#who flounders before kissing back and realising that he could have had this all along | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

oscarseyebrow · 2 years

Text

Aphelion: Chapter Three

gif by the wonderful @userpoe 💖

Rating: Explicit 18+ Pairing: General Poe Dameron x Female reader Word count: 8k Warnings: Angst, brief mention of reader having sex with someone else, arguing, hurt feelings, reader attempting to slap Poe, explicit descriptions, vaginal fingering, rough sex, unprotected sex, strong language. Chapter One | Masterlist

“You’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”

Those had been Finn’s words the morning after the party.

You had blinked at him from the doorway, fully dressed from the night before and still somewhat drunk. When he had followed up with the news that Poe was gone, you had been naive to think that you would be able to fix things with him once you caught up with him on the mission: that would be your chance to talk about what had happened, to set things straight and decide where you both stood after how things had unfolded the night before.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

You weren’t going on the mission. Poe had reassigned you back to Nic. Maker, it was ridiculous. The smallest misunderstanding, a drunken kiss, and Poe had run away instead of talking it through. He clearly wanted to put as much physical distance between you as he could, and his answer to that was continuing the mission without you.

If it had stopped there, perhaps you could have accepted it as a rash mistake, an overreaction on his part. If he’d given you the chance, you would have told him that he was blowing this out of proportion and allowing it to snowball. You could have returned things to the careful equilibrium that had taken years to cultivate. But it didn’t stop there. Poe avoided any attempts you made at contacting him: no comms, no holocalls, nothing.

For the first time since your friendship had begun, Poe Dameron was at his furthest point from you; he was at aphelion.

“He’s pretty busy,” was Finn’s excuse. “You know how it is when he gets caught up in things…” but that had been bullshit. You may have been naive enough to think that you could fix things with Poe on the day that he left, but you wouldn’t allow yourself to be stupid enough to buy into Finn’s poor excuse of covering for him.

When Poe did finally return to base, weeks later, everything was different. Wherever you were, Poe wasn’t, unless he absolutely had to be. You no longer grabbed food together when your busy schedules allowed it: there were no stolen moments of being together to simply enjoy each other’s company, no comforting hugs and over-friendly touches and smiles. Nothing.

Poe was all but a ghost in your life: there, but not really. Existing as merely a name and the occasional sighting.

At first, you had tried to ignore the ache that had taken up residence in your chest. It came in waves. Some days, they were calm and serene, allowing you to simply drift along and get on with the tasks at hand, but the nights when you found yourself alone were the worst. The ache rose to a precipitous peak, and the waves of loneliness would hit in quick succession, battering your vessel with an overpowering strength that you had no chance of withstanding.

“Lieutenant?”

You blink, realising that Poe is addressing you, and a lot of eyes around the table are watching you expectantly.

Fuck… You weren’t listening. The meeting had continued without your focus, and now you were completely lost.

You clear your throat and throw a somewhat desperate look at Finn before allowing your eyes to slide back over to Poe. You have absolutely no idea what he wants from you as he watches you, eyebrows raised a little as you flounder, at a loss for what to say.

Poe had called this meeting for an update from all who were involved in the ongoing mission, and it was the longest time you had spent in a room with him for over a month.

The first thing you noticed when Poe walked into this meeting was his hair: it was longer and noticeably harder to control in the humid atmosphere. His stubble had grown into more of a prominent beard with grey patches evident here and there. He had clearly been busy over the weeks of your distancing, unable to maintain the well-presented look he’d been keeping on top of since becoming General, but infuriatingly, it suited him.

You would have told him, had he given you a chance to speak to him.

“Lieutenant, your report,” Poe finally prompts you.

You blink, somewhat flushed at how easily his appearance had derailed your thoughts.

“Right.” You clear your throat and reach for your water to buy yourself more time as you gather your thoughts. Then you begin, “Myself, Commander Harik, and the rest of the task force have been looking into one of the factions connected with the most recent mission led by General Dameron. We have strong reasons to believe they are planning to move in and put a claim on some of the resources left by the First Order.”

With a few taps of a button, the information is projected for all to see as you explain your way through it. Every fact is stored to memory, every blueprint you present, every plan that has been drawn up: it’s all there.

The few times you do catch Poe’s eyes, you notice his look of commendation: even now, after everything, he can’t quite hide the way you impress him with your smooth presentation and knowledge. It’s what makes you so valuable and earns your place at this table.

When you finally finish, Nic gives you a small nod and a smile before he picks up where you left off. He explains what is next on the agenda for your task force, the upcoming mission and the objectives. You try your absolute best to keep your eyes fixed on him while he answers questions—you want to give him the attention he deserves and the support that he may need—but you find yourself glancing at Poe every now and again.

For the briefest moment, you catch Poe’s eye before he looks away again without acknowledging you in any way. It’s the first and last time he allows himself to make that mistake.

A couple of hours later, the meeting draws to an end, and some people make their hasty exit while others linger to discuss more details about the upcoming missions. There’s a lot of interest in the one that Nic had been giving details on, but soon enough, even those conversations reach their natural end, and you stand as Nic nods his head towards the door in a silent invitation for you to leave with him.

“I’ll catch you up,” you mouth to him.

Thankfully, he leaves alongside Finn while you slowly collect your things from the table. As the last few people exit, your plan falls into place perfectly: you’re alone with Poe. It shouldn’t make you this nervous to stand with someone you know better than you know yourself most days, but you’re very aware of the way your heartbeat increases at the thought of finally speaking to him.

You wait for the sound of the door to close before you look at him and allow a silence to stretch between you. It’s heavy and uncomfortable, and you momentarily begin to regret this idea.

No, you have to continue.

“Can we talk?” you finally ask as you walk past a couple of seats and stop behind the one that you would usually sit at.

It’s the one nearest to Poe’s, but it had been taken by someone else today. At the time, you had tried to shrug it off, not let it get to you. But it did. Maker, it truly did. This was your seat—it’s where you sat and shared whispered inside jokes with Poe or spoke volumes to each other with a single side-eye glance.

It’s with a heavy sigh that Poe responds, “Now isn’t the time.”

“No?” you question. “When is a good time? Because you’ve been avoiding me for weeks.”

Poe looks exhausted, and the way his eyes close for an extended blink says it all: this is not a conversation he wants to have.

Your stare tells him that this isn’t going away, so he reluctantly continues, “Some other time.”

He stands to leave, but you side-step to block his path before he can move any closer to the door.

“You’re being ridiculous,” you sigh with clear exasperation. “It was one drunken kiss, Poe. This doesn’t… It doesn’t have to–”

“General,” Poe corrects you.

Your eyebrows raise at his interjection before you question him, “Excuse me?”

“I think it’s for the best that we stick to formalities.” Poe’s words come out as some monotone, over-rehearsed bullshit. How many times has he recited that in preparation for this exact conversation?

It still delivers a blow, though. Stick to formalities? That’s not what you do… That’s not who you are. You’re Stitch and Poe, a well-known double act, attached at the hip when on base together, masters at finishing each other’s sentences and speaking each other’s thoughts without even trying.

Fuck formalities.

“Poe…”

“General,” Poe corrects you again.

No words form. Your mouth remains void of any sound as your tongue and brain are momentarily derailed by the realisation of the situation: this time, you are losing him, truly losing him.

With a small shake of your head, you finally break his gaze and frown down at your datapad in your hands. So this is how it feels to fall out of orbit and float in a vast emptiness. You didn’t see this coming. Yet again, you had allowed yourself to be naive in thinking that you could fix things with Poe once you saw him face-to-face. You had good reason for that confidence, though. No matter how bad things got, the two of you had always been able to talk things through.

You try to appeal to that part of him—the Poe who weathered every storm with you, the one who always listened and forgave—by admitting the most painful part of this impossible situation.

“I miss you,” you murmur and look up at him again. “I miss your friendship.”

There’s a sadness on that expressive face of his, but he doesn’t give you anything in return. If he has anything else overly-rehearsed and ready to say, it doesn’t come out. You want to believe that he misses you, too. Part of you is certain he does.

Your words hang heavily over you as you finally step aside.

Poe doesn’t hesitate, not even for a second. As soon as his path is clear, he leaves.

And somehow, it hurts more than the first time he walked away.

------

Sex with Nic is usually a lot of fun: it ticks many boxes—it’s familiar, convenient, and most times, able to satisfy your needs. You enjoy the time you spend with him; truly, you do. Nic is a good guy, and you get along well together. He has come to know the things that you enjoy, mostly.

So why do you find yourself staring up at the ceiling while he finishes off?

With his face tucked into the crook of your neck, his praises are muffled against your warm skin. The words hold no meaning for you: they’re simply acknowledgements of how good your pussy feels for him, how good you take his cock, and how good it is to hear you moaning his name.

They make you feel nothing.

Actually, that’s a lie. You feel the need for him to hurry the fuck up and blow his load already.

“You like that?” he asks while he hitches your leg up a little higher over his hip, attempting to spice things up for you towards the end.

“Mhm,” comes your sound of encouragement, “feels so good.”

It works for him. Your words spur him on, and his hips fall out of their rhythm as he gets closer, but it’s the way you moan his name that tips him over the edge. You’re relieved it’s over but don’t feel good about how you got there—he deserves more than fake moans and distracted thoughts.

Nic whimpers as his hips jerk a few more times, and then finally, he stills.

His hot breath against your neck suddenly feels too much, and his body is too warm. It’s sticky with humidity, and he’s radiating an unbearable heat as his large frame crowds over you. Nic must feel it too because he quickly apologises and gently pulls out so that he can flop down on the bed beside you to give you both some much needed cooling-down space.

It’s been a couple of days since your last encounter with Poe, and this is where you have found yourself again: in Nic’s bed for what is sure to be the last time before you’re due to leave on the next mission with him.

Rubbing at your clammy face, you draw in a deep breath to pull yourself back into the moment and then turn onto your side to face Nic, but he’s already watching you, eyebrows knitting together in a small frown.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks and gently brushes his thumb across your cheek. Even now, even here in such an intimate moment, the very second that your eyes close, all you can focus on is Poe.

Fuck, you hate it. You hate this.

“Yeah… I—” but your words are cut short by the steady beeping of your comlink from down on the floor. “Shit,” you mutter and glance over your shoulder in an attempt to locate your pants, “I have to get that.”

Nic doesn’t protest. He simply nods and pulls back so that you can scramble out of the bed and begin the search for the small device. It’s a hurried attempt as you throw items of clothing around to try and locate the sound. Finally, your hand closes around it as Nic makes his way into the small refresher to dispose of the condom and get himself cleaned up.

“Go for Lieutenant—”

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” Finn’s voice greets you, and it’s far from his normal, chirpy tone. “You’re being dropped from the task force… I tried to fight him on it. I told him it was a mistake. But he wouldn’t compromise.”

Two things happen in quick succession: first, you feel the cold grasp of disappointment rise slowly until it’s overtaken by a second emotion. Rage. Pure, unfettered rage. It expands with an uncontrollable intensity that drags you up to your feet.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Comes your high-pitched question, and despite your best effort, you hear the way your words tremble with anger. You need no answer—it’s entirely rhetorical, but you hear Finn stumbling to put together a reply on the other end.

“This is an insult,” you snap at Finn, even though he has done nothing wrong. It’s Poe. It’s always fucking Poe, and just the thought of him has your other hand clenching into a tight fist. He had been impressed by your presentation. He had given the mission the green light. So why… Why the fuck was he doing this again?

“I tried, Stitch. I told him—”

“Maybe you should have tried harder!” You’re quick to bite again. You know that you shouldn’t be directing your frustration at Finn, but why couldn’t he overrule Poe? Why couldn’t he do something? You deserved to be on this task force. You had put in more work than almost everyone—and for what? To be dropped again?

You close your eyes and let out a slow breath in an attempt to rein in your anger. This isn’t Finn’s fault. He doesn’t deserve to deal with the fallout from Poe’s poor decision making.

Before this can go any further, you put an end to the conversation, “Whatever he said… I don’t want to hear it.”

You end the connection and tighten your hand around the small device as you close your eyes. You have to keep it together, you have to stay in control of your anger.

Nic knows nothing of the drunken mistake shared with Poe, and even if you did feel the need to tell him, you wouldn't know where to begin. It has become clear that something is amis with your strong friendship: Nic has noticed the hostility and tense atmosphere between you and the General.

In a way, you think he's glad. Nic has never been the biggest supporter of Poe, and he makes it quite clear to anyone who will listen to his reasons.

As if on cue, Nic emerges from the fresher. “Is everything o—”

“No!” you finally snap and spin around to face him. “No, it’s not. Poe’s dropping me from the mission—I’ve done nothing wrong, Nic! I’ve…” You stop yourself as you feel the prickling of tears starting to build. You aren’t going to cry, not here, not in front of Nic and especially not because of Poe-fucking-Dameron.

Without a second thought, you start to snatch up your clothes and pull them on, but what would usually be a simple task now feels so much harder as the fervent fury consumes you.

Nic’s hands rest gently on yours in an attempt to slow you down for a moment. “Hey… Stop. Stop.”

You do. You pause while tucking in your shirt and lift your eyes to look up at him.

“Poe Dameron is an asshole…” Nic trails off when you open your mouth to cut in, always too quick to jump in and defend Poe, but a shake of his head quietens you down again. “Poe Dameron is an asshole, but you need to take some time to calm down and get your thoughts together before you go and see him. I know this is difficult for you, but he’ll respect you more if you go in there calm and collected when telling him why this is unacceptable.”

You scoff, “I don’t need you to tell me how to handle Poe Dameron.”

“You’re right, I don't need to do that and I won’t even try. But… the golden boy needs reminding that he can’t keep doing this without good reason. So stay calm. Tell him straight. And if that fails, I’ll go talk to him myself.”

You have to bite your tongue at Nic’s use of the nickname a select few members use behind Poe’s back. Leia’s golden boy, that’s how he had always been known between some of them, and as much as you want to defend him, you find yourself not saying anything. Nic is right. You hate that he’s right because you crave nothing more than to storm into Poe’s office and punch him in his pretty fucking face for doing this to you again.

Enough is enough.

With a small nod, you draw in a slow breath and count down in your head as you exhale. A shower and fresh clothes are needed then an apology to Finn and a conversation with General Poe Dameron.

Your evening is shaping up to be quite eventful.

———

In theory, a calm approach would be the most appropriate, but it’s not the one you take when you walk into Poe’s office a couple of hours later.

The hiss of the door is the only sound to break the tense silence as it closes behind you, blocking out any prying eyes while you glare across the room at Poe. Something tells you that this visit doesn’t come as a surprise to him, but you suspect from the way his shoulders rise and fall in a sigh that he was at least hoping he would have until morning before facing this confrontation.

“What the fuck is your problem?” you demand and take a few steps into the office.

The lack of urgency in Poe’s response only serves to anger you further. You feel your blood boil while he sits back in his chair, surveying you as though getting a read on you before he slowly raises one of his eyebrows.

“I don’t recall us having a meeting, Lieute–”

“Cut the bullshit.” Your feet move of their own accord and carry you closer to his desk until you’re standing directly in front of it.

Now you have his attention.

“Excuse me?”

“You have no right to drop me from the task force.” You point at him angrily across the desk. “And you have no right to get Finn to keep delivering your messages because you don’t have the balls to do it yourself. He deserves better.”

You’re seething. The rage that Nic had advised you to keep under control had multiplied in size the second you walked into the office, and it pulses with blistering fury through your veins.

Poe’s lack of bite has your hand balling into a tight fist. You want him to say something, anything. You need him to give you some sort of explanation, but apparently that isn’t going to happen.

The simple ‘mmh’ response is barely audible as Poe leans against his braced elbow and pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks exhausted, exasperated, and that should soften you. It should make you at least try and understand the weight he’s carrying on his shoulders, but it doesn’t.

You’re done with trying to understand Poe Dameron.

“Well?” you prompt him.

Maker, you’re seconds away from dragging him out of that seat and demanding answers.

“As General of this Resistance, I make decisions to benefit the many, not the select few,” Poe finally responds and looks at you. It’s hard to read his unsettled expression, but you see him, the last remaining parts of Poe that you know, lost amongst the troubles of his title.

Still, you hear the words leaving your mouth in anger before you can stop them.

“Bullshit,” you snarl, “as one of the Generals of this Resistance, maybe you should try making decisions that are best suited for the cause and not your own personal feelings.” Your tone is dangerously steady as you deliver the blow, “but that would require you to be a fair leader.”

Poe’s jaw clenches at what you’re implying, and you witness the shift in his persona happen right before your eyes. He becomes colder, more closed off. He loses more of the man you once knew, and he rises from his seat as a General.

The energy he exudes is heavy in defence: it’s a sure sign of the incoming attack, and if it serves as a warning, you choose to ignore it. This is still Poe—although, it takes a lot to remind yourself of that—and you will not be intimidated by him.

“Watch your tone, Lieutenant,” Poe warns.

You can’t help the laugh of disbelief that escapes you before your words. “Or what? You going to ground me, Poe? Not talk to me for another month?”

“I can dismiss you permanently.” Poe points a threatening finger at your chest, going on the attack after being wounded by your words. “You may not have faith in me as a General, but I take my job very seriously, and I will not have you of all people questioning my motives, Lieutenant.”

“Dismiss me?” You slam your hands down against his desk in frustrated desperation. “Are you kidding? For what reason? For demanding that you do your job well? I just need to know why! Can you at least give me that?”

“I don’t owe an explanation to my subordinates over every decision I make.” The words roll out of his mouth with a well-rehearsed edge, and all you can do is blink at him.

Subordinate?

This isn’t Poe. This isn’t the Poe you know. This isn’t your Poe: the soft, kind-hearted man who would never treat you like this. This is an unrecognisable side of General Dameron—some twisted, hardened version of Poe you barely recognize—and there’s no warmth or familiarity between you right now.

Subordinate.

The word strikes with a harsh sting that sears deep into your chest. You know what he’s doing. He’s trying to throw up every barrier and wall he can; he’s trying to force professional distance between you in a way he’s never done before. He’s never needed to do that before. He’s never wanted to.

You try your utmost to push down the pain that lingers at the edge of your emotions. But it’s impossible, and before you can stop yourself, you throw words right back at him that you know will cut just as deep.

“Let’s not forget that you were once a subordinate, too. That is, until Leia saw something in you that you didn’t even see yourself. She thought you could be a great leader like she was. But Leia led with grace and compassion—she nurtured people, she made people feel valid and respected, she didn’t let her feelings get in the way of her decisions… Can you say the same about yourself?”

It kills you to bring Leia into this, but it’s the final weapon you have in your arsenal to fight against Poe’s attack. And you need him to see how unfair he’s being. This isn’t him.

Poe is uncomfortably silent. It’s clear that your words wound him. Fuck. You suddenly feel a sense of regret for comparing him to Leia. You know that’s a sore spot for him. It makes you no better than all the others who constantly throw their differences in his face.

With a heavy sigh, you straighten, and it’s only then that you register the tingling in your palms from the contact they made with the top of his desk.

As much as you want to stare him down, you find yourself lowering your eyes while you collect your thoughts. Poe had hurt you, and in retaliation, you had gone straight for the raw, exposed nerve. You had used his fears and insecurities against him. It had delivered the intended shock of pain to Poe’s system but at what cost?

This isn’t how you behave towards each other—it never has been: even through the breakdown of a relationship that had never been anything official, you had both remained close and handled things like adults.

Is this simply the natural progression of two people drifting away from each other?

You shake your head and steel yourself before you look at Poe again.

“You’re making decisions based on your emotions and that’s not fair, Poe.” You try a different approach, an appeal without yelling.

“You’re wrong,” he begins and steps out from behind the desk.

Every part of you is screaming that you’re not—that you know Poe inside and out—but the smallest tendril of doubt is tickling at the back of your mind. The man standing before you doesn’t feel like Poe anymore. The Poe you know wouldn’t throw something as trite as rank in your face or refuse to admit such a glaring, emotional mistake. What if you don’t know him as well as you think? What if, after all, he has changed?

No, you have to push the doubt aside.

This is Poe playing his defence card. It has to be.

He’s stubborn—always has been. He’s just digging his heels in. He’ll come around, see reason.

“Am I?” you question. “Because from where I’m standing, it sure looks a lot like you didn’t want me on that mission with Nic after you found out about us, but in pulling me from it to work with you instead, we ended up in a drunken situation that crossed all the lines you drew for us.”

“That’s not—”

But you cut him off.

“Instead of talking it through like adults, you ran away from the problem and made it even worse by reassigning me back to Nic. Now you’re trying to drop me again… And for what? Because you don’t want to risk working with me again? Or is it that you don’t want me spending weeks on a mission with Nic?”

“Those are some bold assumptions,” Poe begins and takes a couple of steps closer to you, “and you’re wrong.”

“And you’re jealous,” you snap back without thinking.

You didn’t want to go there, but it’s the truth of it. If you’re going to work through this, even the ugliest, most painful things need to be on the table, and the reality is that your enduring feelings—both yours and Poe’s—are at the root of all of this.

“Jealous?” Poe’s tone goes lethal—low and threatening—and you know this is going to be bad. “...of Nic?” He takes another decisive step in your direction, his eyes hard and cold. “That would imply that he has something worth being jealous of… and he has nothing that I want.”

You open your mouth to retort, but you can’t string words together fast enough beneath Poe’s piercing stare. You’re trying not to let his words get under your skin, but it’s too late. They’re already digging in deep.

This isn’t right. You had felt that connection with Poe again… Hadn’t you? It had been there. Maker, it had always fucking been there—you weren’t making this up. The touches, the jokes, the way he always chose to sit with you or stand beside you when there were whole rooms full of people to entertain him… That wasn’t all in your head. It couldn’t be. You had felt it in the way he had held you and danced with you, the way he had kissed you.

“I know you care,” you quickly bounce back, trying to stand your ground. “Let’s save us both the back and forth here and admit it. You’re scared that someone else could come along and replace you, so you’re doing everything you can to keep me around.”

You keep expecting him to relent, to soften. You’re waiting for your Poe to make a reappearance and actually try to listen.

Instead, the General doubles down.

“It seems absurd that I have to spell this out for you, but just because we have a history, doesn’t mean I factor you into every decision I make, Lieutenant.” Poe’s words are cold in their delivery, and they momentarily stun you into another silence.

He steps closer, and finally, he’s within your personal space. Unlike most times Poe enters it, this time feels all wrong. Everything is different and off balance.

Poe is no longer the gravitational pull: in fact, he’s the exact opposite as he glares at you with no warmth or familiarity. The only thing you see in those eyes is rejection. He’s repelling you—he’s trying to send you away, to cast you as far from him as he possibly can, and you think that kills him just as much as it does you.

You hope it does.

In one final effort to reach him, you fix him with a determined look and use what little resolve you have left. “Admit it. You still think about me as much as I think about you, and that’s the reason we’re in this mess.”

Finally, his icy demeanour shifts. For the briefest moment, you’re relieved—you think he’s coming around. Then, his lips pull to the side in a smile, and it’s not warm. It’s bitter.

“You seem awfully sure about my feelings when you can’t even decide what man you want.”

Everything happens so quickly, you barely register it.

Something snaps inside of you at the blow from Poe’s words—at the detached, almost flippant way he spat that acid insult—and your reaction is instant.

You swing for a slap, feeling so fucking hurt and enraged. It’s wrong—you know it’s wrong—and thankfully, Poe’s reflexes are second to none. His hand shoots up to catch your wrist firmly, preventing you from making contact as you both stare at each other in disbelief.

In those few seconds of shocked silence that follow, you watch as Poe fully registers the impact of his words. He realises how much he’s hurt you—that he can’t take back what he’s said—and regret melts his hostile expression into something more familiar.

There’s the Poe that you know: the wide-eyed panic, the realisation of how irrevocably he’s fucked up. His cold front shatters right in front of you, but it’s too late. You’ve heard enough, and you’re not going to subject yourself to more.

“Go fuck yourself.” The words barely make it out in a trembled whisper as you glare at him through your building tears.

Poe doesn’t let go of your wrist. He continues to hold it in mid-air as though he’s too afraid to move, as though letting go of your wrist is letting go of you completely. As if this is the last part of you that he has left to hold onto.

“Stitch… I…” Poe tries desperately to find the words, but you don’t want to hear them. With a firm shake of your head, you twist free from his grasp and step away from him.

It’s a hard battle to fight back your tears. You will not give him a show of seeing how much he has hurt you—you’re tougher than this. You are.

Until he takes a step closer to minimise the gap.

Poe wants to apologise—you see it written all over his face. His expression is suddenly one of deep regret for a plan that has gone horribly wrong. You can tell he was trying to create space, give himself room to breathe, trying to figure out how to navigate his feelings and a position of power…not shove you completely out of his orbit.

Too late.

He bumbles in panic, “I didn’t mean—I… Those—those things I said—”

The anger that was serving as your driving force seems to evaporate, leaving nothing but hurt. The numbing ache that radiates from the pain isn’t enough to keep propelling you forward in this fight.

“Do you think this was ever a choice for me?” Your voice betrays you, trembling with overwhelming emotions. “It was always you, but being with you was a choice you took away from us, Poe.”

“I’m so sor–”

“Do I mean anything to you at all anymore?” You’re quick to cut him short. His stuttered apology means nothing. No words that come out of his mouth can fix what has already been said—or the fact that he was so desperate to push you away that he had no qualms about being that fucking brutal. He even didn’t try to explain his complicated position; he just went right for your throat.

Apparently, you don’t know him anymore.

Poe doesn’t say anything at all. He simply stands there, at a loss for how to answer your question. You see his frustrations—they’re evident in the way he runs a hand roughly through his hair and then sighs with heavy exasperation—but still, he gives no reply.

Unbelievable.

Even now, he still can’t tell you how he feels. It’s so painfully frustrating.

Without another word, you finally turn to leave. It goes against everything you feel for him to turn your back on him and walk away, but you can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep him this close without ever truly having him: it’s not good for either of you to have this attachment that will never be anything more than a painful yearning for something that once was.

“Wait… Stitch, wait—” Poe calls after you in desperation. A few more steps, that’s all you need to take and you’ll be back at the door.

“Stitch,” he tries again, “please…”

And when you refuse to stop, he grasps your hand and tugs you back around to face him.

What the hell did he want from you? Did Poe want you to stay despite pushing you away? Was this some sort of test to see how much of his shit you could take? Maker, you were exhausted with it, with him.

“I don’t want to hear it,” you grit. “You’re—you’re a fucking asshole.”

“I know,” Poe murmurs as he frowns and allows his eyes to drop down to your lips. They linger there in an all too familiar way.

No… No way. He’s a hurtful, withholding asshole. The things he said were unforgivable.

But still, you find yourself unable to move. Opposing sides of your common sense scream at you to listen, to go, to stay, to pull away from him, to kiss him.

And then he’s on you.

You grasp his jacket to drag him closer as his lips crash into yours with frantic fervency. It’s heavy and needy: his growl is met with your small whimper, and with a couple of faltering steps backwards, you’re against the door.

This is different from anything you’ve ever felt before. You have experienced needing Poe, being reunited after long missions, hungry to feel each other again after so long—but this is different. This is fierce, impetuous desire. This is Poe’s way of showing you what he can’t say, what he won’t allow himself to say; he wants this.

He wants you.

Maker, it infuriates you.

Only moments ago, Poe was ready to put everything into pushing you away. Your determination returns with a new-found strength: it’s not only fueled by your anger and frustration, but your love for him, too. You’re determined to remind him, to prove to him, that he needs you just as much as you need him.

Poe’s hands momentarily release you to work with your own to drag his jacket from his shoulders and down his arms. All the while, his mouth remains on yours, kissing you, devouring you, aching to taste and explore with a familiar intimacy that could never be forgotten.

This isn’t what you’re supposed to be doing—you should have left, walked out when you had the chance and stood your ground. There’s no alcohol to blame this time, only heightened emotions and a fear of losing each other completely.

Poe’s hands return to your body, firm and commanding. They know exactly what they want and waste very little time in taking it. His fingers curl into the fabric of your shirt, making quick work of pulling it up and over your head. By the time Poe comes into view again, your lips are parted, kiss swollen and hungry for more.

Not even a second later, you capture each other again: Poe’s hand grasps the underside of your jaw to angle your head upwards while your own tangles in his thick hair. This time, it’s your tongue that licks into his mouth first and that, combined with the firm hold you have on those curls, earns you a moan that is muffled between lips and tongues.

When your other hand drops to begin work on his belt, Poe pulls you with him as he moves towards the desk.

Any remaining clothes are tugged at and unfastened across the few feet of Poe’s office, and by the time the back of your thighs bump against the edge of the desk, you’re hastily working your pants down over your thighs between kisses.

“On the desk,” Poe urges.

You easily hoist yourself onto the edge of it, legs spread and hands pushing Poe’s unfastened pants down over his thighs while his own shove things out of the way behind you. Something clatters and rolls onto the floor, but neither of you look to see the damage as your lips crash together again for a bruising kiss.

There’s a thud of one of your untied boots sliding off your foot; you’re sure there’s a witty remark waiting to surface from Poe’s mouth, but it doesn’t come. Much like you, he’s far too distracted, and you easily kick the other boot off while your hand fists into his hair again.

This isn’t going to fix a single thing, and you know it, but that doesn’t stop you. You still catch his lower lip between your teeth in the way you know that he likes: it has the desired effect when you earn yourself another quiet moan from him as it slides free.

There’s the briefest moment of clarity when Poe pulls back to look at you, hair dishevelled and lips parted. For the first time in weeks, you’re back on the same page with an unspoken understanding: this isn’t supposed to be happening—you’re both fully aware of that—but neither of you are willing to stop it.

You need this. You both do.

Poe pulls your pants off the rest of the way, finally freeing your legs to allow for his hands to roughly shove them open. It fuels a burning desire inside of you. Heat licks up your spine and spreads rapidly through your whole body as you watch him with lustful eyes.

Maker, you ache for him. The ravenous need ignites an intense tingling through your muscles. It brings with it the overwhelming urge to grab Poe and demand that he take you right here, right now, as hard as he possibly can.

You don’t have to wait much longer.

The sight you witness is one that makes your pussy clench around nothing. Poe lifts his fingers to lick them, coating them in a slick line before he reaches down with both hands: one to pull your panties aside, the other to slip his fingers through your folds and smear the warmth around your clit.

Fuck. It’s divine.

All you can do is clasp a hand tightly over your mouth to muffle your moan as you close your eyes tightly, unable to look at the way Poe’s sear into yours.

Poe shushes you quietly while he teases you expertly, as though staying quiet is even an option right now. His fingers work the area around your clit before offering teasing strokes to the bundle of nerves that have your hips pushing dangerously close to the edge of the desk. It’s a needy attempt to angle them so that you can feel him exactly where you want him.

And he’s more than happy to comply.

This isn’t some intimate moment of reconnecting with each other again after so long—it’s something completely different. It's a raw, instinctual need, and Poe wastes little time in working you open with his fingers before he’s pulling them out to replace them with his cock.

You grasp onto him tightly, legs wrapping around the back of his thighs and one arm around his shoulders to drag his body to follow yours while he presses you back on the desk. The old, familiar stretch of him is a welcome one, and when he buries himself deep inside the wet heat of your cunt, you feel him twitch with the building urgency to ruin you.

Poe’s lips seek out yours again when his hips begin to move, muffling the moan of pleasurable relief that you let slip. His thrusts are slow at first, giving you a moment to adjust to him before he starts fucking you harde. Maker, he hasn’t even removed your panties in the heat of the moment: they’re simply pulled aside to allow him access.

It’s rough and hard and unrestrained as you part from Poe’s mouth and drop back completely onto the desk. You have no idea what is beneath your arm, sticking uncomfortably into the back of your ribs and quite frankly, you don’t care because the pleasure outweighs everything else.

“Oh, fuck!” You gasp loudly when Poe pulls one of your legs up into a better position so that he can get that little bit deeper.

“Fucking… be quiet,” he groans as his fingers grip at your thigh with a firmness that you know will leave bruises in their wake. Despite his best effort to keep you in place on the desk, each powerful thrust threatens to force you further up until you grasp the edge to prevent yourself from moving.

It’s equally the best and worst move you could have made. Now there’s no give—there’s no bounce each time Poe’s thighs slap against yours in their hard, repetitive motion. You cling with a vice-like grip as every inch of his thick cock fills you, stretching you open more and more for him until he adjusts your thigh up against his bicep and strikes with just the right angle.

White hot bliss overtakes your body as you writhe beneath him, desperate for him to simultaneously repeat the action and avoid it because you have no control over the way you moan your pleasure. At this point, he doesn’t attempt to quieten you down. It’s hopeless, and you both know it, but you slap a hand over your mouth to smother your sounds as he does it again, and again, and again.

Nothing could ever come close to the way Poe knows your body and how he could use that knowledge to wreck you in the best possible way.

With your hands no longer holding yourself in place, each hard thrust shoves you further up the desk, and with a muffled groan from Poe, he grasps the band of your bra between your breasts, tugging it down to expose more of your body to him while also holding you in place.

There’s no rest from the relentless thrusts: you expel a breath in a heavy, hot burst against your hand as the pleasure builds rapidly. Poe’s calloused thumb hastily moves to apply pressure to your clit again, and that has your back arching from the desk, forcing him just that little bit deeper.

“Fuck!” you cry out against your palm while your other hand shoots down to grasp his forearm, desperately clinging onto him as he keeps on delivering. It’s the best sex you’ve had in a long time, and you fucking hate him for it; you hate him for still knowing your body so well.

You know that there are going to be angry marks left behind from the way your nails grip him, but you can’t seem to bring yourself to care about anything else. The pleasure is too much. It’s all too much, and with no warning at all, your body finally succumbs to the climax he had been pushing you towards.

Your muscles clench tightly around him, clamping down unapologetically as your body trembles beneath him. Stars, it’s bliss. It’s everything you had needed hours before from Nic: the frustration and tension simply melts away, becoming nothing but a momentary forgotten memory.

There’s a surprised moan from Poe at the way your pussy tightens around him, and he makes quick work of pulling out just in time. With a badly aimed release, you feel his warmth land across your thigh and the fabric of your panties.

Neither of you move as your breathing begins to calm, and as the euphoric high fades, you’re left with the stark reality of what has just happened. Reluctantly, you meet his eyes, and you see the same painful recognition dawning there too.

It’s too much.

The painful weight returns to your chest, serving as a harsh reminder that this hasn’t repaired anything. You’ve both inflicted too much irreversible damage.

No amount of sex can pave over the glaring cracks in your relationship, and somehow, it leaves you feeling more detached from Poe than ever before.

You have to move. You have to leave. Too many lines have been crossed, and you need to get the hell out of there before anything more can be said or done.

You swear that Poe somehow reads your mind because he lets go of you and finally steps back from the desk.

Your eyes don’t follow him—you can’t bring yourself to look at him as you sit up on the desk and grimace at the feeling of your damp panties sliding back into place. Fuck, you have to take them off. They have to go. You have to go.

You make quick work of pulling them off and balling up the fabric to wipe up the mess Poe left on your thigh. And without saying anything, you throw them on his desk so that you can begin snatching up your clothes and pulling them back on as quickly as possible.

“Stitch…” Poe finally breaks the silence while you tuck your shirt into your pants and keep your back to him. Whatever he has to say, you don’t want to hear it. Coming to his office was a mistake. The things that had been said… The sex… It was all a mistake, and you are finding it harder and harder to keep your composure with each passing second.

“Stitch?” He tries again in a soft tone that appeals straight to your heart. No, damn it. No.

You shove your feet into your boots, thankful for their loose fit and open laces: it makes the process so much quicker than having to stoop down to lace them up again.

Only then do you finally look at him, and you have to fight against everything you know and feel for him as you watch him stand there, dishevelled, looking lost and unsure. You want to hold him. You want to slap him. You want to yell at him for letting things go as far as they had. Maker, you want to apologise to him. You want to wait until he gives you the apology you deserve.

You want to leave.

A hopeful look crosses his face as you open your mouth and speak: “Thank you for the clarification, General.”

The hope fades almost as quickly as it arrives when you refer to him by his title, but he doesn’t say anything. His soft expression hardens into something gelid, and this time, he doesn’t attempt to stop you from leaving.

You can’t stay here. You have to go. You have to leave.

And five hours later, after an apology to Finn, you’re packed and off-world: as far away from Poe Dameron as you can physically get.

Your thoughts, on the other hand, are very much still stuck on the desk in his office.

------

Chapter four

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x female reader #poe dameron x you #poe dameron #poe dameron fanfiction #general poe dameron #aphelion series #star wars fanfiction

464 notes · View notes

newtonsheffield · 3 years

Note

Hey Molly!!

I had to watch the finale of one of my favorite TV shows where they killed off the female lead right after she got together with the guy we’ve all been waiting for her to get together with - for 8 years.

It was depressing as heck! But you saved my depressed little heart with Anniversary so first off thank you so much for this awesomeness of an AU, I honestly can’t get enough of it!! ♥️

I read this interesting fic the other day and I was wondering if we could see something along these lines in the BSCU?

Forgive me if this sounds like super weird and feel free to ignore it but I’m a weirdo who likes a touch of angst mixed with the fluff ahhh

Kate gets appendicitis? Anthony is freaked out? Then fluff!

But again, sorry for such a weird ask! You don’t have to do it!!

As always thanks for being so amazing!

You’re truly the best ♥️

Hello! Hello! Hello!

Ugh! I hate when they ruin ships like that! Like thanks for wasting my time!!!

I'm so glad Anniversary made you feel better though!

Ooof Imagine Anthony going absolutely spare because his girlfriend just kind of doubled over and then went really clammy and like it's not because he said he wanted to marry her right?!

(Let's see if it is!)

Anthony couldn't quite put his finger on it, but Kate had been acting a little oddly this morning. They'd been laying in bed this morning, Anthony's arm cushioning Kate's head as she scrolled through social media. "Ugh! Fucking Hell!" Kate had groaned, rolling her eyes. Anthony had made a humming noise looking up from nuzzling at her collarbone. "A girl I went to school with just got married." She said a little scathingly. Anthony had felt his eyebrows raise, "And we hate that because?" His heart thrumming wildly, surely she wasn't upset because she wasn't-? "We hate that because she used to trip me in the hallway, and she also had guests sign their initials on a bird house. I would die." Kate said a little primly. Laughter bubbled in Anthony's chest, echoing through his bedroom. "I promise when we get married, there won't be a bird house in sight." He said unthinkingly. Kate stilled for a moment and then stood from his bed wincing slightly.

"I have to go to Mary's. I promised I'd help her with some stuff." She said quickly, making her way towards the bathroom, leaving Anthony in their bed wondering what on earth had happened.

He'd been making breakfast when she came downstairs, looking a little peaky as he slid the plate towards her, eggs and toast piled high. "Sorry, I'm gonna skip it. I'm feeling a little queasy, and I was just a little sick when I got changed." Anthony felt his brow furrow, anxiety bubbling in his stomach. "I better head off." "Are you sure you should go to Mary's?" concern colouring his voice, his hand reaching out for her forehead. "Anthony, I'm fine. It's probably just... my period starting or... not that I'll be fine." She said swatting his hand away. Kissing his cheek quickly "I'll be back later." "I love you." Anthony called out as she waved back at him.

Anthony spent all morning trying to busy himself around the house. Kate had left in such a rush, she hadn't even looked at her breakfast, had swatted his hands away and as pathetic as it was, he couldn't remember the last time she'd left the house without telling him he loved her. God, had his stupid comment about getting married made her panic? He wanted to marry her, he was certain and they lived together but maybe they weren't at the stage in their relationship where you could casually mention a wedding that hadn't technically been proposed yet. No, he was being ridiculous, he told himself, She'd said she was feeling unwell, she'd been sick, she was feeling queasy this... morning. Oh god. Kate was pregnant. Something fluttered in his stomach at the thought. Would it really be so terrible if she was? They were committed and he was sure that-

His descent into madness was stopped by his phone ringing Edwina Sheffield (Kate from Work's sister) flashing on the screen a smile coming to his face at the joke. "Hey Anthony," Edwina said quickly, continuing before Anthony greet her. "Um I'm going to need you not to panic but Mum and I are just driving Kate to A&E." Anthony's heart stopped he could hear Kate's voice in the background "For fuck's sake Eddie don't tell him like that!" A scuffle for the phone as Anthony fought for breath, panic welling up inside him. "Honey, please don't panic." Kate's voice winced, Anthony's panic abated only very slightly. "Don't panic?! Kate what happened?!" He choked out. "Please don't be mad, but I think I have appendicitis? Can you just come to the hospital?" Anthony was out the door before she could even tell him where.

He burst through the accident and emergency doors startling the desk nurse. "Um Hi," He said his voice high, his breath wrenching from his chest. "My ah.. my wife's mum brought her in a short while ago? Kate Sheffield?!" "Anthony?" Edwina's voice called out from behind the desk, gesturing him through. Anthony shot an apologetic look at the bemused nurse as he skirted around the desk following after Edwina. "So Kate's your wife huh?" Edwina said smirking, nudging his shoulder with her own. Anthony's eyes bulged as he realised what he'd said, floundering a little. 'Shut up, Eddie. Anyway, she might be dying. Hardly the moment for a romantic proposal." He quipped, his stomach rolling. Edwina fixed him with shrewd stare. "Is there going to be a romantic proposal?"

Anthony shrugged, unable to trust the words that would come out of his mouth for a moment. "Probably." Edwina smiled brightly. "Kate's fine by the way. She's being prepped for surgery which means she's a little...high honestly. She's high as a kite." Edwina said pulling back the curtain with a flourish to reveal Mary attempting to wrestle Kate back into bed. "I'm fine Mary promise I just wanna go home to Anthony and our dog!" Kate was saying her voice a little high. Mary sighed. "Katie, when the morphine wears off I think you'll feel differently." "Anthony!" Kate yelled suddenly realising he'd arrived. And Anthony felt himself relax just a little though worry still swirled in his stomach, he didn't have time to worry about himself.

"Katie, can you get back in bed for me?" He said softly, coaxing her back under the covers. "Mary Anthony came! I love Anthony!" Kate sing-songed happily taking his hand. Mary smiled gently. "I know Katie." "Anthony! They're gonna take out my appendix!" Kate said brightly, as though it was the best news she'd ever heard. Anthony chuckled as he ran his hands through her hair. "Do you wanna know a secret?" Kate said in what Anthony was sure was supposed to be a whisper. He nodded suddenly afraid of what she'd say as he sister watched on with amusement. "It's a really good one." She sing songed again. "Before the pain started, I thought I was pregnant!" Anthony's heart stopped as Mary let out an odd squeak Edwina a loud cackle.

"And like I wasn't even mad about it because I wanna have a baby with you! It would be so cute! It might have curly hair, and maybe your nose and your angry little eyebrows!" Kate said happily her finger running over his brows forcing them to frown as she chuckled. "Mary Don't you think my baby with Anthony would be so CUTE?!" "Okay! We're ready for you now!" A Nurse said making to wheel the bed away. "Just maybe think about it!" Kate said happily. "Kate I would love to have this conversation when you aren't high." Anthony said kissing her forehead lightly, his heart pounding as his girlfriend was wheeled down the ward yelling out "I'm not high thank you!"

"Please tell me I didn't say anything too terrible." Kate winced when she woke up, looking ruefully at her jelly as Anthony fussed around her. "Mmmm you just told Mary and Edwina how badly you want to have a baby with me." Anthony chuckled fluffing her pillows. Kate froze, her spoon halfway to her mouth. "You're fucking kidding." "Oh but I'm not. You want it to have my and I quote Angry Eyebrows." Anthony laughed settling himself on the bed beside her. Kate huffed, her eyes darting to him furtively, clearly gauging his reaction. "Well I'm not... opposed to the idea." Anthony's stomach dropped again. He cleared his throat. "Me either." He saw Kate's shoulders relax a smile threatening to burst onto her face. "I might let you recover from this surgery first though." "Oh my god, such a gentleman. Catch me I'm swooning."

#mary is quietly dying at the thought of a grandchild #even if kate is propositioning anthony while high #like not the time or place Kate but I like the spirit #bridgerton and sons au #kathony #anthony x kate #anthony bridgerton #kate sheffield #kate sharma #molly's asks and answers

89 notes · View notes

duskholland · 4 years

Note

Okay but fwb!roommate!Tom and you trying to have sex, but Harrison or one of Tom's brothers is staying for the week and no one knows you're hooking up?

au: fwb!roommate!Tom

18+ !!!! contains nsfw material. extended warnings beneath the cut.

warnings: unprotected shower sex. please practise safe sex!! condoms act as barriers against STIs as well as unplanned pregnancy.

---------

When your flatmate Tom had asked if he could let his brother, Harry, bunk down at your place for the week, you’d been quick to agree. What you hadn't realised in your naivety was that you'd just signed up to the week from hell.

It’s not that Harry’s a difficult guest to have. Really, it’s quite the opposite: Harry is a lot quieter and neater than Tom, and he at least knows how to keep the kitchen tidy. He’s sleeping in Tom’s room, and whenever you’re home he’s either stolen away in there or he’s laying out on the couch, but he keeps to himself. He’s nice - friendly and warm, just like Tom - and you guys get along fine.

Just… Harry is an exceptional cock-block, and it’s beginning to get on your very last nerve.

To be fair to him, Harry doesn’t know that there’s anything going on between you and Tom. And really, there isn’t anything going on - you’re just friends with benefits who happen to live together. You’ve known Tom for years, and it had made sense to move in together for your third years of uni… Just like it had also made sense to act on that thick sexual tension that’d been hanging between you like a dark cloud.

So sometimes you and Tom shag. Usually in his room, or your room, sometimes in the shower, a few times on the couch… And it’s electric, and consuming, and completely fulfilling, but now his brother Harry is staying and you can’t seem to find the time or opportunity to jump Tom like your body aches to.

“Stop it,” Tom mutters. You’re sitting beside him on the sofa, watching one of Harry’s latest short-films through the banged-up tv that rests on the coffee table.

“Stop what?” You whisper, a smirk in your voice.

“You know what.”

You’ve got your hand resting on Tom’s thigh, beneath the blanket that covers you both. You’re pulled nicely into his side, his strong bicep keeping you close to him, and the position makes it oh so easy to just...let your hand wander up and down his inner thigh. You wouldn’t risk anything else - not with Harry sitting so close - but you’d be lying if you said you don't enjoy watching Tom’s jaw clench and unclench, his cheeks slowly rounding out with a pale pink blush.

“I miss you,” you mutter, tilting your mouth so it’s near his ear. Your eyes flicker out to Harry, and you note he’s still wrapped up in the scenes on the tv, so you add, “It’s been five days since you’ve fucked me, Tom. We haven't gone this long in forever.”

Tom swallows, his eyes skittering over your face, and his gaze darkens as he takes in the aroused glint that dances in your stare. One of Tom’s hands wanders up from your shoulder to push some hair from your face, and he replies quietly, “You’re going to have to wait another two days.”

You almost release a frustrated groan, but you remember to bite it back at the last minute.

“C’mon, Tom,” you coax instead, fluttering your lashes. “I know you want to.” Your hand twitches further towards his cock, and you can feel the strain on the material of his jeans. “Just one, quick fuck? Please.”

“We can’t. He’s always around.”

“Can’t you just… make him go out?”

“You think I haven’t been trying?”

“Well, can you try a little harder-”

“You guys know I can hear you whispering, right?”

Harry joins your conversation and you startle, an embarrassed smile curling around your lips.

“Sorry, Harry,” you reply, hoping desperately he hasn’t heard the words of your conversation.

“What are you saying?”

Tom clears his throat. “Just, uh, complimenting your camera work,” he lies, giving his brother a forced smile. “Hey, what was that technique just then?”

You tune out the conversation and remove your hand from Tom’s thigh, crossing your arms over your chest instead.

The rest of the evening passes by just as frustratingly. You try to corner Tom in the corridor, only to hear Harry approaching right when your lips were almost on his, and then Tom tries to bend you over the counter in the kitchen, but of course, Harry decides it’s the perfect time to grab a cup of tea. It’s so fucking annoying, and eventually, you call it a night and run away into the bathroom to sulk in the shower.

But you aren’t alone for long.

Just as you’re getting the final shampoo suds from your hair, you hear the bathroom door open and you jump, clutching at your chest. Your eyes make out the familiar figure of Tom through the fogged-up glass, and you relax as you call out,

“Being a creep again, Holland?”

His short laugh brings a smile to your face, and you watch as his blurry figure sheds his clothes in record time. You step aside and pull open the cubicle doors, inviting him into the warm space, and the moment Tom’s beside you, he’s got his lips on yours and you’re being pushed against the tiled wall.

“Shit, you’re eager,” you mutter, reaching up to curl your fingers into Tom's hair. Water droplets spray from the showerhead, loosening up Tom’s hair and causing it to slowly curl up into loose waves, and you enjoy the feeling of his wet strands wrapped around your fingers. He kisses you intensely, his hands running easily over every curve of your soft skin, cupping at your boobs and your hips and grabbing at your ass until you’re moaning quietly into his mouth.

“Shhh, love,” Tom mutters. He kisses you again for good measure. “Harry’s waiting for me next door. Don’t make any noise.”

“Better be quick, then.”

Tom settles closer, and you wrap your arms around his toned torso as you continue to kiss him. It feels so good to have his lips moving over yours, and you enjoy the feeling of him pushing his tongue into your mouth and kissing you messily. After a few moments, he steps in again, and you feel his hard cock pressing against your thigh.

“Fuck, Y/N,” Tom mutters, one of his hands trailing down to settle between your legs. You part your thighs further, allowing him to push two familiar fingers into your entrance. They sink into the knuckles and you whimper, your sensitive walls pulsing around him as he fucks you open quickly. “Missed feeling this fuckin’ pussy. Gonna be so tight for my cock, aren’t you?”

You can only mewl in response as you buck your hips down to meet the tips of his fingers.

“You want me to fuck you, eh? Right in this shower?”

You grab at Tom’s shoulders and nod profusely, your body burning with desire.

“Please, Tom. Fuck me.”

“Shit, of course.”

His hand disappears, but before you can complain about your neglected pussy, Tom’s got his fingers on your waist and he’s carefully turning you around. Your shower has a series of shelves set into the wall, and they make the perfect handholds, so you settle your grip there and press out your ass, arching your back seductively. You throw your head over your shoulder and meet his dark, heady eyes, winking at him cheekily.

“C’mon then,” you tease, grinning wider when Tom runs his cock through your slit. “Made me wait long enough, Tom, might as well- shit.”

Your taunts are cut off as Tom enters you in one slick thrust, and as he bottoms out, you groan in sync. The water drags your sounds away down the sinkhole, and you clench your fingers around the shelf.

“So good,” he praises, his voice a whimper. Tom waits a few moments before pulling out and then entering you again, settling into an easy rhythm that satisfies you both. “Missed this so much, babe.”

There’s water flying everywhere, and the bathroom is echoey and noisy, but you don’t care because it feels so fucking good having Tom inside you again. He bends you over further, one hand on your waist as the other grabs at your ass, and you start pushing back against him to meet his thrusts, loud mewls falling past your lips every time he curves just right and nuzzles up against your g-spot.

“Tom, Tom, shit, I love your cock, keep going.”

It’s messy and he’s rough with you, but you love it. Love the burn of his hands grabbing at you, and the rough sounds of your wet skin slapping together. The sensations of his cock pounding into your desperate cunt makes you whimper, and it isn’t long before you’re bringing your hand down to fiddle with your clit.

“There you go, rub your clit for me, Y/N,” he says, his voice strained. “Getting so close, I want you to come as I fuck you.”

Your bud pulses as you rub it harshly, feeling Tom’s thrusts growing sloppier as his quiet groans fill the room. He pushes you right to the edge, and then you find yourself falling over it, your body rolling around in arcs of pleasure as you try desperately to suppress your moans and whimpers. Tom curses, and you feel his cock twitch inside your pulsing walls as he empties his load into you. He fucks into you until you’re whimpering and panting, and then he’s quick to pull out and grab your waist and pull you flush against him, his lips finding yours as you moan into his mouth from surprise.

“That was so good,” he tells you, his eyes wide. Tom pulls away from your face, his tender gaze skittering out across your face. “I really missed being with you, Y/N. You… You’re incredible.” And there’s a softer tone to his voice that you’ve never really heard before, but you like it.

“You’re not too bad yourself, Tom,” you reply, licking your lips. You reach up and press your hand to his shoulder. “I missed you-”

“Y/N? You alright in there?”

For the second time this evening, you find the voice of Tom’s brother startling you. Harry’s concerned words drift in through the wooden door, and your eyes widen as you realise you’ve been taking a very long shower.

“Yeah! All good!” You call back, ignoring the way Tom looks incredibly amused as you flounder.

“Are you sure? I heard some noises…”

You curse, and you reach back to finally turn off the shower.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, sorry. I was just… singing.”

Tom’s really enjoying himself now - a big cocky smirk on his lips. You scowl at him and push playfully at his chest, only to have him wrap you up in his arms and press a series of soft kisses to your shoulder.

“Right, okay.” Harry falls silent for a moment, and Tom presses a long, teasing kiss to the base of your neck. “If you and Tom can hurry up, I’d really appreciate it. There’s only one bathroom in this flat.”

Tom freezes, and you exchange wide-eyed expressions of alarm.

“Shit.”

#i would like to apologise to harry holland for throwing him under the bus #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland smut #tom holland x y/n #tom holland blurb #blurb night #tomblurbs #myblurbs #Anonymous #fwb!tom #roommate!tom #tom.filth #smut

688 notes · View notes

paper-n-ashes · 3 years

Text

The Late Shift - Part 2

Characters: Paul Sevier x Female Reader

Words: 2k

Warnings/Tags: Little inklings of sexual themes. Otherwise we’re still in PG territory. Oh and mutual pining from two idiots. My favourite kind.

Authors Note: One shot? I don’t know her. Honestly, I don’t have any excuse. I just felt the urge to continue on with this dumb fluffy story because it makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside and I needed that. Will we drive this car straight into smut town afterwards? Ah you’ll just have to see.

Catch up with Part 1 here

Paul always considered himself a smart guy. Perceptive, knowledgeable, with years of grueling education behind him to be where he is today.

His schooling, work, almost every minute of his waking moments was spent in the realm of artificial illustrations of correspondence. He could happily spend hours sifting through the words and numbers that made up all types of message transmission, might even admit he had a talent for decoding their significance and origin. Exchanges born from machinery were easy to analyse – they had set rules and gave little room for differing interpretation. He was comfortable in that world. Knew how things worked, what paths data and carefully devised information would take.

Human communication was infinitely harder to navigate. It was a skill he knew he was lacking in, compared to others at least. His words never came out the way he wanted, he struggled to say exactly what was wished to convey and agonised over the fact expression and tone could morph any remark into something with a whole different meaning.

Every day, he encountered people who used this as a tool - a weapon to obscure the truth and conceal hidden agendas. It was hard not to, working for the US government. In time, he’d become cynical. Wary of what people spoke aloud, assuming it was all said without much sincerity or reliability unless proven otherwise.

And then after another arduous day, there you were. Out of nowhere. Kind. Honest. Genuine. Within such an excruciatingly short interaction, you’d exuded all these traits so effortlessly. A breath of fresh air after being smothered by the smog the rest of his life contained.

Paul would easily admit his attraction to you was surprisingly swift. The rapturing smile you wore when you’d looked up from your notepad had him snared from the moment it appeared, an aura of natural vibrance and radiant energy shimmering out from your animated expression. What he’d expected to be a dry, tedious endeavour turned into a spark-filled scene, where an excited stranger made him feel both horrendously nervous and unusually at-ease. It had been a long time since someone made him feel like that.

It had also been a long time since he’d asked someone out on a date, for more than a few reasons. The more prolific Paul became in his job, the more unpredictable and unstable his life outside of it was. It took him across the country at a moments’ notice and consumed most hours of his day, meaning forging even short relationships was fairly difficult.

Plus… he just wasn’t good at it. Putting himself out there. He was shy, paralyzingly so. It’s not exactly something he could refute. His confidence was always born from experience and understanding, in knowing the reasons behind why things worked the way they did, along with being able to calculate what would happen next. No textbook could ever cover the entire spectrum of human personality, and there was no way to truly predict what a person might do or say.

So, without the security of knowledge behind him, uneasiness and apprehension took over in most of his social interactions, particularly with those he felt a magnetism to. It’s exactly how he thought he seemed during his time with you. Awkward and floundering. Not exactly the most charming attributes for a man to have. And yet, the longer he was in your presence, the more he sensed those foibles fade into the back of his mind.

Talking to you was easy. Easier than it had been with anyone during a first meeting. What hadn’t been easy was enduring the seconds your touch grazed over him in your delicate workings while taking each different measurement - his heart beating a little faster, his muscles becoming a little more tense. When you’d eventually let your stare reach his, he’d seen how your eyes moved to trace the lines of his mouth, and it set his insides on fire. He’d been frozen by the unique type of burn, his body locked in place while a rare impulse begged him to sink his lips onto yours. In the past, he struggled to kiss a woman even after several dates, unable to push past the fear and doubt to turn his desire into action. However, in that moment, he’d been all too eager. His hand had moved on its own accord, fingers slinking up your waist, about to pull you closer when interruption instantly shattered his resolve.

The urge was still there in the dialogue that followed, although the promise of seeing you tomorrow made it easier to walk away, safe in the knowledge he had another opportunity to ask you out when his confidence was properly steeled. For once, he could be smart about this. Use his natural intellect to plan and act accordingly, giving him the best odds of securing more time with you.

Oh, but that all went to shit when your text message popped up on his phone screen. Seeing those words, even if they were meant for someone else, made his excitement reach an unfathomable peak, and in turn made him recklessly send a response without taking a second to think about the consequences.

And now, Paul had never felt so stupid in his entire life.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, the phone in his palm lit up with your conversation on display, he felt his stomach spasm with anxiety. Were you going to reply? What would you say? What if his bluntness freaked you out? What if you weren’t even talking about him? Was this all something his mind conjured up?

As the minutes passed without any sign of a response, the initially minor sense of panic began to compound, weighing heavy on his chest, the chaos of his mind soon melting into one certainty - he’d totally fucked this up.

About to slump his forehead into the steering wheel in a display of despondency, Paul suddenly felt a flash of courage at remembering the view of your face peering up at him. He knew the image of it would haunt him if he didn’t do something. He had to fix this. Explain himself. But it needed to be in person. He wouldn’t let technology mess this up for him again.

With a purposeful breath, Paul exited his car and began to retrace his steps past the other shopfronts, silently rehearsing what he wanted to say to you. He hoped to surrender himself to a collectively embarrassing situation, laugh off the turn of events, having it all culminate in an offer of dinner once your shift had finished. He already had a place in mind, only a street away, a little dumpling house that was always open late. Perfect for a cosy, quiet date after a chance meeting.

When his eyes latched onto your figure through the glass window, he stopped his hand from reaching for the door handle. You were crouching down in front of a small boy, his mother behind him cradling a newborn baby, your hand gesturing towards an array of child size suits. Paul couldn’t help but watch as your warming smile beamed, guiding the boys hands to touch and feel over the material, your words evidently making him feel more at ease as his expression slowly relaxed out of its worried frown.

Creeping backwards to make sure you didn’t catch him in your periphery, Paul felt a wave of relief wash over his skin, having evidence that your lack of reply wasn’t due to any of the worst case scenarios he’d been fretting over. You were just busy, concentrated on your work, giving your time and expertise to others in the same way you’d given to him.

The realisation was enough for him slink away, still impatient for your next encounter but assured in it being set within the next day cycle. He just had to wait.

Although, waiting wasn’t exactly a talent of his either.

You were dying inside.

A friendly grin was plastered on your face as you conversed sweetly with the woman in front of you, making idle chit-chat while her son changed out of the suit you’d picked together, but the smile had never felt so insincere. Usually you loved when children came in to pick out ensembles for weddings and similarly formal events, but at the moment your mind was stuck on a small battery-powered rectangle sitting at your desk with a half-written message remaining under your lock-screen.

In the time before Paul’s response came through, you’d never felt more humiliated in your whole existence. Evaporating into thin air would have been a welcomed miracle. But when the returning text slid into focus, your whole mindset shifted.

He felt the same. He wanted you too.

You’d been in the middle of typing out a hasty invitation to come back and make true on his intentions when this overwhelmed mother with a fussy baby caught your attention. Her eldest son had done his best to iron out his only formal suit for the role of ring bearer in an aunt’s wedding this coming weekend, unfortunately resulting an a house full of smoke and a clump of burnt wool.

Personal matters withered into the background at the comprehension of her drained, exhausted demeanour, all your focus pointed back towards the job you’d been distracted from. Well, mostly.

You couldn’t avoid the thoughts and questions glinting in the back of your mind. Of what might have happened if this woman never appeared. What might be happening in an alternate timeline where you’d been able to send that waiting reply. Without intention, your wonderings turned into moving pictures – leading Paul into the back workshop, being roughly picked up onto the cutting table, his lips and yours finally connected in a heated clash, shedding all of his clothing until that heinous mustard shirt was crumpled on the floor-

The high pitched beep of the receipt machine snapped you back into reality, noting the relieved smile the mother wore while her son excitedly grabbed at the bags containing his dashing new suit.

“Thank you!” he hollered without needing to be prompted, waving his hand vigorously before skittering away to the door.

“You’re an absolute lifesaver,” the woman echoed, taking the receipt from your outstretched hand. “I’m really sorry for keeping you so late.”

“Oh don’t worry about it.” The time on the monitor screen just ticked over to 8:17pm, long after you would usually shut up shop and head home to your empty apartment. “I've got nowhere special to be.”

You each said your goodbyes, waiting until the precise moment her silhouette was out of sight before jumping to your phone. The same half written message was there, but now it felt impossible to finish. All traces of adrenaline had long since worn off, and the bravery that made you type out the risqué proposition was reduced to almost nothing. Your timid nature rushed back in full force, a thumb pressing hard on the little x button to erase all evidence of your out of character impulses.

Who were you kidding. You weren’t this person. Unashamed and brazen enough to dive into a fiery entanglement with a handsome stranger in the same evening you’d met. You wished you could be. There was never a time the concept was so enticing. But… it was a fantasy not meant for you to live out. They were destined for the outgoing, the cool and composed, the bold and sure-footed. You rarely felt like any of those things. And Paul, like most men, probably reserved their interest and attraction for those types of women. It was so silly of you to think any different. Getting your hopes up was foolish, and would only end in-

The tingle of the shopkeepers bell sounded, internally groaning as you slid your phone back onto the desk. “We’re closed,” you hawked, a coldness in your tone you couldn’t hide. Eyes snapping up to the intruder, a bolt of lightening shot through, barely able to stop the delight mixing into your blood.

“I just, uh, figured out something more that I needed,” Paul said softly, scratching the back of his neck, clearly nervous.

“You did?” you breathed. “W-what was it?”

His chest rose and fell with a calming exhale, making sure your stares were secured before giving his answer. “…You.”

Tagging some lovelies who might want to read. Feel free to let me know if you don’t want to tagged in future works!

@tlcwrites @roanniom @princessxkenobi @hopeamarsu @blowthatpieceofjunk @mariesackler @leatherboundriot @foxilayde @modernpaw @cornmousequeen @direnightshade @mylifeisactuallyamess @caillea @jynz-andtonic @paterson-blue @miraclesabound @prismaticpizza @millenialcatlady

#paul sevier #paul sevier x reader #paul sevier x female reader #adcu #adcu fanfiction

62 notes · View notes

ickaimp · 3 years

Text

[HTTYD] Break your heart, steal your crown

Sometimes ya just gotta write angst. Lotta people liked Coming Down is the Hardest Thing, my version of the ‘Hiccup runs away and becomes the “Dragon Master”, Astrid’s offered up as a Sacrifice years later’ tropes without Hiccup being a dick, and there were requests for sequels, which I didn’t do because this was all I had. Two years post Coming Down is the Hardest Thing, 4220 words, angst and some fluff.

"Berk is dying."

The words sat heavily in the air of the smithy, lingering like a spectre between Stoick and Gobber.

Stoick almost wished he could take the words back, but that wouldn't change the accuracy of his words. Berk was dying.

Gobber closed his eyes and sighed, giving him a weary nod of agreement. So he had seen it too. Or more likely, he had seen it in Gothi's last roll of the bones, before she had gone to bed and passed away in her sleep, leaving the fortune out for Gobber to read when he found her body this morning.

He hadn't actually told Stoick what the bones had said, giving him the same world-weary look he was currently wearing instead.

Even without the soothsayer's predictions, Stoick could see it. The twins had left years ago, declaring that the isle was too boring for their pranks, setting sail with only a chicken as their companion. It had seemed like a blessing at the time, less things exploding in their wake, leaving Berk a much quieter place than it had been.

Then came Spitelout's stupidity with Astrid, offering her to the savage Dragon Master. They'd gotten her back, only for her to disappear a week later. She'd left a note that this time was by her choice, but it'd been little comfort.

This left Berk's next generation without any women old enough to be wives. To become mothers to bear future generations.

With the Jorgenson clan name soiled by Spitelout's actions, Snotlout was no longer able to be Stoick's heir. The other clans would never treaty with someone whose family had literally brought the Dragon Master down on their heads during a meeting of the chiefs. Except for maybe Dagur, and that was not a glowing recommendation, given the Berserker's... instability.

Which left Fishlegs as the only remaining of Berk's next generation to lead. The lad was smart, there was no doubt about it, and he would be fantastic as a second in command, the next Chief's Gobber, he was too quiet and soft to be a leader. The politics would eat him alive. And worse, Fishlegs was aware of this.

There were other children, Gustav and his ilk, but they were too young to start training as the next Chief of Berk. Stoick ran a hand down his beard, more grey than red from the stress and sorrow. He didn't have long enough to train one of them up.

And Berk's numbers were dwindling in other ways. Many had not been able to adapt to life without dragons to fight, finding a peaceful life did not sit well with their warrior blood. They'd left, being adopted into other clans. They'd just lost another family that way today. Stoick wished them no ill will, but if this continued, then they'd find their numbers too small to maintain the community.

Even Gobber was growing bored, not having enough work to keep the blacksmith busy. Without the dragons, there was no need for weapons, and the simple farming tools they had didn't need as much maintenance. Stoick looked around the smithy, his eyes falling on the curtain leading to a small room that Gobber wouldn't allow anyone into, his own private shrine to his missing godson.

And then there was the loss of Hiccup, the first of Berk's children to leave. The Dragon Master's words, that Hiccup was happy and healthy where he was, was little comfort without being able to verify this. There was little Stoick wouldn't do in order to be able to see his boy again, for even just a moment. Sometimes he wondered if this wasn’t his fault. The path had seemed clear when they were constantly being raided by dragons. But without the raids, he was floundering. His people were looking to him for direction, and he had no experience with peace to know what to do. More and more they seemed to realise this, and left. Seven generations of vikings had lived on this isle, going all the way back to the first chieftain, his many times great-grandfather, and it was starting to look like he’d be Berk’s last chief.

"I wish I had some words of wisdom for ye, my friend." Gobber said softly. "I-"

Stoick jumped as something flew in through the window and landed on Gobber's face.

It was a green and brown Terrible Terror, who was making a high pitched growling sound as he crawled all over Gobber's head. "Don't move." Stoick rumbled, reaching for his sword.

"Ach." Gobber made a sound of annoyance, reaching up and grabbing the Terrible Terror by the scruff of its neck, pulling it off his head. "What're you-"

He trailed off, eyes drifting upwards and Stoick realised that it was the sound of a larger dragon's wings flapping. A Deadly Nadder, unless he missed his guess. Stoick gritted his teeth, feeling fire in his veins again, eager to have something to fight again, to take this rage and frustration out on.

"Oh no." Gobber said, a look of horror crossing his face as he glanced at Stoick. That was all the warning Stoick found himself being spun, his arms being bound behind his back with a pair of iron manacles, and he was flung through the curtain into Hiccup's old room. He landed against something softer than he expected, falling to the ground.

"GRUMP!" Gobber commanded, sticking his head through the curtain and pointing to Stoick. "Sit."

With a complaining groan, something large and heavy pressed down on Stoick. He grunted, trying to push himself up with his shoulders, but the weight was too much for him to get leverage.

"I didnae want you to find out like this." Gobber said, sounding apologetic, the Terrible Terror riding on his shoulder as if this was a common occurrence. "But if you value yer son's life at all, do not make a sound."

Stoick opened his mouth to bellow, only to find a rag shoved unceremoniously into his mouth. He growled, ire filling his veins as Gobber turned away, pulling the curtain shut. The torn fabric didn't go all the way to the ground, leaving Stoick with a clear view of the smithy.

When he got free, and got his hands on Gobber...

A blue and gold Deadly Nadder head stuck it's head into the doorway of the smithy, then carefully stepped in, taking care not to bump into anything in the small building. A crowned pale spectre rode on it's back, white and grey wisps obscuring the figure.

"Gobber!" The spectre greeted the smith with a cheerful voice. The spectre raised an arm, throwing what looked like a bridal veil over their crown, revealing inhuman features covered in glittering blue scales.

"Is good to see you, lassie." Gobber returned the greeting, his voice rolling with affection. The spectre laughed, reaching up for their head and pulling it off-

-Revealing Astrid's smiling face.

Stoick stopped fighting, going lax in surprise. It had been almost two years since he'd last seen Astrid, grim faced and bitter before she disappeared. She seemed to practically glow with happiness now, as she slid off the Deadly Nadder's back, giving a little hop before leaping into Gobber's outstretched arms, giving him a tight hug.

"Good to see you too." Astrid declared, holding him out at arm's length. Stoick could see that she was wearing armour now, covered in scales that matched the Nadder she rode. She wore a skirt, cape, and veil made out of ragged strips of a thin sheer white fabric that seemed to dance in the air when she moved.

The Undead Bride of the Demon was Astrid. Stoick recognised the Nadder now, it was the same one that she'd flown when the Dragon Master had kidnapped Stoick from the Althing.

"What brings ye here?" Gobber asked jovially, the merriment sounding slightly forced. "Not that I'm complaining, but was nae expecting t’see you for another week or two."

A stab of betrayal felt like a knife between his ribs.

"We have news." Astrid bounced and gave a little hip wiggle of delight. It was a gleeful carefree movement that Stoick didn't think he'd ever seen from the usually tacturn lass.

"Hey, wait. No fair." A shadow at the doorway protested, and Stoick found himself growling as he recognized the outline of the Dragon Master and his demonic Night Fury. The Dragon Master swung a leg over his so-called brother's neck, standing upright on his cloven foot and moving towards them. "I wanted to see Gobber's face when you tell."

"Not my fault that you're being slow, my sweet husband." Astrid grinned, giving another skip-hop to give a little kiss to the side of the Dragon Master's scaled helm and Stoick growled, wiggling as he trying to get free, but the weight on top of him didn’t budge.

"Wait a moment." Gobber breathed. "Astrid... Your belly... You cannot mean..." He trailed off, too choked up to speak.

Looking at her in silhouette, he could see what Gobber meant. Astrid's previously flat stomach was curved out in a very distinctive solid roundness.

Astrid was pregnant. And from the casual arm around her shoulders that the Dragon master had around her waist, the babe in her belly was that demon's.

Stoick would kill him. He'd kill him for touching Astrid. He'd rip the foul creature limb from limb, and then he'd get rid of that Night Fury who was sniffing around the room-

All thoughts faded from his mind as the Dragon Master took off his helmet, revealing his face for the first time, and Stoick's breath caught in his throat.

It couldn't be.

The messy brown hair, almost reddish in the candlelight. Green eyes. The fond crooked grin on his narrow face, having finally grown into his ears.

"Hiccup." Gobber said, his voice thick with tears. "Astrid. You've got a wee bairn on the way."

His son. That was his son standing there with an arm around Astrid, the two of them shining with happiness.

His son, the Dragon Master.

"I'm about five months along." Astrid beamed at Gobber, resting comfortably against Hiccup, the two fitting together like matching puzzle pieces.

"We were hoping you'd agree to be the Godfather." Hiccup said, and Stoick didn't know how he hadn't heard it before, in the Dragon Master's dry sarcasm. It was his son's voice, a little deeper than as a teenager, but the nasally tones could only be him.

"Godfather-?" Gobber echoed in awe.

"It's not dependent on if you take up our offer to live with us." Astrid was quick to assure him. "But we'd like you to be. We wouldn't be having a kid if it wasn't for you."

"You got Astrid out of Berk, and you saved my life by taking me under your wing here." Hiccup said sincerely. "We're also open to them calling you 'Grandpa', if that's okay with you."

Grandpa.

Stoick was a Grandfather.

He felt tears prickle the corners of his eyes. He'd never thought he'd have that chance, not after his son went missing. And here his son was, was, healthy, happy, and with a wee one on the way.

"Och." Gobber shook his head. "I couldn't."

"You can." Astrid grinned, reaching out and taking Gobber's hand in hers, scales and claws curling delicately around calloused scarred skin. "We talked to Valka about it. She laughed and said she's fine with it. Someone else to share the responsibility of dirty diapers."

The tears spilled over his cheeks. Valka, his dear sweet Valka was alive as well.

He remembered now, the Dragon Master saying that he had his mother's eyes, and he did. Skies above, he did. Hiccup had always had Valka's clear eyes that seemed to penetrate and see more than anyone else.

"I mean, you did more to raise me than my own father did. It's only fair." Hiccup added without any trace of bitterness as he gestured around the smithy. "All of my fondest memories of Berk are here."

Stoick's breath caught, feeling as if a sword had just been thrust through his chest.

"Someone had to keep an eye on you." Gobber shook his head dismissively. "Otherwise some dragon would have flown away with your toothpick self."

The Night Fury, who had been circling around in the background, stuck it's muzzle under the curtain. The beast sniffed the air for a moment before poking its head all the way into the small room, it's acid green eyes narrowed into slits as it stared at him, a low warning rumble coming from its throat, lips curling back to show a giant maw full of razor sharp teeth.

Stoick stared back, uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable he currently was. The creature could bite off his head in one bite, and there was no way for Stoick to protect himself.

"Oh nooooo. How terrible." Hiccup deadpanned in the background as Astrid laughed. "Carried away by draaagons."

The great weight on top of Stoick shifted and grunted, and he realised that it was a giant heavy dragon that was currently sitting on his back. The Night Fury crooned what sounded like a question to the creature pinning him down, getting a snore-like rumble in return.

The Night Fury glanced back down at Stoick, giving him a look that could only be described as 'scornful' before turning away with a smug expression and trotting back over to his son. Stoick watched as the beast gave an amused warbling at his son, casually headbutting Hiccup, sending him into Astrid, who took a half step to keep them all upright.

"Oh!" She gasped, then took Gobber's hand that she was still holding and pressing it against her belly.

"They're moving!" Gobber gasped. "Oh, they're a fighter, just like their parents."

Stoick's breath caught again. His grandchild. His grandchild was moving.

"The only thing that really settles them down is when the dragons sing to them." Astrid looked amused. "Even if the dragons are confused as to why I haven't laid an egg yet."

The Night Fury gave Stoick a pointed look, then nudged Astrid's belly with it's broad flat nose, giving a soft affection croon, as if to point out that the creature could touch the babe in Astrid’s belly, but Stoick could not. Stoick choked on the gag in his mouth, silently swearing vengeance.

"Which is part of the reason why we stopped by early." Astrid said gravely, and Stoick wondered how much more news he could take tonight.

"Valka says I'm probably fine for flying up until I give birth." Astrid said, wrapping a protective arm around her belly. "But we decided that fighting is out until afterwards. So it may be awhile before I'm back in the area."

"Trapper tried to kick her in the stomach." Hiccup growled, and all three dragons in the room echoed the sound, even the Terrible Terror on Gobber's shoulder. The sound covered up Stoick's own noise of outrage at such an act. "Stormfly stopped them, but it gave us all a bit of a scare."

Astrid nodded, leaning against Hiccup, who looked a little anxious, rubbing his hand up and down the blue scales of her arm. "I can still do air support, but the pregnancy is making me exhausted lately. Which is probably only going to get worse." Astrid looked annoyed. "So we're all going to be staying with Valka at least until I give birth."

"It's not like the Hidden World really needs Toothless and I to guard it." Hiccup said with wiry humour. Stoick blinked, finding he had no more room for shock. Of course Hiccup found the home of the dragons. Of course he had. "But if you did decide to accept our offer to live with us, we didn't want you looking in the wrong place and thinking the worst."

"And Valka promises not to cook in your honour when you do show up." Astrid smirked. And Stoick nearly choked on muffled laughter, aware he was crying again. Valka had never been the best cook, but she tried. And it'd been worth every burnt and raw bite he'd choked down.

"Thank you." Gobber's voice was thick. "But I cannae leave just yet. Your Father needs..."

"I know." Hiccup hastened to assure. He stepped forward, wrapping a clawed hand around the back of Gobber's head, resting his forehead against the blacksmith's. "When you're ready, we'll be there. Even if you're never ready, we just want to make sure you know that there is a place for you."

"You just don't want to be the only one with experience making protestetics." Gobber grumbled, and Hiccup laughed, tapping his cloven foot on the ground, making a ringing sound.

Hiccup's prosthetic foot, Stoick realised, watching the spring inside the metal contraption flex. His son was missing a foot.

And Stoick had no idea when or how it happened.

"You caught me." Hiccup didn't sound angry about it as he released Gobber, more jovial than anything. "But it doesn't make it less true."

"I'll think about it." Gobber promised with the air of having said the same thing many times before, taking the Terrible Terror off his shoulder and transferring it to Hiccup's.

"And I'll teach you how to make Dragon Iron when you do." Hiccup said with a grin, his voice both teasing and cajoling.

Dragon Iron, which the Dragon Master was the only one who knew how to make. Because Hiccup had been a smith since he was six years old, put under Gobber's eye to keep him out of trouble.

"Stop trying to bribe me, you brat." Gobber cuffed him upside the back of his head with a grin. Both Hiccup and Astrid laughed, even if the Night Fury gave Gobber a glare. "Now g'wan. Get out of here before you're seen."

"Yeah, yeah." Astrid rolled her eyes and stood up on her toes to give Gobber a quick fond kiss on the cheek. "We'll see you later, one way or another." She informed him matter of factly before putting her helmet back on and climbing on top of her dragon, settling the veil around her shoulders.

"Take care of yourself." Hiccup clasped Gobber's hand, then pulled the larger smith in for a back thumping hug before releasing him. "And say ‘hi’ to Grump for me, wherever he's snoozing at."

"Will do." Gobber agreed blithely. "Stay safe, all of you."

The Night Fury let out a warble as if to say that it was his job to keep them all safe as Hiccup fastened the helmet back on his head, transforming back to the Dragon Master. The beast gave Stoick one last pointed look as Hiccup climbed in it's back, before turning and heading out of the smithy, both the dragons and their riders losing their relaxed easy going postures.

Astrid followed a few heartbeats later, following Hiccup's soft whistle. There was the sound of wingbeats, and then they were gone.

Leaving the smithy empty aside from Gobber and Stoick. It was with a sinking realisation that he realised he probably wouldn’t get another chance to ever see Hiccup again.

The Dragon Master was essentially Chieftain to the dragons, a role that clearly kept him busy and constantly travelling all over the archipelago and beyond. Stoick knew first hand how busy having a newborn kept one as well. It would be months, if not another year before Hiccup would free to visit Berk. And there would be no way for Stoick to know where or when.

Gobber gave a great big heaving sigh before turning back towards Stoick, his peg leg sounding loud against the ground. Gobber moved the curtain aside, and then knelt down, removing the gag from Stoick's mouth.

"I'm sorry y'had to find out this way." Gobber said softly, and the thing that hurt the most is that he could feel how sincerely his oldest friend meant it.

"How long?" Stoick asked, ignoring the way his voice broke.

Gobber gave a thoughtful hum, reaching up and petting the dragon on top of him. "Almost two years now." He finally said. "I recognized Hiccup's work on the blade the Dragon Master gave Astrid when he returned ya both here. Astrid had suspected as much, it just confirmed it for her."

He'd travelled with his son for an entire day, and Stoick hadn't a clue it was him.

Stoick, who had sworn that he'd be able to recognize his son anywhere, any time, in any place.

Horror went down his spine as he remembered the accusations he'd hurled at the Dragon Master after the dragon had crashed into their camp. Threatening to kill the Dragon Master in order to find his son.

His son, who had been right there. Who had told him while hidden behind a mask, that Hiccup was alive, healthy and happy where he was, far away from Berk.

Away from Stoick.

"About a month after Astrid left, she stopped by for a visit, ta let me know she was fine." Gobber continued, nudging the dragon off of Stoick. The giant creature grumbled as it slowly obeyed, leaving Stoick still shackled and on the ground. "The next visit, she brought Hiccup, and we cried together for nearly an hour."

Gobber paused, checking his pockets for his keys, then started to work on the manacles around Stoick's arms. Stoick had broken through stronger bonds before, but he didn't have the energy in him now.

"They stop by every every other month or so to check in on me, let me know how they're doing, or send a Terrible Terror with a letter." Gobber continued quietly. "Valka's been by once as well, weren't real comfortable here and left just as quick. Too many memories of blood shed."

The manacles released with a click, and Stoick slowly moved his arms, his shoulders protesting having been twisted in such a position. He carefully sat up, turning to face the monster that had been on his back.

And found himself looking at the least dangerous dragon he'd ever set eyes upon, for all its enormous size. It was large enough that it had probably only been it's head that had been resting on Stoick's back, and looked like it was already asleep with its eyes half open.

And it looked like a giant turd. Large, brown, and lumpy.

"This magnificent fellow is Grump." Gobber motioned to the sleepy dragon, with a fond expression. "They left him with me for back up, and so I have a way to meet up with them some time. He's been running the forge fires for me. Never realised how helpful having a dragon in the smithy could be before Hiccup mentioned it, even if the great lump sleeps most of the time."

Grump slowly turned an eye in Gobber's direction, thick club of a tail bouncing a few times as if realising that they were talking about him. He briefly wondered how many months the dragon had been sleeping here and no one had even suspected.

Stoick felt as if everything he had believed in had suddenly been turned upside down and shaken about. Dragons possibly weren't evil. His son was alive. He had a grandchild on the way. Hiccup was the Dragon Master.

"Is he happy?" Stoick asked, mindful of the tears still on his cheeks. "Hiccup?"

Gobber thought it over. "Aye." He finally said, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. "The lad weren't never made for being a Viking. Living amongst the dragons brings him not only comfort, but joy. Astrid and Valka too. Once you've earned a dragon's loyalty, there ain't much that can break it. And the three of them fit among them like they were born for it."

Stoick nodded. "And you?"

"Me?" Gobber looked surprised at the question.

"Will you be joining them?" He had the invitation and the dragon.

Gobber hesitated, looking at the slumbering dragon. "I'd like to." He finally admitted. "Some day. But not any time soon."

Because he was staying here, for Stoick's sake. He'd told Hiccup that clearly enough.

Gobber was his oldest and dearest friend, loyal to a fault, and Stoick couldn't blame him for keeping HIccup's secrets. Not when Stoick's reaction to meeting the Dragon Master hadn’t been nearly so generous, even as he realised that the Dragon Master was only trying to help in his own way.

"You should join them." Stoick said, rising to his feet. Gobber looked like he wanted to protest, and Stoick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "When you're ready."

Gobber closed his mouth and nodded. Stoick nodded back, then walked out of the smithy. The cold air hit the tear tracks on his cheeks, and he ignored it, trudging up the hill to his cold empty hut.

He had gotten his wish, to know that his son was not only alive, but thriving. Astrid too. And Valka as well, his wife living amongst dragons for nearly two decades now. He was so elated to know that they weren’t dead.

Stoick wouldn't trade that knowledge for anything, not even with the understanding that the reason for their happiness was that they were living their lives far away from him.

-fin- (no, there are no plans for anything further in this au, but if it sparks something in you, feel free to play.)

#HTTYD #how to train your dragon #stoick the vast #gobber the belch #astrid hofferson #hiccup horrendous haddock iii #toothless #icka fic

375 notes · View notes

yoditorian · 3 years

Text

lacuna - part 9

din/reader

well shit guys,,,,this is the last one.

this has been a labour of love and i just want to say a huge huge thank you to everyone who’s commented and reblogged and sent me asks and even just lurked and read it. seriously, from the absolute bottom of my heart, thank you. i’d also love to extend a special thank you to @keeper0fthestars and @chatterbean for consistently cheering me on throughout this fic. and an extra extra special thank you to @bee-dameron for being the most incredible sounding board, and without whom this fic literally would not exist. this was really my first jump back into writing fic properly and i couldn’t be more grateful for the love its received. it might be the end for the main storyline, but it’s definitely not the end of this universe 💛

series masterlist // main masterlist

word count: 4.9k

warnings: angst angst angst, rebel is healing, din is having the worst time of his life (all of season 2), swears, yes i am referencing That Monologue

He can’t stop hearing it.

How you pleaded with him, how you begged him to stay, how you cried when he left. Din’s sure it’s a sound that’ll haunt him for the rest of his life.

Din has been staring out at the swirling lights of hyperspace for hours when the kid clambers up into his lap, his stomach lurches when he notices three little green fingers curled around a corner of your old blanket. The kid leans over to frown at the second passenger seat. Empty.

“I know, buddy. It’s my fault, I’m sorry.” His voice is wrecked, the sound of it so harsh through the modulator that even he flinches.

Din’s still not completely sure that the child understands him, but his little ears droop down at the apology and he wraps himself up as best he can in your blanket. Five minutes and you’ve charmed the little thing. Din isn’t sure why he’s surprised, you did the same to him all those years ago.

The kid settles back down to sleep in his lap, curled up in the thinning fabric, and one of Din’s gloves hits the floor before he even realises that he’s slipped it off. The wool is a little stiff with age under his fingers, but it’s been well loved. And been well loved on if his memory serves. He wonders if it smelt of him afterwards. If you spent nights curled up in it, trying to inhale the last memento you had of him before he saw you again, the same way he spent so many nights wallowing in his own memories. He used to wish he had something physical with him to keep close, the cruel irony of your forgotten blanket doesn’t go unnoticed now.

Part of him wants to bring it back. A peace offering, maybe. He wants to let you get to know the kid better, to help him on his quest to find his home. Or maybe just to stay, like you asked. But he fucked it all up. You’d probably slam the door of your little home in his face now. Honestly? He’s pretty sure it’s the least he deserves. He wouldn’t be surprised if you pulled a blaster on him with all the ways he’s hurt you.

It feels like grief. The way the sorrow settles on your chest, curling it’s cold hands around your lungs and squeezing. You hope it chokes you, if only so you don’t have to feel like this anymore. You curl up on the kitchen floor, the cold tile freezing through your clothes, and wonder if this is it.

Kes finds you there, hours after the door was slammed and the sun has set.

“Is there something wrong with me?” You can’t help but ask, you can’t help but wonder. Because even through the pain and the silence and the arguments, you still love Din. Maybe you always will. But you’re not sure it matters anymore. Kes looks at you, confused, and you press on.

“I mean, I laid out how I feel so many times and all he ever did was push it away but- but I know that if he walked in that door right now I’d let him back in.”

“I think that’s love, kiddo.” He sinks down to join you on the floor, and if the chill of the tile raises goosebumps on his arms, he doesn’t mention it.

“Love is stupid,” You pause when he shoots you a look, “No offence to you and your ridiculously happy marriage, but this sucks.”

You sound like a child, you know that. Just like you know that things with Din were always going to end the way they have. You’ve always known you came second to his creed, so much so that you can’t even bring yourself to be angry about it anymore. The alternative is to cry until you lose your voice, so childish seems like the way to go.

“What?” You huff. Kes is watching you carefully, in that pensive way that he does when he’s about to call your bluff in sabacc and take the game. Like he always does.

“I’m not sure you really think that.”

He’s right on the money yet again, the fucking asshole.

A fresh wave of tears stings your eyes. thankful at least that Kes has found a spot on the floor to look at instead of turning those big sad eyes onto you. You’re not sure you could take it. It’s frustration at yourself, mostly, instead of just the heartbreak of being left behind so willingly. So angrily. What is it about you that made the idea of sticking around so repulsive, so disgusting, that he left without a second thought. You thought he loved you, you really did. But you’ve been wrong about things before. However much you hate it.

“I can’t stay here. I can’t.”

“I know.” Kes’s eyes lift from the floor finally, settling uncertainly on yours.

“I’m sorry, it’s not that I- I want to be close to you guys but,” You flounder for a moment, desperate to think up a reason, “I just can’t be here.”

He understands, you know he does. You’ve all lost enough people, physically and emotionally, to know when a place is no longer welcoming. And you do, genuinely, love the little house on the edge of their land. You love the way the sun hits through the kitchen window in the late afternoon, you love the way you can hear the birds in the trees when you wake in the morning, you love the way any of them can drop by anytime they want to. But it’ll always be the site of the last time you loved Din, the last time he kissed you. Ground zero of your relationship. If you could even call it that.

“I’ll be alright. I’ve been without him before.”

You have, you’ve been without Din. You’ve spent years without hearing the comm you gave him so much as click. You’ll be alright. In time.

Only, there were never arguments before. All those times you left, or he left, he’d never shouted at you the way he did. You’d never felt the rage he keeps so carefully locked away, not with you in the crosshairs anyway. It sends your stomach churning, remembering the way he denied you so easily.

You eye the pouch of credits on the table, just visible over the top of Kes’s head. Why would he leave something like that behind? The Crest is falling apart, he’s got the kid to think about now, why would he forsake a payday for someone he’d so readily abandon.

The dam breaks, and your brave face along with it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Kes shuffles over to sit closer, to draw you into his arms and let you cry it out on his shoulder. So, in turn, you let yourself feel it. Properly. Sobbing until you’re half asleep, breath hitching every now and again, and the sun starts to rise.

You don’t know why Din left the credits there, and it feels odd to think about using them when he’s the reason this house isn’t a home anymore. But he could never give you much, and despite everything you know he’s never been a heartless man intentionally, maybe this is his way of making up for that. A clean slate.

The first thing he thinks of as Din comes to, only seconds after the e-web cannon explodes in his face, is you. Of course it is.

You with your feet up beside you on the passenger seat and the child in your arms, wrapped up and snoring softly. No idea of what was coming. It’s that image that stays at the forefront of his mind, even through the pain of being dragged across the ground into the almost safety of the destroyed cantina.

That’s the view he wants, regardless of however futile it is to realise that now. Regardless of the fact that he’s dying and you’re not here. You don’t even know. Maybe you wouldn’t care if you did. He wouldn’t be surprised.

But he gave it up for what? For this? Denied himself and the kid safety and a life just for both of them to die on the grotty floor of the cantina on Nevarro. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Maybe he always has been, for refusing you at every turn, refusing to let himself give in and reassess and have the life he’s so desperately wanted with you for years now. Who is he, without his creed?

Yours. He knows that now.

There’s something profoundly wrong about you not being there as the blood trickles down the back of his neck and soaks into his clothes. As he hands off the child to the people he’s come to think of as his friends and trusts them to do the one thing he can’t.

“Take him to Yavin,” He tells them, desperately, “Find the little house at the end of the farm track.”

You’ll take care of the kid, despite everything. You’ll take him in without a question, in a heartbeat. The same way you so effortlessly ingrained Din into your life when you first met. Even if it was accidental on both sides.

Din can’t stop himself, as the IG unit lifts his helmet, from remembering the way you did the same. This feels so clinical, mechanical. There’s nothing of the warmth and reverence that had been in your touch. Even this close to death, it’s like his bones themselves are calling your name.

“What do you think?” Your voice echoes in the empty space. The smell of fresh sawdust is strong in your nose, but you don’t mind. It’s oddly comforting, as though the shop was built just for you. The sound of little footsteps pound over the upper floor and a messy mop of curls appears over the top of the railing.

“I love it. Can I live here too?” Poe grins cheekily.

“Your parents might have something to say about that, buddy.”

He thunders down the stairs beside the little back office and comes to a skidding halt in front of you, kicking up a little dust in his wake. You catch him easily, whirling him around in a circle as he laughs. The way the sound fills the space starts to stitch the edges of your heart back together. Maybe this is what you need to do, fill a new space with light and laughter and the people you love. Somewhere to exist, somewhere to grow. The workshop seems like a good place to start.

A child of The Watch.

What does that even mean?

His covert, his family, it’s- it’s not a cult. It can’t be. The way she talked about it, like even the thought left a bad taste in her mouth, sends a shot of anger down his spine. He is not a religious zealot. But, would he know if he is?

Is he?

Din’s never had cause to doubt his creed, or his covert. They saved him, rescued and raised him. They taught him to fight and to protect and to provide for the covert. Foundlings are the future, right? Would he be less, maybe, to those born on Mandalore? To people like Bo-Katan who wear the armour from generations past, who fought to defend their homeland and their clans. Din doesn’t wear ancestral armour, but has he not defended his family with his life? Ancient way or not, it seems like the kind of thing that would be important in any kind of Mandalorian culture. Traditionalist or otherwise.

No one has seen his face since he was a child. And yet, he still took off his helmet, every time, for you and believed he was breaking his creed. Sure, you never saw his face, but does that matter? Is it not the principal of the thing? Then there’s the glaring evidence that there are Mandalorians who can remove their helmets. What does that make him, if he’s neither followed the letter of the creed or whatever rules Bo-Katan has.

With the kid safely tucked away and snoring in his little hammock, Din pulls the helmet off and glares at his distorted reflection in the curve of the visor. He can feel your hands on him like you’re there, smoothing over his shoulders and curling around his waist. And as all the tension melts from his body, he knows what you’d say. That he is himself. Din Djarin, and it’s up to him what he wants that to mean. Whether it includes Mandalorian or not. Whatever he wants to be is what he is and you’d never love him less for it.

Love him.

He scoffs at himself. There’s no way you feel like that about him now.

“Can you reach right up in that corner?”

You’d let Poe pick the colour for the walls of the main attic space, and so he and his dad are flecked in bright orange paint as they swirl brushes over the wood they’d primed yesterday.

Kes has him on his shoulders, fully in charge of the high up sections as he’d so politely asked, while you and Shara are screwing together the fittings for the kitchen units. A pastel blue this time, also chosen by Poe. Although Shara had kindly guided him away from the neon purple cupboard doors that had caught his eye with a quick wink at you. Maybe giving a small child free reign over your interior decorating was a bad idea. But he’d proven to have quite an eye on some things.

The four of you had travelled all the way to an inner rim market to find your furniture, deciding on a deep red fabric couch that fit all of you comfortably and takes a considerable amount of effort to rise from. It’s been pushed back against the half wall that hides the attic living space from the workshop floor. Your bedroom furniture is brand new as well, all light polished wood and soft bedding. The credits Din had abandoned had gone a long way, almost long enough that you can forget where they came from. Sometimes.

It hits you again, cross legged on the floor as Shara hands you another piece to slot into place, that there should be an extra pair of hands. Pulling more pieces out of crates or rearranging the layout in the bedroom or hanging lampshades. It’s nice to be making this new house into a home with your family, but there’s still a gaping hole where there should be someone else.

A warm hand settles on your knee, breaking your focus from where it’s settled at the top of the staircase. Shara. You turn to her with a smile, and blink back a wave of tears when she returns it. You have your family, right here, you don’t need him. You don’t need him.

“Get down!” Shara calls, just as a shadow looms over you.

Poe’s feet swing over your heads and he laughs when Shara just misses grabbing his ankle, Kes lifting him deftly out of the way at the last second. This is what your life is supposed to be, definitely. The sound of everybody else’s laughter lifts the weight off of your shoulders just enough for you to breathe, to laugh along with them. For a little while.

Din loses everything in a matter of moments. Everything.

Methodically searching through the ashes of the Razor Crest, of the only home he had left, is the final barrier between him and the guilt about the child. About Grogu. The kid’s become his, undeniably, and he couldn’t do the one thing a father is supposed to do. Gideon has him at his mercy, has Din at his mercy now. Whatever the Moff and Dr Pershing have in store, it’s not good. The kid might not even survive.

All he can see is his little face, his little arms reaching out as the droid climbed higher and higher towards the cruiser. What kind of a father is he, to just let his son be taken from him? No man who would so willingly see the child in his care delivered to his doom deserves to be called such a thing.

Din kicks the dust at his feet in frustration, all too aware of the new eyes watching him. Grief is a difficult thing in and of itself, it’s even harder when it’s observed. He feels like an exhibit. Sure, the two of them stayed and defended the child without even being asked to, but that doesn’t mean he wants them sitting and watching as he sifts through the ruins of his life.

Fitting, really, that the one way he always thought he would keep you in his life went up in flames, exploded in much the same way your relationship did. That was his fault too.

But it’s all gone now. The Razor Crest, his home, Grogu’s bed, your old blanket. Grogu and you. Maybe for good, maybe this is his life now, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get either of you back. Maybe he’ll launch a rescue mission only to find his son dead and hitch a ride to Yavin only to be turned away at your door. Maybe that’s what he deserves.

“Thanks!” You call as the couple stroll out of the main doors and into the sunshine, newly repaired pit droid trotting after them.

“Which one goes to this one again?” Poe catches your attention, waving the motor over his head. He’s sitting on the desk in the back office, little eyebrows furrowed in confusion. You’ve been teaching him small mechanic things here and there on his days with you. How to wire a basic console, how to program a droid, how a hyperdrive motivator works. You’d taken him out with you on a call once, so you could show him the different engine parts of a ship that his mother doesn’t treasure. Today, it’s hotwiring lessons.

Kes and Shara had pretended to disapprove when you asked them what they thought about it, and they still would if Poe was the one to bring it up. But the larger community on Yavin still sleeps far too lightly, still sleeps far too little. The kids are learning their history and their life skills, but alongside basic combat and strategy lessons. The older kids can enroll in weapons training and piloting lessons. The war will never fully leave this moon so long as it stands.

“Which one do you think?” You ask, settling down into the chair with your datapad and a mountain of forms to fill out. Poe ponders for a moment, glancing between your expectant expression and the dead motor in his hands.

“This one?” He touches the exposed wires together carefully, huffing when nothing happens.

“No, wait! This one!” The little motor whirrs to life the moment the wires make contact, and subsequently dies again when he drops it to throw his arms up in celebration. You catch it before it can hit the floor and burst into pieces, your own smile wide enough to make your cheeks ache.

You’re living. For the first time in years you’re living, without watching over your shoulder for the Empire, without wondering when you’ll see Din again. You’re spending time with your best friends’ kid and making a living as the town mechanic. You have regular customers and people who drop by just to say hi, and things don’t seem so bad anymore. Even though there’s a gap inside of you that aches and misses him, you’re starting to be at peace with it.

He doesn’t know why he was so stupid as to think the facial scan might work with the fucking helmet on. And now the terminal won’t stop beeping and he’s pretty sure people are looking over at him and there’s only one option left and- fuck it.

Din’s hands shake as he lifts the plastic helmet off, the habit of a usually much heavier one makes the movement almost too forceful, and he sets it down.

This is wrong. It feels so wrong. The first time any living being has seen his face since he was a child and it’s a room full of Imperials. The organisation that took his parents from him, that massacred whole planets and drove his people underground, that you have spent your whole life fighting against. He feels sick.

It was supposed to be you. He’s thought about it a lot, since the first time you took him to that little house on Yavin. He envisioned standing in the bedroom, curtains thrown open to soak up the last of the afternoon sun, and you’d smile at him in that way you always did. He would pull you close to press his forehead against yours, he would take your hands and bring them up to close around the lip of his helmet. He’d tell you it was okay, and you’d lift it off together. You’d smile, maybe a stray tear would linger in the corner of your eye, and you’d finally get to see him. You’d trace your fingertips along his cheekbone and press a kiss on the little spot on his jaw where the hair doesn’t grow. You’d tell him you always thought he had brown eyes. He’d tell you you’re beautiful. And then he’d kiss you, and you’d let him.

The terminal beeps again and Din pulls the drive from the port, just in time to turn and face an Imperial Officer.

Your head is in an engine hatch when you hear one of the wide metal doors at the front of the shop creak open.

“We just closed up, but you can swing by in the morning if it isn’t an emergency!” You call, and hope your voice carries to whoever is standing in your doorway. You don’t really have the time for a customer, this speeder repair is already a day late because you were watching Poe last night, but Yavin is a community.

However long it took you to get used to after being back on the station, it’s almost like being a part of the rebellion again. Everybody works together to make things a little easier for everyone else. You hear a shuffle of footsteps, slowly edging closer to you, and you’re about to call out again when they say your name.

When he says your name.

You hit your head on the hatch as you pull yourself out of it.

“No.”

You can’t do this. You can’t.

All the work you’ve done to piece your broken little heart back together starts to unravel, just seeing him standing in your workshop. Every staple and stitch and strip of tape loosens until there’s nothing left and that gap inside you, the one that sits right under your heart, starts to ache something fierce.

How dare he.

How dare he think he can walk into the one place that you have, the one place in the whole galaxy that doesn’t stink of betrayal and heartache and him. How dare he think he can disturb the life you’ve begun to build without him, however much it hurt. There are nights where you don’t think of him now. Nights where you don’t wake in the middle of dreams of his touch and his voice and his kisses. And now he’s here and all of your work was for nothing.

“Please-”

“No. No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come back and undo everything. You can’t.” At least your voice is steadier than you feel, as you square your shoulders and plant your feet in a vain attempt to stay upright. Or to stop yourself running right back into his arms.

“I know.”

No, that’s what breaks the final piece of your heart off. The heart that belongs to him anyway. It always has, even when you didn’t want it to. He sounds so broken.

“Did you leave the baby on the ship again?”

You don’t miss the way his shoulders tighten, just barely, or how his fingers twitch nervously.

“The ship’s gone. So is- so is the kid,” Din takes a shuddering breath, “I lost everything.”

Everything? What does that even mean? Your stomach flips at the thought of what he might mean, that the kid is gone. You’re almost afraid to ask. And you hate the painful tug in your chest when his knees give out and he hits the concrete floor with a thud. There’ll be bruises in the morning.

“He’s with a Jedi, he’s with his people but-” He gestures vaguely, and you know what he means. You felt the same way every time he left you. If the kid’s a Jedi, he probably should be in the care of people who know what to do. But you can’t imagine how it must have felt to just hand the baby over.

“He’s where he belongs.” You’re trying to stay cold, you really are.

“Is he?”

It’s hard to be cruel to a man who’s just given up his kid. To a man you love.

He says your name again, softly, tearfully. The shudder of a sob ripples through his body and he heaves a deep breath at the same time you do. You can feel it creeping back, every uncertainty you had the day he walked out of your old house. Every bone in your body screams for you to reach out to him, to comfort him the way he should have comforted you when he left you crying for him on your kitchen floor. He can’t be here. You have to make him go.

“Mando-”

“My name, please use my name.” He interrupts you, desperately. He doesn’t mean to, but he can’t hear you call him Mando. It never sounded right, not the way his real name does when you roll it around on your tongue. He needs to hear it.

“Din, you can’t stay.”

It’s so hard to hold steady, to keep your voice even, to not just throw it all away and gather him into your arms the way you want to. The way you need to. You were right, all those months ago, when you told Kes you’d take him right back if he walked through the door.

“You’re home, you know that? It’s you.”

You say nothing, for fear your words will crack and give you away.

“And- and every time I left or you left it just, nothing felt right. Not until we were together again, and it scared me. And I hurt you because of it, that’s my fault.” He sighs, defeated, but continues on when you stay silent.

“I’m so sorry, my love. I- it’s inexcusable. I don’t know how to- how to fix it. I don’t know if I can,” Din hangs his head in shame, “You should hate me. I do. I pushed you away and hurt you, when all I ever wanted was you. Just you.”

It’s not enough to soothe the scars in your heart, the ones that settled deep and angry and split open time and time again. The ones he put there. But maybe there’s room to make a start.

“I don’t hate you,” You press on even as his head shoots up in surprise, “Against all my better judgement, I love you. Pretty sure I always have.”

It’s quiet for a long time. And you think this is when he tells you he’s not good enough for you, that he never will be, and he leaves for the very last time. You know you won’t see him again if he does, but he’ll take your heart with him anyways.

“Cyar’ika.” He breaks the silence. Again. But it’s softer than the last time you were in this position.

“You’ve called me that before.”

“I’ve called you that a lot of times, you were only awake once.”

“What does it mean?” You’re almost afraid to know the answer.

He lifts his hand to his shoulder, to a pauldron with an unusual skull welded to it, and detaches the mechanism. It clatters to the floor, but Din’s gaze remains firmly locked on yours. He does the same with the other and lifts the bandolier over his head. That too is abandoned on the ground.

“Sweetheart.” His vambraces, this time. One, two clang as they hit the floor, followed by his thigh plates.

“Darling.” The chest plate.

He’s kneeling, surrounded by his armour, by the definition of the man you thought he was. All but the helmet. You love him, you can’t deny that. He’s baring himself to you in ways he never has before and you know what it means to him to do this.

“Beloved.”

Your brain stops working. You were so ready to shout and scream and punish him for what he put you through but suddenly none of it matters. Because he’s here, he’s finally here, and he’s telling you he loves you and that’s all you’ve ever wanted.

“Take it off, please?”

And so you do.

Your feet are moving towards him before you can even register what they’re doing and you haul him up off of the ground. Din winds his arms around you automatically, without a second thought, until there isn’t a breath of air left between your bodies. No armour, no barriers, just two people who have done far too much damage to each other to ever know anyone else the way you do.

His eyes. Oh god, his eyes.

“You’re beautiful.” You whisper, careful not to disturb the peace that’s settled. Finally, finally.

“That’s my line.” He chuckles as you smile, as you feel that gap in your ribs quiet after all these years. An unfilled space, no longer.

Din kisses you, and you let him.

TAGLIST (add yourself here):

@bee-dameron @rebloogggs @keeper0fthestars @remmysbounty @sirianisrock @thevoiceinyourheadx @firstofficerwiggles @1800-fight-me @ew-erin @chatterbean @altarsw @darnitdraco @greeneyedblondie44

#lacuna #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #star wars #fic #liz does words #oh my god........oh my god its over #sfw

82 notes · View notes

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years

Text

The Debt

“Reader helps their father sells wares at the market but he is unable to pay the lord when comes to collect his taxes.” as requested by two anons and @buckybarnesplumwhore

Warning: nonconsent sex; seriously, don’t like it, don’t read. My blog and stories are clearly marked.

You looked up, surprised as you father returned to the shed. You were counting the bundles of wool ready to be taken to market that day. It was still early, barely after dawn but you would have to start loading up soon. As it was, you doubted you had enough to break even.

As for many merchants, the year had been unkind. Several of your sheep had been stolen and others killed by wild animals. On top of that, the duke had hiked up taxes to pay his own debt to the crown. The very man who had justed strode in behind your father. Who you'd only ever seen in passing, swaying on horseback. The man who looked around thoroughly unimpressed.

"My lord, as you see, this year has not be prosperous. Even our crops were sparse," Your father rubbed his hands together. "But we have two of our ewes with lamb and are hopeful for next year. If you would suspend our debt even a few months, we could--"

"You peasants," The duke, the venerable Lord Barnes, spoke with distaste. "You think I can just shrug away your irresponsibility. You do not realise I must account for it to the king. That I must atone for it from my own coffers."

"We would pay with interest, my lord," Your father followed a foot back as the lord neared the stack of wool which you had only just been counting.

"We?" His eyes glossed over the wool then his brows lifted as his gaze found you. "Your wife seems rather young. She must shoulder much of the labour."

"Oh, my lord, that is... that is my daughter." He explained. "My wife is in the house. You must smell the bread she bakes. I am certain there is more than--"

"Do you have anything besides your wool or coin to offer me?" The lord turned to your father. "Perhaps a hidden treasure?"

"We are simple people, my lord, I am afraid we've already sold much of our possessions to offer what we've already given--"

Barnes raised his hand and formed a fist to silence your father. Slowly, he lowered is and his fingers stretched over his hip. He smirked and turned back to face you.

"I might then propose another form of compensation," He said. "Your daughter is young, healthy it seems... in tact."

"My-- my lord," Your father sputtered. "My daughter... I have a son. He might work in your smithy? Or--"

"I have enough men in my employ and due to your negligence, little enough gold to pay them with," Barnes snapped, never looking away as you hugged yourself protectively. "She is... fair enough," He grabbed your chin and pushed your lips apart with his thumb. "Good teeth."

Repulsed, you bit him and he drew away with a hiss. It turned to a chuckle and he turned back to your father.

"I only ask some time with her," He said.

"But--" Your father began.

"You can take my generous offer or pay me in coin. If you refuse to do either, I will return with my men and take it all anyways." He warned. "And I will find the girl, one way or the other."

Your father floundered. His lips quivered and he sent you a helpless look. An expression which guaranteed your fate and broke your heart. He closed his mouth and bowed his head, hesitantly turning away. The door clatter behind him and you were left staring at Lord Barnes' broad shoulders.

He chuckled, low, sinister, as he turned back to you. His blue eyes barely touched your face as he stepped closer and grabbed your wrists, uncrossing your arms from around you. He pulled you close and pulled your arms above you. He looked you over and licked his lips.

"Kiss me," He demanded.

You stared at him, nervous, afraid. You'd never kissed anyone before. You blinked at him and tilted your head up, scrunching your lips against his. He pulled back and laughed again.

"Not so stiff, dear," He bent his head again, this time his lips met yours.

He released your arms and his left wrapped around your waist as his other hand came up behind your head. He squeezed you against him and prodded his tongue between your lips. He kissed you until you were out of breath and drew away, his breath hot as it mingled with yours.

"Pull your skirts up," He ordered as he let you go. He grinned at the shock on your face. "Or I can tear them off. I'm certain your father can afford to replace those."

You winced and slowly bent. You gathered the hem of your skirts and pulled them up, your thin shift bunching up with the dyed wool. He watched as you avoided looking at him and he bent to touch your bare thighs. His hand slid around and he played with the patch of hair along your pelvis. He tickled you just a little before he rescinded his touch.

He grabbed the top of your bodice and ripped the laces, splitting the fabric of your dress and shift below to expose your chest. His eyes flared at the sight and he quickly bent to nibble at your breast. He took your nipple in his mouth and sucked. He moved to the other, a trail of slobber in his wake, and purred. You felt a keen tingle deep in your chest.

He stood straight again and picked at the laces of his breeches. You watched his hands, his bulge apparent through the hide. You looked up at his face before he could free himself and quivered. You clung to your skirts, frightened. He stroked his cock and stepped closer.

He stopped and you could see his girth bobbing in the edge of your vision. His cock pressed against you as his arms snaked around you and he gropped your ass. He lifted you, easily, and slid his hands down your legs to bend them around him. He pressed them to him until you clung to him.

He kept one hand on your ass as the other felt around beneath you. You dropped your skirts and they draped behind you as you latched onto his shoulders, precarious as you hung from him. He prodded your cunt and pushed his tip against your folds. You flinched and turned your face from him.

"Shame? You should be proud," He taunted. "To be fucked by a duke."

He slid two fingers along your folds and parted them. He poked his cock between them and guided himself to your entrance. He pushed inside just a little and you gasped. You closed your eyes and he took another inch. You gritted your teeth as you sank down his length. He stopped and took a breath before forcing himself in to his limit.

"Oh, God," He hissed as he bottomed out.

You whined at how much it hurt. His hand went to the small of your back as his other kneaded your ass. He crossed to the wall with stagged steps until you pressed up against the boards. Your nails dug into his doublet as his hand moved to your hip and he rocked you against him. You yelped and he did it again.

He pinned you hard against the wall and moved his hips instead, each thrust came quicker than the last. Your voice was strangled as you cried out and your arms slipped over his shoulders as your strength seeped from your body. You leaned against him as he bounced your body between him and the wood. The noise of your deflowering was sickening and sloppy.

"Imagine," He rasped as he pressed his lips to your cheek, "If I get a bastard on you, you'd be a lucky girl indeed."

"Please," You begged, "Sl-slow... hurts."

"Shhh," He covered your mouth with his hand.

His pelvis rubbed against yours as your skirts swayed with his frantic movements. You felt a peculiar warmth deep inside and it grew more intense as the friction built between you. You pressed your forehead to his shoulder and whined as you were overwhelmed by a sudden flood of heat that rippled through you.

He groaned and grunted as he sped up again. He hammered you into the wall as he grabbed you underneath the knees and forced your legs higher. You braced yourself against the wood and he pounded into you. He jerked violently and threw his head back with a growl. A few more thrusts as he spilled into you and stilled.

He purred as he leaned against you and the wall. He lingered inside of you and wiggled his hips.

"Perhaps I should take you with me," He cooed. "As interest upon your father's debt."

#bucky barnes #dark bucky barnes #dark!bucky barnes #drabble #request #bucky barnes x reader #dark bucky barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes x reader #medieval au #lord bucky barnes #mcu #marvel

497 notes · View notes

iliveiloveiwrite · 4 years

Text

A Taste of Perfection

A/N: I wrote Draco angst. It came to me, and I wrote it. There’s a flashback in this, but it’s right at the start - it’s in bold and bordered by asterisks. Anyway, this is angst - I get it if you don't want to read, but if you do, I hope you enjoy!

Title: Katy Perry - Thinking of You

Warnings: angst.

Word count: 1.6k

He watches from a far pew. He watches as the veil is lifted over your face and your new husband smiles as if the sun itself was shining underneath.

It was; the sun itself was you and he knew what it felt like to be looking down on your face.

He thinks back to the day he had let you go:

*******

“We can’t do this anymore,” He whispers, fastening the buttons of his shirt.

“Do what? Draco, I love you. I don’t love him.”

He runs a finger down the length of your face, “You’re engaged to be married. You are getting married, and it isn’t to me.”

Tears line your eyes, “I’ll fight it, Draco. I’ll fight the engagement.”

Sadness fills his eyes, “No, you won’t.” He orders quietly, “You wouldn’t do that to your parents; you wouldn’t risk being disowned.”

You hold the sheet to your body as you sit up, “What does this mean, Draco?”

He presses a long kiss to your forehead, “It means we can’t do this anymore.”

*******

Draco turns away as your husband kisses you. He can’t watch the happiness on your face, or his. Draco focuses his attention on the stained glass windows; on the saints depicted there.

He’s burning from the inside out. He should have fought harder, should have done everything, but he didn’t.

And now he has to live with himself and the consequences.

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

As your new husband trails kisses down the length of your body. As he hitches your leg over his waist. As he presses his face into your neck. As he worships at your feet as if you were Aphrodite herself.

You aren’t thinking of him.

You haven’t thought of him through any of it: the wedding, the reception, and now.

You’re thinking of Draco. Thinking of what he would do if he was the one to be spending the night whispering words of your love into your skin.

You wonder if your husband can hear your heart breaking.

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

The comparisons happen naturally. You don’t mean to; you understand that Draco and your husband are two very different men, but you compare them to each other as your marriage progresses.

In your head, Draco was your taste of perfection. You had tasted the ambrosia of the gods in his kisses; and had experienced the ecstasy of lust in his touches.

You realise the standard which you expect your husband to meet is high, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to. Your husband would kiss you, but you would taste Draco, remembering how his mouth would move on yours.

You’re disgusted with yourself. You lack the love for your husband that he so graciously bestows upon you. Your heart belongs to another, and it probably always will. You know that you don’t deserve your husband, with his kind smiles and tender touches.

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

You’ve come to hate social events. You despise them with every fibre of your being.

You used to love them; used to crave a ball or a party or a dinner for it meant that you could sneak away undetected on Draco’s arm. Run away to dark corners where he would trail open-mouthed kisses along the neckline of your dress; or have you gasping for breath in coat cupboards.

Now, you’re expected to either hang from your husband’s arm, barely listening to the drivel falling from his friend’s mouths or sit with their wives and gossip about the people you were once friends with in school.

You also hate them because you have to see Draco. It’s bittersweet, truly. On one hand, you crave seeing him with your own eyes, needing to see him to feel okay in this too-large room. On the other hand, it reminds you every time of your last conversation where he ended things and your heart was broken for the very last time.

Eyes meet across the room, and time stops. Your eyes meet his grey ones, and you’re taken back to the hours spent in bed – no talking, just staring. Time ceases to continue as you look into his eyes; as every emotion he has felt for the last eight months flicker across his face so quickly you wonder if you imagine it.

Draco breaks the connection; placing his glass on a waiter’s tray before leaving the room. He won’t come back.

Your heart years to follow him; to talk to him; to touch his face as he once did yours. Draco is the apple of temptation, and you’re ready to grab.

But you remember your husband; your patient, kind husband who takes the time to listen to you, to understand you. And you make a promise to yourself – to do better by him, to start putting in the same amount of effort.

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

Your husband is a good man; he is a patient man.

He knew that you were reluctant to accept the proposal given that it was arranged by both sets of parents. He knew that you would have preferred your independence a little while longer, but under pressure, you married him six months after the engagement announcement.

He just didn’t know that you were in love with Draco Malfoy.

It surprised him that you married him; he thought you would have fought the match, but you didn’t.

For a while though, the marriage felt empty, and he floundered with what to do to help you. But as time went on, after you reached the eight-month mark, things started to change, and you started to warm up. You started to seek him out and make an effort; it gave him hope.

He started to feel hope for his marriage after all.

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

A year into the marriage, your parents and in-laws start wondering about children. Dropping their hints at every visit; planting the seed in your husband’s head.

He brings it up one night, “What would you say to having children one day?”

And it’s the catalyst.

You had longed for children, had wanted them for as long as you could remember.

But not with him, never with him.

“I can’t do this anymore.” You state, looking your husband squarely in the eyes.

“Can’t do what?”

“I can’t be married to you anymore, I’m leaving you.”

He leans back in his chair; his face the perfect picture of shock, “Can I at least ask why? I thought we were doing better?”

“We were, but I can’t have children with you.”

“Is it because of Malfoy?” He watching and you flinch at the sound of his name.

“He’s part of it, but it’s also because it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“We were doing well,” Your husband mutters in disbelief.

“We were,” You concede.

“What changed?” He asks, mostly to himself – wondering where on this path he took a wrong turn.

Tears of regret overflow onto your cheeks as you shake your head, whispering apology after apology to him. “I never deserved you. You have been nothing but good to me, and I can’t even repay that kindness.”

Your husband begins to cry as well, “I think on some level I always knew this wouldn’t last.”

Your voice breaks as you apologise again.

“I’ll do you this last favour,” Your husband starts, “I’ll tell our parents, say we weren’t compatible, that we were having argument after argument. But in return, I don’t want to see you again. At least, not for a while. I don’t think it would do either of us any good.”

You stand from your seat, walking to his seat where you drop a hand on his shoulder, “I am truly sorry this couldn’t work, and I wish you all the happiness that this world can offer.”

He squeezes your hand just once before shaking it off, “I hope Draco can offer you the same.”

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

You run down the path to the manor; gravel kicking up from your heels.

You barely make it half way before the door is being flung open and Draco is sprinting towards you.

He meets you half way; you crash into his body with the force of a tidal wave. He stands it all; his hands land on your waist where they’ve belonged all this time.

“I saw you from upstairs,” Draco gasps, breathless, “What are you doing here?”

You swallow, inhaling a gulp of breath, “I left him. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Draco rocks back onto his heels, “You what?”

“I left him,” You repeat, “I couldn’t be married to him any longer, not when I’m so desperately in love with you.”

Draco’s hands clutch your face, pulling you in for a kiss you have craved since the day he left you. It’s messy, it’s hurried – it’s perfect. He’s throwing every emotion into it and you’re responding in earnest.

You pull away breathless. Draco’s arms wrap back around your waist, drawing you flush against him. His eyes search your face, hope shining through them. A slow smile breaks across his face as he begins to realise that he isn’t dreaming; this is happening.

You’ve chosen him. You’ve chosen him over your husband.

You smile widely as you press one, two, three pecks to his mouth, revelling in the way that Draco’s lips chase yours for more.

Happiness spreads through both of your veins as you paw at the other; touching what you couldn’t for a year.

“I didn’t think I would get to do this again,” Draco whispers, his thumb rubbing across your cheekbone.

You lean into his touch, “I didn’t think so either.”

Unable to resist, Draco draws your lips back to his. His mouth moving slow on yours; entirely and completely perfect.

You had tasted perfection in Draco; and now that perfection was yours to keep.

***********

General (HP) taglist: @chaotic-fae-queen @obsessedwithrandomthings @harrypotter289 @dreamer821 @kalimagik @heloisedaphnebrightmore @nebulablakemurphy @the-hufflefluffwriter @figlia--della--luna @bforbroadway @idont-knowrn @summer-writes

Draco Malfoy taglist: @the--queen-of-hell @obx-beach @obxmxybxnk

393 notes · View notes

might-be-a-zygon · 3 years

Note

"i'm not going anywhere, i promise." for Yaz/13

Sorry this took so long! I’m actually really awful at writing fluff so it tends to take me a while! Also sorry it’s so short, again, it’s something I struggle with. Hope you like how it turned out.

It Means Time

When you met someone like the Doctor- someone who was mysterious and terrifying and wonderful in equal parts- you quickly got used to the idea that you could love her with all your heart, but you’d never really know her.

Yaz was learning quickly that there were certain things she just had to get used to, loving a woman like that. Waking up in the middle of the night to find her gone, her awful dress sense, her frankly bizarre eating habits, and the days where she hardly understand a word the Doctor said were all things that were well worth dealing with.

Still, it was getting very hard not to see that odd, wistful look the Doctor got in her eyes sometimes when they were alone together in some brief moment of peace. They’d be cuddling on the sofa, and the Doctor would be watching her not the movie. They’d crawl into bed after a very long day, and the Doctor wouldn’t close her eyes until long after she thought Yaz was asleep. They’d kiss, and the Doctor would look right through her.

:readmore:

It was in one of those quiet moments- when they were sitting in one of the TARDIS kitchens trying their best to have a lazy morning- that Yaz finally plucked up the courage to ask about it.

She’d been standing there, buttering her toast her hair half-up, wearing a set of pyjama shorts and a battered jumper which had apparently belonged to the Doctor’s previous face; The Doctor had been sat at the table with a plate of custard creams (“Breakfast of champions, Yaz”), still wearing boxer shorts and an oversized t-shirt, with her hair sticking up at odd angles.

It was one of those brief, domestic moments that was so painfully ordinary it made her heart ache.

Yaz wouldn’t trade her life of adventure for the world, but there was certainly something beautiful in these moments of normality that made all the running feel just a little more worth it.

She put the butter knife down, beginning to dig through the cupboard for the jam that wasn’t blue, when she felt the Doctor’s eyes on the back of her head. She didn’t even have to turn around to know she was wearing that expression again.

“Why’d y’ keep lookin’ at me like that?” Yaz finally asked, turning to catch the Doctor’s eyes before she could look away.

“You look nice.” Her girlfriend rattled off almost automatically, shoving a custard cream into her mouth to avoid having to answer any more questions.

Yaz just shot her a look, her eyebrow raised. She didn’t need police training to know that the Doctor was hiding something- her guilty expression did that all on its own. Giving up on finding the jam, she brought her toast over to the little table, taking a seat opposite her.

“You’re lookin’ at me like you feel guilty about somethin’ or-“ She paused, tilting her head slightly to one side, “like- like you regret something?” Now that was an upsetting prospect. “Do you regret this, Doctor?”

“No.”

The reply came a little too quickly to be believable, and Yaz felt her stomach drop. She thought that what they’d had going on between them- well it wasn’t normal, but nothing ever was anymore. It wasn’t normal, or easy, but what they had was good- and for now Yaz was happy with good.

She’d thought the Doctor was too.

“Oh.” Was all she could actually manage- as though the Doctor wasn’t lying through her teeth. The lie didn’t seem to matter much when they both knew the truth that cowered behind it. “So, you do, then? Regret it. ‘Cause I know that face, Doctor.”

“No-“ The Doctor began again, her spoon clattering uncomfortably loudly against the side of her mug as she looked for something to do with her hands. “I didn’t mean-“

Yaz could see she was floundering for an explanation or excuse. In any other circumstance she might have tried to help, but not this time.

“Do you regret this?” She asked again, a little more firmly, “’Cause I thought things were goin’ well with us and-“

“No- No they are. I promise. It’s not that-“ She shook her head as though she was trying to physically clear it. “I said I wasn’t gonna do this anymore.”

“Do what anymore?”

“This!” The Doctor elaborated rather unhelpfully, gesturing wildly with both hands as though it was supposed to help. “You and all the- the domestics, and the fallin’ in love with humans.”

Yaz’s head snapped up to look at the Doctor. Had she really just said that? Neither of them had said that, yet. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel the same way just- there was always something vaguely intimidating about admitting any genuine emotion to the Doctor, especially when she got like this- already racing ahead on her train of thought while Yaz was still trying to process her slip of the tongue. With the speed at which she was talking, it seemed likely she hadn’t even noticed her own mistake.

“Wasn’t even meant to be bringin’ anyone else along, really. I always say that. After Rose I ran into Martha and I kept saying I was gonna take her back but she was brilliant and- and I treated her rubbish. Then she was alright and Donna kept cropping up and-“

“Doctor?” Yaz tried, her tone a little more gentle now, though it did nothing to prompt the Doctor out of her rant- she was already in full swing.

“And it wasn’t like I even got a choice with River- I married her before I met her! And with Amelia- the new face got all sentimental and started doing emotions. And Martha and Donna were married by then, and Rose was happy and Jack- I couldn’t do anything about him but I thought that time I was getting’ better.”

“Doctor!”

“Then Rory had to come along, and I said after the Pond’s I wouldn’t take anyone else but Clara was so clever and she kept turning up everywhere, and then Nardole wasn’t human so he didn’t count and Bill was getting’ attacked and I didn’t have much choice there, and then you lot- mmff“

Yaz had grabbed a fistful of the Doctor’s oversized shirt, pulling her across the table and planting a kiss square on her lips, desperate to jolt her out of the panicked ramblings long enough to get your attention. It was certainly enough to silence her, earning her a questioning look from the blonde, who looked baffled, if not displeased.

“Did I say something good?” She asked as she settled back into her seat.

“You said fallin’ in love.”

“Yeah?” The Doctor shot Yaz a maddeningly blank look, as though she didn’t even realise the weight of what she’d said.

“And was that about me? ‘Cause you haven’t said that before.”

Something seemed to fall into place for the Doctor, based on the shift in her expression, at least. “I thought you knew.” She admitted, “I thought- I mean, you’re brilliant. Course I love you. M’just not supposed to.”

“Why not? because we’re happy, right? You make me happy.”

The Doctor’s expression became resigned, and she lent back across the table, taking one of Yaz’s hands between both of hers.

“Being with me is dangerous Yaz, I-“

Yaz shot her an exasperated look, pulling her hand back. “Hey! Stop. We knew the risks when we came with you. I knew the risks when I decided to stay. You’re- You’re the Doctor! You don’t get scared. Stop being scareda me.”

“I get scared of losing you.” She admitted.

Yaz leant a little closer, taking the Doctor’s hand again, and squeezing her fingers gently, trying to bring her back from whatever dark place she’d strayed into. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

“People always go, eventually.”

She thought back to Jack, and to what he’d said. Nothing lasted forever with the Doctor- she already knew that, but they had the now- and how many people got to be loved by someone like her? What they had was rare, and if it was fleeting, she wouldn’t waste what time they did have worrying about the time they didn’t.

“I’m here now.”

The Doctor’s face softened, and she squeezed Yaz’s hand back, before saying, “Happily ever after doesn’t mean forever. It just means time.”, in a quiet, knowing way- they were words she’d said before, clearly.

“Who said that?” She asked, half-curious, half just keen to keep the Doctor from starting down the ‘I’m too dangerous for you’ path again.

“Someone a lot cleverer than me.” A shadow of something unfathomably sad ghosted across the Doctor’s face for a moment, before her lips turned up into a softer, more genuine smile. “So. Yasmin Khan. All of time and space. Where to next?”

Loving a woman like the Doctor would never be easy. There’d be ups and downs and twists thrown in you could never see coming. Sometimes loving her meant soaring higher than you’d ever dreamed. Sometimes loving her meant hurting worse than you ever knew you could hurt. One thing, though, would never ever change. Loving the Doctor- it meant time. Time to fly and time to fall. Time to celebrate, and time to grieve. Time to run, and, sometimes, on those few days when things were just good, there was time to sit, and to relax, and to love.

#thasmin #thirteenth doctor #yasmin khan #yaz khan #doctor who #madeathing

21 notes · View notes

writefightandflightclub · 4 years

Text

Bulletproof (First Order!Poe x reader)

What is this? This is the 2nd of 14 short prompt requests I’ll be writing as part of my 500 follower celebration! See my call-out for requests (now closed... unless you’re desperate!) and credit for prompt list creators here.

What is the prompt? This awesome prompt from @woakiees -“i’m feeling #45 from the third prompt list with fo! poe (”you took a bullet for me.”) maybe some angst with a happy ending? or not happy. you decide!” Hope this is something like you had in mind, woakiees! <3

Author’s note: I tried my best to write angst idk.

Word count: I failed on my 500 word limit AGAIN. This one is 1.5k words. Maker!

Warnings: Language, sex references. Shooting / serious injury.

GIF: By @poe-dameron (unrelated to the story except for that fabulous salt and pepper).

You didn’t think it through. You just jumped. It’s not like you had to time to weigh it up, in the heat of the moment. Not like you decided it should be you instead of him. It just couldn’t be him. Not Poe. Not the man you’d loved hopelessly since the Academy.

You thought he might at least be grateful. Might finally get a soft look in his eyes. You know the one; that look, when someone’s eyes seem to become just a little deeper, a little more expansive, like they contain the swirling depths of a galaxy. Like love is birthing new stars behind their eyes, all for you.

You thought he might run to you, cradle you. Cry for you. Maybe love you. Finally. In your final moments.

Instead: “What did you do?”, the Commander spits, an expression so sour painted on his face that he could be looking at rebel scum, not at you. His dark eyes black holes, his body as still and grey and imposing as a Coruscant skyscraper.

“I took a bullet for you, asshole.”, you rasp, clutching at your stomach, peering down at the blood stain expanding outwards like a red giant. “Fuck knows I’m regretting it now.”

Unceremoniously, despite efforts to style it out, you drop to your knees, on to your side, pain flaring in you like the dying sun painting itself across your uniform. It hurts, it burns, but you try to hang on to the pain, to focus on it. You know that once your star stops burning, the sky simply goes black. You’re damn sure you want some more fire yet.

Your eyes reach out to Poe, still stood there, motionless. He’s lost his decisive edge, that unerring control and power he always seems to have over everything, over you. He’s floundering. You call his name and then finally he comes to you, at least. Presses a cloth to your wound.

“Ah, you fucker.”, you bitch as it stings.

“Just fucking hang on. Apply pressure.”

You’re on your back now, with the sky -not his face- above you. This isn’t how you wanted this to go. Not how you wanted to go. The suns are dazzling but you’d much rather his eyes were the last thing you see. You had always preferred the night. Always could get lost in his eyes, like being marooned on dark, shadowed planets. Instead, your life force is slipping into the insipid pink skies overhead.

Your eyes swimming, you search for him, try hard to focus-up, to fight through the growing haze. You tune-in to the crackle of his comms beside you. You hear him signalling for the field medics, a flurry of barked orders. Telling them he’s down, not you. Using his position, you realise. The Order don’t typically care all that much about sacrificing soldiers. At least he happens to care about one.

“You need a medic?”, you tease, before realising the words would wrack you with pain. “You always were dramatic, Dameron.”

“Says you. Why can’t you just walk this off, huh?” Now his stony face is looming over you. That’s better. Looking into his eyes is much better. Even if he does run a tell-tale hand through his hair; a gesture he only ever performs in the most fraught moments. Even if his hands do come up red, flecking his face with your blood as if your dying sun is bathing him in its dappled light.

He’s positively beautiful.

Still, it’s not half as romantic as you might have imagined it would be, taking a bullet for Commander Dameron. No speeches. No thanks. No declarations. Of love, or otherwise. But at least he does stay with you, even as the bullets and explosions threaten him further. And at least he does offer you his hand, which you clasp tightly as if you might never let go. Then a little less tightly when you can’t hold on.

You’re suddenly heavy. Tired. Your eyes begin to flutter closed, until you feel him slap you repeatedly across the face. Who would have thought it would be so useful to have a kinky lover around in life or death situations?

Perhaps delirium is beginning to set in.

“I th- thought you said there was a time and a p- place for public displays of BDSM, Commander.” Why are you suddenly so damn cold.

“You shut your smart mouth or I’ll have to make you, you hear me?” there’s a slight crack in his voice, you think. A pained, heartbroken attempt at a smile which almost reaches the corner of his eyes.

He drags your head on to his lap then. Still looking positively furious at the whole situation. Looking like if you die he might kill you, along with everyone else in the galaxy.

He lets you reach up and stroke his face, his hair, his beard, for once not caring who sees. “My Poe.” You try to bend your face into a soft smile as you feel yourself beginning to slip further away, like you’re floating in space with no gravity. “I love you, y-you know…?”

You don’t get to find out if he says it back.

So this is what it feels like to die?

It could be worse. At least you get to maroon yourself on the shadowy shores of his eyes as everything fades to black.

*******

You wake up, shocked to be alive in the First Order med bay. Not for the first time.

This is the first time, however, that you wake to find Commander Dameron sleeping in the chair next to you, gripping your hand in his, his crown of salt and pepper curls nestled at your side.

Your mouth forms the shape of the words before any sounds comes out.

“W… What..” you rasp, tugging at his hand with what little strength you can muster. “Poe. What happened?”

BB-8 is the one to jostle him awake, detecting you’re conscious first. The black and orange droid beeps sharply at his master, tipping his antennae up towards you to direct his gaze. Fighting through the fog of sleep, the Commander’s eyes meet yours. Then, he is gripping your hand a little tighter. He is looking at you with an intensity that’s oh so familiar, but which suddenly hits different.

You repeat your question. What happened?

He pauses to suck in a deep breath, as if he needs the force of it behind his words. And yet, his voice comes out small. “You took a bullet for me.”

You head lolls towards him, eyes searching his. You’re groggy, but you hope you still manage to look indignant. “And let me guess. You’re pissed off?”

He shoots you a dismissive look and stands. Still in his bloodied battle clothes, he looks uncharacteristically dishevelled. He looks like he’s never left your side since the battlefield.

There’s that deep breath again, hinting that more forceful words are coming. He begins with your name, and it fills his mouth, as if he’s putting everything he has behind it.

Then: “I’ve wished it for a lot of things.”, he starts, voice impassioned. The way he sometimes gets on the bridge, or over the comms in his TIE. “Power. Empire. Quashing the scum once and for all.” He strokes your cheek so lovingly with the back of his hand that you think your heart might burst. “But I’ve never wished I had the force more than in that moment, when I needed to bring you back to me.”

He stoops to plant the softest kiss to your forehead. “I love you. You’re my match. There’s no rank, no war, no battle, and no victory I care about winning if I’ve lost you. There’s only you. I need you to know that.”

A happiness is swelling in your heart and spilling from your eyes, tears coursing their way down your cheeks.

His eyes crease at the corners, playful. “Come on, sweetheart. You’re always so dramatic.”, he teases.

Maker, you love that man. Always have, ever since the Academy. He’s certainly the only one you’d take a fucking bullet for.

“Now.” He announces, smoothing his demeanour, his uniform, and adopting a stance that means business. “I had to royally piss off Hux to stay here with you. Plus, I can’t let him have all the fun planning the counterstrike against the bastards who shot you, can I?” His delicious eyes glisten with malice, and you can’t wait to hear the horrors he’s likely to concoct in the name of revenge.

He collects his gloves from his chair and moves gracefully to the doorway, eyes lingering on you. “Bb-8 will stay with you. Get some rest. And then, when you’re rested, get the droid to send me your most brutal suggestions for how the counterstrike should go down, OK?”

He winks at you, and you return a soft smile. “Commander? Don’t get shot.”

His eyes twinkle, the birth of stars behind his eyes as he finally gives you that look. The look you’ve waited years for. “Right back at you, sweetheart.”

Maybe from that day on, the Commander remembers to soften, just a little. Only for you. It seems, that after all these years, you finally penetrated that bulletproof heart.

And, oddly, all it took was a bullet.

#first order poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x reader

165 notes · View notes

capnjay21 · 4 years

Text

A House is Never Still 6/6

Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.

A/N: and here is the conclusion! I’ll ramble a little more at the end, but for now, please once again accept my repeated and evermore wildly gesticulated thanks for @hollyethecurious for this beautiful aesthetic which made the fic - I literally would not have done it without it! also hollering at the kids from the @csrolereversal way back when for starting the event that I originally signed up for, it was so much fun to be part of and while I’m a lil disappointed with myself for finishing so much later, life happens! thanks all!

and now - story happens!

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death, and some Spooky Business™.

Continuing the teeny tiny taglist - but if you want off this list for the epilogue (pending), just let me know and I promise I will not be offended! <3

@snowbellewells @carpedzem @kmomof4 @optomisticgirl

AO3 | one | two | three | four | five

-/-

6 - when the first man awoke in the night

Present Day

There was a pervading sense of strangeness to seeing them all in the same room again.

It was like listening to your favourite song for the first time in years, but the lyrics were now backwards. Instead of humming along in that easy, thoughtless way, it felt jarring to the ears and forced you to really consider what exactly you were hearing, line by line, word by word.

Killian couldn’t stop thinking about every word he offered up into their shared space now; everything felt permanent, nothing could be taken back. What they said in this moment would mark how every moment after it would come to be. He was sure of it, and he was sure the other three felt the same, which was why very little had been said since Mary Margaret had warily invited he, Regina and David over the threshold and into her loft.

Regina had taken a position nearest the door, arms folded, expression neutral, leaning steadily against the wall. She looked like someone trying desperately to imitate the pose of one unaffected, but the tension in the set of her shoulders gave her away. Killian had perched on the stairs that led up to the upper floor, and David stood in the centre of the room shifting his weight from foot to foot and glaring sadly around him, as if he had no idea where he fit into this room anymore and imagined any of her items of furniture might have been the one to oust him. Mary Margaret sat at the side of her dining table that allowed her to face all three of them at once, hands clasped tightly together over the tabletop.

Mary Margaret had offered them tea and they had all declined.

It was the distance, Killian decided, that was most difficult to take in. It was the closest they had been to each other in five years, but the space between them had never felt wider.

The tape recorder was clutched tightly in Killian’s right hand. It was a little slick with sweat from his palm, but he refused to let it go.

“Is this about Emma?” Mary Margaret asked, and while she asked politely, the edge in her voice was unmistakable. She did not want her house of cards to come down around her. When they didn’t immediately reply she offered with a wry eyebrow raise: “It’s not likely to be about anything else, is it?”

“It is,” Killian said, seeing no point in drawing it out. “It’s about the house.” He and David exchanged a look. “It’s back.”

Something ticked in Mary Margaret’s jaw. “I don’t know how to make this any clearer – I don’t want to know.”

In that moment, Killian couldn’t see anything but Emma in her – except he had always had an instinct for how to scale Emma’s walls, but with Mary Margaret he floundered.

Fortunately, there was someone else in the room who knew how far better than he.

“Hey,” David started, gently, in that tone so earnest and warm that none of them had ever really been able to ignore. “You know who we are, you know what this must be. Just look at us.” No matter what else had happened, there they all were. “This isn’t something from nothing – we wouldn’t do that to you.” He gave her a sad sort of smile. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Mary Margaret stared back up at him, and not for a second did Killian believe their story was as over as they had both claimed it was. “What is it, then?” she asked.

“It’s this.” Killian stood up, opening his palm to reveal the tape recorder inside. It was sturdy and blocky, resembling a clunky child’s toy more than the instrument that had brought them together that night. He laid it on the table, and before she could ask he cut her off. “I recorded this five nights ago, in Brooke House.”

The tape immediately began to crackle and scratch, and Killian fast-forwarded just long enough until it started. It whirred, and it tck-tck-tck-ed, and eventually there was a voice.

‘Emma?’

His voice. Cutting through the static. There were a few thumps. A rustle as he’d stuffed the recorder in his pocket, some creaks as he climbed the stairs within Brooke House. Through the recording, Killian could relive the second night he had gone to the house since coming back to Storybrooke, the same way both Regina and David already had.

‘Emma?’

There was a crash, and the unmistakable tear of book bindings. Except, where Killian had heard Emma’s voice that night, the tape recorder had picked up nothing. Instead it sounded as if Killian had stood in silence, waiting.

‘Why didn’t you show yourself to Regina?’

Another thud, as another book was hurled against the wall. Otherwise, quiet.

‘Come here,’ the Killian on the tape said, ‘let me look at you.’

Mary Margaret was frowning, and lifted her bemused gaze up first to Killian, and then the others. “What is this?”

“Just wait,” Regina answered quietly from her place by the door.

The Killian on the tape let out a long breath. ‘I’m so sorry.’ A pause. ’All of it.’

Killian bristled at the memory, felt the cold touch of her lips like a steel edge. You couldn’t tell from the recording what had happened, and Killian had not been quick to fill the others in on his actions during that particular interval. But even as the seconds passed, his pulse began to race – he had listened to this recording a hundred times already, listened to Emma’s spectral presence like a non-entity, had initially resigned himself to having caught nothing of measurable value to show she was there at all.

Except right then –

‘Killian?’

Emma’s voice was unmistakable.

Mary Margaret’s reaction was instant, and visceral. She almost bolted out of her chair. In fact, she looked so suddenly pale and faintly ill that Killian nearly offered to fetch her something to throw up in. What were you supposed to do when you heard the voice of your long dead friend, five years after the fact of their dying?

But it was just that one word – then it was Killian promising to help her, and then there was nothing at all.

“There’s more,” he said grimly, but he had a feeling Mary Margaret wouldn’t have been able to form words just yet anyway. Killian clicked a finger on the fast forward.

He had completely forgotten about that recorder after Emma had kissed him – it had sat on those bookshelves for five days, running continuously in the study on the landing. He was fortunate it was such an old, robust thing. Even without attention it had continued diligently fulfilling his purpose, and his only regret was that it had run out of tape after a day and a half.

But in that time, it had caught enough.

Having wound the tape to this point so many times, Killian stopped it once more and let the noises trickle out.

A rustle of fabric, something scratching on old floors. A faint, but tangible sigh.

‘Killian?’

Emma, again. Killian shut his eyes. He let the sound wash over him.

‘Killian?’

There was nothing for a minute or so here, but Killian left it running. They all needed time to process it, and together they listened to the soft sounds of Brooke House murmuring quietly. Ancient wood groaned, the stairs told the bannister that someone was coming, the wind pushed doors open and closed them. But eventually, reverently, they heard her speak again.

‘Yesterday, I dreamed…’

She hissed out a breath. Her voice was quiet, and terribly sad. Killian’s heart seized to hear it, because he knew it was his Emma. This voice wasn’t rich with delighted, dark secrets. It was hollow and resigned and a breath of condensation across frosted glass.

‘I don’t know where I am. I thought I heard your voice.’

Something fluttered, possibly the pages of a book. Then there was only silence.

Killian knew this quiet stretched the tape for a few hours, so again he tapped his finger to fast forward, until they could hear her speak again.

‘It’s – it’s the car. I don’t want to see it anymore. Is David there?’

David dropped heavily down into a seat at the dining table. The Emma on tape continued, oblivious.

‘I thought I heard your voice. We have to finish it. It’s…’ Something scratched loudly, and the four in the kitchen winced at the sudden volume of the sound. ‘Killian? Is that you? I’m so cold. I –’

The recorder clicked, sputtered and stopped. It had reached the end of the tape.

Then they waited.

It had been enough to convince David; it had been more than enough for Regina to let go of her scepticism about whether Emma needed rescuing. For Killian, it had lit a fire under him. Not only was Emma, their Emma, trapped in Brooke House somehow, but she was cognizant. He had seen it. In those breathless few seconds after their lips had touched, his Emma had bled through like a blot of ink stretching across paper, and she had asked after him.

Now he intended to answer.

But they couldn’t do it without Mary Margaret, not if they needed what he thought they did – three pairs of eyes turned to look at her.

Killian was unsurprised to notice she was crying. Her shoulders shook, and she did not resist David when his hand came over to rest atop hers. In fact, she curled open her palm and allowed him to thread their fingers together as she let out a tremulous breath, her eyes misty and fighting for clarity.

“Please tell me this isn’t real.” She sounded as miserable as she looked.

“It’s real,” Regina answered.

“Our girl is in there,” David urged. “We have to get her out.”

With her free hand, Mary Margaret furiously wiped her face with the back of it. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “How?”

Killian brushed a finger across the edge of the tape recorder, and for a wild moment considered rewinding it and letting it play again just so he could hear her voice.

“The ritual. The same one we started five years ago.”

It had always bothered Killian, had niggled in the back of his mind for years. If the sole purpose of that ritual had been summoning a malevolent spirit in order to control its power, then why had Liam Jones allowed himself to become embroiled in it? Liam was honesty, integrity, and fierce loyalty. It didn’t add up.

“It was never about bringing something evil out – I should have recognised the signs the moment I came back, but I was too busy thinking about Brooke House now to worry about then.” Turning abruptly to the coffee table, Killian plucked a pen and ripped a page from a notebook that had been lying there and brought it back to the dining table. On it, he carefully sketched the five-pointed star he had drawn into the floorboards at Brooke House. “History lesson. One of the earliest known uses of the pentagram is actually as a Christian symbol – its points are supposed to represent the five wounds of Christ.

“Then, as time goes on, you start to see a rise in occult practices, and they pretty much liberally borrow as much symbolism as possible from anywhere they can. Particularly the pentagram – which, if you turn around –” Killian swivelled the image so the tip of the star was pointing down, and the two points jutted out upwards. “—Has been known to represent the two horns of Satan, here. The rejection of heaven and all things spiritual. That’s what I thought I was looking at when I saw it needed to be in the ritual.” He’d spent a few days absorbed in old library books, researching what Liam had written down and left in his toolbox.

He had allowed himself to be influenced by Belle Gold, by all the talk of evil, and as a result had only bothered with one interpretation of the symbol – which was reductive, and a potentially fatal error.

“But way, way before all of that, you have its uses in Taoism, with Pythagoras and the Greeks, in early iterations of paganism. Some perceive it as a representation of the elements, but most agree that it’s about balance. It’s perfection in mathematics, the human body, words; it makes its uses in religious ritual and magic basically inevitable. But by the time the pagan revival begins – well, mostly a re-invention or re-construction of older practices – it’s become so strongly associated with malevolence and Satanism that it’s a little difficult to adopt as a symbol of faith. So, what do you do?”

Killian grinned.

“You turn it the right way up and draw a big fat circle around it.”

He rotated the paper again, so the single point was facing upwards and drew a circle around its points, connecting each one.

“It’s a different symbol. It’s what most modern wicca practices call a pentacle, it’s supposed to represent a physical object used in ceremonial evocation – the act of calling upon a spirit – for protection. It’s a talisman. Liam wanted the circle made from salt, which is a common ingredient in purification spells. There are candles at each point to give energy, but –”

“You should have left one unlit,” Regina cut across him, eyes widening once she’d put the pieces together.

“Exactly.”

David and Mary Margaret, for their part, looked entirely nonplussed by the turn of the conversation. Killian winced internally – perhaps he’d spilt out the word magic a few too many times for them.

David blinked. “What – what are you talking about?”

“One candle should have been unlit to let energy out,” Killian explained. “This isn’t a ritual for summoning or capturing a demon. It’s a ritual for banishing one.”

Mary Margaret dropped her head in her hands.

“Years. Years of therapy. All undone in a single evening.”

“Did you hear her?” Killian pressed, tapping the tape recorder emphatically. “Did you hear her calling out for us? She said it herself. We need to finish this. There’s no moving past it until we do.”

“I can’t. I just – I can’t.”

Killian could feel frustration mounting, but David laid a hand on his arm before he could burst out something furious and likely detrimental to their cause. They could attempt the ritual without Mary Margaret, but without a person sat at every point of the pentacle the spell would be weaker. It had to be her – there was no one else.

“Mary Margaret,” David began. He shifted his chair a little closer. “Mary Margaret.”

Miserably, she raised her head, hands clasped on the back of her neck.

“I think you need a little of something that you used to give all of us,” he smiled. “Hope.”

Her eyes welled with fresh tears, and Mary Margaret shook her head. “Hope – hurts.”

“Only when we give it up.” To Killian’s surprise, it was Regina who had spoken, pushing away from the wall to stand at Mary Margaret’s shoulder. “I thought I could bury this beneath the way the world had opened up. That it was the price for new eyes.” She locked eyes with Killian, offered him a nod of understanding. “I was wrong. And… I’m sorry. We should have supported each other, stayed together.”

“Regina’s right,” Killian continued. “And this is on me, too. I should have been here. I shouldn’t have missed… everything I missed.”

He had missed the service for Emma, he had missed old Henry Mills’ passing, he had missed David and Mary Margaret going their separate ways, he had missed the coda of their friendship with Regina, he had missed Archie leaving town, he had missed the library closing its doors for the last time, he had missed, he had missed, he had missed.

Killian had thought leaving Storybrooke was the best decision he had ever made; that without Emma, all that was left was walking in the dust.

Admitting that he had spent five years missing Storybrooke was like releasing a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.

“Emma needs us,” David urged, taking one of Mary Margaret’s hands in his own. “One last time. All of us – together.”

They were all pieces of the same, scattered glass. Some edges sharp, some smooth. All Killian knew was the completed image was soft and golden, and he ached for it so harshly and so tenderly that he couldn’t bear it if the night ended any other way.

Mary Margaret took a steadying breath.

Her fingers clasped around David’s.

“Hope,” she said, and it settled it.

They were doing this.

-/-

The sky above Main Street was a deep, midnight blue, the winking light of stars only clearly visible if you fixed your gaze on it for longer than a few seconds. All appeared still, other than the stirring of crisp and deadened leaves in an unhurried brush down the road, and long shadows cast by the bronze streetlights were black in the way the sky should have been.

In the corner of Killian’s eye, everything seemed to shift. Every few metres it felt like something flashed at the edge of his vision, just out of sight, daring him to turn and look, trying to pull them from their singular focus of getting to the edge of town as quickly as possible. He was sure it was Brooke House. The dagger felt cool against his chest from the inside of his jacket. How did Emma put it? Testing the boundaries? Stretching her limits? A spectre at the edge of Main Street, a shadow at the end of David’s bed.

He could feel her all around them watching, waiting, trying to deter them from coming any closer. Perhaps she knew of their intent. Streetlights flickered overhead, and the groan of steel scarring tarmac could be heard distantly.

Killian felt so exposed. The others had huddled in close, walking swiftly as a unit – maybe they could feel it too.

He was so involved in wondering after the otherworldly, that the reality of a car pulling up beside them didn’t even register until the occupant was already climbing out. The door slammed definitively, purposefully, and it drew them to a halt. Once Killian had identified who now stood there in the gloom, features lit by the fading amber light of the street, he let out a string of murmured expletives.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole gang was back together again,” Sheriff Graham Humbert growled, his voice as melodic and dangerous as it had been when Killian was just seventeen, frightened, and exhausted beyond belief on the night that had started it all.

Killian fought to keep his voice level. “It’s been a long time, Humbert.”

“Long enough that you’re ready to finally give me the truth?”

“Graham,” Regina began quietly, and it was the way her tongue curled around Graham, it was the intimacy of it, the sheer fact that they were on a first name basis that sent Killian’s mind into a tailspin, cataloguing a few more ways the town had continued to tick without him.

They were all adults now, weren’t they? So why not? Why not Graham?

Because he didn’t like it.

“Don’t,” Humbert said shortly. “So where is it you’re off too? The ravine, maybe?”

He looked older than when Killian had seen him last. He had only just been elected the month before Emma had disappeared, gruff but bright-faced and enthusiastic about his future turning over small town misdemeanours. Then he had been thrown into a missing-persons-assumed-murder case, and nothing about Storybrooke had felt small anymore. Had Emma’s disappearance given him those lines, pulled taut at the corner of his eyes? Could the unhappy curve to his mouth, the adamant line of his jaw, be because of Emma, too?

He had only wanted to find Emma, it was all any of them had wanted. On any of the countless nights Killian had lain awake, unable to dream of anything but the night that Emma had vanished, could Graham Humbert possibly have been doing the same?

Not to mention his instincts were correct. The four of them did know something more about it than what they had told him. It must have churned him up inside to know that, and not be able to do a single thing about it.

“We’re going for a drink,” Mary Margaret offered, and she surprised Killian with the smoothness of the lie. “Just old friends catching up.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Humbert snapped. His badge glittered in the dim light. “You were up to something then, and you’re up to something now.” He folded his arms. “I’d like to invite all of you to come down to the station and have a chat, seeing as you’ve got the time.”

At the end of the street, a bulb blew in a shower of orange sparks. Glass rained musically down onto the sidewalk. Killian thought he saw the flutter of white fabric dart around the corner.

Watching, waiting, daring.

“We don’t have time for this,” Regina muttered. “Step aside, Graham.”

“Fine, go. I’ve got no problem with it. The way you all look tonight,” Humbert stared at each of them in turn, scathingly, “I have a feeling you’ll lead me straight to her.”

He had only ever wanted to find Emma. That, Killian reminded himself, they had in common.

Movement flickered at the edge of his vision, and for a moment Killian was certain once he turned his head he’d see another spectre of Emma, dirty white and terrible, but it was David, David had surged forward and his fist was swinging and Killian heard the crack of Humbert’s head hitting the sidewalk before his eyes had even processed that he was witnessing his crumpled form falling backwards. Out cold.

David was hissing with pain, shaking out his hand and wincing.

The other three were blinking, astonished.

“Sorry,” he offered to Humbert’s motionless form. Then, turning to the others and noticing their expressions, he suddenly grew defensive. “We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?”

Inside a convenience store, a radio burst to life. The scattered notes of Only You could be heard scratching across the quiet street.

Killian narrowed his eyes. Yes, they were.

The four of them stepped carefully around Humbert, and continued their brisk journey into the night.

Given their intent, Killian had half expected for Brooke House to be gone by the time they got there, like when they had returned on the first night to look for Emma. After the ritual they had scattered into the trees, tearing off in different directions to try and find where she might have gone, voices hoarse with their continued calls out for her. By the time they had returned to the site of the house to regroup, faithfully following the trail of Killian’s orange string, it had gone. Taking Regina’s Ouija board, Mary Margaret’s scarf, David’s Apollo chocolate bar wrapper and Emma with it. A piece of all of them lost to the maw – some bigger than others. It had feasted on what it could and disappeared into the night.

Perhaps, Killian thought, as he stared at its broad foundations, the beckoning creek of its front door, the gasping cavern of its insides, it looked at them all like an unfinished meal.

It waited, it watched, and it dared them closer to finish them for good.

Killian’s hand tightened on the hilt of the dagger.

Emma needed them. And she had waited long enough.

As one, he and Regina stormed up the steps and headed inside. Behind him, he could hear Mary Margaret whimper, the urgent, hushed tones from David pushing her forward, but he paid them no mind. They each had a job to do here – this was his. Regina immediately pulled out a black marker and began tracing the shape of the pentacle on the floor, while Killian rummaged in the rucksack they had brought for the salt. He started sprinkling it in a perfect circle around the edges, and it wasn’t long before David had coerced Mary Margaret through into the sitting room. She had her palms over her eyes, as if by not looking at the aged walls of the house she might not have to acknowledge she was stood there.

Something crashed upstairs. David and Mary Margaret jerked towards the sound, the latter dropping her hands. Killian and Regina exchanged grim looks.

“It knows,” she said.

“Get the candles.”

There were other loud bangs of protest, like the sudden opening and slamming of doors, and at every noise it brought the four of them closer together, until Killian could feel Mary Margaret’s small hand clutching tightly to his upper arm. He spared her the briefest of glances – in the gloom she looked completely pale, but her features were set into something determined. The house could screech and moan, but she would not be so easily spooked anymore.

This was the girl he remembered. The one who could be both; afraid, and brave.

Killian fumbled with the matches, but not a single one would light. Killian stuck his finger into the packet and found, bafflingly, that the tip of every match was damp, even though they had been tucked away in his pocket. With irritation Killian thought of the damp wall and the wallpaper, and he thought he could hear laughter. It might have been the wind whistling past broken glass, but it was something.

“Here,” David said. He’d pulled a lighter from his pocket.

At four of the five points they set a lit candle, and at the fifth they set a final one – unlit, for the release of energy they had intended. Quickly they took their places behind a flickering flame, leaving the gap between Killian and David where Emma had sat all those years ago.

Killian’s pulse raced, his heart felt jagged and stuttered; hope, that treacherous notion, couldn’t help but imagine that at the end of all this, she might once again be sitting there.

“Ah,” came an icy voice from over his shoulder. Killian shut his eyes, knowing who it was at once. “You finally brought my dagger.”

“Ignore her,” Killian said firmly, refusing to turn around, but the others weren’t paying attention to him. Their stares, slack-jawed and stupefied, were fixed on the phantom that had just entered the room.

David’s voice was hoarse. “Emma?”

“David,” Killian barked. “Take Mary Margaret’s hand.”

“David,” Emma’s voice was honeysuckle and thick. “David, it’s me. Come on, come away from there. It’s time to go, don’t you think?”

Mary Margaret snatched his hand from where it had been hovering near her, and in a daze, David turned his head back towards her.

“Look at me,” she said, fiercely. “My eyes. Only.” David looked torn. “That is not our girl.”

“David,” Emma sang. His shoulders tense, but he did not turn to look at her again. Instantly, Emma’s tone turned nasty. “Get out.”

Killian didn’t care for ceremony anymore; he didn’t care for the weight of it all, for the ritual, for the sense of preserving the past – he felt like he had spent his entire adult life consecrating devastation. Regina’s hand was tight in his, their incomplete circle ready and waiting. The candle flames danced backwards and forwards, and Killian used his spare hand to pull the dagger from his coat pocket.

There was a loud hiss from behind him, like the hum of a cooped-up predator, and something ice cold and hard swung in front of him and gripped his throat.

Killian gasped.

Mary Margaret screamed.

He felt the air being squeezed from his windpipe, the dig of Emma’s nails into his skin so harsh he was sure they must’ve drawn blood –

With effort, Killian raised his hand –

And flung the dagger into the centre of the circle.

The effect was instantaneous. Emma released him immediately and wailed, something loud and drastic and terrible, as the air began to crackle. There was no slow build up this time, a steady gathering of wits as the room began to take in its breath, there was just the rumble of distant thunder, the storm they made to summon forming as suddenly as a tornado. The wind howled through the cracked windows; one of them shattered under the force of it and carried shards of glass towards them, hurtling around them with great speed.

Through the gap between Killian and David, Emma had stumbled backwards into the middle of the circle, and her eyes were black and furious. Right in front of them, she began to curl in on herself but it was impossible, her back had bent at a right angle and the contortions were too much, too strange, that his brain tried to tell Killian that it wasn’t happening at all. The wind whipped away her crown of flowers until it disintegrated, and her mouth gaped open in a silent scream, wide, wider, a yawning arc of darkness.

Something sharp dug into Killian’s cheek – glass, he thought, helplessly – and he reached up his free hand to try and shield himself. Mary Margaret and Regina had their eyes tightly shut, expressions scrunched up with pain and Regina’s lips were moving, but Killian couldn’t hear anything over the roar in his ears.

That was when the lightning struck.

In unison, arcs of obsidian light latched onto both the centre of Emma’s chest and the dagger, tying the two together like an ugly, pulsing artery. Again it flashed, this time onto her back, and again, her left hand, again, her right, until Emma was entirely obscured from view by the opaque jet of the zephyr.

This was where they had lost Emma before – she had thrown herself into the centre of the storm.

Killian tensed, maybe – maybe –

Regina’s hand tightened on his, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts.

Not a chance, it said, and gripped even harder.

Instead he yelled out into the darkness.

“Emma!”

The only response was rage – the door to the sitting room swung off its hinges, dropping heavily onto the floor. The wallpaper was ripped to shreds. A hole the size of a fist splintered into the floorboards behind him. Even so, on hearing him, the others took up the call – screaming for Emma to come through, to break free, to take her place in their circle and complete them.

“I know you’re in there!” Killian hollered, and his throat felt hoarse but he needed to make himself heard. “Emma, you can do it!”

And then – and then – he saw her.

Not the twisted, luminous Emma that the house had been showing him, but Emma, their Emma, staring out from the centre of the tornado. Through jets of black lighting he could see her, eyes wide, palms facing upward as if waiting for the rain to come, her mouth open in a cry that he couldn’t hear.

He couldn’t hear it, but he could see it. When she locked eyes with him her mouth formed the same words that had haunted him from the minute they’d first been ripped from her.

Killian – Killian, don’t –!

Not this time.

Killian wrenched his hand free.

“No!” Regina cried.

If you have to have someone, he thought, furiously, then have me.

Killian hurtled in after her.

For a moment, everything was blindingly white, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he felt the touch of her hand.

It all fell quiet.

There was – nothing.

-/-

His heart was still beating. That was something, he supposed.

Behind his eyelids the light had dimmed, but it was still bright. That was how he knew it was no longer night. The air felt damp, and cold, and smelled faintly of wet moss and pine. The ground beneath his feet felt soft and earthy, and experimentally he wiggled his toes inside his boots. Obligingly, something squelched. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. About a metre in front of him the ground gave way, dropping hundreds of feet below him in stacked and uneven layers of rock, grass and sediment. A distant roar sounded from beneath him, and pitching himself forward a little he could see the crash of the river against the edges of the rockface.

He was standing at the edge of the ravine, he realised. The ravine that Liam had driven into.

“This is what it does,” Emma said from beside him. “It makes you relive all your worst moments.”

His hand was tucked into hers, not unpleasantly. Their shoulders brushed.

“Where am I?”

In the distance something screeched, and he and Emma turned their heads towards the sound. Belatedly, he realised it was the exhausted brakes of a car accompanied by the rumble of an engine, and a wave of nausea began to rise within him. The harshness of the sounds felt dissonant with the relative peace above the ravine, but as Killian turned his eyes to the right he could remember how it had looked in the days that followed. It had rained heavily that afternoon, the police report had indicated that had wiped away most of the evidence, and everywhere mud had been churned over and over, plants ripped from their roots. But at this moment everything was still, undisturbed.

The sound of the motor grew louder.

Killian couldn’t remember how to breathe. He began to feel the light patter of rain on the back of his neck.

Not this, he begged, not this. I don’t want to see this.

“It’s alright,” Emma said, squeezing his hand tightly. “I’ll be here.”

Then the trees exploded.

Liam’s old Mustang burst through the shrub, and although Killian was anxious not to see it, he couldn’t tear his eyes away, tried to fix his gaze on every single detail in the impossibly short space of time between the car careening from the forest and tipping over the edge of the ravine. It was like watching it in slow motion. The windshield had already cracked in two places, and the Mustang swerved dangerously to the left – attempting to wrench itself to rightness before it was too late, but it was too late – and when Killian finally felt brave enough to look into the cabin, he realised something else with a chilling rush of dread.

Liam was not alone in the car.

Someone else – something else – had two hands on the wheel, and Liam was wrestling for control. Acting purely on instinct Killian surged forward, but Emma’s grip on his hand held him back. He knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, that nothing he could do would be able to stop it.

Then he blinked, and Liam was alone in the car, and the Mustang had hurtled over the edge of the cliff. For a few seconds, the forest had earnt back its stillness.

Then, with an almighty crash that made the ground beneath him shake, the Mustang hit the surface of the water.

Killian couldn’t bring himself to look over the edge. On the cliff, just metres from where Killian now stood, someone else watched the car disappear beneath the walls. It was a man – or no, was it a man, his skin looked more like slick bronze, glittering like the scales of a fish – and then he was gone.

Killian reminded himself to breathe in, and breathe out. Emma reached across and brushed tears away from his cheek with a gentle finger, which was how he realised he had been crying. He clutched her other hand tightly in his own.

He couldn’t speak, and mercifully Emma didn’t seem to expect him to. It could have been minutes that they stood there together, breathing in, breathing out, or it could have been hours. It might not have been more than a few seconds. Somewhere, a sparrow trilled again. Killian began to feel a splatter of rain against the back of his neck, which was how he realised it had stopped raining the first time around.

“Careful,” Emma said. “Here it comes again.”

In the distance, he heard another screech of tired brakes.

Alarmed, Killian turned – and realised the treeline looked exactly as it had when he arrived, before Liam had burst through it.

Overwhelmed by the urge to throw up, Killian bent double and retched, but nothing came out. Emma rubbed a soothing hand on his back.

Again, he watched as the Mustang crashed through the thicket, as Liam fought for control of the wheel with the strange man – the same man who stood on the cliff afterwards before vanishing into thin air, he now realised – and skidded over the edge of the ravine. The world fell apart once more as the car pounded into its final destination.

“Where am I?” Killian repeated, in between taking large gulps of air.

The scaled man on the cliff watched the car, satisfied, before disappearing completely.

“It’s hard at first,” Emma sighed. “I watched my parents abandon me on the side of the freeway, like, a thousand times.” Her hand squeezed his own. “The car pulls over, my Mom gets out, she picks me up in my blanket and puts me down. Then she gets back in and it drives away. It was like picking at a scab I thought had already healed.”

It hadn’t, though. He could have told her that. Some scars were meant to stay with you forever.

We’ve all got ghosts here.

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

“I saw the kid who found me, too,” Emma added, bitterly, “his name’s August. Not that it matters now.”

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

Killian was finding it difficult to process what he was seeing with what he was being told.

“They say that’s the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result? I waited for them to get back out, just once, to not just leave me there. But that’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you want something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets.”

With a shudder, Liam’s Mustang broke the treeline again. It swerved, splattering mud across the clifftop. Liam wrestled for the wheel and the tail of the car swung out; hope shuddered to life within Killian, this time this time he would pull it back, he’d regain control, he’d turn before it –

The Mustang sped over the edge of the ravine.

“He wasn’t alone in the car,” Killian managed to get out, as his heart seized in his chest. “He didn’t – it wasn’t suicide.”

The scaled man on the cliff stared at the disappearing Mustang, and then vanished.

“That’s what the spirit of Brooke House looked like,” Emma said, nodding at where the scaled man had stood. “When it came to Liam.”

When it came to me, he wanted to cry, it looked like you.

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. He began to feel the weak patter of rain against the back of his neck.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang screeched.

“It threatened you,” she continued softly. “It said it would kill you if he didn’t help the spirit escape the house.”

“But he didn’t,” Killian added, needlessly. Of course he didn’t.

He thought of the ritual, the one Liam had outlined to banish the demon, and he felt weak. Helpless to stop the chain reaction of Liam’s death – both in the weeks that had led up to it, and as witness to his final few moments as the car crashed into the ravine. He would have died on impact, the coroner had said. The body swept up by the rush of the water below, taken out to sea. Just like everyone had always said. That final, private wish that he had only whispered aloud once, that the lack of a body meant that maybe, maybe something else had happened, was finally snuffed out.

Liam had been in that car. It was small comfort to know he hadn’t done it to himself.

The Mustang thundered out of the undergrowth, swerved, screeched, and fell.

“He tried to banish it, but he was missing one key ingredient.”

Killian knew, with the certainty that you knew things in dreams, what that missing ingredient had been.

“The dagger.”

Emma nodded. “Right. After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man.”

But how had he known? How had he even thought to banish the demon? It seemed with every answer he got, a thousand more questions rose in its place.

“But the dagger… his name was on the dagger. Why didn’t he –?” Look like you?

If Liam had died in the ravine, just like they had always said he had, why was his name on the dagger?

Emma looked out across the ravine, darkly. “That’s just how it keeps score. Its victims. Liam isn’t trapped here, but I’d say he’s still a victim.”

Somewhere, a sparrow trilled. Killian began to feel the splatter of rain against his neck.

“Wouldn’t you?”

In just seconds, gone forever. Not trapped, but gone.

Trapped.

For the third time, he asked: “Where am I?”

Emma shook her head. That wasn’t the right question.

In the distance, the brakes of the Mustang squealed.

So instead, he asked: “How do we stop the demon?”

“I’ve already told you,” Emma sighed, airily enough that it felt as if he were just disturbing her at work in the library again. Her voice sounded faint. “God, don’t you ever listen?”

Listen.

With the suddenness of breathing, his hand closed on empty air where it had once been holding Emma’s. She had gone.

So had the clifftop.

It was like waking up, when you weren’t sure how long you had been asleep.

He was standing in the single room of the old apartment he shared with Liam, and he had always been standing there. It was smaller than he remembered; just the open plan kitchen-stroke-sitting room-stroke-Liam’s bedroom, attached to an even littler bedroom that had been Killian’s. The kitchenette was in the corner, dark and musty smelling, and Liam’s bed was propped against the opposite wall, impeccably made as always. There had only been room for the bare minimum of additional furniture – a chest of drawers for some of Liam’s clothes, the rest hung on a metal rack like the kind found in a shop, a moth-eaten sofa and a small, boxy handheld television plucked right from the jaws of 1994 perched atop an overturned wastepaper basket serving as a table. It was dark, lit miserably by a single window next to the sofa, and warm in the uncomfortable way that a gym was warm; lived in.

It looked so insignificant. Almost barren, certainly cheap. Nothing to be proud of.

Killian longed for it with something so profound that it was an almost physical ache. This was life before Liam had died.

A key clicked in the lock, and the front door to the flat was flung open with more force than necessary. Killian’s heart sank once he realised what he was looking at.

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

In tumbled Liam, exactly as he remembered him, and a younger Killian – twelve years old, freckled, dark hair askew, and furious.

“—So unfair!” The younger Killian was scowling. “I don’t want to move again! I just started making friends!”

Killian had forgotten what it was they had fought about – it had faded completely from his mind beyond the core sentiment, which had been bloody and foul, in the wake of everything else that had happened that day. Now it all came back to him with startling clarity.

This was the last time he had seen Liam alive.

“Well, tough,” Liam said wearily, setting a plastic bag on the counter next to the refrigerator. “We are.”

The younger Killian rounded on him angrily. “Why?”

“For work.”

“Has all the wood been chopped in Storybrooke, then?”

Liam fixed him with a withering look. “Don’t be facetious. It’s important, Killian. You just have to trust me on this.”

He had wanted them to leave town, he remembered now.

After that didn’t work… he was always a dead man.

He would have known, even then, that Brooke House was coming for them.

It struck the older Killian, then, just how tired Liam had looked – dark circles clung to the bottom of his eyes, and his skin looked stretched and pale. It also occurred to him how young he was. Liam had always been taller, older, wiser; even after he had died Killian had never thought of him any differently. Yet, here, Liam Jones was just nineteen years old – and he already been looking after the brothers Jones for years already. Killian had already outlived his brother’s unfairly short life by almost three years.

The younger Killian threw himself dramatically down onto the moth-eaten sofa. “I bet Dad wouldn’t make us move.”

Liam scowled, busying himself taking a few meagre groceries out of the bag and putting them away. “You don’t know what Dad is capable of.”

“I would if you just told me!” The younger Killian twisted on the sofa so he could look at his brother, bristling with indignation. “What is it that’s so bad? Why won’t you talk about him or Mum?” Liam kept his mouth set in a thin line. How that had infuriated him at the time. “How about you just tell me, and then I’ll go without a fuss. I’ll even pack tonight! How’s that?”

“I don’t like being held to ransom,” Liam replied tersely. The younger Killian let out a cry of frustration, delivering a swift kick to the sofa, then stormed over to his bedroom door. “And a tantrum won’t help. So long as you continue to behave like a child, I will continue to treat you like –”

The younger Killian whirled around, hand on the doorknob and eyes ablaze.

“I hate you!”

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

“I’m not finished,” Liam snapped, “don’t you walk away from me.”

The younger Killian did not listen. He stomped into his room and slammed the door shut behind him.

Don’t, Killian begged, come out. This is it. This is the last time.

Liam had followed him to the door, let his hand hover above the handle.

Open it, he longed, pleaded. Don’t leave it like this.

He watched Liam change his mind. He watched him pick up his car keys. He watched him curtly inform the younger Killian that he was going out for a little while, but he would be back soon. He watched him wait for the younger Killian to respond.

He did not.

Liam left the flat.

A key clicked in the lock and in again came Liam, with the younger Killian in tow.

“—So unfair!”

Like the clifftop, he was apparently doomed to watch the same moment over and over – but Killian refused. Seething, he tried to think himself into being somewhere else. He didn’t know the rules here, but somehow he had moved from the ravine to here, and if that was possible then he could move from here to somewhere that was not here.

Not this time, Killian thought furiously, no more than once.

In part instinct and in part miserable fury, Killian put his fist through the thin plaster wall.

Behind his eyes, pain exploded – but it was not from his fist. No, his wrists were smarting, burning with an agony he could not see, and someone was screaming and he thought it might be him, he was back in the sitting room at Brooke House, the storm raged, a tornado of wanting and longing and hoping and nothing ever changing, and he could feel his left hand clasped around the dagger but his right – his right –

Emma was there, and she was holding tightly onto his right hand.

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “Listen!”

He was in Granny’s Diner.

He knew this because he could hear the quiet lull of patrons around him, and the faint smell of melted cheese had begun to permeate. He could feel the hard, well-worn cushion from one of the booths beneath him, and he could still taste vanilla cake on the tip of his tongue. He knew because Emma’s arms were around his neck and she was holding him tightly, and he could feel her breath on his lips. He knew because he had lived in this moment so many times, and begged a thousand times to have ended it differently. He didn’t need a demon to do that for him

“Thank you,” Emma had said, her cheeks flushed with glorious delight (he had done that, he thought fiercely). “For always knowing exactly what I want before I do.”

“You’re…” he trailed off, because he had become distracted by the bright and welcome jade of her eyes. “You’re welcome.”

All it would take was moving himself closer just an inch. He was suddenly conscious of his hand on the side of her hip, of his desire to move it further around until it brushed her spine, to use it to tug her to him, bridging the final distance between them. Her lips looked soft and pliant, a rosy pink that had spent their lives shaping around his favourite words in the entire world, because everything she said was a gift, and he loved her, God, he loved her, he loved her so much.

The jagged beat of Only You was rattling from the jukebox in the corner, and Killian Jones wanted to kiss Emma Swan more than he had ever wanted anything.

He could feel her unsteady breathing, rising and falling against his chest, and he was sure her pulse would be racing to match his – but fear gripped him. What if she didn’t want this? What if it scared her as much as it bloody terrified him? If he leaned forward and she didn’t meet him halfway he didn’t think he could bear it. He hesitated

He hesitated –

He always hesitated when it was important –

It makes you relive all your worst moments.

Killian had sailed past this moment more times than he could count, he didn’t need a ghost to remind him of all the roads not taken. For the last five years, Only You had been the song he had almost kissed Emma Swan too, days before he had lost her forever. In that moment, he couldn’t think of anything worse than watching himself, feeling himself not doing it over and over for eternity when that had been his only chance.

That’s what it feeds on. That hoping. The more you fight it, the more you want something else to happen when it never could, the stronger it gets.

Is this what Emma had done, for five years? Replay over and over the worst possible pockets of time it could think to show her, wishing ardently for something to be different, praying desperately for some hope of rescue. He thought back to the tape recorder – she had sounded lost, confused. Defeated. Trapped in an unending limbo of nothing ever changing.

It had to stop today.

How do we stop the demon?

Listen.

Emma’s eyes flickered to his lips, he felt her swaying dangerously forward. The air smelt of burnt toast, vanilla sponge and anticipation, and Killian felt untouchable.

Only You trickled out from the jukebox in the corner.

“‘Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love… Can you hear me?’”

Killian froze.

That song had been following him around for days.

Piss off, ghost.

A taunt, he had thought. A wretched reminder of everything he had almost had. But what if it wasn’t?

I’ve already told you. God, don’t you ever listen?

The tape recorder was proof, Emma had the ability to bleed through the machinations of the demon, to touch her surroundings cautiously, gently, from inside her void of almosts and never-have-beens, and she had been hurling this moment into his path ever since he returned to town.

Maybe something in it had to change.

But if you fight it, Killian thought furiously, that only makes the demon stronger. So what was he supposed to do?

Emma’s arms tightened almost imperceptibly around his neck.

In the space of a steadying breath, he allowed himself another long look at her. Pretty, dainty eyelashes, but fierce and warm eyes of jade, capable of spitting fire and turning his insides into something weak and wanting. Her lips were parted and daring him closer, and as he entertained the thought of leaning in his heart hammered against his ribcage. God, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her more than anything.

The future was only sky. They had all the time in the world.

So maybe he didn’t fight it.

He didn’t want to, not anymore. He was so, so tired of fighting his way through life, Mary Margaret had lauded him over his stamina but that’s not what it was, not really, he just couldn’t remember what life had been like before he’d needed to throw up his fists. So he decided he was done with all that. If giving up meant he could live in the sensation of her breath on his lips, of their almost and their never-have-been, in that half a second before they decided no, then he would happily give up on life outside of this oblivion.

“‘All I needed was the love you gave…’”

Because almost kissing Emma, he decided, was so much better than living in a world where he hadn’t done it.

If you have to have someone, he thought, have me.

It was like waking up, when you didn’t know how long you had been asleep for. Suddenly mobility was possible, and he could feel his own chest rising and falling unevenly, aware of his own breath in a way that made it feel like he hadn’t been breathing before. Once he realised with awe that he could move it, he lifted a trembling hand up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, cupping her face with the other. As his pulse raced, he just wanted to be sure that she was real.

“Emma,” Killian said, and his voice sounded far away. His thumbs brushed across the shells of her cheeks. “I’d very much like to kiss you now.”

Emma grinned, and he realised she was crying.

“You fucking better.”

Instantly, Killian surged forward.

It was everything he had hoped it would be. Emma was warm, soft, eager, and mimicking the same little sighs he could hear escaping through his own lips – kissing Emma was like kissing air. It was tightness in the top of his stomach; it was saturated mornings under the oaks; it was winter at the door, brushing its feet on the mat; it was the final ten seconds before the whistle blew in a championship game when all that was left was that startling, adrenaline-pumping hope. Kissing Emma was a race that he had been training his entire life for.

Everything was noise.

Wind surged, static hummed, someone screamed but still Killian resisted; he was determined to inhabit this moment, this second, if this was the rest of his life then he didn’t intend to stray too far. If it was just the space of a single exhale then he would breathe out, and he would breathe out, and he would learn to go without oxygen because as far as he was concerned, there was no other possible choice he could make. He heard someone calling his name. A hand scrambled at the hem of his jacket. Something fizzled like a power line coming loose and he could hear the sound of glass shattering –

Emma pulled away.

He could still feel her hands in his hair, though. That had to be something. He kept his eyes tightly shut.

He was cold, and he could smell the forest. Dry leaves crunched underneath a boot. He tasted only velvet, mist, and Emma.

“Killian,” she said softly.

Killian shook his head. He didn’t want the dream to end.

“Killian, you can open your eyes.”

Reluctantly, he did as he was bid. He was standing in the middle of a familiar patch of forest, his hands tracing the edge of Emma’s face – because she was here, and she was solid, and there wasn’t a lot else he cared about other than that – it had to be the middle of the night, as the sky overhead was a black curtain pulled taut, specks of light barely visible scattered across it. The earth looked black beneath his boots but he knew from the crackle underfoot that in daylight it would be a watercolour pad of New England autumn, but that didn’t make his being there any less disorienting.

“Where did – how did we get out here?”

Was that – Regina?

“Oh, oh – Emma!”

Killian felt the wind knocked out of him as someone came crashing into the side of he and Emma, throwing their arms around them – David? – and again they swayed dangerously, but this time someone was crushing him from behind and someone was crying and eventually his knees buckled and they were all tumbling down onto the forest floor. It was haphazard and dizzying, but he recognised their hearts just as clearly as his own; all relief, all love, all fierce, fierce joy.

Emma was clinging to David while he sobbed into her shoulder, and Mary Margaret was holding on tightly from behind and speaking in such a floundering, nonsensical babble that nobody had any idea what she was saying. Killian was dazed, and more than a little confused, but blisteringly happy. He had no idea what had just happened, but since this was the outcome he had been praying for, he chose not to dwell on it.

Regina clapped a hand onto his shoulder, and he spotted her wiping something from the corner of her eye that looked suspiciously like emotion.

“It’s over.”

-/-

Brooke House was gone.

That was what they had managed to surmise after they had finally been able to disentangle from each other. It wasn’t that they had been transported to some other location, it was that the house itself had vanished around them, leaving them sprawled in the dirt feeling more than a little shaken and more than a little relieved. The ritual had worked, they had banished the demon, and the only evidence it had ever been there at all was in their story shared, their hard-won memories, and a curving, silver dagger stabbed blade first into the earth. A close inspection revealed its edge to be flat and smooth. No names. Just a dagger. They left it there, buried in the soil. They were finished with it now.

Killian had tried more than once to explain what had happened after he’d hurtled into the storm after Emma, not just to the others but to himself – but Emma had laced their fingers together and she looked so paralyzingly pained and sweet and sad that he had stopped trying. Some things were easier not to explain.

She hadn’t spoken much on the way back, just tucked herself tiredly into Killian’s side and dropped her head against his shoulder. She was wearing the same outfit she had disappeared in, which made her look oddly like something stitched together from different times – she was a woman now, wearing the old, worn, coat and boots of a girl. David had attached himself to her other side, putting a strong arm around her shoulders and occasionally patting her hair, murmuring tender reassurances and kissing her forehead.

Killian knew how he felt. He thought he might have a panic attack if he had to let go of her hand.

Somehow, they had done it. The demon was gone and so was Brooke House, and Emma had been given back to them.

She had been amazed to discover she had been gone for five years.

“I’ll go to the sheriff station first thing,” Emma said, nodding her head like it would settle everything. “Clear your names.”

Regina looked unconvinced. “I’m not sure that’ll do it.” The fact that David had punched Humbert in the jaw was just now coming back to them, and Killian couldn’t help but agree.

“Why not?” Emma argued hotly. Then she pointed at herself. “Missing girl. No longer missing. Case closed, right?”

Killian squeezed her hand. “We don’t have to settle anything now.”

For now she was here, and it was enough.

As they turned onto Main Street he felt Emma begin to tremble, her shoulders shaking underneath David’s arm. Whether it was fear or relief or anticipation or a combination of all three, Killian couldn’t tell, but after he had asked her she reluctantly revealed that where she really wanted to go was to the Nolan house; to Ruth.

David turned away to hide a fresh wave of overwhelmed, happy tears, but Emma’s attention was fixed on Killian.

She rounded so she was in front of him, her free hand fisted into the lapel of his jacket.

“I want to see Ruth,” she said, looking agitated, “but I –”

She cut herself off, stared fixedly into his eyes. Willed him to understand.

I don’t want to be away from you.

Something warm bloomed in his chest.

“I’m staying at Granny’s,” he offered with a smile. “You could – after. If you want.”

I love you I love you I love you I love

“No, he’s not,” Regina cut in. “He’s staying with me.” When they all turned to look at her she bristled, adding lamely: “I’ll… make lasagne.”

Emma laughed and it was such a beautiful sound. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I want.”

By the time dawn had kissed the sky with streaks of pink and orange, that offer had become too tempting for any of them to resist. Regina and Killian had immediately decided sleep was impossible and had started depleting her stores of homemade cider to try and relax their nerves and carry them until morning. They talked about nothing at all, and although Killian could tell Regina was desperate to ask about what they had done, what he might have seen, itching for a chance to make a comparison to her book of spells, Killian did not give her the opportunity to do so. There would be time for all of that.

An hour or so in, Mary Margaret had arrived at the door. Wordlessly, she had proffered a bottle of Jose Cuervo, and they had invited her inside.

The sky was just beginning to brighten when David and Emma returned, which was how they now found themselves laid out on the floor of Regina’s sitting room, gorged on the perfect lasagne and mellowed by fatigue and Jose, watching the sun come up through the tall, French windows.

Emma was curled in Killian’s lap, her legs slung across his and her head resting against his chest, listening to the steady gallop of his heart. He very much wanted to kiss her again – hell, he wasn’t even sure he had kissed her the first time. But there would be time for all of that, too.

Everything was bathed in golden light. Regina was dozing on a sofa, David and Mary Margaret were talking earnestly in hushed, gentle voices, their foreheads touching. Killian was struck by something so right, so definite, that he wasn’t sure anything he had experienced since Emma had disappeared had been real. This was so clearly how everything was supposed to be that it was inconceivable to imagine it had been any other way.

“Thank you,” Emma murmured against his chest. She lifted her head up so their eyes met. They were a soft storm of emerald, rimmed with a tired scarlet edge along her eyelashes. “For not giving up.”

I love you, her fingers curled into the worn leather of his jacket, danced a pattern across his chest. Tapped a beat to match his aching heart. He could hear her. I love you.

“How could I?” he replied. “You know where Archie hides the good snacks.”

She kissed him in the dusty light of morning, and it chased the last of his ghosts away, out into the dawn.

-/-

A/N: if you made it this far - THANK YOU! I am honestly so grateful for all of the support I received for this fic, it was my first try at writing something kinda horror/spooky and I’m really proud of how it came out. I’ve honestly been blown away by some of the comments I’ve got, I am SO happy, you guys are so awesome and I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed it so far - it’s been a pleasure to make your hearts race and keep you up at night!

I’ll be posting a short epilogue on Wednesday, so keep an eye out for that! for now, turrah, and thank you so much! <3

#jay writes #a house is never still #cs role reversal #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan #cs au #cs halloweek #killian jones #emma swan #enjoy all!

57 notes · View notes

what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

Text

What The Stark Spangled F**k?

One Shot- Finding Rori

Summary: Rori gets a pet. And hilarity/chaos ensues.

Warnings: Bad language words…

A/N: This came to me yesterday and is inspired by my own fairground goldfish, Evans, who is 5 this year. This one fits in the timeline after “Changes”

The Rogers household for once, was reasonably quiet. It was a Saturday afternoon and both Jamie and Aurora were out with Bucky and Sam, leaving Katie and Steve with just Harry (and bump, which was still in the very small, early bump stages being 16 weeks or so). Katie was led on the sofa, Stark squashed alongside her n his back whilst she read a book and Steve was led on the rug with Harry, the pair of them drawing on a large piece of paper using the crayons that Stark hadn’t eaten. The little boy was happily colouring along, grinning and talking to his Dad as he went, occasionally glancing up at Moana which was playing on the TV, sometimes he would start to imitate the singing, causing Katie to glance up and watch him, smiling softly. Out of their 3 born kids, he had without doubt been the easiest one to deal with. He hardly ever cried or made a fuss, never complained, he was such a placid little boy. The pair of them had no idea who he took after as neither of them were known for their patience or calmness really. And frankly, compared to his sister who could be the biggest pain in the ass on the planet, it was a welcome change. Which was why they liked to make time for him on his own as when the other 2 were around, they demanded all the attention, something which Katie hated, and Steve knew was worrying her about when baby number 4 arrived.

But their peace was shattered as the security system alerted them to the fact the gate had been opened by “Bucky Barnes” and Steve glanced up at the clock. It was gone 5, he hadn’t realised it was getting that late in the day. He let out a sigh, and exchanged a look with Katie who had placed her book down in preparation for the onslaught.

Which arrived a few minutes later as Jamie sauntered into the room, baseball cap perched on his head backwards, followed by Rori who was clutching a plastic bag in her hand, and contained in which was…

“Oh you are kidding me, right?” Steve nodded to the offending fish swimming around in small circles as Rori held it up grinning. He looked at Katie who was trying not to laugh as he shook his head. Rori had been asking the two of them for a fish for weeks and they had persistently said no…and surprise, surprise here she was with one.

“BUCKY…BUCKY!” Steve yelled as Harry grinned, joining in and clapping.

Buck appeared in the doorway, looking at Steve innocently whilst behind him Sam carried some form of small tank which held a pink castle and some other ornaments along with some food, gravel and a filter.

“I told you not to buy her a damned goldfish Bucky!” Steve looked at him, shaking his head

“I didn’t.” Bucky shrugged “I won her one.”

“Fisheee!” Harry said as he toddled over to Rori to get a closer look.

“That’s…that’s a technicality!” Steve spluttered before he looked at Sam who shook his head.

“I had nothing to do with this man.”

“Don’t lie Uncle Sam.” Jamie said, dropping onto the sofa, Stark licking his face “You helped Rori pick the tank in the pet store.” “Traitor” Sam narrowed his eyes at him.

“You…” Steve pointed at Bucky as he stood up from the rug “Are the biggest jerk ever, you know that?”

Bucky grinned innocently as Rori turned to Katie who examined the fish before she gave a shake of her head and sighed.

“Well it’s hear now so we might as well set the tank up.” And just like that, the Star Spangled Diva once more got her own way, as half an hour or so later, said bastard fish was safely in its new home, the tank sitting on the corner unit in the den where Steve had placed it once it had been filled and the ornaments arranged EXACTLY how Rori wanted them.

“I think we should call it Klaus.” Jamie said.

“What the hell kinda name is that?” Bucky looked at him.

“The fish from American Dad.” Jamie shrugged.

“Ok, ok two things…” Steve looked at Jamie “One, me and your Ma told you that you were far too young to watch that and therefore were not allowed and two, I echo what Buck just said, what the hell kinda name is that?”

“The fish can talk.” Jamie said “And he’s German, used to be a guy until the CIA turned him into a fish and-“ “Ok, just no.” Steve shook his head “The fish is not being called Klaus and if I catch you watching that again, I’m gonna take the plug off your TV” “Oh come on dad, like you didn’t watch shows you weren’t allowed to when you were my age.” Jamie protested and Katie gave a snort.

“Yeah, like TV existed back then…” Sam snorted.

Jamie frowned for a moment before a look of realisation spread across his face “Oh yeah…” “Most Exciting thing we saw was the Wizard of Oz.” Bucky said, nostalgically “Man, Technicolour…what a revelation.” “That’s so whack.” Jamie mumbled.

“Ok, now you’re talking and I’m hearing words but…” Steve shrugged and grinned as Jamie aimed a dig at him which Steve easily dodged. The two began to play spar with one another, their laugher and exclamations getting louder until Rori cut across the noise as she moved her head from where she was looking at the fish in its tank. “I’m going to call her Dori.” she said. Steve stopped what he was doing, which allowed Jamie to land a punch to his arm, which in all fairness was pretty fucking hard.

“Ow…” He said, rubbing at the place Jamie’s knuckles at connected with his bicep and looked down at the 9 year old “Good shot son…” Jamie grinned and they all turned to where Rori was stood, Katie crouched down next to her as they both watched the fish. “What did you say Princess?”

“I said her name. Imma call her Dori, like in Finding Nemo and Finding Dori…” she shrugged “And it’s like my name…”

“Dori and Rori.” Katie grinned at her daughter “Hey, Finding Rori…gedddit?”

Rori grinned and Hi-Fived her Momma the pair of them laughing whilst Steve and Jamie exchanged a look.

“Nah, I think you should call it Dot.” Bucky said simply. Steve turned to look at him. “What? It’s orangey red…so was her hair…”

“No,it’s Dori” Rori corrected him.

“Dot is better.”

“Dori!”

“Dot!”

“DORI MY FISH, MY NAME UNCLE BUCKY!” Rori stamped her foot. And Katie turned to look at her, a firm expression on her face but it was Steve that issued the warning.

“Aurora enough!” he said sternly “Stop it, and you…” he pointed at Bucky who grinned at him “Stop antagonising her”

“Chaos, confusion…my work here is done…” Bucky grinned, giving Steve a salute. “Same time next week?”

******* It was a few weeks later when disaster struck…

“Steeeeeeve!” Katie’s yell hit his ears and he stiffened slightly, before he put down his mug and hurried out of the kitchen and into the den.

“What’s wrong?” he frowned. She simply pointed to the corner of the room where Dori’s tank sat and he saw the orange fish bobbing on the surface.

Dead

“Oh fuck.” He swallowed. “How did that happen?”

“Well, I’m no expert but I suspect the half disintegrated cookie at the bottom of the tank might be something to do with it.” Katie sighed.

“I told her not to feed it them.” Steve groaned.

“You’re gonna have to go get a new one.” Katie looked at him “Before she gets back because I can’t cope with a diva meltdown Steve, not today.”

“Me?” Steve looked at her

“Yes, you.” Katie said. “I was up all night as you know, I can’t stop puking, I’m tired and you’re not in today and…”

“Ok, ok.” Steve nodded, placating her as he dropped a kiss to her cheek “Right…leave it with me.” She smiled at him, leaned up to give him a kiss before she swept out of the den, Harry toddling behind her. Steve glanced at the dead fish before he pulled out his phone.

“S’up Punk?” Bucky greeted him.

“Me and you got a mission, a big mission.” Steve said, “Meet me at the Coffee shop in 30.”

And that’s how both World War 2 Veterans, the Captain and his Sergeant, ended up in a local Pet Shop an hour or so later with said dead fish in a Tupperware container, a very bemused assistant looking at them.

“I need one of these” Steve explained, showing the fish to him.

“You need a goldfish, Sir?” “Yeah but it needs to look exactly like this one.” Steve said.

“Ok, they all look similar…” the assistant began until Bucky cut him off. “No, you don’t know his daughter.” Bucky shook his head “When we say exactly the same, we mean, exactly the same…” Less than an hour later, Dori The Second was placed in the now cleaned tank, the 3 adults and Harry watching it carefully.

“Think she’ll notice?” Steve asked, looking at Katie.

“Hmmm, it looks the same to me.” she said. “Suppose we’ll find out later.” Steve was crapping his pants all day. And when he finally collected Rori from school, he was on tenterhooks until she headed into the Den after getting changed and having a juice box. He glanced at Katie, as the pair of them held their breath, and they thought they’d gotten away with it for a few minutes, until they heard her yell.

“Shit…” Katie mumbled, as they both headed into the room.

“Everything ok?”

“Why does Dori have a white spot on her tail?” Rori looked at her mom and dad.

“Where?” Steve frowned.

“There!” She exclaimed, pointing. Steve leaned down to look and there was the tiniest white spot on the tip of the fish’s tail, no bigger than a pin prick.

“Some fish get markings like that.” Katie said, her quick thinking kicking in “it might go again, or it might get bigger…maybe you should keep notes and some pictures, then you can track it.” “Oh, ok, yeah that sounds cool!” Rori grinned and Steve glanced at his wife, relief flooding his system.

A little later, once Jamie, Rori and Harry were in bed, Katie and Steve sat down to dinner.

“I can’t believe we pulled it off.” Steve sighed, spearing a piece of broccoli with his fork “I mean, of all the missions we’ve run…”

Katie chuckled, “You know, when I was a kid I had a goldfish. Tony got him for my 8th birthday, called him Flounder, you know after the fish in the little mermaid?”

“Yeah?” Steve looked at her.

She nodded “Yup. He lived for like 11 years…or rather I thought he did. On my 18th birthday Tony confessed that Flounder, who was at this point still alive, was in fact Flounder the 9th. He had in fact died 9 times and each time Tony replaced him without me knowing.”

Steve paused, his fork raised halfway to his mouth before he gave a groan. “So basically I’ve turned into Tony?”

“There are worse people you could have become.” Katie snorted as Steve shook his head, swallowing his food.

“Bucky is a dead man.” he sighed, “This is all his fault.” “Well he’d do anything for Rori.” Katie shrugged “She has the pair of you, and Sam for that matter, wrapped around her pinkie.”

“Wonder where she gets that from?” Steve looked at her “I mean, can you blame me? She’s basically Tony with your looks.”

A couple of hours later, after some TV and a cuddle on the couch, both of them decided to head to bed. It was still reasonably early but Katie was tired and Steve decided to go with her, he could watch TV in bed. They both checked on their kids, and Steve left Katie to tuck Harry in properly as he wandered over to Jamie’s room. He opened the door, Stark pushing in to take his customary place on the foot of the bed.

“Lights out pal.” Steve said gently as he dropped a kiss to his forehead. He reached for the remote, turning his son’s TV off as Jamie reached for his lamp, clicking the switch, leaving the only source of light as that which was coming from the hall way. “Night buddy.” “Night…” Jamie said, before he spoke again just as Steve was about to leave the room. “I know you swapped the fish.” Steve turned back to look at him, shrugging “I don’t know what you mean.” “Mom’s right, you’re a terrible liar.” Jamie said and Steve could just make out his face, a smirk was playing on his lips “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Rori…if you give me twenty bucks…” “How about I don’t, and you still don’t or you’re grounded.” “Grounding me aint gonna reverse time and stop me telling her in the first place.” Jamie shrugged.

Steve blinked. He paused for a second, contemplating his options. He could come down like a tonne of bricks on the kid, which to be fair was very tempting, or he could take the easy way out which frankly, at that moment, was far more appealing. And so, Steve Rogers, the first Captain America, once-upon-a-time leader of the World’s Mightiest Heroes found himself reduced to bargaining with a blackmailing 9 year old. His blackmailing 9 year old to be precise.

You little shit.

“5 bucks.” Steve opened the negotiation.

“15.” shot back Jamie.

“10.”

“Deal.” Jamie grinned. “Night dad.” “Yeah, whatever…” Steve grumbled, closing the bedroom door behind him. He stopped dead as he saw Katie looking at him, her hands on her hips.

“Did you seriously just let him do that?” she shook her head.

“Do you wanna deal with a diva tantrum?”

“Steve, he just completely…”

“I know what he did, Doll.” Steve sighed, following her into their room “And for the record, this is on you.” “Me?” she frowned as he reached out, his arms wrapping around her from behind, hands softly cupping her bump. “Yes, because that part of him that just blackmailed me, was 100% Stark.” he said, placing a kiss to her neck.

Katie tilted her head and looked at him with narrowed eyes. He arched an eyebrow at her and she gave a snort, shaking her head. “Who knew your own daughter would be your downfall.”

“She’s Tony but with your looks.” Steve shrugged “What do you expect?”

“Well…” she mused “You said you’d give him 10 bucks but you didn’t say when. You can point this out to him tomorrow, if he wants it he can have it when he’s tidied his room.” “That’s…sneaky” Steve grinned.

“Fight fire with fire Soldier.” she smirked “You pointed out he’s half Stark…well, I’m 100% Stark, which means I can out Stark him all day long.”

#what the stark spangled fuck #stark spangled banner #steve rogers #steve rogers x oc #steve rogers x original female character #katie stark

75 notes · View notes