a muffled sound coming from somewhere. But it sounded like a argument. Instantly Jean stiffened. “O-oh… lets head back to the room.. i think there’s something going on down there.” She said. You noticed she seemed more down now.

“Oh! I packed snacks for us to share! We can have those if you’re really hungry.”

“That should work. As long as we don’t make a mess.”

You sat at Good Hunter now, where you worked now. Honey roast wrapped for later. A thought crossed your mind, maybe you could give it to her as a gift. And if she didn’t want it well Amber would. Amber loves meaty dishes. Your heart raced a little as you walked up the stairs, taking turns and turns to the Knight of Favonius headquarters.

“Say Jean, whats your take on love? Like what do you look for in a partner.” You two lounged on a blanket at windrise.

“L-love?” She seemed surprised.

“Yes. I’m just curious.” You added.

“W-well… I guess loyalty is one… maybe someone gentle and sweet. With.. a um..” she looked at you in a way that sent your heart racing for a moment. “Dedication… someone who would expand my horizons. Maybe a good chef, I always prefer meals made by loved ones.. What about you?”

“Definitely someone strong, chivalrous, like with you I value Loyalty and devotion. But I want someone really devoted, beyond normal means of dedication. Someone who would do anything for me, and preferably taller.”

“Interesting..” she said.

“Its been awhile hasnt it.” You said with a smile as you walked in her office. You noticed the look in her eyes as she saw you.

“What a pleasant surprise.” She sat up in her chair fixing her hair. Seems you caught her a bad time. Her hair was a mess and she looked sleep deprived.

“I brought you some lunch if you’d want it.” You said putting the food infront of her. She seemed quite hungry.

“Your timing is perfect actually. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“What?” You said alarmed. “Jean what have you been doing to yourself! You can’t run the country on s empty stomach!”

“I know I know, its just it slipped my mind.”

“You should know better! You need to prioritize yourself sometimes you know. If you knew you were this deprived I’d have brought you a feast!” You sit across from her.

“Thank you, I’ll make sure to feed myself more properly next time.” Jean said. “So, how have you been?”

“The usual, around windblume is when business picks up. There’s lots of tourists these days.” You laid back in the chair. “Alot of the Knights come by too, but I hardly ever see you come outside nowadays.”

“Oh that.. I’ve been swamped with paperwork recently. You’ve heard of the dark night hero? Well he- they just attacked a relatively important fatuus and now they’re trying to get me to track them down.”

“If you ask me, I’d expel them all out of here. Tell goth it doesn’t matter what that pants guy gave him, we can’t have dozens of personel from another country occupying mondstadt!”

“Unfortunately that kind of situation is one Varka has to do.”

“that lousey… ugh. I’d tell them you’re doing your best but you’re not in charge of protecting them from anything. If they push further just bluff and say you have the authority to kick them all out.” You smile.

“You’re direct as always.” She smiled faintly. “Again, I can’t do that.”

“Well maybe what you need is a little break. Come outside! The weather is wonderful!” You said.

“I’d love to but-“ she looked up from her paper at you, for a minute, it felt like she was younger again, being dragged along by you to adventure she’d cherish afterwards. “Sure. Why not.” The smile on your face when she said those words, oh it cured her stress immediately. Your presence calmed her more than she knew it would. Feelings rising to the surface that she hid for so long. Yet… she didn’t mind it.

Jean looked at you, she just gotten back from training. She noticed you taking little peeks at her from your book. “I feel like I’m a mess.” She grimaced sitting next to you. “Its so hot out.. the sweat is practically pouring from me.”

“You look great though. I mean.. your muscles are coming in.” Gesturing to her arms.

“That’s good. But I’m parched, luckily i packed… oh no!” Jean opened her back to realize her bag was soaked. She quickly took everything out.

“Just lay them out in the sun.” You said. Luckily she didn’t keep anything too important in that bag. It just held her more comfortable clothes.. and now empty water bottle.

“Here have mine.” You said offering her your bottle. She took it.

“Thanks, i don’t know what i’d do without you.”

“You would be fine. You’re a strong woman.” You said.

But you were wrong. The worst part about her job was waking up early, when she’d have to leave her wonderful dream behind. When she’d so comfortably be dreaming of you, her hands wrapped around a pillow. Those dreams were her favorite. Still Jean had to go on with her day. That was until she paused. She’d been in love with her childhood best friend for years now, years of subtly flirting and playfulness never coming to be… she was going to change that today.

“Jean?” You said, you hadn’t expected to see her at your door, at this hour.

“I- can i come in.” She seemed rather flustered. In her hands was the biggest bouquets you had seen.

“O-of course.” You said. She walked in, sitting on your couch.

“I-I have to tell you something.” She said, you sat next to her. It was still pretty early. The sun just barely having risen.

“Alright. I’m all ears then-“

“I love you.”

“Wait… can you say that again?” You felt a bit shy all the sudden. You had always been the more confident of you two, able to hold your own. But now you were flustered.

“I.. I have known you for almost my whole life, and each memory of you.. has been a light in my life. I’ve cherished every gift and every word you ever gave me. I’ve longed for you to be in my life forever. I want to grow old with you, I want to come home to you, and every moment without you has only made my heart grow fonder of you. In my sweetest if dreams you’re besides me in my bed, and then I find it hard to wake up. I find myself looking for you in crowds… when you visited me recently.. i knew I couldn’t hide my feeling’s forever. I- I am deeply in love with you.” She said. You paused as you processed what she said. Your own heart racing.

“Jean… did you think I’d reject you?” You said, noticing how she shakes and quiver. “I’ve been dropping hints for our entire childhood almost.” You couldn’t help but smile. You notice the relief in her face as you say so.

“I-i worried i was over analyzing things. I had always brushed it off because you were always so forward..”

“Maybe I should’ve been more obvious then.. but i love you too Jean.” Your hands in hers, you looked into her eyes with a smile.

“It.. I’m sorry i just… I’m so happy right now I can’t really think straight.” The smile on Jean’s face was akin to patch of sunlight in the rain. Her hands grasped yours firmly, she raised one of your hands to press against her cheek. “I love you. I love you.”

“I love you too.” You said, leaning into a kiss.

#genshin imagines #genshin x y/n #genshin impact #domestic fluff #jean gunnhildr x reader #wlw #jean x reader #jean gunnhildr #jean gunnhildr x you

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aestariiwilderness · 2 months

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Bad Batch -- Actually Probably Not Spoilers?

But Just In Case:

Like, for plot reasons, I see why they couldn't do it. But my biggest (and possibly the funniest) peeve I have with Bad Batch is this: Canonically, Tech is some kind of master hacker. Can forge chain codes after learning about them five seconds ago. Hacks battle droids -- presumably, you know, SECURED in some way -- on the regular. Masked a ship's signature or whatever. Calculates percentages of plans' successes on the fly while hanging upside down from a screechy flying reptile. Has zero fear (except when Omega is driving the Marauder or someone is doing the Wikipedia entry who isn't him) ("it's not affecting life support. We're fine"; riot racing; everything he's ever done). The moral heart of the Batch pre-Omega ("the systematic termination of the Jedi was a big one for me"; "I understand. I do not agree with you"; "of course we are a family"; "we have not always seen eye to eye with Crosshair but he is our brother and we do not leave our own behind"; but has no issue being pragmatic when it's called for (see: Cid, riot racing again, missions for Rex, interruptions thereof, etc.). Seriously. Wack job of a man. Crazy. Strict moral code arranged almost solely around his family that absolutely nobody sees coming and that, specifically, does NOT preclude massive destruction, property damage, and lethal measures. Ridiculous man. Homeschooled. Genetic Mandalorian. COMPETENT. (Usually.) Bona fide, literal, genetically-engineered test tube genius who is also biologically nine years old. Has no concept whatsoever of overkill. Point being -- he is EXACTLY the kind of person I would expect, once it sunk in that: 1. They are no longer Kaminoan/Republic property 2. They are, in fact, on the run with fam + new baby and - cranky but nonetheless beloved sniper bro who picked a terrible time to be stupid And 3. that "money" is now a thing they must Account For.... Give him two days to study finances, economy, and the various mafia; send him on a weekend trip to Nal Hutta to observe gangs, and hey presto -- the Hutts? overthrown in a year. Black Sun? Under new management. Pykes? A thing of the past. The Senate? Convening emergency sessions to discuss Where All the Money Has Gone. Palpatine's Secret Slush Fund #43? Drained. Hemlock's Science Budget? Currently funding the clone rebellion. ISB 401ks? Being used to pay someone to "retrieve" (read: kidnap) Crosshair from Rampart. Cad Bane's baby-stealing revenue? Currently outfitting the Marauder with gold plating. My point: WHY ISN'T TECH HACKING STAR WARS ATMs Story would have been over six episodes in. Tech would have foreclosed on the Palace; the Death Star would have fallen prey to insurance fraud; Omega would have grown up with more gowns than Padme. The Banking Clan bows to their new and, uh, eccentric overlords. Wrecker has thirteen new Z-6 cannons. Echo has thirteen natborn employees and is thoroughly enjoying himself. Hunter took an actual shower (still didn't get a new bandana). The Empire is turning over the empty coffers and shaking them out, wondering if they have rats. Mas Amedda is standing on street corners with an upturned hat. Crosshair is happily occupied with suing the Kaminoans for emotional damages. The end

#tbb spoilers #just in case #tbb tech #tbb #tbb crosshair #tbb hunter #tbb omega #funny #star wars #the bad batch #bad batch season 3 #the bad batch season 2 #the bad batch season 1 #tbb echo #clone force 99 #tbb wrecker #alternate universe #how it should have gone honestly #mywildernesspost

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petchic101 · 1 year

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DA Elvish

I separated all of Dragon Age's known Elvish into Nouns, idioms ect

Nouns

Titles/Types of people/Groups

Anaris: – according to an old tale, he was once tricked by Fen'Harel while dueling the Great Hunter Andruil

Andruil: Goddess of the Hunt is the elven Goddess of the Hunt, known also as "blood and force" and the "great hunter."

Arlathvhen: Meeting of the Dalish clans that occurs every ten years. Means "for love of the people."

Asha'bellanar: "The Woman of Many Years." How the Dalish refer to Flemeth.

Da'len: Little child; little one.

Daern'thal: Known Forgotten One

Din: The dead.

Dirthamen: Keeper of Secrets, is the twin brother of Falon'Din and is the elven god of secrets and knowledge, and master of the ravens Fear and Deceit. Dirthamen gave to elves the gift of knowledge and taught them loyalty and faith in family.

Elgar: Spirit.

Dirth'ena enasalin: "Knowledge that led to victory"; the Elvish term for the Arcane Warrior or, more recently, Knight Enchanter disciplines.

Durgen’len: Children of the stone; the Ancient Elvish term for the dwarves.

Elgar'nan: God of Vengeance also known as the All-Father, the Eldest of the Sun and He Who Overthrew His Father—represents fatherhood and vengeance, and leads the pantheon with the goddess Mythal.

Elvhen: Elven name for their own race; our people.

Elvhenan: The name of the elven civilization before the arrival of humans in Thedas; the place of our people.

Era'harel: Demon-mage; similar to an arcane horror.

Evanuris: Leader; Translated by Dorian in context as "mage leader"; what the elvhen called their gods.

Falon: Friend.

Falon'Din: Friend of the Dead, the Guide is the elven God of Death and Fortune and guides the dead to the Beyond. He and his twin brother, Dirthamen, are the eldest children of Elgar'nan the All-Father and Mythal the Protector.

Fen'Harel: The Dread Wolf is an enigmatic trickster god of the elves, whose supposed betrayal of both the benevolent Creators and the malefic Forgotten Ones is the only explanation most elves have for the destruction of Arlathan. Dalish clans view him with wariness and seek to protect themselves and their kin from his treachery. It is revealed by Solas in Mythal's temple that this could be a misinterpretation by the Dalish and instead he was the god of rebellion.

Geldauran: Known Forgotten One

Ghilan'nain: Mother of the Halla is called the Mother of the halla—white deer-like creatures revered by the Dalish and used to pull their aravel, or "landships"—and goddess of navigation.

Ghil-Dirthalen: "One who guides seekers of knowledge true."

Ghilan'him banal'vhen: "The path that leads astray": a derogatory term for Arcane Warriors among those elves who eschewed physical combat.

Hahren'al: A gathering of hahrens during the Arlathvhen.

Hahren: Elder; used as a term of respect by the Dalish as well as by city elves for the leader of an alienage.

Harillen: Opposition.

June: God of the Craft is the elven Master of Crafts. He is variously described either as a brother to Andruil and Sylaise or as Sylaise's husband. He taught the elves to make bows, arrows, and knives to hunt Andruil's gifts.

Lethallin/Lethallan/Lethallen: Casual reference used for someone with whom one is familiar; generally, lethallin is used for males while lethallan is used for females; lethallen has been stated to be the appropriate gender neutral term unless otherwise stated later in canon, though it is likely to remain the same. Note: Though "lethallin" is usually used for males and "lethallan" for females, as stated above

Lethanavir: Another appellation of Falon'Din the elven god of death and fortune who guides the dead to the Beyond.

Mien'harel: Rebellion; depending on the interpretation, a violent call for justice; a concept that when humans push the elven population too far they must remind them that even a "short blade" must be respected; most commonly a term used by city elf.

Mythal: the Great Protector, the Protector and the All-Mother, and goddess of love, is the patron of motherhood and justice and leads the pantheon with her male counterpart, Elgar'nan.

Shemlen: The original name elves use for the human race; continues to see use as a slang term amongst the City Elves ("shems") even though its meaning has largely been lost; literally "quick children".

Somniari: Dreamer.

Sylaise: the Hearthkeeper is the goddess of all the domestic arts and the sister of Andruil the Huntress. Sylaise gave the elves fire, and taught them how to weave rope and thread, and to use herbs and magic for healing purposes.

Vhenallin: Friends of the People.

Nature

Adahl/Adhal: Tree.

Adahlen: Wood.

Alas: Earth, dirt.citation needed

Dahl'amythal: Tree of Mythal from which Dalish Keepers’ staves are cut.

Durgen: Stone.citation needed

Elgara: Sun.

Felandaris: Demon weed.

Vallas: Set, as in the setting of the sun.

Vallasdahlen: Trees planted in remembrance of those who dedicated their lives to the Dalish kingdom that grew into a mighty wood; life-trees.

Vhenadahl: The tree of the people.

Vhen'alas: The land itself, as in "the ground"; literally "our earth".citation needed

Vunin: Day.

Animal

Fen: Wolf.

Hallas: are a type of horned stag; some are herded by the Dalish—who use them to pull their aravels, or landships. Their milk is also made into cheese and butter.[2] The Dalish do not consider them beasts of burden but noble companions. To get them to accompany a clan, the Dalish elves ask rather than force them to.

Hanal'ghilan: Elven name for the mythical golden halla said by the Dalish to appear during times of great need; the pathfinder.

Body/Self

Banal'ras: Shadow.

Renan: Voice.

Taren: Mind.

Vallaslin: Blood writing; The art of tattooing adopted by some elves to more prominently display their worship of the traditional elven pantheon.

Vhenan: Heart; often used as a term of endearment.

Concept

Abelas: Sorrow; to be sorry.

Aravel: A wagon used by the Dalish; also a physical and spiritual path, a journey with purpose. Humans call them "landships."

Atish’an: Peace.

Athim: Humility.

Bellanaris: Eternity.

Din'an: Death; end.

Din'anshiral: A journey of death.

Dirth: A term for knowledge or secrets; tell; speak.citation needed

Enasalin: Victory.

Enansal: Blessing.

Enaste: Favor.

Halani: Help.

Hamin: Rest.

Harellan: Trickster; used by the Dalish to mean "traitor to one's kin".

Melana: Time.

Melanada: All time.

Melava: Time;

Revas: Freedom.

Shiral: Journey.

Sulahn'nehn: Rejoice; joy.

Sulevin: Purpose.

Vir: Way; we.

Weapons/Equipment

Assan: Arrow.

Bor'assan: Bow.

Felassan: Slow arrow.

Mi: Blade.citation needed

Places

Arlathan: The major city of Elvhenan, original homeland of the elves; from the phrase "ar lath’an" meaning, "This place of love".

Banalhan: A name for the Blight or its place of origin; the place of nothing.

Dirthavaren: The promise; the Elven name for the Exalted Plains.

Halamshiral: The capital of the second elven homeland in the Dales; the end of the journey.

Setheneran: Land of waking dreams; a place where the Veil is thin.

Tarasyl'an Te'las: The place where the sky was held back; Ancient Elven name for Skyhold.

Vhenas: Home.

Vir'abelasan: The place of the way of sorrows; refers to the Well of Sorrows.

Other

Aravel: A wagon used by the Dalish; also a physical and spiritual path, a journey with purpose. Humans call them "landships."

Banalhan: A name for the Blight or its place of origin; the place of nothing.

Elgar'arla: Spirit-trap; a binding circle to hold a spirit or demon.

Eluvian: Mirror; literally "seeing glass."

Mi'durgen: Diamond; literally 'blade stone'.

Adjective

Eth: Safe.citation needed

Mirthadra: Honored.

Sa: One; one more.

Shem: Quick.

Tan: Three.

Then: Awake; alert.citation needed

Verb

Abelas: Sorrow; to be sorry.

Dirth: A term for knowledge or secrets; tell; speak.citation needed

Dirthara: Learn;

Dirthera: To tell tales.

Enfenim: To fear.

Ghilana: To guide.

Ghilas: To go.

Harel: To trick or deceive;

Him: Become.

Las: Grant; give.

Lasa ghilan: Grant/give guidance.

Lath: Love of being; to be in love.

Numin: Cry.

Nuvenin: Say, as in “as you say”.

Samahl: Laugh.

Somniar: To dream.

Sulahn'nehn: Rejoice; joy.

Sulahn: Sing.

Uthenera: The name of the ancient practice of immortal elves who would "sleep" once they tired of life; immortal; waking sleep; literally "eternal waking dream".citation needed

Pronoun

Ar: First person pronoun; I, me.

Mala: Your.

Mir: My.

Var: Our.

Vir: Way; we.

Ect

Banal: Never.

Dar: To be.citation needed

In: In.

Ir: I am.

Iras: Where.

Irassal: Wherever.

La: And.

Na: Is.

Pre/Suffix

-an: Suffix indicating place or location.

Da: Diminutive prefix; small.

Idioms

Andaran atish’an: "Enter this place in peace." A formal elven greeting.

Aneth ara: A sociable or friendly greeting, more commonly used among the Dalish themselves rather than with outsiders.

Ara seranna-ma: A way to excuse oneself, such as after a sneeze or belch.

Banal nadas: Nothing is known for certain./Not necessarily.

Boranehn: Lost joy.

Dareth shiral: farewell; literally "Safe journey."

Enasal: Joy in triumph over loss; a variation of joyful relief.

Falon’Din enasal enaste: A prayer for the dead.

Fen'Harel enansal: The Dread Wolf's blessing.

Fen'Harel ma ghilana: "Dread Wolf guides you." Indicates someone being misled.

Halam'shivanas: The sweet sacrifice of duty.

Hellathen: Noble struggle.

Ir abelas: I am sorry.

Lathbora viran: Roughly translated as "the path to a place of lost love," a longing for a thing one can never really know.

Nadas: Inevitability; something that must be; used as an expression of obligation, i.e. "must".

Ma nuvenin: As you say.

Ma vhenan: My heart; sometimes shortened simply to vhenan, "heart"; a term of endearment.

Ma serannas: My thanks./Thank you.

Mana. Ma halani: Help me.

Mythal'enaste: Mythal's favor.

Penshra! Ghilas vellathan!: Politely translated as "I prefer that you remain close."

Revasan: The place where freedom dwells.

Sahlin: Now; is come.

Sa'vunin: One more day.

Solas: Pride; to stand tall.

Solasan: A prideful place.

Suledin: The concept of finding strength in enduring loss or pain; endure.

Tel'abelas: I'm not sorry.

Telanadas: Nothing is inevitable.

Var lath vir suledin!: Our love will endure

Vir enasalin!: We will win!

Vir sumeil: We are close.

Commands/Threats/Curses

Bellanaris Din'an Heem: "Make you dead."

Dirthara-ma: "May you learn." Used as a curse.

Fenedhis: Meaning officially undefined as of yet; a common curse.

Fenedhis lasa: Meaning officially undefined as of yet. A common curse.

Fen'Harel ma halam: "Dread Wolf ends you." A threat.

Garas: Come.

Garas quenathra: "Why are you here?/Why have you come?" Spoken by the voices of the Vir'abelasan

Masal din'an: A threat, meaning unknown.

Na abelas: You'll be sorry.

Na din'an sahlin!: Your death is come!

Na melana sahlin: Your time is come.

Specific Sentences

Ar lasa mala revas: "You are free." More literally "I give you your freedom."

Ar lath ma, vhenan: "I love you, heart/my heart"

Ar-melana dirthavaren. Revas vir-anaris: Fen'Harel’s secret greeting. Meaning unknown.

Atish'all Vir Abelasan: "Enter the path of the Well of Sorrows."

Dirth ma banal. Mar solas ena mar din: "You have learned nothing. Your pride will be your death/downfall." A Dalish saying.

Dirth ma, harellan. Ma banal enasalin. Mar solas ena mar din: Roughly means: "Your pride is responsible for everything that has gone wrong; you will die alone."

Ir abelas, ma vhenan: "I am filled with sorrow for your loss, my heart."

Ir tel'him: I'm me again.

Ma banal las halamshir var vhen: You do nothing to further our people.

Ma harel, da’len: You lie, child.

Ma harel lasa!: You lied to me.

Ma ghilana mir din'an: Guide me into death.

Ma melava halani: You helped me.

Mala suledin nadas: Now you must endure.

Malas amelin ne halam: I hope you find a new name.

Melana en athim las enaste: Now let humility grant favor.

Sulevin ghilana hanin: Roughly translates to "purpose guides to glory". This is an inscription on the back of the Dalish shield called "The Path to Glory".

Sylaise enaste var aravel. Lama, ara las mir lath. Bellanaris.: Dalish marriage vows.

Tel garas solasan: Come not to a prideful place.

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