#‘yes i know i’m green already because that’s what i look like in my spring aspect. trust me though this shade is nausea’

[vulpinesaint]

debuting my dnd character who sees a reference to something sexual and goes “ew :|” and then sees a reference to something romantic and goes “EWWWWW.” guy who rolls his eyes at sexual references but gets green-like-nauseous with disgust at the thought of romance :)

[azsazz]

Good for Me

Rowan x Reader

Summary: Anon Request: Dom rowan and his good girl🤭🫠

Warnings: Smut, fingering, oral (69).

Word Count: 2,591

Notes: This year I'm thankful for Rowan Whitethorn.

_________________________________________

“Come here, heart,” Rowan demands from where he’s sitting against the headboard of the bed. His muscular chest is on display, the moonlight casting through the open window and clashing with the soft faelights littered around the room.

Taking a step forward, you drink him in. His long torso is half covered by swirling tattoos that trail down into where his tight hips dip into his trousers. You know the ink continues down, just as your gaze does, halting on the strain of his cock pressing against the fabric.

Your mouth goes dry.

Continuing forward, you come to a halt as he speaks again, green eyes pinning you to the floor. “Crawl to me.”

Your brows furrow as your throat works around a swallow. Heat flushes from your cheeks to your cunt, your clit awakening with his words. “Crawl?”

“Crawl,” Rowan agrees, nodding. The corner of his mouth lifts in a mischievous smirk that makes the apex of your thighs ache. “Naked.”

Your gaze flickers to the floor beneath your feet. It’s worn, floorboards curved with time and you almost shudder at the thought of what’s been done here, what else is embedded between splinters of wood. Head still turned towards the floor, you raise only your eyes to Rowan’s, a slightly desperate plea to change his mind.

But he only raises a brow, answering your unspoken question. “You know I love that face, but that’s not what I’m looking for right now, heart. You want to be my good girl, don’t you? Want to be rewarded for crawling to me?”

Fuck him. He knows just how to get you to give. Your knees nearly collapse from his words alone, warmth pooling between your legs as your cunt cries out for him. 

You want to be good for him. So good that he never thinks of ever needing another mouth but yours, another hand around his cock nor another cunt for him to cum in. You want to kiss him, lick him, suck him, and ride him, want to hear those pleasure-fueled noises rolling off his tongue.

Slowly, almost teasingly, you work yourself free from your dress. Rowan watches with hungry eyes. His hand twitches from where it’s settled on the bed, like he might just grab his cock and start stroking himself to the sight of your dress sliding down your body. Your nipples tighten near painfully as the night air breezes through the open window. If anyone walks past the inn, they’re sure to get an earful.

Next, you shimmy yourself free from your underwear, kicking it in his direction, the only sort of protest you’ll show. Rowan snatches them out of the air as quick as a whip, and the rolling green of his eyes flare, sharpening as he brings them to his face, inhaling your scent as deeply as he can.

The need to touch yourself is incessant, but you keep your hands at your sides as Rowan’s tongue pokes out, lapping the taste of your wetness from the fabric.

“All nice and wet for me and I didn’t even have to ask.” He sounds pleased, and you like that. You like that a lot. Rowan flings your underwear to the side and you watch every muscle of his body flex as he attempts to keep himself from pouncing on you. “I much prefer the real thing, heart. Will you let me taste you?”

“Yes,” you breathe, chest already heaving. Dropping to your hands and knees, you make slow, sensual movements with your body, even though your cheeks burn. But Rowan can’t seem to take his eyes off of you, even as he unzips his pants and shoves them roughly down his legs, unable to wait any longer.

Your mouth waters as his cock springs free from its confines, resting against his stomach. It’s glistening at the tip, pink and needy. There’s a vein that runs down the non-tattooed side of his cock and you’re particularly interested in tracing the line of it with your mouth.

“That’s it, heart, come here.” You obey, only because you want to hear more words like that. Your knees are aching already and surely there’s a splinter in your hand, but you know Rowan will pick it out for you afterwards.

When you’re close enough, Rowan scoops you from the floor and settles you against his chest. You whine a little, squirming against the warmth of his body because you want to face him, watch his reaction as you sink down on his throbbing cock.

“Rowan, please,” you cry, trying to unwind yourself from his grip. “I want to look at you.”

“Patience, heart,” he hisses as you brush against his sensitive cock, locking his arms around your body. “Be good for me and I’ll let you, I promise.” His words are pressed into your neck, sending shivers up your spine.

Forcing your body to relax against his, you await further demand. Shifting his knees inside yours, he spreads your legs wide. Rowan keeps one arm locked across your waist, the other sliding down between your legs to tease at your pulsing clit.

You throw your head back against his shoulder with a moan, fingers clawing into the meat of his thighs as he circles the nub slowly but with sure motions. 

“More,” you groan, trying with all of your strength to buck into his touch. You whisper as he pulls his hand away, sweeping it across your folds to gather more of your slick before he’s rubbing at you again, with more intention this time. “Faster, Ro, please, please! Need you!” 

His voice is low, and you can feel each word rumbling against your spine. His breath is hot, words even more so, “Do you want my fingers? Or my face?”

Gods, do you want to cum right on his fucking hand. Your body melts into his with a languid noise, and Rowan has to nip at your ear with his sharp teeth to gain your attention again.

“Face,” you garble, “Please.”

Rowan pulls his fingers away from you completely and you feel like you could cry. Your clit is throbbing painfully, body uncomfortably hot as the feeling of your orgasm wanes away.

You’re about to protest when Rowan brings his fingers to his mouth, sucking the taste of you off with a hum. You can’t help but watch the way his tongue circles his fingers, head craned over your shoulder to watch. Your body yearns for those same motions against your cunt, and you can’t help but writhe against his heavy cock settled against your backside. 

“Fuck, heart,” he coos, licking the remnants of you from his lips. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is. “You taste so good.”

You want to taste him too, you need to. Stretching up, you know Rowan understands exactly what you want, and he delivers, pressing his mouth hot against yours, tongue slipping inside as his hand rests against the swell of your throat, heavy and reassuring.

Gently, Rowan shifts your body, lying flat on the bed. He presses you forward with a guiding hand on your back, so you’re staring straight at his heavy cock. You lick your lips, squeaking as he readjusts you so easily with the muscle cording his body, so your cunt is settled over his face. He hums happily and you jerk as his tongue brushes through your folds.

Your hips sink down, unable to hold yourself back. You take his cock in hand, jerking him once, twice, before you’re suckling the pearl of precum off of the tip before swallowing his cock down. You can feel that vein that has occupied your mind, tracing down it with your tongue. Rowan’s hips buck and you choke, the wet sound of it echoing through the room.

Rowan is unrelenting against your cunt, fucking his tongue into you, switching up his pace, his strokes, when you do something different as well. You’re whimpering on his cock, the silkiness slick against the flat of your tongue. You need to use your hand as well, his cock too big to fit into your mouth without a little force.

“So soft and pretty, heart. You can take more, can’t you?” He nearly begs when he pulls away from your cunt for a moment before he’s lapping up the wetness that’s spread to your thighs.

Squeezing your eyes shut you relax your jaw as much as you can, taking Rowan deeper. He’s past the point of hitting the back of your throat now, he’s cutting off your airflow completely, thick cock buried deep down your throat. 

He groans at the noises you make, the feeling of your tight throat constricting his cock. His mouth falters against your cunt but he’s reaching a hand down, wrapping your hair around his fist and pressing you further onto his cock as he lifts his hips, fucking into your throat with a hiss and a harsh nip at your clit that makes pleasurable tears burn your eyes.

Gods, he doesn’t know if he can stop himself. You feel too good wrapped around him like this, your wetness dripping from your cunt, smeared across his chin. He wants to submit to the feeling coiling his gut, let loose his cum and fuck it down your throat while you choke on it, but he also wants to stuff you full of it and watch it drip from you for hours. 

“Good girl-that’s a good fucking girl,” he groans and your pussy clenches. 

Rowan slows his movements and you gasp for air. You cry out when he focuses his attention back on your clit, sucking and licking with fervor. He does it like he was made for exactly this, and your body shakes as he continues on, not letting up when you cry that you’re about to cum. 

“Be a good girl and cum for me, heart. Give it to me and I’ll let you have my cock.”

So you do. Loudly. 

“Rowan!”

Your cries fill the night air, echoing down the streets. Fire blinds you, searing through your body down between your thighs. Rowan drinks it all in, your orgasm, the noises you’re making, the feeling of your nails clawing into his skin, your torturous breaths hot against his cock as you pant through the euphoria. 

“Fucking hell, heart,” Rowan breathes, pressing soft kisses to your cunt. “You did so well for me.”

You whimper and your thighs shake. Your body is already spent from your orgasms but you want his cock in your cunt. “Need to feel you, Ro. Please.”

“Alright, heart, come here,” Rowan says gently, helping you maneuver around. You collapse against his chest, reveling in his warmth. Rowan’s fingers stroke long lines up your spine and it makes you want to melt into him further, until he starts rubbing his cock against your soaked cunt. You whine, arching against him. “My girl did so well, you deserve it.”

“Take me,” you say desperately, fingers digging into his broad shoulders. Rowan doesn’t hesitate, pressing the head of his cock into your wetness at a torturously slow speed. Your breath catches in your throat at the stretch and your eyes roll into the back of your head as he curses at the tightness of your cunt.

Each press into you pushes more and more breath from your lungs. You’re greedy with it, already rolling your hips, encouraging Rowan for more. You’d tried to push yourself upright so you could sink down on him fully when his slow movements started to drive you a little insane, but he’d wrapped his arms around your body and crushed you to his chest. Rowan wasn’t allowing you to take this from him, he’s reveling in your reactions, your whimpers and keens against the skin of his chest.

“That’s it, take it,” he soothes, pressing kisses to your exposed skin. They’re meant to be distracting but how could you pull your attention away from his cock filling you to the brim? You shudder against him as he kisses down your neck to your shoulder, nipping softly. You’re clinging to him like a kitten, nails scraping red welts into his tan skin.

You want his cum painting the walls of your cunt, want him fucking into you so hard that it leaks out of you because there’s not enough room. 

The tip of his cock brushes your womb and you arch, seeing white.

“Again,” you beg, and Rowan listens, pulling out and fucking back in, right into the same spot that has you crying out like that. 

He considers tattooing this moment into his skin, your lips red from where you’ve bitten them, trying to contain your pleas. The pink of your cheeks, how you can hardly keep your eyes open even when he tilts your chin and growls for you to keep them open. The way that your body writhes on top of him as much as you can with his iron arms keeping you pinned to him for the taking.

The room is filled with noise, creeping out into the night through the open window. The wet sounds of your cunt, the soft slapping as his hips meet yours, his low grunts and your loud cries. It’s a symphony of euphoria, and you hope your neighbors don’t file a complaint with the inn. The breeze does nothing to cool your burning skin, the coiling in your gut with that familiar rush each brush of his cock guides you towards.

“Your body was made for me, heart,” Rowan moans, hips bucking faster the closer he comes to his peak as well. Your body is slack against his, his thick girth making you boneless. His hands stoke down your sides, settling in a harsh grip around your hips as he plants his feet into the mattress and fucks into you even harder. You cry out, skin sticking to his, allowing the warmth in your abdomen to crest in one of the most earth-shattering orgasms you’ve experienced in your life.

The room goes black. You’re aware that Rowan is still holding you tightly and bucking his hips into yours, keeping you grounded to this plain. You feel like this is your purpose, loving Rowan, and your liquid mind finally catches up, fighting through the pleasure that melted it, right as your mate cums with a sound that makes the inn groan on its hinges. It roils through your bones, his hot cum spurting into you as he hugs you so tightly you can hardly breathe. 

It’s everything, though, with him here like this, coming together under the moon. It doesn’t matter where you go or who either of you pretend to be, as long as you’re together and can feel like this. 

Rowan’s body slowly begins to relax under yours. He hasn’t removed his cock from you, keeping his cum trapped inside your tight cunt. The feeling makes you shudder a little, and he presses you closer, his lips finding yours to reward you with a sensual kiss. 

“So good for me,” he whispers against your lips. Rowan shifts his hips a little, cock grazing your insides, and you whimper because you’re not all that sure you can go for another round right now, no matter how badly you want to. Your mate shushes you softly, brushing your hair from your face so he can stroke soothing patterns against your cheek. 

“I love you, Ro.”

“I love you too, heart,” Rowan presses those words into your skin like a promise. “I love you too.”

[marigold-hills]

june 2: oyster | @wolfstarmicrofic | word count: 502

PREVIOUS PART • NEXT PART

“Alright there, Moony? Looking a bit pale,” Sirius asks in between inhaling his breakfast and reviewing what sparse notes he made for the Potions NEWT.

Remus looks up from his mug of tea (gripped between large hands like a lifeline). There are shadows under his eyes: another late night, then. Exams are upon them, and the way Remus studies has become obsessive.

“You need food too, mate,” James piles bacon onto Remus’ plate, ignoring his grumbles – almost growls, since it’s only a week until the full moon and the lines blur a bit in those days. “Yes, you’re very big and very scary. Now eat your breakfast.”

I should have done that, Sirius thinks because something in him believes the job is his. He’s never been good at caring for anything, hanging onto James even for his own needs, but it’s different, somehow, with Remus. There is a duality: being thankful for James’ care and resentful of it.

The owls come as they do every day, a flurry of wings and feathers. It’s a bright, clear day and they disturb the sun rays as they swoop through the Great Hall.

Remus gets the newspaper (something obscure about literature) and a beautiful, haughty looking owl lands in front of Sirius, raising a dignified foot with a small parcel for him to unwrap.

“What did you get?” James asks as the owl takes off, scoffing at Sirius’ offering of a sausage.

It’s an oyster shell, gold encrusted with an artisan's precision. Inside of it a marble eye, a shade of green which reminds him of autumn and of something else. He finds comfort in the colour - it’s why he chose it – a memory of warm fires and long cozy nights, of the happiness he feels when, as Padfoot, he’s surrounded by pack.

Sirius clips the silver chain the oyster is attached to around his neck “It’s an oisrí feiceálaí,” he hopes he doesn’t butcher the pronunciation, glances at Remus to make sure, “I’ve come across them when researching for my dissertation.”

“What does an oyster have to do with ancient runes?” Remus finds his voice at the bottom of the tea mug.

“Well… nothing. I just thought it was neat. It’s the symbol of fifth dimensional vision.”

“Sure you didn’t accidentally study Divination?”

“Hilarious, Prongs.”

Something catches James’ eye across the Great Hall – more likely someone – and he shoots up with a harried I have to go, see you at the exam!

Remus leans across the table, with a careful hand reaches for the necklace. Studies it, turning it around in his fingers. They oyster looks small in his grasp, the silver more pronounced against the golden skin.

“Very pretty, Sirius,” he says, and Sirius feels the sentence like it means something else, “Will you tell me more about it, after the exam?”

Remus looks up from the oyster, straight into Sirius’ face, eyes reddened and shiny from the lack of sleep and –

- well, Sirius knows what the green reminded him of.

NOTES:

this is part two of a 30-part series of shorts: I’m aiming for them all to be readable as standalone but are a part of a bigger story (better read together and in order, in my opinion)

oisrí feiceálaí, to the best of my knowledge, means seer oyster in Gaelic. It’s not actually a thing but I came across this and thought it was pretty and ostentatious enough for Sirius to wear ALCHEMICAL OYSTER PEARL

Remus is always autumn to me - by that logic Sirius in Winter, James is Summer (self explanatory, really). Peter is Spring I suppose. But I don’t ever write him into my fics so who’s to say

speaking of Peter - let’s say he’s already at the venue for the potions exam, absolutely shaking from stress and desperately cramming last minute revision

@lightningmonarchda3 @bowielover420 @tealeavesandtrash @digital-kam

(let me know if you do/don’t want to be tagged in next parts)

[thecapricunt1616]

The Bear & His Honey - Chapter 16

♡ Chapter Inspo: Call It What You Want (Reputation - TS) ; I want to wear his initial on a chain 'round my neck. Not because he owns me, but 'cause he really knows me. Which is more than they can say, I recall late November holdin' my breath, slowly I said "You don't need to save me, but would you run away with me?"

♡ Summary: Carmy x Winnie are finally calling things what they are after 3 months of beating around the bush, YAY!!!

♡ W/C: 10,775

♡ Posted Date: 04/05/2024

♡ A/N: Here we have chapter 16 - I hope you all like it! I have been stepping back and seeing where I want things to go, & I think I have generally a good idea now, so I was able to finish up the next 2 chapters finally haha. As per usual thank you for reading, remember requests for one shots are open - or even if you want to see WxC doing something specific let me know! I am here to please hahah one shots I've already written are on my masterlist linked below! Also - no one has asked, but I usually see people will read one chapter, then go back and read all of them 1-15, so if you want to be on a tag list so you can keep up w/ the story just tell me in the comments and i'll make one!!

♡ Warnings for BTC: Swearing, Speaking of smoking, Weed, Smut!, Nervous Carmy, Mushy fluff!!!

➵ 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐌����𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭 ♡

➵ 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐮𝐩 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 ♡

𝒲𝒾𝓃𝓃𝒾𝑒𝓈 𝒫.𝒪.𝒱. 🍯

It was a few weeks later, and the beginning of spring had well arrived. The trees were becoming green again, the flowers were blooming, and Carmy and I were still hanging out nearly every afternoon, and he was staying over nearly every night. 

That Friday evening, around 11pm, after Carmy had gotten off his shift, he came over to mine and had a shower after we ate dinner that he had made us before he came over. Tonight had been a favorite - a true garbage plate per my request. 

It was currently 1 am and we were snuggled up in bed, mostly I was watching a rerun of Criminal Minds, and Carmy was distracted by his phone, texting with someone back and forth. 

“Did y’wanna come w’me to Richie’s Sunday? We do Palm at his usually. He’s been textin’ me about comin’ over a little earlier to help with the lamb.” He said and I looked up at him from my spot snuggled up on his chest, my cheek adorned with lines from his sweatshirt since it had been mushed there while I watched the show, my hands playing with the tie of his sweats absentmindedly so I didn’t pick my nails. 

“Oh- yeah. Sure. I didn’t know you like- did that. Y’re…religious? I mean- I know the chain and everything but..” I gently play with the charm between my fingers. He smiled a bit, forefinger gently rubbing over the dark red marks in my cheek from laying. 

“I mean- nah. Not really it’s more like..tradition I guess? Palm Sunday and Easter were huge when I was growin’ up. I guess it’s just an Italian thing, but it’s like- second Christmas. The whole family gets together and has a meal” he said and I nod. 

“Well of course I’ll be your date baby. Thank you for asking, I assume we’re doing church? Like Christmas Eve if it’s a big thing right?” I ask and he nodded a bit. 

“You don’t…you don’t have to go. I mean- I don’t go unless it’s Christmas Eve or Palm or Easter Sunday. So..but I get it if y’arent comfortable” he bit his lip nervously. 

“No baby- no…I think it’s sweet. I grew up Catholic too, well- Irish Catholic. But- I was baptized, so I’m rightfully Catholic. So we can get married someday and not go to hell” I giggled and he snorts a laugh. 

“Oh thank god y’re baptized baby, how could we ever marry if you haven’t devoted yourself to our lord and savior” he teased, earning a laugh from me. 

“Does this mean I get to crack out my veil again? What do I wear? Well I know I can’t have my tits out - but like, color scheme for your church, still red?” I asked and he rubbed my back gently. 

“Yes still red baby.” He kissed my neck, gently nipping at the sensitive skin. “I didn’t know you wore a veil. You were dedicated, huh? Such a good little Catholic” he teased, pinching my bum playfully. 

I laugh a bit “mmhmm- my mom was serious about it. I used to hate it but since I stopped believing in the Catholic god- er- worshiping him, anyway, I just think it’s hot. D’you think we could sneak away to the bathroom for a quickie during the service? I’ve always fantasized about fucking in a church it sounds really hot.” I said causing him to laugh into my skin. 

“Babe. Holy fuckin blasphemy you trying to get on the big man’s ultimate shit list?” He bites my shoulder playfully. 

“Ohhhh we’re way past it Carm. Plus- since he’s so big and mighty and he’s the one that created my twisted fucked up mind- it’s really him who thinks it’s hot. So if he’s mad it’s not on me” I giggled, poking his cheek. “D’you have a bite kink I’m not aware of sir?” I teased. 

“Mmm no you just taste good, and y’so cute it just makes me wanna fuckin bite you I can’t explain it” he bites down on my neck gently, running his tongue over my skin. 

“Awwww you have cute aggression?” I gently play with his curls and he chuckled into my skin, his breath causing goosebumps to appear. 

“That’s a thing?” He questioned and I nod a bit, a wide smile adorning my features. 

“It’s super sweet. Like…when I was at college studying, I took my first round of psych credits, and I guess that uh…when we see something that’s cute, or makes us really happy we wanna like squeeze it or bite it because we’re so overwhelmed with how cute it is that we’re like…searching for an outlet almost? But yeah, so thank you I guess. I do have the urge to just” I take his forearm, gently biting down and giggling into his skin and he chuckled. 

“Y’can bite me. Maybe not in public so we don’t look like a couple’a freaks, but this is ok” he said and I released his flesh 

“Oh yeah I’m just gonna bite you in front of all the staff at work next time I see you. I’ll do it when you’re really angry” I teased, lacing our fingers together and resting our hands over my tummy. 

“Ugh no work talk right now baby today was fuckin’-” he rubs over his face with his other hand “remind me to never trust Richie with shipment ever again.” He grumbled, grabbing his phone to resume whatever he was doing. I mentally rolled my eyes. 

Really, Richie? The one time. One time, that Carmy decides to let someone else start the day- and sleep until 5 am instead of 4- he fucks it up somehow. 

“ ‘m sorry baby. You want a massage? It’s getting late. Maybe it’ll help you sleep, how’s your back?” I asked gently, rubbing his forearm. 

He sighed a bit, putting his phone on the wireless charging pad on the nightstand that had begun living there since he had been sleeping over. “Hurts..Think I pulled a muscle ‘er somethin’ in my shoulder too, fuckin bags of rice were on the lowest shelf and I didn’t use my knees at all apparently” he said and I sat up, grabbing my massage oil from the nightstand. 

“Alright roll over mister, no more work talk tonight, got it? Were Resting our brains now” I kiss his cheekbone and he nods tiredly, tugging off his sweatshirt and laying on his stomach.

“No more work talk” he agreed with an exhausted sigh. I warmed some of the oil in my hands, kissing the little freckles along his back as I did so and he hums softly. 

“Okay so where should I start on the map baby?” I asked him. I had taught him the system my mom and I used to use when she’d give my brother and I massages as kids, where you tell a state on the map so she could better gauge where it was hurting. 

“Fuckin’… Vegas to the Carolina’s. It hurts so bad babe” he said and I gently felt over his lower back, this was usually where we started, unless Wyoming and Nebraska which were more his mid back was hurting him worse, that only happened when he went too hard at the gym, though. 

“It’s probably Texas. Usually Texas, babe” I said, gently working my thumbs with light pressure from the middle of his lower back outwards and he lets out a groan. 

“Fuck Texas” he muttered into the pillow, causing me to giggle a bit. 

“I’ve never been, I hear they have great Mexican food.” I said, adding a bit of pressure as I got to his hips where he held a lot of his stress. 

“Mmm I’ve been- shit”  he hissed as I work at a knot at the back of his hip. “Fuck- keep going babe- ahhh mmhmm- yes” he grumbles. I added more pressure and he sighed gratefully. “Thank you” he said softly, resting his cheek on his forearm, eyes fluttering shut in bliss.

“You’ve been? Lucky! Did you try the Mexican food?” I asked, dragging the pressure across his lower back and he moans out quietly. 

“Mmhmm…Dallas…ACF conference- went in November. They do have great Mexican food. And the drinks are enormous, crazy strong for how cheap they were.” He said. 

“Ooo that sounds like my kinda place. We should go on a trip sometime, if I could ever afford it that is. But a road trip would be fun” I gently rub up to his mid back. 

“You don’t have t’pay anything baby, I didn’t know you wanna travel- where d’you wanna go? I just have to get the time off. That's the problem, not the money. But what’s y’dream place y’wanna go?” He asked. 

“Anywhere. Well, anywhere with you. I’ve never been on a plane before, I took the train here. Cause my Grammy wouldn’t let me take a plane, since our Grandpa died in one- she says they’re bad luck. But I’ve always wondered what it was like. It seems fun. Are airports fun like they make it look in the movies?” I smile a bit, gently massaging over his ribs. 

“No. Totally not. They don’t really put airports in tv and shit after 9/11 if you’ve noticed because now they’re a fuckin’ nightmare- but I mean…not as shit as being on a train for what- 30 hours babe? Y’not doin’ that t’go do that nanny thing right? I don’t want you sittin for 30 hours with y’hip.” He said and I shrug a bit, continuing to rub over his mid back with the pressure I knew he liked. 

“I set a timer on my phone, and get up and walk around every 20 minutes, So it doesn’t hurt so bad. Also- it’s like…50 bucks cheaper so. 50 bucks toward my next therapy session” I say simply. 

“50 bucks?! Baby. No. I’m buyin’ y’ticket and you can get there in 2 hours, so I can have you for an extra whole day. No arguing. It’s done” he said and I laugh a bit. 

“Oh so you boss me around now?” I said and he smirks, looking at me over his shoulder. 

“Hasn’t that been established? That I only make you do something when y’too stubborn to allow me to help?” He asked and I kiss his lips gently. 

“Control freak” I teased, starting on his shoulders and his eyes flutter shut in bliss. 

“Consider it payment f’r all the massages I’ll need when you get back. I dunno how I’m gonna manage babe it helps so much. Fuck ah- yes. There- there honey” he groaned as I drag my thumb with a good amount of pressure in the dip of his shoulder blade. 

“Y’know you can see a real masseuse, Bear. You don’t have to torture yourself until I’m home again” I said, adding a bit more pressure and he whimpered, burying his face in the pillow. 

“Mmm- don’t wanna” he said into the fabric as I work his other shoulder the same way. “Holy shiiiit. Baby. Fuck- fuuuuck me.” He moaned and I laughed a bit, rubbing my thumbs up to the base of his neck and back down. “Mmm shit- fuckin’ hurts soooo good” 

I laughed at his bear like grumbles “Jesus baby. Thank god I don’t have roommates they’d think we’re sex addicts with the way you moan when I give you your massages” I straddled his hips as I work from the balls of his shoulders in towards his neck. 

“Mm not my fault you have tiny magical hands” he teased and I laughed. 

“Do not make fun of my little hands. I can’t help it, and it makes my life tedious” I joked, gently using the knuckles of my thumbs to release the tension in the sides of his neck. 

“How is me calling your doll hands magical, making fun of them?” He said and I smiled, pinching his arm gently. 

“May I remind you Bear who’s mercy you’re at right now?” I bite down on his neck playfully and he chuckles. 

“My favorite girls” he counters and I smiled big, a blush creeping to my cheeks. 

“You are a big flirt” I sat up, continuing to work at the base of his neck. 

“I am being accused left and right t’night, of crimes f’which you have zero admissible evidence” he teased and I laughed, covering my mouth to not wake up the neighbors. 

“Okay- we’re watching way too much criminal minds and SVU lately, admissible evidence, babe?” I shook my head, working on rubbing his biceps in sections since they were quite large. 

“Not my fault I wake up f’work and it’s still on. That shit can’t be givin’ you good dreams babe. Y’need to turn it off” he said and I smiled a bit at his concern. 

“Oh, and you when you go home, and turn on YouTube cooking videos until you pass out, that’s not giving you bad dreams about work?” I mused and he hums. 

“No. Cause I usually don’t watch the English ones, my italian is spotty, which makes my Spanish shitty. And our French lessons have only gotten me so far. So- if my eyes are closed, nothin but noise” he countered and I roll my eyes with a smirk. 

“And how do you know how much of everything to put in?” I ask curiously, massaging over his biceps. 

“By the look” he replied as if that said anything at all. 

“So, if I right now, gave you my water bottle- you could tell me how much water was in it?” I snort 

“Depends, is there ice?” He asked and I raised my brows. 

“ Carmy you can’t just- I mean you can guess. But you’ll have no form of accuracy.” I said and he hums. 

“Think of it like Cooking is biology, and baking is science babe. 2 different sides of the same coin. I don’t need accuracy, I need flavor and balance. A good chef doesn’t solely stick to a recipe. But a good baker always sticks to a recipe. F’r cookin’ It’s about what the dish wants. F’baking it’s what it needs. So yeah I’m confident I could give you a fairly accurate measurement by look” he explained and I gently massage over his wrists, paying extra attention to them because of all the repetitive motion he did at work with all the chopping and stirring and whisking. 

“Mmm I love it when you get all sexy technical chef on me” I kiss the top of his hand lightly and he smiled a bit. 

“Well I’ll tell y’anythin y’wanna know angel” he said, covering his mouth with his hand as he yawned big. “Mmm. Y’always put me t’sleep” he mumbled. 

I giggle a bit “that was the point. Geez like a colicky baby sometimes, so overtired y’can’t sleep” I said and he snorts. 

“Mmm this is my favorite part” he rolled on his side as I took my place next to him and he lays his forearm over my tummy so I can lightly drag my nails across it for him. 

“Spoiled, spoiled little bear” I teased, obliging him and gently dragging my nail across his skin with a featherlight touch causing goosebumps to appear. 

“Mmhmm, the most spoiled” he said and kisses me sweetly I hummed softly, cupping his cheek and gently rubbing my thumb over his cheekbone. 

“Just one more day”  I said when he pulled away, alluding to his Sunday off. 

“One more.” He said softly and snuggled into my chest as I continued gently caressing his arm, my other hand tangling in his muss of damp curls and scratching his scalp as I usually did to help him fall asleep. 

This had been our routine for the last 2 weeks now, he’d come over after working out, we’d eat dinner, he’d have a shower, then we’d sit on the balcony and smoke together, then come in and get in bed, I’d give him a massage after cuddling for a while, and stroke his arm and give him scratches to help him fall asleep, since the first night I did it for him he was out in less than 10 minutes, (which was an all time record for him) - and he’d be little spoon until he fell asleep. Then when I eventually did as well- we’d wake up in the morning with me having stolen the title of little spoon once more. 

He nuzzled his face in the crook of my neck, his warm breath hitting my collar bone. I focused on the tv and continued stroking his arm gently, a few minutes went by like that before he muttered a half asleep “night honey” bringing a small smile to my lips.  “Night Bear” I said softly, brushing his curls off his forehead and gently kissing it, lingering for a moment before resting back on the pillow and continuing to stroke his arm gently.

I was woken by the sound of Carmy’s first alarm that he’d nearly knocked his phone off the nightstand trying to silence, before groaning tiredly and plopping his arm back around me, pulling me closer to him. 

“Morning” I said softly, my eyes still closed. 

“Mornin’ babe.” He said quietly, planting a soft kiss to my jaw. He’d been setting his alarm for 4:00 instead of 4:30 for the past week or so, so we’d get a little bit of snuggle time before he had to get in the shower. 

“How’d you sleep?” I asked, lacing our fingers together and turning to face him, wrapping my leg between his and hooking them together. 

“Alright. My back feels a lot better, thanks for the massage honey. How’d you sleep?” He rubbed over his face, yawning which caused me to catch it and yawn myself. 

“Course love. I slept okay, had a really weird dream, wanna hear about it?” I ask and he smiled lazily, nuzzling his face into my neck. 

“Mm. Always” he said softly. 

“So-“ I giggle softly at the absolute bizarreness “so, Syd was there- oh I’ll have to send her a voice note about this. But Syd was there, and we were at my middle school? But it was here, in Chicago. And it wasn’t my middle school, it was a hospital? But my teachers were there. Well they weren’t my teachers they were strangers, but I like knew they were my teachers, ya’know?” He chuckled a bit into my skin. 

“Okay, and what were you and Syd doin baby?” He questioned. 

“Literally Carm- playing with a Ouija board? Like?” I laughed a bit, causing him to follow suit. 

“Who were you trying to get ahold of?” He asked. 

“I don’t know! But it was like scary lookin. I don’t even - oh! Yes! That’s how I know it was a hospital cause we were in this dingy like basement, and there was a gurney? Like. I dunno. Oh! And she was like” I laughed, shaking my head. “She was like Winnie- they’ll know the right ingredient. Like- like we’re summoning the dead for recipe advice? But she was so stressed like she was dyyying to find out what they had to say” I said and his chest vibrated with laughter. 

 “And yeah, that was it that’s the dream- dream Syd, and real Syd, both are OCD about recipes to the point of insanity” I said and he shook his head, planting a kiss on my temple. 

“Thanks f’r sharing babe. Y’know, maybe the dead could help us out with recipes- dream Syd could be onto somethin’ ” he joked and I gently play with his sleep tousled hair. 

“Mmm I think the only ghost that would give a shit about food they can’t eat- would be you and Syd baby. I can totally see that. Us hanging out in the afterlife, and you’re like ‘but honey, if I help them and tell them it needs more lemon it’ll be so good’ “ i mimicked him doing my best Carmy impression and he snorts a laugh. 

“I do not sound like that, when did I turn into a fuckin- southside chain smokin’ uncle?” He teased and I laughed, poking his cheek playfully. 

“Not too far off, you’re a north side chain smoking uncle in real life, so I guess the accent was a little off” I said and he rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah yeah. I’m down to half a pack a day now I wouldn’t call that chain smokin anymore” he mused, kissing my neck with open mouth kisses, trailing down to my collarbones. 

“Mmm Bear?” I question and felt him smile into my skin before biting down gently in the fleshy spot between my neck and shoulder. 

“Mmhmm?” He mumbled, his teeth still gently clamped around my flesh. 

“It’s 4:09” I said, gently scratching his scalp with my nails. 

“So that means we have..21 minutes, no?” He questions and I raise my brows with a smirk. 

“And what are we doing with this twenty one minutes, Bear?” I muse and he lifted the covers, crawling underneath, and getting between my thighs. 

“Don’t they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day?” he asked, kissing over my pantyline in the way that made my breath hitch. 

“Real breakfast, baby. Which you refuse most the time” I told him, gently pushing his curls back, watching as he carefully slips my panties to the side. 

He licks a stripe up my heat with the pad of his tongue, stopping at my clit and applying more pressure, open jawed, rubbing his tongue messily back and forth. I whined in pleasure, my head dropping back to the pillow. 

He hooked my knees over his shoulders, pulling me closer by my hips and gently sucks on the sensitive bud that was now getting firmer and more prominent, flicking and smoothing his tongue over it in small circles, earning hot moans of satisfaction from deep in my chest. 

“Oh-“ I breathe out, my voice coming out as more of a squeak then anything and my hips buck involuntarily as a jolt of pleasure cracks through me at his actions. 

“Mmm so fuckin sweet” he grumbled into the slick flesh, the vibrations causing my core to clench around nothing.  

“Holy fuck Carmy” I gasp as I felt his tongue lapping over my enterence, thrusting his tongue inside in one swift motion, humming in satisfaction as he felt me squeeze tightly around his tongue and I tugged his hair between my fingers. 

“Ah- shitholy-fuckingchristCarm” I moaned out as he nudged the bridge of his strong nose against my clit with a pressure that was gonna drive me right over the edge- and fast. 

“Mmhmm- mmhmm” I nod quickly, biting my lip hard as I feel that all too familiar tightening in my stomach, the pool building quickly and the dam walls getting ready to snap, all of my muscles tightening and my thighs quivering. 

“Breathe” he reminded me gently, reaching up and grabbing one of the hands that had taken grip on his hair, lacing our fingers together and squeezing my hand gently. 

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, “sorry” I mumble sheepishly and he continued, humming happily into my slick when I gasp in a enormous breath as he flicks his tongue wildly over my clit, pressing my hips into the bed to make me remain still with his other forearm. 

“Oh- oh- fuuuck! Ah- ahh! cumming! Yes- yes!!!” I cry out, squeezing his hand tightly, my head thrown back in bliss and spine arched off the bed. 

“mm- shit- fuck- too sensitive” I whine, as he continued the rough assault on my clit, digging my nails into the back of his hand. 

“I think I can get another one babe - cmon be good f’me, please?” he said lowly, his voice coated in thick, honey-like lust. 

“Ah- fuck-fuck- okay- mmmmillbegood” I slur, my thighs pressing against his temples and ankles locked behind his head. 

He removed his forearm from my hips. “Y’gonna be a good girl, mmm? Y’gonna stay still f’me? Er do I need t’keep holdin’ you?” He asks and I shook my head. 

“Ill be still, promise” I said quickly, squeezing his hand gently. 

“That’s my girl” he brought his mouth back to my clit, slipping two fingers in my entrance and curling them expertly into that amazing spongy spot he seemed to have memorized by now, that I could somehow never manage to get to so well on my own. 

“Holyfuck” I groaned, tugging his hair taut and he moans into me, the vibrations on my over sensitive clit dragging me to the edge and leaving me dangling there. 

“Ah- fuck mmm-d’that- keep doin’ that Bear pleeeease” I begged as I tug at his hair harder, earning a deeper moan out of him. My hips snap back into the mattress, twitching and shaking as I mewl and whine through my second orgasm, my back arched and hand leaving his hair to grip the sheets so I wouldn’t hurt him as I held them in a white knuckle grasp. 

His alarm goes off for 4:30 a few moments after my thighs stop quivering in pleasure and hips finally stilled. He messily wiped his wet chin, mouth, and the tip of his nose on my thigh, slick with my arousal, before placing a gentle kiss on my mound, and popping his head out of the sheets, casually hitting the stop button on the alarm. 

“Thanks f’breakfast honey” he joked, getting out of bed and stretching his back, before giving me a peck on the lips and heading off to the bathroom, leaving me fucked absolutely dumb. 

“Anytime” I said tiredly, feeling exhausted once again after only a few hours sleep and being feasted on so intensely, and so early in the morning. 

He left the bathroom door cracked so Persephone wouldn’t scratch the whole time trying to get in and investigate what he was doing, and I heard him start the shower before I rolled back over and fell asleep. 

I was awoken by sweet gentle kisses about 45 minutes later, feeling the icy metal of his chain brush over my chin as he pressed lingering kisses on my forehead. “Hey sleepy” he said softly, rubbing my side. 

The smell of his cologne and minty toothpaste hits my nose and my eyes flutter open. He was sat next to me, backpack and hoodie already on. 

“Already?” I whine, laying over his lap and nuzzling my face in his tummy, breathing in his scent and wrapping my arms around him. 

“Mmhmm. But 3:30 yeah? I’ll come pick y’up from the library we can have lunch in the car?” He gently runs his fingers through my hair in the way that made me sleepy, and my eyes flutter shut once again subconsciously. 

“Can’t you call out sick?” I mumble into his sweatshirt and he chuckled. This was the same conversation we had nearly every morning. 

“And do what princess? Mm? Follow you to the library and sit around while you put away books?” He joked and I huff. 

“Yes. Exactly that.” I said and look up at him, puckering my lips, knowing I wouldn’t win this battle possibly ever unless he was actually sick. 

“Mmhmm I’m sure y’boss would love to just have a chef loitering around all day waiting for her star employee” he teased, leaning down and giving me a sweet, tender goodbye kiss. 

“Be safe.” I said softly when he pulled away, cupping his cheek and rubbing over his cheekbone with my thumb. He leaned into my touch, sighing softly and eyes fluttering shut. 

“Always. We have a big catering order today, so if I don’t text back that’s why. What do you want f’r lunch in case I forget to ask?” He took my hand, gently kissing my palm. 

“Mmm- dunno. Surprise me, nothin’ spicy but you knew that” I said, covering my mouth as I yawn. 

“Surprise it’ll be then baby” he leaned in, kissing me once more before pulling away and rubbing my stomach signaling it was that dreaded time. 

I sigh, sitting up off his lap and giving him a big hug, kissing his cheek with a smooch “have a good day baby” I said softly into his damp hair, kissing his head once more before letting him go. 

“Thank you angel, lock the door behind me please” he said and I nod, following him to the door and see Persephone was sat on top of his shoes in the hallway.  

“See I think Persephone says you should stay home too” I smile and he shook his head with a grin. 

“Not t’day snowball” he picks her up, kissing her head and he licks the tip of his nose, causing him to scrunch it adorably. 

“Ugh fish breath” he mutters and I giggle. 

“She looooooves her Carmy, isn’t that right little baby?” I scratch her chin and he plops her in my arms so he can slip on his sneakers. 

“Mmhmm and I love her too but duty calls, stinky” he tells her in a sweet voice and kisses her head once more before pecking my lips once he had his shoes on and opening the door. 

“And put some panties on Winnie the Pooh” he said in my ear, spanking my bum lightly before heading down the hall. 

I laughed “Sorry- I’ll make sure to put your leftovers away sooner next time” I call after him teasingly, shutting the door behind me and clicking it locked.

I was in the Young Adult section at the library, putting returned books back on the shelf, when I felt my phone start buzzing in my bra. I fished it out, abandoning my cart of books I’d yet to put away, quickly heading to the employee back room once I realized it was Carmy. 

I clicked green answer button. “Hey Bear! How’s the-“ he cuts me off suddenly. 

“Hey- um- hey. I need like- a huge favor baby”  

He said nervously. I put a concerned hand on my hip, nervously pacing the break room. “What is it love? Are you ok? Are you hurt?” I asked, already on edge due to the anxiety lacing his tone. 

“No- no I’m ok- it’s uh. Syd. She’s….fuck I’m sorry - her stomach? Something about her stomach. She’s in the office right now, she can like- barely move but she doesn’t want to go to the hospital and uhh.” I could see him in my mind nervously shaking his hand and pacing. 

“Okay- okay I’m coming. Is it like a girl tummy ache- or something different?” I asked, grabbing my purse and light jacket I’d worn, quickly putting it on as I held my phone pressed to my cheek and shoulder.

“No - no way honey. This is like- she can barely speak - I’ve never…I’m scared baby.” He said, his voice cracking a bit. 

“Shhh. It’s ok, it’s ok, Bear- Syd has had stomach ulcer problems in the past, I need you to get her to try and eat something, ok? Shes gonna say no, but she has to eat- the acid in her stomach is irritating her. I’m coming. I’m grabbing an Uber right now, breathe baby. It’s all gonna be fine” I said and he took a deep trembling breath. 

“Ye’…yeah. Ok. Okay, I’ll see you baby, be safe” he said and I sigh softly. 

“Always” I said softly and hung up. I shoved my phone in my coat pocket, untucking my hair and heading to my bosses office. 

I lightly knocked, waiting for her ‘come in’ before nudging the door open. 

“Hey- Family emergency, I have to head out. Could you let Jessie know I left some returns in the YA section?” I ask and she nods. 

“Hope everything’s ok, call me if you can’t make it in Monday.” She said and I nodded. 

“Thank you” I told her before shutting her office door behind me. 

The Uber ride to The Bear was torturous, I’d texted Syd thrice - to no avail. She was constantly pushing herself so hard- that she was making herself literally burn from the inside out. I’d told her time and time again, from everything I’d learned in my 3 years at college- stress can literally kill you, and that she should really take some time off before she seriously injured herself- but unfortunately she never listened. 

I got out of the car when we’d barely come to a full stop, rushing to the front door, stepping inside and seeing Sugar at the host stand. “Oh- thank god- Carmy is freaked out Winnie- he literally is convinced she’s dying- can you go cool him off? Please?” She begs and I nodded quickly, heading behind the counter and pushing the back door open to the loud kitchen. 

Everytime I was here during the day, I made it a point not to come in this way because the environment made my skin crawl. The noise, the lights, the crashing of pans and pots, the yelling, the sudden bursts of flames while various chefs flambéd dishes that would singe your hair if you weren’t paying attention. 

I swallowed thickly “uh- oops! Sorry” I squeak, quickly getting out of a foodrunners way as he briskly moved past me, shoving the door open with his hip and heading to the front of the restaurant with a large tray of food he held with one hand over his shoulder. 

“Uh- behind you? I’m behind you!” I tried to call over the noise as I pass various people. Usually if I came through the front, Carmy greeted me and people parted for us like Moses and the Red Sea- but without his presence, I was just another body in here and no one seemed to even realize I was there. 

I finally made it back to the hall where the offices were, taking a deep breath to center myself before pushing open the door. 

Carmen was knelt in front of the big comfy couch in Sugars office, offering Syd some water. 

“Winnie- if you don’t get your boyfriend the fuck away from me- I’m gonna peel off his skin and enjoy it” Syd said through gritted teeth. 

“Syd- Syd- eat. Y’have t’eat.” He pleads and I shut the door to silence out all the noise. 

“Carmy” I said softly and he looks up at me, concern and worry written all over his face. “Take a walk, yeah? Go have a cigarette ok?” I said gently and squat next to him, rubbing his shoulder that was hard as a rock with all the tension he was currently holding. 

“No- no. She’s sick Winnie. She’s just bein’ a jagoff because she hates bein’ cared for. Cmon syd” he looks at her and she glared back at me with the fire of 1000 suns, a look that if I was quite honest- scared me slightly. 

“Bear” I gently play with his curls, earning his attention once more. “What Syd needs right now, is the energy in the room to be calm, and you’re literally vibrating with anxiety. Please, f’me? Go relax. Ok?” I said and kiss his temple. 

He huffs and got up, leaving the room with a hard closing of the door, but not quite a slam. I look at Syd, and before I could start, we both hear Carmy going off 

“I’m steppin’ out f’r 5 FUCKIN MINUTES- If that GOD DAMN DIRTY BOWL I ALREADYTOLD SOMEONE TO WASH IS STILL SITTING AT THE EXPO WHEN I GET BACK HEADS WILL ROLL FUCKERS. MOVE. IM NOT FUCKIN’ AROUND T’DAYISN’T THE FUCKIN’ DAY “ he barks before we hear his heavy footsteps stomping off down the hall and a harsh slam of the back door. 

Syd rolls her eyes and I gently sit next to her. “See what I have to deal with? And you wonder why I’m - fffuuuuck oh my gooooddd” she groans, keeling over and laying on my lap as she clutches her stomach. “Fucking kill me. Oh my god- kill me please” she moaned in pain. 

I gently rub her arm, digging through my purse and taking out one of my vials of RSO I kept in there for emergencies. “Here, Y’gonna have to go home- but..it’s gonna make it stop” I told her. 

“Give it. Give it. Whatever it fucking is. I’d literally take heroin right now holy shit Winnie it feels like I’m being stabbed” she said, hands shaking from how much pain she was in. 

“Open.” I told her, tilting her face towards me. “Tongue up” I said when she opened her mouth and I squirt a decent glob of oil under her tongue. 

She closed her mouth, nose scrunching at the taste “what the fuck is that weed?!” She mumbles and I nod. 

“Mmhmm, well kinda- don’t swallow. Let it sit until the pain stops enough that you forget about it and wonder why your mouth is so full of spit” I teased, gently dabbing her sweaty forehead with a napkin from my purse. 

“Thank you” she mumbled, closing her eyes and sighing softly as she waited for it to kick in. 

“He was really worried, Syd.” I said after a few minutes of silence, when I knew the pain had started to dull since her hands had stopped shaking. 

She shook her head in annoyance, unable to speak yet because of the oil and scrunching her nose as if to say ‘he shouldn’t be.’ 

“Y’re his only friend. Other then me, and Richie. But Richie raised him. Of course he’s gonna worry for you. Especially when you’re like- near the point of vomiting blood because of how bad this is getting. You have to do the surgery, Syd.” I said and with that she swallowed, sitting up and looking at me. 

“No- no. Winnie. No! I’m- I can’t. I can’t and I won’t. It’s not even that bad and I’m not vomiting blood miss theatrics- I’m not gonna take 3 weeks off work to do a stupid surgery that isn’t even guaranteed to find anything wrong! What if they go in there and find nothing and I’m back at square one- and out of work for THREE WEEKS?! I can’t leave Tina yet, she- she’s. No. I can’t let her drown. Carmy too- a-and Richie. We can’t-“ I inturrupt her 

“Sydney.” I said in a dead serious tone. “Y’need to get it. This is literally like - this should not even be a discussion at this point! The reason the doctor wants you to have it is because before they can just give you all these medicines to fix your gut bacteria that’s all shot from fucking stress- it’ll hurt you more on the very slim chance you don’t have a stress ulcer, but it is something with your stomach, Syd. It’s an exploratory surgery they don’t do those for no reason.” I said as Carmen came in and his eyes nearly fell out of his head. 

“Surgery?!” He exclaims and slams the door shut behind him. “What? Syd- what’s going on. This isn’t a stomachache you didn’t just eat somethin’ that’s not agreeing with you. What is it, Sydney” she said and I crossed my arms, sitting back and letting her do the talking. 

A slow smile grows on her face, and she covers her mouth with her hands as she begins to giggle. Fair to say the oil has now done its trick. 

“Have I ever told you, when you get mad, there’s this vein in your forehead- and- it’s- it’s so funny” she said, causing me to start laughing with her. 

Carm’s eyes flickered to mine. “What the hell did you give her?” He asks and I shrug with a smirk. 

“Somethin’ t’make her floaty, and” I shield my mouth from Syd so only Carm could see “agreeable” I mouthed and he smiled a bit, shaking his head. 

“Syd.” He looks at her. 

“Caaarrrmeeennnn” she replied in a sing-songy voice “I need to get back to the spice mixture for my cod now- but this was a great chat guys. Winnie- you’re the best” she said and got up, heading towards the door. 

“Noooo ya’ don’t” Carmen stops her, spinning her around by the shoulders and leading her back to the couch. She groaned dramatically, sitting down next to me once more. “What is this about a surgery, Syd?” He asked, pulling up the rolling chair and sitting in front of us. 

“A stuuuuupiiiidd surgery Carmen. Stupid. Doctors wanna slice me open and prod around hoping they find something. And then when they don’t i'll be stuck at home with my dad glued to my bedside, for no fucking reason, and I’ll loose three weeks minimum of work. And that’s if they find nothing. If they do find something, I’ll have to schedule another surgery and I’ll be out for SIX weeks.” She said and Carm nods, rubbing over his face for a moment as he thinks. 

“And how long have they been buggin’ you t’get this surgery, Syd?” He asked finally, brushing his hair back and looking at her seriously. 

“Mmm….” She crossed her arms, averting his gaze “7 months” she mumbles. 

“What?!” Carmen leans forward in disbelief. “Say that- say that again? I know y’didnt just say you’ve been dealin’ w’this f’r a fuckin year” he said and she shrugged. 

“They reccomended it a year ago, they’ve just been hounding me for the past 7 months. It’s really not that bad, Carm.” She said and he shook his head, getting up and going over to the filing cabinet silently. 

“What are you doing?” Sydney sits up as he opens a drawer, thumbing through different file folders before popping out what looked to be a blank information sheet of some kind and plops back down in the chair, rolling over to the desk and beginning to fill it out with a pen. 

“Carmen - what are you” she stood up, looking at the form he was filling out “no” she said, ripping it from under his pen and crumpling it up, throwing it in the wastebasket next to the desk. “Fuck you. No” she seethed. 

“What’s going on?” I sit up. 

“Syd- there’s like 50 million copies, I really don’t want to do it like this, but I know you aren’t gonna do it unless I make you do it.” He said and got up, walking back over to the same filing cabinet. 

She followed him, holding the drawer containing the forms closed with her hand. “No! Carmen are you fucking kidding me?! You aren’t my fucking parent. Stop! We are equals here! You can’t do this” she said and he shook his head, resting his hand atop the cabinet. 

“Sydney. This isn’t a discussion, are you really gonna make me say it, you’re really gonna push me?” He asked lowly. 

She crosses her arms, “say it.” She countered chest quickly moving with rapid angry breaths. 

“As your partner. I’m ordering you, mm? It’s an order, Sydney. Y’gonna go to the back, Y’gonna empty out your locker- because y’not gonna be around here for a while, and you are going to come back to this office, Y’gonna take the short term disability form I give you, Y’gonna call them, file. it. I will be checking, and then, Y’gonna schedule whatever fuckin procedure you need, and when your doctor clears you to come back in the kitchen, then, and only then will you return to work. I’m being more then fair, considering you’re making me force you t’do this, so I’ll be paying you your full wages while you’re out. Even though, im gonna have to train 3 dumb fucks to even-“ he shook his head, sighing deeply. “T’even keep us runnin’ half as well. So there. There. You wanted me to fuckin’ play mean mentor partner there ya go.” He said before opening up the drawer, plucking out another blank form and sitting back at the desk. 

She scoffs, looking to me. “You’re just gonna let him do this?” She narrowed her eyes at me, brows furrowed with anger.  

“Syd- this..this isn’t my restaurant…you only answer to-“ Carmy cuts me off. 

“Do not. No. Sydney, out. Step the fuck out, now. Y’not doin’ this t’her. She fuckin-“ he shakes his head, rubbing his eyes before pointing to the door. 

“Fuckin- go. Go before I say shit I’ll regret. Leave. Now.” He orders her and she left the office with a loud slam of the door. 

I sighed, dropping my head back on the couch and closing my eyes, wanting to melt into a puddle on the floor. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry baby” he sighed, the soft sounds of pen on paper filling the silence. 

“Not your fault” I mumbled, crossing my arms. 

“I-it is. Babe I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be bringin’ you into this shit. It’s not fair, she’s your friend” he said. 

“Exactly- she’s my friend. I love her, Carm. She’s a hard headed fuck at times, but it’s because she loves being here. She just- has this idea that I have some semblance of control over what you do” I took off my shoes before sitting crisscrossed on the couch. 

He snorts a dry laugh, shaking his head. “Well. I mean, not full control- but I listen to you” he gives me a small smirk and I roll my eyes. 

“In our relationship of course. But I can’t honestly give you advice about that. Shes gonna cool off and apologize, to you too babe. Shes gonna realize we just want her better” I sighed softly. 

He nodded, continuing to fill out the form. “I get if you don’t wanna sit around here, want me t’drive you home?” He asked. 

I shook my head “why not? Well if I can stay back here. I don’t like being in the kitchen like at all” I said and he chuckled. 

“Why? Too busy?” He asked

“Too busy, too loud, too bright, to many stabbey things, too many people, too many smells, too much yelling.” I said, pulling my kindle out of my purse. “But back here I have a comfy couch, my books, and my bear. So, I’m ok here” i smile a bit and he rolled over, giving me a peck on the lips. 

“Thank you f’comin, honey. Really” he tucked my hair behind my ear. 

“Baby, any time. If you’re ever scared, or need to talk, or just- I dunno…need a hug? I’m here. That’s what I’m for.” I said and he kissed my nose sweetly. 

“Then I’m the luckiest guy alive” he said softly before kissing my lips in the way that gave me a feeling of a swarm of monarchs being trapped in my chest.  

“Oh you are the mushiest ever” I said and kissed the cute little moles on his cheek.

The door slammed open and Syd comes in “give it.” She snipped, outstretching her hand. 

Carm rolls back over to the desk, handing her the form and she plucks it from his hands. He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and they look at eachother in silence, almost like 2 lions deciding if it was worth it to continue a fight over dominance. 

“Please.” She said quietly after a few moments, her big brown eyes teary. 

“Syd” he said softly, signing to her ‘I’m sorry’ over his chest and i bit my lip, looking out the window, trying to appear uninterested so that they could have some semblance of privacy. 

“Then I want you to get your back checked out. Fair is fair, Carmen.” She said shakily. 

My eyes flicker back over to him and he sits back in his chair, rubbing over his chin for a moment as he thought. “Fine. Fine. I’ll go to the doctor. Back pain is different Syd you know this. But fuckin’ whatever. I’ll go if it’ll make you get Y’r surgery” he said and she nodded once. 

“Fair is fair” she outstretched her hand for him to shake, and he rolled his eyes. 

“Really, we have to seal this with a handshake?” He asked. 

“Fair, is fair.” She replied and he shook her hand firmly. 

“And I’m sorry” she said to me. I nodded 

“It’s okay, I know this is…it’s hard, kid. I get it. But did you have to give me the near impossible task of getting him to the doctor?” I tease with a smile. 

The faintest upturn of a smile replaced her frown and she shrugs. “It’s his deal to go through on. I’ll be checking.” She repeated his words from earlier and he gave her a smug smile. 

“And how will you do that? You don’t know what doctor I see, or if I’ll just go to an urgent care and have some random ass doctor write me a pain pill prescription and that’s it.” He countered. 

“Oh- because I have eyes on you at every angle.” She told him. “I’m always watching.” She teased, closing the office door behind her when she left. 

“What- is she gettin’ daily reports from you ‘er somethin?” He asks and I laughed, shrugging a bit. 

“Mmm. Not reports. I don’t like tell her everything, but- mood reports” I giggle and Richie opens the door. 

“What the fuck are you doing?! How are we gonna run this shit without Syd?!” He shuts the door behind him and looks over to me. “Sorry sweetheart, nice t’see you” he gives me an apologetic smile before turning back to Carm. “You let her go?!” He asks and Carmen looks at him as if he had 3 heads. 

“Let her go?! No, jagoff. I told her to take short term, I’m paying her full wages as long as she needs, and she’s gonna be back when she’s fuckin’ better.” Carmy explained. 

“Short term? Short term termination? Short term what?!” Richie asked frustratedly. 

“You IDIOT. SHORT TERM DISABILITY!” He shouts at him and I flinch. 

“Carmen” I said sharply, he quickly looks over to me. 

“That scares me. Please. You don’t need to yell, Bear- also- you aren’t an idiot, Richie. He’s just…in a mood.” I said softly and Carm’s cheeks flush red.  

“ok” he muttered, turning back to Richie. “It’s-“ he takes a deep breath. “It’s fine. I have it under control. What I need you t’do, is ask Nat for the login shit for the recruiting website she used to find the runners and shit. Can you handle that f’me while I figure out how this shits gonna work while Syds out?” He asked him calmly, but I could still…feel him. His energy. He’s way too wound up. 

I wish I could just tell him to come home, talk it out with him, I knew all of this rage was just him burying his fear. He was so fucking scared. 

“I can. I can do that” Richie nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “So- so what’re we doin’ what’s the fuckin plan?” He asked and I give him a look. 

I knew he had to get out of here or Carm was going to rip in to him just because he could. “Richie, Syd just left- like 5 minutes before you came in here? Carmy is still working that out…can you- can you do me a favor?” I asked and his brows raised in surprise. 

“Yea? Yeah. Wha’dyou need?” He asked. 

“Can you go get that stuff from Nat and then make me a grilled cheese? Eva said you make really good grilled cheese. So Carmy can have some quiet time to figure this out, and you guys can tell everyone what’s going on together.” I look at Carm. 

“Because you don’t have to do everything alone, you’re a team. Breaking difficult news is hard, but when you have the people you love with you, it can make it easier to bare the weight.” I said, looking directly at Carmen. 

Carm nodded, swallowing thickly and biting at the inside of his lip nervously. “Sure- yeah. She uh…she said that?” Richie asked and I smiled, looking over to him once again. 

“She specifically said - ‘My daddy makes the best grilled cheese in the whole wide world’ “ I told him and he smiled a bit, a light blush creeping to his cheeks. 

“Alright well the kid has quite the flare f’dramatics, but I can make a pretty good grilled cheese. Comin’ right up” he said and headed back out to the kitchen, shutting the door behind him. 

Carm got up, locking the door, before coming over to the couch and laying down with his head in my lap. I knew he didn’t have the confidence to ask, so I gently start scratching his head in the way that he liked and his eyes fluttered shut. He let out a deep sigh, like a pressure valve releasing so it wouldn’t explode. 

“So let’s make a plan, baby. I don’t think you need three. I think you know that but you’re planning for someone to drop” I said softly, gently stroking my nails through his hair. 

“Cause someone will drop babe it’s how it fuckin goes. If I hire 2 we’re gonna be left short when one quits because they aren’t as good as the other one.” He said. 

“Well why do you say that, baby?” I asked. 

“Because no one’s gonna fight to be the best when they inevitably find out they’re a temp” he said and I furrow my brows. 

“Carmen. You weren’t planning on hiring someone without telling them right?” I asked and he got quiet. “Carmen. Are you kidding me?! Absolutely not! Oh my god that is so- so mean baby!” I said and his cheeks heat. 

“Well who the fuck is gonna wanna work here when we already have a full fuckin staff?!” He asked annoyed. 

“Because you are the best fucking restaurant in Chicago, are you kidding me baby?! Just like you sent Richie to Ever to gain experience? There are fucking talented chefs Carmy, ones like Richie who don’t have the time to save and go to super nice culinary school like you did and garner that expirience. There would be a line out the door if you were honest and said ‘hey who wants a 2 month opportunity at a luxury fine dining restaurant that’s been nominated for best new restaurant by the JBF in its first year open’ “ I told him. 

He was quiet for a moment, thinking it over. “I guess” he mutters. 

“Babe cmon we can write the posting together. We don’t even have to do all this today. Don’t rush, y’know what would be a good idea?” I ask. He hums in response. “I think, that you should go back out there, work as usual, keep Syd’s stations covered best you can, and we can have a nice Sunday together, relax, recharge, and then we’ll have Palm Sunday dinner with the family, and then on Monday, you can come in fresh and rested with a great plan on what you’ll tell everyone with Richie.” I explain. 

He contemplated for a moment, looking over at the desk in thought before looks up at me, “thank you.” He said softly. I gently caress his cheek with my knuckle. 

“Nothin’ to thank me for, Bear.” I said and he took my hand, placing a gentle kiss to my knuckles. 

“There’s too much to thank you for. We’d be here forever” he mumbled against my fingers with a small smile.  

“You’re getting mushier by the day” I ruffle his hair and the doorknob jiggles. 

“D’you still want this?” Richie calls from outside. 

“Yeah! Sorry” I said getting up when Carmen got off my lap. I opened the door and Richie offers me a plate with 2 grilled cheeses. 

“He hasn’t eaten” he said so only we could hear and I nod. 

“Thank you, best cousin ever” I took the plate. 

“Course, anytime. Oh Carm” he looks to him “user is MBerzatto87 password is fuckin password234.” He said and Carm chuckled a bit. 

“I coulda guessed that shit. But I guess I was hopeful he gave more a shit about cybersecurity” he shook his head. 

“RICHIE. DID YOU TOUCH MY ORANGE ZEST?!” Tina shouts from the kitchen and Richie heads back 

“What the fuck would I need orange zest for?” He yells back as I shut the door, locking it once again. 

“How do things always go missing?” I giggle a bit, sitting next to him and placing the plate on his lap, taking one of the sandwiches and taking a bite. 

“Cause people at the same stations doin’ the same thing will think they already did their orange zest, and just take it.” He said, staring at the plate on his lap. “Also I’m not hungry” he put the plate on the desk. 

I shrugged, putting my sandwich back on the plate. “Okay” I said, brushing off my hands before grabbing my kindle again and continuing to read. 

“What- what’re you doin’ babe. Eat” he said, putting the plate on my lap. 

“I’m not hungry” I said, not looking up from the page. 

“Yes you are, you - you don’t ask for food unless you’re hungry, Winnie.” He said. 

“Mm- I like it when we eat together. I don’t wanna eat by myself so, my appetite is gone.” I lie with a shrug. 

“Y’really gonna be difficult right now?” He asked and in response, I playfully stuck out my tongue before going back to reading. 

“Oh you are a child” he huffs, picking up the untouched sandwich and taking a bite. 

“Oo! I’m hungry again!” I teased, grabbing mine as well and taking another bite. 

He snorts a laugh, rolling his eyes. “Y’re lucky y’cute” he said before taking another bite. 

I smiled, “I love winning you over. It’s my favorite game” I said teasingly. 

“Yeah yeah, I’m just saving myself, you turn into a tiny demon when you’re hungry. Especially on your cycle” he said and I laughed. 

“You’ve learned your lesson though so you don’t have to meet that demon again as long as you keep us fed.” I peel off the crust, setting it on the plate. 

“You don’t like the crust?” He asked. 

“No…well- I don’t know..really. I didn’t as a kid, but Chris did, so I always gave it to him. Never stopped” I said, staring at the crust on the plate as I got lost in memories of sitting in the school cafeteria with Chris over lunch, carefully peeling off the crust after taking my first bite and putting it on the top of the empty ziplock he’d taken his sandwich from. 

“That’s sweet. I’m sure he’s happy you still leave it for him” he said. My heart melts at the sentiment and I gently kissed his cheek before resuming eating my sandwich. 

“I don’t like pickles, so when we were kids- Mikey always picked em off for me.” He says quietly and I looked up at him. It wasn’t often that he brought up stories about Michael, so each one I safely tucked away in my mind where I’d never forget. 

“I love pickles, I could eat a whole jar if you let me. I’ll always take unwanted pickles” I smiled a bit. 

“Ahhh ok. So you’re a sour person not a spicy person. It’s usually one or the other” he said before finishing off his sandwich. 

“Yes- exactly. You like spicy stuff? We haven’t eaten a single spicy thing” I said and he nods. 

“Love spicy shit. But you don’t, so doesn’t really matter” he shrugged. 

“Wha- Carmy. No! No you can eat spicy things, I feel bad. I don’t want it to always be what I like. Just like- make mine less spicy” I said. 

“It’s fine babe, I try spicy stuff here all the time. Plus the food I like with a ton of spice in it is usually Indian and Filipino and shit where the whole profile is about the heat and the spice so-“ I inturrupt him. 

“You like Filipino food?!” I asked and he nods 

“Yeah- why, do you?” He asks and I nod happily 

“My neighbor! Ms.Mendoza! She’s from the Philippines! Before you started bringing me dinner I’d usually stop by her place because she always made too much and asked me if I wanted it, you have to talk to her babe she’s like- amazing! I’m sure you guys will have so much in common she loves cooking- and she has like all these connections back home in the Philippines and they send her spice mixes and stuff for her to try. You have to try this stew- she calls it um..” I think for a moment “inew? Inihaw? Yeah- I think that’s it. Inihaw na leimpo! “ I said excitedly. 

“Oh- the lady- the lady I met?” He asked and I nod. 

“Yeah- I…I never asked- was she there when you got there?” I asked

“She- well” he chuckled. “Almost knocked me out with her cane cause I guess she thought I was trying to break in, cause I heard you screamin’ and I was trying to pick the lock, I told her I was a friend and she didn’t really believe me, but then she saw the flowers and she nearly dropped the keys getting the door open.” He said and my cheeks go pink. 

“I’m…I’m sorry- she’s like….such a grandma. She’s been hounding me about a boyfriend since I moved in don’t mind her pushyness about it. She’s been trying to hook me up with her friends grandsons left and right” I finished off my sandwich. 

“Well, she can stop looking now right?” He asks. 

I brushed my hands off before nervously picking at my nail polish at the question. “What does that mean?” I asked and the room went eerily silent for what felt like minutes. 

“Cause’…” he trails off. “Are you…are you still seeing other people?” He asks and I look over at him. 

“No. No, Carmy. No just you..are you?” I asked and he shook his head. “So…what does that mean?” I asked biting the inside of my lip nervously. 

“I…I dunno…” he looked at the clock. “I uh- I have to get out there, you still wanna hang out here?” He asked. 

I swallowed thickly, realizing that I didn’t want to be here all day if he was just going to run away. 

“So…what Syd said. You’re- you’re my boyfriend now?” I asked and he went pale as a sheet. 

I stare at him, waiting for a response, and he opens his mouth like he was going to say something but he closes it again, nervously rubbing his lips together. 

“Well- are you?” I ask. 

“So- so Y’re like…my girlfriend now?” He asked. 

“That’s my question, am I your girlfriend?” I asked and he shrugged. 

“I guess? I dunno…I’ve never done this I just…kinda assumed?” He said rubbing his neck nervously. 

“Well- I don’t remember you ever asking me…” I nudge his knee with mine gently. 

“You didn’t ask me to be your boyfriend either!!” He said. 

“Because I knew you’d freak out! And like- Y’re a masculine guy Carm I didn’t wanna make you feel insecure!” I exclaim. 

“Okay fine! Will you be my girlfriend?” He asks, a small smile on his lips. 

“Hmmmmm….” I put my finger to my lips, pretending to contemplate. “Of course I will dummy” I pull him into a deep wanting kiss and he hums happily, gently rubbing over my hip with his palm. 

“Y’know y’mine baby I tell you like every day” he said, his breath fanning my lips. 

I look up at him, biting my lip to contain a grin. “I dunno…I thought you said it just t’like..please me when we fool around, I didn’t know you meant it.” I said softly. 

“I’d never say something I don’t mean baby, everything I tell you I really mean” he leans in, kissing me again. But this kiss was sweeter, somehow more intimate then the last. It felt…truthful. 

I gently cup his cheek, humming softly and he pulls away when the doorknob to the office starts to jiggle and someone pounds on it. 

“Chef?! We need more hands out here if we’re gonna be gettin’ this order out on time are you with us?” Tina calls through the door. 

“Duty calls” he sighs softly. “You know where to find me baby” he kissed my forehead sweetly before heading back out to the kitchen.

➵ 𝐍𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 ♡♡♡

[dykeseinfeld]

@ivecarvedawoodenheart brought up the shitty/lardo palm springs au again and 900 words of....this fell out of me anyway i didn't edit this or even reread it once

i have such overly detailed thoughts on jack’s role in the palm springs au it’s ridiculous considering he is a side character in this but. what is important is that the day they’re stuck in is jack zimmerman’s personal hell

Jack sits in the dark closet, head in his hands. This is stupid this is stupid this is stupid. He can’t breathe. He can’t move. His eyes are clenched so hard they hurt, but the memories keep exploding across his vision so brightly they might as well be fireworks.

White-knuckling the bathroom sink, Kenny banging on the door over and over and over. Not loud enough that he can’t hear the TV, the echoes of Zimmermann can’t rely on his name forever, overrated, underseasoned.

After the hospital, lying in bed. His mom looking at Jack like he’s a wounded animal. Kenny shifting on his feet, trying to act like going first in the draft doesn’t matter, that Jack isn’t a huge failure. Kent winning a Stanley Cup on the television, his dad talking about how he’s so proud. Scratching the label off of his Sprite, wishing it were a beer.

Thinking that he could come to this wedding without seeing Kent, that he could seriously sit in the corner and pretend to his dad’s buddies that everything is fine. Is he stupid? The answer comes before he even finishes asking the question, Yes of course I’m fucking stupid did you seriously think Kent woudln’t come to his own teammates’ wedding I’mfuckingstupidI’msittinginastorageclosetandeveryoneknowsI’mfuckedupI’mfuckedupI’mfuckedup.

Suddenly, Jack’s muscles tighten, and a fist smashes out and hits the metal shelving on the wall. The whole thing shakes, a roll of toilet paper falls off onto his head, and it’s so ridiculous that he exhales for the first time in too long. Not quite a laugh, but enough to remember that he hasn’t been breathing. 

He takes a shaky breath in, unhitches his chest, pushes the breath out. Again. Again. He almost likes this part, his muscles sore, his heart pounding and coming down. Like coming in after a hard skate. He can do this. In. Out. In. Out.

It takes a minute for Jack’s heart rate to slow down. Maybe two. His vision starts to clear. In. Out. He pushes off the ground, gets up, leaning against the shelf to keep steady. In. Out. He can make it to the elevator at the end of the hall, go back up to the room. His dad won’t notice, too busy gladhanding all the other oldtimers who made it out. Jack’s reaching for the door handle, already thinking about the Civil War documentary he’s going to put on, when it flies open, blinding him with light. 

All his brain manages to clock about the person in front of him is mustache before his face is being grabbed and pulled in for a not-entirely-dry kiss, and shoved back with a loud smack. “Jack! Let’s get out of here, you beautiful fucker!”

The man in front of him has a massive grin, a shoulder length flow, and appears to be covered in nothing but a tie-dye beach towel tied precariously around his waist. All the confusion and anxiety of the day is apparently too much because instead of what the hell or who are you, all Jack can manage to say, through an embarrassing voice crack is, “Why!?”

“Shitty, I thought you said this guy knows what’s going on! Is he even in the loop?” A short Asian girl with an undercut, dressed far more appropriately for a wedding in black button down and slacks, appears from behind…did she call him Shitty?

The taller man rolls his eyes, and puts both arms on Jack’s shoulders. His eyes are really quite green. “Au contraire, my dear Lardo. I never said he was in the loop. I said he was the most important man here today.” Jack checks over his shoulders to see if anyone is watching, not sure whether he wants to shout for help or make sure there’s no witnesses if this lunatic kisses him again. “And he is. To me. Lardo, I’d like you to meet Jack Zimmermann, my best friend in this entire godforsaken universe. Jack, this is Lardo, the newest addition to our trio.”

Jack steps free of the grip, tries to school his face into nonchalance, knows he’s failing. “I have never met you before in my life.”

Something cracks in Shitty’s expression, his eyes are so bright with amusement, that they’re almost glowing.

“That’s where you’re wrong. We have met. We spend every single day together. You come down to Massachusetts for a wedding, you step into the hall during cocktails to get some air, you see Kent Parson, duck into here and have a panic attack.” Jack opens his mouth to argue, but Shitty just rolls over him. “You can pretend you’re okay, that everyone and their mother isn’t in that room over there trying to get Bad Bob to tell them what the fuck happened with his son the night before the draft. You can try to pretend that it doesn’t bother you that Kent Parson made it and you didn’t. But that is bullshit. You’re not okay. Today isn’t fine. In fact, Jack Laurent Zimmermann, July 12th is the worst day of your life. And Lardo? Our mission today is to fix it.”

As he lets himself be dragged down the hall, Jack makes a mental note to ask his doctor if his anxiety medication causes hallucinations.

[jiliansky-blog]

In the dark. Chapter 5. The fairy realm

Pairing: Morpheus x FemaleReader

Rating: PG

Words: 1700

Fortunately, you weren’t enslaved because the depth of life didn’t allow Rose to betray you in such a way, so she took you to her room. And you wanted to ask her about the cat, but you were afraid that it could be suspicious.

“What a beautiful cat”, you finally said.

“Yes, but I… we shouldn’t talk about him”, she replied.

“Why not?” You tried to sound surprised. “It’s just a cat”.

“It’s not just any cat”, she said. “He is someone she wants to have for eternity. And the eternity after”.

“Oh”, you said.

So she had indeed been planning this for a long time. And it makes everything more difficult. She doesn’t want to give him up.

“Do you like cats?” she asked.

“Yes, I had the one once”, you said.

“Let me guess, he was also black and fluffy!” she exclaimed.

“Exactly”, you replied. “How did you know?”

“You are looking at him like you recognize him”, she explained. “But you can’t play with him. The queen is very jealous, and she doesn’t allow anyone to come closer to him”.

“And why is that?” you asked.

“I know what you are doing”, she replied. “You are trying to make me talk”.

“I’m just curious, what is so special about this cat?” you shrugged, trying to sound casual. “It seems to me he is not friendly”.

“He is something else,” was the only thing she said.

“What?” you asked, surprised.

“I can’t talk about this”, she said.

And then, in the next moment, she became a tall, cute fairy with red hair. And her eyes were green like a spring forest.

“You better not leave my room and don’t talk to another fairy,”, Rose said. “You will never know what they want to do with you”.

“And you just suggest I stay in your room all the time?” you asked.

“It would be safer”, she replied. “But I understand that you won’t follow my advice.”

“Well, there is a very curious world outside”, you said. “Can I go with you wherever you go? I would be safe too”.

“You won’t like it”, she said.

“Why?” you asked.

“I need to participate in our celebrations”, the fairy replied. “And it can be dangerous to humans. Maybe, the next time”.

And she left you and closed the room. You can only think about Morpheus. You were sure that the cat was him. But it won’t be an easy task to try to get him.

The closed room didn’t stop you, though. You were in the dream, and you wish to be close. And you left the room to explore the palace. Unfortunately, you weren’t alone for long. That blonde fairy joined you with a smirk.

“I was about to find you, pretty mortal”, he said. “My name is Cluracane. It’s rude that Rosie didn’t invite you to our party”.

"She means well to me”, you replied.

“Do you want to tell me your name?” he smirked. “While I take you to the party?”

“Mara”, you said the same name.

“With this name, you can fit in with us”, he whispered. “Do you wish to stay in a fairy land forever?”

“I didn’t think about that”, you said.

“Perhaps you should”, he said. “Common”, he said. “It will be fun”.

You let him take you to the party, where the fairy was having fun. They all drink wine and eat sweets and fruits. Some of them make love.

“What do you wish?” Cluracan whispered.

“You can’t give me that”, you said dreamily. You need to remember that you shouldn’t be charmed by him. You shouldn’t eat or drink anything they offer you.

“Don’t be shy”, the fairy insisted. “Participate. And tell me what you wish. If it’s in my power, I will grant you that”.

“I will think about it, thank you”, you say. “My first wish had already come true. I came to the fairy kingdom to see you”.

They tried to seduce you. To give you the dream or the food. You resisted, but it won’t be easy. You start to feel hungry.

“What are you doing here?” Rose came to you and gave you water and bread. “I told you to stay in my room”.

“Cluracan came”, you replied. “I didn’t have a chance to stay”.

“I should know when he comes”, she sighed. “Eat. It’s human food. You aren’t in danger if you are under my protection”.

And you ate and drank everything. And you felt so much better after this. You decided to ask questions that weren’t related to Morpheus.

“What if they want to make me a fairy?” you asked. “Is that even possible?”

“It is possible”, she replied. “But you change in that case. You won’t be your human self again. So I advise you not to do this”.

Finally, you were able to return to Rose’s room, where another surprise was waiting for you. A surprise in the form of a big black cat

“Morpheus?” you asked. “Is that you?”

A second, and he is in human form again. He dressed in a black robe that didn’t cover his body at all. And you saw the collar on his neck.

“What are you doing here?” His voice is cold.

“I came to help you”, you said. You deserve his coldness. You betrayed his trust, and now he is here because of you.

“You can’t help now”, he said. “You need to return to the Dreaming and wake up. It is too dangerous for you here”.

“No, I want to undo my mistake”, you admitted. “And I am not going to return till I make this. Let me help you, please”.

“I already said you couldn’t help me”, he replied.

You came closer to him and touched his white skin and sharp cheekbones. His skin is so cold. His eyelashes flattered.

“Do you satisfy your curiosity now?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry”, you sighed. “I didn’t know what was going to happen after this”.

“I couldn’t tell you”, Morpheus replied. “And you just need to wait”.

“I know, and that is why I am here”, you said. “I won’t go anywhere till I free you. What does she make you do?”

“Share the bed”, he said with an emotionless voice.

"Oh," you said, you felt some unpleasant feeling that spread like poison in your heart. “Can you stay with me tonight?”

“It’s dangerous”, he said. “Rose can return any time. And Titania can notice my absence anytime, too. I don’t want to endanger you”.

“Rose is celebrating”, you replied. “She will return in the morning. And I’m sure that you could leave when she came. Please, just till I fall asleep”.

He sighed and sat on the bed. Now you can look at him, but you were in danger.

“You don’t want to stay with her”, you admitted.

“I have never stayed with someone against my will”, he said. “We were lovers once upon a time. I don’t know why she wants to continue this now”.

“Did she turn you into the cat?” you asked.

“She doesn’t want anyone to know what she is up to”, he replied.

“Lucienne told me that Titania is going to marry you”, you said.

“Lucienne shouldn’t tell you that”, he replied. “She shouldn’t let you go here”.

“She doesn’t want to let me go”, you said. “But I convinced her that I could save you. Don’t be mad at her”.

You took his cold, pale hand with long fingers. And he looked at your hands with an unknown expression. Like he's not used to this.

“I know you are angry with me”, you whispered. “But I hope you can forgive me one day and maybe be my friend. At least”.

“You need to rest”, he said with an exhausted smile. “They tired you out”.

And, as usual, you started to fall asleep. It’s like he always has power here.

You woke up, thinking about how you could sleep in a dream. And then you heard Rose’s voice outside the room. She was talking to someone.

“Stop following, my mortal”, she said, annoyed. “Find your own human and play with her. Or at least wait till I repay her”.

Right. Rose is not your friend. She is just an alloy, while she owns you and your savings. You shouldn’t forget about this.

“She was trying to escape anyway”, of course, he said. “You need to look after her better”.

“She is just curious”, she says, sounding even more annoyed. “Now let me rest”.

Rose came into the room and saw that you were already awake. She brought me some fruits and water for breakfast.

“It was funny to find you in my bed”, she said. “Why did you sneak out of the room yesterday?”

“I was curious”, you said, taking fruit. You were hungry already.

“I saw a cat that left my room”, she said suddenly, and you froze.

“A cat?” you asked. “He perhaps sneaked in here while I was sleeping. I don’t remember a cat”.

“Why do you think it was him?” she asked.

She knows more than she shows. Perhaps, she even suspects something.

“I made a guess”, you replied.

“You should be careful”, Rose said after the silence. “It seems to me you are looking for trouble and for the queen’s anger”.

“I will be careful”, you replied. “I don’t want to get into trouble, and I don’t want to bring you problems either”.

“You don’t tell me everything”, the fairy noticed. “Do you know that cat?”

“I didn’t see the cat that sneaked in on me,” you said as you looked at her. “Maybe you have more than one cat in your kingdom”.

“Do you know her cat?” she asked.

“He looked like the one I had”, you shrugged. “What is it? An interrogation? Why do you ask, as the cat is a person?”

"Well," she said, she didn’t expect me to fight back. “He is not the usual cat”.

“I already suspected it”, you noticed. “The usual cat wouldn’t be so guarded and kept in such secrecy. So what about him?”

“Why do you ask?” she asked in return.

“Because you were interrogating me about him," you replied. “It makes me think that he is not just a normal cat”.

“Well, someone said that it was her lover who was charmed”, she said. “I didn’t know anything else about it”.

You stopped interrogating each other, but Rose insisted that you go with her everywhere. She tried to avoid parties and Cluracane. She showed her the castle. Sometimes she gave her some work to do.

And at the end of the day, you waited for Morpheus to show up at night, but he didn’t. Perhaps, he can’t go freely into the castle. And you just hope that he is alright.

@shadowqueen1318 @mypsychoticlove @justathirstyhoe​ @ladymoztaza @sapphireonline @deniixlovezelda

[cherrybombfangirlwrites]

And Now, Forever, I Know (All That I Wanted Was to Hold You)

A longer version of this snippet that I reblogged to @cwritesfiction 's snippet prompt. I listened to the songs For the Dancing and the Dreaming (From HTTYD), So Close (From Enchanted), and Kingdom Dance (From Tangled) on loop while writing this bit- in case you couldn't tell. Very satisfied with how this turned out.

Wordcount: 1064

Warnings: none, just pure fluff and sweetness for this one <3

Set during Book 6 - Sleeping Beauty's Bodyguard, Draft 0, Character and Dynamic Exploration for Raven and Sapphire

“Please?” Sapphire said, “It said on the town bulletin that everyone is invited, including visitors to Estonia.”

Raven folded his arms, standing his ground. “It’s too exposed, too dangerous.”

Sapphire pouted. “You never let me do anything fun.” She muttered, “You’re just like my parents…”

His heart panged as a lump formed in his throat. Hallyusus. Damn it. She was hurt and it was his fault and he hated it. 

Raven closed his eyes, praying to the gods. He was going to regret this.

“Alright, fine-” He sighed, and her face lit up like fireflies in the summer, “But!” He held up a hand. “The second it goes south or there’s danger, we leave. Deal?”

She nodded excitedly. She looked at their clothes, worn and dirty from travel. “We’re gonna need clean clothes.”

Raven let out a small groan. They were already flirting with danger. “Alright, we’ll check the shops in town tomorrow before the wedding, I’m sure a lot of people will be looking for clothes to wear at the wedding anyway, so we’ll blend in somewhat…”

The next day they found clothes appropriate for the event, Sapphire in a simple but elegant dress that showed off the freckles on her shoulders. It was light brown- similar to the spring coat of a doe in the forest, with silver thread along the seams. The dress fell at her ankles, and the fabric was shining and soft, with a large skirt that flared out when she twirled. 

He got some new black trousers and a dark gray shirt that fell open slightly, exposing his chest a bit. He got a new cloak as well, because what the hell? And he needed a way to hide his sword anyway- no way he was leaving that behind.

That evening, the happy couple was wed. As was custom, only the happy couple wore bright colors adorned with gold accessories- while everyone else was in natural grays, browns, whites, and blacks with silver accessories. The next day at the ceremony afterparty, the whole town and all the visitors danced the day away.

Well, everyone else did, while Raven stood off to the side. With an untouched drink in hand, he watched carefully. He watched the wedding guests for anything suspicious, he checked over his shoulder constantly, and he checked whenever someone danced a little too close to the princess. 

He also just- didn’t know what to do, really. He folded his arms awkwardly, shifting his feet constantly, and tried not to look at anyone. What was normal behavior here? He had no clue and it was driving him insane.

Sapphire came over to him, bouncing excitedly. Someone had made her a flower crown of soft pink azaleas, sitting atop her fiery hair. She had to hold a hand to the flowers to keep them on. “Come on!”

Raven’s eyes widened, and motioned ‘No’ in every way he knew how. “No, no, no- I don’t- I have to make sure-”

“Stop worrying and have fun, for once in your life!” She said, setting his drink on a nearby table, and took both his hands in hers. Then she pulled him into the swirl of dancing.

She pulled him behind her, weaving in and out until they were near the center at the fountain. 

His body tensed, trying to figure out what to do. “I don’t-” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I don’t know how to dance…”

“That’s alright!” She said, taking one of his hands, “I can show you.”

“Sapph-”

“Come on! It’s easy!”

“There’s no way on Hallya’s green earth that this is easy.”

“Yes it is! You just move your body with the music, dance how you feel!”

“Dance what you- WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!”

Sapphire grabbed his hand, used her other hand to swing around her skirt, and said, “You can follow my lead if you want!”

He tried, but his body was too disconnected and he kept fumbling.

“Here!” She said, and lifted one of his arms over his head- spinning him around. He almost spun out of control, but their hands were still connected and she pulled him back. She spun into his arms, leaning back, then spun out of them.

Sapphire continued to spin and bounce in time to the music, and Raven desperately tried to keep up. Finally, he knew one thing he did want to do, and acted on it.

He lifted her arm over her head, spinning her around, then picked her up- hands on her hips and her feet leaving the ground as they both spun around.

Her face lit up the brightest he’d ever seen it, and she was laughing. He spun around one more time, bringing her gracefully back to the ground.

Dizziness hit him, and he almost fell into the fountain- but Sapphire pulled him back, laughing.

They crashed into each other, almost falling over- but she was giggling and Raven found himself almost laughing too. A huge smile- it must’ve been the biggest, purest one of his life- was growing, and he was too excited to stop it as his heart soared.

The band’s jubilant and bouncy music slowed. Everyone on the dance floor was exhausted, and happy to switch to a slower song, gently swaying along to the music.

Sapphire fit almost perfectly against his chest, her nose coming up to his chin, and rested her head on his shoulder with a dreamy sigh.

Her father would rage if he knew how close and how lovingly Raven was holding Sapphire right now- but honestly couldn’t find it in himself to care. No one who knew who they were was here to see it anyway.

So he let himself hold her a little tighter, leaning his head on her’s.

They stayed like that until the music got fast again- they were both too tired to keep going, and made their way out of the flurry of dancing townsfolk. They found vacant chairs by a table, and crashed.

It wasn’t long before other guests started to tire as well. Everyone wished the happy couple well, gave any last gifts, and then everyone went home to rest.

Raven and Sapphire went out to a field behind the village. While the horses grazed, he guided her through another daisy chain, and she was able to make a half-way decent one without crushing the delicate flowers.

[shut-up-rabert]

You fucking piece of propagandist shit…..

So I has this muslim propaganda channel in my recommendation (I literally watch videos from Sham Sharma Show youtube the fuck is wrong with you?) called Smile 2 Jannah and he had a video about molestation relating to holi 🤡 So original, amirite?

(I’d suggest watching the stupid video before going into the rant for being able to understand what in the bullshit is written below here)

First of all brother in Christ no one is asking you to play, are they? It is good to raise issues, yes, but if you are a propaganda channel earning from polarising a group of induviduals via one sided narrative, it does put your intentions under skepticism. Hmmmmmm.

Intro (dhakan)

Now, for his first point:

India’s ruling party blah blah blah, RSS blah blah blah, Hindutva blah blah blah main gadhe ka bacha hun blah blah blah

How. Does. Molestation. On. Holi. Relate. To. Fucking. Central. Government.?.

IT HAS BEEN A THING UNDER VARIOUS PM’S TENURES OHMYGOD-

Do you honestly think that once voting was completed on that fateful afternoon of May 2014 these perverts rose from the earth or something😭 bhaiya thode restarted ho kya?

Sounds ridiculous, right? My thoughts exactly while hearing you utter those goddamn words.

Next, he shows a clip of said molestation. Those of you who know me already understand my stance on this, but lets get into this when he does. Now, onto this idiot’s next segment:

Story of holi (haan bhai tu bata hume tujhe zyaada pata hai)

Hiranyakashyap yada yada yada holika yada yada yada Holika Dahan blu bleh flu fleh

First of all, my dear friend. We don’t celebrate holi faag due to those reasons— that would be holi dahan, it precedes Holi faag aka the day you are covering in this video by one whole day. Great research 👍🏼

Holi Fāg is celebrated because Lord Krishna and his friends used to pluck flowers of early spring, extract colour from them via pestling and smear it on each other as a childish game. Completely harmless, no? Unless you have issues about teenage boys and girls playing around or something XD

And lets not end it here, my man has some

✨interesting✨

opinions about Holika Dahan aswell

Holika was manipulated into burning her own nephew alive, poor woman🥺

Same level of intellect as “Ravan was just a good brother who wanted to exploit a married woman totally against her wishes for his sis’s perverseness UwU”

Holika has nowhere been mentioned to be manipulated. If anything, the texts say that she was willing for it to happen. Imagine trying to defend a literal demon who was trying to burn her own nephew alive, for fuck’s sake my man…

now, onto the story of powder (sorta disclaimer: I’m writing the points while watching the video myself, so if there’s inconsistencies and incidents of me jumping the gun, I’m surry ;-;) This is a believed story aswell, true, but the reason he chose this one over the flowers one is veryyy clear; its easy to propagate :D

Krishna liked Radha, skin colour diffrences, maiyya Yashoda, Oh my Him he’s doing rAcIsM—

First of all, his original form isn’t even black; he’s actually blue. Blue of the Sky, he is described as. He incarnates in various shades from dusky to midnight dark to sky blue to green to milky white. Why? Because all the shades are same to him. We literally have gods who are called Bhadra Kāli (beautiful black woman), Krishnā (her with a dusky tone), Shyam Sundar (Black skinned in handsome) , Sundar Sanvaro ( Handsome and Dusky) but of COURSE our gods are doing racism. No propaganda here guys, none whatsoever

(there was no need for this pic here but y’all LOOK AT VASUKI T-T)

One thing he IS surprisingly right about is how colonisation had an effect on our perception of beauty, because ancient Indian texts are all praises about Krishna’s own beauty, going to the lengths of showing that he was so beautiful that he stole the maternal affection from his playmates mothers aswell. So no, he wasn’t sending any wrong messages by acting as an oblivious child because colourism wasn’t an issue back then.

Second of all, The story is incorrect. He did not “long” for Radha. They were literal little children in this one, unlike the other one where they are teens. This is just childish curiousity at play, about tall and short, about fair and dark, about this and that. We literally have a renowned lullaby about this, where Krishna is curiously asking his Mother why him and Radha are two different shades and she lovingly gives creative answers about the same.

What he was doing was, he wanted to play with Radha, but was afraid she would not play with him because they look “different” (NOT because he thought his skin was inferior to hers, he literally chose that skin) so Maiyya Yashoda told him to play with coulours so they are all the same shade (neither dark nor fair, just plain colourful). This man is so shameless he’s glossing over everything just to degrade us. Imagine being so fucking insecure that you need to actively bring other religions down to feel devotes. You don’t need youtube my man, you need Jesus.

…..He literally degraded christianity RIGHT after I said Jesus. How is he so fucking vindictive? Jesus wasn’t black OR white, he was *drumroll please* Brown! My man Yeshua was from Nazareth, he wasn’t technically black. Do you want him to have Vitiligo to prove that he doesn’t chose one colour over the other?

Christian Jesus isn’t white: Western Jesus is. African Christians have portrait of him as a black man, Chinese scriptures show him of Asian features. And while you may like to think its problematic, I think its beautiful and Jesus wouldn’t even mind people of that time interpreting him such to be close to him. Humans are spiteful PoS, Gods are not! Imagine personifying your own Prophet because you are just that hateful.

Like I already pointed out, that’s not it my man. Refer to the points above the Jesus rant. Trying to twist things won’t work here, maybe you think you can put words in God’s mouth but all we see is an audacious piece of crap trying his best to change a narrative we are well versed in and attached to for his own interests.

The reason he knew she “liked” (as much as you can “like” someone in a childish way) him back was because their minds were connected. They knew each other’s thoughts and feelings. Why? Because she is his soulmate. She is Krishna’s other half, she is Goddess Laxmi in a human form, The wife and eternal Love of Lord Vishnu, who is the one incarnated as Krishna.

And was this a grown man touching a grown woman? No, it wasn’t. It was a kid playing with another kid, think a little boy throwing water balloons on a little girl. He never touched her inappropriately even in their teens, when they were actually in love with each other. Them not having had a sexual relationship is one of there core factors that strengthens their bond as lovers.

See how he doesn’t even mention the second story aka the one I mentioned in the Fāg segment? Yeah, me too.

And while we are at it, can we please talk about how (not so) subtely he is trying to degrade our Gods here? Accusing someone people worship as Supreme of racism by hiding facts, questioning what kind of message he is sending to a population that does not even practice the said religion, saying stuff like ‘quote unquote God’, accusing someone’s God of sexual harrasment (this is a new low guys) . Yeah, we see your motives here asshole.

Your genuine curiosity on stuff you think is not cut out for you or is questionable is welcome, your passive agressive comments on someone people worship are not. You do not follow the said God, Your subscribers don’t follow him, we who do are not running a cult here either. What is your position to discuss someone else’s God in a humanising way where you put him in a position akin to humans? Having a one sided dictate based on half assed reasearch , furthered with nitpicking of negatives and adding your own “thoughts” on it to make it sound bad, and putting your personally motivated views to a biased audience is very much crossing the line of civil. Fuck off already.

Now, back to what my man has to say:

Where Holi went wrong

according to Smarty Pants McAllknowing here, the Japanese girl incident is reflective of what Shree Krishna was upto. Is it? We know its not, but is the audience that he is trying to not so softly influence aware? Nope.

Molestation and Roadside Romeos causing chaos on holi are common occurences. People get gropped, harrassed, and has even resulted in crimes like rape and death. There’s a fine line between being playful in a way that is enjoyable and being a nuisance, and people with malicious intents are likely to cross it on purpose. Most of us were playing with our family and friends and having fun instead of going out of our way to bother strangers, that’s basic decency on any given day and Holi doesn’t change that for most of us ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So majority of us celebrate it like any other festival, given with a lot more excitement and carefreeness, but that too is constricted to our peers.

Also, lets make one thing clear shall we: people with bad intentions don’t just ‘pop-up’ on occassions, they are actively looking for a loop to be perverts without consequences.

It is not that Holi was created to give perverts ammo, it is that holi is being used as a shield by people who are generally deviants aswell. It is an issue amongst the Hindu community and trying to make us the perpetrators as a whole in our own personal matter which we are trying to solve is not only intrusive, its disrespectful aswell.

You think people are fine and good all 364 days and decide to become hornie motherfuckers just when holi is around the corner?? Its the fucking perverts, not Holi and other Hindus playing. No, and trying to defame holi which again 95% of us play normally without all that gropping is nothing short of an attempt to defame the festival.

There are women who have reported being raped while on Pilgrimages (including Hajj, highlighting for my self righteous friend here), does that make the pilgrimage spot evil? Huh?

Now, going on to what happened to those women. Its bad, and those people deserve to be punished by the law because of outraging a woman’s modesty. But tell me with a straight face that the rest if is who were just having fun with our family are responsible, or all of us collectively playing holi are responsible?

Reminds me of this honestly:

Same with the muslim woman being attacked, its shameful that these perverts would go to such lengths, and again deserve to be locked up, but your accusations at the government controlling news is so ridiculous its laughable.

The government would have done a better job hiding its cracks at Farmer’s protests and Hijab issues now, would they have not? They would have censored The Hindu, whose head is a member of communist party, TOI and IE. And what is the point in leaving NDTV up there who would give you more fuel for your accusations if you only look? The government has many active critics, and a lot of anti hindu media exists, but sure, we are controlling XD

Lynchings are harmful and are should be condemned, so I feel reluctant questioning you here, even though your intentions of bringing lynching in a video not even related to it is peculiar, to say the least. Why did you suddenly go off the tangent to tackle crimes against muslims in a video regarding Hindu festivals? Everything we do and have is connected to Islam on such mind bending rationales it doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

……..The beef being talked about is BUFFALO BEEF?! LMFAOOOO this guy isn’t even trying to hide his agenda anymore😭😭😭 jaa bhai, galti meri hi hai

Connecting it with Islam AGAIN? Man, this guy’s victim complexion is strong, yikes.

They are not allowed to grope or touch us non consensually. Infact, Shree Krishna whom you so conviniently insulted killed a man because he said illicit words about his best friend who was a woman. The said Woman also resulted in a kingdom’s fall because she was manhandled by the princes. Furthermore, in his previous incarnation Krishna killed a demon who had tried to molest his wife. If you think that anyone can grope us and not get slapped into the stars, then you have no clue what our scriptures teach us to be like.

Look, I respect your religions ways of treating women as sacred or pure or what it is that you guys believe in (and totally disrespect your ways of trying to glorify your religion in a video that is already degrading another one), but that’s where we vary. If an educated Hindu man saw me extending my hand for a greeting, he would take it. Why? Because I am an equal. I’m just another human if I’m not a woman he is platonically or romantically related to. In the ancient days we all folded our hands and greeted from afar, now we shake hands when meeting professionally. I like it this way, you like it yours, how about not try to patronise us?

Me trying to find where this sudden hype of Islam is coming from in a video not even related to it:

Okay, that accusation about hindu men fondling people left right and centre? Aren’t you inflating things a bit a lot? Is it too much to ask you to stop speaking over us??

Everything was (still kinda) well and good up until you decided to drag hinduism again. Why did God allow Holi? To celebrate with your family like Diwali and Navratri? We don’t go out bothering strangers on other two and Holi was specifically being played between Krishna and his friends? No one outside was being bothered.

Also, if you really need to toot your religion’s horn by a (biased) comparison with someone else’s, then believe me when I say that your faith in God isn’t half as strong as you like to think, since you need a catalyst that requires you too be a shit person. We never asked what your religion is like, we don’t even care, that’s your personal matter. Why try to grab our attention by falsely accusing what we believe in and force us to form a negative opinion on you? Who do you think you are, to drag my gods into this?

Also, is it just me or does it seem like this guys is talking about women but not to them? Its like he hasn’t addressed women in this video even once and thinks men are the primary ones concerned with issues like groping and how women are to be touched or not. He is literally using women as a bait without really bringing our psychology regarding all this into play. Am I the only one who finds it concerning?

Islam is practical— DID I FUCKING ASK?? NO, BECAUSE I DON’T FUCKING CARE! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOLI OMG—

This guy has his head so far up his ass, he can’t stop talking about things he thinks make him superior. I swear to God, don’t feel surprised if he makes a video about why guys with (whatever was his first tricycle) fucking stomp over others who grew up with “girl bikes”.

I know its not my place to say it, but I just wanna bust this guy’s bubble so I’m sorry to any muslim reading it: Its the fastest growing religion because it has the highest birth rate, and conversion for sake of marriage. And about his point regarding women converting, Not saying that there aren’t those who genuinely do and good for them, but whose gonna tell him about the dark stuff happening here💀 A part of me thinks he already knows but thinks its wonderful.

So yeah, that was all from this asshole. I hope this white bearded man baby grows up and learns to reach God with his chosen path, without requiring to bring others down. All in all, my last words to this guys are:

[futbolfanficpunk]

The Barcelona call

 Player: Eric García Word count: 1970+ Summary: Eric gets a call while at an away game with Man City from his agent, if he says yes to his agent, it will change everything for his future and yours. Warnings: Angst, fluff, slight smut. Author's note: This took me various drafts and rewrites because it's the first one I write with a bit of smut in it, hope you like it. -----------------------------------------------------------

It was late in the spring and it was starting to get a bit warmer. Eric and y/n have been dating for a few months now. He was away in London playing against West Ham. You talk every day, even if you only see each other an average of two days a week right now. Man City is playing in the Champions League, Caribou, and the Premier, so, that means, you could barely see each other in person but you video call constantly. You even came up with a fun idea of watching movies or series at the same time wherever you are and texting each other while you both watch it, just so you could feel like you’re spending time together.   

      That night, after the 1-2 victory over the London side, Eric called you when he got to the hotel. You were already in bed, getting some reading done for one of the classes at uni. You click the green facetime button. 

“Bona nit, Eric” you said when you saw him on your screen wearing black thick frames, trying to impress him with one of the three Catalan phrases you know

“Bona nit, Y/N” Eric said while smiling “Did I wake you up?”

“No, I’m in bed reading something for tomorrow’s class but I saw a bit of the game, though, you guys did well” you responded

“Yea, we did. No minutes today but hopefully some soon” Eric said while fixing his glasses

“Oh, I’m sure!” you said trying your best to be supportive “you’re the youngest defender, it’s normal, right?”

“Yea, exactly” he replied “but, anyway, I wanted to ask you if we can get together tomorrow night, if you’re not busy with school.”

“I have some things to do for a class, but I can take care of it and we can meet up, not a problem. I want to see you, I miss your face, so much!” you said raising your voice in excitement. You really were craving to hold him and have his scent nearby when you’re close. You had fallen hard for Eric. Every time you met in person, you felt like fireworks were going off around you, you talked and laughed, and couldn’t keep your hands off each other. You were always looking forward to seeing him, hearing his cute Spanish sounding Catalan accent in person and taking off his thick nerdy glasses to make out with him. You made out everywhere there wasn’t a lot of people, and made love constantly. The chemistry was undeniable. 

“Great! And I miss you too, baby! We’ll fly first thing in the morning, go in for a recovery training, and then I will go home. I want you to come over to my flat, I have some big news that I want to share” he finished saying as he was grinning.

“Big news? Can’t you tell me now, please?” you pleaded

“I could, but I want to tell you in person, it’s important” 

 “Oh, is it something bad or…?” 

“No, it’s good.I think you will think it’s great.”

“Hope so!”

“I’m going to let you finish your work. I’m going to sleep, ok? Long day”

“Okay, sleep well, love”

“Good night, baby” he said as he blew a kiss for the camera, you blew one back.

“Night” you said as you waved to him through the video camera and he hung up.

What could it be? It made you anxious to know. Hopefully it was the news of a renewal, or a new contract with better salary or that his parents are moving to the UK. You had no idea.

You arrived at Eric’s apartment all dolled up in a dress, smelling of a soft perfume and subtle makeup. You let your hair down because you knew Eric loved to touch it and run his fingers through it when you were near each other. You rang the doorbell, and Eric immediately opened the door, you both said hello, he gave you a quick kiss, and let you in. Once in, he took your jacket off, and hung it for you, like a perfect gentleman, he turned around to face you and gave you a soft and small kiss that lingered on for a few moments as you felt your body melt with tenderness. When you opened your eyes as he pulled back, you smiled, he squeezed your arm and said  “I’ve missed you”. 

“And I’ve missed you” you replied. 

He had wine and tapas on his small dinner table waiting for you both, he took your hand and guided you to it, signaling for you to sit as he tells you to do ahead, to eat and drink because he made it for you. He pulls your chair closer to his before you sit down, and pats it so you'll sit.

“So, how’s uni?” he asked while sitting down and reaching to grab some of the tapas “It’s fine, but, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” you asked, while sipping a bit of wine, you were desperate to know and couldn’t do any more small talk. “The big news?”

“Yes, Eric, the big news, Can you just tell me? It’s driving me crazy” you said, truly feeling anxious. “Ok, so,” replied Eric“ my agent called me last night and told me Barcelona wants to sign me!”

“Oh! WOW! Fc Barcelona? That’s huge! Congrats” you said as you clapped with excitement

“Yes, I’m so happy! Of course, I told him to make the move happen. I’m going back home this summer, playing for the best club in the world!”

“Oh!” 

Your heart sank. Barcelona, this summer? You thought. How is that supposed to work out? You were so excited for Eric you hadn’t thought about the fact that he would not be around anymore. Your relationship was going well and you had fallen for each other but it wasn’t a super serious one yet, certainly not a moving in together in another country serious. You felt flustered and hot, your heart was racing and your chest was burning. You drank the rest of your wine. Eric was staring at you, noticing how your body language changed and how fast you were drinking while you were lacking a vocal response. He had some wine too. 

“Hey,” Eric said as he traced your jaw line with his finger “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…I’m thinking…that I’m going to miss you a lot. And that I’m happy for you. I know it was your dream growing up, playing in the Barça academy, to play for the first team,” you said as you refilled your wine glass and then raised it “so, cheers, darling!’ and you drank half your glass in one gulp. You wanted to cry.

“Miss me?” asked Eric as he pulled you in and gave you a kiss on the cheek “Why would you miss me if you’re in Barcelona too?”

“What are you talking about? I’m working in the summer, I can’t go on vacation to Barcelona with you, I can’t afford it, plus what is the point of it? We’re going to be so far away from each other afterward, it’s not going to work, is it?” you felt like you might burst into tears

“Y/N. I’ve been thinking about this since I hung up with my agent. I’m going to Barcelona and I want you to come too. I love you and I need you to come. And not just the summer, I mean, permanently. I really thought about it, kept me up last night, and it’s fine if we both agree that moving in together right now is a little much but I’ll get you your own place, your own apartment. No pressure.  I’ll get my family to help us with the whole university situation, to get you transferred. You can get a part-time job, or focus on studying, you don’t have to worry about money. Whatever you want. I’ll help you. I just want you to know that I’m not leaving you here, in Manchester. There’s no chance of that happening. I don’t want us to be apart more than we already have to. I’m not letting you go” said Eric in a rant, he sighed and asked, “ Is that okay?”

“Are you serious?” you asked back, in shock

“Totalment, amor meu” said Eric “ Playing for Barcelona, I will be able to afford it and I’m not taking no for an answer”  

“This is a lot to process” 

“I know, I’ve been thinking about this all day, but, Do you love me?”

“You know I do, Eric” 

“Then, that’s all we need. We’ll make it work. Please, say yes” he begged as put a strand of your hair behind your ear.

You felt so overwhelmed by everything that had been said but you couldn’t deny that you were head over heels for Eric, you wanted to be with him, plus he just said one of the most romantic things you’ve ever heard. Although you were skeptical about how everything was going to work you couldn’t find a reason to say no, you were in love, it made you hopeful and you felt you could trust him. “Okay,” you said as you shrugged “Let’s try it!” as a small giggle came out.

He kissed you right away, and said “Good! I was scared you might said no” as he put his lips on yours again “I’m so relieved” “I was afraid we were breaking up there for a second, I’m glad that didn’t happen ” you said putting your hands on your cheeks, blushing.

“That’s never happening. Come here!” he said and he pulled your body towards his, making you sit on top of him as you were facing him. You embraced each other in a kiss, he slowly deepened the kiss and slipped his tongue in your mouth with palpable desire. You responded with as much passion to kiss him back, then paused to kiss his face and neck, you let your lower lip feel his neck all the way up to his chin where you gave him a lick. He chuckled. You took off his glasses and went back to kiss him some more. You wanted him, you put your hands around his neck while he hung onto your waist. He had been thinking, fantasizing about being with you all week and he let it be known. “I couldn’t wait to get back,” he said as he put his hands underneath your dress to touch your ass, “I want you,Y/N, you have no idea”. He pulled you closer to him, making your legs spread wider. You grind on top of him while you kissed him, as you felt your hips crave for him, you could feel him growing under his pants. You softly moaned in his mouth while your tongue danced around with his, you pulled away to respond “Me too, all the time” catching your breath. Your heart now was quite agitated, you were quite turned on. “Let’s take this to the bedroom, yea?” he asked while kissing the cleavage your dress offered. “Si us plau” you responded while looking at that beautiful dark hair man kiss your tits, you remembered how to say please in Catalan. He looked up “Speaking Catalan already, beu? Maybe this move won’t be so hard”

You stood up, took off your dress, smiled, and walked towards the bedroom in your underwear saying a flirty “Maybe”

He smiled and followed you saying “ I can’t wait to fuck you when we’re there too” 

[princess-of-the-corner]

Toontown: Corporate Clash Recap: Toontown Central Mainline Tasks (Good ol' Gil Giggles)

Okay so, let’s just pick up where we left off:

The Numbers Mason

Step 1 is to speak with Good ol’ Gil Giggles, the green pig standing next to Bumpy, for 40 experience points and 3 jellybeans.

“Hey there, [Toon Name]! Glad to finally speak to you!”

“I’ve been hearing reports from Toons all over about what a great job you’ve done.”

“Especially from Franz Neckvein. We’ve never seen him so pumped up lately! Even if we get a little confused on what he’s "vaying”.“

"So, let’s see if your hot streak continues, cause boy do I got a few tasks that’d be incredibly nice to have taken off my hooves.”

“So, we’ve been talking to Banker Bob about handling jellybeans and holding them for Toons, but it turns out he’s in a situation himself.”

“Head on over to Banker Bob here in the Bank in the playground and help him figure it out.”

“It’ll be key to helping our tasty economy stay afloat!”

Toontown Bank, and by extension Banker Bob, are located right there in Toontown Central Playground.

Banker Bob himself is a maroon horse in glasses, and he’s in quite a pickle. Hear him out for 40 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Hey there! Are you here to help me out?”

“I’ve been trying to stay in contact with the Toon Resistance as much as possible, as I’m experiencing quite an issue.”

“Ever since the big switch to jellybeans as our currency, it’s been a nightmare for me to keep track of things.”

“My job is incredibly important, mind you. I’m not here for storage, no no, I keep track of a lot of stuff.”

“I track inflation, influx, spending, and all kinds of numbers that’d make your eyes twirl around trying to keep track of.”

“The fact of the matter here is I need to get my adding machine back to add up things properly.”

“Only if one of those money-grubbing Penny Pinchers hadn’t taken my only one, that is…”

“If you can find the Penny Pincher that took my adding machine I’d be so entirely grateful to you.”

Yeah, while Cogs never enter the Playground in gameplay, that doesn’t mean that they can’t enter in the lore.

And the bank doesn’t really store Jellybeans because, well, all of the Toons already have Jellybean Banks in their estates. It would be redundant, gameplay wise, to have Toontown Bank do the same thing.

But back to the Task at hand, any Penny Pincher in Toontown Central could drop the Adding Machine.

Just bring it back to Bob for 40 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Yes! This sure looks like the right adding machine. Catsio model number 70-0N. Just the thing!”

“One minor problem, however.”

“It’s broken.”

“Whichever Penny Pincher you got this back from really did a LOT of pinching.”

“The buttons are all smashed in and there are a few loose springs, let alone what else that may be wrong with it…”

“But that’s alright, as I know just the Toon who will be able to fix it!”

“She’s quite possibly the most intellectual Toon in all of Toontown Central, and that’s saying a lot coming from the likes of me.”

“Go and see P.I. Multiply. She runs her shop Pies Are Squared down on Wacky Way.”

“Find her, present her with this, and I’m sure she’ll have it fixed in no time.”

Take the Adding Machine to P.I. Multiply, a periwinkle cat, to earn 40 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Why hello there. Are you in need of any assistance?”

“Oh no! Your adding machine!”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll get this machine fixed and working better than it did before it was broken!”

“I just need a few parts. If you can gather up springs, a gear, and a paperclip I can surely fix this thing in no time.”

“In fact, I think you can get those things really easily from the Cogs!”

“Just knock a few around with your pies and I bet you’ll find all the parts in no time.”

“I’m always here so there’s no need to rush! Good luck!”

You need to get 3 Machine Parts from any of the Cogs in Toontown Central. Bring them back to P.I Multiply for, you guessed it, 40 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Absolutely splendid. Now let me just do my thing!”

“I just gotta use the paperclip to pop it open here…”

“Replace a spring here, a sprocket there…”

“Pop in some new gears, aaaaand voila!”

“Good as new!”

“All the functions work perfectly, the paper lift lifts, the total button buttons, everything’s wonderfully functional!”

“Make sure to take better care of it in the future. It looked like you got a little frustrated with calculus homework!”

“See you around!”

Bring the Adding Machine back to Banker Bob for 40 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Why thank you! This is gonna be so handy!”

“It’s a big job to help in handling the switch but it’ll be much easier now.”

“And who knows, maybe all this will allow for me to create new extra goodies for Toons!”

“Thank you so much, [Toon Name].”

“You can head on back to the Toon Headquarters now. I’ve got a lot of numbers to track.”

“Good luck!”

To finish the task, go back to Good ol’ Giggles.

“Excellent! You’re really winning me over, I gotta tell you. There’s not many Toons that accomplish so much in that amount of time.”

“So, you solved the issue with the bank, but we still have another sector that’s facing issues.”

“One of the biggest issues we’re dealing with currently is our postal system.”

“With tons of Toons coming from all around and the Cogs invading, there have been tons of letters coming in and out of the mail.”

“Postmaster Pete has reported to us that he’s absolutely backed up with letters – almost to the point that he’s swimming in them!”

“I’m sending you over to show us you got what it takes.”

“Don’t let us down, [Toon Name]!”

Completing the task earns the player 320 experience, 3 jellybeans, and the task:

Letter Rip

The Toontown Post Office is located on Loopy Lane, and Postmaster Pete is a lime dog. Speaking with him rewards 48 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Oh no, please, no more letters…”

“Please don’t tell me you’re here with another one…”

“I can’t take it anymore! There are letters piled up to my muzzle!”

“I take absolute pride in being the finest postmaster in Toontown, but at this rate, I don’t know if I can keep it up.”

“And that’s concerning, I don’t want my 5-star rating on Howl to drop!”

“Please, first, I need better gloves before I begin to touch the massive pile of envelopes I have in the back.”

“I’m concerned that my door will burst open, spewing letters everywhere at this rate, and paper cuts are a real concern.”

“Could you please get me some papercut-proof gloves? Cold Callers have some that’d be great for this!”

“They’re constantly freezing, so they wear gloves to offset that.”

“They’re also papercut-proof to prevent the cuts that come from handling a bursting rolodex.”

“If you could get a few pairs, that’d be amazing. Once the first pair wears out, I’ll need to get more!”

“Thank you so much.”

Any Cold Caller in Toontown Central can drop a Papercut-Proof Glove, and you need 2. Bring both back to him for 48 more experience and 3 more jellybeans.

“Now I just have to sort through all this stuff and get it out to the Toons is belongs to.”

“It’s crazy, I’ll tell ya…”

“It’s like people think it’s acceptable to send more mail every week thinking their last one didn’t get through or something.”

“We seem to get TONS of the stuff every single day…”

“I mean granted, we indeed haven’t gotten around to sending them through to be read, but still…”

“WAIT… I JUST REMEMBERED THAT I HAVE MADE A VERY, VERY BAD MISTAKE. I NEED YOUR HELP.”

“When I sorted the mail, I was being a bit lazy and tossing a few things here and there. Sometimes chaos is the recipe for success, you know?”

“Anyways, while I had a bunch of letters and boxes spewed about the floor of my shop, a Pencil Pusher sneaked in and snatched up a box.”

“I can’t let this slip out, it’s crucial that my reputation stay as high as it can. I need to keep my dignity!”

“Please, [Toon Name]. Please go out and find the Pencil Pusher that took this box and bring it back before I have to explain away more missing mail.”

“I already do that too much as it is!”

Y’know, it’s a wonder Postmaster Pete hasn’t been fired. Maybe he should hire an assistant or two instead of doing it all on his own?

Ahem, regardless, you need to retrieve the Package from any Pencil Pusher in Toontown Central, and bring it back for 48 experienced and 3 jellybeans.

“PHEW!”

“I was really worried there, I could see my Postmaster title flashing before my eyes.”

“What am I without being a postmaster??”

“I’m just Pete!”

“I can’t be JUST Pete!”

“Thank you for your help. I even got the time to drop by Patty Papercut while you were out.”

“She helped me devise a new way of delivering letters. The "Paper Airplane.”

“They’re excellent by the way. They almost seemed to have a mind of their own as they soared off to their respective owners.”

“Patty Papercut is kinda an oddball though. She liked to call the airplanes, "her babies.”

“Don’t ask me why…”

“I just have a few items left now to deliver. Let me take a look.”

“Oh, huh. It actually turns out the rest is all for one Toon apparently.”

“They’re all for Loony Louis, down on Silly Street at his shop Used Clown Cars.”

“I wonder what they could be…”

“Here, just take the rest down to him. AND BE CAREFUL!”

“After that we’re all sorted!”

Loony Louis is a citrine duck in a racing-themed outfit and a clown afro. Speaking to him rewards, you guessed it, 48 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Finally! Those are my packages right?”

“…”

“Wanna know what’s inside?”

“Most people do.”

“I’ll let you in on the secret, if you fish me up a few more clown tires for this fixer upper I’m working on in the back.”

“It can fit up to 12 clowns, but I bet you could even fit 16 if you really packed them in hard enough!”

“Oh, boy do I love clown cars!”

“What’s that?”

“Toons in this town have weird fascinations?”

“How dare you!”

“I’ll have you know I have only the finest of taste in clown cars.”

“Now unless you want to lose your chance to find out what’s inside these boxes, you better get to fishing!”

You can fish up the Clown Car Tires from any pond in Toontown Central. Bring them back to Loony Louis for one more gift of 48 experience and 3 jellybeans.

“Alright, I’ll tell you!”

“It’s…”

“IT’S…”

“MORE CLOWN CAR PARTS!”

“Isn’t it fantastic!”

“Wait, where are you goi-”

All that’s left after this is to report back to Good ol’ Gil Giggles to wrap up the task.

“Splendid! Really a great job has been done all-around by you, [Toon Name].”

“I’ve gotta say, I really feel like you’re on my side. I got some serious trust in you now.”

“I’m gonna give you the thumbs up from me and I’m gonna move you up to the Toon himself, Lord Lowden Clear.”

“He’s always up to something so I’m sure he could use your help.”

This grants you 336 experience, 23 jellybeans, and caps off Good ol’ Gil Giggles’ arc.

Next time, we see what Lord Lowden Clear wants you to do.

-

that mail system is a hot mess but also a mood

[majestydeerakuma]

-My Jackbox Interprets and Their Designs-

-I love drawing out my version of the Jackbox and YDKJ hosts. I have fun drawing them and trying my best to come up with a somewhat fitting design for each host who doesn’t have a confirmed design

-When it comes to older designs, a few of the hosts have went through some design changes, however, I didn’t show most of them.

-The only two that are on here, on Tumblr is one of Redacted’s older designs and Master Mentalist’s old design. I’m gonna write out what I have changed about my favorite Jackbox hosts and also why I made some decisions on what I did for their designs because yes and also I’m bored

(Cookie)

-His hair used to be a lot messier but I changed it a bit because I wasn’t happy with it

-His shirt as well was changed from the letters for You Don’t Know Jack (YDKJ) to a question mark. Why? I thought it would look kinda weird to add that to a shirt instead of the logo and I feel like the logo with my handwriting would look too inconsistent so I opted for a question mark

-I made his eyes spring green because it really makes his face pop out amongst the neutral colors he has. Also I just thought green eyes would look nice on him

-

(Schmitty)

-He originally had short black hair and his ahoge/cowlick was a single squiggly line. His eyes also used to be green and purple.

-I changed that because I didn’t really like the design so I changed him to have long dark brown hair and blue eyes to match his outfit

-He has glasses because I noticed in The Ride’s end scene that the person playing him (Phil) has glasses and so I put it into the design. Plus the glasses fit Schmitty

-

(Redacted)

-He went through the most design changes. His hair was always brown but his eye color wasn’t always cyan and yellow. It was originally going to be red and green.

-His mask was also going to have a smile on it but I thought it looked weird

-His older design that I have shared here depicts him in a grim reaper-like outfit and messy short brown hair. I didn’t really like he design much so I changed it

-I thought it would be cool to give him heterochromia and so, I did, cyan and yellow eyes :D

-

(Master Mentalist)

-He may be the newest one out of them but I already changed his design a little bit.

-His hair is not as messy anymore. His cowlick (under his hat) now curls in a little and is also black and white (oooh, hypnosis spiral much). His tie is replaced with a bow tie. The lines under his eyes are bigger now. Crazy eyes are optional for him now and are meant to mimic hypno spirals

-I’ll be dropping my new design for him in about an hour or two along with some extra things

-

That’s about it for now, I’ll probably do this again with four more hosts and then another time with four other hosts. I just chose my 4 favorites (yes, Master Mentalist is already a favorite of mine and it’s only been like 3 days or something)

-Ooh, I’m also working on my Jackbox OC bios and character headcanons so Imma post those when I finally finish them (though headcanons will be in multiple posts and bios will be in a post each for each character so it isn’t an absolute cluster)

[icharchivist]

icha!!!! just finished the have a great trip event. I’m not writing that event title out case sensitively but I think it is cute they capitalized the three As for A3! seeing mizuno made me… wow. i feel so much affection for this man for real. the way he runs as soon as tsuzuru is there… like the.

tsuzuru: “hmph. that guy…”

izumi: (oh, tsuzuru. you’re not fooling anyone with that smile of yours.)

me: weeping

I really liked a lot of the travel outfits!! like yuki, citron, homare… hisokas scarf is such a lovely shade of green for real. love that kazunari and yuki talk abt design etc! feels so nice to see the effects of sardine search. there we’re so many little cute interactions here. love that tasuku and tsumugi had more free time and were like “well. more theater time.” I’d seen the screenshot of itarus gamer knowledge coming in handy but I did not know misumi was also gonna be involved! so fun. the cg with misumi carrying itaru is sooooooo cute. like itarus expression. love it. I don’t have too much to say abt this ep bc it was just very sweet! I also like that itaru can say LOL. and it feels perfectly natural

HEYO YOU WELCOME BACK!!!

yess the name capitalization is so cute.

AND MIZUNOOOO!!!! and Tsuzuru being so soft toward him. God those two. THOSE TWO.

Agreed, i really think the travel outfits were very fun!! i liked the new sprites. and yeah god, it really helped showcasing some of the dynamics so well. Kazu and Yuki geeking design in call back to the Sardine Search, Yuki and Banri planning on shopping trips in call back to Into the Night, of course just, Mizuno… it's just a hell lots of fun.

Of COURSE Tasu and Tsumu were just theater geeking. they were in the theater geek convention. fishes in clear water moment!

The whole think of Itaru somehow managing to save those teens's trips while also still being a disaster is honestly so much fun.

And i especially love his dynamic with Misumi in this event. Like Misumi opening up about how his parents rarely took him when they were going on trip and Itaru clearly catching that "huh oh this kid's parents are fucked up. Well i'm already the assignated father of the spring troupe, what's one more child for me to have."

And i do love that Itaru did drop everything because he thought Misumi looked too sad and We Can't Have That Here. It's truly so cute and sweet. Esp since afterward he just had much more fun this way.

Tenma and Kazunari are absolute mess this event too. The fact Tenma managed to get lost on his way to the aeroport and he had to wear the bunny costume while Itaru made fun of him.. priceless to me.

And yes, the CG is just so much fun. From "what the fuck are you doing" to "it's not so bad actually. I think i can get used to my life as a potato bag", just, so good.

This ep was more light hearted and less heavy in general yes, it was sooo sweet. Just the pals hanging out, and Itaru "infiltring" the Summer troupe, like he said.

It's nice that once in a while they just get to have some downtime without anyone having a mental breakdown on the side because their tragic backstory came back to haunt them. For that, A+++ for hAve A greAt trip indeed.

As usual, thank you so much for sending me your feedback, it's always a pleasure to see your thoughts on the events you get to read ;D

Bless youuu and have a nice day <33

[thisislizheather]

April Activities 2023

Above Photo: Central Park, April 2023

Spring is in full force and I couldn’t be happier about it. It usually feels like the shortest season since summer arrives obnoxiously early, but this year it’s been magical. Chilly nights, sweaters instead of winter coats, tons of rain, birds chirping their asses off, there’s nothing better. Here’s what happened in April!

Above Photo: Baby Dog in Central Park

Above Photo: Baby Dog in Central Park, again

The best tweets of April can be found over here.

I visited a tulip farm in New Jersey and had the greatest meatballs from the Your Sister’s Balls food truck. 

Above Photo: Holland Ridge Farms with Diana in New Jersey

I toured the gorgeous Kings Theatre in Brooklyn.

Above Photo: The lobby of Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York

Above Photo: Mirrors + me = BFF

I went to the Museum of Failure with my friend Casey in Industry City.

I helped review some Last Crumb cookies on my friend Paul’s TikTok.

I made one of my favourite steak recipes for the first time (steak Diane) and it was really, really good. I didn’t really ignite it properly since that’s the part that scares me the most, but there were partial flames so I’m counting this as a success.

Above Photo: Steak Diane ingredients

Notice: you’re using your potato peeler wrong.

The Alison Roman chocolate chip shortbread cookies are fast becoming a staple in our home.

Above Photo: Chocolate chip shortbread cookies

I physically cannot stop making this asparagus soup (the cream is optional), it’s so good. Best to double up the recipe if you’re making it for more than two people.

When will I learn that fancy coffee shops simply don’t do it for me? I went to Ten Thousand Coffee and it was fine, but definitely overrated. One day we’ll all revolt against coffee costing over $5 and I vow to lead the revolution.

Speaking of coffee, have I already mentioned the incredible hazelnut beans we order from San Francisco Bay Coffee? Best beans I’ve ever used for iced coffee at home, by far. All you need is a french press, a small spice grinder and beans. The fact that we’re not all making iced coffee at home each day is mind boggling. 

Some things I watched:

Surviving R. Kelly (the newest season): Nathan and I watched two episodes and then abandoned it. It’s so hard to watch and really makes you wonder, “Why the hell am I watching this if it makes me feel this way?”

Dave (newest season): Words can’t express how much I love this show. Every episode is better than the last.

Succession: Okay, yes I already complained about this show. But the thing is - I haven’t hate-watched a new show in a really long time, so I think that’s why I keep going with it. The dialogue is objectively bad and I think the real appeal of the show is the fact that you can’t binge it all at once, we’re all so desperate for the days of cable and once-a-week viewing. And small side note: Adrian Brody is not a good actor, so of course he had to appear in an episode.

The Intern: What is wrong with me? Why was this on my list of movies to watch? It was so bad, but IT LOOKED BAD. Hated Anne Hathaway’s character. There was ZERO chemistry between her and De Niro. And it’s a mind-numbingly boring script. Christ.

Who Done It: The Clue Documentary: Okay, if you even kind of liked the movie Clue (1985), then you really have to watch this. It’s fan-made, but it’s so good. I didn’t know that so many playwrights attempted to write it, I had no idea that Carrie Fisher was supposed to be Miss Scarlett but couldn’t because of her drug problem?? Absolutely adored Jonathan Lynn. And loved all of Michael McKean’s anecdotes.

Above Photo: Who Done It: The Clue Documentary

How many beach blankets does one person need? And why is this Target one so damn perfect?

I’ve made so much green garlic butter, I’m considering starting a butter stand outside my building.

Above Photo: Green garlic from the Union Square Greenmarket, NYC

This month in good-but-nothing-special restaurants I’ve tried: Hawksmoor (flashy and beautiful inside, but no real substance) and Pete’s Tavern (space is great, food is fine and service was attentive but odd).

That being said, I also ate at some wonderful places! Saint George Bistro in Hastings had great escargot even if the service wasn’t great, Figlia in Astoria was as good as everyone says it is so I’ll definitely return, Sunken Harbor Club was beautiful and had great drinks and it felt like you weren’t in NYC but in a good way, Amelie Wine Bar was perfect and had $13 wine flights with stellar service, and finally Satis Bistro in Jersey City which was so lovely (the duck croquettes, my god, I’ll dream about those until I return).

Above Photo: Outside Saint George Bistro in Hastings, New York with Diana & Crystal

Above Photo: Amelie Wine Bar with Jessie, West Village 

I got a facial at Glow Bar and I really don’t see the big deal with facials. This sounds psychotic, but maybe my face doesn’t… need… facials…?

My brother Gary sent me this Happy & Polly stamp of Baby Dog’s face and I can’t get over it. It’s horrifyingly perfect.

I went to a sample sale for Rent The Runway put on by 260 and it was depressing as hell, it was all so disorganized and chaotic. Think that might be the last sample sale for me.

I visited the exterior of Alder Manor since I was in the area and it’s so beautiful from the outside, I can’t imagine how gorgeous the interior must be.

Above Photo: Alder Manor in Yonkers, New York

Dying over the entire Adidas x Farm Rio collaboration (thanks Marla for telling me about it!).

Speaking of my friend Marla, she mentioned how she gives her young sons a small amount of money for birthday gifts for people in their lives and then each kid comes up with an idea based on what that person enjoys and buys the gift. And honestly, what a perfect idea. Gift giving is a skill and absolutely should be taught to young kids (especially boys) since it’s such an important part of living. Love this so, so much. Every parent should be doing this.

I am so in love with the rhubarb and strawberry soda from Trader Joe’s that I think I might finally be ready to try rhubarb for real.

Above Photo: Rhubarb and strawberry soda from Trader Joe’s

I’d never heard about the children’s book In The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak but it was mentioned in that performance about Philip Glass I saw last month, so I bought the book and it’s incredible.

And finally, behold my new favourite photo of Baby Dog.

Above Photo: Hahahahah this expression! She’s so sick of my shit I love it.

Things I’m looking forward to this month: I’m going to do a post about my recent visit to the abandoned City Hall subway station, I’m definitely going to go see the new fashion exhibit that opens at The Met, I know that H&M is shit now but I’m gonna have to take a look at this Mugler collab in person, I kinda need to eat these duck fries in Toronto and I absolutely need to track down these Lichtenstein stamps ASAP.

If you’ve got any interest in reading last month’s roundup, you can see what went down in March over here.

Above Photo: She brought her boyfriend (Walrus) beside her to get some sun

[bubbledumbbinch]

Are your requests open again? Cuz I've been reading your oral headcanons and they are getting me HOT AND BOTHERED 🔥🔥

If you don't mind can I request some oral headcanons for Malleus, Deuce, Jack, Floyd and Crewel(if you write for the staff, you can make the reader his colleague in his case) with a fem reader? Thanks a lot⁄(⁄ ⁄•⁄-⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄

Hello anon!!! Yes I will do my best to deliver >:) BTW this is like sooo long and I’m so sorry it took so long for me to get to this!

Pairings: Malleus x Fem! Reader, Deuce x Fem! Reader, Jack x Fem! Reader, Floyd x Fem! Reader, Crewel x Fem! Professor!Reader

This piece of writing is strictly for 18+ audiences. NSFW under the cut. Minors do not interact!!

Warnings: dubcon ish for Floyd? Slight voyeurism too for his receiving, sub/dom elements for Crewel

Malleus Draconia x Fem! Reader

Giving

Malleus is into making things like a ritual - including lovemaking of any kind.

He would probably take you to a forest where flowers are laid out gently onto the soft grassy floor, glowing fireflies illuminating the sky with the moon.

Gently, Malleus would lay you down and kiss you from head to toe, literally. Giving praises, telling you how beautiful you are, etc.

Malleus would strip you bare naked and lick his lips. You feel his glowing green eyes trailing across your skin giving you goosebumps.

When you feel his long tongue against your cunt for the first time, you arch your back in pleasure and a soft moan comes out, making the horned man shudder.

Malleus always cares about not hurting you, making sure you’re okay, he wants you to be vocal.

Lord please don’t grab his horns. Grab his horns. He turns into a BEAST and will probably overstimulate you.

“Nnh- M-Malleus..!” You keened under his touch. Malleus’s fingers grazed your skin lightly as you laid on your back, his head currently in between your thighs. He brought his head up and licked his mouth of your juices. “My child of man, please, tell me if I’m hurting you.” He spoke softly. “N-no, it feels so good… Please, keep going…” you hid your face in your arm, too embarrassed about the situation the fae male had you in. You lightly stroked his horns as soon as his head dipped back down.

Suddenly, Malleus released a growl and his fingers dug deeper into your skin, nails close to breaking your skin. “Mm, Y/N… you know what that does to me.” He lowly spoke. His eyes were now trained on your own as he sucked hard on your clit, tongue abusing the bead. You screamed as he continued his ministrations - you were gonna be here for a while.

Receiving

Malleus would be walking with you near Ramshackle dorm when you see a bench in the distance and lead Malleus to it. When he sits down he expected you to join him, only for him to see you drop down to your knees in between his legs.

You want to treat Malleus for being a lovely boyfriend!! Praises and eye contact is not necessary but makes him go crazy for you

When receiving oral, Malleus isn’t shy but something inside him lets butterflies go absolutely wild in his stomach. The fact that it’s his favorite human servicing him makes him all the more excited too!

Malleus’s thick cock would be hard to take in all at once, so you opt to use your hands to pump the base with your fingers.

Malleus has a lot of stamina, you’ll definitely be there for a while. Moaning onto his length and staring into his eyes with lust will make him come closer to climax though!

He would stroke your hair and tell you how beautiful you are and how good you’re making him feel~

Instead of moaning and being loud, he grunts and hums.

Would want to repay your kindness as well if you know what I mean 👀

The dragon fae hummed in approval as your tongue worked his cock. Malleus’s fingers made its way to your hair to massage your head, making you moan.

“My little child of man, I’m getting close… you’re so beautiful.” Throwing his head back, his thrusting into your mouth was becoming faster and sloppier. When he looked back down at you, he swore he could see hearts in your eyes as you stared back into his green orbs. That and the combination of your lewd slurping sounds and the pleasure you were bringing him brought him to release. You squealed as Malleus’s seed shooting down your throat. He watched in wonder as you swallowed, licking your lips. “Tasty, my prince…” you teased Malleus, kissing his thighs.

Deuce Spade x Fem! Reader

Giving

Deuce has little to no experience, let’s be real. He was a bad boy who wasn’t very popular turned into a wanna be good boy. However, he is very eager to please.

What Deuce lacks in skills he makes up for with determination. Maybe it’s the way he aggressively licks up and down your cunt that turns you on, maybe it’s the way he’s trying his best!

Before you can even say where he should focus, he licks on your clit. Deuce notices how much louder you moan when he does that, so he learns quickly that THAT’S the spot for you.

Deuce would definitely moan when he’s eating a good meal 😋 the vibrations from his moaning goes straight to your clit as he’s sucking and slurping on your wet pussy.

Deuce would also want to use his calloused fingers on you in some way - be it fingering you, tweaking your nipples, or even having you suck on them.

“Deuce, th-there, more, please..!” You moaned, hands flying down to his soft navy blue hair. “You really like it, huh?” Deuce’s soft voice was inquisitive but also you heard joy behind it. You wiggled your bottom closer to his face and whined with the loss of touch. “Then, I’ll keep going.” He dove down once again and licked and sucked with more aggression, knowing exactly how to please you. Sweat dripped down his face as you pulled tufts of his hair, grinding your pussy against his mouth.

Receiving

After tutoring Deuce for so long in preparation for an exam, your efforts would come to fruition as he emerges from the classroom with a good grade.

You wanted to reward your boyfriend for doing so well! Take him back to Heartslabyul and deep into the gardens where you knew barely anybody would be at that time. Roses were painted, animals were fed, etc.

Deuce would be confused but blushing profusely when you offer to reward him by sucking his dick, but he doesn’t say no.

When you lay him down and pull down his pants and underwear, his cock springs to life with a bead of precum already leaking from it.

You like to tease Deuce with your fingers first - rubbing the bead of precum all over the tip with your thumb.

Deuce’s moans are heavenly when you finally use your mouth and tongue on him, softly thrusts into your mouth

Once he’s close though he lets his bad side come through - he’s thoroughly facefucking you while talking dirty, calls you names, etc

Wants to cum on you instead of in you, likes to see the way it paints your body!

“Mmh, Deush.!” You slurped and tried to talk while his cock invaded your wet cavern. “Y/N, I’m gonna- I’m so close..” You sped your movements up, the lewd squelching of your mouth becoming louder. “It’s almost like you want us to be caught, filthy slut.” Deuce’s attitude changed while he barked out his words, making your pussy throb. “Yeah? You want me to cum all over your pretty face? I wanna see you covered in my cum.. fuck!!” Deuce pulled away from your lips with an audible pop, pumping his hot cum all over your lips and cheeks. The sight of your puffy lips and blushing with your messy face made his cock twitch again.

Jack Howl x Fem! Reader

Giving

Jack is a more romantic type, prefers to be in a bedroom when he makes love with you, and certainly wants to give you a good time. He wants it to be private because he doesn’t want anybody else to admire you the way he should!

Jack would have you fully naked laying down so he can fully admire your beautiful body.

Leaves a lot of lingering touches all over your body with his fingers and tongue, loves to taste you~

Jack is skilled with his tongue, aggressive too. He uses his fingers and tongue at the same time to please you

Secretly loves if you reach down to pet his ears and head while he goes down on you - sometimes you can see his tail wag 🥺

Leaves marks all over your thighs close to your sex because he wants to show you’re his, but also has enough restraint to put them in places only you both will see.

Jack lapped up at your pussy, lewd noises filled your silent room. You gasped as he flicked your clit with his fingers, adding more pleasure to your body. “J-Jaack.!” You whined at the loss of feeling when Jack pulled away. “Use your words, Y/N…” he whispered, staring into your eyes. You gulped when you saw his entire mouth and chin were glistening with your juices. “Please, Jack, make me cum, I-I’m so close..” you hid your face away in embarrassment. Jack’s cock twitched in his pants and blushed heavily, his tongue going back to work on your cunt. He’ll prove to be your perfect mate.

Receiving

You and Jack would be finishing up a morning jog, a rare occurrence since Vil couldn’t make it this time. After going pretty far out into the woods, you get tired and decide to pause and stretch.

Jack sees your sweat making your skin glow under the early sun accompanied by your panting from being worn out. He turns to look away, but he can’t hide the growing tent in his pants.

Once you take notice you mischievously start to tease him and take off his pants. He’s flustered because, what if someone comes by?! You tell him not to worry since it’s so early and you were pretty far out.

Back resting on a tree, Jack stands while you’re on your knees looking up at him with doe eyes. You lightly palm his heavy cock until it’s fully erect, making eye contact the whole time while putting it in your mouth.

Jack knows you can’t fit the whole thing in there, and he’s usually really considerate of what you want never forcing it to go further down your throat.

Jack likes it if you fondle his balls as well while you use another hand to pump his base.

Whines slightly when he’s close, also begins to wag his tail!! Good boy!!

Also loves to see you with cum on your tongue, whether you wanna swallow or not is up to you~

Grunting and feeling the rough bark on the tree, Jack is preoccupied with the way your mouth takes him so well. You stare up at him with droopy eyes, tongue swirling around the tip, playing with the slit on his cock. When you combo that with playing with his balls, Jack feels something snap inside him. He’s grunting and snarling lowly, thrusting faster into you, eliciting gags and moans. “I- I’m close, Y/N. I’m gonna cum…” Jack’s voice only made you work faster, pumping harder on the base. You opened your mouth and stuck your tongue out, his milky seed exploding onto your tongue not a second later. A series of grunts and followed, as well as kisses and “I love you”’s exchanged between the both of you.

Floyd Leech x Fem! Reader

Giving

POV you are working at the Mostro Lounge and you are suddenly pulled away by a tight grasp around your arm or waist. It’s Floyd, your boyfriend!

Floyd tells you how delicious you looked while working and how he could smell you from the other side of the lounge (bro how?)

You know what he means by “taste you” when he drags you to either the nearest closet, storage room, or maybe his dorm room. You’re flustered and telling him to let you get back to work! Azul would be pissed knowing you both left out of nowhere.

Floyd’s grip tightens on your pants as he pulls them down, and he sees your wetness pooling in your panties already. I imagine Floyd would have no patience and start licking up aggressively up your panties, making a bigger wet spot

Floyd would either rip your panties or just eat you out while pulling them to the side - he’s too impatient and he just NEEDS to taste you

His droopy heterochromatic eyes are TRAINED on yours, he loves seeing the way your body reacts to him!

Squeezes any part of your body he can, your tits, nipples, ass, thighs, etc

“Shrimpyyy~ you taste so good! I knew it was a good idea to ditch work to lick you up~” he giggles furiously, licking again on your swollen clit. “F-Floyd! You, you shouldn’t leave work so suddenly like th- Aaahn~!” You keened, back arching off of his bed. Floyd was now squeezing your nipples between his pointer finger and thumb. The stimulation was becoming too much. “Floyd, Floyd!! I’m gonna cum!!” You started moving your hips on your own while hearing Floyd’s laughter resonate on your cunt. “Mm, Shrimpy is becoming so enthusiastic! Cum on my tongue then! I’ll be sure to lick it aaaall up~”

Receiving

Sometimes, when Floyd is in a bad mood all of a sudden, he doesn’t know why. You don’t know why, either. But you do know a way to make him feel better!

When you whisper in his ear, offering to help him, he doesn’t really know what you mean at first. When you explicitly tell him you want to suck his dick, his face immediately brightens! He’ll grab your arm and almost skip on over to a private garden around the school.

When you’re both comfortable, you pull his pants down and his cock bounces back up, already twitching and leaking precum.

Floyd is loud but he does not give a damn. Let people hear how good you’re making him feel! If someone were to stumble by, Floyd would make direct eye contact with them and smirk

Floyd also wants to facefuck you - pulling your head down and thrusting into you when he gets close! He loves the way you slobber and gag all over his cock

He is down to cum anywhere when he’s receiving oral, because he loves cumming in your pussy the most. But when he’s not doing that then anywhere else would suffice!

“Mm!! Floyd, what if someone sees us?” You muttered, suddenly feeling very nervous. You stroked his dick which was covered in a mixture of your saliva and his precum. Floyd suddenly pulled your mouth back onto his cock and kept thrusting, making you squeal in surprise. “Don’t worry, Shrimpy!! I’ll protect you, and besides, I think they should see how well you’re taking MY cock!” As you closed your eyes and kept suckling on his length, Floyd’s eyes narrowed dangerously towards the rustling sounds coming through the bushes. “And, I’ll deal with them accordingly.” Floyd’s tone was suddenly very serious, reassuring you as you kept working on pleasing him.

Divus Crewel x Fem! Professor! Reader

Giving

Your relationship with Crewel was only a rumor amongst students, two teachers dating is pretty taboo even in the magical world! When asked if you two were an item, both of you waved off the question and denied all rumors, saying you were only friends.

After a particularly stressful day of grading exam papers and dealing with unruly students, you go to Crewel’s office after classes are done to unwind, simply to rant.

Crewel offers a more… physical way to destress. He snakes his gloved hands up your thigh inch by inch, fingers trailing closer to your lacy pair of underwear that he bought you himself.

After locking his office door, Crewel seats you on his desk, using some accessories on you. He would blindfold you, tie your hands, etc!

Hiking up your skirt he gently removes your panties and rips a hole in your pantyhose if you’re wearing any 👀

Crewel wants you to use your words~ he loves hearing his favorite professor beg for release, loves watching your face contort with pleasure because of him

He loves your noises and actually would punish you if you tried to hide them!

I wouldn’t be surprised if he liked using toys on you to further your pleasure~

Gives you the sexiest eyes and smirks when you tell him you’re going to cum

“Oh- oh Great Seven, Divus…” you moan. Your arms were tied behind you as Crewel’s signature red tie obscured your vision. As he flicks his tongue over your clit with fervor you can feel how his fingers scissor open your wet pussy. “Oh, haaanh, shit!!!” You closed your legs instinctively, and gasped when he forces them back open. He tsks and stops altogether, eliciting a pained whine from your throat. “Now now darling, you know what happens to naughty girls, right?” You knew. He wouldn’t let you cum, at least not for a while. “N-no, master, I promise I’ll be good, I’ll be so good! Please, please let me cum, I’ve been a good girl for you, master Divus..!” You whined, tears staining his red tie. Crewel knew how stressful your day was so he decided to let you off the hook. “Mm, fine pup, you’ve had a stressful day. Cum on my tongue, if you so wish~”

Receiving

As much as Crewel loves giving oral, he LOVES receiving from you. You would be crouched down under his desk after hours while he’s grading papers.

It all starts with him texting you about how he “needs help grading.” You don’t expect THIS kind of help, but the idea gets you excited nonetheless.

Crewel would be sadistic - stuffing a vibrator into your pussy or ass while he’s having you service his cock. It’s not necessarily for your own pleasure but more for the idea of him controlling your orgasms and seeing you fall apart under him.

Has a remote that controls the speed and intensity of his toys~

Has a poker face the majority of the time when you’re doing it in his office until he’s close~

Oh! He also likes putting a choker and leash around your neck to see how obedient you are ❤️

Divus pulled lightly on the leash around your neck, signaling he wanted you to go deeper. You obliged, moaning around his cock. The vibrator that was plunging into your cunt had you practically dripping onto the floor beneath you. Your bottom half writhed in pleasure as your noises sent vibrations through to Crewel. “My beautiful pet, I’m getting close… be a good girl and cum with me, won’t you?” He suddenly grabbed a remote and raised the intensity of the vibrator to max, causing you to scream around his cock. “Mmph!!” You began to suck harder, tears rolling down your face onto his thighs. When Crewel finally saw your eyes rolling back he suddenly released his hot seed into your throat, making you sputter and gag. You swallowed and proceeded to open your mouth to Crewel who was pleased with your empty mouth. “What a good girl for me…”

[devildomdisaster]

Idk if you read Lore Olympus but chapter 129 gave me an angsty request idea.

So Persephone, who’s the goddess of spring, goes into a hibernation-like state and when her emotions go out of control, she ends up growing her hair really long and her body sprouts a lot of plants from her; to the point of covering her and whatever area she’s in with her plants.

So I would like to request head cannons of the Brothers reacting to an MC who gets really sad whenever the brothers insult or threaten them and after several weeks of being berated by demons it causes MC to shut down and go to their room but mistakes a comfort spell with a plant curse that causes their hair and plants to grow continuously long. The plants fill up MC’s room and while they would normally be surprised at the mistake, they don’t care any more. They allow the plants to to grow, even wrap around their neck and body, and hopes the curse kills them off before the brothers notice as they go in the “hibernation” stage of the curse (The curse causes the victim to grow a lot of plants and vines from their body until they die, which can take a few days).

I’m sorry for being so long and descriptive, I just wanna see the Bros panic and feel guilty that MC felt pushed to do this to themselves but I understand if you don’t want to do it

I don't read Lore Olympus but you described the situation really well so I hope this is something close to what you wanted.

Comfort spell gone wrong

Lately, nothing seemed to be good enough for the demons. No matter what you did one of them would find something to berate you for.

“Mc, your grades are subpar even for an exchange student. You’ll have to try harder in order to not be a disappointment to Diavolo and myself.” Lucifer warned over breakfast.

“Mc, you burned dinner. You should learn to be a better cook.” Beel grumbled. As if you had ever seen any of these ingredients before ending up in the Devildom.

Even Mammon seemed to be in a particularly unpleasant mood. A never-ending string of complaints about how hard it is to protect an ordinary human. “Geez, you’re such a hassle human.”

Taking refuge in the library to study and to give Mammon a break from you proved disastrous and nearly deadly. Somehow you’d managed to spill your cup of tea all over an old somewhat rare text after Asmo had barged in and startled you. Your string of bad luck continued when Satan rounded the corner and saw the soggy tea-stained pages you’d been trying to decipher. In his fit of rage, he’d called you several unpleasant names and asked if you were “capable of doing anything right or if all humans are as stupid as you?” You’d left as quickly as you were able to avoid any more of his wrath.

No matter where you went you kept walking in on Belphie napping and without fail he’d say something nasty to you, that would make tears burn the backs of your eyes.

Levi had angrily called you a “useless normie,” who he wished would “never come back.” and had pushed you from his room with a slam of his door.

Even Asmo who usually just ignored you when he was upset found every reason imaginable to critique your every aspect. Physical and personality. Not a single one of which made you feel any more than worthless.

So was it any wonder when at the end of a long week you’d locked yourself in your room and decided to try that comfort spell you’d heard Solomon talking about? It seemed simple enough. But then your tears had blurred your vision as you’d recited the words and your Latin was still shaky at best. But it was just a few lines! And there was no way you were going to go to one of the brothers for comfort when they had seemed perfectly happy to make you miserable for the last few weeks.

You’d read the spell aloud and curled up hoping that the spell would kick in and you’d feel even just the slightest bit better. The blinding green light and sudden drop in energy was the first and only warning the spell had gone wrong. But being new to magic meant it still sapped your energy, so you didn’t stop to think something might be wrong. By the time you realized what was happening, everything was out of control. Plants had begun to sprout from your skin and the floor around you, growing and growing. With each inch they grew you felt your exhaustion creep up and consume you. You were just so tired. Your eyes fluttered closed. This was wrong! You forced your eyes open again. You need to fix this. The spell! But a short nap wouldn’t hurt, would it? You’d have more energy after you woke up. Then you could go get one of the brothers. Satan would know how to fix this. Or Lucifer! He’d clean the spell up easily. Yes, after you woke up…

Lucifer hadn’t seen you all weekend. He figures you’re most likely studying. But you don’t show up for meals and none of his brothers have seen you either… and oh Diavolo! He can feel the spell from the dining room. How did he not notice sooner? The cold pulling sensation of the spell, like it was sucking the warmth and life from its surroundings.

When Lucifer reaches your door Mammon is already there. Knocking and shouting for you, but there's no answer. He all but breaks your door down, his brothers behind him, and finds you at the center of the spell. Unresponsive and covered in the plants using your energy to grow. The plants had begun climbing up the walls and twisting through your hair, sending out snow-white flowers.

“Beel! Don’t!” Lucifer warns as Beel reaches out to pull a handful of plants from you. “We don’t know what did this and what will happen to Mc if we just rip the spell off like that.”

“Lucifer, Mc did this to themself,” Satan points to the open spellbook. “It looks like they got a comfort spell mixed up.”

Fortunately, your last tired thoughts were correct and Lucifer is able to break the spell quickly. You wake surrounded by the brothers.

Lucifer:

All this happened for a comfort spell? Because you didn’t feel like you could come to him, to any of them?

He’s so sorry Mc. Enough that as he leans down to pick you up out of the mess of withering plants you can feel tears fall onto your face.

“Nothing I did was good enough for you Lucifer. Any of you. I just wanted to feel… I just wanted-”

His heart breaks when he realizes this is his brother’s fault, his fault. “You are always good enough, Mc. Much more than I could ever ask you to be, and if I ever made you feel like you weren't. No, the fact that I made you feel like you weren’t, means I have been truly terrible.”

You’re choking back your own tears now and you curl further into his arms as he carries you down the hall. “You said I was a disappointment.”

“My dear Mc, you have never been, nor could you ever be a disappointment to me. Forgive me for ever making you feel as if you were.”

Lucifer takes you to his bathroom and draws you a bath to wash away the last of the plant matter from your body.

Afterward, he’ll bring you anything you ask for. He wants to wrap you in his arms but doesn’t want to push you, so he asks softly if he can hold you.

He’ll spend weeks trying to make this up to you, even after you forgive him, he’ll be sure to tell you how much he loves you more often than he did before.

Mammon:

Shit human! Why didn’t you come to him? He loves you so much and oh. He made you feel like a burden.

How could he be so stupid when he knows how his brothers make him feel?

Mammon begs for your forgiveness in front of all his brothers.

“Please can ya forgive me? I never meant to make ya feel like a burden. You're the only human I- I want to protect you Mc. I’m so sorry.”

Mammon helps you up and since your room is covered in plants he offers to let you sleep in his room for the night.

He wraps you in blankets and brushes the hair from your face with trembling fingertips.

There are still a few stubborn leaves sticking to your face and in your hair so Mammon takes a warm washcloth and wipes them from your face before gently untangling the plants from your hair.

You’ll be getting little gifts and tokens of mammon’s affections for the foreseeable future.

Levi:

He threw you out of his room when you came to him for comfort and the guilt at seeing you almost die because of it is eating him alive.

He feels frozen

Maybe you would be better off without an otaku shut-in like him. He starts avoiding you like the plague.

You start to think that Levi is so disgusted with the fact that you did that spell that he doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore.

Despite this Levi still checks up on you. He wants to know that you are ok, he just does it without you knowing.

He’ll ask his brothers about you and discreetly glance at you during meals to make sure you’re eating enough and look healthy.

A few days later when your favorite and manga anime start showing up outside your door you confront Levi. “Are you mad at me? Do you just not want to be around me after what happened? Levi, I miss you!”

He is shook, and he can’t believe he messed up so badly.

He’s happy that he can invite you to hang out again, and he makes sure to spend long nights gaming or watching movies with you until you fall asleep against him. He’ll even stutter out how much he treasures his time with you, blushing fiercely all the while.

Satan:

Satan feels anger swell up inside him. How could he have let this happen? How could no one have seen how upset you were?

Once the spell has been dissolved he is at your side instantly. Brushing vines from your skin. His fingers are shaking in anger but his touch is so gentle.

When both you and your room are cleaned up Satan sits at your bedside, book in hand, reading to you.

He just wants to be close to you now. He wants you to know how much he cares about you but is still too worked up to get his thoughts out properly.

Eventually, his thoughts calm and he stops reading in the middle of a sentence. “Mc, I am so sorry. I never meant to make you feel unwanted. Every day I spend with you is infinitely better than a day without you. I know the spell was a mistake but… we almost lost you. I almost lost you.”

He wants to talk about what pushed you to do this. He won’t push but he really does think that he will be better able to help you if he understands.

Satan makes sure to spend more time with you from now on. He makes a conscious effort to check his temper at the door and be with you when you need him.

Sometimes he’ll just read to you until one of you confides in the other in quiet voices.

Asmo:

As you blink your eyes open Asmo gently brushes some plants from your cheek.

You are so pale and his heart breaks as you flinch away from him. You feel like a mess and you know you must look like one too so curl your body away from him trying to hide. Trying to avoid his critical gaze.

This is the moment Asmo knows he screwed up.

He draws his hand back, for a moment, before reaching out to you again. Cupping your cheek and wiping your tears away with perfectly manicured hands.

Lucifer has him take you to his bathroom to clean up while the rest of the brothers work to clear the plants from your room.

Asmo is quiet for a long while as he untangles plants from your hair.

“You’re so loved, Mc,” he says softly. “You are.” he insists when you shake your head no.

“More than you could ever know, and it’s our fault for not telling you. My fault for not making you feel worthy.”

After this incident, Asmo wants to make sure you know how beautiful you are. He starts self-care days once a week that soon turn into whole family affairs. Each week different combinations of his brother attend and you all work to pamper each other.

Asmo makes sure nothing like this happens again, he never wants to be part of the reason you feel unloved ever again.

Beel:

At first, Beel thinks you did this on purpose. Once the brothers realize you messed up the spell he is less angry but no less distraught.

Once you wake up, he wants to take you to get desserts. He’s heard humans eat Chocolate/ other sweets to feel better. And this makes sense to him, food does make everything better.

But you don’t want to go to Madam Screams or the kitchen to make your own. You’re still so tired. Not to mention embarrassed that you screwed the spell up this bad.

And now they are all staring at you like they care so much when none of them had any time to notice how they were making you feel before.

When you become unresponsive to the brother’s questions and apologies Beel scoops you up in his arms and walks away with you.

Something about the way he holds you close to his chest and his warmth causes you to finally let go.

You bury your face in his shirt to muffle your crying.

“I just… I felt so alone! And… I...but no one” you gasp out shakily between sobs.

Beel soothes you with soft murmuring as he gently cards his fingers through your hair and strokes down your back.

Once your crying quiets he starts to speak “Don’t do that again. You can always come to me Mc. I’m so sorry you felt like you couldn’t”

Belphie:

Belphie thinks it’s a joke at first. “Man, how could they mess up this bad?”

Then he sees Lucifer’s panicked expression and it hits him how serious this is.

Belphie is immediately by your side. Hands frantically feeling your wrist for a pulse.

After Lucifer breaks the spell and your eyes flutter open Belphie is filled with relief until a wave of guilt washes through him.

He can’t believe he fucked up so badly again. Sure this time he didn’t directly cause you physical harm, but he did play a role in causing you to almost die again.

“I am so very sorry Mc, I never meant to hurt you.”

He does everything he can think of to make it up to you. Anything you ask him for, as long as it’s within his power, is yours. No questions asked.

He asks permission just to hold your hand for weeks afterward as if he thinks you’ll come to your senses and decide you don’t want anything to do with him.

He wants to comfort you so bad.

To make sure you don’t feel like this again Belphie pulls you away to nap with him as often as he can get away with it. Most likely only a few times a week (much less often than he would like). Sometimes he uses this time just to talk with you. Others you really do nap, and Belphie curls himself around you. Occasionally he enters your dreams while you nap together to make sure no nightmares can touch you.

[no-droids]

Ask Me Again Tomorrow

gif credit @pedros-pascal​

Part Sixteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 16.3K

Warnings: SMUTTTTT, following/stalking, some fluffy moments but mostly just a lil action and interaction, I don’t think there’s any other warning besides language and the smut (comm sex WITH A TWIST YALLLLL) but if you happen to find something else that warrants a tag, please let me know and I will do so accordingly!

A/N: The response to this story has grown beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined and I genuinely thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the privilege of writing for you.  Hope this one ends up being okay and I’ll get to work on the next chapter soon!

***

Headstart—12:17pm:

The sky is so pretty.  There isn’t much to look at on the surface—rolling hills and plains, grassy but with dry bare spots breaking up the green stretches, but the sky.  It’s an oil painting above you, pastel swishes of yellows and pinks and purples with an enormous ringed planet taking up half the horizon and another sizable moon hanging high.

You should probably be running.  Like, for real sprinting, but you can’t push yourself to go faster than a brisk walk.  It’s so… free out here, more hills springing up every time you get to the top of the next, warm air filling your lungs.  Even though you know realistically that the beginning will likely be the hardest—where you need to focus most on running and putting distance between you instead of hiding—truth be told, you’re not foreseeing making it more than a full day.  You’re going to try, obviously, but in the grand scheme, you wouldn’t be surprised in the least if he finds you tomorrow.  So, instead of wasting all your energy going as fast as you physically can right out of the gate, you just decide to stroll and think for a little bit.

You know what your goal is.  Obviously, to last as long as you can, but more specifically… well, if Din is going to chase after you, then he’s going to try to think like you.  Anticipate your movements, if he can’t already see the tracks you leave plain as day.  Very soon, he’ll be walking this same exact pathing, following the footprints you’re leaving behind, but if you’re ever able to shake him or throw him off course, he doesn’t have a tracking fob.  He doesn’t have any mechanical device that points him in your direction—if you can lose him with the footprints, then he’ll have to rely solely on predicting you. Which means you need to think… exactly the opposite of yourself if you want to outsmart him.

That’s harder than it sounds though, because… is he going to predict you predicting him?  At what point does it stop?  You somehow have trouble seeing this as an advantage the way he said it would be—you almost wish you had someone else chasing you, someone you didn’t know and someone who didn’t know you if only so this paradox could end before it begins.

You’re walking for about ten minutes before spotting a dirt road in the distance.  There’s a person following it in the direction of the sun—you don’t know this planet’s magnetic field but you do know it’s after noon and the sun would set on Arvala-7 in the west, so that’s what you’ll call it for now.  You call out to them as soon as you’re in range, and the stranger turns to you.

“Excuse me!”  It’s a woman, you see it as you get closer.  “I’m so sorry to bother you, but can you tell me where this road leads?”

She removes a sheer yellow shawl covering her dark hair and gives you a friendly smile.  “Hello,” the lady greets, before spinning around and pointing back the way she came.  “Osiruu is a few hours that way.  There’s not much there, but it will take you to G’ila, a transport hub with many opportunities for drifters, or Nariss, the capital.  I’m on my way to Shabeth,” she points in the other direction.  “It’s far—a day’s walk, but it’s a holy place and offers quite the view.  I would be glad for the company, but I understand its lack of practical appeal.”

So this place is safe enough to be inviting strangers along on your travels, noted.  You’re going to have to make the decision right now, then.  Which path should you take?

Something deep inside you tells you that you want to see this holy place, and just from a few sentences, you already like this woman and feel safe with her.  But then all of a sudden, you remember something.

Last known locations tell you a lot about a quarry, Din’s voice drifts back to you, sounding soft and distant from the dark forests of Naboo.  Smart ones go to populated planets, planets like Coruscant, planets that make it nearly impossible to find people.  Brave ones go to dangerous planets, suicidal ones try their luck in the Unknown Regions, idiots continue to go about their business on their homeworld without caring.  But planets like this—like Naboo… those are the pacifists.  The ones that don’t ever put up a fight.

You suppose you should decide what kind of quarry you want to be.  Friendly company and a view is something you normally crave—it’s something your soul speaks to after going without it for so long during your previous life.  You never pictured yourself as the fighting type.  When Din first asked you, you told him you wouldn’t run from him if he was chasing you, and choosing to accompany this kind stranger to her destination is essentially just that.  Sacrificing a chase for a pretty view.

“Does Shabeth have a sizable population?”  You ask her, and she shakes her head.

“It’s the sight of an annual pilgrimage that happens in a few months, but it’s beautiful there and I like to go whenever I can,” she tells you with a soft smile.  “But there’s nothing for miles outside it, I’m afraid.”

Your footprints will lead directly there.  He’ll find you easily.

“It sounds very nice, but I need to find somewhere with a lot of people,” you give her an apologetic smile.  Truly, you think she would’ve made for a nice friend.  “Thank you for your help, though, and good luck with your journey!  I hope we meet again.”

“Do you need any food or supplies?”  She asks you, and you stop short of passing her by.  “I don’t have much with me, but know what it’s like to be a newcomer to Sanctuary II.  I’d be glad to help.”

Good Maker, is this how everybody is here or did you just hit the jackpot with this lady?  She seems like… you, almost.  Her voice is gentle, she looks like she’d give nice hugs.  You’re about to politely turn her down, but then you realize the brilliant opportunity that’s presented itself in her image.

“Actually, this might sound like a really strange question, but…” you tell her, before looking down at her feet.  “Wanna trade shoes with me?”

***

Headstart—6:12pm:

You don’t think it’ll work, but as you walk into a small settlement a few hours later in a unfamiliar and worn pair of sandals, you decide that you’ll need to do this as often as possible.  You can’t come up with anything else that’ll throw him off your physical trail besides constantly switching shoes—is that bad?  Are you just an idiot with no hope?  You’ve had—you check your watch—like, five hours to think of a game plan, and all you’ve come up with is shoes?  You’re screwed.

At least there’s food here.  Plenty.  There’s vendors stationed along the street, multiple people passing by and going about their business.  Osiruu, that nice woman said—not much here, but you think she was wrong.  There’s children giggling and jumping rope on the corner, a shopkeeper sweeping her storefront, a graying man with an empty cup plucking an unfamiliar melody on an unfamiliar instrument—and while your tummy growls and you know you should quickly buy supplies and be on your way, you still stop for just a few minutes to listen.

It’s a lovely tune.  You drop a few credits in his cup after he finishes and find yourself humming it as you look at the plethora of goods being offered by the vendors.  Water, food—you buy enough of everything to sustain you for at least a couple days, not wanting to go hungry but also feeling realistic over optimistic.  The cuisine is foreign and you just point to things that look appetizing since you’re not sure about the name or pronunciation, but after paying and taking a bite into a rather large piece of purple fruit, your eyes nearly cross at how sweet and tasty it is.  Holy Maker, that might just be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.  You ask for two more after you finish the first, tucking one in your backpack next to your blaster and munching on the other as you keep browsing.

Suddenly you see shoes—yes.  Fucking shoes, your salvation.  You take a good look at all your options, of which, there aren’t many.  Generic men's, women's, and children's, all in the same color and design.  It’s good in a way—you see most people walking around in the same type of clothing here and you pray there’s not a way for him to track your gait or the whole thing is a bust, but truthfully, what you’re most worried about is the fact that you’ll create a brand new set of footprints wherever your old ones disappear.  Unless you trade with someone else, you won’t ever have a back pathing, you know that Din will probably be able to easily spot it.

“Three pairs of these, please,” you point to the correct shoes and tell him your size, but then—“Oh wait, actually, can I actually have one of them that’s the next size up?  And another that’s the same but in men's?”

The man behind the counter gives you an odd look but acquiesces, measuring the size of your preferred pair to multiple men’s shoes to find one that looks roughly the same—you doubt he’s ever had a request like this, but you’re also a generous tipper.  His smile is grateful when you tell him to keep the change and then you’re stuffing the new shoes into your backpack and moving onward.

Would there be some kind of map here, you wonder?  One that shows distance so you won’t waste time trying to reach a place you won’t be able to walk to?  That lady said a transport hub and the capital are through this settlement, but she didn’t provide much information beyond that.  You don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere when he finally catches up to you, you’ll need some place to hide.

When you stop to ask an elderly gentleman as he passes by, he freely provides you a basic gist.  There’s a large forest beyond Osiruu—after it will be a road that passes through a few notable places, with a town called Sijua to the west that leads north to G’ila, and Devain to the east that leads northeast to Nariss.  Both are within walking distance, though it may take a couple days to reach your destination.

Alright then.  Through the forest, you suppose.  You probably should’ve asked which way is east, but he’s already leaving and you don’t have the nerve to ask him to stop again.  You have a finger point, that’s all you need.  Making sure to use one of the small restrooms near the square before heading out, you eventually decide to make your way towards the direction he said this forest would be.

***

Headstart—6:58pm:

A bus.

You’re not going to take it, of course, but it’s the perfect solution to the problem you’ve been mulling over.  It’s at the very edge of the small settlement, and you quickly speed up into a half-jog as soon as you hear its engine running.

“Last call for the seven o’clock!”  A large man stationed near the doors yells as you approach.  “Last bus to G’ila until tomorrow!”

The sun is setting and you have to extend your hand out in front of you to not be blinded by it.  “Hello,” you give him a smile, before grabbing one of the handles on the side and stepping up onto the metal platform.

“Ah!”  The man quickly stops you, moving to stand in front of the open doors.  He’s as wide as he is tall, big enough that he blocks the entire exit.  “That’ll be ten credits, miss.”

“Oh,” you say, patting your empty pockets and pulling your eyebrows inwards, trying not to move too much in case the sizable amount of credits you have stashed in your backpack happen to rattle.  “Oh, no.  I think I lost my wallet.”

He sighs.  “Off the bus then please, miss.  Come back tomorrow if you find it.”

You nod, leaning your forearm against the paneling and beginning to take your shoes off.  “Will it be parked in the same place exactly?”

The driver looks curiously at you, clearly confused at both the strange question and your strange actions.  “I’m sorry?  Please—off the bus.”

“One second,” you tell him, now barefoot on the platform and digging into your backpack for the slightly larger sized shoes you bought earlier.  The sound of credits clink against your blaster, but you hope he takes your lead in purposefully ignoring them.  “Does the bus to G’ila park in this spot every single day?”

“Yes,” the man tells you impatiently, eyeing the way you’re stepping into the new pair with a subtle look of distaste.  Everyone is polite here, it seems.  “It will arrive back at seven am sharp with passengers from G’ila, in the same exact place.  Please get off the bus.”

“Thank you, sir,” you tell him with a smile, watching him step to the side to allow you to drop down into the dirt again and continue on your way.

Brilliant, if you do say so your fucking self.  Eliminate the need for a back pathing.  All footprints facing this direction are going to be the first footprints, and all of them facing the opposite way are going to be the last; if Din manages to figure out you didn’t take the bus, then he won’t be able to tell which new set are yours and which belong to the other passengers.  You pray the helmet can’t track gaits, but while you’re still paying enough attention, you make sure to keep your steps just slightly longer and even try placing more weight on the edges of your feet to make it look like you have a slightly higher arch than you actually do.  You’d put a pebble inside of them or something, but you know you’re going to be walking through the night and you don’t want to commit to having your feet hurt more than you already know they’re going to.

Eventually the quaint shops and small houses disappear behind you, and the sun setting over the horizon turns the clouds above turn more dusty green and brown than yellow and pink.  You hope Din opened up the ramp after you left.  You want him to see the sky.

***

Headstart—9:34pm

The forest here is different from Naboo, too.

Maybe it was because you only saw it while you were in crisis-mode, but that forest seemed much scarier and darker than this one.  The vegetation there was thick and overgrowing, but these trees look like they’ve never had leaves on them at all.  No twigs or small branches that sprout from the trunks—the branches are all thick and gnarly, criss-crossing with each other with how close they’ve grown together.  You bet their roots are practically one at this point, stretching for miles and miles but all sharing the same system.

Because there aren’t any leaves, there's nothing to block the moonlight shining clear and crystalline through the twisting maze of branches.  Sanctuary II appears to have a sister moon—Sanctuary I, perhaps?—that’s likely a similar size, because it’s the same one you've seen all day and it’s barely moved a few degrees that you can tell.  It must orbit incredibly close and be tidal-locked with this one then.  Two massive satellites swinging around each other as they circle a ringed gas giant, but it makes a stunning view and reflects more than enough light to see.

The sky is deep blue and maroon and you’ve been walking in a straight line for hours, using the stationary moon overhead as your guide.  The only issue with this plan that you’ve been able to come up with is that there’s no widely traveled path through the trees—even you can see your footprints and the clear trail you’re leaving behind.  You’ve been trying for a while to figure out another clever evasion tactic, but it’s harder than it sounds.  Can’t just change shoes again, that’ll be a dead giveaway.  How do you lose him?

You stop for a second, reaching into your bag to grab some water and stay hydrated.  Looking up once more at the beauty of the swirling colors peeking through the branches above you, you find yourself pausing after returning the bottle to your pack.  There are… an atrocious number of branches up there, and all of them are long and tangled and thick.  Sturdy.

You’ve… never climbed a tree before.

Without thinking much beyond that, you decide to bend your knees and jump, grabbing hold of one of the strong wooden tubes over your head and then swinging your legs up.  Ouch—the bark scrapes against your palms and you have to hold on tight with your thighs while you shimmy yourself upwards, but at least the wood is solid as fuck.  It takes you a minute or two, but you’re eventually able to shuffle yourself around so you’re straddling the thick branch, and then you look out to see the large collection of them criss-crossing in every direction around you.

Oof, this is dangerous.  You know it even before you start.  The gaps leading to the ground are bigger and more numerous than your potential pathing forward, but the only thing that gives you reassurance is how thick the wood is—you’re almost certain the branches aren’t going to break as long as you’re careful.

Okay.  Shoes, these are too big for the kind of dexterity you’re going to need.  You take them off slowly, being extra careful not to drop them, and then exchange them with the better-fitting pair you bought earlier, making a mental note that the sandals and the larger shoes are the two you’ve already worn.  If your pursuer manages to catch on to the multiple footprint changes, your most recent ones should ideally just… disappear right there, shouldn’t they?

You grin, before struggling into a low crouch and looking around your wooden cage for a safe way forwards.

***

Headstart—11:37pm:

Water.

A blessing, and not because you’re thirsty.  You have clean water in your bag and decades of habits formed in the desert to ensure you’re taking breaks and drinking enough—what you need is a way to disguise your footprints once you get back on the ground again.  This was good; scuttling your way along thick and twisting branches for as long as you have was time-consuming and exhausting, but it allowed you to avoid touching the ground for at least a mile or so, which means he’ll have to comb that entire radius to look for your drop.

And it was fun.

You even found yourself giggling as you ducked and scooted, ignoring the bark scraping your skin and your panting breaths, the way your face got sweaty and hot.  You had to do some brave maneuvers at tricky spots—jumping, balancing, hugging—but it almost just felt like an exciting little obstacle course for you and you’re honestly having a fucking blast right now.

Water, though.  Water is an unexpected beauty, even more than you’ve always considered it to be.  Water is an eroder.  Not only powerful enough to smooth down the rough edges of strong elements over time, but it will hide your footprints as soon as you create them and leave no indication that you were ever there.

Eventually you see it—a babbling stream cutting a considerably wide line through the trees.  You creep forward and hang tight to a branch above you to make sure you won’t fall, wiping the sweat on your brow with your other hand as you study the terrain.  The water is… a considerable distance below you, maybe about ten or so feet, and there’s quite a few branches on either side that extend and hang out over it.  You could probably find your way to the other side somehow, but something tells you to avoid the road beyond the forest if you can.  It leads to multiple places, it would be better to follow the stream until you can eventually merge with it later.

That means you’re… fuck.  You’re going to have to jump, aren’t you?

It’s the only way—you can’t leave footprints which means you’re going to need to land in the water.  The trees clear too far from the shoreline, so you can’t shimmy down the trunk of one for a shorter fall.  You’re going to have to climb out on one of those long branches until you’re suspended over the stream, and then you’re going to have to lower yourself as far as you can and then let go.  With your height already accounting for at least half the distance plus the length of your arms as you hang, you should only have to drop two or three feet before reaching water, and then maybe another two feet to the floor under it.  It looks forgiving enough—the moonlight shines and the stream is clear and you can mainly just see sand at the bottom, no sharp rocks or other potential dangers to be found.  This… this is doable.

Okay.  If you pull this off, you’re a badass.  If you don’t break any bones or seriously injure yourself in any way, you deserve some kind of commendation.  This is probably kiddie shit to Din, who keeps literal rockets strapped to his back and jumps out of ships flying thousands of feet above the ground, but this is a challenge for you and you’re feeling just excited enough to be up to it.

You’re eventually able to climb onto the thickest, sturdiest branch you can see that happens to hang over the water, straddling it and beginning to scoot.  Your thighs are killing you at this point but you’re holding deathly tight to the wood, your movements becoming more and more cautious the further away from the trunk you get.

You’re directly above the water now, but you need to go out a little further.  Aim for right in the middle so you don’t accidentally leave any tracks or prints on the shoreline if you need to catch yourself.  The unfamiliar wood in this forest is admittedly sturdy, but the branch begins to subtly sag with your weight as you keep slowly scooting forward, and you’re just about to the correct spot when—

Day 1–12:00am:

“Sweet girl.”

—You nearly fucking fall.

“Maker,” you gasp, suddenly scrambling to catch yourself on the branch before you can plummet.  It creaks and groans under your weight but supports you nonetheless, and when you’re one hundred percent certain it isn’t going to break, you jerk your head down to the communicator and see that it’s midnight, on the dot.

Shit.

Your heart slams against your ribs and your arms shake with adrenaline while you study it for just a moment longer, trying to calm the fuck down.

“Hey,” Din’s voice comes sharply from your wrist, crackling and tinny through the comm, nearly scaring you again.  “Answer me.”

You don’t want to sacrifice your grip right now, but you have no doubt he’ll fly the Crest out to you if you don’t respond.  So you quickly let go to press a button on the front face and then latch onto the branch tight once more, raising your voice because you can’t risk bringing your wrist up to your mouth to speak.  You hope he’ll be able to hear without the microphone picking up the sound of the stream below.  “Uh.  Ahem.  Hello.  Yes?”

“You’re too quiet,” Din’s disembodied voice immediately informs you.  “Or something on your side is too loud.  There’s an earpiece built into the side of the communicator, take it out and use it instead.”

You study the wrist brace without moving, until you finally see what he’s talking about.  It’s a small, wireless piece of machinery hidden on the left side of the electronic display, and you quickly pop it out and stuff it into your ear just in time to hear the sound of hydraulics clanging through the speaker as you clutch the branch again.  You’d know that sound anywhere, it’s the ramp of the hull closing.

“Are you already on the move?”  You ask him incredulously, your thighs starting to go numb with how deathly tight you’ve been squeezing this tree.

“Can’t sleep,” Din murmurs, sounding so much closer and deeper than before.  Does he have his earpiece on under the helmet or something?  Stars, is that why his voice sounds that good?  It’s like it’s coming from inside your own head, bassy and rough.  “Ready or not.”

You huff, your tummy going warm.  Of course he can’t sleep, of course he’s going to look for you as soon as he’s allowed to.  If he waited until morning, you’d probably be slightly offended.  You try to slow your heart rate into something acceptable, but being this far above water and hearing his baritone murmur directly in your ear make it difficult.  “But I’m… sleepy.”

“You’re always sleepy,” he tells you, and though you can’t actually hear him walking, the sound of his footsteps shake through his voice just slightly as he speaks.

“Hang on,” you huff, ducking your head to drag it against your shoulder, keeping the sweat from your eyes without using your hands, “you’re gonna make me stay up all night just because you do?  This isn’t fair—”

“Fair wasn’t part of the rules.”

Well.  Fair.

Stars, you can’t stay here.  You don’t know how long he wants to check-in for, but you’re also not confident with this branch’s ability to hold you for an extended time when you’re this far out from the trunk.  You need to get in that stream one way or another, but now that he’s here, you have an extra problem.  Din is going to hear you no matter what.

“Um.  Can you give me a second?”  You ask him, glancing around to make sure there’s no better way of doing this.  Nope, you realize very quickly—this is the best idea you’ve got, and you don’t really know what that says about the quality of all your other ideas.

“What?”  Din grunts shortly, but you just clear your throat.

“I need to… mute myself.  Give me like… five minutes.”

“What are you talking abou—”

“You of all people cannot be upset about asking for five minutes of quiet,” you return testily, looking down at the distance to the stream once more.  That’s a long way.  You… you can’t swim obviously, but again, the water doesn’t look too deep.  Just a couple feet likely, shouldn’t go past your knees.

It’s fitting that he doesn’t say anything, which you eventually take as disgruntled acceptance, so you quickly press the proper button on your wrist to silence the mic and then take a few deep breaths.  You have a time limit now, you have to do this.

With incredible patience and precision, you eventually slide until you’re clutching the branch upside down like an only slightly quicker and less coordinated sloth, before slowly dropping your legs and hanging over the water.

It’s… admittedly a bit further down than you anticipated, or maybe that’s just you making things worse than they actually are, but you’re committed at this point and there’s no going back.

You close your eyes, count to three, and then you let go.

The sandy floor meets your feet with considerable force and you make a hell of a splash doing it, nearly falling but just barely managing to keep yourself balanced and upright at the last second.  The water is cool and comes up just over your knees, your backpack miraculously didn’t get wet and all your limbs remain shaky but unbroken.

Okay.  Okay, fucking success.  It feels… thrilling, accomplishing a dangerous feat, and you quickly let out a loud whoop before clearing your throat, trying to sound normal as you press a button on the communicator’s face once more.

“Mando?”  You ask, slightly out of breath.  “Sorry about that, I’m back.”

Okay, now which way do you go?  Downstream seems like the easier path after getting in so much unexpected exercise, so that’s the one you go with.  As soon as you lift your foot from the sand bed, you watch your footprint almost immediately disappear through the moonlit water, and you bite your lip at just how well everything turned out for you.

After a moment though, you realize he hasn’t answered you.  You look down at the communicator again to make sure you pressed the right thing.  “Hello?  Shiny?”

“Did you trade shoes with someone?”  Din’s voice suddenly comes through the earpiece, sounding absolutely incredulous.

“Shit,” you tell him, trying not to smile.  “Hoped that was gonna buy me more time.”

“It… might’ve, if you kept walking in the same direction as they were,” he informs you after a moment.  “Your shoes went south, but this other pair got all the way out here just to turn back around again?  Good idea, but the execution needs work.”

Maker, he’s smart.  It was the first attempt at a footprint change so you weren’t thinking much beyond tricking the tracking mechanism in his helmet, you ignored his logic completely.  Essentially, the exact opposite of what he told you to do.  You like to think you’re getting better at it by this point, thinking beyond just the original exchange, and you’re hoping you’ll be able to trick him with at least one of the other fifty times you changed shoes today.  You’ll have to see tomorrow night, if you can make it that long.

Also, the road you were on apparently goes north-south, that’s important information you make sure to take note of.  The man in Osiruu said Devain and Nariss are to the east, and that Sijua and G’ila are westward, right?  Remembering that you thought south was west earlier, you do some quick calculating and immediately come to a stop in the moving water as soon as you figure out your positioning, turning around and walking upstream instead.

You want to go to Nariss.  The capital, and the biggest city in walking distance.  Smart quarry go to populated places, places that make it nearly impossible to find people.

“Alright.  Mando: one, Me: zero,” you finally acknowledge, swinging your backpack around and unzipping it to dig inside for another piece of fruit.  You’ve been hungry for hours but had to use both hands to stay safe and far above the ground, it’s the perfect time to eat.  “How’s the baby?  Behaving himself?”

“He kept trying to follow you after you left,” comes Din’s response, and you stop with just your teeth piercing the flesh, wondering if you heard him right.  You actually open your jaw and pull the fruit away with just a bite mark in it.

“You’re joking.”  No fucking way, not that little demon.

“Wish I was,” he tells you solemnly.  “Made a fuss, tried to open the ramp a few times.  Didn’t cause any trouble after, just… pouted.”

That’s… that’s exactly how he responded the very first time Din left the kid on the ship with you instead of bringing him along.  He threw a fit, tried to ditch you for his dad multiple times, and then ultimately just looked cute and mopey with his limp ears until Din came back.  Do you think it’s just him rebelling against change?  That has to be it, right?

“He better not be giving you any hints about where I am,” you warn his father.  “I’d tell you to put him on but I don’t want the earpiece getting lost forever.”

You hear it.  The softest laugh—barely a breath, coming after years of learning to make it just quiet enough not to be registered by the helmet.  It gets picked up by the communicator in all its understated beauty when normally it’d be silent, and it’s just jarring enough to make you careless.

On your next step, you accidentally lift your foot too high and make a splash, and you already know you fucked up before he can say a single word.

“What’s that sound?”

You immediately stop moving, allowing the cool water to move as silently as possible past your stationary knees.  Shit.  “Uh.  What sound?”

You think he purposefully doesn’t say anything.  Probably because it feels a little like cheating, doesn’t it?  It’s to your disadvantage, having him be able to catch hints from your environment when he’s the one who made check-ins mandatory, but then again… how smart do you think he is?  Something tells you that he might not need to track you at all—what are the chances he stumbles upon this little stream and just naturally assumes you were clever enough to use it to hide your trail?  Did you waste time trying to engineer a vanishing act when it’s not going to matter regardless?

Oh well, too late now.  You quickly decide to change the subject.

“You should try the big purple fruit that one vendor sells when you get into Osiruu, by the way,” you tell him pleasantly, taking a big chomp out of it and then letting out an extended hum of delight that only really fucking good food or sex causes a person to make.  “I’m eating one right now, it’s so good.  Be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”

“Mm.  Doubt it,”  immediately comes his low response.  Fucking immediately.

“Mando,” you gasp, scandalized and giddy enough that juice dribbles down your chin a bit.

“Are you having fun?”  Din asks, instead of pushing the conversation any further in that direction.  You don’t know if you’re thankful or disappointed with how quickly he decided to abort, but you take a moment to consider his question while swallowing and wiping your mouth.  Not the answer, you know the answer—but why he bothered to ask.  Did he know you were going to enjoy yourself as much as you have?  Your only possible lament is how you’re talking to him through a communicator instead of having him next to you.

“I am,” you say warmly.  “Be… be better if you were here, though.”

“Give me your coordinates,” Din proposes, and his voice is just low and rumbly enough to make you pause.

You’re really, really proud of yourself for only considering it for a few seconds before scoffing.  “Psh.  Nice try.”

“Was worth a shot,” he sighs through the earpiece, and you smile, taking another bite of fruit.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” you offer, grinning at the implication.

“We’ll see,” you hear him return, and though his tone doesn’t really change, you know he’s probably rolling his eyes.  He won’t have to ask for your coordinates because he’ll already be there, but it’s nice to pretend for a while longer.

And then you both walk all through the night, sharing casual banter with each other for hours.  He never once implies he wants to disconnect, even when you hit him with more nonsensical questions—

“What’s your favorite food?”  (“I don’t have one.”)

“Okay, well what about just a food that you like?”  (“I don’t like food that much.”)

“What do you mean?  Everyone loves food.”  (“Not me.”)

“Alright, well um.  What’s your favorite color, then?”  (“I don’t have one, either.”)

“Come on, you must have some kind of color you like.”  (“What’s your favorite color?”)

“…Brown.”  (“Then that’s my favorite, too.”)

—until the sun rises and you both say your goodbyes.

***

Day 1–6:15am:

You resolve to waiting until you see another person to allow your feet to touch dry land, figuring the longer you stay untraceable, the better off you’ll be.  Your toes are wrinkly and your pantlegs and shoes have been drenched for hours, but then you finally spot a few fishermen standing upstream with their backs to you, speaking to each other in the dawning light.  Two look to be full-grown, but there’s a smaller one in the middle, maybe a teenage boy, and you pause for a second, looking at the riverbank next to them.  All their valuables—water, food, bait, extra rods, but also… their shoes.

Quietly, you reach into your backpack and remove the pair of men’s shoes you bought earlier.  The ones closest to you on the shore seem to be the smallest, so you sneak over as silent as possible and rapidly make an exchange, fitting the new ones on your wet feet before allowing yourself to touch dry land and then speed walking away.

The ones you left him are newer and roughly the same size anyways—yikes, maybe slightly smaller now that you’re thinking about it—but at least you have a back pathing.  If that kid decides to take your offering and the shoes fit, Din will follow him, and if he decides to go barefoot instead, he should still follow him, right?  You’re not really aiming to trick him outright, mostly you just want him to waste more and more time.  This likely wouldn’t work if there wasn’t a time limit attached to this hunt, but you’re going to do everything you can to disappear while he’s still far enough behind you.

***

Day 1–7:06am:

You get to Devain remarkably quickly after finding the correct road.  The pit stop is much bigger than Osiruu, big enough to call an actual town instead of just a settlement, but still not large enough to feel concealed.  You want a city.  This place at least has cars and ships moving about and overhead respectively, but you’re looking for somewhere with lines.  Somewhere that feels as cramped and busy as possible.

Still, you find a restroom to use and then decide to grab some more food for your trip, happily spotting your new favorite purple fruit in one of the shop windows.  As you’re reaching out to hand the storekeeper the appropriate amount of credits, Din’s gruff voice comes through the earpiece so suddenly that you jump, nearly dropping them all on the counter.  “Hey.”

“Holy shit, what?”  You gasp, earning a confused look from the lady in front of you.  You quickly shake your head at her and mouth an apology while Din grumbles in vexation.

“You were supposed to stay on foot.”

Ah.  So he got to the bus, then.  Okay.

“Oh,” you answer ambiguously, exchanging the money for your bag of food and giving her a polite smile.  Din stays completely mute while you grab your snack, stuffing the rest of the goods in your backpack and then turning to leave—mute for so long that you have to double check you didn’t accidentally do it yourself.

“…Smart girl,” you finally hear him say.  Quietly muttered under his breath, half proud of you and half frustrated for making his job more difficult.  “Which one of these is yours then?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you announce, before taking a large bite as you leave the establishment and talking with your mouth full.  “You really gotta try the purple fruit, it’s great.”

The communicator abruptly clicks to silence on his end without anything else and you laugh so unexpectedly that a few pieces of it fly out of your mouth.

***

Day 1–1:32pm:

Somewhere miles away from you, Din jerks to a halt in the middle of a forest.

He looks around the dirt floor, walks a few paces and hears the kid coo gently from his cradle.  Behind the visor, the red footprints he’s circling are the last ones around for hundreds of meters, as far as his display can read.

His helmet slowly tilts upwards, and follows the endless maze of thick branches overhead.

With the beskar hiding his face, no one can see the way he slowly breaks into a beautiful grin.

***

Day 1–9:51pm:

Oh.  Oh stars, you’re tired.

You’ve been walking all day without really seeing anything, not having any place to disguise your tracks in the wide open plains.  You could’ve stuck to the road, but you started to feel the exhaustion creep in during the early afternoon and you wanted to be far away from other travelers and potential danger if you needed to rest.  You knew this would be a long journey when you left Devain earlier—over a day’s walk, a group of children told you—you even tried skipping or jogging a bit to see if that would inspire more energy in you, but it didn’t help much.

The large cup of caf you bought while in town was drained hours ago and it didn’t help much either, probably because your exhaustion is more physical and not necessarily mental.  It just felt like a sweet warm drink to sip before you go to sleep, that’s how much the caf helped.  Still, you kept walking, kept moving forward even as you squinted in the setting sun, your feet aching from traveling for this long wearing unfamiliar shoes.  The last time you changed them was hours ago, pulling another bus maneuver but with an air shuttle instead.  Still, you don’t think it’ll be enough.  You don’t even know where Din is but you already feel like you’re losing ground just knowing that he’s the one in pursuit.

You feel it—the hair standing up on your neck, the tingles in your hands, the stirring of your tummy—whatever the incessant gogogo that your instincts happen to scream when you’re in first place but you know the person behind you is quickly closing in.  It’s day fucking one, it’s day one and you feel him in the wind as it brushes through your hair, you can’t even pause to rest because nobody knows better than you that he’s an absolute fucking machine when he wants to be.  The kid may have powers beyond that which can be explained by the laws of nature, but Din is a force all his own.  He drives you forward when everything inside you is telling you to stop.  He keeps you awake and determined when you just desperately need to rest.

But that only goes so far.  You’re bordering on two full days without sleep, and though you’d normally be able to suffer through, the constant movement is just brutal after being confined to a stationary ship for so long.

There’s a lone tree in the distance, you think.  It’s hard to see.  Not because it’s dark—well it is, just a bit darker tonight compared to last, but mostly because your eyelids have grown heavier and more burdensome than the bag around your shoulders.  That looks like a good place to just sit for a second, right?  Maybe eat some more food, try and wake yourself up?  Yeah, that’s a good idea, you’ll head towards the tree and just… sit…

***

Day 2–12:00am:

Completely dead to the galaxy and sitting on your ass with your back against rough bark, the comm clicks and Din’s voice comes through the earpiece.

“Wake up.”

It startles you enough to make you lurch forward and jerk your head around in a panic, looking for any flash of beskar so you can instantly break opposite to it.  You scramble on all fours to look around but you don’t see anything, not even behind the trunk when you crawl, and then you take a deep breath and use the bone of your wrists to rub your eyes vigorously after a moment, knowing your hands are filthy.  “Fuck, how’d you—”

“You’re always sleepy,” Din repeats, and you collapse back into the tree with an exhausted groan, not entertained but not even having the energy to get mad about it.

“I… I gotta sleep,” you tell him, already feeling your body let go of its tension and search for the darkness of unconsciousness once more.  “Shit.  How d’you… mm.  Stay awake all the time…”

“Sleep,” Din encourages, you can still hear him walking.  “You need rest.  I’ll see you soon.”

No—

“No,” you whine like a child, moaning and shoving yourself upright.  Maker, you’re trying to focus, but asking that of yourself is almost impossible right now.  Everything swims—you were dreaming, you think, but you can’t remember and it’s not important other than to emphasize how woozy you are.  Things still feel like a dream, somehow.

You think he can hear your struggling through the comm, because the sound of his footsteps pause.  “Go to sleep.”

“You go to sleep,” you tell him bluntly, giving your head a violent shake to try and wake you up.  You want to slap your own cheek but you don’t want him to hear it.  “I can’t sleep if you don’t.”

“I’ve have at least a couple more days in me before that happens,” Din murmurs, and you bet he knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing to you.  You start to slouch, hearing the voice he uses when he’s curled around your body in the darkness of the hull.  So warm, so gentle.  If you use your imagination, you can feel his fingers drawing slow circles on your back, the vibration of his low voice rumbling against your ear as you lay your head on his chest.  “If I hunt you the way I’d hunt a quarry, I’m going to find you before you wake up.”

“Then I’ll jus’ have to… not let tha’ happen,” you slur.  Even this close to unconsciousness, you try your best to throw in a misdirect.  “Already… paid for the bed an’ everything.”

“Sure you did.  You in another tree?”

You immediately frown even as your eyes drop closed, too tired to fight but still managing to sound upset.  “You makin’ fun of me?”  You ask him with a harumph.  Genuinely, you’re not smart enough to figure it out right now.

“Not hardly,” Din sighs, sounding… you don’t know.  Is that displeasure or not?  It’s not immediately clear.  Does it sound that way because you’re just dumb stupid right now?  Or because Din can’t actually decide how he feels about it?  “Lucky I heard water over the comm last night, I would’ve wasted hours in that forest.”

“Noooo,” you whine in response, trying to push yourself off the tree but tipping sideways in the process, “that’s not fair—”

“Fair wasn’t part of the rules,” he repeats himself again and… nope, you don’t even have the energy to snark something back.  You just grumble your best imitation of him while you do everything you can to heave yourself upright.  It’s pitiful, you lose your balance not even halfway through and just plop on the grass for a second and groan.

“Stop,” Din eventually orders through the earpiece, tired of it.  “What’s sixteen times itself?”

You’re loopy to the point where you don’t even question why he decided to ask you that.  You just furrow your brows for a second and try to think about it, before suddenly realizing you… don’t know, you can’t remember.  Multiplication tables and squares up to twenty are elementary to you, you know them by heart.  Sixteen times sixteen.  One forty-four.  No… no that doesn’t sound right, is that twelv—

You take way too long answering what would’ve been an immediate response two days ago.

“I’ll stop here for tonight,” Din tells you with a resolved sigh.  “I won’t move until you wake up.  Go to sleep.  You’re putting yourself in danger, you can’t even do the basics.”

Later, this moment will come back to you.  That problem isn’t basic, not many adults would be able to tell you very quickly that the answer is two fifty-six.  You don’t even think Din would.  You would, though.  On Naboo, you used rapidly applied trigonometry in your head to find his location, and that was barely two minutes after waking up.  You should know this.  And he knows you.

But for right now, you don’t pay it a single lick of attention.

“You promise?”  You ask quietly, voice incredibly small as your head tilts back towards the sky, already feeling yourself beginning to fall back into the darkness again.

“I promise,” he vows in return, gentle but a promise nonetheless.  He doesn’t have to do this.  You wouldn’t be able to keep going even if he didn’t offer up this temporary truce, but knowing he isn’t currently gaining ground on you makes the idea of sleep so much more welcoming, something you want to seek out instead of fight.

“Will you, um…” your expression furrows.  How do you say this?  You sigh, giving up before even trying to figure it out.  “I’m… not in a bed.  I’m outside.”

Din doesn’t say anything when you pause, and even through the haze wanting to take over, you know it’s going to sound needy.  You want him to stay.  Even in the midst of an adventure, you want him to stay, you want to hear him breathe as you rest, but there’s not really an integrous way to ask.

You don’t need to ask.

“I’ll keep the comm open and wake you when the sun rises,” comes his lulling baritone before you can elaborate anymore, enveloping you in comfort in this dreadfully uncomfortable bed of grass and dirt.  “Sleep, sweet girl.  I’m right here.”

***

Day 2–5:34am:

The sun shines over the hills and you lift your head up to squint your eyes at it, confused as fuck.  Looking down at your wrist to check the time in the warm rays, hands and clothes dirty from laying on the ground that long—you stay groggy and clueless for just a moment longer, before your heart lurches when you remember Din’s promise to you.

You open your mouth to address him but then catch yourself just in time.  Wait.  Don’t panic.  Listen.

Breathing.  Slow and relaxed through the earpiece, a rhythm now branded into your memory from months of nights spent in pitch black.  He’s… asleep.

Din is asleep?  Seriously?

You can count like… twice that this has happened, and one of those was because he got you to touch him just right after closing up a wound on his back, and his body couldn’t handle the strain and passed out.  You’re never awake when he’s asleep—you’re just not, it doesn’t happen.  Din… sleeps like it’s just a choice for him, he doesn’t ever really need it.  Almost like how he used to eat before he started sharing meals with you, he said he doesn’t even like food that much.  You think he just severed all of those things long ago, things that are basic fundamentals of survival and operated like a bounty droid that lost its voice box.  It’s… nice, feeling like you’re somehow giving back some of the things he lost.  Unintentionally encouraging him to find sleep again.  Making sure he eats more, listening to him speak.

You struggle to your feet as quietly as possible, hearing him continue to breathe slow and relaxed through the communicator.  This isn’t purposeful, you don’t think he actually allowed it.  He promised you, and Din doesn’t take shit back.  If he tells you he’ll do something and he doesn’t follow through, it’s either out of his control or a mistake, it’s never been purposeful.  He didn’t mean to fall asleep.

And, in other circumstances, you most definitely would not find some way to take advantage of this.  You’d let him sleep and do other things in the meantime—make some food for you and the kid, find something on the Crest that isn’t spotless and clean until it is, or just… lay there next to him until he woke up.  But… these circumstances are their own.  You have to capitalize now, this is your chance.  You passed out last night around… ten pm, you think it was, and then he promised to stop at midnight.  That means you have to walk at least two hours before he wakes up if you want to prevent any loss of ground—you don’t know where he stopped, he could be a few miles back even.

You have to find Nariss—you have to.  It’s your only option, if you keep trying to run, it’s just going to make it so much easier for him.  Now is the time to hide.  You know it hasn’t been long, it’s barely been two days since you first left the Crest but it feels like you’re already in endgame, already making moves in self-defense instead of actually planning your maneuvers ahead of time.

The capital should be half a day’s walk from here, then.  As long as you get there, you think you’ll be okay.

***

Day 2–8:28am:

Din’s groan suddenly comes through your ear.

You immediately stop, seeing a busy road in the distance and glad you haven’t quite made it there yet, before trying to disguise your voice as drowsy.  “Mm?”

“Shit,” he breathes, and you hear him get up, the sound of beskar moving as he grunts.

“Mpph,” you groan back, squinting your eyes to see if that’ll help sell the act.  “I thought you… Mando, fuck, y’said you’d wake me when the sun came up.”

“I… fell asleep,” he admits, voice rough with it, sounding just as confused as you felt earlier.

“You said you had days in you before that happened,” you murmur, taking a deep breath and stretching your arms up above your head.  Stars, your back hurts, how does he possibly manage to carry a fucking jet pack around all the time?

“Yeah, I…”  He pauses for a moment and you bite your lip, not liking the quiet as soon as you hear it.  “How long have you been up?”

Op.  Not good.  “Wha?”

He’s not falling for it.  “How long?”

How in Maker’s name?  This is impossible.  How can you hope to hide from him when you can’t even manage to hide the smallest fucking truth from him?  Can you salvage this somehow?  “…Like ten minutes.”

“Least a few hours, then,” he sighs, and you get ready to hit him with the same line he used when you complained about his leg-up, opening your mouth as soon as you hear him speak.  “That was smar—”

“Fair wasn’t part of—”

Oh.  Well.  Apparently you didn’t have a reason to feel shitty about deciding to haul ass while he was passed out even though you kind of ended up doing so anyways.  There was no agreement besides that he wouldn’t move until you woke up.  Reason is on your side, but it still feels a bit like you fucked him over.  Is that valid or are you just so used to being nice that putting yourself first feels like a wrong you’ve committed?

“Don’t feel bad,” Din tells you, and you hear a soft coo in the background.  It makes you smile the smallest bit, your shoulders relaxing even as they ache from carrying your pack around.  “You should feel bad about stealing that poor kid’s shoes, though.  He walked home barefoot.”

You smack your forehead.  “It was just….”

“Yeah,” he scoffs when you don’t finish your sentence, and you can’t keep back a giggle.  “Alright, I’m up now.  See you when you get here.”

And then the communicator clicks, and you’re…

Uh.  What the fuck was that?

No.  Nope, you’re not going to get played.  That was a brilliant attempt at fucking with you, but you’re not falling for it this time.  You’ve grown since that night on Canto Bight, you know him, he can’t just say shit to fuck with your head and then smile at your flailing response from under the helmet anymore.  You normally would stew in that last comment until it got to you, made you make a mistake most likely, but the more you think about it, the more certain you are that he has nothing.  He was just trying to see if you’ll abandon your entire plan just by implying he already knows it.  That’s beginner shit, you’re not falling for it.  Din wanted to leave the conversation with the upper-hand since you gained at least an hour of extra ground while he slept.  You’re certain of it.

***

Day 2–12:35pm:

Nariss is big.  Nowhere near the size of Coruscanti sectors of course, where billions of people are packed from surface to exosphere and require oxygen recirculation towers to breathe at the very top, but just slightly bigger than you expected.  It’s bustling and you haven’t even made it through the city gates yet—you’re approaching them and the large number of people waiting in line, seeing buildings stretch out for miles in front of you and grinning.  Yes, this will work nicely.

As you peek over shoulders in the sizable crowd, you see only two or three people allowing people to enter one at a time… is that a biometric scanner?

Oh.  That looks good and it also doesn’t look good at the same time.  If Din’s safety meant nothing to you, you’d have no trouble whatsoever getting in line and waiting to do a retinal scan, but you immediately pause and consider the potential consequences.

Your dumb ass almost weighs the option of clicking the communicator on and asking his opinion.  You’d give away your location in a heartbeat (if he doesn’t know it already) just because you’re worried he’d… what, exactly?  Stand in line for an hour, take his helmet off in front of a crowd of people, have the system ping his scan, and then hang out and wait for New Republic reinforcements to show?  You have to stop worrying about him.  He’s not a baby, he can handle himself and you need to stop considering the possibility of taking a loss just so he doesn’t have to, even if the self-destructive sentiment feels ingrained in your nature to do so.

So you wait in line, moving at a slow pace but at least moving.  While you’re standing there quietly, a man in front of you decides to strike up a conversation.  You don’t come from a place with an excess of people, but the ones in your sector were friendly and did this kind of thing often, so perhaps for that reason, you decide to chat.

“Do you have some place to stay?”  He asks at one point.  So far the conversation has revolved around him—every time he asks about you, you deflect.  He doesn’t need to know.  “Nariss isn’t kind to drifters.”

This catches your attention, though.  This is relevant.  “What does that mean?”

“It’s expensive?”  He scratches his blonde hair, giving you a soft smile.  “Food, housing, all of it is way out of my price-range.  I stay with my uncle and work overnights at the eastern docks.  It’s not much, but it’s enough to keep a roof over our heads.  We used to live in Gibrath, but then we moved to the city because he’s a good architect and they’re always expanding.  It’s nice, of course, but really expensive.”

He’s handsome, you think… in kind of a boyish, charming way.  Blonde hair, sparkly blue eyes.  He doesn’t look much older than you, and maybe in another lifetime you would’ve found him appealing, but… you like darker features, you think.  Someone a little less expressive.  This guy… talks a lot.

“I thought this moon was a safe world for people displaced by the Empire,” you offer, taking a step forward as the entire crowd shifts.

“Sanctuary II is,” he comments.  “The capital is safe, too—what, with all the orangies walking around,” he tilts his head to two jumpsuited guards trying to organize the glob of people so the line can move faster, rolling his eyes as if they’re some kind of joke.  “But not… welcoming, not if you’re looking for a place to settle.  You would’ve been better off in G’ila.”

“Is there anywhere you know that would take me for free?”  You ask.  You have quite a few credits left, but you don’t think it’s a good idea to stay in an inn.  It’ll be the first place Din checks.

“Are you a virgin?”  He returns, and you immediately pull back at the unexpected question, your heart thudding at the possibility of danger.  The man’s sandy eyebrows shoot up at your response and he quickly apologizes—“Heavens, I’m so sorry to ask like that!  It’s just… the only place I know is the Holy Keja Orphanage on the northern outskirts.  Their signs say they only house children and teenagers, but I’ve heard from other girls your age that they’ll accept any woman as long as they’ve stayed pure in the eyes of the Maker.”

“Oh,” you say after a moment, leaning sideways to see just a few people standing in front of him.  Good, this is almost over.  “Um.  Yep.  That’s me.”

He smiles at you once more, giving you a nod.  “When you get to the city, just go straight through.  It’s about a mile outside of the gates, no more than a day’s walk from this side of town.”

Okay, that’s… interesting.  You think about it while you thank him and begin to exchange polite goodbyes, moving up another step until he’s next in line.  That might actually be a good move.  Din could spend a long time in the city without ever finding you.  Smart quarry go to populated places, but… smarter quarry defy the expectations placed upon them, right?  He knows you’re smart, and even though you’re confident his “See you when you get here” was purely psychological fuckery, that also implies… at the very least, that he’s assuming there is a here to get to.  Meaning, he knows you’re not going into the wilderness to evade him.  He’s not going to comb the outskirts when there are so many places to hide within the city gates, with an entire perimeter of New Republic guards stationed around it.  Even if he does, the signs will say only children and teenagers—categories you do not fall into.

The unnamed man is soon ushered forward but you stop him quickly.  “Oh, by the way.  I doubt this will happen, but if a man in a big metal suit with a tiny green baby happen to ask you the same thing, please don’t tell him what you just told me.”

He furrows his eyebrows at you and cocks his head, but smiles and agrees nonetheless.

***

Day 2–5:43pm:

You have an idea.

You’ve been working on it all afternoon, but you were hit with it the second you were looking for another pair of shoes to buy and find a clever way of putting on.

The cheapest ones were ridiculously overpriced, blonde dude was right.  You blinked down at the tag and asked the salesman where the cheapest shoes in this part of town were, and then he just wrinkled his nose at you and shooed you out of the store.  Granted, you slept in dirt and spent two days walking—you bet you reek, but he didn’t have to be like that.

Though, the man’s displeasure with you had an upside.  You were holding a possible pair of pants and a shirt to buy when he threw you out, not yet having checked the atrocious pricetag on them, but it appeared as if he’d rather let you have them for free than rip them from your… admittedly, pretty filthy arms.  Oh well, you weren’t complaining.  Fancy clothes for free, score.

But now you’re here, and you have the best idea.  You don’t need to change shoes, not yet.  Why?  Because you’ve figured out how to turn your incessant detriment into an advantage.

You’re in the middle of downtown, you think, maybe just some random crowded square, and there’s an inn in front of you.  It’s fucking enormous, and you already know it’s gotta be incredibly expensive just looking at the sheer number of stories.  It’s an eyesore, it sticks out.  But that’s okay, because you’re only planning on staying for a night.

It’s also… right next to New Republic headquarters.  Or fuck, at least a station of some sort, because they’re swarming in and out of the constant crowd, passing by the valet doors.

At first you naturally wanted to steer away from the jumpsuits, since you know they’re bad news for Din, but then you remember what he said before you left.  I’m only telling you so that you’ll know your advantage and find a way to exploit it.  I can’t be seen by any officers, or they might arrest me.

It’s to your advantage, he said so himself.  Everything lines up perfectly—the street is bustling, the inn is well protected, it’s nice—it’s everything you’re looking for.

And there’s another upside, see.  An omnipresent, omniscient ghost in the form of a communicator clipped to your wrist right now.  If Din is always going to be able to predict you, he’s always going to know when you’re lying, always be able to read you… then you’ll just have to let him.

Let him know.  Let him know exactly where you are.  Right in the middle of the most populated street you’ve seen thus far, a constant barrage of people walking by and New Republic officers patrolling.  If you were planning on staying in the city, this would probably be your best option to hide.  He could waste days here if you’re smart about it.

The concierge doesn’t appear too pleased with your lack of cleanliness and neither do you, honestly, but at least he allows you to book a suite for the night.  It’s… not as bad as you were originally assuming, credits-wise, but it’s worth more than half your stash and you’re going to have to conserve from this point on.  It shouldn’t be too bad—your destination is a holy orphanage, you’re sure they’ll have some extra food and a bed for you even if it won’t be ideal.  Still, you think you’re going to enjoy some lavish experiences for once in your life before you go.

***

Day 2–11:54pm:

Alright, so this was the best idea ever.  This is the shit.

You’re leaning back against a fluffy stack of pillows, squeaky clean from an absolutely glorious bath and watching the flickering drama on the large holonet display in front of you.  You don’t have any idea what’s going on, as it’s being broadcast in Rodian, but you haven’t been able to change the frequency because it’s so fucking intense—somebody’s sister is their mother, you think?  No, that must be a mistranslation, right?

You’re also in a robe.  Yes, there is a motherfucking robe in here.  And… and slippers, it’s like a dream.  Do people normally wear slippers in bed?  You do.  Hell, maybe you should stay here, screw the credits and the chase.  This mattress is even better than the one on Naboo and you’re basking in the luxury after being outdoors for so long.

The lights are off other than that and you’ve opened the drapes wide, knowing you’re on something like the fifteenth floor and nobody would be able to see you anyways.  You just like being able to turn your head and look out at the sky.  Violent and periwinkle tonight.  You wonder if he’s looking, too.

Luckily, you snap yourself back out of it and glance down at the time on your communicator, quickly pressing a button on the remote to mute the Rodian show and then opening the line the moment the hour changes.

Day 3–12:00am:

“Hiya, Shiny,” you say before anything else, laying back and running a few fingers through your damp hair.  Your eyes close against the flickering light, taking a slow, relaxed breath.  Maker, this feels nice.

“You sound happy,” Din comments.  Astute, you feel happy.  Well… you’d obviously feel happier if he was here.  Your eyes flick over to the open bathroom door, still steamy from your bubble bath earlier, imagining him walking through it completely naked and then climbing over you on the covers.  You can only really picture it from the neck down—no, hang on… you can see his shaggy brown curls, that one spot on his forehead you know, how his facial hair would be dark and frame his mouth.  No face, though.  Missing just one fraction of him from your imagination, feeling incomplete but also somehow… complete in a way.

“I feel better after sleeping last night,” you tell him, purposefully leaving out the softness of the sheets underneath you, the sheer comfort of all this extravagance.  You don’t need it, you’ll never need it, but it feels nice to have for once.

“I do, too,” he replies quietly, and your eyes flutter closed.  You… miss him.  This mattress would feel softer with him next to you.  He’d probably be able to translate this show for you, even though you already know he’d fucking hate it.  You can imagine it—you with your eyes closed, him propped up on an elbow next to you and grumbling vague descriptions of the nonsense happening on screen just to hear your chuckles.  Adventures are great, but maybe they aren’t as great by yourself, you think.

“You should sleep tonight, too,” you encourage, but he scoffs.

“Not a chance,” Din mutters.  “Oh, before I forget, we need to charge the communicators today.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”  You ask him, glancing at all the multiple wireless charging outlets stationed around you.  “I’m in the middle of nowhere.”

He doesn’t even take a fucking second before responding.  “Good one.”

You grin up at the ceiling, warmth flooding you.  You love him.  Literally every single time, he just knows.  Your curiosity is too overwhelming after this happening so often.  Your plan to distract him relies on him being able to read you, but that doesn’t prevent you from wondering how he does it so accurately, time and time again.  “How do you know?”

“You slept outside last night,” he immediately tells you, like that should mean anything to you.

Does he… does he truly know you well enough to know how much your back and shoulders hurt today?  How much you were aching for a shower and clean clothes?  A bed to sleep on that isn’t dirt or metal?  You give into the accurate prediction with shameless honesty, not caring if he knows it’s the truth.

“This bed is soft,” you murmur gently, dragging your hand across the mattress next to you.  “You should be here.  I’d make you feel good.”

Admittedly, your comfort is making you a bit drowsy and you said it in the easiest way possible, but you didn’t necessarily mean it sexually.  Well… you sort of did—you’d make him feel so good in this bed—but what you meant was more… comforting.  He could take a bath, or a shower, and get all the grime off him.  He could feel clean and unburdened, take a break instead of constantly moving around.  The baby could have a whole bed to himself if he wanted, though you know he’d probably want to be on this one instead.  You could all look at the sky together.

Din is quiet for a little bit, before his voice comes back through the earpiece.  “Are you in an inn?”

“No,” you say, a little too quickly.  Perfect, that sounded just right for a lie.  You are lying, you absolutely are in an inn, the only difference is that you want him to catch on that it’s a lie, so… why does he take way too long before responding?

“Hm.”

What the fuck—why… how is it even physically possible?  He read you that deeply from one single word?  You’re not sure if he’s somehow psychic and figured the whole fucking thing out or if he just knows there’s something off, but it’s still enough to blow you away.

“Are you doing this on purpose?”  You blurt without thinking.

“Doing what?”  He grunts, sounding like he’s stepping over something, his breath changing intensity as he walks.

“If I look out this window right now, am I gonna see you standing out there just messing with me?”  You don’t even know what to believe anymore.  How do you beat this?  If you don’t want him to know the truth, he’ll figure it out, and if you do want him to know the truth, he’ll still figure it out.  His perception is unbelievable.

After a moment of silence, he murmurs gently through the comm.  “I thought you said you were in the middle of nowhere.”  It sounds like he’s smiling.

“I…”  your eyes shift around awkwardly, “am…”

Din lets out a deep sigh.  He’s right, that was bad, even for you.  “I found your bed a few hours ago,” he admits.  You close your eyes as you listen to him make his way closer to you, step by step.  “I’m nowhere near the city yet.  You have time to sleep.”

Your expression furrows and you frown.  “Why are you helping me?”

“Why do you want me to think you’re in an inn?”  He tosses back, and you huff.

“Because I’m trying to outsmart you but you make it really fucking difficult,” you grumble, not happy about him catching on so quick.

“You’ve also gained about four hours on me since we started.”  His voice is gruff.  You don’t know if he thinks it’s a good thing or a bad thing.  “You should give yourself more credit.  I thought I would’ve found you by now, never expected you to get all the way to Nariss.  It’s… not good for me.”

The honesty creeping in makes you go soft.  It makes you want to reciprocate, even if it’s dumb and you haven’t thought it all the way through.  “Wanna know a secret?”

“Tell me.”  His voice is a bed all its own, deep and gentle and safe.

You say it before you lose the nerve.  “I might just turn around and walk back.”

His footsteps stop and you hear a small sound in the background, a quiet little baby noise that suddenly makes your heart ache.  You’re comfortable but incredibly aware of how alone you are.  People pass by on the streets below, cars and hoverbikes honk in the distance and you’re by yourself.  For the first time in over a year, like you have been for years, you’re by yourself.

“Sweet girl,” Din sighs, and all of a sudden… you can feel his arms around you with it.  You feel so… known, somehow.  Every sentiment you could’ve possibly given in your last sentence, he relays his understanding back with his.  He makes you feel loved with it.  “Never wants to run.”

You don’t say anything, because you suddenly realize you’re totally fucking whipped, up down and sideways for his metal ass and the little floating grimlin that follows him around, and you would throw away the fifth quarry, adventure, the sky—literally everything if you could be with the both of them right now.

But again.  You don’t have to say anything, he already knows.  “Give me your coordinates.”

Your eyes pop open and you bite your lip.  Oh, stars.  You hate that you do genuinely consider it.  He could be here, and very soon.  With the jet pack, both of them could be here in less than an hour, probably.  He could take a shower.  Watch these stupid shows with you all night without needing to be on the move, help you build a bed of pillows for the kid on top of this one.  You could be with both of them again, even if it’s only for a little while.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” you finally whisper, looking down at the soft white fabric of your robe, the way one of your slippers is falling off your foot as the holonet program continues to play on mute.

Din’s footsteps eventually start up again, and you both relax in silence together.  You, squinting at the screen because your eyes are getting heavy; him, continuing to travel step by step and gain ground on you.  Let him come.  You’ll be long gone by the time he even makes it to the gates.

It’s been about ten minutes of shared, quiet existence before you hear him bite into something and chew, and your face suddenly lights up.

“Are you eating the purple fruit?”  You ask, your slipper falling off with excitement.  You don’t know why, but it’s like… you’re stoked for him.  Just as proud of him for doing normal things as he does when you step out of your own comfort zone.  You like to think you’re both better that way.  Balanced.

“Mm,” Din replies with his mouth full, and you grin down at your bare legs peeking through the robe while he swallows.

“Is it not the best thing you’ve ever tasted?”  Your voice goes a little breathless with it, and you hear his footsteps stop once more.

“Close,” Din murmurs lowly, sending a small shudder through you.  It suddenly feels a bit warm in here, doesn’t it?  This morning was one of the rare times you were awake while he was asleep… it’s almost always the other way around, and just from the implication in his tone, you’re reminded of the thing he likes doing most when you’re resting.  Maybe he’ll let you do it to him, next time around.  The thought gets you hot enough to warrant the other slipper falling to the floor.

“You’re alone, right?”  You whisper, knowing he must’ve pulled the helmet up to take a bite of the fruit.  He must still be following your path through the hillside, then, not yet reaching the road.

“The kid is awake,” Din tells you, sounding like he’s trying to stop everything before anything starts.  His words are short and clear in their meaning, but…

This has a very small chance of success, you already know.  “…Do you want to—”

“No,” he responds quickly, already way ahead of you.  “We can’t.”

Something in his voice… you don’t know, there’s just something there that makes you feel just a little reckless.  Should you push it?  You’re by yourself in this suite, what can go wrong?

“You can’t,” you correct him quietly, shifting around on the bed just a bit and biting your lip.  It’s a thrill—being able to tease him without having him in front of you, drive him crazy knowing you’re just out of his reach.  “But I can do whatever I want, can’t I?”

There’s a pause, a tense and knowing silence suspended between you before he eventually speaks.

“I’d be real careful,” Din mutters low in warning, but what is he gonna do?

“What are you gonna do?”  You whisper to him devilishly.  Quiet and breathy, beginning to snake your hand down.  Stars, your heart is already pounding.  You’d only likely mouth off like this in person just to see how hard he’d fuck you, but this feels extra dangerous for some reason.  He’s stuck, he can’t do anything about it right now, and you know it’s playing with fire.  “You could hang up if you don’t want to hear me.  Or you could find me before I’m finished.  Come make me stop.”

Din doesn’t say anything but he very much does not hang up, nor does he come busting into your room like you imagine he’d like to.  The sheer fact that your door is still closed and locked tells you for sure that he isn’t just hanging out in the hallway, just letting you have your fun.

You start pressing your fingers against your robe at the apex of your thighs, humming at how nice the pressure feels.  You don’t even spread your legs or push the fabric away, you just sigh into it and wiggle your hips a bit, pressing hard against your clit and listening to him breathe.

“Do you want to listen?”  You ask quietly after a moment, and Din still doesn’t respond.  Likely because there’s not a real answer, both yes and no would imply the wrong thing.  “I’ll talk.”

Still, nothing from him.  Dead silence through the comm.  You’re starting to understand.  For two days, you’ve felt like he could read your every thought just by the cadence of your voice.  He’s staying quiet so you can’t even attempt to do the same to him—if he doesn’t talk, you can’t find a weakness and pounce on it, you can’t feel any more confident or reassured about your own ability to read him.

You’ll just have to push a little harder, then.

“Hm.  If only this fancy communicator could…” you pause to look down at your wrist for a second, studying the menu.  You don’t think you’ve ever really looked at it, you never had the time.

Din’s growl is sudden and sharp through the earpiece.  “No, don’t even think—”

“Ah,” you smile, tapping the face and immediately finding the correct screen.  “Take pictures.”

He’s deadly quiet for a moment, and you bite your lip with excitement.  When he does speak, his voice is a pure threat, chilling you to the bone as much as it burns deep in your tummy.  “…You wouldn’t.”

Ignoring him, you suddenly locate a menu option that sounds phenomenal right now.  “Oh shit, does this holocall?  Or is it a video option?”

“Holo,” he says very seriously while you study the lack of complexity of the built-in camera in skepticism, “and the kid is awake, so you can’t—”

“Oh, it’s definitely a video,” you unclip it from your wrist and he curses as you sit up, and then you press a button and wait impatiently for him.  “Pick up.”

Din takes forever before responding, and you hear the continuous beeps as it attempts to connect, before his quiet baritone rumbles in your ear.  “What if I don’t?”

You feel your mouth pull down at the corners, not so much frowning as you are dubious.  He’s going to turn down the opportunity to see you and your surroundings when his whole goal is locating you?  Really?

“You sure?”  You ask softly, raising an eyebrow.  “You’d get to see me, where I am.  What I’m…” your eyes dip down to the loose robe riding your curves, your skin glowing against the white fabric, “…wearing.”

The beeps continue on for a few more seconds, until they finally stop.  You frown down at the black screen of the communicator, not seeing anything at all.  Did he decline the transmission request?  No… there’s a little red light next to the small lens that wasn’t there before.  Why can’t you see him?

“Why can’t I see you?”  You ask.  You want to look at him looking at you, you don’t want to always be stuck on the other side of a one-way mirror.

“I… have it linked to my helmet, but it only has a front-facing camera,” Din tells you after a moment, and he sounds… slightly out of breath.  “Easier to see, the watch is useless now besides the controls.”

Wait, does that mean you’re… being shown on the inner-display of his helmet instead of his wrist?  Right in front of his eyes, as if he were actually here with you?

“Nobody can see me but you?”  You clarify, and when he doesn’t respond, you bite your lip and lean back into the pillows.  You lift the watch up slightly, extending your arm out until you can get the angle as wide as possible.  “Can you see… this?”  You ask softly, before hooking your fingers in the collar of your white robe and slowly pulling it open for him.

“Where are you?”  Din asks instead, and you hear his footsteps through the earpiece, as if he’s walking away from something very quickly.

You don’t answer him, parting the soft fabric until your breasts are completely exposed and you sigh, closing your eyes and snuggling back into the pillows once more.  “I’ll tell you where I am if you keep watching me.”

“Why?”  Din grits in frustration, coming back around to the same dangerous question he had earlier.  “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know.”  You slowly tilt the camera down until you can spread your legs and the robe falls open with the movement, letting him see your pussy peeking through in the flickering light of the muted screen in front of your bed.  “Can you see that?”

“Yeah,” he says shakily on the end of a breath, and you feel yourself get wet.  Fuck, he sounds so fucking tempted, the sight making his voice come without any of the self-assuredness as it usually has, but… he could also just be saying that.  How do you know he’s telling you the truth?

“What am I doing?”  You test him, lifting your knee just the slightest bit so you really give him something to look at.

“Spreading your legs for a camera,” Din responds without hesitation, voice scraping against your ear, making you shiver and your nipples harden.  Fuck, the way he says it, like it’s wrong and bad even though he’s the only one who can see or hear you do it… it makes you feel even more naughty and emboldened.

You bite your lip and reach your hand down to spread your lips for him, too, hearing his breath immediately catch on the other end.  Already your pussy makes your fingers slick against your soft skin, the sash of your robe still holding the fabric together on your body but also loose enough to allow it to part in the right places and reveal everything you want him to see.

“I am in an inn,” you whisper teasingly, letting your finger drop to brush against your clit and then sighing in soft delight.  Oh stars, that feels nice, it feels so good to treat yourself after being completely nomadic for two days, getting to be clean and soft and comfortable while you feel this pleasure, and Din’s voice growls through your communicator like you’re doing something painful to him.

“Fuck,” his breathing picks up while you begin circling your clit.  “Where?”

“Nariss,” comes your quiet moan, turning your head on the pillow to blink slowly at the camera.  Wanting him to see your eyes as well as your finger slowly dip into where you’re the hottest, caressing the sensitive skin there knowing he’s watching.

“Where in Nariss?”  Din’s voice is as pleading as it is sharp, desperately trying to keep either you or himself on track.

“I don’t know,” you say again.  Truthfully, you don’t—you don’t know the cross streets, you don’t know the part of town, you don’t know much of anything at all besides physical descriptors.  You quickly move the camera to the side as far as you can hold it and let him see you from a different angle with the window as a backdrop.  “But the window is open.  And there are lots of people outside.”

“Can they see you?”  Din immediately challenges.  Of course they can’t, you’re fifteen stories up and the room is darker than it is outside with all the city lights and swirling colors of the sky, but you suppose he doesn’t know that.  You think he just needs to relax—if this is what he’s always like during hunts, you now know exactly why he comes back to you all riled up and tense.

“I don’t know,” you murmur back, starting to rub your clit a little faster, trying to make it feel like him.  It doesn’t—your fingers aren’t large or strong enough to give you those perfect circles; you just feel like you’re meandering yourself towards ecstasy instead of picking you up and hauling your ass there like he does, but it’s okay.  Hearing Din’s rough breathing come through the earpiece, knowing his hands are probably clenched tight into fists, wondering if he’s hard yet… all of it culminates into a power trip unlike any you’ve experienced recently.  It makes you bold, tells you to open your mouth.  “Does it matter?  I’d still let you fuck me against it if you were here.”

“Stop it,” comes his growl, but what is he gonna do?

Your leg lifts a little wider so you can slowly slide your fingers down and push two of them inside yourself, and Din swears as you moan, “Come find me.”

“Give me your coordinates—”

“Are you giving up?”  You offer breathlessly, lifting your eyebrows and your hips up slightly at the question, but you’re… not expecting the extended silence following.  You assumed a growled no would immediately come next, or just another empty threat said with enough force to make you tremble with excitement, but not… nothing.

The response makes you pause just for a second, easing your fingers out and dragging them across your thigh to clean some of the wetness off before extending your arm out towards the communicator.  Din stays quiet while you navigate through the menu with trembling fingers, eventually finding your coordinates and hovering over the unchecked share location box.

You wait with your lip bit, confident he knows what you’re doing and you don’t have to narrate or repeat yourself.  Fuck, you knew you were considering abandoning this entire adventure just to be next to him again, but you had no idea.  No fucking idea that it could ever be a thought in his own mind as well.  You… assumed he likes this, hunting is what he does for a living and he’s the one who conceived of the idea in the first place.  Is he just that aroused by you?  Or is there something more?

“No,” Din eventually murmurs, and you immediately navigate out of the menu so you don’t accidentally press anything catastrophic, before pulling your hand away from the communicator with a resolved hum and settling back into the pillows again.  Making sure to look directly into the lens even if your eyelids are heavy with heat and desire, you slowly lick your fingers and then reach down once more.

His deep, shaky breath is so telling.  Exhausted after all this, but still not hanging up, still doing his hardest to tough it out when he’s only miles away from you and has jets attached to his back.  You don’t want to drag it out but you also do, you want to be kind but something about Din makes you also want to be as formidable as possible.  You’ll never be able to threaten like he does, you’ll never have anyone cower just because you walked into the room, you’ll never be as powerful or strong as he is, but you can still put up a fucking fight against him in your own way.

You whimper softly, your breathing beginning to find a quicker pace as surely as your fingers do.  It begins to spark and build, a red hot flame being kindled by the knowledge that he’s as close as possible without actually being close, right here with you when he always seems so far away.

“Mando,” you whisper, though your expression pulls inwards just slightly because it… in a scenario as sensual and intimate as this, it almost doesn’t sound righ—

“Din,” he whispers back, so quiet you almost don’t hear it, like he almost doesn’t want to but has to anyways, and then you just start to fucking burn.

“D-Din,” you whisper instead, trying to keep your voice as quiet as possible through the rising swell.  He’ll be able to see it, you think.  The way your tummy and chest start to heave, how your body begins to brace for it—and yeah, Maker, he sees it, because his voice suddenly changes.

“Stop,” Din growls roughly, knowing exactly how you cum—knowing exactly what it looks like, the way it sounds in your breathing, what it tastes like, how it feels on the inside.  It’s been so long since you’ve touched bliss without him, months and months since you brought yourself to completion on the floor of the Crest by yourself, and though he’s rarely ever denied you, your own high on newfound control causes it to slip.  He barks your name and tells you to stop once more, but it’s too late.

“I’m gonna cum, Din,” you breathe out—

“Don’t—”

It tears through you, rapid and surging, and he snarls a curse, something loud snapping and thudding and… did he just punch something?  You can’t think, it’s delicious and hard as fuck and everything you needed after two days of near constant movement and thought with little rest, and you bite your lip to keep quiet but a pained whimper still shoves its way out of your tense vocal cords regardless.  It sounds like it hurts because it does hurt; the orgasm shatters your body into pieces and you’re left trembling by yourself on this soft bed, wishing he was with you on a metal one.

You sink into the mattress in the moments following, sluggish and exhausted and just conscious enough to keep the watch facing you.  You bet the camerawork was terrible, shaky at best, but you can’t find it in yourself to care right now.  You just lay there and listen to his harsh breathing while you work to slow your heart rate, reveling in the filthy little show you just gave him and wanting to finish it out properly.

“Come find me,” you breathe out once more, lazing soft and naked for him, blinking dazedly at the watch as you pan it over you.  Your thighs are still twitching and there’s a thin sheen of sweat clinging to you, but you drag a finger through your swollen lips and carefully wipe the wetness across one of your nipples.  “Clean me up.”

“Fuck,” Din suddenly spits through the earpiece, furious.  “You think—y-you think—”

“What?”  You hum, basking in the afterglow and so, so curious.  Truly, you’re dumb as fuck, you have no clue what you’re thinking, but if anybody would be able to tell you, it’s him.

There’s a moment where his breathing stops.  It’s completely silent on the line, before you hear another few heavy footsteps on his end pick up and then halt just as quickly.

“You think you can taunt me?”   He murmurs, dangerous and deadly quiet.  “Show me exactly where you are, disappear and then make me waste forever trying to get there?  You think that’s gonna work?”

Your eyebrow lifts, considering.  He… may or may not have predicted your strategy perfectly, but his insight has stopped surprising you by now.  “Maybe…”

“Maybe you shouldn’t fall asleep tonight.”

Ooh.  That one sends goosebumps down your arms, but you’ve gained four hours on top of a twelve hour headstart.  He can’t scare you with that tone, not when you’re still woozy with pleasure and he isn’t right in front of you.  Instead of wilting beneath the hard threat, you just blink gently at the communicator, finding strength in being the only one to get him this mad when he’s always so composed, this talkative when he barely says a word.  “Maybe I’ll just stay here then?”

“Maybe you wanted me to know you’re in an inn because you already found someplace to hide that isn’t one,” Din reasons very, very adeptly.  Stars, your heart subtly begins to pick up, your legs continuing to tremble as the small red light next to the lens stares you down.  “Can’t be planning to stay with someone you just met because you’d already be there, can’t be going to a hostel because you found the one city on this moon built for commerce and not aid.  Not staying in another inn, you can’t afford it—the view looks high up, that robe is expensive, and you already bought food and at least five pairs of shoes in two days.  I don’t think the place you found is even in Nariss.  You think you can outsmart me, sweet girl?”

The chill down your spine doesn’t reach your eyes, you won’t let it.  You just feel yourself smile, tilting your head at him and licking your lips while your finger brushes one of your nipples, but Din doesn’t accept your silence the way you’ve always accepted his.  He wants an answer from you, right now, and it’s clear in the dark rumble of his voice, the danger slowly brewing beyond what you originally planned for.

“Tell me,” he orders, unamused and leaving no room to disobey.  “How long do you think you can keep running?”

Your eyelashes flutter, suddenly deciding… why not?  What have you got to lose?  Nothing that you didn’t already go into this situation completely expecting to lose anyways.  What’s the worst he can do?  Find you?

You close your eyes, pinching one of your nipples and wondering if you might just go for another one since he’s still here.  “Ask me again tomorrow.”

But then, instead of immediately responding, you just hear Din’s footsteps suddenly pick up, faster than any pace you’ve been able to keep over the past few days.  You don’t think it sounds like a run necessarily, but you know that his legs and strides are far longer than yours and it’s probably pretty much equivalent to a run for you.  You hear the rhythm of your demise speeding up, coming closer and closer, and everything in you both fears it and welcomes it.

“We’ll see,” he tells you, and then the red light vanishes and your earpiece clicks to silence.

***

Day 3—2:23am:

Even though it takes you much longer to do so than it normally would on a bed so large and comfortable, after such an exciting interaction and not being used to flickering light when you try to sleep but wanting to experience the rarity anyways, you’re eventually able to pass out.

But, not even a few minutes into a restless dream, you turn over and accidentally knock your communicator off the wireless charging station on the side table.  It blinks with four percent battery life.

***

To be continued!!