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duskandstarlight · 1 year

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Dinner conversation (Nessian, one-shot)

Notes: This fic is for my dear @bookstantrash as a very belated Secret Santa gift. I hope you enjoy this future Nessian one-shot. Sorry about the angst, but I hope there's enough Nessian goodness to make you happy <3 (sorry for any typos!)

Dinner conversation

“Your hair looks nice.”

The compliment was squeezed out around a mouthful of dinner and Nesta caught an eyeful of chicken and potatoes and something green, which if Nesta had to hazard a guess, might be the peas garnished with the fresh mint from Elain’s garden.

Setting her glass neatly down at the top of her plate, Nesta watched Amren wrinkle her nose in disgust.

It was, if Nesta was being honest, right on cue.

It didn’t matter how much time passed. Nesta knew these gatherings like the back of her hand - better than the most predictable storyline of her romance novels. The wine would be free-flowing, Mor would predictably showcase bad dining room manners, Amren would get haughty and pick at her food, Cassian would usually say something uncouth just to fan the flames and Elain would try to diffuse the situation—

“It does looks lovely,” Elain piped up unsurprisingly from beside Nesta - just as Cassian opened his mouth.

“It does,” Feyre agreed readily from across the table. Blue-grey eyes that were identical to Nesta’s twinkled at the affronted look on Cassian’s face. “The looser style suits you.”

It was for the first time in a while that they had all come together at Feyre and Rhys’s river estate. The past few months had been busy: December might have been closing in, the festive lights strung and twinkling around the city of Velaris, but their duties remained—and they were more pressing than ever.

But Mor had finally arrived back from overseas, Azriel was in Velaris rather than spying on territories, and Nesta and Cassian were back from Illyria after a month long stretch that had consisted of whipping winds, snow-capped mountains and frost-kissed pine trees.

So, here they all were, around the large wooden dining table, platters of simple food laid out courtesy of Nuala, Cerridwen and Elain: saffron roast chicken, herb potatoes, minted peas, green beans with a garlic bread crumb and other simple fare that was either grown in Elain’s generous vegetable patch or sourced locally elsewhere.

And, as always, everything was running exactly to schedule.

Picking up her cutlery, Nesta cut into her chicken with slow, well-practiced deliberation. “Thank you,” she said simply.

This time, Mor had the audacity to swallow before she spoke - but as ever, she never knew when to cease talking. “It’s the looser style,” she explained animatedly, gesturing with her fork around her own head despite her loose blonde tresses. “Much more…”

Mor trailed off with an abruptness at the sight of Nesta’s arched eyebrow.

“Relaxed,” Mor finished with a sheepish smile and the sight of it had a smile of Nesta’s own threatening to tick at the corner of her lips. “You look more relaxed. Less ready for battle.”

It was not a lie. Rather than her usual tight coronet, Nesta’s hair was swept back in a simple braid which weaved from her hairline all the way over her shoulder. It was not a hairstyle that Nesta adorned in the sparring ring - or in everyday life - but she had found that she was rather taken with it. And given that Nesta could no longer find it in herself to tackle the stairs that climbed to the training grounds atop the House of Wind - nor attempt to squeeze into her tight-fitting leathers - Nesta supposed it really didn’t matter that she wasn’t ready to clash swords with Gwyn or Emerie or a certain General of the Night Court’s armies.

The thought of Nesta’s mate was surely some sort of summoning, because a plate of potatoes materialised in front of her, balanced by a familiar scar-flecked hand encased in leather.

Black hair wild from the wind tearing around the mountain peaks during their fly down to the river estate and hazel eyes that glinted with a shard of a shared secret, Cassian blessed Nesta with a grin that was so wide his canines flashed.

And it was a rare thing to see a true smile from him these days, that Nesta found herself playing along.

“Stop,” she ordered him shortly, because she knew how much it delighted him when she bit at him. She snatched the plate of potatoes from him without further comment and ignored the way Cassian smirked at her, at the way his eyes had begun to glow at the presence of her fire.

Slowly, she piled some potatoes onto her plate. Patiently, she waited. Because just like Nesta knew how these gatherings played out, she also knew her mate.

“I did it.”

The words spilled out of Cassian as if he couldn’t stop them—and Nesta largely suspected that he couldn’t.

She rolled her eyes, but the gesture was fond, a front of long suffering rather than the truth of one. A smile finally escaped her grasp and Nesta let it lie across her face, let it linger so everyone could see it rather than tucking it away. She had long said goodbye to her reputation as a heartless ice queen. Nesta was still fierce, still fire made flesh with power at her fingertips and a sword strapped down her spine, but she could be something other than that, too. In the years that had passed since Nyx had dramatically arrived into the world, Nesta had slowly unpicked the habits of a lifetime, until she could show happiness without fearing the repercussions for revealing the chink in her armour. Here, she was not being judged. Here, she had learned to simply be.

Nesta watched Mor’s jaw drop. Her disbelieving chocolate brown eyes flitted from her friend to Nesta and back again. “You did not.”

Cassian leant back into his chair and crossed his arms smugly across his chest: the picture of self-congratulated arrogance. “I certainly did.”

At Mor’s long look, Cassian’s bravado slipped slightly and his eyes cut to Nesta’s for validation in tandem with everyone else. “Tell them, sweetheart.”

Nesta took her time helping herself to an extra portion of lemon and thyme roast chicken, but in the end, she couldn’t deny the truth. “He did,” she admitted, but Nesta was too intent in tucking into her food to actually observe the expectant faces. Her bump might be big, their unborn babe pressing into her stomach and limiting the amount she could eat, but she was determined to damn well try.

“It’s good practice,” Cassian continued, and Nesta did look up then because she could sense in the careful way he spoke—with such pride and reserved excitement—that his smile would be a blessing—a ray of sunshine piercing through storm clouds. It made Nesta’s heart clench into a fist when she saw it, squeezing, squeezing—

“For?” Mor asked obliviously, but Feyre was already looking at Nesta, her eyes wide and shining. Elain grappled for Nesta’s hand under the table, her slim fingers vice in their grip as they fastened around her own.

“For when I need to plait our little girl’s hair.”

A high pitched squeak sounded. Wine sloshed out of Mor’s wine glass as she brought it down onto the table with a delighted clatter. Azriel’s shadows completely cleared from his body and he was so light Nesta thought his skin looked porcelain.

Rhys clapped a hand hard on his son’s shoulder, but he was grinning and so was Nyx. Nesta’s nephew’s violet eyes were bright, his dark hair ruffled as he asked softly, “A girl?”

“I’m going to have two Valkyries,” Cassian confirmed. He was still beaming as he leant back even further into his chair. The wing that was always curled protectively around Nesta’s back brushed her shoulder as he leant over to press a kiss to her cheek. And he was so happy in that moment—and Nesta was so happy, too—that she returned it in full.

“It’s a girl,” Nesta confirmed, before she gestured in the direction of her head. “And this buffoon is resolute on learning to plait hair before she comes out of the womb.”

Cassian’s laugh was dark, like the delicious scrape of stubble against bare skin. “That and you’re too tired to braid your hair in the mirror.”

“It might also be that,” Nesta admitted.

Recently, she’d barely had the energy to do anything. During their time in Windhaven, Nesta had spent her time curled up with Emerie and Gwyn in their cosy bungalow: a book in hand, a fire crackling in the hearth and a cup of herbal tea.

Amren leant forwards, her smoky irises alive with what Nesta knew to be genuine and wicked delight. “Congratulations girl. We could do with more females in our cohort.” She looked pointedly at Cassian and back again. “Perhaps it might even out the egos of these dogs.”

Rhys let out a cough that Nesta was certain disguised a laugh but Cassian just tossed Amren a grin that bared all of his teeth.

“So, you decided to find out the sex,” Elain asked softly, expertly refocussing the conversation.

“Yes,” Nesta replied simply.

“And you’re both healthy?” Feyre pressed.

Beside Nesta, Cassian tensed. Nesta felt it not just in her mate’s body, but in the air around them. In the way that the bond between them pulled taut before it froze.

She sent a heat-kissed wave of her fire magic in an attempt to thaw it. Internally, nothing happened. The only response was Cassian’s wing. It curved tighter around her shoulder, instinctively drawing her into his body.

Nesta couldn’t find it in herself to snap at him. Instead, she ignored the iron stature of her mate - and the way she was all but crushed uncomfortably into his side - and commanded her body to weave the illusion of calm.

“Madja says she’s growing nicely,” Nesta replied as she subtly shifted in her chair until Cassian loosened his hold. She set herself back to the task of primly spearing some green beans onto her fork.

“I’m so pleased,” Feyre told Nesta earnestly and Nesta dipped her chin in acknowledgement, because she knew it to be true. Nobody was going to forget Feyre’s birth in a hurry. Even now, just the thought of it transported Nesta there, to that moment she watched her sister die, the sharp metallic tang of blood all around them.

“Me too,” Nesta agreed. And then, because she wanted nothing more than to rope Cassian back into the conversation, she added, “Madja says her wings are bigger than average.”

There was an expectant pause in which everyone looked to Cassian - waiting for him to boast about his daughter’s wingspan - but nothing came. He just smiled so tightly it became a grimace and clasped a rough-skinned palm around the nape of Nesta’s neck. It seemed that the subject of the healer - and the reminder of his daughter’s wings - had muted Cassian’s momentary joy.

Whilst Nesta had experienced first-hand the anamatical change in her body that allowed her to accommodate Illyrian wings, Cassian had not. And Nesta knew that it was a worry that didn’t just plague him but terrorise him. In the first six months of her pregnancy, Nesta would turn over in the middle of the night, her hips aching, her back stiff, to find Cassian lying awake, watching her.

It had taken months for Cassian to admit what he was terrified of.

So, Nesta had taken to visiting Madja with Cassian more frequently than her pregnancy required. The old wispy haired healer was always thorough, happy to answer any of their questions. She never seemed to mind that Cassian needed reassuring every visit that everything was looking good. That the wings wouldn’t cause any complications.

Today, Cassian’s anxieties had been particularly bad. Nesta had known it the moment they’d woken. Could tell by the bruised shadows beneath his eyes, the way he’d insisted that the House let him make Nesta a cup of peppermint tea, rather than the other way around.

Madja had sensed it, too, and had instructed Cassian on how to use one of her instruments until they could hear their youngling’s heartbeat in their ears.

It had been slow and steady—reassuring and so beautifully full of life. But Nesta knew that no amount of reassuring would stop Cassian worrying that something might happen to her. And Nesta couldn’t blame her mate for that, because if things were the other way around, she’d be the exact same.

“I felt the change in my body after you Made me,” Feyre said quietly in lieu of the silence that had fallen around the dining table. “I felt… so new and certain. Like my body had been widened and reformed—just slightly. I could feel the imprint of the magic—this silver kiss. A gift from you and the Mother.”

Her sister’s eyes were discerning. She had been looking at Cassian rather than Nesta, but now Feyre’s eyes slid to Nesta’s. As they always were when they spoke of her birth, they were brimming with gratitude.

Nesta knew if Nyx had still been little, Feyre would have pulled him into her lap and held him tight. Would have kissed the crown of his dark haired head. But her son was a hundred and fifty years old and was well past the age of being coddled.

But Nyx seemed to know what his mother needed. He reached for his mother’s hand and squeezed.

The touch of Elain’s palm resting lightly against Nesta’s stomach snagged her focus away from Feyre’s watery smile. At the beginning of Nesta’s pregnancy, Nesta would have wanted nothing more than to bat her sister away. But now she recognised the gesture as love and affection for their unborn, so she only leant back to give Elain better access.

“What are you going to call her?” Elain asked, her voice slightly hushed by the veil of honey brown hair that had fallen across her face. "Do you have any ideas?”

“Yes,” Nesta said - at the same time that Cassian answered, “Maybe.”

Mor straightened hopefully and the gesture was a little too much, a little too staged as she asked brightly, “Is it Morrigan?”

It worked. Cassian screwed up his face over a mouthful of wine. “A dreadful name.”

Mor simply stuck her red-stained tongue out at him.

“We haven’t decided yet,” Cassian supplied after a too long pause.

It was a lie. In the heart of Windhaven, with the wind battering at the windows of their bungalow bedroom, they had both been in agreement - unanimous agreement.

“Well, I’m sure whatever you choose will suit the babe wonderfully,” Elain reassured them.

“I’m curious,” Azriel intoned, pitching in for the first time that night and Nesta knew that it was because the Shadowsinger’s shadows were whispering in his ear about the posture of his brother - the tension. “How many names are there for the word terror?”

Amren’s cackle sounded like the continual crack of a whip. “The two of you look so indignant, but with Nesta’s fire and this dog’s mischievous arrogance that youngling is going to be the equivalent of satan.”

“Ohh,” Mor cooed delightedly as she clapped her hands together. “Is that the name? I love it.”

“Ha ha,” Cassian drawled, but Nesta noticed his wings were no longer drawn in tight. The tautness in his shoulder had unspooled. “We intended for the lot of you to be guardians but now you can think twice.”

“I didn’t say the babe would be satan,” Nyx informed Nesta with his usual calm sobriety as everyone else broke out in argument. He drummed a long finger on the the leather-bound book that lay beside his empty plate. “Do I still get to be a guardian?”

“Of course,” Nesta told her nephew brusquely. She nudged her plate towards him. She was suddenly obscenely full, the babe clearly having shifted to press against her stomach, and Nyx took after his uncle in the way that he ate every meal as if it was his last. “You were my first choice anyway.”

One corner of Nyx’s mouth inched upwards. Beneath the stubble, Nesta could still find the trace of the impish dimple that Nesta had so loved when he was a youngling. Feyre and Rhys’ son might technically be an adult now, but to Nesta, he would always be the nephew that had curled up in her lap, a blanket in hand, a thumb in mouth, as Nesta read him a bedtime story.

“Well,” Rhys announced, “satan or not, I think a toast is in order.”

When the High Lord of the Night Court raised his glass, the red wine in it deeper than the rubies on the backs of Cassian’s hands, everyone did the same.

“To Cassian’s braiding skills,” he announced and a mixture of laughter and protestation followed.

***

“You still like the name?”

The deep rumble of Cassian’s voice tickled Nesta’s ear. They had retired back to the House swiftly after dinner - most likely, Nesta suspected, because Cassian had detected the warm lap of exhaustion that had travelled down her end of the bond.

So, they’d left their friends and family around the living room fire and braved the short flight in the chilling wind. Below them, the Sidra had been a winding ribbon and above them, the brightest star in the sky had guided them back to the House.

Now, in their bedroom, Nesta lifted her eyes to study her mate’s reflection in the vanity mirror.

In the soft faelight, his features were darker then ever; his hair pitch black, his eyes not only drawing in the shadows around him, but anything he looked at - as if he were a magnet and the world gravitated towards him, Nesta included.

Slowly, Nesta set down the hairbrush she’d been waiting to use. “I suggested it, didn’t I?”

The fingers that were gently combing through her hair didn’t cease. Instead, they continued to blindly untangle her braid as his eyes fastened on hers. “You did.”

For a few heartbeats, neither of them spoke. They simply stared at one another and Nesta let her entire being tunnel towards the depths of his stare - where Nesta knew a name existed, as precious as a pearl.

“I love the name,” Nesta assured Cassian, her voice dropping into a hushed whisper that was only for them. “Would you rather we chose something different?”

Cassian swallowed and Nesta tracked the movement. Catalogued the way his throat bobbed. “No. It’s precious to me.”

“I know,” she replied simply and stood so she could cup Cassian’s face in her hands. His stubble scratched against her calloused palms and her belly pressed too tightly against his muscled one, but Nesta revelled in the warmth of him - the sensation of being home. “It’s precious to me, too.”

In truth, picking a name for their unborn youngling had been one of the easiest choices Nesta had ever made. And in a life whose early years had been dictated by a complete lack of control, it had felt like soaring to feel both so free and so aligned with her mate’s thoughts.

When Nesta had suggested it, Cassian’s eyes had rippled and shone so fiercely Nesta’s eyes had burned. Beloved - that was what the name meant. But it was also the Illyrian name for the brightest star in the sky.

“Carina,” Cassian said aloud, speaking the name that he rarely allowed the world to hear, but one Nesta knew he thought of every day.

To him, Nesta knew that the name evoked memories of his childhood. Of meagre campfires and a lilting voice. Of dark hair brushing over his shoulder as his mother pressed her chapped lips against his cheek.

They were bittersweet and incomplete memories. Cassian had once told Nesta that trying to remember his mother was like trying to close a fist around fog: when you tried to clench it, it only scattered like dust, disembodied.

And it seemed right to Nesta - when they had never found Cassian’s mother’s body to give her a proper burial - that they could remember her this way. In a way that was both physical and so full of life.

When Nesta ran a thumb over her mate’s cheek, Nesta felt the comfort of her gesture down the bond. Cassian’s large palm came to rest over her hand, holding her to him as he leant into her touch.

His breath was hot but steady, whispering over her skin, and as Nesta smiled up at him she watched his features slowly relax - until his expression was hopeful, calm, happy.

“It’s decided then,” she announced, reaching up on tiptoes as she spoke.

Cassian’s quiet laugh whispered between them at her feeble attempt to raise herself to his height.

Large hands settled on her hips, anchoring her to him.

“Carina,” Nesta said - rolling the weight of the name around her tongue, the promise of it - before she threaded her fingers through the tangles of her mate’s hair and sealed the name with a kiss.

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#duskandstarlightwrites #acotar fanfic #acotar #nessian #nessianfic #nessianfanfic #nesta archeron #cassian #acosf #acosf fanfic #nesta and cassian #feysand #nyx #azriel acotar

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 2 years

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Okay wait I love this whole gardener batmom detail. Maybe you could write something about the stages of the garden? I can see her letting it kinda die off when she was mourning Jason and then the baby. Bruce almost crying seeing her slowly go back out there when she started to heal from it. Coming back after Damian and finding out Alfred (or even Bruce) kept up with it.

TEACHING FOOD INSECURE BABY JASON ALL ABOUT FOOD AND NUTRITION AND FOODS HES NEVER EVEN KNEW EXISTED THROUGH THE GARDEN BC HE GREW UP IN A FOOD DESERT!!!!!!

I could give a 50 slide PowerPoint on this topic. Thanks for a new obsession.

Jason looked out the window and frowned, "Hey, Alfie?"

"Yes?"

"What is she doing?" he said, pointing out to where you were tearing half-dead plants out of the ground and tossing them into a waiting wheelbarrow.

"Ah," he said, glancing out, "It appears Miss Y/N had deemed the growing season at an end- She's putting the Vegetable patch to bed and getting it ready for winter."

Jason frowned, "You don't do that?"

"Haven't for years," the butler chuckled, squeezing his shoulder and returning your wave when you noticed you were being watched. "I might do some weeding. And I'm happy to help her with the planting. But Miss Y/N is much better at all this than I am."

"Should I-"

"I'm sure she'd be happy for your assistance," he said smiling. "It's a rather tedious task."

_________

Bruce watched, amused as you explained to Jason about companion planting, pollinators, and composting. Lecturing patiently and answering questions as he helped you sketch out the plans for the garden this year.

"Cherries grow on trees?"

"Yes. And with some luck, my cherry trees, Strawberry bushes, and Apple Trees will all give us some fruit this year- Some of it we'll keep but most of it I'll have picked and given over to food banks."

Jason nodded seriously, considering that. He remembered eating from food banks. Everything was canned. He didn't think he'd ever eaten a cherry that wasn't in pie filling or a can of fruit cocktail.

"It's not much," you acknowledge, misunderstanding his silence "But"

Jason patted your hand and looked up at you, "People will like it anyway," he said confidently. "Like when we made the birthday cake kits. And the spices and stuff."

"Think so?" you hum, brushing an errant curl out of his eyes.

"Uh- huh," he said grinning as he looked back down, "Hey-"

"What Jaybird?"

"Shouldn't you put the corn over there?"

You look down at your plans and frown slightly, double-checking yourself and smile, "Good catch, dude."

___________

Alfred looked down at your desk. There was a finished garden plan with little addendums in Jason's handwriting. Things he wanted added- or removed. The boy had HATED carrots and so those were conspicuously absent. But in their place were radishes and sweet potatoes.

The air outside was getting warmer- time for you to move your seedlings. But you hadn't been able to even think about it. Without your faithful assistant to help you this year- your heart just wasn't in it. On a good day, you could shamble along. Going through the motions. But this- this was not that day. And there hadn't been a good day all week.

So he gently rolled up your meticulously drawn map and tucked it under his arm. You didn't have the strength to do it- not right now. But he'd be damned if he was going to let you feel like you let Jason down later when the fog cleared and you could feel anything other than pain.

Jason would understand- All of Gotham would understand, if he was being honest. There would still be apples and honey and berries- But Jason loved helping you do this. The donations and the starting little community gardens in empty lots.

The community gardens would still be seen to, thanks to your small army of intrepid volunteers and school children. But your Garden- your little safe haven wouldn't. Not this year. Not unless someone gave you a hand. And so, he headed to the greenhouse. He couldn't stop the pain- but at least he could do this.

He stopped at the door of the greenhouse, listening to the voices inside. Arguing in hushed tones and smiled a little. Evidently, he wasn't the only one that noticed the change in temperature and missed the smell of soil being turned over.

"Gentlemen," Alfred said, smiling a little when they both, Dick and Bruce turned, looking guilty, "I believe this has everything on it that we need."

Alfred didn't miss the flash of pain in Bruce's eyes as he noted the handwriting. "Everything?" Dick asked skeptically.

"Between this and the tricks Miss Y/N's taught me- I think we can make a good go of it," Alfred said nodding, unrolling the plans carefully and pinning them to the table.

"At least until she can do it herself," Bruce said nodding.

#Bruce Wayne x reader #Bruce Wayne #batmom!reader #brookabeejones #ask answered #minors dni

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uwingdispatch · 2 years

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Notes: Cassian Andor/Reader, everyone lives au, post-rebellion, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, disabled reader, domestic fluff

CW: PTSD, chronic illness, disability, implied sexual intimacy, mention of alcohol

Ao3 Link

★★★★★★★★

You were surprised when you woke to find Cassian gone, a note on the counter to let you know he had to go off-world for something unexpected. But that he’d be home tonight, tomorrow at the latest.

“This doesn’t sound good,” you say to yourself before the patio door opens behind you and you find that Cassian has left Kay behind.

“You’re awake,” Kay says. “Arseven and I were tending to the garden. The berries along the fence should be ripe soon—”

You cut the droid off “Where is he?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“He doesn’t want you involved.”

“And he left you home, what, to take care of me?”

Arseven comes through the patio door carrying a basket of fresh vegetables, which she hands to Kay before tapping your leg with one of her little arms, whistling and beeping: I take care of you.

Your heart is beating faster now and you pour yourself a glass of water if only to have something to do with your hands.

“Cassian said I wouldn’t be welcome where he’s going,” Kay says in his usual dry tone. “But I’m not particularly welcome on this planet either, am I?”

Like most days, Kay is wearing a scarf. This one is woven cotton, red and black—something you’d picked up at a local market. You’d given Kay his first scarf not long after you’d started dating Cassian. It was a way for him to signal his independence to the galaxy. To let folks know he wasn’t a danger to them.

“Where is he?” you ask again. “Do I need to be worried?”

You realize Cassian’s jacket—the one with the Rebellion starbird on the shoulder—is hanging on the hook by the door. Where it’s supposed to be. But he never hangs it there. It’s always slung over a chair or the back of the couch. You reach into the pockets of the jacket and pull out his com device.

You hold it up for Kay to see. “What the hell is going on?” you ask.

Arseven chirps at Kay, whistles low. Share why.

“You, too, Seven?”

“She only knows what I’m going to tell you,” Kay says. “A childhood friend of his asked for help. He didn’t know this person was even alive and is worried that it may be a trap. But he felt he had to try.”

“And you let him go?”

“I told him it was a bad idea.”

You feel tears in your eyes. Cassian has told you so many times that he’s not a soldier anymore. Not a spy. Recently you’ve realized he doesn’t even carry a blaster anymore—not most of the time. You go to the garage and punch in the code on the weapons locker, finding it nearly empty. Where could he be that he can’t bring Kay or his com but needs to be heavily armed? Cassian has seen some of the most lawless places in the galaxy, and your heart hurts to think that that’s the kind of place where he might be right now.

“Do you need a hug?” Kay asks.

You turn to the droid, almost as if to check that this is the same K-X droid you’ve been sharing your life with for the past several years. He’s holding his arms out, and it seems so unusual, this posture.

“Since when do you do hugging?”

“Cassian said I had to.”

But you do need a hug, so you let Kay wrap his metal arms around you.

“Can you contact him?”

“Cassian is currently out of range.”

You take a deep breath in, slowly let it out.

Arseven lets out a series of whistles and beeps. Need an activity.

“You’re right,” you say. “There’s something I need to finish, and today is a better day than most to get it done.”

Seven is already rolling into your office—a room that you and Cassian had recently transformed into a space that could almost also serve as something of a studio. Your sewing machine is out on one of the tables, and when you get to it, Seven is already pulling the pieces of your project from a drawer.

“When he does get home,” you tell Seven, “I’m going to be so angry with him. I’m already angry. But it will be worse for him, won’t it? Whatever he’s doing…it sounds overwhelming. Maybe it will be nice for him to have something soft, something that brings back good memories.”

Seven projects the photo of the stuffed bantha, one exactly like the one his mother had given him when he was young, a toy he kept into his adulthood, before things got…complicated. The events that transpired between when he left home and when he joined the rebellion weren’t something he ever really talked about with you. But a few months back, after a few glasses of wine, Cassian saw the toy in an old holofilm, his breath hitching slightly as he said he’d had the same one, that he kept it on a shelf in his room even after he outgrew plush toys.

Arseven pats one of her tiny arms on your materials and chirps: Perfect replica.

“I don’t know about that, Seven,” you said, holding the yet-to-be stuffed toy in you hands, your fingers aching to know if this was the right fabric to choose. Is it too soft? Not soft enough? “It’s not perfect. But it might be close.”

You were startled awake by the sound of someone pounding on your door, your heart already racing when you sat straight up on the sofa. You’d been reading a book last you remembered, maybe resting your eyes a little. And now it sounded like there was a tornado in the hallway outside your apartment.

“I’m coming,” you yelled, easing yourself off the couch as quickly as you could despite the stiff ache in your joints.

When you opened the door, you found Cassian looking disheveled in a hoodie and jeans. He swept you into his arms, kissed your forehead, squeezing you tight as he said, “Thank kriff, I was so worried.”

“What’s wrong?” you asked.

“Last night you told me you were feeling strange,” he said. “So when you weren’t answering your com—it’s not like you. I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe you were hurt…or that maybe something—”

“Slow down,” you told him. He released his grip, perhaps just now realizing how tightly he was holding you, giving you the space to take his face in your hands. You swept his messy hair out from out of his eyes. “Look at me. I’m okay. My com link has just been acting up, remember?”

“I remember now.” He pressed his forehead to yours and sighed.

It had only been nine months or so since you’d met Cassian, and there were times when this kind of intensity was a lot for you. But today you didn’t mind. And you lead him to the sofa where you wrapped a blanket around the both of you, cuddling into his chest.

“I just need a new com device,” you said. “And I’m going to get one after I finish work tomorrow.

You sat in the quiet for a while, the sound of children playing outside your building the only thing you could hear other than his heartbeat.

“You get dizzy when you panic,” he said. “When I was on Coruscant for work last month—”

Your anxiety had spiraled after a difficult doctor’s visit followed by a bumpy cab ride home and you’d ended up fainting in your kitchen. It had only been for a second but the way you’d crashed into a chair had left a nasty bruise on your hip.

“I can’t control it. When my body starts in that direction, I just have to try not to fall.”

“I know it’s not your fault,” he said. “I know what it’s like. But I have Kay.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “My heart, I never want you to be hurt and alone ever again.”

“You know, I’ve been alone for a long time, Cass.”

“Not anymore,” he whispered.

He kissed you softly, cradling your jaw in his hand. Something unwound in you as you threaded your fingers through his soft hair, a letting go of trepidation, somehow knowing that if there had ever been any turning back from falling hard for this man, that offramp was no longer an option.

“I never thought I’d let myself get this close to someone again.” Cassian said.

“I’m glad you did,” you replied.

“I should explain.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” he said, stroking your cheek. “There were a lot of times that I should have been there for people. People who cared about me even when I was at my worst.” His voice was low and he took a deep breath as he almost unconsciously began to caress your sore back. And then he laughed—a familiar laugh not of joy but discomfort. “I think sometimes about how my mother wouldn’t even turn the heat on unless I was home to make sure she did. And there were a lot of times when I wasn’t home.”

You laid your head back down on his chest and he wrapped both arms around you. Neither of you was particularly good at this kind of conversation. So you listened to the steady beat of his heart as he kissed the top of your head.

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it?” you asked.

“What is?”

“This closeness. How you’ve allowed me to really know you, and to have you. But I know some of the things you did during the war. I try not to think about it but there are definitely beings out there who wish you harm. You might have Kay, but every time you go off-planet I worry that something—”

“Listen to me, my heart” he said. “There is no one in this galaxy that could keep me from coming home to you. Do you understand me?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I will make it that simple.”

When you saw the look in his eyes, you believed him.

It’s after dark when you hear Cassian’s landspeeder pull into the garage, the back door clicking shut, a bag dropping with some weight to the floor. You’re in your office cleaning up, but Cassian is apologizing while he’s still in the kitchen, an ache in his voice apparent as he calls your name.

“I know you’re upset with me,” he says, “but I’m ready to make it up to you, if you’ll allow it.”

You’re standing in the hallway when he sees you, stopping abruptly, beginning his nervous habit of running a hand through his hair only to find he’s tied it back. Even in the dim evening light, you spot an oil stain on the henley he’s wearing, a tear on the sleeve near his elbow that, upon further scrutiny, looks like a blaster burn.

“You were shot at today,” you say.

He rolls up the sleeve and peels back a bacta patch to reveal a small wound that’s mostly healed. “Just a graze,” he says. “My heart, I promise, it’s over.”

“Don’t,” you say. “Not tonight.”

Cassian nods, averting his eyes, eventually saying softly, “I understand.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “Come here.”

He sweeps you into his arms, kissing your hair, your cheek, your neck as he cradles your head against his shoulder. “If there had been any other way.”

“I know.” It’s hard to be angry when you’ve also spent your whole day afraid for him, and now he’s here, holding you tight, an injury perhaps his own natural consequence.

“Where’s Kay?”

“You know how he gets when he has to keep secrets from me—I sent him and Seven on an errand. He’ll be back soon, but you should let him know you’re home if you haven’t already.”

“Right,” he says. “Let me go get my com.”

You settle into the sofa, doing your best to hold back tears. As hard as this is for you, you don’t know what it’s like to have everyone you love taken away from you over and over and over again. To feel like you are responsible for this loss. Cassian has done so much work to heal over the last ten years. But he’s still a man. Whatever he did today, he is carrying it and so much more with him right now.

When he sits next to you on the sofa, he has a blanket with him—it looks like the one he usually keeps for you on his U-Wing.

“You took your own ship today?”

“No,” he says. “But I know how much you love that blanket, I thought you might like one for the house. So I made a stop on the way back, found that artist’s stall.”

He’s pulling you toward him, the blanket wrapped around the both of you when he sees what you’ve set on the living room table for him to find.

“Where did you get that?” he asks, almost panicked for a split second before remembering where he is

“The toy?” you ask, “I made it. It’s not exactly the same, but—”

He reaches for it, taking it in both hands, his fingers running carefully over the different fabrics, the little button eyes.

“Thought you might need a nice memory tonight,” you said. “Even if I’m angry. I know this probably wasn’t an easy day for you.”

“You made this today?” He asks, not taking his eyes off of the plush bantha in his hands.

“I started it a while back,” you said. “But I needed a project today, so I finished it.”

He has tears in his eyes when he looks at you and asks, “I know today was hell for you. Why are you so good to me?”

“Cassian,” you say, “even on our worst days, you’re still everything to me.”

“This is…so much,” he says, struggling for words. “This means…just so much.”

“We’ll talk about today when you’re ready. Right now—”

“Right now I hope you’ll just let me take care of you,” he says, kissing your forehead. “Have you eaten?”

“I thought we could order something when you got home.”

“Okay,” he says, putting the little bantha back on the table. “I’m here. And I don’t care if you want dumplings from Tatooine. You will have them.”

Cassian had come to know your kitchen as well as he knew his in the last few months and was now sautéing vegetables on your stove, having insisted on making you dinner. You’d been a bit surprised the first time he’d cooked for you—he hadn’t seemed like the kind of man who would know how to follow a recipe, let alone work without one. He’d made a quick trip to the local grocer and come back with ingredients for one of your favorite comfort meals.

“Are you sure you don’t need my help?” you called from your cozy spot on the couch. “I don’t think I’ve even done dishes this week.”

“It’s taken care of,” he said. “After scaring you like that it’s the least I can do. Your neighbors probably think I’m a maniac.”

“They can think what they want. I know who you are.”

He added the vegetables to a large pan, which he then placed in the oven before joining you on the sofa.

“You do, don’t you?” he said.

You took Cassian’s jaw in your hand, caressing his short beard. And he leaned in, resting his forehead against yours for just a moment before kissing you, delicately at first, his lips capturing yours like a promise, before the kiss deepened with a hunger you felt as well, a need to be as physically close as possible to this man.

You ran your hands along the hem of Cassian’s shirt, soon letting your fingers wander over the warm skin of his stomach.

“Right now?” he asked.

“If you want to,” you said. “How long do we have before dinner?”

“Long enough.”

He stood, then pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it to the sofa and you threw your arms around his neck as you both started down the hall, discarding items of clothing as you went, finally in you bedroom, throwing back the covers and sliding into the sheets together.

“My heart,” Cassian said, his warm brown eyes almost sparkling as he looked at you, almost like he could see your every desire. “I love you so much. And it does frighten me. But I need you to know that there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

“I know,” you said, lacing your fingers through his hair. “I love you, too, Cassian. More than anything.”

When you wake, for a split second you’re on the edge of panic, sitting straight up as you come out of a nightmare with the gut feeling that you’ve found yourself in an empty bed again, Cassian gone, perhaps never coming back.

But then he’s there, his hand gentle on your shoulder as he eases you back into bed. “I’m right here,” he says.

“What?” you ask, still foggy from sleep.

“You were calling my name,” Cassian says, his sleepy eyes looking straight into yours. He pulls you close. “You feel feverish. Were you having a nightmare?”

“It’s a blur,” you say, “but…you were gone again.”

“I’m so sorry, my heart.” He kisses your forehead. “Yesterday…it won’t ever happen again.”

“Can you promise that?”

“I think so.”

“Okay,” You say. “That’s good enough for now.”

When Cassian kisses you, sweet and soft, a calm washes over you and you let yourself melt into him, snuggling back under the sheets as he holds you close.

“Did you find your friend, Cassian?”

“Yes,” he says. “I did.”

“Is he safe now?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“But I’d rather focus on you now,” Cassian says, pressing another gentle kiss to your lips. “I am yours. All day. Whatever you want to do.”

This, of course, is a hint that he’s not ready to tell you about his friend, or what happened the day before. Your tuck his hair behind his ear, smoothing out his bedhead, caressing his face before running your fingertips over his shoulders and along his bicep. Recently he’d had a feather tattooed along the inside of his left arm, covering an old injury. It was a feather from a bird native to Kenari—a bird that was likely extinct now along with most creatures from the planet where your husband was born. He is a survivor, and with that, you know, comes a heavy burden.

“I'm just so glad you’re here,” you say.

“So am I, my heart,” He says, easing your head onto his shoulder, kissing your forehead. “The weather has been so nice lately. Do you want to take a picnic to the park? Maybe see what’s going on downtown? I think the waffle cart is open on weekends now.”

“That sounds perfect,” you say, even though a part of you wants to stay in bed with Cassian all day, your bodies close and unshared with the rest of the world.

But soon you’ve found the same grassy spot where Cassian proposed to you all those years ago. It’s early fall in your quadrant of Ralltiir, and it’s hard not to notice the butterflies that are everywhere, stopping in your city briefly on their journey south for the winter. One has perched on Cassian’s knee, and he’s frozen in place so as not to disturb it as it flexes its wings open and closed. You offer the butterfly your finger and it quickly climbs on. You bring it closer to your face so you can better see its colors.

“Is there a creature in the world that doesn’t trust you?” Cassian asks.

“You should have met the tooka-cat when I first took him in,” you tell him as the butterfly takes off into the wind. “He hid in the cupboard under the sink for two weeks. Wanted nothing to do with me.”

“But he came around,” he says.

“So did you.”

You lean into Cassian’s embrace as he tips your chin toward him, kissing you like you’re not in a crowded park. Like it’s the first night he kissed you, just inside the doorway of your old apartment, already perhaps knowing this would be the first kiss of so, so many down the years. With your arms around his neck you run your thumb along your wedding ring, thinking only of how complete your life feels with this man in it, even on the days when he exhausts you.

When he rests his forehead against yours, whisps of his hair tickling your cheeks, he says, “My heart, from the moment you let me in, there was no turning back from you.”

“You’re an extraordinary man, Cassian Andor,” you say. “And you owe me a dessert waffle.”

“I owe you so much more,” he says, rising to his feet and then helping you up off the ground. “But if what you want right now is a waffle, I can make that happen.”

With his arm around your waist, you make your way to your favorite waffle cart, parked just down the street. As you’re about to get in line, Cassian kisses your temple, whispers in your ear, “Thank you for being my home.”

And before you can reply, he captures your lips with his, the smile in his eyes also present in his kiss, and you throw your arms around his neck laughing, the smell of sugar in the air, knowing that whatever unfinished business Cassian is dealing with, whatever lead him to take off without warning yesterday—it will be all right. It might take some time to sort out, but you’ve both seen each other through hard things before. One more hard thing won’t break you.

★★★★★★★★

Thank you so much for reading! I really wanted to write something that somehow incorporated some of the elements we have from the first 5 episodes of Andor. I’m sure episode 6 will break my headcanon again, but that’s fine.I’ll just…edit. I hope this fic makes you feel seen and loved!

I have a taglist now! Sign up here if you want to be tagged in future fics. (And choose if you only want to be tagged for certain characters.) In the meantime, I’m tagging my taglist as well as some folks who have been reblogging my fics. Love y’all!

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youwouldntlietopapa · 3 months

Text

The Words That Were Never Spoken (OC Re-Edit) - Chapter 9

[A HUGE thank you to @bethbruttenholm for co-writing this chapter. Primo is perfect and literally none of this would have gotten finished without all the help and encouragement!] ________________________________________________

Copia bursts through the Abbey doors out to the garden like a man escaping a fire. The cool air definitely helps a bit, clearing his head even a little. But the hurricane in his mind rages on and he grabs onto the low barrier fence keeping Primo’s vegetables safe from siblings and ghouls alike who might step on them. Nearly doubled over and gasping for breath, he just hopes he doesn’t throw up on them. Somehow, he suspects his oldest brother wouldn’t appreciate that either.

Too lost in his thoughts and panic, he doesn’t even notice anyone approaching. When he lifts his head, Primo is simply standing there, arms crossed and looking at him with a soft sigh.

He jerks his head toward the greenhouse, "Come on, then. I will put on a kettle for you."

Copia opens his mouth to answer but all that comes out is a pained sort of whimper. Still he follows. It's Primo, he's not sure he could say no if he tried. Wondering to himself if it's possible to suffer from hypoxia this close to sea level.

"Come, sit," Primo points a long finger at the sitting area near his workbench. Soon, he procures a massive tea tray and sets it on the coffee tables. He says nothing, makes Copia a cup and then himself one too before sitting down with a groan, crossing one elegant leg over the other, "What is wrong?"

Copia claims the chair quickly before he topples over, leaning his elbows on his knees and trying just to breathe. "I am an idiot and she will hate me now." He blurts without context.

"Who?" Primo asks - knowing full well who.

It takes a monumental effort to look up at his oldest brother and when he does, Copia looks every bit the mess that he feels, sitting on the verge of tears. It’s not a secret. Even he knows that. Terzo has been teasing practically from the first day he met her. "... You know. I know you know."

"Sweet boy," He smiles, "You wear your heart on your sleeve, like your brothers. Drink your tea. Tell me what happened."

Hot tea and his shaky hands. He cradles the cup in both just to try and keep it steady. "Isobel, she stays with me. You know this?"

"I know this, si."

"I ask her to stay with me. While they fix her room. She is my friend, I want to help." He sighs, staring into his cup, wishing there were answers at the bottom. "I don't make her sleep on the couch. I say I will take it. She says no. They are my quarters, she won't make me sleep on the couch for her. So... we share. My bed."

"So it is, close, then?" Primo asks, trying not to smirk, "But you are close with her, we know that, I do not see the issue."

"No, because I don't tell you yet." He sets down the cup and stands, starting to pace, wringing his hands. Desperately trying to keep his mind rushing back there, warm and comfortable, pressed up against him. Stop! "But I do something stupid and I don't know how to tell her because she was asleep and I don't mean to!"

"Copia, sit down. Sit down and tell me what worries you, so. Please. Sit down and talk." Primo waves him back to his chair.

He sits, legs still itching to move. It’s easier to not think about it when he moves. His thoughts already focused on his words and not tripping over his own feet.

"Tell me so I may help you, yes?"

"I wake up like... like the big spoon, and my hand on her... her..." He blushes deeper than his cassock. Not sure which part has him more upset. That he’d do something so inappropriate or that he’d enjoyed it. For that moment before he was thinking clearly. It felt so good. Like… being home.

"Your hand wanders in your sleep? To where? I will say, my hand is always wandering for Aviva. It is. A natural thing, I am thinking, for a man to want the woman he... is... close to." Primo says diplomatically.

His mind snaps back to the present and the truth beyond simply, mindlessly, taking his own pleasure. "She is my friend, Primo! I shouldn't be... be... feeling her up!"

"You bring this up to Isobel? Or did she wake to find you wandering?"

"No! No. I wake up first. I think to get away before she wakes and... I end up on the floor." The ache in his tail bone will be a reminder of that stupid move for a few days. As if he needed one.

"I do not want to... seem like I am brushing off the hands thing, Copia. But I think you are thinking too hard, hm? You sleep. It was an accident... it is not like you wanted it, no? You did not do it out of... need, I am sure!"

The out is there and he can see it, but the thought of taking it makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. Copia whimpers again and drops his face into his hands."... And if I do want it? What then?"

Primo smiles then, "Love is good, isn't it? Right down to the marrow you feel it."

"It is good when you love someone and they love you. It is... torture when it is just you loving." His voice nearly cracks.

"Oh, Copia... my littlest one. You are supposed to be the smart one. You are thinking you are the only one doing the loving? You are thinking that she does not feel the same way?"

"I ask for a sign and nothing. And she is... she is her. And I am... Look at me, Primo. I am nothing. I am lucky she is my friend. I hear what people say." Copia’s shoulders slump and he drops his gaze to the floor. Just some old pervert. A creep. Weirdo. For so long he’d been waiting for Izzy to realise they were right and leave.

"Well, that is wrong - let me get that out of the way very quickly. You are Copia. You are... the kindest, smartest man I have ever known. And you know, I hear what they say, Copia. They say 'you see him mummy thrusting and dusting?' or 'you see what he does to that microphone?' So let us get that straight, hm? And you say, I ask for signs. What more signs you are needing? She is there, in your bed." He chuckles softly.

"Because her quarters are flooded and she is too nice to tell me to sleep on the couch." He offers a little weakly.

"You ask our Dark Lord for a sign and what happened? There is the great love of your life, standing before you? Sopping wet?"

"No, no, I was only going to get her for breakfast. She is not in the dining hall first, so I get her. We always do this." Copia sighs. "I don't ask anyone to flood her room. The last time I ask anything, is my prayers before sleep. I don't even get to finish... she interrupts me." He cringes at that memory as well. "Even then, I am taking advantage. And, again, she is sleeping."

"I am going to ignore the fact that you cannot even start your day without her, yes? That is just," he flicks his hand past his ear, "I am ignoring. You ask for a sign and she what? She is there?"

“I always eat with her!” He catches how weak that defence is after he’s already said it. Trying to clear his throat at start again, a little more confidently. “She is sleeping, next to me. And I can’t sleep… because she is next to me. So I say a prayer, I start to ask for a sign, and she interrupts me rolling over. I don’t even try to stop her sleeping on me. She puts her head on my chest and I can’t… I can’t make myself wake her up, or move her. I am stealing cuddles like the creep they call me!”

"You ask for a sign. She... She puts her head on your chest. Copia." Primo sighs.

“She interrupts me asking for a sign!”

"I say what Terzo says to me, si? Say it, again. But slower."

“I am asking for a sign, si? She rolls over, interrupting. I don’t even finish my prayer.”

"I am telling you now, as your Papa and big brother. You should tell Isobel this."

Copia gapes at him looking sick. "She will kill me, Primo! She never trusts me again!"

"I think you are wrong about that."

"What do I say? Isobel, you know how you trust me to share the bed. Turns out I feel you up while you are sleeping and I am hard against your back."

"You say this, are you ready?"

"WHAT? NO!" He yelps.

"No, you goose. I say are you ready, Copia? You panic worse than Secondo. I say, you say to her, I love you. That is all of it."

"And if she says no? Then what?” His throat tightens uncomfortably and his eyes itch and burn, threatening to ruin his paints with tears. “At least, like this... I have something. It is better than nothing."

Primo shakes his head and takes a long sip of tea, "I do not think that will happen," he sings.

"Because you have a beautiful wife who loves you."

"I do, don't I?"

The door to the greenhouse flies open and Copia practically jumps out of his skin. Terzo rushes in followed by an annoyed looking Secondo. Or, maybe it's a happy looking Secondo. He has trouble telling the difference. He can guess at why Terzo is there, Secondo is less clear, although he suspects Terzo insisted.

"Primo! I swear I don't make him cry! We are kidding together! That's all! Only kidding!" Terzo starts his own defence immediately.

Primo lets out a long, dramatic sigh, "Water is still hot," he motions towards the tray.

"Oh. I'm not in trouble. Good!" His usual smile slides right back into place. "Because, as I am saying, I don't do anything wrong."

Secondo snorts and takes a seat next to Copia. "I believe that as much as I believe you teach a pig to sing." He offers flatly.

"I-I am actually trying to talk to Primo..." Copia says, trying to hint at the need for privacy.

Terzo waves the comment away, flopping into an empty chair. "Yes, yes. You need brother advice, no? Now you have three brother advice. Even better!"

Primo watches Copia for a moment, "I tell them to go."

He slumps in his chair a little and shakes his head. "They hear it anyway. And Terzo will make fun no matter what."

Terzo gasps. "I would never!"

"At least pretend you don't think anyone is so stupid, Terzo." Secondo crosses his arms and stares at his younger brother. He pouts in return, not having a defence but not ready to admit wrongdoing either.

"I was just telling Copia that I am thinking that if he is having feelings for someone, he should tell them." Primo cuts the two of them off.

"I knew it!" The offence drops from Terzo's face like it was never there to begin with. Replaced with a sly grin. "Your friend, si?"

"She is my friend!" Copia snaps back, an edge on the words from having said them so many times.

"I thought she is living with you now? She moves in, no?" For a man who's never seemed to take much interest in anyone around him, Secondo sounds surprisingly curious.

"No, no, she is staying because of the water in her room." Terzo clarifies.

"Really? You are with her a long time, Copia. And you don't ask her to move in?"

Copia decides to keep his comments about Secondo’s inexperience with anyone moving into his quarters to himself.

"They are not together-together. He says, again, they are only friends." Terzo offers, as if they’re catching up on the latest reality tv show.

Copia sinks further into his chair, begging the Old One to drag him directly into the pit and away from this. Anything, really, that means not having to sit there one moment longer.

Primo holds up his hand, "You are helping approximately zero. Copia, tell them what you tell me. About your signs."

"Maybe you just kill me. Secondo, I am annoying, no? You kill me quick and I never annoy you again." He looks over at his older brother, pleading.

He smirks. "It is tempting."

"No killing." Primo warns.

"Then you tell us." He shrugs.

"I tell you, it is nothing. I am in bed and Izzy, she is asleep beside me…" Please, kill me now, Copia begs silently.

"Beside? I thought you only have that little tiny bed." Terzo raises a brow.

"We share."

"You share?"

"Si."

"You share your tiny bed?" Terzo’s brow furrows.

"Si."

"Together?"

"Si, Terzo! What is complicated? I don't make her sleep on the couch and she refuses when I say I sleep there. So we share! You can share a bed and not fuck." Copia snaps at him.

"You can do both."

“Terzo,” Secondo interrupts. “Shut up.”

He huffs and pouts, but he does shut up.

"I tell Primo already. She is asleep, I am not asleep, so I... I make a prayer for the evening, and I... ask for a sign." Copia turns a shade of red darker. "I try to. But she interrupts me. She rolls over and I don't even try to stop her! I should wake her and tell her, but... I don't. And she sleeps almost on top of me. She puts her head on my chest."

Terzo and Secondo both sit in stunned silence staring at their little brother like he just sat in one of Primo’s planters and declared himself a geranium.

"I know! I know! I should have told her! I take advantage while she is sleeping!" Copia throws up his hands in surrender, waiting for their ire and judgement.

“Well? What do you say, brothers? Hm?” Primo asks.

"Sei un idiota." Secondo sighs and rubs his face.

"What he said." Terzo agrees.

“I think he must tell her. His feelings.”

"At least that she does that herself." Copia mutters to himself, barely listening to the three of them.

"There was more?" Terzo blinks at him.

"I don't mean to! I go to sleep last night. No funny business. I just go to sleep, I swear! But I wake up this morning like the big spoon and my hand is... It wanders in my sleep." His voice gets a bit shrill in his panic. Even he can hear it.

"You mean you..." Terzo holds up his hand, deadly serious, and makes a very clear honk honk gesture.

"I don't honk! There is no honking!" He rushes to explain. "I am only holding!"

“I tell him it is not so much a big deal. How many times has Aviva woken up with my hands on her? Hm? And still I sleep soundly. The woman you love, Copia? It is no big thing.” Primo reassures him.

"Aviva is your wife! Isobel is my friend!"

Terzo gives Secondo a smug sort of smile. "I tell you."

Secondo doesn't respond. He simply digs a twenty out of his wallet and passes it over.

Primo leans forward, “I tell you this, if I had Aviva like you had Isobel?” He clucks his tongue and shakes his head, “I knew the second I saw her, I belonged completely to her. I would not have survived two weeks the way you have survived these years. Tell her.”

"I tell you already, Primo." He slumps again. "I can't lose her. If I tell her and she says no.... I throw myself off the roof."

“YOU PEOPLE ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS - oh,” Aviva appears, stuttering and stumbling over her words as soon as she sees Copia, “Hi, Cope.”

Copia jumps again, starting to accept the idea that his family is trying to kill him. "No one in this family knows how to knock!"

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, making herself a cup of tea.

"We don't believe what?" Terzo looks over at her curiously. It’s no secret that Primo and his wife are shameless gossips and Aviva is always picking up juicy stories.

Aviva straightens and clears her throat, turning and staring at Primo’s lap or the chair beside him, “They’re. Having… spaghetti. Again.”

"Riveting." He smirks, not believing that lie for a single second. "Primo, you need to take your wife out more, if this is what excites her."

“Oh, he excites me plenty,” she says as he makes the seating decision for her, pulling her onto his lap.

"Copia is just telling us he is a secret pervert." Terzo explains.

Copia immediately looks panicked. "No! No, no, no! I don't say that! I don't mean to! I tell you this!! Primo, tell her is not true!"

“Is not true, Aviva. He is not a pervert, he’s in love.”

“Oh. Oh… I mean. Oh! That’s wonderful,” she clears her throat, “Who the lucky lady?”

"... you know who it is." He shoots a look at Terzo. "Someone never shuts up about it."

"Isobel.” Terzo doesn’t look ashamed in the least.

“Oh. Really? That’s crazy. I never saw it coming.”

Primo stares up at Aviva, confusion smeared across his face, “What are you talk -,” he shuts up when he gets an elbow to the chest.

“You should,” Aviva puts her teacup to her lips, “you should tell her.”

What is there left to lose? Copia sighs deeply. "I try... last night. I say it out loud, finally, and... I turn around and she is asleep. On the couch."

Secondo does a passible job at turning a snort into a cough.

“I, uh. I think she’d like to hear that,” Aviva says, her eyes meeting Terzo’s, “I know she would.”

Terzo stares hard at her, trying to read her mind.

"You and Primo think everyone falls in love so easy." Copia huffs.

“Sometimes it’s just,” Aviva breaks her gaze with Terzo to stare at Secondo, “when two people love each other mutually it’s as easy as that. As easy as saying it out loud.”

Primo pats Aviva’s thigh, “We did fall in love easy, you have to admit.”

"I am so happy for you." Copia says, an edge of sourness in his voice, as he scuffs his shoe against the floor. "I finally find a good moment and she falls asleep."

“I mean,” Aviva takes another long sip of tea, “If ever you needed a sign consider me telling you to march up there and tell her the sign.”

"You wait three years for a good moment? What are you waiting for that is so special??" Terzo looks at Copia with a slightly worrying look in his eye. Like he can’t quite process the idea of not just blurting out his feelings as soon as he feels them and handing over his heart without hesitation.

"Just... we have dinner, wine, comfortable, si? And she tells me sit on the floor, so I sit on the floor. I am in the archives all day and my neck is hurting, she knows. She always knows. So she rubs my neck and tells me play a game. So I play my game. She fixes my neck and my shoulders and she asks if I have a headache. A small one. So she rubs my head." He wants to talk about it wistfully, but it comes out a little sad. "I don't know... it was just... nice. So I say it. Out loud and nothing. So I turn around and she is sleeping on the couch." His eyes flick between his brothers and his sister-in-law. "What??"

"It's awfully romantic," Aviva sighs.

Terzo blinks a few times. "She rubs your neck... and your head?"

"It does not matter what she is rubbing," Primo shakes his head, "You tell her. That is all."

"When she's conscious," Aviva grins.

"She rubs your head and you think... Copia!" Terzo isn't ready to let it go. "Sei sicuro che siamo imparentati?"

Copia doesn't answer Terzo, crossing his arms and pouting."I am so glad it is so easy for all of you." He says quietly, bitterness barely hidden in his words. "Stupid, foolish Copia is a joke again."

Aviva moves from Primo's lap to the arm of Copia's chair and Primo whines a little. She kisses the top of Copia's head, "What makes you," she clears her throat, "What makes you think Izzy doesn't feel the same way?"

Secondo leans forward and smacks the side of Terzo's head. "Chiedi scusa."

Terzo looks like he has something to snap at his older brother but bites his tongue, offering a quiet "Scusa, fratellino."

Copia doesn't look up at Aviva, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor. "I am only her friend...." He sighs and stands up, walking over to look at a plant he couldn't name if he tried. But it's far enough away from the others to get a little space.

"She deserves someone better. And I know, you tell me no. It is not so. But I hear what people say. I am the creep. I am awkward with people. I like stupid things no one cares about. I don't know why she wants to be my friend even, and I am supposed to think she loves me? It is ridiculous. She is... perfect. I call for assistance one day and she comes. Not like the others. She comes down to the archives and she helps without needing everything explained. She is interested and smart, she knows things and when she doesn't she asks me. A week she comes, every day, to help and to talk. Not just work. Talking. Then she finds me in the hall and wants to sit with me. No one sits with me but she comes to sit and talk more. Real friends. Not just I want to fuck her and be done. She is my friend, I don't lie about this. Every day I think she will be gone. She will find someone better, more interesting. But still she comes back. So I give my prayers, my gratitude for whatever I do to deserve this." He almost forgets anyone is listening to him ramble. Most people cut him off before he ever gets this far and if he thinks too hard about them listening, he’d never say anything so… vulnerable. "And what? I ask for more now? Because she has bad luck and she needs a place to stay? And if it is no, I don't just lose her, she will go. Seestor will find her a room, I think. But I offer her a place and then tell her this is the price? What does that make me? I know, is very funny that I worry for everything, but this is not some Sibling you decide to bring home for a night or someone from the club who follows you home. It is not so little a thing to lose. It is years of her there. I don't know how to say oh it will be okay. I just tell her and we live happily ever after."

He has to pause, just to keep his voice from cracking. He’s made enough of a fool of himself without adding to the list.

"Like saying I do this and maybe the sun doesn't rise in the morning. I don't even know what to do with myself if she says no. She knows my schedule more than I do. Half the time I get a message from her to remind me. She never complains about my terrible movies. I forget to eat without her. In the morning she is waiting in the dining hall with food and coffee. Satanas, this morning she even does my paints because my hands are shaking and she sees me struggle."

He finally stops, trying to relax his hands, balled into tight fists. Getting himself all worked up again. Terzo keeps quiet, awkwardly trying to hide his embarrassment behind an aloof expression, looking anywhere but at Copia or the others.

"Copia." Secondo takes a breath and looks over at his youngest brother. "Everything you just say, what she does, how she is, even staying with you, in your... very tiny bed... She already tells you she loves you. Many times, I think. Every day. Not in words, but she tells you. She knows your schedule because she wants to know about your day. She likes your shit movies because you like them. She makes sure you eat and she learns your coffee. She does your paints. She is screaming it at you for years, fratellino. You are not hearing, I think."

Copia blinks at him for a long moment, trying to process what he said and that he said it in the first place. "No-no... She is just... She is being nice. A good friend."

"And she is nice for other people? Like this?"

"I... She must, si?"

"For who, Copia? Who else is she so nice for?"

Terzo stares at him, just as stunned. "When do you start being insightful?"

"I am always insightful. You just don't pay attention." Secondo huffs.

Copia leans against Primo's workbench, looking a bit winded and confused. Everything he's sure he knows slipping through his fingers. A thousand thoughts all screaming in his head at once. Every memory waiting to be scrutinised for the things he missed. Struggling to believe that he could have missed so much, and that even Secondo noticed before he had.

"I know you my whole life. You just tell me I am being stupid and hit me." Terzo complains, oblivious to his little brother’s ongoing crisis.

"You are being stupid and you need a smack. Often." Secondo smirks.

Aviva snorts, "I didn't know we could smack him."

Primo, eyes on his littlest baby brother, stands and makes his way over to Copia, leaning his back against the workbench, shoulder to shoulder, folding his arms, "We are hearing you, Copia, you know this? I say go tell her, I say it is no big deal to say it. But I see you and I hear you. And I understand you. I know it is scary... it is terrifying. But Secondo is not wrong - as much as it pains me to praise him so much - he is not wrong."

Secondo glances over, looking distinctly smug.

"... It is terrifying." Copia says finally. "If... if he is right, then I am an idiot. And I have wasted so much time. But also... then everything changes. I don't know how it changes, but it changes."

"And we will be here to help you navigate it," Primo says, pushing his shoulder against Copia’s, "Or at least, be incredibly nosy."

He can't help a tiny smirk. "I know this. You are, always."

"No, no," Primo grins, "I am not nosy. I am simply concerned."

"Yes, and I am not anxious. I just plan for the end of the world." Copia snorts.

Terzo laughs, glad the focus has shifted off him for once. "You? Not nosy? Next you say this is not your greenhouse."

"I am concerned," Primo corrects Terzo, "Aviva is nosy."

"I am," she winks.

"You both are. The worst kind of nosy." Terzo asserts.

"The point," Secondo interjects. "Copia, is you come to a decision and calm down or you end up having a stroke."

His face immediately turns a deep shade of red and his eyes drop back down to his shoes. Mumbling softly. "She sleeps in my bed, in my old shirts... I already have one.... more than one."

Aviva snorts her tea, hacking and choking while Primo stares at Copia. Terzo blinks at his little brother, not even sure where to start with that. And Secondo sighs, rubbing his forehead.

Primo clears his throat and nods, not sure if he's reassuring himself for Copia, "It is... you know, it is a natural thing. A... eh... stroke."

"Avere un’ictus, Copia."

"..................... oh." Fuck.

"She is sleeping in your shirt???" Terzo blurts out. "In your tiny bed???"

"Her room is flooded! I don't make her sleep naked! Then I have a stroke and a stroke."

Recovering, Aviva looks up at Primo and then Copia, "Well, certainly she wouldn't have known you were having a stroke."

Primo gives her a what the hell kind of question is that look.

Copia visibly winces. ".... I say her name. I don't mean to but... In the shower and it echoes. She comes to see what is wrong. I... I remind her about Seestor calling. I can't think of anything else to say!"

Terzo does a much worse job of covering his laugh with a cough. "Is this before or after you are feeling her up in your sleep?"

"I can't this morning. She is in the bathroom when I shower. So we are not both late." Copia buries his face in his hands.

Primo clucks his tongue at Terzo and then eyes Aviva, "Copia it is no thing, still. You have not done any of this maliciously. I do not know if you have a malicious bone," Primo gives Terzo a don't start glare, "In your body."

Aviva gazes at Copia - chewing on her lip, wondering if she should just spill the beans and end his suffering, "He's right, Cope. There's no guilt in anything you've said you've done. And there's no shame in loving her."

"Of course I don't want to hurt her. Not ever.” He forces himself to look at Primo. “But... Satana, aiutami, she scratches my head last night and... her fingers are blessed by the Old One, I swear to you."

Terzo smirks. "She turns you down, I think I ask her out again. Maybe this time she says yes."

Copia shoots him a dirty look. "You have better luck asking out the statues in the garden."

"You are going to get more than a smack," Primo says to Terzo, "But I say, this Copia. That reaction there? You see that rage? I know it and I know it well. When another gets too close to her. That will not change - whether you tell her or not, I think."

He sighs and nods. "I know.... That, that Brother Nicholas who thinks he is so pretty. He talks to her, gets too close. Always bothering......... I send him to assist Nihil. For a month."

Terzo throws his head back and cackles. "So much for no malicious bone!"

"Just for a month?" Primo grins, "You are remembering Brother Patrick?"

"Si."

"Well, you have not seen him for a while?"

Copia pauses, trying to think of when he’d seen him last. ".... No. I don't think."

"Because he is in Iowa."

"You send him to Iowa?" He looks a little surprised.

"Who is Brother Patrick?" Aviva arches an eyebrow.

"Si, I send him straight to Iowa. You know why? He could not take his eyes off of my wife's ass."

Copia finally breaks and laughs. "Is a very good ass."

Aviva grins, cheeks turning pink, gazing at Primo, "I will send you to Iowa too, baby brother or not."

"I don't stare! You want me to say is not a good ass?" He puts his hands up, backing down from that threat immediately.

"Okay, okay," Aviva laughs, "Enough about my ass."

"….. His name is Primo." Copia says softly with a sneaky wink.

"Oh, you are funny now?" Primo cannot help but grin, seeing Copia's sparkle shine a bit once more.

"I am always funny." He nudges him. "... Fine. I will talk to her. I will."

Terzo still looks a bit stunned, staring at Copia. "She is sleeping in your tiny bed with you, in your shirt. I don't know how you don't say anything before."

"Not everyone needs a constant fuck, Terzo."

"What you need is a bigger bed." He suggests.

"I can order you one," Aviva adds, "I have that power."

Copia expression turns panicked all at once. "No! No. I... I keep the bed. For now."

Secondo smirks over at Aviva. "He gets a bigger bed, she sleeps further away."

"Oh," she nods, all of it coming together now; she grins at Secondo, perhaps not realising how unhinged she looks, "Of course."

He raises a brow but doesn't ask. It’s a lesson everyone learns in this family at one point or another. Sometimes it’s better to not know. Often the reasoning with any Emeritus is terrifying at best.

"I say this, sleep on it," Primo returns to his seat, hooking his finger at Aviva. She returns to his lap, focusing on the cuff of his shirtsleeve, fiddling with the button, "In your little bed, or perhaps the guest room, if you'd like. But rest. Do not go head first."

Aviva gazes at Primo as he gives the same advice she did.

"Si." Copia agrees softly. "You don't tell her though, si? Any of this?"

"We would never," Primo says, "Absolutely."

"I will be planning a party to celebrate when you do," Aviva says, avoiding eye contact with Copia.

"I don't say anything." Secondo says firmly.

"I don't either." Terzo nods.

"Okie dokie... I go.... find something to keep busy." Copia sighs, certain there isn’t anything that could really distract him at this point.

He tries. He really tries. But Terzo can't hold it back. "Like have a stroke?"

Aviva's hand slaps over her mouth to keep from laughing, and Primo shakes his head, "You are a child, Terzo."

Secondo reaches over and smacks the back of his head.

"It is a little funny," Aviva whispers and then looks to Secondo, "Do not smack me."

Copia huffs at Terzo and shakes his head. "I use your office bathroom. Mine doesn't have one."

"You are always welcome," Primo nods.

He does, admittedly, feel less like the whole world is ending and the air seems to have returned. Those are good signs. Copia straightens his cassock and squares his shoulders. "All right. I go back to work. Grazie."

Aviva watches as Copia makes his way to the door. Terzo stands and she snaps, pointing at his chair, "Sit. Down." She whispers. The door shuts and turns back to her husband and his brothers, "You are not going to believe this shit...”

Too focused on everything that was said, everything he wants, needs to say, he doesn’t hear a word of it as he walks back across the garden toward the Abbey. There are still a few hours until the end of the day and he can guess where she probably is. Something he considers in a new light. The comfortable feeling of knowing she’s there.

Maybe, just maybe, there is some hope.

_________________________________________________________

Sei un idiota. - You're an idiot.

Sei sicuro che siamo imparentati? - Are you sure we're related?

Chiedi scusa. - Apologise.

Scusa, fratellino. - Sorry, little brother.

Avere un’ictus - a stroke (medical emergency)

#ghost fanfic #copia x oc #MDNI #re-edit

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noblechaton · 2 years

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Fic title: Your Pain is My Pain

I'm seeing something post-canon (as in, somewhere post-Strikers) that sees the Phantom Thieves finally getting a break from the constant madness of the metaverse and thereon, each finding their own sort of reprieve in the aftermath of several cataclysmic events - Haru focuses up on her gardening, Ann spends time with Shiho, Yusuke dives into his artwork and Ryuji continues working on himself. Everything's calm, for once, and normalcy starts to creep back in - but that doesn't sit right with everyone. Amid her attempts to live a more outgoing life among her fellow citizens, Futaba can't help but keep tabs on Ren, himself having ended up living a relatively close distance to the others after all. While that quiet, somewhat stern behavior of his remains on the surface, she and the others come to profess worry over their former leader and best friend - after all of that, despite what's changed and the catharsis he might have felt alongside all the help he'd given them, it's not as if he'd really decompressed, as far as they knew, with who knows how much otherwise bottled up inside.

So they send Makoto over, dragging him out of his apartment and spending the day with him on the town. They reminisce over all that's happened throughout trips to the familiar places, the movie theater, Big Bang Burger, etc., but he doesn't seem to crack until he realizes that Makoto's taking him back to Leblanc for the first time in however long. Ren's expression shifts from subtle and restrained to something more uncertain, almost anxious as they approach the doors, some obvious silhouettes distorted by the glass. It processes then what all of this has been for, why she'd led him through town and avoided the topic of the others for so long. Makoto takes him by the hand and asks him if he wants to go inside, fingers between his own and her eyes soft on his. Silence falls as a gentle rain starts right on the verge of dusk, the moon above blocked by the clouds as they stand for what feels like eternity.

"Yes," Ren's lip trembles with his eventual, inevitable answer. "Let's...get inside."

All the bracing in the world couldn't quite prepare him for the welcoming faces that greet him, that invite him into a booth and supply him the finest cup of coffee in Yongen-Jaya. It's been a few months since he'd last seen everyone, and yet they all behave as if they'd not missed a beat. Ryuji makes a few bad jokes, Yusuke makes things weird, Ann and Haru offer gifts from their own professions - something stupid expensive and somewhat useless from Ann, a bouquet of flowers mixed with vegetables from Haru. Sojiro keeps the food and drink coming, while Futaba is the one who eventually settles the group down enough to confront the issue at hand, getting their attention with a loud clearing of her throat before she nods behind him.

Makoto eases her arms onto Ren's shoulders then, warmly asking him if he'd like to talk. When he tries to downplay and otherwise avoid the subject, the others nudge him back. Ann encourages, Haru assures, Ryuji affirms and Yusuke - in his own way - inspires. Ren's head dips some, his eyes to one side in a glance towards a Sojiro who shrugs him on. Ren then sits upright again, a twinge of red on his face as he finally, fully speaks his mind. He'd not been silent before, he was often blunt about things, but in this moment, he's allowed to fully process the utter insanity that's been his last few years now, the group listening and replying where they can and where best it fits. He talks and talks and talks some more, of Maruki, of Kasumi, of Akechi. Ren exhausts himself, a glance at his watch revealing that, for a change, he'd been the one talking for a near hour straight, with some tears having subtly welled up in his eyes. He's clearly embarrassed afterwards, but finds himself surrounded. One hand in Ann's, the other in Haru's with Yusuke across from him, sketching out his own inspiration from Ren's flood of emotions. Ryuji places a palm to a shoulder while Makoto rests one on the opposite side and Futaba, who'd earlier slipped onto his side of the booth, leans against him

His friends insist that it's okay, each sharing looks with him in their encouragement, that it's alright - it's alright for him to feel, outwardly, like this, given all they'd been through. Ren's somewhat unfamiliar with this, but comes to relent - he holds hands back, leaning into the touch of his friends with a slight smile across his face as they all share and repeat the sentiment that his pain is their pain, and that they'll all be alright, together.

#thats right im gonna be insufferable about my interests over here too #another idea I had while writing out this one was something a bit shorter and more simpler #that would see luz bonk herself and amity resolve to use some sort of pain sharing spell to help her feel better faster #luz would insist that such a thing isn't necessary but after all they'd been through amity would insist herself #that its important they continue to go through things together #luz would joke that this feels like a bit of an overreaction to a scrape or bruise or w/e but she'd shrug eventually #get a lil kiss and allow amity to enact the spell #could also be a nier thing i bet

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greenerlawn · 3 months

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Transforming Your Outdoor Space: A Complete Guide To Turf Installation In Sydney

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Transforming Your Outdoor Space: A Complete Guide to Turf Installation in Sydney Factors to Consider Before Installing Turf

Before you dive into the exciting world of turf installation, there are a few important factors to consider. Taking the time to plan and prepare will ensure that your outdoor space is transformed into a lush, green oasis that you can enjoy for years to come.

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5 Maintenance Requirements Different varieties of turf have varying levels of maintenance requirements such as mowing frequency, fertilization needs, pest control measures, etc. Take these factors into account when selecting which type best fits within your available time commitment for lawn care.

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ltcherrys · 9 months

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My Magnolia Baby ࿓ cisgirl!harry

a fantasy-historical WIP, a tale told of pirate ships, peculiar creatures, dragons, and firsts.

Harry Styles - Princess of Nymador and daughter of Lord Desmond is of peculiar personality. She wears her hair up into assertive buns, fluff dresses and puffed sleeves. She reads books even though her father swears that men like their women uneducated, and most of all, she knows her worth. Which is why she argues to do what she wants and experience the journey of a lifetime, while trying to pursue her first relationship.

˚⊹♡

Anne poured warm water into a porcelain cup, humming a Nordic tune. She grabbed the cup carefully and placed it on the long dining table. After, she leisurely chopped the pork into straight articulated lines.

"Gemma, come set this table!" She ordered. Lady Gemma walked into the dining room wearily, huffing. "Why don't you call your other daughter, Harry."

"She is probably off in the gardens. I'll have the maids search for her." Anne waved off as she lifted the board with roasted pig on it.

Gemma placed the table cloth on the wood. "Why is she in there, anyways?"

"I'm making pig. You know she doesn't like pork." Anne answered monotonously. "Roberta!"

Their servant, Roberta, came running into the room, kneeling. "Yes, your majesty?"

"Go get Harry. Tell her dinner is prepared and her little vegetables better be cooked."

Roberta nodded submissively and went on to grab the princess. Who was away in the garden, still tearing apart lettuce, washing it in boiling water. "Lady Harry." Roberta greeted.

Harry looked up from the many greens she had cooked, smiling kindly. "Good evening, Roberta."

"Your majesty requests for you. Dinner is served."

The Princess nods in acknowledgment as she dries off the leaves, placing them into a big bowl. "What have you made?"

"Salad."

"You know your mother said to stop eating straight lettuce."

"She did. But 'twas the only thing I could make in such little time. Now, would you mind taking these to the table?" She asked, handing the bowl of fresh greens to the woman.

The noble family sat surrounded by the table with the supper the women of the family made. They joined hands as they prepared for prayer. "Heavenly Father," Desmond began. "We thank you for the food that has blessed this very table tonight, and the days that come. In Jesus name we pray, Amen."

"Amen."

Harry stabbed her fork into her salad, taking a bite. "Eat a little of the pig." Anne instructed.

She frowned. "But mama, you know I don't eat pork."

"Harry." Anne warned.

The princess sighed, cutting the tiniest portion of meat off. "Mother, Father, I need to tell you something."

"Have you found a husband?" Desmond asked hopefully. Harry rolled her eyes. "Of course not." The King sighed in disappointment, settling his eyes back to his food. "There is a sword fight tomorrow. I'd like to see it."

Anne twisted her face in disgust. "I know you try to be different, Harry, for whatever rebellious reason but I will not allow you to see such foolishness."

Desmond put his hand up. "Hold on.. she might have a good reason."

"I'm going to need at least some knowledge on the subject. Sword fighting is all men care about really, is it not?"

"You mustn't be serious." Anne said. She sighed when her daughter didn't budge, not even a sneer of retaliation. "Fine. But you will have to bring your brother along."

A scoff fell out of Harry's lips. "I would rather stick a pick through my own heart than take him with me."

"You will not be going to that sword fight if you do not bring him. A house of fighting is no place for a princess, your brother will be there to protect you."

Harry huffed. "Fine."

⚜

"Huzzah!" People cheered before continuing to dance to music. The bar smelt heavily of beer, Harry walked through the many bodies of people, all distracted by the music.

She searched through the crowd, trying to spot her brother somewhere but it was almost incompetent. "Hello, I'm looking for Joffrey." She tried to tell a bearded man, but he grabbed her elbow and started dancing.

Harry somehow managed to escape and got stuck in the middle of the room. "DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHERE JOFFREY IS?!" She shouted.

Everyone stopped dancing, including the people playing instruments and turned to the corner of the room. "Harry!" Joffrey exclaimed. A young woman beside him raised an eyebrow, seemingly confused. "Who is this?"

"Sister, how I've been dreaming of seeing you again." Joffrey said.

"Oh, sod off." Harry countered, her face turned in disgust as he hugged her. "You mustn't be so sour, it's been ages! How have you been?"

"The house has done fairly well without you being there, thank you very much." She replied curtly. Joffrey frowned at the information, but he ignored it in response. "What brings you here today? Got any fruits for me?"

Harry held the cloth of her cloak. "No. I want to see a sword fight."

Joffrey raised an eyebrow. "A sword fight?"

"Yes."

"And mother and father are allowing this?"

"Yes. They'll have no choice. They said I can go if you accompany me there." Joffrey blew a raspberry. "And if you don't I will not hesitate to saw your balls off."

Joffrey snorted at his sister's words but shut up almost immediately when he was threatened with a dagger to his neck. "O-Okay."

The residents watched in confusion as Joffrey made way through the crowd.

⚜

The swords fight hadn't begun yet. Harry followed after her brother into the doubled doors of the broken down home. "Put your hood up." Joffrey told her. She furrowed her eyebrows. "Why?"

"They must'nt know who you are. Put it up."

Harry glared at her brother for unpolitely telling her what to do, but pulled the cloth over her head, hiding her curls. "Now, do not talk to anyone unless they are me."

"You're so dictorional. I'm never going out with you again." She complained.

Joffrey led her to the center stage where everyone else was surrounded by, cheering excitingly. "Watch it." He sneered when someone nearly jabbed Harry. Eventually, a tall man came through the curtains, his boots clanking against the wood. "PEOPLE OF NYMADOR!!" He shouted.

Everyone yelled, raising their glasses of beer if they had one. "Oh, can you hand me one of those?" Joffrey asked the woman beside him.

"Get your own you festering cankerblossom."

Harry gasped dramatically, hiding her smile behind her palm. Joffrey glowered at her for laughing, rolling his eyes. "It is I, William The Great! The greatest swordsman in all of Nymador, no one is to succeed a battle with me!"

"Is that so?" Harry questioned. Joffrey angrily told her to hush, but she wasn't about to listen to some hairy looking man that had crust of beef stew in his beard. "Are you daring to challenge I?"

"I am." Someone said. Harry glanced at another man, dressed in simple attire, unlike the dramatic armor William was wearing. William tilted his chin. "You? You're nothing but a peasant."

"Fancy coming from someone with no home." The man retaliated. William clenched his jaw, his boots hitting the stage heavily. "Who ever falls against this very tree trunk loses the battle and will be feeding the children for three weeks."

"Very well." He said.

The arbiter hit the drums with his hands, throatily singing. "Louis Tomlinson and William Harrington!"

"I said do not speak of my surname you bitch!"

His eyes widened. "I apologize."

William rolled his eyes and grabbed his sword from it's holder, grinning widely at the sharp sound it made. "Are you still yearning for this fight?"

"Of course I am. You are nothing but of weakness." Louis spoke, posing his sword. William hardened his glare as the drums grew increasingly louder until the arbiter shouted for them to start and he swung the first hit. Louis easily blocked it with his sword, making a loud clang sound through the house.

Harry watched with wide eyes in anticipation, biting her lower lip distractingly. "Who are you rooting for?" She asked the prince curiously. "Obviously not William. He's a proper knobhead."

She nodded in agreement. "People like that get themselves killed. Imbeciles."

Louis pierced William's cheek with a small gash, causing the people around them to gasp. "Whoever draws blood first!" Someone within the crowd shouted. Everyone around them nodded in agreement, chanting the suggestion. The arbiter seemed to agree also, as he beat the drums harder. "First blood!"

Louis grinned and raised a challenging eyebrow at William, which made Harry feel the smallest flutter in her stomach. How could a sword duel possibly make her nervous? She guessed it was a good thing, her mother always said a swordsman was the best husband to wed. They could protect your family and also be good in other things.

William charged at him suddenly, seemingly angered at his chance of loosing. Louis easily blocked his hit, but nearly lost his footing as he dodged it. The burly man swung rapidly, his sword flying left and right, and somehow Louis managed to dodge it each time.

Louis grunted when he was pierced in his side but gained the strength to fight again — striking a hit at William's shoulder. When William tried to block himself with his sword Louis striked at his stomach, causing William to fall back. The crowd gasped, gripping the bars of the gate.

It was right on the tree trunk.

Louis arched an eyebrow at the bigger man, a glint of mischief in his silver eyes. "Do you yield?"

"Never." William bit out. He smiled before plunging the sword through his chest. Harry flinched at the awful sound as Louis twisted weapon.

Everyone grew into a fit of laughter, seeming to take glee in the victory. The arbiter appeared solemn as he stepped onto the stage, raising Louis' arm, finalizing the win. Louis smiled bashfully in front of the crowd and the duel was finished.

Joffrey glanced at his little sister. "Well? Is that what you expected."

"A little," Harry muttered. "I didn't expect for anyone to die."

"Oh, he's not dead. It's for show, entertainment."

The princess nodded in understanding and they moved away from the stage. "I'm going to go get some drinks. You stay here." Joffrey instructed. Harry rolled her eyes as the older man walked away, toward the bar. She obviously wasn't going to stay there so she wandered off inside the house, pushing through people.

She heard shouting and furrowed her eyebrows, peeking through the corner. A small dark haired boy was hovering above William's body, dipping a cloth inside a pot of water. He dragged it gently across the wound on the older man's abdomen, a hiss passing through his lips.

"I'm sorry, sir." The boy muttered.

William sneered. "Who the hell did that Louis kid think he was pushing me on the trunk."

"B-But he didn't push you, sir. You said you did not want to yie-"

William slapped him harshly. "What did I tell you about talking back, Brennon." Brennon's bottom lip trembled slightly, but he sipped his nose, blinking a few times. "To not do it. I'm sorry, sir."

"Enough with the stuttering. Now clean my wound."

Harry furrowed her eyebrows as she watched Brennon finish before he grabbed a needle and thread. "Don't." The older man mumbled.

"But it will not heal properly. You'll grow a nasty scar and you could risk infection."

William snorted. "Does it look like I care? Just tape it."

"What're you doing?" Joffrey asked. Harry jumped in surprise, backing against the brick wall. "Nothing."

Her brother sighed and grabbed her by the elbow. "I told you about watching other people's conversations. And you were supposed to stay at the bar, we're going home."

⚜

The doors to the King and Queen's throne opened, the sounds of a soldiers metal boots hitting the ground. Desmond stared at the knight authoritatively as he kneeled before him. "Your majesty," he began. "The soldiers and I searched for the egg. It's in another kingdom, Donvador."

Lord Desmond grunted underneath his breath, his fingers drumming against the arm rest. "Did you look into the meadows?"

"Everywhere, your majesty. It's not there."

"Then we shall proceed into Donvador."

Anne looked at Desmond quickly. "Have you gone mad?" She whisper shouted. "You can get yourselves killed going into a different kingdom."

"Anne, this matter is nothing but your business. Send troops to Donvador at once, and extra protection for the home,"

The knight nodded submissively and stood to his feet. "You are dismissed."

Harry was in her knitting class with her sister and a few other girls that were high-class. They were lessons for advanced people, who were taught to become young women, cooking and clothing was a big necessity to learn in the class.

Joann, their teacher, always watched them closely to make sure they were well behaved women, just like they were being taught. If their posture wasn't straight they were hit against the back with a whip, that always left long gashes across their skin. Harry knew after experiencing a punishment when she was twelve, she never slouched ever again.

Today they were supposed to be knitting together a blanket. With a specific design, the symbol for Nymador. If they were to ever get a husband he would be gifted with the blanket, it was always an act of kindness. "That looks very beautiful." Joann complimented Gemma's way of knitting.

Harry pulled the thread through the green fabric, sighing under her breath. She had been working for the longest time now, her fingers felt numb. Delaris sneered quietly, leaning to her. "The nun favors your sister."

Harry tilted her head, frowning. "I don't reckon so. I think she just wants to get on her good side, Gemma's meant to own the crown."

"I think you'll be the first." Delaris said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Why so?"

"You're most likely to get a husband first. You're beautiful, and you have all the things a prince could ever dream of."

Harry blushed and looked down at her blanket. "You're going to distract me." She whispered. Delaris laughed, knowing that the girl had only said that because she was becoming embarrassed. Joann approached the girls, slapping her stick onto the floor. "What is so funny?"

"Nothing, Sister Joann." Delaris answered — but she was nothing but polite. "If you have a joke you should tell all of us. There are no secrets in this room."

"I said nothing." The blonde repeated. The doors to the hall opened, interrupting the conversation. "The Lord requests for the princesses presence," Their servant said. "And he also cancels all lessons for today."

The women in the room sighed disappointingly and Harry stood up, holding her blanket closely. Her eyebrows drawn in confusion. Kit cocked his head toward the door. "Come on."

Inside the throne room, Desmond and Anne sat, their mother holding a tall glass of wine. Harry licked her lips anxiously as she stepped up onto the ramp, walking toward her throne. It was never good news if the Queen was drinking, and she was clearly doing it at the moment. If their classes were cancelled and interrupted in the middle of session, it couldn't be good.

"Your blanket, princess." Kit said. Harry looked down at the yarn and smiled sheepishly, handing it to him. "I'll keep it safe for you." He promised. She mumbled a thank you and sat down, pulling the sleeves of her dress down.

"We were searching for the dragon egg," Their soldier said. "But instead we found this." Another man in armor dropped a body, causing a thump throughout the room. He turned the person over with his foot and a gasp nearly escaped Harry's mouth when she saw the face of the man.

It was Louis. He looked fine, but his clothes were torn and you could see subtle cuts through the holes, she was sure it didn't look so nice underneath. "We should burn his body." Anne suggested.

Harry's eyes widened. "No!"

"Then what do you suggest? There are diseases going around."

"I know him," She replied. "From the sword fight. He isn't diseased, in fact, I saw him. With another princess, I think he's of a different kingdom."

Gemma watched her sister, but she didn't seem convinced. Anne looked at her husband and the King hummed. "He does not belong here."

"I could just help assist his wounds. He can't go back home like that." Harry declared.

Desmond drew in a breath, pondering. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to help him, since Harry knows him," Anne stared at him as if he'd gone mad. "Roberta, draw him a bath, Harry will do the rest."

Harry smiled gratefully and stood from her throne, lifting the bottom of her dress.

⚜

Water trickled as she dragged a wash cloth across Louis' chest, frowning when she saw the wide gash near his collarbone. She touched it ever so gently — not wanting to harm him even in his sleep. There was dried blood around the corners, meaning it must've been there for a while. "Roberta, how did they find him?" She asked.

Roberta looked up from where she was warming towels for the 'prince' once he was done being bathed. "A horse came riding into the village right near the castle. They said he fell off the horse into the meadows."

Harry frowned and continued washing the man before he jolted awake suddenly, startling her. Roberta grabbed a broom from by the door, threatening him with it. Louis blinked rapidly, his chest rising quickly as he looked around the room before landing on Harry.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Roberta, please go." The princess ordered, dipping the bloodied cloth into the bath water.

"But your majesty, the Queen—"

"I said go." Roberta closed her mouth quickly and left the room. Louis stared at her puzzled, looking down at the red water. "How did I get here?"

"You were riding on a horse before?"

"No," Louis snorted. "I don't do horses."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "That's how they found you."

"Right... well I know I was nowhere near a horse," He quipped. "Or maybe I was.."

The princess scowled. "Now's not the time to make a joke. The King is going to question you, and my mother surely. You've fallen into our land and I told them that you're a prince."

"Now, why would you do that? You know I'm nothing of prince material."

Harry sighed. "You think? I was trying to help you so you wouldn't be beheaded."

Louis splashed the water. "I suppose that's better."

The princess rolled her eyes and squeezed the remaining of water out of the washcloth. "What happened?"

The older man sighed and leaned back on the bathtub, shutting his eyes as he relaxed. "I fucked some girl and her husband caught us. I'm not so good at fist fights so you can guess what happened."

Harry frowned. "Why'd you do it?"

"She's been one of my whores for a while now. She actually never even told me that she was married, but it's not my problem anyways. I just fuck who I like." Harry blinked as she listened to his explanation. She never heard such absurd obscenities come out of someone's mouth, being that she lives in a palace.

"Oh.. well your bath is finished. I can stitch you up if you'd like."

Louis nodded and she grabbed his towel that had been warmed, wrapping it around his body. "I haven't had such luxuries since... ever."

She giggled and lead him to the guest bedroom, ignoring the bemused looks servants gave her. She got him inside the room and requested he lay down while she prepared the tools.

When Harry approached him with a needle he scooted back on the bed. "Woah, what're you doing with that?"

"I need to stitch you up. You'll get an infection if I don't." Harry explained. She wiggled the the thread in her hands and pushed Louis down on the mattress, straddling him. "It'll only hurt for a moment."

"That's a lie, isn't it?"

Harry cracked a smile. "Possibly. I just want you to feel better, stitching can be agonizing but you'll be all better afterwards."

The swordsman hummed in acknowledgment, but didn't seem too convinced as Harry got the string prepared. It was terrible. The pulling of skin as the thread went through and needle stabbed him.

When she finally finished she pressed a bandaid onto the wound, mumbling an apology when he flinched. "I'll go get you some medicine." She announced.

"You don't have to do that." Louis complained.

"I insist," Harry pulled the handle to the door. "You'll feel awful in the morrow. Now, lay down while I prepare the herbs."

Louis grunted and fell back onto the pillow, pulling the thick blanket over himself.

#cisgirl harry styles #larrystylinson #fanfic #harrystyles #louistomlinson

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electrivolt · 1 year

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@rockheadcd asked : [ examine ] the dish left out for you in the absence of the man who quite literally picked you up in your pathetic state and took you home. he's been doing this for three days, now, consistently poking his head under furniture to find you, to smile, and then set some fresh food down despite your hissing and spitting. today's meal isn't any less delectable—potatoes, garden vegetables, a small scramble of eggs, and this time there are thin strips of seared tuna waiting for you at your leisure. why is he being so kind and thoughtful for something like you?

examine items / accepting.

So he has done it again. The plate he leaves not so far away is tempting, such fragant scent something you rarely, if ever, remember catching even just the slightest glimpse of. You know he has left already, nothing seems off or out of place in such a dish. There is nothing that smells off and all the ingredients look just fine ( even more than fine, don’t they? even if that might be the hunger speaking for you. ). There would be no harm in taking just a bite, much less when your stomach is begging you just as your body is— and yet you refuse, stubbornly keeping to yourself and your little hiding spots that were as safe as they could be.

... The fish is new, though, isn’t it? You don’t recall smelling this on the previous days. Has he really gone out of his way just to bring this to you? When you didn’t even try to touch the dishes from the last few days, no matter how starving you may be?

Why would he bother? He has no reason to care, much less try so hard to offer anything worthwhile, so why...? Is he really trying to earn your trust this badly?

( is it a trap? it would make things easier for him if he’s truly just like any other human, and yet— you know it’s stupid, isn’t it? so much work to pretend to be a good human when he could just... grab you as you are in such a miserable, pathetic state and do whatever he wants. but you cannot simply give up and trust so freely, can you? that would be all it could take to put you right back in a cage— )

> give up > look closer

How long has it been since you last had any sort of meal? Even the slightest scraps of something edible? Surely much longer than the mere three days you have been stuck here already, your aching stomach is already telling you that. There is no way you can go on for much longer like this, refusing to eat anything so readily available when you are already starving as is. What little pride you have left still wants to refuse— but you know well that’s not an option, not if you want to survive at all. Up close the dish... it does look even better than from your little corner. The smell hits you hard enough to almost make your head spin, no matter how simple it may be for a human. Your stomach is next to be heard, and you know you really can’t put it off any longer.

It feels so dangerous, and yet... you finally relent, reaching for one of those strips of tuna first, so hesitant and careful as you hold it between sharp teeth, pulling it out of the plate and closer, until you finally decide to dig in— and you tear it to shreds and scarf it down so desperately you almost choke on it. And then another one follows, and another and another until the fish is gone from the plate entirely before you can even realize it or stop yourself. You even ended up digging a lil bit into the rest of the dish in your desperation, didn’t you? And you almost want to keep going, too— the sudden wave of nausea is the only thing to stop you now, stomach feeling fuller than it has in... years, maybe. Maybe you ate too fast, maybe too much for your little size, you can’t really be sure when you hardly know what care is, can you?

Before the human can come back, you rush to retreat back to your corner, curling up right there against the cold floor and walls under furniture and hoping whatever you have that can still be considered fur will be enough to keep you warm like this. You could at least sleep a little more at ease with a full stomach now, and hope this wasn’t a mistake as you pass out once again.

#〔 ask . 〕 ϟ i will not fall ; i will not fade ; i will take your breath away .#〔 ic . 〕 ϟ i will shut the world away .#〔 gen.pact . 〕 ϟ greatest strength .#rockheadcd #// fuck you!!!!

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nastybuckybarnes · 3 years

Text

Promises, Promises

Pairing: Bucky X Reader

Summary: Bucky keeps his promises.

Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Language

Word Count: 1K

A/n: I’m feeling a lil down but that’s probably because of the moon and the equinox coming up. send movie recs cause I’ve got mad writers block still. I’ll be posting shit that I wrote a while ago so it might be garbage rat but oh well

Companion piece to Promise.

~*~

Five years.

Five painfully long years, where each day is just as bad as the one before.

Wakanda lost its leaders.

The Avengers lost half of their team, their family.

And you lost your other half.

The only man you’ve ever truly loved.

Five years is a long time to be without someone, yet every day something new reminds you of him.

More than once you’ve found yourself begging the Gods to bring you to him. If they won’t give him back, the least they can do is let you go with him.

But every time you’ve gotten close to the edge, his voice whispers in your ear to stop, that it’ll be okay.

And so far, you’ve survived.

Barely.

Steve comes to check on you every so often. In the beginning, he was practically living with you. Making sure you didn’t do anything rash.

But now you’re lucky if you see him once a month.

And if he’s on time, he should be here any day, now.

You’re in the back yard of your new home, fighting with some particularly stubborn weeds in your vegetable garden.

You wipe the back of your hand across your forehead, wiping away the sweat and leaving mud in its wake.

Since the blip, you’ve moved out of the house you shared with him, gotten a new place, and a job that understands deeply how much the snap affected you.

Almost all your free time is spent in your garden.

He’d wanted to start one for so long, but neither one of you got around to doing it. Now, it’s something you do for him. Something he could never do.

Thinking about him still hurts, but not nearly as much as before.

Steve says it takes time, but you don’t think any amount of time will stop this ache in your chest.

“Steve said I’d find you back here.”

You stiffen, heart skipping one beat, then two, before doubling its pace in your chest.

No.

It can’t be.

Can it?

You don’t turn around, far too afraid that this is just your mind playing tricks on you again.

“Sweetheart?”

It hurts. It fucking hurts and you shake your head to try and get the voice to go away.

You thought the hallucinations had stopped.

Tears well up in your eyes and you wipe your trembling hands on your shirt.

“Go away. Please. I-I can’t do it anymore. No more. Please.”

Your voice is a tired, broken whisper that absolutely shatters his heart in his chest.

Two hands are on your back, one warm and one cool, and you snap your head up at the contact.

Bucky.

You spin around and launch yourself into his arms, sending him sprawling onto his back in the grass.

“Whoa! Easy there, honey.”

You cling to him, sobs bubbling out of you.

“Are you real? Is it... is it really you?” You don’t want the answer, far too afraid that he’ll slip through your fingers like he did so often during that first year.

“I’m real, love. I’m real.”

You shake your head and push yourself off of him, crossing your arms over your chest and glaring at him through the blur of your tears.

“You promised! You fucking promised!” You spit the words with venom rivalling a viper, and he frowns at you.

He made you a promise and then he broke your heart, and now he’s sauntering back like nothing happened.

“I’m here, aren’t I? I told you, sweet girl, I never break my promises. Just... took a little detour on the way home, I guess. Sam wanted to stop for McDonald’s. Came back later than I thought but I’m here. I’m here now, baby.”

Your anger and betrayal are washed away by the tears of joy that fall freely from your eyes, and Bucky wipes them away with his thumbs gently.

He holds your face just like he did that day five years ago, and you can’t stop your bottom lip from wobbling.

“How... why... why now? Steve said...” You trail off, squeezing your eyes shut and shaking your head.

What Steve said doesn’t matter. He’s here now. He’s back.

He pushes himself onto his knees and pulls you into his arms, holding you tenderly to his chest.

“I’m here, honey. I’m here. Did you really think I could break a promise I made with my best girl?”

You don’t answer, your face smushed in the crook of his neck while you cling to him desperately.

So many years you wished for this, and now he’s here.

It feels far too good to be true.

He kisses the top of your head with a heavy sigh then slowly pulls away to look at you, wiping some dirt off of your face.

“It’s okay, my love. It’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay. I’m home now. And m’not gonna leave you. Not again.”

You sniffle and look into his eyes.

“But what about... your team? Your family?” He shakes his head and cracks a soft smile.

“You are my family. And... I wanna start my own team. Me, you, and a buncha chubby little babies.”

You let out a wet laugh, shaking your head at him.

“You can’t just... quit.” He nudges his nose against yours gently then presses his forehead to yours.

“Already did. I’ve been fighting for almost eighty years now. I deserve a break. Fought in the Second World War, the first intergalactic space war, the second intergalactic fucking space war. I’m done. No more fighting. No more war. Just me, my best girl, and our fat babies.”

You shake your head again and smile, holding onto his wrists with your muddy hands, but he doesn’t care how dirty you get him. All he cares about is having you in his arms now and forever.

“You’re really here? To stay? Y-you promise?” He nods, his own eyes getting teary at the hope in your voice.

Your heart is so full of love and longing and optimism. And this time he’s not gonna break it.

He grasps your hands tightly in his then switches his grip, linking his pinkies with yours and pressing his lips to yours softly.

He takes a moment, re-learning the way you feel, the way you move, then falls into a familiar pattern.

Kissing you is like muscle memory. He could get his memory wiped again and again, but he’d never forget how it feels to have your pillow-soft lips against his.

“I promise.”

#bucky x reader #Bucky Barnes x reader #bucky x reader au #bucky x reader fluff #bucky/reader #bucky/you #bucky x you #Bucky Barnes x you #bucky x reader angst #bucky/reader angst #bucky x you angst #Bucky Barnes fluff #Bucky Barnes angst

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

🧿🤠🐇🍲🍯: Lan Wangji does not think it’s safe to raise A-Yuan in Cloud Recesses after the Lans participated in the killing of his zhiji and the entire Burial Mounds community (or more accurately that it’s not safe while he himself is in seclusion and can’t watch over A-Yuan, at least) so he delivers A-Yuan to the one person who he knows did not stand against Wei Wuxian (and got away with it, bc this person has never stood against anything, since standing takes effort): Nie Huaisang.

Little Side Door - ao3

Nie Huaisang’s rooms in the Unclean Realm had a little side door that no one but him ever used.

They hadn’t originally. The Unclean Realm was a fortress, designed to maximize protection and defense; there was no better place for keeping things safe by locking them away. While it had its fair share of boltholes and escape routes, they were not common and universally difficult to access lest the enemy learn of them and use them to their advantage. Even the layout of their open spaces were carefully planned lest the attack come from the sky, a concern that only cultivators had, and not about how they themselves could escape – after all, weren’t they all Nie, ready to die rather than endure dishonor?

The little side door that led to Nie Huaisang’s room opened onto a small rock garden, left to grow wild with weeds rather than reveal its presence to more people. It existed only because his brother had ordered it constructed by those he trusted most, all in secret in the dark of the night. He had never explained why he had gone to such lengths to create such an unwelcome and inauspicious place, but then, he hadn’t needed to – Nie Huaisang had been there, too, when his father had descended into madness and they had been trapped in the familial quarters with no way out that did not take them through him. If his brother had been the one to brave his father’s rage directly, Nie Huaisang had been the one stuck in a small space that was only not claustrophobic because it was so painfully familiar.

Now, though his father was long dead and gone, Nie Huaisang had a little side door.

A little side door, and a little garden that almost no one knew about; in combination with the saber that his brother forced him to learn and the golden core he had so begrudgingly formed, he now had a way to reach the sky and the illusive freedom it represented – the freedom to flee and leave his home behind.

If it ever happens again – his brother had said once, the closest he had ever come to speaking of it.

He did not finish his sentence, as Nie Huaisang had thrown his plate into his face and stormed off, steaming mad and close to tears. He did not raise the subject a second time.

Nie Huaisang did not often use his little side door.

Although he enjoyed gardens, he preferred the aviary he’d constructed, or one of the myriad of well-tended gardens in the main part of the sect; even the vegetable gardens out back beside the kitchens were far more welcoming than that sparse straggle of land. He’d only ever spent time there when he was a child and in desperate need of some quiet, wanting to avoid adults with their arguments and their miseries; he’d taken some friends there because he thought it might impress them, but it hadn’t, and anyway his brother had put a stop to that soon enough.

He didn’t even think about the little side door, most days. It was just a part of the room, a small tucked away corner with nothing in it. Nothing to think about.

And then, of course, years after he’d put it out of his mind entirely, there came a terrible banging noise at that little side door, like someone was kicking at it furiously from the outside.

Nie Huaisang nearly fell over sideways in his scramble to get up, and then once again when he realized where the noise was coming from – almost no one knew about his side door and its little garden, and so no one had ever come to him through it. Who would be knocking now…?

He opened it.

Lan Wangji, white robes stained with blood and cheeks bright with fever, shoved something into his arms. “You have a child now,” he said through bitten lips. “Congratulations. He is called A-Yuan. I entrust you with his care, for my sect cannot be trusted with it.”

And then he turned and staggered away, mounting up on Bichen and flying off before Nie Huaisang could say anything – before he could even finish searching his memories and recalling that yes, in fact, Lan Wangji had been one of the friends he had shown the side door to, years and years before, and thus knew how to find it. Before he could even start processing the thousands of thoughts that had spring to life, fully formed, at all the information he’d just received: the bloody robes, the desperation, the reference to the Lan sect – the Lan sect! – being somehow untrustworthy…

He looked down at his arms.

“Congratulations,” he echoed blankly. “I have a child now.”

The child blinked up at him, and then smiled.

“Da-ge!” Nie Husiang howled, rushing into the sect leader’s study where his brother was doing work – luckily it wasn’t receiving hours and he wasn’t in the main hall, as that would have been unfortunate. “Da-ge, you have to help me! I have a child now!”

His brother stared at him, expression blank and mouth slightly agape. The brush in his hand dripping ink onto a now-wasted piece of paper.

“Huaisang,” he said after a moment. “What the fuck.”

Nie Huaisang nodded furiously.

“Where did you get – how – who – what did you do?!”

“I am currently unable to disclose any details,” Nie Huaisang said promptly even as his brother tossed aside the brush and got up, striding over with a storm brewing in his face. “All I can say is that I have to raise this child now. By which I mean, you have to help me raise this child now; I can’t raise children! I’m not mature enough to raise a child!”

“No kidding! Why would someone entrust – to you…” Nie Mingjue trailed off, looking down at the child with a frown that shifted from disbelieving irritation to concern. He pressed his hand to the child’s forehead. “Huaisang, this child has a high fever. We need to get him to the medical wing at once – is that blood?”

“Not his, I don’t think?”

“I don’t want to know,” his brother decided. “Move.”

Some time later, they were both sitting next to the bed in one of the spare rooms in the family quarters; Nie Huaisang thought it might even have been the same one that he’d used when he was very young. A-Yuan was sleeping, and Nie Mingjue was still holding his little hand in his own, having been clocked as the oversize comfort animal that he not-so-secretly was from the very first moment A-Yuan laid eyes on him.

The doctors had declared A-Yuan’s fever to be very severe, but they had applied plenty of medicine – the Lan sect might have more esoteric healing techniques, but there wasn’t anything like the Nie sect when it came to standard medicine for injuries and illnesses associated with the battlefield, and despite A-Yuan’s tender age Nie Huaisang would be willing to bet that his injuries were from a battlefield. They were confident that A-Yuan would make a full recovery, body and mind both intact, although they warned that his memory of the past might be impacted.

Nie Huaisang had thought about all that blood that wasn’t his, of Lan Wangji pale-faced and wild-eyed, and decided that a little bit of forgetting might not be so bad after all.

“Are you going to tell me anything more,” his brother said after a while. “Or should I just give up now?”

Nie Huaisang leaned over and patted his knee. “It’s good that you know your limitations.”

His brother rolled his eyes.

“I can’t believe this is my life,” he remarked.

“What part?” Nie Huaisang asked, curious. “The fact that we have a kid now, because obviously we’re keeping him? Or the fact that someone gave a kid to me?”

“Both,” his brother decided. “Definitely both.”

“His name’s A-Yuan,” Nie Huaisang said. “Apparently.”

“Well,” his brother said. “Obviously that won’t do.”

Nie Huaisang had the ability to be sneaky when he wanted to be. It wasn’t a matter of stealth, he had explained to his brother, but sneakiness– a completely different concept. Stealth suggested that he was doing something to conceal himself and required skills and talent, or else a lot of practice, and obviously Nie Huaisang was not going to go in for either of those.

Sneakiness, though…

He didn’t need people not to be able to see him in order to be sneaky. He just needed them not to care about him, or wonder where he was.

“Psst,” he said, knocking on the window to the rooms where Lan Wangji was purportedly practicing seclusion. “Psst! Lan Zhan!”

Lan Wangji had given him a child. They were definitely past the ‘Lan-er-gongzi’ stage.

“Lan Zhan!” he rapped at the window with his fan. “We need a courtesy name!”

There was some sounds from within the jingshi, mostly stumbling around. Nie Huaisang waited patiently, and after a few moments the window opened and Lan Wangji stared out at him. He was as pale as a ghost with lips as red as blood, and very clearly not in seclusion at all, but rather in the midst of healing whatever wounds had left him bloody – he probably shouldn’t have gotten out of bed to answer.

Oh, well. Too late for regret now.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Lan Wangji said, voice dull and eyes blank as he stared at Nie Huaisang. It was unclear if he meant in the Cloud Recesses generally, or here in particular, interrupting his ‘seclusion’.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Nie Huaisang said, scowling at him. “We need a courtesy name! A courtesy name for the child, you hear me? You know, of course, that Qinghe Nie don’t use personal names, not even for children – certainlynot for children older than their first year. It’d be a complete giveaway that he’s not organically ours if we call him something like A-Yuan.”

Lan Wangji raised a hand to pinch his nose. “Please go away.”

“Courtesy name, Lan Zhan. I mean, I may be the one who’ll be raising him, but please think carefully: do you really want meto be the one naming him?”

“…call him Sizhui.”

“Sizhui,” Nie Huaisang repeated. “With the characters…?”

Lan Wangji nodded.

“Uh, no,” Nie Huaisang said. “I need a bettercourtesy name. Are you joking?”

“Nie Huaisang. Go away.”

“But –”

Lan Wangji slammed the window shut.

“…fine,” Nie Huaisang said to the closed window. “Be that way, see if I care. Not like we don’t need to build up a decent coparenting relationship or anything eventually.”

He thought he heard a choking sound from behind the door and smirked.

“Don’t you think you can baby-trap me and just walk away, Lan Zhan,” he said in his best ominous tone. “If you wanted someone to raise your kid without ever consulting you again, you should’ve dropped him off in the Lotus Pier with Jiang Cheng, who’d probably be too busy being confused to even question where he came frome – but no. You came to me. I don’t make decisions in the best of times, least of all good. I have questions. A lot of questions.”

He thought about it for a moment.

“Not about how you got him or anything like that,” he said. “I’m not stupid, I can tell a secret when I see one. But, you know, other types of questions. Parenting stuff. Are you a ‘go sit and think about what you’ve done’ sort of parent? Or more traditional discipline, with copying lines and occasionally strikes when they’re naughty? Do you want him to learn the Lan sect rules along with the Nie sect principles –”

There was a muffled sound from inside the house.

It sounded angry.

“…we can talk about it later,” Nie Huaisang decided. He might’ve pushed his luck a bit too much. “Talk later!”

“You have a…what?” Lan Xichen asked, his smile a little fixed and stare a little wilder than normal.

“A nephew!” Nie Mingjue gushed. “Isn’t he wonderful?”

“Nephew.”

“He’s so well behaved, too! He plays quietly by himself most of the time, drawing and even writing a little, and Huaisang’s already teaching him how to play the dizi –”

“When you say nephew, do you mean Nie Huaisang’s child?”

“Do I have other brothers?” Nie Mingjue rolled his eyes at him. “He’s obviously not yours. Anyway, I know Meng Yao is expecting one, too, but he wouldn’t be dressed in Nie colors if it was his, would it?”

“Yes, but…are you telling me that…that Nie Huaisang…”

“It’s a battlefield child, Xichen,” Nie Mingjue said patiently. “Obviously. Someone entrusted him to Huaisang.”

“Oh,” Lan Xichen said, looking relieved. “Yes, that makes more sense…wait.”

Nie Mingjue waited.

“Someone entrusted him to Nie Huaisang?”

“I know, right?” Nie Mingjue said, and Lan Xichen didn’t notice how strained his grin had suddenly become, or how thoughtful his eyes were as he surveyed Lan Xichen as if trying to find an answer to a question. “I would’ve assumed they’d go for someone more responsible, like you. Guess you never know…”

“I guess you don’t,” Lan Xichen agreed, looking down at the child with a bemused expression. A battlefield child, entrusted to Nie Huaisang… “They must have been truly driven to desperation.”

“Perhaps,” Nie Mingjue said, and then changed the subject to little Nie Sizhui’s accomplishments, of which he could list many at great length and very great enthusiasm. By the time he was done with that, Ln Xichen was so overwhelmed that he didn’t ask a single other question.

“So I’ve got an idea on how to do this whole co-parenting thing,” Nie Huaisang said, cracking nuts to eat. He was sitting next to Lan Wangji’s bedside, and dropping the shells straight on the floor, too, staring dead-eyed at Lan Wangji as if daring him to say something – which he wouldn’t, of course. “Since with Sizhui starting classes soon it’s become much more urgent, on account of me needing you to attend meetings with his teachers and discuss his progress.”

Lan Wangji looked deeply long-suffering. He’d only invited Nie Huaisang inside because Nie Huaisang had threatened to start shouting out his business loudly on account of oh but Lan Zhan, how was I to know if you could hear me in there, I just had to raise my voice just in case because I wouldn’t want you to miss any of the extremelyimportant news –

It was all Lan Wangji’s fault for being born earlier than Nie Huaisang, Nie Huaisang thought virtuously. It was merely Nie Huaisang’s lot in life to fulfill the role of annoying younger brother to everyone.

“See, it’s the music,” Nie Huaisang continued. “You do music, right?”

Lan Wangji’s ice-cold glare suggested that he did, in fact, ‘do music’.

“So your brother has been playing this song for da-ge on a regular basis,” Nie Huaisang explained, ignoring the glare entirely. “And when he’s not available, which is most of the time nowadays, he’s been sending san-ge instead. Even though, of course, poor san-ge’s so busy back at Lanling all the time…ughh, it’s so unfair, you know! Poor san-ge has to do all the work of being the heir and gets none of the benefits, and they pile even more work on him on top of that – really, he gets no respect.”

Lan Wangji’s expression suggested he didn’t care.

“And think about the inconvenience to us!” Nie Huaisang sallied forth, undeterred. “People coming and going all the time, da-ge having to interrupt his schedule of spending quality time with me and Sizhui – and sect leader work, of course, though that’s less important – in order to march over to greet them and host them and listen to them…what a pain it is!”

Lan Wangji appeared on the verge of suggesting that Nie Huaisang consider getting to the point.

“So you should come do it instead.”

Lan Wangji’s expression cracked, suggesting that Nie Huaisang had actually managed to make an impact.

“You remember,” he said, voice low and a little hoarse from all that refusing to speak he’d been doing. Really, if Nie Huaisang wasn’t around to goad him into it, he might’ve lost the voice entirely – he didn’t even have little Sizhui around to force him to speak! “That I’m in seclusion. Right?”

“You’re horribly lonely is what you are,” Nie Huisang said briskly. “You require company. Therefore, coming to take up a semi-permanent posting in the Unclean Realm to play the Song of Clarity for my brother morning, noon, and night is clearly the finest way to solve all of our problems, and for you to see little Sizhui as often as you like.”

Lan Wangji visibly wavered. “My brother,” he said, then coughed. “My brother will never believe it.”

“That’s your problem,” Nie Huaisang said. “Find a way to sell it.”

He stood, shaking the remaining shells onto the chair.

“See you in Qinghe soon, Lan Zhan..!”

Lan Wangji was trying to kill him with his mind, Nie Huaisang thought happily as he wandered off with a whistle and a vaguely silly expression. Good – he’d been inside for too long. He needed the stimulation.

“Truly,” Nie Mingjue remarked, strolling around their gardens without any apparent notice of the small child perched on his shoulders, giggling wildly at the feeling of being tall, “I feel far better than I did before! One can scarcely compare it – night and day, really. Your Lan sect’s Song of Clarity is a marvel, even if it does take a while before it kicks in.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said, walking slowly with his hands behind his back. He was still unsteady on his feet on account of the absolutely horrific injuries he’d incurred – but if the Lan sect’s response to everything was seclusion, seclusion, seclusion, then the Nie sect’s equivalent response was exercise. These little excursions through the gardens were the result.

Thus far, they were still only doing laps around the main gardens, but Nie Huaisang had plans to eventually force Lan Wangji to go even as far as his own little side garden. He’d made it through his side door once, after all; why not a second time..?

At any rate, Nie Huaisang still wasn’t quite sure how Lan Wangji had talked Lan Xichen into allowing him to come to the Unclean Realm, but it really did make the whole co-parenting business a lot more convenient. And his brother had had so much fun making Lan Wangji stiff and awkward over all his thanks and praise for his decision to come ‘help out’ with Nie Sizhui’s raising until finally, at last, Nie Huaisang had taken pity and revealed that Nie Mingjue knew perfectly well whose battlefield child this was.

Both in terms of who had gifted him to Nie Huaisang, and who’d adopted him originally, and of course even his original surname – The little tot’s been through enough adoptions to make anyone’s head spin, his brother had said, his voice gruff as always. There’s no point in thinking back too far, is there?

Lan Wangji had been very relieved.

“Run, bobo!” Nie Sizhui cried, pointing over at a bird. “We need to get it for Sang-gege!”

Nie Mingjue snorted like a bull but obediently quickened his feet and left the rest of them behind, heading in full charge straight at the wild pheasant that was far more likely to end up on Nie Huaisang’s plate than in his aviary. It was about even odds which one Nie Sizhui meant, anyway.

“Nie Huaisang,” Lan Wangji said, his voice low, and Nie Huaisang looked at him. “The Song of Clarity does not take time to work. These effects should have happened at once.”

Nie Huaisang opened his fan, hiding his face as he frowned. “How odd,” he said. “And after san-ge put in all that hard work.”

“Perhaps he played it wrong.”

“Odd,” Nie Huaisang said again. “When san-ge gets so very little wrong…has your brother sent any word on the Xue Yang issue?”

“…he has not.”

“He’s going to need to pick a side eventually.”

“He does not want to make things difficult for his sworn brother.”

“Does he have only the one?” Nie Huaisang asked archly, and Lan Wangji averted his gaze. “It’s awkward for us if he doesn’t back us, and is a bad look besides…truly, it’s a wonder that san-ge managed to squeeze out the time to come here.”

Lan Wangji’s frown deepened. “Indeed,” he said. “One would think his father might be tempted to stop him.”

“Wouldn’t you just?” Nie Huaisang said. “Wouldn’t you just…you know, maybe when you’re feeling better, we should go visit Lanling ourselves.”

Lan Wangji glanced at him, arching an eyebrow, and Nie Huaisang smiled, fanning himself casually.

“I’m not the only one with a little side door,” he said. “Let’s go knocking and see what we find, shall we?”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #lan wangji #lan sizhui #nie mingjue #lan xichen #my fic #my fics #little side door

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heliads · 3 years

Text

Never Trust Your Friends

Y/N might have feelings for Newt, the newly arrived blond runner. Newt might have feelings for Y/N, the second in command who’s been in the Glade longer than anyone except Alby. When Minho and Alby assign them both to work together on a project, they’re sure it won’t end well.

masterlist

If he were smart, Newt would not be staring. He would be focused on his friends, on the bubble of chatter surrounding him. He would most certainly not be staring at the girl and boy across the Glade who stand together, speaking in hushed tones. They’re leaning against a wall of the Homestead, exchanging words as their eyes cut across the Glade, lingering on different people. Alby gestures towards the scraggly woods of the Deadheads and says something, Y/N nods and counters his point. But Newt doesn’t know any of this, because he is decidedly not looking at them. Not at all.

There’s a laugh from behind him, and Newt belatedly turns to see Minho striding up next to him. “If you spend any more time focusing at Y/N instead of your food, Frypan’s going to burst into tears.” Newt glares at his friend. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Minho just grins. “I’m sure you don’t. Are you obsessed with Alby instead? Is that why you keep looking over at them?” Newt shoves Minho, but the dark-haired boy just laughs harder.

Maybe Newt’s not exactly being subtle. Yet even after Minho walks away, still chuckling quietly to himself, Newt’s gaze flickers back to Y/N and Alby. Their heads are bowed in conversation as they talk over every aspect of life in the Glade. Alby’s first in command and Y/N is second, and between the two of them, they’ve managed to make life here in the Maze make sense. At least, as well as you can when you’re a group of teenagers living in a giant bugging labyrinth.

Alby was the first one to show up in the Glade. Newt can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to arrive in the Box, utterly alone except for the shrieks of the Grievers at night. Y/N came up next, and the two of them had to figure out how to survive with no one else around. They don’t trust anyone as well as they trust each other, although that’s no surprise. They had each other’s backs when nothing made sense, and their friendship has only grown as more and more people arrived at the Glade.

Some days, Newt wonders if he could have been able to do the same- show up in the Glade with only one other person and not lose his bloody mind. No matter how hard it was, how many times they came close to giving in, Y/N and Alby still managed to set up the Glade and all of its rules, which have lasted the months until now. Newt came up a couple months after them, and he’s been able to watch as Y/N and Alby shape the very lifestyle of the Glade.

Somehow, it doesn’t surprise Newt that Y/N and Alby were the first ones sent up through the Box. He doubts anyone else could have managed the daunting task of running the Glade and keeping everyone in line. Newt can still see them now, where they always meet at the end of the day to run through everything that happened and make mental checklists of what needs to be accomplished tomorrow. Newt is lucky he’s a runner- all he has to do is keep moving. Y/N and Alby have to consider the wellbeing of every single one of these poor shanks, and Newt just wears holes in his trainers alongside Minho.

Newt stands up, stretching. He hands his empty plate to Frypan, heading back towards the Map Room to make sure the day’s run has been properly catalogued. Just before he disappears into the only half-completed wooden hut, Newt glances over his shoulder one last time. A slight smile appears on his face when he sees Y/N. Of all the Gladers, she might just be his favorite.

You’re considering a tomato plant in front of you when you first see them. Today, you’ve been directed to work with the track-hoes: some slinthead was fool enough to mess with the builders and now he’s spending the day under the watchful gaze of the Med-jacks. There are barely enough track-hoes as it is, so you’ll be filling in the spot until the guy heals sufficiently to garden once more. That’s the role of a second-in-command, you suppose, doing whatever needs to be done.

The tomato plant in question is finally ripe. You’ve been eyeing it for a couple of days now, and you think it looks good. You reach for a makeshift basket, propping it up on your hip while you pluck the crimson red vegetables (or is it fruits?) from the stem. A sudden movement beyond the rows of plants distracts you, and you look up to see the figures of two boys running through the Glade, having just left the towering walls of the Maze behind them. Newt and Minho, done with their day’s work as Runners.

They spot you and smile, and you raise a hand in greeting. You do your best to look casual, effortlessly cool, but you’re not sure that you’ve succeeded. Your eyes linger on Newt for maybe a second longer than they should, and you watch as the boys head towards the Map Room while their path is still locked in their memory. You thought no one else was around to witness the blush creeping onto your cheeks, but if there’s one thing you should have learned throughout all of your months in the Glade, it’s that nothing will ever go your way. Ever.

Alby leans a hand against the tomato plant in front of you, startling you from your thoughts. You do your best to quell your flinch of surprise, but it’s no good. He’s already grinning with barely suppressed laughter. “I thought you were supposed to be staring at the tomatoes, not the Runners.” You hit him with your gardening glove, but it does nothing to staunch the gleam of triumph in his eyes. “Am I not allowed to greet my friends? Should I turn my back and ignore them instead?”

Alby crosses his arms on his chest. “I didn’t realize greeting your friends involved watching the blond one from the second he entered the Glade.” You look around frantically, making sure Zart and the others can’t hear you, before reaching to swat Alby once more, although this time he’s expecting it and dodges out of the way. He frowns at you. “Hey, rule number two. Never hurt another Glader. I thought you were the one who came up with that.”

You shoot him a look. “I wrote that rule before you started making fun of me. If you’re not careful I’ll revoke it.” Alby shakes his head. “Afraid not. I outrank you.” You mutter something under your breath. “Not if I get rid of you first. I’d have to replace you.” Alby just grins. “If you kill me, you’ll have to explain a homicide to Newt. How would he like you then?” You can only hope that Newt is still in the Map Room, because otherwise the blond boy would see you chasing a laughing Alby out of the gardens with an outraged shout.

It’s a new month, a new day. Newt hears the loud alarm of the Box before he sees it show up, and he and a few others make their way to the center of the Glade to see what new Greenie has been brought before them. He and Minho had managed to get through their section early, so they get to witness the arrival of the latest Greenbean along with the others. About ten minutes later, there’s a shuddering jolt as the Box locks into position.

Newt helps the others fling the doors to the Box open, and just like clockwork, a boy lies on the ground, flung back by the force of the Box coming to a stop. He squints up at the Gladers lining the edge of the Box, blinded by the sunlight. Gally jumps into the Box, offering a hand and the usual declaration- “Day one, Greenie. Rise and shine.”

The Greenie looks as confused as anyone else. He’s tall, with dirty blond hair and a faded off-white t-shirt. The guy’s apparently got the chops to be a runner, as he takes off in a sprint the second his feet touch the ground of the Glade. He doesn’t go far, though, too stunned by the looming walls of the Maze to leave the grassy clearing. Later, Newt hears him shout out his name in a stunned gasp- Ben, Newt thinks he said.

Some Glader arrives to take the Greenie on a tour, so Newt turns his attention back to the Box and the crates awaiting attention within. Newt sees Minho head over to Alby, and the Runner says a few words in a low whisper. Identical, crafty grins spread over both of the boys’ faces, and a sudden feeling of dread rolls over in Newt’s stomach as the boys glance over at him. Alby steps forward. “Okay, you know the drill. Time to check the contents of the Box. This time, the lucky shanks will be, uh, Y/N and Newt.”

Newt stares at Minho in barely suppressed outrage, while his friend does his best to contain a laugh. Newt can practically read the boy’s mind- You won’t talk to her yourself, I’ll do it for you. After a second’s hesitation, Newt strides over, jumping down into the Box and landing with a mild impact on the metal floor. Y/N leaps down a few moments after him, and Newt can hear the sound of the other Gladers returning to their usual jobs above them. Within seconds, it’s just Newt and Y/N in the Box. What is he supposed to do now?

The only thing he can do is what Alby asked him to do- unload the crates of supplies. Y/N pulls a worn pad of paper from her pocket, flipping to a fresh sheet and beginning to jot down the contents. Newt helps to pry open some boxes, checking what’s inside and reporting back. After the fifth box or so, Y/N groans, leaning against the cool metal walls of the Box as a reprieve from the boredom of the tasks. “Shuck, I hate Greenie Day.”

Newt smiles in spite of himself. “Because of the Box or because of the greenie?” Y/N glances over at him. “Both. Too many boxes, and now some new guy’s going to follow me around all day asking questions.” Newt leans over a nearby crate, trying and failing to drum up the energy to continue cataloging the supplies. “Hey, you made Alby go take the tour with the Greenie. That puts the majority of the questions on him.”

Y/N smirks at that. “It’s what he deserves for making me do manual labor.” Newt frowns. “You work with the track-hoes all the time.” Y/N flashes him a grin that makes Newt’s heart freeze in his chest. “That’s different.” Newt returns her grin. “Is it, or are you just complaining?” Y/N sticks her tongue out at him, but she stands up and continues on to the next crate. “I’m ignoring that.” When she hands him another box, their hands touch briefly, and Newt’s distracted from all thoughts of greenies and track-hoes or anything in this bloody Maze. Maybe Minho isn’t so bad after all for sending him down here.

You’re going to kill Alby. There’s no question about it. You’re going to kill him, and there’s nothing he can do to stop you. He knew exactly what he was doing when he sent you down here, and that triumphant smirk on his face when he announced you’d be working with Newt was just the icing on the cake. Of course he’d send you down to the enclosed box with the boy you’ve been crushing on since he arrived here- Alby’s out for blood. Why would he pass up such a golden, perfect, absolutely ruthless opportunity?

It’s all you can do to focus on the crates. You’re gripping the pad of paper like it’s a lifesaver, and honestly, it just might be. Every moment that you spend meticulously copying down the supplies is a moment that you don’t spend looking over at Newt, and the way his golden hair flops down just slightly over his eyes, or the way his arms move when he’s lifting the boxes, or that slight curve of a smile when he looks over at you-

Yes, there’s no question about it- you’re absolutely smitten. If you weren’t sure before, you’re positive now. You do your best to focus on the work at hand instead of the unfairly attractive boy next to you, but it only does so much. That being said, there are enough crates to last far longer than you’d want. The light of late afternoon is shifting into dusk, and by the time Newt is tossing the final crate out onto the grass of the Glade, it’s dark enough that the walls of the Box seem to melt away into the dimly lit air.

Newt stretches his arms. “Well, I’m glad that’s over.” You can’t help a joke. “I can’t wait for next month.” He frowns. “You’re the second in command, aren’t you? Just write us out of this job in particular.” You roll your eyes. “Even second in commands have to follow the rules, even if I’d rather break them.” Newt grins, leaning casually against the wall. “I’ve seen the amount of stuff you and Alby have to handle. I think it would be alright if you skipped out on Box duty every now and then.”

You consider him for a second. “I like the way you think. Honestly, I think you would make a good second in command. If you ever get tired of being a Runner, the position is always open.” Newt shakes his head. “What about you? I can’t take your job away.” You shrug. “I’d step aside for you. You’re the only one in this entire Glade that I think could handle it.”

Newt straightens up, stepping away from the wall to move closer to you. “You mean it?” You stare at him, at the few inches separating him from you. “Yes. I trust you.” Newt nods slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. Then, as if on an impulse, he leans forward and kisses you. You barely have a moment to realize it’s happening before he breaks away, something like regret beginning to color his eyes. “I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry-”

You cut off his whispers by kissing him again. This time, he doesn’t lean away, not for a while. The two of you stay there, arms wrapped around each other as the darkness falls fully against you, until the lights of the bonfire begin to blaze through the night. Newt smiles down at you, eyes shining with the starlight. “We should probably go before Minho and Alby come to see why we’re taking so long.” You laugh at that. “I’d hate to give them the satisfaction of being right.” Newt shares your laugh, then bends down to kiss you one last time before jumping out of the Box. You watch him as he stands there, silhouette barely visible against the dark, and when he extends a hand down to help you up, you take it without a second’s hesitation.

#newt #newt imagines #newt x reader #newt oneshot #maze runner #maze runner imagines #maze runner x reader #maze runner oneshot #maze runner newt #maze runner newt imagines #death cure #scorch trials #tmr #tmr imagines #tmr x reader #tmr oneshot #tmr newt #tmr newt imagines #tmr newt x reader

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1kook · 4 years

Text

EXPLORER

jjk x female reader

FOR GCN’S ❝ 23 | JUNGKOOK BIRTHDAY PROJECT ❞ ! Alien AU | “I want to have your last name!” | “I like when you do that, it makes me crazy.”

summary; Jungkook does not want to impress the frankly tyrannical ways of his planet on you. He just wants to stay here and keep your couch warm for you, hold your hair back when you wash your face in the morning. warnings; smut in the forms of cunnilingus, loss of virginity, unprotected sex, anal, tit play, and all that jazz bc surprise its tentacle porn rating: mature (18+) miscellaneous; FLUFF, strangers to friends to lovers, curious alien kook, there’s a saber tooth tiger mention, virginity is a social construct, they both have skewed perceptions of sex and love, and idk what else word count; 17.8k

notes; someone said once “all u ever do is write college aus 😃” and i was like lol true but i was also a virgo and was like “i’ll prove u wrong” and next thing i knew i was writing a 17k alien au clap for me lads

special thanks to; my savior and editor rumu ( @kigurumu ) who very politely tells me when im making up words n also when shit doesn't make sense but lets me make stupid final decisions that will come back to bite me in the ass<3 and also my gf yeji @suqakoo who watched me crash and burn about ten times while writing this monstrosity of fic and just laughed her support amazes me<3

BEFORE READING SEE HERE; body marks, under eye marks, sixam that i stole from the sims 4

He comes with the sole purpose of populating this uncharted territory with his seed.

Jungkook has been on many missions abroad. He’s visited about every planet in Sector 76 before this, the largest collection of neighboring galaxies known to exist. And because of that, he likes to think he’s well educated in extraterrestrial affairs, quite knowledgeable in the barbaric ways of the foreigners. They see, they mate. Pretty simple.

For the past couple years, as leading field researcher of Sixam, Jungkook has been exclusively studying every creature he comes across. He enjoys cataloging their habits, their mating cycles, and the unique culture they develop, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.

Granted, he’s never been on a mission like this.

This type of mission has never been his.

When the great planet of Sixam wishes to settle colonies of new species— Sixamian bred with whatever other species that have deemed suitable —they usually task people like Namjoon or Seokjin, both high ranking generals of the Sixamian Intergalactic Corp. with a near immaculate genetic makeup. Their genotypes carry strong traits, and are oftentimes most reflected in their phenotypes as well. Beings like Namjoon or Jin are the epitome of what it means to be Sixamian, which is why Jungkook is surprised when they ask him to place his seeds on Planet 43 Z-7 of the Via Láctea solar system, otherwise known as ‘Earth.’

It wasn’t that Jungkook had major self image issues, nor did he think he was particularly bad to look at. In fact, Jungkook thinks he’s pretty amazing. Of course he doesn’t compare to Namjoon or Jin, but quite frankly, the comparison is skewed by the fact he works in a different field than them. You cannot compare black holes to asteroid belts; in a similar fashion, you cannot compare military generals to scientific researchers.

Anyway, Jungkook has never been to Planet 43 Z-7, but some of his coworkers have. They all claim it is a beautiful place, filled to the brim with life and culture never before seen.

Frankly, Jungkook doesn’t believe it.

He’s seen hundreds of planets, thousands of species, so he hardly feels amazed anymore. There is nothing enjoyable about other planets when he comes from Sixam, quite possibly the most intellectually advanced one in the universe. And he says this having met Yoongi of Planet 732 T-1, another being near immaculate in terms of cognitive abilities.

But not as perfect as Sixamians.

Hoseok says Planet 43 Z-7 has all sorts of unique artifacts, like these edible arrangements called ‘hot dogs’ you eat between two pieces of raised yeast. Planet 43 Z-7 has been unmarked for eons now, but is a popular hideout for rebelling Sixamians during their early years. Jungkook was never one of those types, but he has a handful of friends who were.

Needless to say, Jungkook isn’t looking forward to his mission. He asks Namjoon and Jin for tips on how to approach the reproductive members in the species, if there’s any protocol he needs to follow, but they simply laugh it off. They’ve both had the pleasure of, well, pleasuring some of the most beautiful creatures in the universe, so Jungkook’s incompetence must be a sight to see.

Airship handler Jimin is the last face he sees on Sixam. He’s as relaxed as ever, strapping Jungkook into his travel pod like this is just another one of his research trips and not his first ever population operation. He pats his shoulder once, tells him to bring him back something called a ‘Nintendo DS’ that his partner Taehyung has been begging for since the last time they went to Planet 43 Z-7, but Jungkook has no idea what that is.

And then he’s off.

Jungkook has long since grown comfortable with the emptiness of space, a desolate feeling that oddly made him feel at home. But, as he hurtles towards his destination, there’s a newfound sense of anxiety that consumes him at the thought of this unknown planet— this ‘Earth’ that his fellow Sixamian friends speak so highly about.

He lands in a field. Well, ‘lands’ is a bit of a stretch; his pod comes to a stop a few feet above Planet 43 Z-7’s surface, hovering over the natural flora that seems to grow in abundance in this part of the planet. It’s… dirty, compared to the sleek skyscrapers and glowing structures of Sixam.

He steps out tentatively, the vegetation crunching beneath the boots of his skintight spacesuit. The folks back at Sixam had told him that whatever the residents of this planet breathed in was compatible with Sixamians, but he still hesitates to click off his helmet.

The planet is quiet, save for the quiet chirping of some creature underground. The AI on his helmet pulls up the information before his very eyes, the advanced technology quickly tapping into wherever it was these beings stored their information. A mole cricket, he reads, first documented by a researcher about two hundred human years back. Very annoying.

His pod seals itself shut again, presumably heading back into orbit until Jungkook calls for it again. With it gone, he’s faced with the vast nothingness of Planet 43 Z-7, just grass and trees with very few things in between. He’s beginning to suspect Jimin might have sent him to the wrong coordinates, a void space on the planet with nothing but vegetation for miles.

Part of him is frustrated, beyond annoyed that he cannot even complete the one thing he came to do if there is no being in sight. But another part, the part of him that had been nervous to even accept this mission, feels grateful. Well, there was no use complaining about it now, he thinks. He pulls up his virtual journal, ready to catalogue every bit of vegetation he can set his eyes on.

After a while, his helmet becomes stuffy, the digital screen that plays over the glass piece fogging up with his breath. So Jungkook takes his chances and clicks it off, the sudden wash of oxygen filling his lungs quickly. It’s fresh and moist? It smells like his laboratories back on Sixam, the ones that took years of countless trips around the universe and meticulous gardening to cultivate. Yet here on Planet 43 Z-7, this type of phenomenon is common, and apparently, ignored by its residents.

One man’s trash was another man’s treasure, he supposes.

He’s scanning a peculiar organism, reddish and dome-shaped, when he hears the first crack of a twig. Immediately, his defenses rise. Jungkook was by no means a skilled warrior, but most Sixamians fared better than other creatures in the universe. Save for the few barbarian, primitive species they’ve encountered, 9/10 times any wild encounter was in their favor.

His eyes scan over the perimeter of the field, scanning, scanning, scanning— until he spots two, huge, glowing yellow eyes from distance. His eyes widen, flicking on the retractable blaster from his wrist and pointing it at the creature.

It’s bigger than him, with eyes that look over only a short distance before gradually dying down. He wonders if that’s the scope of its field of vision, crouching down along the vegetation. He creeps closer, rounds the bright beams until he can see the creature’s side, an oddly shaped thing, almost like a shell. It has wheels, he realizes, mentally jotting down the fact this species is advanced enough to develop such technology on their own.

Right as he’s beginning to lower his wrist, deciding this metal creature posed no threat from its lack of movement, something smaller moves around it, carrying a compact version of those glowing eyes.

Jungkook panics, wildly clicking through the modes on his wrists. He jumps from his blaster to the thermal detector, and the smaller creature that moves around the metal beast has a heat signature he’s never seen before, warmth that begins at its core but doesn’t drop drastically as it fans out. And then he’s switching to his electroscope and is startled to see that the smaller creature even carries an electric charge beneath its outer membrane.

This is terrifying, he thinks to himself, wondering why his friends back home had decided to trick him into believing Planet 43 Z-7 was remotely safe.

Before Jungkook can act rashly and accidentally kill that terrifying creature, he’s blindly stepping into a hole in the ground, a dip in the field. An uncontrollable yelp tears itself from his throat at the roll of his ankle.

Immediately, the yellow eye is upon him, flickering over his kneeling form in the vegetation. Jungkook freezes, caught in the all-seeing rays of the yellow eye. He wonders if this is the end, the end of an undoubtedly legendary run, as the creature slowly approaches.

Its figure is shrouded, the blinding eye turning them into just a silhouette that closes in on Jungkook fairly quickly. He squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he never stepped out of his pod, when the beam flickers off.

“Hello?” a hesitant voice calls out, and then he’s met with you.

You had always believed holding out until marriage would come as an advantage. You played it safe your entire life, always did what you were told. You had grown up in a relatively traditional household, always following the rules like a good kid. Your parents said no dating until seventeen? You waited until seventeen. Your health classes in school said practice abstinence? You practiced abstinence.

Following the rules was what got you into a prestigious university. Following the rules is what got you your first, quite admirable, job. Following the rules is what had gotten you into your first serious relationship with your boyfriend, who became your fiancé, who would become the man to cheat on you three nights before your wedding.

Being a virgin— that symbol of purity —was supposed to make you desirable to men, you thought. It was supposed to protect you from bad experiences, keep you perfectly polished until the time came. You had many a friend who had engaged in sex at a young age, experienced mind blowing sex that would never be topped, even by their own future husbands. You had saved yourself from disappointment by saving yourself in general.

Except that concept, that meticulously followed tradition, was what ultimately drove your fiancé away.

Three days.

Three days before you would marry and lose that treasured thing you had been carrying around for the past twenty-five years, flushed clean down the drain all because he couldn’t wait any longer. He had managed four years with you, four memorable years where he had religiously told you he loved you every chance he got, regardless of your lack of sex life. Just to blow it for some barely legal chick at a bar.

Needless to say, you were done. Absolutely finished with him and your friends who claimed they “weren’t surprised” only after the fact, or your parents who had urged you to try again. You were done with this saving and waiting all for a man who ultimately did you dirty. You needed to get away from it all, and the only way to do that was to leave the city all together.

Your parents were uncomfortable with the idea. They said it was too brash a decision to give up after one try. But your whole future had been riding on this one try, and to have it completely ripped away from you crushed not only your hope but your pride.

On the other hand, your grandmother and her lifelong experiences with men understood you just perfectly. She was old, living in a retirement home near your parents’ home in one of your city’s many suburbs. There was a house out in the countryside, about a two-hour drive from the city. She had grown up there, and even though she hadn’t lived there in years, she simply couldn’t bring herself to sell it off. So she gave it to you.

It was a cute little thing, a stereotypical farmhouse surrounded by miles and miles of nothingness. Well, your neighbors were about half a mile off on either side, but who was walking half a mile for a cup of sugar? No one.

You loved it.

It was peace and quiet, long days of focusing on yourself and your tiny garden outback. There was no societal pressure to act right, or forced ideologies to make yourself the ‘perfect woman.’ It was just you and a stray cat that visited now and then, spending day after day reading and writing, working from home.

The trips into the city were far and few between. There was a general store close to your house, nestled into a quaint little town you visited every so often. And the mailmen still had to make their stops through here, so everything was practically at your fingertips. The only thing you had to do in the city was drop by the main branch office of your job. Your work had mostly been over a computer before, so moving to work at home was rather easy. However, there was still the occasional board meeting to sit through.

So here you were, three months into your new living situation and on your way back home from the city. The evening sun is beating down hot on your yellow Beetle. You were in desperate need for a check up, but you kept pushing it off and telling yourself tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. It seems tomorrow should have been today, because by the time the sun is setting, home is still another thirty minutes away and the temperature gauge is climbing to unhealthy levels.

The Beetle pushes for another two minutes before wheezing to a stop in the middle of nowhere, your angry slaps against the dashboard doing nothing to revive it. With a muttered curse, you switch the car off. The front lights remain on even as you round the dead car, angrily kicking the tire with your heel. It doesn’t budge.

You sigh, sinking down to your knees beside the opened door you came out of. The nearest mechanic was still a forty minutes’ drive from here, and you doubt anyone is still open. The con of small towns is that most of the businesses close after sunset. One glance at your phone lets you know it’s way too late to call anyone for help. You contemplate just walking to your house, but it’s dark and far, and your heels were only meant to be worn for an hour or two during your meeting. Not for an entire transcontinental trek back home.

Sighing, you decide your best bet is tinkering around yourself. You weren’t a total idiot, so you hope whatever is wrong with your car is something you can fix on your own. You shoot back up to your feet, patting the blood back into your face as you round the car.

There’s nothing but you and the Beetle for miles on end— or so you think.

Just as you flicker your flashlight over the expanse of grass, there’s a startled shout that scares the living daylights out of you, flashlight fumbling in your hand in your haste to see what it was.

Great, so not only were you stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing but your heels to carry you to safety, but now there was also a man out there, hiding in the tall grass like a voyeur.

It’s a terrible idea, but you approach him anyway. There’s a huddled figure, a gleam of a bizarre outfit that has you shaking in your heels as you step closer to the edge of the road. And when you finally get close enough, the light shining over their figure, you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking at.

“Hello?” you call out, and are met with the most violet eyes you’ve ever seen in your entire life.

Jungkook thinks you are an odd creature.

To begin with, you carry an electrical charge at your fingertips but are unable to revive your rickety metal ride with said touch. It is undoubtedly a trait he does not remember cataloguing in any other species before yours; it might rival the Sixamians’ aura sensing abilities, the little triangular markings beneath their eyes that allowed them to alter another’s emotions. Electricity beneath surface, he mentally notes for the nth time that night.

The inside of your vehicle is disgustingly mediocre, a mixture of old clogs and pipes he’s only seen in ancient Sixamian textbooks. Still, they’re devastatingly easy to figure out. One simple twist of a lid later and your car is revving back to life. You squeal and clap, clacking around on the frankly terrifying footwear you call heels that are practically knives as stilts.

Amazing, you cry, moving like a mini tornado around him. You don’t seem the least bit phased by his appearance, despite the initial shock you’d gotten when you first made eye contact. Actually, Jungkook thinks you might be the quickest extraterrestrial being to accept his existence as fact. He has to wonder what exactly goes on here that has these Humans, as Jimin has called them, so desensitized to the appearance of otherworldly figures such as himself.

You invite him into your moving death trap, not the least bit concerned with the chest piece of armor he removes and tosses into the seats behind him. Jungkook has been in a lot of near death situations, and somehow your manner of driving this metal box marks high on the list.

“My home,” you tell him when you finally pull up to a tiny shack of a house. It’s about the same size as his personal lab back on Sixam, so he wonders just which one of you is being deluded by the size. The car engine shuts off with a practiced flick of your wrist, and then you’re making your way up the front steps without sparing him a glance.

“Lovely,” he says at the entrance. He moves to travel deeper inside, but you warn him to remove his shoes. He does, hesitantly, bare feet padding along the wooden floors behind you. “Forgive me,” he apologizes, watching you bumble around a small space with a standing cooler and heat box. “I haven’t asked your name.”

You hum, tugging out two cups from a hanging cabinet. You fill them with a white substance, followed by a light brown powder that almost makes you sneeze, before shoving them into the heat box that begins suspiciously counting down. “__ ___,” you offer.

Jungkook frowns. “You have two names?” he asks skeptically. In Sixam, rarely anyone had two names. “Are you a government official?”

You laugh. “No, but I do work for an office. I have one name, and then my last name,” you explain.

This only perplexes him more. “A last name?” he repeats. “What is the purpose of this last name?”

You shrug, and the heat box beeps loudly. Jungkook twitches, ready to aim his blaster once more but you calm the beeping box with a gentle click that has the front opening, the most heavenly scent wafting into his nostrils. Oh Jungkook definitely needed to take that back. Much to his surprise, you hand him one of the handled cups, the sweet smell making his eyes roll into the back of his head.

“Well,” you say, seemingly unaware of the way you just changed Jungkook’s entire life. “I have my name, and then I have my family’s name. Like, to show we’re in the same group, kinda,” you explain. “And it also helps sort of differentiate you from other people with the same first name.” You settle down on a seat in front of the counter, carefully blowing across the liquid contents of the mug. Jungkook doesn’t get why until he tries to take a sip and the liquid scalds his tongue. You laugh. “Gotta cool it down, silly.”

He feels silly. In fact, he feels beyond embarrassed that someone who is not a Sixamian is looking at him with the same eyes you look at an infant with. He has a strong need to reinforce his superiority over you.

“Well I am Jungkook,” he announces proudly. “Jungkook of Sixam. The only Jungkook of Sixam, because we do not believe in sharing something as intimate as our names with another,” he huffs. You scoff, a genuine look of amusement crossing your features that Jungkook simply does not understand.

It’s with a practiced grace that you set your cup down on the counter, face coming to a rest in in the palm of your hand as you watch him talk over himself about the intricacies of Sixamian names, and how each one is carefully selected at one’s first celebration to honor the first long year of life they overcame. That look on your face, that disgustingly entertained expression does not melt away, even when Jungkook hastily calls your people imbeciles to your face.

“Yeah, well,” you shrug, staring deep into the contents of your hot cocoa, as you had called it when offering him a second cup, as if you don’t seem to disagree in the slightest. “Humans are like that.

There’s a quality to your voice, a rather melancholy tone that curls around your words that stops Jungkook’s tirade against your race for a moment. There’s a look in your eyes, hollow and alone, that he cannot place. He wonders if it’s from past experiences or from a shared Human trauma. Either way, he does not understand.

It’s with a shake of your head that you look up at him again, sweet smile back on your features. “Humans are selfish creatures, Jungkook,” you say.

He is not sure if he believes you.

Jungkook has traveled to many parts of the universe, has visited places your tiny Human brain may never comprehend. Yet he has not always received this treatment. There have been missions where he has been picked on and abused for his curiosity, rudely ejected back into the vast emptiness of space just because he wanted to know more, learn more. Not every planet welcomes him with a soft smile and a warm place to stay.

Despite the initial unimpressed confusion he felt upon entering Planet 43 Z-7, there is something about the quirk of your lips and gentle tapping of your fingers that intrigues him.

Huh, he thinks, subconsciously cataloguing your mannerisms in his head. He will write about this later.

You let Jungkook sleep in your quarters, a small area with a mattress that he sinks into with delight. There’s a change of clothing you set out on the edge of the bed, a rather shabby set that matches yours. He is reluctant to peel away his bodysuit, even more so when he realizes he is standing naked on a foreign planet with a very strange creature clattering around downstairs. He hurries into the clothes.

You peek your head into the room later on, carefully flicking off the lights as he settles onto the mattress. Jungkook is beyond tired, body fatigued from hurtling thousands of light years through space in such a short amount of time. The abundance of breathable oxygen is still something his body has to grow accustomed to. Your voice is soft as you whisper out a goodnight farewell that he can only sleepily mumble back.

Jungkook is quite literally the most gorgeous person you have ever seen. Well, person is a stretch considering you’re not entirely sure what he is, or where he’s from. When you found him, sadly crouched in the middle of nowhere, you wanted to convince yourself he was some random college boy lost on his way to a costume convention. But he’s not. His big purple irises are oddly bright, practically luminescent, and that’s definitely not something one could achieve through stage makeup. And he’s not a college student either, despite how youthful he looks, but a foreign being at least three times your age.

Or so he says.

Honestly, you’re torn between wanting to write him off a nutjob or believing he is this highly intelligent extraterrestrial being. In the case he is the latter, you find it odd that of all the planets in your solar system— a whopping eight, maybe nine —he chose crappy old Earth to visit.

Jungkook moves like a fine tuned instrument, graceful limbs wandering around your home and backyard the next morning. His little head piece, a unique accessory that wraps around the base of his skull like a microphone headset or something, seems to keep him in constant communication with his fellow brethren so long as he wears it. So he wears it all the time.

Still, you’re able to differentiate between his messages back home and his mindless mumbles. Those usually happen more often than not, soft muttering as he inspects your garden, vivid descriptions of the plainest things like an onion.

“Lemonade’s ready,” you call, stepping into your backyard. Jungkook peers over your rosemaries like a bunny, wide eyes scanning the pitcher you set out on your back porch’s table. Carefully, he steps around your meticulous rows of vegetables. He’s wearing the clothes you lent him last night, a pair of shorts and a shirt your brother had left when he visited a few weeks ago. They fit him nicely, shorts just shy of his knees.

“This is lemond-aid?” he asks quizzically, tentative hands reaching for the quickly perspiring glass. He has unique markings that begin at his hands, twisting and curling carefully around his arms. They’re gold in the sunlight, contrasting softly against his relatively peachy skin. There’s a matching set on his knees that wrap over and around his thighs, beneath his shorts. He looks every bit the celestial being, yet here he is marveling over the lemon slice balanced on the rim of his glass.

“Lemonade,” you correct, sitting down on your rocking chair. Your floppy sun hat protects you from the brutal rays of the sun, practically scorching in this summer heat. It reminds you of the honeymoon you were supposed to take a few months back. You stomp out the memory.

Jungkook takes tentative sips, stopping every few seconds to smack his lips at the taste. Then, suddenly, he’s plopping down on the wooden planks of your porch criss-cross applesauce. The bracelet-like contraption he had removed from his suit is sitting on his wrist by itself, with Jungkook rapidly tapping some unseeable button on it until a blue hologram appears between the two of you.

“Woah,” you gasp, the projection flawless and stable. Jungkook gets to work tapping at it, unrecognizable symbols appearing on the screen. His glass of lemonade is by his knee, ice tinkling inside.

“Lemond-aide,” he repeats, mouth moving awkwardly around the world. He glances at you for confirmation. You shake your head. Frustrated, he scoots up beside you, pressed against your leg like a puppy. “Say it,” he commands, tapping at his screen once.

You clear your throat. “Uh, lemonade?” you offer. Jungkook nods, clicks something else, and then your voice is repeating itself back to the two of you. He looks for your approval once more. “Perfect,” you nod, slightly bashful to hear your own voice played back like that.

Content with your approval, he gets back to work, clicking and typing wildly at the screen until it’s filled to the brim with those strange symbols. When he’s done, he says his name and date into the same recording device and shuts off his hologram. “It is an interesting thing,” he says quietly, bare feet swinging over the edge of the porch. “A sweet drink procured from a tangy fruit.”

You nod, can’t stop the smile that consumes your features at his childlike wonder. You know it’s not his fault that such simple things astound him, but there’s something about Jungkook’s genuine curiosity and snarky tongue that make you feel young again. Like a teenager in her prime, sitting with a silly high school boy. Not a woman sitting on the cusp of thirty, alone and untrusting of the world.

“What are hot dogs?” Jungkook cuts in abruptly, turning to face you with those purple eyes of his. You can’t help it; you laugh.

“I have some in the fridge,” you answer, leaving your rocking chair and him on the porch. Jungkook doesn’t sit still for long, quietly trailing behind you inside the house. The stray cat is here today, slinking around your ankles as you scour the fridge for the hot dogs. It’s a perfect day for a barbecue, you think, with hot dogs and lemonade.

The cat wanders over towards Jungkook, sniffing at his ankles before nuzzling against him too. “You also have smilodon on your planet,” he comments. “You are comfortable with such murderous beasts in your home?”

You furrow your brows. “It’s just a cat,” you shrug, leaning down to pick up the furry baby. He purrs against your chest while Jungkook glares at it.

“Have you taken its teeth for your own?” he asks.

“What?” you laugh. “He has all his teeth.”

Jungkook frowns. “No, his unusually large canines,” he explains, mimics two giant fangs with his fingers. “Is this a kitten of a smilodon?” You have no idea what he’s saying at this point, rubbing the cat’s back gently as Jungkook talks over himself. He does that a lot, you realize, ramble about facts you would otherwise see as of little importance.

The afternoon is spent grilling hot dogs, Jungkook carefully trailing the cat he has taken to calling Smilodon. You watch from the grill as he follows the cat around the garden, gently shooing it off when it gets too close to your broccoli plants. He’s cute, you think, watching him maneuver around your plants with the grace of a trained dancer.

He absolutely adores the hot dogs, spending another twenty minutes typing out one of those funky journal entries into the computer in his wristband. He asks about the Nintendo DS, something that makes you laugh boisterously at the absurdity of the question.

When it gets dark outside, he stands in one place and stares up at the sky, rendered motionless at the sight. Jungkook doesn’t like coffee, but he loves hot cocoa. He settles in to watch the nightly news with you, every five minutes filled with an abundance of questions about your planet— which he refers to by a unique set of numbers and letters you’ve never heard before —and what you like to do. Every tidbit of information is documented in his wristband.

He sleeps on the couch this time, feeling shameful to have pulled you away from such an amazing mattress. He says goodnight shyly from the bottom of the stairs, followed by a tentative wave he saw you give the mailman that morning. You say it back and fall asleep, the alien in your living room not making a peep.

Thus a whole week passes with Jungkook of Sixam.

On the seventh day of his stay, Jungkook is woken up by the quiet beeping of his headpiece. It’s Chief Kim Namjoon, calling to ask how his population operation of Planet 43 Z-7 is going. Jungkook stills, the quiet chirping of the birds outside your window filling in the space. The water is running somewhere inside your house, signaling your conscious state.

His answers are quick and sharp, nervous laughter falling from his lips as he rushes to end the call with Namjoon. He manages to do so just as you appear in the living room, skin nice and dewy from your morning shower, eyes still showing signs of your peaceful slumber.

“Good morning,” you rasp quietly, a soft ruffle of his hair as you pass by Jungkook on your way to the kitchen. His face feels warm, under eye markings surely glowing a vivid red at the gesture you have gradually ingrained into him, one that makes his heart rev up like an engine preparing to shoot off millions of light years into the distance.

Jungkook enters the kitchen behind you, your pet smilodon greeting the two of you with a gentle head butt against his ankles that is unlike any other smilodon he has encountered before. He sits at the counter as you work on breakfast, the faint scent of your cucumber body scrub wafting by with every turn you make in the small kitchen.

And then he’s thinking.

There are a few crucial bits of information that Jungkook has come to realize over the past week, some of which he hears directly from you, others he picks up from watching your ancient projection in the living room.

One: of the variety of human genders that exist on Earth, you are one that seems to carry the specific set of bodily structures necessary for reproduction. He’s inspected you carefully the last few days, watching the way you move and carry yourself, just to ensure such is true. By finding you right away, Jungkook was halfway to his goal of settling his seeds on Planet 43 Z-7.

Two: unlike most humans of Planet 43 Z-7, your body seems oddly… preserved, to say the least. He knows you are familiar with their reproductive rituals as he’s watched a few of said rituals on the projection box in your living room with you. They were very normalized among your people, with almost every broadcast including at least one mention of them every day. Despite that, your body shows no significant reaction to the scenes, and one sneaky scan of your vitals shows Jungkook that you have yet to participate in this ritual yourself.

Lastly, Jungkook has come to the terrible, godawful conclusion that he does not wish to rope you into breeding with him for the sake of Sixam’s colonialist ways. There’s something about you and your people that does not deserve to be seized by Jungkook and his people. A sort of untouched quality of the progression of your species.

As the oldest and most advanced planet in quite possibly the entire universe, Sixam holds significant power over everyone else. Their higher order brains have helped many a planet follow the right path in attaining the same level of perfection. They were saviors of some sort, touching every planet they visited with the finger of a god. While there were certainly some Sixamians who did not believe in this way of life, of stretching their hold across entire galaxies, others did.

Jungkook had always fallen in the middle. He had no particular desire to reign over the planets he visited, because his interests had always laid with the existence of the individuals on said planets. He was a researcher, not a military official like Namjoon or Jin. But he has to admit that time and again his research has procured the same results; while there were certainly other planets where the beings were more beautiful or the landscape more stunning than that of Sixam, there was not a single planet that matched their advanced mental capabilities.

Until now.

Your civilization moved in a rather fluid way, always changing and never settling. There were eras he learned about on TV, revolutions where one invention rose to prominence, where one sub-race rose to power. Even now, a simple scan through your news broadcasts leaves Jungkook curious. For the first time in a long time, his countless journal entries of information do not lead him to a plausible conclusion. Would you make it right and settle your disputes? Or would this endless fighting, sometimes carried out passively and through words, other times with the use of advanced weaponry, continue until the end of time? Jungkook didn’t know.

And it was wrong of him to ask you to carry the burden of introducing an entirely new species— a Human and Sixamian at once —for the sole belief that it would somehow “fix” your planet. For the sake of your people, it was best if Jungkook just bugged off.

And yet, the soft scent of your body lotion, the gentle brush of your hands against his scalp, the delicate way his name rolls off your lips like you’re tasting it for the first time, they all make his heart beat unnaturally fast beneath his skin. They make him yearn for a feeling, an emotion, he cannot quite describe.

He was in trouble.

Ovulation creeps up on you early into the next week.

You hadn’t been too focused on it this time around, mostly just worried about your period and how awkward it would feel around Jungkook of Sixam. Preoccupied with stockpiling pads and finding your heat pad, you forget about the few days before the period. The time where your libido rages like an animal that has been poked at one too many times.

The realization dawns on you slowly. Jungkook is sitting on the couch, avidly watching a documentary on ancient civilizations. He’s got one hand in a bowl of popcorn you set out for him, another mindlessly toying with a stray thread on a throw pillow. It’s when he looks at you with those big purple eyes, lips pouty and pink, that something distinctly carnal flickers on inside of you.

You ignore it. You wrap those feelings in a box and shove it deep into the recesses of your mind.

But Jungkook was devastatingly handsome, that much you’d known from the moment you saw him. When he’s not in the sun, those Sixamian markings wrap around his body in charcoal streaks, peeking out from the hem of whatever clothes you find for him everyday. For the most part, he’s been running through the pack of plain shirts you picked up from the general store, and the same two pairs of shorts on rotation. His body is artfully toned, thighs big and bulging, but waist small and tapered. His lower lip is the juiciest pink color you’ve ever seen, plush and soft, framing two rows of pearly white teeth. His hair is jet black, part favoring one side more than the other.

His hands are firm on the rare occasion he touches you; on your hips when you stumble around the kitchen, on your shoulder when he’s pointing out a particular constellation to you. Jungkook’s presence slowly begins driving you to insanity.

The worst thing is, you cannot tell if his curiosity comes from your status as a potential partner or his overall interests in your species. You want to convince yourself that he is just as interested in your body as an individual as you are his, but those hopes are dashed with every question he asks. Where does the sink drain? Where does the chocolate powder come from? How far is the nearest government official?

So you calm your thoughts, push them away with the same practiced ease you’ve mastered from a young age. Your purity remains untainted by others, only teased in the shower when Jungkook is wandering around outside. Then and only then do you offer yourself a reprieve, press your fingers down between your thighs and wonder what it is like to have someone else there.

You picture two purple eyes peering up at you from below, a pink tongue carefully licking against your puffy folds until you’re shaking. How well endowed was a Sixamian? You didn’t know, but you imagine them to be quite big if the subtle shifts you catch of Jungkook every now and then are any sign.

One finger wiggles past the tight ring of muscle surrounding your hole, the intrusion makes your knees buck. You sink along the shower wall, huffing and puffing as your fingers dance along your swollen clit, thumb swirling hurried circles around the bud until you’re cumming, body spasming from the force.

The water rains down on you, washes your shameful acts down the drain. Vaguely, you wonder if Jungkook is still outside or if the heat drove him into your air conditioned home. Did he hear you? For all his curiosity, you’re certain there are some aspects of the human experience that Jungkook did not want to see. His roommate/caretaker/only-human-friend masturbating was probably one of them.

It has been years since your fantasies included any other man, faithfully revolving around your ex-fiancé until the very end. It is scary how quickly the mere idea of Jungkook riles you up, how that violet gaze is enough to tear you apart.

When you resurface in the living room, the house is still. The only sounds are that of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the occasional creaking of the pipes. Jungkook is still outside, you sigh in relief, catching his fluffy head of hair bounding across the front yard with Smilodon on his heels. When he turns, you catch his eyes and he pauses. He offers you that same cute wave he learned last week, gentle smile gracing his features.

It’s the soft curve of his cheeks, eyes crinkling at the corners, that make the rapid thumping in your chest settle. You raise your hand, waving back through the window. All was well.

For now.

The next morning brings with it an overwhelming sense of anxiety. Namjoon calls him again in the morning, and this time Jungkook cannot skirt around the truth. He hurriedly tells his friend of his findings, of the beautiful society that flourishes on Planet 43 Z-7, and the never-ending personalities he has the chance of encountering. There is an author fansign, you told him, of a book he thoroughly enjoyed taking place next week. There is a woman in town who can fix any technology sent her way. There is a group of children who pass by and sell you food, these flattened things called Girls Cout Cook Ease. There is so much to see and so much to learn that it has Jungkook unconsciously projecting his excitement via his under eye markings.

You come downstairs mid-call, smiley and ditzy. You were normally a bubbly person, but this much excitement can’t possibly be yours. It’s the sign Jungkook needs to settle down, but Namjoon offers him one too.

Much to his chagrin, he warns Jungkook against getting too comfortable, tells him to finish his operation and scram as quickly as possible. The Higher Sixamian Court does not take kindly to Sixamians becoming enamored with other planets, especially if they are as advanced as Jungkook claims them to be. He’s rushing out information, begging Jungkook to finish or abandon his mission, anything but stay too long, and before Jungkook can respond, their comms are abruptly shut off.

He’s left blankly staring at your coffee table, Namjoon’s caution ringing loudly in his ears.

After the effects of his accidental influence wear off on you, you shake yourself awake, confusedly glancing around the place before shrugging it off. “Morning,” you say, the same as ever, patting his head softly. Jungkook watches you begin your daily routine, the kettle running on the stove as you get to work preparing his hot cocoa.

For a moment he wonders what it’s like to be like this, to live like this. Free from the standards of Sixam as you go about your morning. There is no drive in you to conquer everyone, no overwhelming need to ‘fix’ those around you. You exist by yourself in this tiny house outside the city, like a moon always circling but never interacting. He knows you have your own circumstances that drove you here, issues where you suffered that same grueling past of people forcing ideas and beliefs upon you as Jungkook. But now you’re here, housing an extraterrestrial being such as himself without any payment.

He wants to be like you.

He wanders over towards the kitchen, returning your sleepy smile when you catch his gaze. Jungkook likes this. He enjoys seeing you in the morning, still trailed by the remnants of sleep, with skin tender to the touch. The smell of cocoa filling his nostrils, the chirp of the birds outside your window. He likes Smilodon and the mailman, and the woman half a mile from here who brought you peaches the other day.

Most importantly, Jungkook likes you.

Not as a breeding partner or convenient hostess, but as a person. Your laughter makes him feel warm inside, like he is genuinely appreciated as is. You’re gentle with your words, and even more so with your touch; hands pat his head, hold his arm when he stumbles too close to the garden.

Jungkook does not want to impress the frankly tyrannical ways of his planet on you. He just wants to stay here and keep your couch warm for you, hold your hair back when you wash your face in the morning.

He wants to remain beside you.

It’s a little stuffy inside your house today, a problem you solve by cracking open the kitchen window. A nice breeze flows over the two of you, pushing the scent of the cocoa and your coffee his way. But a sweeter one follows, something thick and earthy that rolls off of you in waves. Jungkook squeezes his eyes shut, tries to ward off those sounds he heard from you just yesterday afternoon.

Those whiny sounds, airy whimpers that had drifted down from upstairs. A wet squelch that had registered a little too loudly to his superior ears. It had haunted him last night on the couch, made Jungkook twist and turn until the fuzzy image of you relieving yourself went away.

Jungkook wanted to help with that too. He wanted to put his hands and his mouth in places you needed him most, pleasure you like you deserved.

But how could he tell you all this and more? Did he even have the right as an invader to profess his infatuation to you? This Planet 43 Z-7, this Earth, was filled to the brim with interesting things, yet you remained at the very top of Jungkook’s list. He couldn’t leave, not now, but he couldn’t stay either. His entire presence in itself was a ploy to spread his seed, a fact you continued to be unaware of.

Namjoon’s words bounce around his brain, twist and wrap around him until he’s shakily reaching for his mug. He couldn’t stay here any longer under this false pretense. He couldn’t lie to you another day, another second more. He was tired of being a sheep. It’s with this conflicting resolve that he commands himself to confess this to you at once.

So he spills it all out to you.

From the complex history of the Sixamians to his assignment of this mission. You listen quietly as you munch through breakfast, nodding along to each new point he brings up that changes the story. He tells you about the population mission, about how he was sent here to spread his superior genes over the land, but how he’s let that sit on the back burner while you taught him all sorts of new things. If you are unimpressed with Jungkook and Sixam, you don’t show it.

“So you came to... breed?” you ask when he has finished, hands neatly folded on your lap. Breakfast is finished, plate scraped clean.

Jungkook nods shamefully. “I was asked to contribute to the reconstruction of Planet 43 Z-7,” he says, repeating the practiced reasoning every Sixamian has heard at least once in their life. But in front of you, it makes him cringe.

The grandfather clock in the hallway clicks along quietly, the soundtrack to Jungkook’s desperate read of you. Your eyes are focused on the plate before you, lost in thought at the abundance of information he has just thrown on you. He could easily switch his influential abilities back on, brighten your mood like he has been taught to do with countless other species since the beginning of time. But it feels wrong to subject you to that, to strip you of your emotions, even if it would save him the discomfort.

Instead he sits in silence.

Jungkook waits patiently, even though every fiber in his being is telling him to get up and make a run for it. Escape before he can see a look of disgust aimed his way. But he has come to value your opinions as equal to his, and the thought of leaving you by yourself does not sit well with him. So he waits.

It takes a few minutes of contemplation before you grace him with an answer, nervously rubbing your hands over your thighs. “I understand, Jungkook,” you exhale tightly. “But I don’t think I’m the partner you are looking for.”

“No! I was not— It was not my intention,” he stammers, waving his hands all over the place in his hurry to explain. He sucks in a sharp breath. “I do not wish to force such a burden on you, __,” he manages, “I would not do that to you.”

He is about to pat himself on the back for his save, when suddenly the corners of your lips take a sharp drop. “Oh, I see,” you mutter, arms self consciously wrapping around your frame. “So you don’t see me as a suitable partner?”

Jungkook’s eyes widen at your drawn conclusion. “No,” he chokes, and your frown deepens. “I mean, yes, I do see you as a viable partner to engage in reproductive activities,” and now he’s spiraling, the surprised look on your face only fueling his pea-brained ramblings, “I just—I assumed you did not enjoy that?

His excuse sounds so unbelievably weak even to his own ears.

“What made you think that?” you ask. At the rate this conversation is going, Jungkook fears his brain will soon fry itself out.

His mind is a spinning mess, like the inside of a vacuum that rumbles and turns with each new thought that enters. What was he supposed to say? That he’s heard you in your most intimate moments, moments where you hid from him? Or that he’s done countless scans on your body when you weren’t looking and came to the same result every time; that result being that you have never been touched by another before? And what was he supposed to draw from these conclusions if not that you abhorred such intimacy?

“I-I heard… you,” Jungkook admits quietly. “And, I felt your emotions. They were nervous.” He does not need his thermal detector to feel the heat that floods your face. “I did not want to impose on such a fragile moment,” he continues. “And I apologize if my actions have made you uncomfortable.”

“No, no,” you wave off, pressing the back of your knuckles to your cheeks. “I apologize for doing something so inappropriate with you in my house.”

Jungkook’s brow furrows. “Do you not enjoy participating in sexual activities, __?” he asks curiously.

You gulp loudly, obviously startled by his question. Which part of it, Jungkook doesn’t know. He nudges your knee with his, urging you to answer. A shaky exhale, and then you’re rambling. “I-No, I do,” you rush out, avidly avoiding his gaze. “I, um, I just have never, uh, been with anyone.”

“Oh,” Jungkook blinks. “Is that why your reproductive areas are strangely well preserved for a being your age? I was beginning to wonder about the complexities of Human reproduction after meeting you, __. Is there a certain tradition one must follow to copulate with you?”

“No, no,” you rush to correct. Jungkook has obviously said something that upset you, because when you speak again your aura is tainted with the hints of irritation. “Tradition is stupid,” you explain slowly, a sense of heartache consuming him at your rather lonely figure. He is beside you, yet feels a thousand light years away from your heart. “I was just a fool.”

His gaze softens, carefully placing a hand on your knee comfortingly. He doesn’t have to say anything more, just let you know he isn’t far at all, and you understand. You lean against his shoulder, the same sad look in your eyes. The grandfather clock ticks on in the hallway, in sync with the slow rhythm of your heart. Jungkook places a kiss to the crown of your head.

The day drags on.

Your morning chores are finished quickly with Jungkook at your side. He obsesses over the plants and plays with Smilodon. You make apple juice today with the fruits that fall from the tree out front. Jungkook enjoys it, but not as much as lemonade. Still, it gets its own entry in his log.

He asks more questions about your world, straying away from the ones he had last week that seemed to exclusively revolve around the fauna and flora. Now, he is interested in your Human way of life. The TV confuses him, and he doesn’t quite understand the difference between dramas and news stations. So you explain as best you can for him.

His main issue lies in his inability to comprehend the constant strife within your planet, especially when you explain to him topics like poverty or homelessness. Sixam is nothing like Earth, he says, because everyone on Sixam is looked after and taken care of as deemed appropriate. There is no division of classes because deep down, every Sixamian acknowledges they are superior to the rest of the universe. It sounds like a utopia to you, but you’ve read enough books to know how those usually turn out.

That fact intrigues Jungkook as well. How Humans can be aware of so many altering concepts and beliefs, yet desensitized to all. He doesn’t get it, and explaining the concept of fiction existing on a separate plane only confuses him more.

Eventually you bring it back to tradition, somehow, that dreaded word you’ve come to abhor. Jungkook enjoys learning about your culture and your way of life, little things you do here and there. But as most things do in your life, the conversation circles back around to your failed marriage.

“Ah,” Jungkook says. “So it is tradition to save your first reproductive act for the one you ‘marry’?” You nod, toes tucked up into the couch. It’s a little before sunset now, the orange hue of the outdoors leaking into your living room. “And then you take their last name? That is very confusing, __. I thought this last name identified you to your fellow Human, how can you so easily change it around?”

You laugh. “It's complicated,” you offer. Jungkook chuckles as well, obviously overwhelmed with all the new information you provided him with today.

Jungkook nods pensively but you doubt he understands. “I see,” he mumbles, fingertip tapping against the armrest he’s leaning against. It’s a tell tale sign that he desperately wants to document what you’ve said in his supercomputer bracelet but is holding back for the sake of this moment. You think it’s rather sweet. “So copulation does not always secure you a partner.”

You shrug halfheartedly. “People have different drives,” you say. “Some of them want love and some just want sex.”

“And you?” he asks suddenly, big purple eyes swirling with entire galaxies. “What would you like?”

A lot of things, you think, but when it comes down to it, when Jungkook asks you with his pretty eyes and pouty lips, you can’t find the right words. “Both,” is your measly reply. “What about you?”

He seems just as thrown off by your question as you, eyes widening as he leans back. The living room is bathed in warm splashes of color, the last of the sun’s rays painting Jungkook in a rather romantic light. You can’t look away. “I too would like both,” he admits, idly tracing the tip of his finger along the markings that decorate the tops of his knees. “This notion of attraction beyond the physical realm is not common in Sixam,” he answers. “Sixam is very… strict about what a relationship entails.

You set your mug down on the side table, shuffling around until your toes poke his hip, arm thrown over the back of the couch. “How so?” you ask.

Jungkook’s lips push out into a frown. “The Higher Sixamian Court has long since ruled that mating rituals between citizens are strictly limited to those that will produce the most immaculate genome,” he says, as if that is just another simple, everyday fact of life. It is for him, but not for you.

“So, are you like… assigned?” you press, suddenly wondering how a being as curious and sentimental as Jungkook has survived so long in a place like Sixam. “And like, do you raise kids together?”

“Until the end of their first era,” Jungkook supplies, as if that makes the slightest bit of sense. “And sort of. Sixam is not that oppressive,” he jokes, but there is something about his eyes missing their usual glow that tips you off. “I have yet to copulate for reproductive purposes.”

You pause. “But you have for… fun purposes?”

Jungkook looks at you seriously. And then, ever so slowly, the little marks beneath the corners of his eyes, the little triangles that usually flare blue, fade into a lovely pink shade. “I-“ he stammers, obviously flustered by your question. “I have.”

Your mouth parts into a little o. “With other Sixamians? Or….” Jungkook flushes, nods meekly. His expression seems off, like it isn’t a particular fond memory he carries. “Was it bad or something?”

He sighs. “It is… very lacking. Nothing like the scenes depicted in your projection box.” He nods towards the TV, you barely contain a giggle at its name. You reach for your mug instead. “There is no,” he waves a hand in front of his face. The last rays of sun catch on his hand and turn his charcoal markings a pretty gold. “No expressions of adoration beyond what is necessary. And I do not particularly enjoy that.”

You nod understandingly. “You're soft,” you tease, watch his little triangles light up again at your words. “It’s okay,” you reassure him, “so am I.”

He says nothing, just stares blankly out the front window as the sun disappears behind the horizons, leaving thousands of glittering lights in its wake. Not man made but natural; right. “I think your last name is lovely,” he suddenly announces. You chuckle against the lip of your mug, but Jungkook doesn’t find it amusing. He turns to you with that sparkling purple gaze, like you’ve hung those stars outside yourself. “There is no other __ ___ like you.”

Your face feels warm, and you’re not sure if it’s from the coffee steam rising from the mug or Jungkook’s unexpected reassurance. It makes your heart tender, sends a shock through your system that leaves your body buzzing. “Thank you,” you say sincerely, covering the palm he rests over the couch with yours.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t need to.

Ovulation ends, but your blossoming feelings for Jungkook do not go away.

The next morning his comms remain shut off. Jungkook has never had his communications back home cut off, save for the time in his first era where he brashly spoke out against his superior in a lab. He was young and had much to learn, took too many risks and didn’t consider the consequences. He guesses he hasn’t grown much since then as he watches you tend to your garden.

“Smilodon urinated in the closet,” he announces, witnessing the smile slowly slip off your features. He lets you revel in your annoyance for exactly two seconds before following with the phrase he heard on your box the other day. “Just kidding! You are being prank’d.

Your frown is nothing like the expression the program’s contests exhibited following their supposed pranking. “Jungkook, that’s not funny,” you huff and his heart sinks. A soft snort. “Okay, maybe a little,” you concede with a terribly contained smile.

He bounds over, kneels down beside you, and begins pulling the overgrown weeds out with you. “I saw it on the projection box the other day,” he explains excitedly, tossing the weeds into the bag between you two. “I did not know such pleasure could be received from silly broadcasts like that.” You nod, say something about all kinds of dumb shows existing before a pout taints your lips. “What's wrong?”

A long sigh from you. “I think the sun isn’t reaching these,” you tell him, lifting the stem of a sad looking tomato plant. It’s the closest one to the house, often covered by the house’s shadow when the sun shines best. “They’re sad.”

He tilts his head to the side quizzically. “Sad?” he repeats, reaching for his wristband before he can stop to think. If his extensive journaling reads right, your planet’s vegetation follows similar patterns to that of another’s, requiring allotted amounts of sunlight and water to flourish. “How can it be sad?”

Caught up in his notes, he doesn’t realize you’ve migrated to the other side of the garden now, dutifully picking out more weeds. “Well, it looks sad doesn’t it?” Jungkook glances back again. The tomato stalk is significantly droopy and malformed, smaller than its brethren who sit only a few inches away in direct sunlight. It’s colors are dulled and almost… sad. Huh. How peculiar.

He chances one glance back at you, deems you far enough, and then channels the entirety of his energy towards the tomato plant. It wiggles a few times, kind of like it’s dancing, before you’re calling his name from the other side. “What’re you doing?” you ask, hand on your hip. Jungkook stills.

“Um,” he drawls. The plant returns to its sulky state.

Garbage bag full of weeds, you pass by him with a shake of your head. “Don’t do anything weird to my plants, silly,” you chide. Jungkook huffs, follows behind to take the bag off your hands. You thank him, join him for his walk around the house until he tosses the bag into the garbage can out front. Before he can retort and engage you in a playful argument regarding his superior abilities, you’re crouching down by the spigot out front. It’s making a weird hissing noise that has Jungkook frowning as he walks over.

Right as he approaches, you make the amateur mistake of turning the handle, water spewing out from the gap between the spigot’s mouth and where it’s supposed to meet the hose. You screech, and Jungkook can’t shut it off fast enough.

In the end, both of you are drenched.

“Ugh,” you groan as you walk around the house to the unlocked back door. Jungkook trudges behind, just a teensy bit annoyed by the mud that quickly stains his rubber sandals. “This is so annoying!” you complain loudly, shaking yourself off like Smilodon when it accidentally fell into the sink the other day. “Ruined my day.”

At that Jungkook frowns. He does not want your day to be ruined, especially not by some faulty spigot outside. You were too good for such emotions, too perfect in his eyes. Sadness and the like did not suit you; they had no place ruining your beautiful features. You’re huffily patting yourself down at the back porch now, distress prominent on your features as you most likely consider the second load of laundry you will have to do today.

The tomato stalk glances at him sadly from the ground, and before Jungkook can stop himself, he’s breathing in deeply and pushing his generally relaxed attitude onto you. You can be mad later, but right now Jungkook doesn’t want to see you sad. It’s effective immediately, your gloominess quickly fading away. You breathe in deeply, eyes falling shut, and when you open them again you’re offering him the most gentle smile he has ever seen.

And a soaked through shirt that highlights the shape of your red undergarments. Jungkook’s eyes widen, unconsciously flicking down to the sight you present him with, and a different emotion floods his senses.

It’s quite possibly his biggest mistake. Because while he can easily look away, it takes longer for those emotions to fade, and soon they’re being reflected on you.

“Wow,” you exhale, shaking your head in confusion because these aren’t your emotions— you probably know they’re his. Jungkook feels terrible instantly.

“I’m sorry,” he rushes out, scrambling up the steps to guide you inside. Simultaneously, he’s shutting down his influential abilities, scolding himself for slipping up with you like this. You most certainly did not want to feel this way around Jungkook, yet here he was quite literally projecting onto you. “Please, let’s go inside.”

You nod, jolt when his hand touches the small of your back as he guides you in. “Oh,” you gasp, and Jungkook has to bite his lip to force himself from making the situation worse, from thinking thoughts you would not approve of. “Why— what's happening?” you ask in a breathy tone, lingering by the staircase Jungkook tries to push you up.

He sighs. “I— I was trying to brighten your mood,” he admits, metaphorical ears pressed against his head like when Smilodon gets scolded for knocking down a plant. “And, um. There was— the, um, sight of your undergarments distracted me for a moment.” You glance down and seemingly become aware for the first time that your bright red bra is on display, shyly covering yourself with your arms.

“Distracted?” you mumble softly, leaning against the banister of the stairs. Your skin is radiating more heat than Jungkook ever recalls, face demurely turned down towards the floor. He could have sworn he stopped projecting minutes again— why were you still behaving like this? Did he break you? Did he exude more energy than he meant to, accidentally extend the length of the emotions? “I’ll go upstairs now,” you announce quietly, touch his arm almost sensually as you pass by.

Your skin is warm, that heavenly scent that Jungkook craved rolling off in waves— but he was certain he’d stopped himself before anything became too overwhelming. Were his emotions stronger than he had fooled himself into believing? There was no way he had felt or looked as riled up when he accidentally influenced you. So where exactly were these emotions coming from? What exactly was making you behave this way even after he’d withdrawn his influence? Could it be...

Jungkook watches with wide eyes, almost certain that your behavior, though sparked by his initial slip up, was entirely your own at this point.

There was a lot of weight behind that.

The water turns on upstairs, and he has to strain his ears, still his breathing, just for a hint of your sounds. But they’re there, quiet successors to the louder moans you’d let out the other day. They make him shiver, melt against the staircase as his cock twitches in his pants. His body comes alive, something distinctly carnal twitching beneath his skin, blossoming out at the base of his spine.

And still, as he grinds his hand into his palm, it is not merely the sight of your red undergarments that render Jungkook useless. No, the ghost of your smile at his poorly executed prank follows, brands itself into the inside of his eyelids as he slowly falls apart.

Was it your own emotions that had made you like that? he wonders, sinking to his knees in the hallway. If you came down right now, you’d certainly catch him. But Jungkook can still hear your muffled cries from upstairs, and furthermore, Jungkook wanted desperately for you to catch him. He knows you won’t, but the idea makes him shiver, has him coming in his bottoms shamefully.

“What the,” he huffs, sweat trailing down his forehead. His brain replays that look in your eyes. That emotion you displayed that, although it may have been planted by him, was taken by you and magnified. Had you been just as excited by the sight of Jungkook’s wet body as he had yours? And if such was the case, was your attraction to him limited to the physical realm?

He doesn’t want to delude himself, but your words from the other day ring loudly in his ears. Soft, you had called him, for wanting something both physically and emotionally intimate. But you were the same, or so you claimed.

Was it so wrong for Jungkook to think that ideology applied now?

That night you join Jungkook outside for his routine stargazing. He sits on the porch while you sit on your rocking chair, mugs of hot cocoa in hand as Jungkook retells his adventures across the universe.

Space is bigger than you thought, with a culture far more complex than Earth’s. It makes you wonder how Jungkook, who has quite literally seen it all, can become so enamored with this place. There’s bigger and better somewhere out there; planets that won’t force terrible traditions on him or task him into ungodly missions. Yet he lingers here, in this quiet space between your garden and your house, head on your lap.

His hair is soft, almost like silk, and he enjoys having it touched. “I do not wish to leave,” he admits quietly, empty mug long since set aside. You hum, encourage him to elaborate. “The beauty of the universe lies entirely on Planet 43 Z-7.”

You snort. “No way,” you say, trace your hand down his jawline. Jungkook says nothing of your wandering hands, skin warm to the touch. Some of his markings decorate his neck, curl around the pale skin in perfectly symmetrical swoops. They creep beneath the hem of his shirt, and you wonder what they look like down there.

You flush those thoughts away, that afternoon’s events still fresh in your mind. From your understanding of the events, Jungkook had been excited at the sight of your body, so he obviously had to hold some attraction towards you. But how much of that was purely physical and how much was emotional?

“I want to have your last name,” he announces suddenly. You choke, breath caught in your throat from the randomness of the statement. Your reaction makes Jungkook pull away from your touch, stare at you with wide eyes like you do him.

“I— what?” you stammer, having gained back your composure. Or at least some of it. “Jungkook, I don’t think you know what that means.”

He frowns, shuffles around until he’s facing you, and lays his head across your lap again. This time, those purple eyes that dance with nebulas and stardust zero in on you. His hair tickles your bare thighs, makes you unconsciously press them together when his warm breath fans across your skin. “You amaze me,” he murmurs, eyes glazed. “I have never seen a being like you, who lives so far off from society, thrive in their own bubble— is it too much for me to want to live like you? Be with you?”

“Huh?” you ask, ever so eloquently.

Jungkook smiles, turns his face to hide it against you. Pink lips brush against your skin, your hands unconsciously shooting into his hair to guide him away. When his head rolls back, he’s got this rather melancholy look on his face. “The beauty of the universe lies entirely on Planet 43 Z-7,” he says again, “and I am looking right at her.”

Your face burns.

Heart hammering in your chest, palms sweaty, you don’t know what to say. He looks at you with that vibrant gaze, drinks you in like you’re the finest of wines and your heart absolutely cannot handle it. Your brain fumbles for a response but by then Jungkook is standing up, head tilted downwards cutely as he observes you. One hand in his, thumb gently swiping over your knuckles. “I would like to show you every expression of adoration possible, __,” he murmurs, presses a kiss to your knuckles before disappearing back inside.

You stay outside, turning his words inside and out, backwards and forwards, until you deduce that Jungkook of Sixam most definitely harbored the same feelings for you as you did for him. It’s odd, because it is exactly what you want but the idea scares you to death. The last time you let a man into your life under a similar guise you ended up wasting years of your life, clinging to this grand finale you never got. And now this foreign being was proclaiming his feelings for you, possibly propositioning you for the same thing.

Did you want Jungkook? Yes, undoubtedly yes. He was free from the shackles of tradition that had held you down so long, didn’t believe in this twisted notion of your body being “sacred.” He was a breath of fresh air, unlike anyone you’ve ever met before (although part of that was due to his alien heritage).

However, he was not free of flaws, and perhaps that is what entices you more.

Jungkook, though he looked and spoke like the perfect man, was a being of his own, with struggles of his own. He too had his own handful of painful memories, toxic ideologies that followed him around. But Jungkook was willing to learn, to change. And you admired him for it.

Tip-toeing back inside, you find the house shrouded in darkness. The steady tick of the grandfather clock lessens the rapid beating of your heart. Jungkook is sitting on the living room couch, legs pulled to his chest. Muscle memory has you reaching out for the top of his head like always, ready to pat his fluffy hair as if you hadn’t just spent the last twenty minutes outside doing just that. He turns around just as your fingers touch his soft strands, purple eyes meeting yours. You trace your hand down the side of his face, knuckles brushing over his cheekbones; he puckers his lips, bestows a second tender smooch against you.

“I like when you do that,” he says, voice unexpectedly loud in the otherwise silent house. As he speaks, he shifts to the side, arm thrown over the back of the couch to look at you completely. You swipe your thumb over his bottom lip and he gulps. “Makes me crazy.”

You chuckle, releasing him to round the couch. Jungkook’s got this sweet smile on his face, hand outstretched for you. When you take it, he tugs you onto the couch, flush beside him. Your thigh is practically thrown over his, his other arm wrapped around your shoulders. You heart flutters and you can no longer look him in the eye.

But that’s okay because Jungkook can. He ducks down, dark hair tickling your skin as his breath ghosts over your lips. “May I?” he asks softly, nose bumping against yours. “May I have the honor of pleasuring you?”

Your breath catches in your throat, answering with a tiny nod that makes his lower lip brush against yours teasingly. “I-If I am suitable,” you mumble, tingles spreading all over your body.

Jungkook smiles, pretty and bright, as he turns his head to slot your mouths together. “No,” he says, “if I am suitable. You are more than enough.” Lips brush against yours, shaky breath meets yours, and then he’s kissing you. Slow yet suave, carefully molding against you as if he is afraid of breaking you. His lips are like two soft pillows, moving against yours in a practiced rhythm that makes you tremble against him. Every bit the measly virgin, but Jungkook likes you just so.

He pulls away with a pop, his figure shadowed by the darkness of the room. But his eyes, purple irises, glow brightly. Like two pools of cosmic dust swirling around his dark pupils. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him like this before, but you hardly saw Jungkook in the dark anyway. He hides them too soon, eyes fluttering shut as he leans in again.

The second time, there’s a faint flick of his tongue against your bottom lip. The action makes you gasp quietly, lips parting for a fraction of a second. But Jungkook is quick, slips his tongue past your lips. It’s lewd; his breath mingles with yours, tongue pushing against yours. Slick and dirty, spit traveling between your two mouths, but Jungkook makes sure you’re okay, sinfully wrapping his lips around your tongue when you get too brave. A moan escapes you, fingers squeezing around his.

Jungkook squeezes back, pushes forward until you’re pressed against the back cushions of the couch. “This okay?” he husks, low-lidded eyes meeting yours when he pulls away. You nod, words caught in your throat. Jungkook’s gaze lasers in on your mouth, and he seems to have an internal debate before eventually pulling away to kiss your neck.

You tilt your head back, choppy exhales creeping out from between your lips as he kisses down the column of your neck, untangling his hand from yours to press against your hip instead. It’s with a devastatingly slow speed that he eventually slinks away, finds himself kneeling between you on the floor with hands dancing over the tops of your thighs. Your heart is beating a thousand miles in your chest, threatening to rip itself right out when he meets your eyes a second time.

He pushes your legs apart, not once looking away as he gently encourages you to raise one. Lips pressed against your knee, slowly trailing down the skin of your thigh. Your hand squeezes at the couch cushions. Jungkook pulls a startled yelp from you when he tugs at the backs of your knees, makes you slump down the couch with your legs perfectly spread out for him, feet flat on the floor. Then he’s back to kissing you, languidly pressing smooch after smooch against your scorching skin until he’s reaching the apex of your thighs, stilling once to look your way.

“Go ahead,” you choke out, hands clutched over your chest, as if that’ll keep your heart from up and running away. Jungkook takes your admission and moves on, puckered lips meeting your mound through your clothing. It’s the first time you’ve ever had someone else so close to your most sensitive areas, and rightly so, you whimper.

“Shh,” he soothes, thumb pressing against your hip as he carefully hikes one of your legs over his shoulder. You’re quivering like a leaf, lower lip bitten raw between your teeth as you watch him move between your legs. “I don’t wish to hurt you,” Jungkook murmurs.

Another press of his mouth against you, this time right over where your bud hides, and the sensation makes your eyes roll to the back of your head. His fingers tighten around the waistband of your shorts, take your underwear with them when he begins pulling them down your hips. You push yourself up briefly, let him slide them down your legs and bare yourself to him for the first time.

Your cheeks flood with warmth, hands unconsciously reaching to pull your shirt down, but Jungkook catches you. Fingers tangle with yours, warm breath fanning over your slick folds. Unconsciously, you tense up at his proximity, the stark realization that this was the moment you had waited for for a good chunk of your life suddenly hitting you. Jungkook seems to notice you crawl inside your head, drawing you back with a squeeze around your hand, luminous eyes meeting yours.

“If you need me to stop, I will,” he reassures you.

The blood is rushing to your ears, his words nearly lost in the madness. “Aren’t you scared?” you ask quietly, voice wobbly, holding his hands so tightly you’re surprised he doesn’t complain.

Jungkook shakes his head. “No,” he answers. “Would you like to know how I feel?”

Hesitantly, you nod. Jungkook’s eyes flutter shut, but the little triangle markings beneath his eyes begin to glow. Like fireflies in the dark, two little lights that intensify as he exhales.

And then, suddenly, you’re flooded with a new wave of emotions, similar to yours but not. They feel like yours, but are distinctly his, make you arch against the cushions with a soft groan.

At the forefront, lust that swarms your senses and makes your body melt into the couch beneath you. It makes you shiver, nipples peaked beneath your top as his feelings and their intensity grow on you. It feels like drowning, like swallowing a thick and sticky substance that lingers in your throat and refuses to go away. It’s how he feels about you at this moment, so strongly it could drown him.

So overwhelmed with that sensation alone, you almost don’t recognize the second emotion that Jungkook takes and pours into you.

Warm and comforting, like being embraced by a thousand doves, kissed by a swarm of butterflies. It’s different from the first, doesn’t tap directly into your physical body, but wraps around your heart, creeps into your thoughts. Until you’re rolling your eyes back open and meeting his, the feeling so plainly spelled out across his features.

Sheer and utter adoration.

“Oh,” you breathe, face scorching to the touch following the emotions Jungkook’s just revealed to you.

He grins, shy, and squeezes your hand. “What do you want to do?”

Biting your lip, you take initiative and hook your knee over his shoulder, the same way he had shown you just moments prior. “Please,” you murmur, “show me more.”

And Jungkook does.

A soft kiss against the inside of your thigh, nose running along your skin teasingly. And then he’s faced with your puffy lips, pink skin slick with arousal. Jungkook sighs softly, tilts his head as if he’s analyzing his next course of action, and then carefully places his mouth against you.

“Mmmh,” you whimper, hips instinctively bucking into the touch, never having felt such intense pleasure before. Jungkook doesn’t mind as he languidly kisses your folds, eyes shut as he loses himself in the motions. The first swipe of his tongue makes you twitch, arms flailing but Jungkook holds them down, entwined fingers pressed against the couch.

His tongue is an entity of its own, wet muscle pressing and licking at your most sensitive areas like it was made specifically for this. Never mind talking, Jungkook’s tongue was made to lap at your pussy like this. He licks a long stripe up from your quivering hole to your engorged clit, curling at the end as if you were nothing more but a sweet for him to mindlessly play with.

Your muscles clench up, the leg thrown around his shoulder unconsciously pulling him closer until his nose is pressed flush against your clit. Jungkook breathes in deeply, moans softly but it sends earth-shattering vibrations up your core until you’re a whimpering mess. “O-Oh,” you cry, sweat clinging to your skin as Jungkook continues lapping at your folds.

He releases one hand, uses it to push your other leg further away to properly slot himself against you. You take the opportunity to wildly reach for him, grabby hands lost in the silky waves on his head as you urge him closer to where you need him most. You’re not even sure where that is anymore, your clit or your entrance, but Jungkook switches between the two just fine.

That warm tongue prods at your entrance, tip sinking inside just enough to make you gasp. It’s a new experience for you, someone’s tongue touching and stroking you there, and it feels like an entirely new door opens from that action alone. You whimper his name, dig your nails across his scalp like maybe he’ll grant you a reprieve and pull away. But you don’t really want that, and so you’re happy when he stays where he is.

The hand that had rested against the juncture of your hip glides up, lays flat over your mound with his thumb idly swirling around your clit. The combination of his tongue breaching your hole and his fingers playing along your clit makes you spasm. “Wait,” you sob, the muscles in your thighs twitching as he licks away. “I-I’m gonna—“

An overpowering wave of relief floods your senses shortly before that last syllable can escape your lips; everything goes tight and then suddenly you’re on a cloud, cum spilling from your heat and onto his waiting tongue. Jungkook licks it all up, slurps loudly against your clit as the last waves of your orgasm run their course. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, kissing up your navel, t-shirt pushed away as he goes.

When he reaches your face, you’re quite embarrassed to find the area around his mouth to be glistening with your juices. “You’re incredible,” he says, easygoing smile on his lips. But there’s something hard and heavy against you, snuggled between your thighs, that makes your face heat up all over again.

You can’t find the words to respond, and lose the opportunity when Jungkook captures your lips with his again. He’s more assertive this time around, roughly pushing against you until you’re certain you’ll bruise. But it feels good, makes you wrap your hands around him as Jungkook grinds down against you. When he pulls away, he’s got this dark look on his face, out of place against such bright eyes.

He says nothing as his hands creep up your waist, push your t-shirt and bra out of the way, until he’s cupping your breasts in his palms. Experienced hands massage them thoroughly, roll the soft skin between his fingers. His mouth is against yours again, tongues pressed together; Jungkook groans and the sound shoots straight between your thighs. He pinches a nipple between his fingers and you whimper, break away from his kiss to hide your face against his shoulder.

His cock is heavy against your folds, the thick material of his pants slowly stimulating you again. The cotton brushes against you, most certainly picks up your wetness as it goes, and Jungkook lets it as he continues to grind down against you with his hands on your tits. Your hands tear their way down his back, fist the material of his shirt in your hands. “Off, off,” you plead, desperate to feel more of him against you.

Jungkook complies, sitting up to yank his shirt over his head. You were right about his markings, dark swoops and circles that decorate his chest and abdomen before tapering down around his waist. Your mouth salivates at the sight, blindly reaching for your own clothes as if one look away will make him disappear.

He doesn’t.

In fact, the removal of both your tops only makes Jungkook hungrier, completely abandoning your lips to suck your breast into his mouth instead. “Jungk— fuck,” you wail, slipping further down the couch as you lose yourself in Jungkook’s embrace. His teeth nibble at your swollen bud, roll the sensitive skin around before pulling off with a wet pop.

Your breath jumps when he reaches behind you, corded arm locking around your waist as he repositions the two of you, unsatisfied with the previous position. He lifts you up with his undoubtedly superior strength, one palm beneath your thigh as he plops you down across the couch more comfortably, head neatly resting on a throw pillow.

Your heart is in your throat, desperate to memorize the man before you, inked skin, lean and meaty, vibrant violet eyes that focus solely on you. Before he can join you on the couch, Jungkook steps away, tucks his thumbs into his waistband and swiftly removes them. His engorged cock, bigger than any you’ve seen in any erotic video— and that was saying a lot —springs up against his navel, flaming tip glaring right at you. Your pussy quivers at the sight.

“Come here,” he husks out as he moves towards you. You welcome him with open arms, a soft groan of his name against his lips as he shoves his tongue past. His hands are everywhere now; one squeezes at your breast, hand molded to the flesh, while the other runs along the underside of your thigh, guides it over his waist. And another tickles around your navel, soft—

You shriek, eyes snapping open as you tug Jungkook over you as a shield. “What was that?” you heave, wide eyes roving over the dark living room, like maybe you’ll find Smilodon traversing the carpet and it was his silky tail that came too close.

But Smilodon doesn’t usually appear at night, nor is there anything else in the living room with you and Jungkook. Your heart hammers in your chest, carefully meeting his dark gaze until something thin and distinctively alive appears over his shoulder. Another scream tears itself from your lips.

“Hey, hey,” Jungkook shushes, pulls away to cup your face in his hands. “Forgive me,” he says tenderly, “we are so similar, I forget you do not possess extra arms.”

You pale. “E-Extra arms?” you choke, eyes focused on the thin ‘arm’ that slinks out from behind Jungkook, almost screeching again when a second one appears on the opposite side. And then a third, a fourth.

It is no arm, but rather… a tentacle? Sans the weird suction cups. They’re thin little things, no thicker than his wrist, that dance behind him as if they have a mind of their own. They move as if suspended in water, soft lilac skin tenderly touching yours. You shiver, its smooth skin odd against your supple flesh. Jungkook relaxes, but draws them back anyway. “Forgive me,” he says again, taking your hand in his to press a peck against it. Your heart flutters at the gesture that was slowly driving you insane. “I shall keep them at bay.”

You nod shakily, but cannot deny the curiosity that picks at you when they slink back into the base of his spine, blend seamlessly against his skin. “What… what do they do?” you ask tentatively.

Jungkook hums as he descends upon you, featherlight kisses against your shoulder and up your neck. “Hmm? They help me out,” he explains mindlessly, pulling you flush against his cock again. A moan tears itself from your throat, eyes fluttering shut as you force yourself to focus on the moment again.

But your hands unconsciously wander down his spine as he kisses you, circle the skin where your swear they had to have disappeared beneath, until Jungkook is pulling away with a confused expression on his face. “Would you like to see them again?” he asks quizzically, sweat forming along his hairline.

You cannot play it off any longer; meekly, you nod. “I— they were interesting,” you admit in a quiet voice, nervously twiddling your fingers over your chest.

Jungkook says nothing for a second, until he’s lightly chuckling and pressing a kiss against your cheek. “Okay,” he concedes, and goes back to rolling his hips against yours.

About to protest, the words are robbed from your throat when something soft and blunt tickles your thigh. “Oh,” you shudder, prevailing through the initial shock as Jungkook’s ‘arm’ slides around the diameter of your thigh to brush against your cunt. It’s silky and smooth, pushes against your lips until it’s emerging past them, slipping inside of you.

You gasp, head lolling backwards as the sensation gets to you. It feels the same as your fingers do when you’re in the shower, but it moves differently, gauging your reactions as it curls within your walls. Jungkook muffles a low chuckle against your chin, kisses spread over you until his tongue is back down your throat.

“Feels good?” he asks, hot mouth against yours. You nod jerkily, hands digging into his biceps. Another appendage tickles around your waist, dips into your navel and makes you giggle. It’s a sound that’s frankly out of place amongst your moans and whimpers, but it makes Jungkook smile. It eventually moves away, continuing its soft caresses elsewhere.

The one that plays in your pussy has your eyes rolling to the back of your head, jaw slack. Perfect for Jungkook who pushes and prods until his saliva is dripping down your throat, catching in the corners of your lips. It impossibly fattens inside of you, makes you choke just as a different one dances around your neck. “I— I,” you stutter, boneless beneath him as the soft tip traces around the column of your neck tenderly, lovingly.

There’s so many different areas to focus on: one rubs comfortingly beneath your breast, while another fucks into your cunt. The contrast has your head spinning, unsure of where to look.

There’s something about the one inside of you that makes you feel so sticky and wet, more so than before. Like it’s oozing something out, making the glide against your walls smoother than before. It makes your body tingle, sends a feeling down your spine that you’re almost certain isn’t normal.

At the same time, there’s a brush along your thigh again, a tight coil around the flesh of your skin tightly that encourages your legs apart. More room for Jungkook to squeeze in. It wraps around you, slithers past its sibling and prods against your ass. Your heart skips a beat, buck into Jungkook’s embrace as it slips between your cheeks— you gasp. It releases that same substance that makes everything so wet. You tremble at the touch, body already so overwhelmed.

Your attention is snatched away before anything can happen, Jungkook tugging you closer until the ridges of his cock are running along your folds, each push sending his goddamn tentacle deeper inside of you. You moan, hands shakily traversing his skin until you’re cupping his face in your palms. “More,” you hoarsely whisper, dazed eyes meeting his. “Please.”

Jungkook nods, presses one more kiss against your lips before shuffling around. The appendage inside of you swiftly recoils, has you shivering from the way it slips out of you so easily. As it finally emerges from your folds, you find it’s slick with cum and something slightly pink, sparkly and wet as if it’s got precum of its own. The sight amazes you, makes you want to touch it. Before you can, it’s moving again. Much to your surprise, it doesn’t go away, doesn’t return to hide within Jungkook’s body, but wraps around his cock tightly. Purple tendril against engorged skin, makes him sigh at the squeeze.

He holds the base of his cock, tongue prodding against the inside of his cheek as he regards you with an unrecognizable look. One hand on your thigh, fingers gripping tightly even before he’s done anything. “Tell me you want this,” he exhales, “please?”

You nod hurriedly, hands reaching for his hips to urge him closer. “Want this,” you assure him, quiver when the head of his cock presses against your folds. Bigger than your fingers, bigger than that damned appendage, and it was going inside of you. “Want this so bad,” you whimper, drawing your bottom lip between your teeth. A squeeze around your breasts, a flick against your nipples. It’s not Jungkook’s hands, and that fact makes you shiver.

They curl around your breasts, frame the mounds gently before the flatted tips meet your nipples, tease them with featherlight nudge.

Eased by the certainty of your words, Jungkook relaxes. He places a hand on your hip, the other still holding his cock as he lines himself up with your throbbing entrance. You’re so wet, dripping in your own cum and whatever that tentacle released, thighs slippery and shiny. The anticipation in your chest swells, pushes against your rib cage until you’re afraid it’ll break. The little markings beneath his eyes flash and suddenly it’s gone, replaced with a sense of comfort that only doubles when he flashes you a tiny smile.

The first press of his cock makes your back arch, has you knocking every throw pillow off the couch as he slowly eases his way in. “Oh god—“ you sob, the sudden intrusion being questioned by every muscle in your body. Immediately, two of his tentacles snap forward, release their soft grip on your neck and their wrap around your breasts to caress up your sides, smooth ends practically kissing your skin with their soft nudges.

They by no means lessen the pain, but their butterfly touches are a nice distraction that tickles your skin, makes you whimper softly as Jungkook slowly sinks into you.

Jungkook ducks over you, tip of his nose against yours. “Breathe for me,” he instructs, even though his breath is labored against yours. One appendage cups your cheek, curls softly around your ear to hold your head still— you feel so spoiled with all the attention. You make an effort, breathe in swiftly through your nose as Jungkook pushes in deeper.

Slowly, the discomfort fades away. It melts and in its wake you’re left with a dull numbing sensation that starts in your toes and magnifies as it reaches your ears. It grows until the weight of his cock inside of you has you drooling, eyes unfocused as you watch Jungkook push himself to the hilt, the ridges of the tentacle wrapped around his cock making you jolt with every push.

At the same time as his cock thrusts inside of you, a sneaky little thing continues it’s dance between your cheeks, pokes and kisses at your hole like it’s testing you. It is, really, because you've never had anything up your ass before— up until a few moments ago, you had barely had anything in your pussy.

This was your first time, yet two seperate holes were begging to be filled, clenching tightly at Jungkook kisses along your chest, hands wound beneath the small of your back. The playful tentacle near your behind does just that— plays until you gently reach back for it, trembling hands giving it the go ahead it needs to finally plunge itself within you. Like an excited little being, it flutters against your hand a soft, kiss-like press against your palm before returning to its favored spot.

It chooses the perfect moment to press in, takes advantage of Jungkook’s first few slow thrusts to slip its way inside. A loud moan tears itself from your throat, and Jungkook joins along. “I-I’m sorry,” he pants, mouth against yours. “I-I just want to feel you.”

You shake him off, body twitching from the utter fullness you felt, the weight in between your folds and your ass that moves in opposing strokes. His cock, wrapped in those bulging ridges, pushes in just as the tentacle in your rear pulls out, and the sensation is enough to make you whimper and sob.

It feels good, amazing even, and you almost can’t believe it’s happening. Jungkook’s lips slot against yours, slow and lazy as he lets your body grow familiar with the stretch. He kisses you until the cat-like grip you have on his shoulders weakens, replaced with wandering hands that trail down his spine. The base of his spine where his protrusions appear is unique, makes him buck against you when you wrap your hands around one appendage.

“S-Sensitive,” he says as an apology, never mind the fact you want him desperately to fuck into you like that again. You voice such thoughts and Jungkook groans against your skin. “Really?” He chokes out, “I can move?”

One nod and then he’s off, for real this time.

He’s slow at first, like he’s hesitant about hurting you, but you tuck one leg around him, pull him closer until he’s forced deeper inside of you, and from there everything is a downward spiral. You forget Jungkook of Sixam is superior for more than just one reason, harsh reminder given in the strong snap of his hips that would have otherwise sent you flying off the couch if that same strength wasn’t channeled into the arms he held you with.

You reach for his hair, desperate to feel that comforting silk between your fingers, but then there’s something wrapping around your wrists. It pins your hands down, twists around your wrists twice before snaking up and curling along your fingers. Like it wants to hold your hand, wants to fill the spaces for Jungkook. The thought makes you burn, insides a boiling mess as he fucks into you, hands held down above your head.

“Jungkook,” you sob, squirming in his hold. It’s like whenever you move, there’s something there, holding you down or fucking you senseless. He responds with a grunt, roughly thrusting into you over and over until all you can manage is a series of hiccups.

The ridges around his cock, the added thickness lended to him by his extra appendage, has every shove past your lips sending tingles like an ascending xylophone shooting throughout your body. The rhythmic stretches make you huff like a dog against him, brain fuzzy and overwhelmed.

At the same time as he delivers killer grind after grind, another arm, the one that had been left out of the fray, slithers around your chest, looping twice around your frame and caging your breasts between them. Like bondage, except it’s Jungkook’s own body holding you down.

You don’t think about the absurdity of it too much, couldn’t anyway. Your brain is a scrambled mess of Jungkook’s lips and incandescent eyes, lost in the purple galaxies and stars he holds, slowly slipping away from reality with each brutal thrust he gives. His name tumbles from your lips, and yours from his. He holds you like you’ll slip away, sweaty skin pulling you impossibly closer with each roll of his hips.

The thick appendage buried within your ass makes you squirm. It’s a tight fit, one you don’t get too stuck on because for every reprieve from its maniac thrusts you are met with the equally ferocious slam of Jungkook’s cock. So it stays in the back of your mind, this curling tentacle that stretches the tight rim of your ass apart.

You were stuffed to the brim, eyes rolling back as you struggled to keep up. A soft brush along your jawline makes you gasp, before your mouth is tentatively filled with something soft and pulsing. Oh, you would die, you think, mindlessly sucking around the tentacle squeezed between your lips. It fattens in your mouth, pushes roughly against your tongue in rhythm with Jungkook’s cock. You cough, gag even, but it doesn’t move away. It drips a thick substance down your throat, disgustingly sweet.

“Please, please,” he pants, quiet and lost among your own higher-pitched moans. Your leg hikes itself further up, accidentally brushes at the base of where two of his tentacles protrude, and Jungkook jolts against you. His cock presses so deep into your walls, you swear you feel him kiss your cervix. “__,” he pants, tongue lapping at the skin of your neck, picking up the sweat and replacing it with his thick saliva. “Be mine, please.”

Your heart pounds with the beat of a marching band's pace, loud thundering that competes against the slapping of Jungkook’s skin against yours. You whimper around the weight in your mouth, the idea he places in your head only fueling that lifelong dream of yours. Your grip around the appendages that hold your wrists down tightens, its faint heartbeat-like pulse felt between your fingers.

“Let me be yours,” Jungkook moans, pulls out once only to slam his cock past your folds, hold himself there as your brain scrambles to rewire itself. As he says this, your mouth is freed, saliva and that sticky wet substance sloppily splattering across your lips and chin at the rather harsh exit. “And you will be mine.”

“Yes, yes!” you choke, dribbling drool down your chin.

It ends too soon.

Jungkook reaches a hand down, thumb feeling for your clit, but he’s pressed so tightly against you, it takes a second before the rough pad makes contact. That simple swipe, one half circle, is enough to make you unravel. “J-Jungkook,” you wail, biting down against his shoulder, “I’m—“

Your orgasm swallows you whole, his tentacle in your ass joining alongside you. It bursts inside of you, makes your ass leak with cum when it finally pulls out.

“I’ve got you,” he shudders, stills when your pussy clenches down around him, creamy pleasure dripping down around his cock. Your cries fill the air, body falling slack against the couch as you struggle to recover. Your head is a foggy mess, clouded by the slow snap of Jungkook’s hips as he reaches his arousal. Each push against your folds feels even more intense now, overstimulated walls fluttering wildly around him as his cock slips in.

His body stiffens and he swiftly pulls out, every ridge of his cock sucked back by your pussy, and when he finally frees himself— from your clenching walls and his tightly-gripping tentacle—he spills over your abdomen. Sticky and pink, like the strawberry lube you keep in your drawer, except its come out of Jungkook as a result of your rump in the sheets.

As quickly as his body locked up, it slumps just as fast, heavy muscles and long limbs crashing down over you before you can react.

“Jungkook—“

The sun shines in through the front window, wakes him from his slumber slowly and then all at once. He accidentally shifts into a patch of sunshine, the blinding light irritating his eyes until Jungkook is forced awake. His body aches but has never felt better, a weird sense of relaxation flooding his senses. For a moment, he is confused.

Eyes scan over the room, purple irises carefully calculating every bit of information until he catches sight of Smilodon’s furry tail and the memories of last night come swarming back in. He sits up quickly, whirling around for any glimpse of you, only to find you’re nowhere in sigh—

“Morning.” A small hand atop of his head, fingers stroking against his scalp. Instantly, Jungkook melts into the touch.

You walk past him and into the kitchen, where you get to work making the usual breakfast for you and Jungkook. He watches you from the couch, naked beneath the blanket you’ve so graciously covered him with. The sun leaks into the kitchen, paints you in soft shades of orange as you amble around the area.

The scent of hot cocoa fills the air, calling him to the space behind you after he dresses. “Good morning,” he says shyly, presses a kiss against your shoulder. Hesitantly, he lets his hands slide around your waist, lock over your navel. You don’t push him away, simply pat the side of his head as Jungkook snuggles into you.

You don’t speak about last night and neither does he. You eat eggs for breakfast and Jungkook playfully knocks his foot against yours beneath the table. “Don’t play footsies with me,” you laugh. Jungkook quite likes footsies.

Morning chores are skipped, pushed off in favor of sitting in front of the couch. You sit beside him, flush against his side, but Jungkook doesn’t mind. The projection box tells him about the weather, says something about a stock market, but other than that, it is relatively quiet.

There is no mission to complete, no tradition to uphold. It is just Jungkook in this new and not as scary world. The mailman always visits, and Smilodon shows his face every now and then. It is a routine he adores, but not as much as the Human at his side.

He doesn’t remember taking his headpiece off until it beeps from its spot on the coffee table, three distinctive chirps that signal an incoming call from the Higher Sixamian Court.

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