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gaiuswrites · 3 years

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King of Cups || Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Hanged Man

Archive: ao3 | masterlist | eight

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Summary: After some time apart, new conclusions are met.

Word count: 7.8k~

Rating: Explicit

Warnings/tags: SMUT, fingering, unprotected piv sex, emo emo emo (are we even surprised any more), mature themes, abandonment/family trauma, loss

Notes: Friends, wow. I'm honestly embarrassed by how long this took. Thank you for your patience. I hope you find the reward worth the wait. This chapter is nearly all in Din's POV until it switches and blends in the last chunk. If you’re new to KOC, you’re more than welcome to start at this chapter! Love you guys x (gif credit: @bestintheparsec)

“Din.”

Familiar fingers brush through his hair, a hand he knew once combing over his overgrown locks. He feels the drag of nails across his scalp, tucking a truant curl behind his ear, and the act feels like home— like hearth.

Somewhere beyond his open window a morning bird trills, perched in its roost nestled into the forked branch of the elm.

He breathes a sigh, the sound thick with sleep, and turns to his pillow, burying himself deeper into the linen.

“Din, honey.”

He blinks— lazily, molassesed— her shape clearing into focus.

Green eyes peer back at him, fine lines framing the corners of them, and crescents crease around her lips, pulled warm into a soft curve.

Small toys— wooden things, baubles and bits, dolls made from scraps of old fabric—litter the floor, spilling from the chest butted against the stone of the wall. A book, well-loved and dog-eared, rests on his nightstand—the one he insisted she read from each night, the story he couldn’t possibly fall asleep without hearing—the images written on the page, dancing in his small mind to the tune of her voice.

It’s all there now as it was then before.

“It’s time to wake up.”

She sits at the edge of the bed—his bed—the weight of her arm draped over his shoulder like a blanket— like shelter. Like never being fearful again. Like never dying. Like summer, forever.

“I am awake,” he murmurs, and it is with his own tongue that he speaks. Not that of a boy, but a man—unfiltered, unmodulated. Stripped of his helmet, he hardly recognizes the tenor of it, of its richness, but he feels the words reverberate against the hollow of his throat and he knows they belong to him.

Light casts through the window behind her—particles of dust, trapped in the tines. Floating there, suspended on strings.

She only smiles, and strokes a thumb across the sweep of his cheekbone, there in the room he last felt safe.

“No, not yet.”

It’s time to wake up. It’s time to wake up. Wake up wake up wake—

“Not yet.”

His eyes blur open with a flutter of his lashes, the lifeless durasteel ceiling coming into view—the jade of her gaze fading, fading. Blowing away.

He shifts a hand through his hair— through the long strands in dire need of trimming— lying on his bedroll, spine knobbing into the thin mattress. The cold metal overhead stares back at him.

His chest rises. Falls.

Din can still feel her, the warmth of her, there on his cheek.

///

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He knows what you’re thinking, he can see it in the guard you’ve encased yourself with— your glass walls, your glass house. Transparent but impenetrable, Din can only look. A spectator, watching as you go about your routines— a stranger on the outside.

And he sees how you look at him.

You think he’s fine.

You think he’s marble. Unbreakable. Impervious to time, to cold, and he does nothing to correct you; no, he allows the belief. He lets you believe the calloused veneer of his beskar— lets you assume he is more machine than man.

Din thought it would be simpler. Convenient. Din thought it would hurt less.

Because how can he tell you? How can he possibly communicate the imprint you’ve left on him— how his mind revolves around the imagery of that evening in vicious figure-eights. How he can’t unremember your heat curling around his fingers, how he can’t unbridle the pulse of his cock in your palm. How he can’t unspeak that which he called you, his virgin tongue flicking new and flighty around the word.

Cyare.

It tripped—in the midst of his pleasure, it sprang clumsy from him how the inevitable always seems to where you are concerned: transport to Coruscant, his past, his history, his identity— it just happens, reasonless, illogically. Some driving magic beckoning him to buckle, wishing him to give.

Your moans, your gasps, how you prayed his name— this is the white noise murmuring through the ship, harmonizing with the tinny mechanical beeps and settling groans of the bulkheads. You churn like smog through his helmet. Ever present, the memory of you is constant— invasive. It’s suffocating him.

He’s been dealt plenty of injuries and contusions— he has the scars enough to prove it— but it’s this. It’s this that’s killing him. It’s you.

All of these paintings, life-like and lurid, and yet it is this wound - untended, uncauterized - that scalds most: the moment Din, that beskar apparition, slipped away from you. You were there, hip under the weight of his glove, and he simply

went, like fog.

He watched your face crest and fall—felt your heart, skipping nervous like a stone over a morning pond, little waves rippling lightly, lightly out and out until it puttered quiet and

sank.

He abandoned you there. He left you before you had the opportunity to convince Din that you wouldn't do the same to him. Because Din has learned this, his suit of armor a trudging reminder of the inherent fact: good things leave.

You’ll be gone soon. You’ll leave him—he’s taking you home and you’ll leave him. His son will leave him.

He’ll be alone again. He’ll have the Crest, he’ll have the Guild—he’ll have the life he once cast in stone for himself, the life he’s worn as proudly as the Mudhorn emblem he boasts on his pauldron. But that was then - before - and he can never find his way back to that now; now that he knows what he knows—of breakfast and bitter caf and laughter like church bells and warmth and goodness and you.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

There in the galley, lamp-lit iridescence caressing your countenance, you asked him once if he was scared of anything and he told you he wasn’t sure— not yet.

Din lied.

As a rule, he doesn’t make a habit out of dishonesty; it doesn’t typically suit him, he is blunted to a fault— earning allies and enemies alike with the very attribute—but he lied to you then. Maybe his fears are the same as everyone else’s, maybe they’re simple. Human.

Maybe he’s scared that you’ll unchain him from his armor, of his shortcomings and tragic flaws and see the pulpy heart of him—that you’ll look and look and look, and you will like nothing that you find there. That he’s just a man.

And perhaps, he’d rather remain unknown than risk the chance of being unlovable.

For there is a certain hollow you befriend in the aftershock of loss—there is an aperture loss gores you with. There are some holes time can never fill; they remain trenched, dug from rusted trowels— left to fester, left to ill.

Sometimes, in the surly vacuum of space, in those dulled moments in which he has nothing but to count the seconds as they tick clocklessly away, Din attempts to conjure the last word his mother gave to him. He didn’t know it then—he didn’t know it was intended as a gift, boxed and ribboned and bowed. He didn’t realize—a child, wide-eyed with naivety, drenched in fright—that he should cherish it. Remember it. Keep it safe.

No matter how hard he tries, how hard he strains, he can’t recall it. He practices the nightmared memory of it, transports himself into that war zone, dodging shrapnel and brimstone just to catch sight of her face— and he can see her lips moving, can feel the fan of the flames as his world is reduced to cinders, but he cannot hear her.

Was it goodbye? Was it I love you? Was it be safe? Was it hide? Hide hide hide for me. Be good and hide, kind boy—

It dogs him. The nothinged mumble, his silent passenger.

There is no part of this that comes easy.

He heard you. There in Valentia, the city buzzing cacophonously like an orchestra tuning their instruments, he overheard the Twi’lek translate for the older woman.

Family, she said. You have a beautiful family.

Din has never in his life considered forsaking his Creed— forgoing the thing that saved him, made him, honed him to tungsten, sharp as a blade.

But he did then.

It was a flash, something fickle and brief— like the flicker of a candle before it diffused to smoke— but in that nanosecond he saw himself ripping off his helmet. He saw himself going to you, pulling you close to his plated chest. He saw the surprise wash over you—the shock that bubbled to elation. He saw you smile, that crippling gorgeous thing, with his own naked eyes and—

And then suddenly you were there before him, snapping Din from his reverie, blanket snug to your chest, the child — his child— slung beside you. He wished he had an explanation, but before he could process his actions his hand was drawing itself to your body, tugged by some unseen force—robbed of his autonomy— and rapturously, he touched you. He felt you.

His knuckles grazed your arm—your warmth, radiating past the aged leather of his glove—and the wisdom that woman uttered, the plain truth only the ancient could learn— only a mother could know— rattled around his mind, unanchored and barreling.

Yearn for the past. Reclaim time.

Hold onto them hold onto them hold on—

Never let them go.

Ready? he asked you, arm resigned to his side, feigning monotony beneath the cover of his visor.

You threaded an even smile to your lips, as if Din were none the wiser— as if he hadn’t catalogued every lick of your expressions, every curve and bow and wrinkle as your emotions sung across your face. As if he didn’t know when you were lying. As if he didn’t know when you were falling apart.

Ready, you replied, swallowing past the disappointment welled in your throat.

Both your hearts broke then. Perfectly—the same.

This is the Way.

///

Din is gone over a week. It’s the longest he’s ever been away for a hunt—it’s the longest nine days of your kriffing life.

The ship feels vacant without him; she’s cumbersome, too cavernous for the likes of only you and his foundling. Her durasteel sidings yawn morose against the wind beating restless against her—her metal stretching like a lothcat in a patch of sun. The doors and hatches complain ajar and gripe shut, as if she’s recalcitrant to go about her standard operating procedures without Din’s presence. The old gal misses him, down to her steely bones and dual ion turbines, and in truth — and despite yourself— you suppose a small part of you feels the same, shares an inkling of that same loneliness.

The rituals and dog-eared routines you’d drawn comfort from are now rinsed in a forlorn wash.

The single bowl of food you prepare looks wrong without its twin beside it.

You scroll a finger over your display screen, flicking through various articles, the faint light from the holopad basking the contours of your face in a lonesome shade of inanimate blue.

Anything good you hear him ask, there in your inner ear— the memory of his voice leaving a nick among the many wrinkles of your brain.

You sigh, quietly— alone. Never.

Even Munch misses him, although he expresses it differently. He’s been a downright terror with Din gone. At first it was a vacation, a luxury retreat; you and the child gorged yourself on crackers and grava berries and dried bantha meat—mindful of sweeping up the crumbs on whichever surface you snacked. You giggled and ran amok and shared secrets in code only the two of you could decipher.

But one day grew to two, and two to three and three to four and by the fifth you were out of treats and your patience too had dwindled to short supply.

The child is special— unquestionably unique. And as much as you adore him, would lay down your life for him if it came to it, Maker he is uniquely qualified to send you round the bend twice over. He’s baffling, infuriating— just like his father. Of all the things he could have inherited from the man, of course he decided to latch on to his vexing penchant for mystery.

You lost him for half a day. He was somewhere aboard the Crest, of that you knew that for certain, but he managed to enact a stunt that could’ve puzzled even the most illustrious of illusionists with how quickly and effectively he vanished, seemingly out of thin air.

He emerged eventually for dinner, babbling wickedly. There was that, at least: you could always count on Munch to — well, munch.

Over a week of this— nine days, sixteen hours, and twenty-two minutes, to be exact… But who’s counting.

The sky glitches with lightning, sparking like a bulb in dreadful need of changing, and veins of violet skitter along the horizon, chased by the clapping hammer of thunder. Fat drops of rain trace down the transparisteel, the metalled drum of their pattering against the Crest lullabying your eyelids to a slumbered close. You drift, weightless, waxing and waning in and out of a reoccurring dream that always blurs to mere suggestion - to shadow - as soon as you wake.

The harsh sound stirs you—the ramp’s gears springing to life, signaling the Mandalorian’s return. Rapidly, you blink clear the slog of sleep from your eye, re-emerging from the forgotten depths of your subconscious and half-roused, you bound from the copilot’s chair. You rally from your stupor, instinct urging you to meet the bounty hunter by the entrance—some tittering, foolish part of you still so glad and girlish just to see him.

Hobbling down the ladder with veteraned coordination - one leg one arm one foot one hand - you hop the last two rungs to land catlike on the balls of your feet, heading towards the stern of the ship and—

You don’t make it three steps.

He’s there. Din is there— nine days later and finally, like a hallucination, he’s here— ominous and backlit by the glow seeping in from the galley. An obelisk, undaunted.

Your gut somersaults, flipping until it dizzies.

Knee-jerked and reflexive, the basest part of you demands you go to him, to cross the threshold separating you— the time and space and uncertainty dredged like a moat between you two. But instead of greeting him as you wish— two arms thrown around him, welcoming him home—back to the Crest, to the child, to you—you stand there, dumbstruck and wanting.

The passage of the corridor is like a strait. It's so narrow you can smell him— his carbon musk, his petrichored sweat—and it furls thick into your sinuses, fogging up your vision, clotting the faulty wiring of your mind. He’s brought the wet in with him, drip dropping from his hulking frame to splat puddled onto the deck.

plop

A beat ferments, hanging ripe from its branch as the tempest rages outside the sheltered hull of the ship. Distantly, thunder booms from above.

“Din— hi.”

“You’re up.” He doesn’t move from the archway. Stiffened, composed from granite, the man hardly breathes. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” you offer hastily—untruthfully.

Din scans you: your obviously tousled hair, the drowsy flush kissing your jaw, the tell-tale crinkle of your tunic. Your tongue darts out to skip over your lip and his lungs pull, aching beneath his ribs.

Maker, you’re pretty even when you lie.

“Go back to sleep,” he assures, but you hardly register it; it’s scarcely above a murmur by the time the words hum through his modulator.

“Can I make you some food? Can I—"

There’s a tarred shake of his helm, tiredly dissuading you. “No, you—you’ve done enough.”

“But you must be exhausted, Din. Let me help you,” you urge, sincerity shaping the lilt of your voice. “Please, I—” You falter. Vision finally adjusted in the dimmed hall, it is then that you spot it.

Your mouth runs dry.

He’s dappled in a violent scarlet, foreign red splatters contrasted against all that silvered grey, bleeding with the rainwater to roll sanguined down the rounded edges of his armor.

Blood. He’s covered in blood.

Something pitted—something vital— in you contracts; horror, prickling the fine hairs along your forearm. “Maker, what happened?”

Eyes gaping fearful, you skitter around his breastplate, his vambraces, the paneling of his flight suit, roving meticulously in search for the source of his injury. Thoughtless, consumed with only one concern - is he hurt? - your hand flies to his chest where it rests—solid. Fretting. “Stars, are you—”

He can see it—he can see you, always—how your gaze swells, laced with a surge of adrenaline, of care, and Din lays his broad palm flat over your knuckles, grabbing your frantic attention. “It’s not mine—hey, it’s not mine.”

Your shoulders deflate, relief visibly relaxing the rigidity in your spine, and for the first time in what feels like minutes you release the breath you’d fostered high behind your teeth.

He doesn’t know what overtakes him. Perhaps it’s your sleep swollen lips or the soft petal of your cheek— taunting Din, daring him to feel you again, as he did before— or perhaps it’s the all too apparent fact that you simply give a shit about him— despite everything he’s done, all of that which he has left unsaid. That you worry. That you care.

Puppeted, arm hoisted by some invisible strings of fate—those unseen threads of inevitability—he reaches for you. Din’s thumb roams the slope of your cheekbone, the buttered hide of his glove gliding over your skin. Something rattles flustered in your chest, and you must look pathetic— how your eyes bat at him and your mouth parts, breathy and demure.

“Dala.” He sounds pained when he says it, as if it’s poisoning him; the very syllables like hemlock dripping down his tongue—slowly gradually, ending his life— this life.

This life as he knows it.

You nuzzle into the cradle of his palm, encircling a hand around his wrist, urging him still. You both know he could break away from you without an ounce of strength squandered, but he doesn’t; he listens, he quiets for you. Enchanted, neither of you dare move— neither of you, willing to shatter the profound spell of intimacy you’ve stumbled onto.

He holds you like this, and you hold him to you. His hand on your cheek; yours over the birdcaged throb of his heart— burning - devouring - its entombed aril like the heart of a dying star.

“Where’d you go?” you whisper, heathered, into the heel of his hand. There is something broken in your cadence, like the chipped rim of a fragile cup, and it punctures him just there beneath his sternum.

Where’d you go?

Where’d you go before? When you left— where did you spirit away to?

Why didn’t you take me with you?

A sick wave rots his stomach. He couldn’t answer you then, not when you were wobbly and coltish beneath him—Din can barely answer you now. His digits twine into your hair, cupping the arc of your neck. The gesture is not unkind. It is delicate— urgent, too—and the following hush you share speaks tomes for the both of you, the sob of his leathered fist admitting what he cannot utter.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

Maker, if you could see him. See how his face folds for you, grief lined into the shallow grooves that mark him. The cycles of it— how they bend him into something contorted. Something in need - I need you I need you I need - something ugly, he thinks. Leftover. Hidden. Hide hide hide hi—

You turn, pressing a kiss into the rough of his palm. It’s a soft thing— trepid and cautious—too worried you might frighten him away to offer anything more than a chaste brush of your lips—too worried you’ll send him scurrying back into the cratered unknown he crawled out from.

But he doesn’t.

Din doesn’t turn tail and run, he stands firm—weaving his hand further into your scalp, guiding you closer to him with a throaty sound. The forehead of his helm sinks to yours, and through its filter you discern the tremor of Din’s breathing, made fuzzy by the tinny modulator.

This is nothing like before. Din was hot blooded and vicious then, possessed by the infernal likes of some great beast, but he has since been tamed, if only momentarily—coaxed into a certain meekness by the frail ache of his heart—by the grace of your kind mouth, kissing his gun-worn glove.

He groans your name, mumbled and brassy. The two of you so close, so merged, that if it weren’t for his helmet, you’d feel the tickle of the syllables as they sweep over your face. Din repeats himself, repentant—praying for forgiveness on the cross of your name—your kiss, a benediction.

Again, he calls you. I’m sorry.

Again, you kiss him. There is nothing to forgive.

Again. Again.

With a flutter of bravado, you sling a lumbered arm over the span of his neck, notching yourself into his chest, an interlocking piece finding it’s match. Din’s forearm comes to coil around your waist, wide hand spanning the small of your back, and if possible, gathers you nearer— a growl emanating somewhere from under his beskar.

“Tell me to stop,” he breathes, bullet riddled—grating—warring with the countless shards of himself he has yet to reconcile; but his body betrays his intentions as Din’s grasp finds itself lower, filling his fingers with the plush of your ass. “Tell me, please.”

Arousal rushes to pool in your depths—at the proximity of him, the hungered way at which he paws you—and it’s a reaction you feel mimicked by the iron rod straining against Din’s flight suit, pressing into your thigh. You shake your head, gaze colored earnest, and you shift, applying a grind of your hips against him in response.

Din lets out a defeated groan; weak to you, a fabled Mandalorian warrior brought to trembling knees by the guile of a good woman. And suddenly, like striking a match in a room swarmed with gas, you are incendiary.

He’s everywhere— groping and kneading your arms, your ass, your neck and waist. You are malleable beneath him, sculpted like wet clay under his eager touch—as if he is committing your form to memory; the fervor of his grip, reclaiming time.

He hooks a hand under the crease of your knee, yanking you to the column of his armor, sealing your bodies together. Gyrating your hips against him, your clit yearns against his thick outline as you dig into the cowl draped over his shoulders.

Sliding his hand down your backside, he presses his palm into your clothed heat from behind, pads of his fingers insistent as you saddle your spine into his touch, granting him better access. His cock brays, straining beneath his many layers, and a withered moan breaches past your lips.

“Gods, Din.”

Din. He can’t stand that—his name, lush in your wet mouth—and without ceremony, drops your leg from where he’d glued it to his hip. Like a beggar, impoverished and need-stricken, he begins to fight with your clothing, half tempted to rip the damn things off you, leaving you tattered; he’d happily buy you a new wardrobe if it meant having you as he’s wanted for these long months—naked and vulnerable and his.

Your tunic and pants come off in a flurry, your underwear too, discarded hastily in some forgotten corner—and with a hand on your chest, he walks you backwards until your bare ass connects with the durasteel, a jagged inhale tearing through you at the chill. A question knits your brows to meet as Din paces away from you, increasing his distance.

“What are you-”

He interrupts you with a groan. “Just - gedet’ye - just let me—”

His gaze drips like wax down your body—eyes dressing over your clavicle, the supple weight of your breasts, the gorgeous dusting of hair at your mound, the sweet press of your thighs as you clench them together, your pretty knees, your pretty ankles, your pretty feet, pigeoned inward nervously.

Pretty pretty pretty—fuck, all of you. So fucking pretty.

With the cock of his chin, his gaze returns to the heave of your breasts—tracing over your nipples pebbling in the everpresent draft of the Razor Crest— and you rile under him, heart stammering loud—so loud you’re convinced he can hear it with the aid of his helm. And Maker above, the way you’re fucking staring at him—all hooded lids and flushed cheeks. Din wants to fucking ravish you.

Dismantle you.

Pick you apart bit by bit until you’ve come undone completely.

And as if slogging through gravity itself, movements prowled, he steps to you. Din finds your hips, running the whisper of his gloves along the slopes of your sides; a master of patience, commanding time to his will, he crawls up your skin

slow

deliberate.

You’re all but helpless to the shiver that traverses the planes of your body, zipping along your synapses like the fault lines of a quaking planet—cracking you open, exposing your molten core. You’re not proud of the noise you make when he cups your breasts. Starved, you whine as he takes you into his hands, pinching and groping until you’re pert and sore and you drive your pelvis into him, rutting yourself against his frame like some flea ridden slum-mutt in the prime of her heat.

Din seethes, mumbling in Mando’a—spitting curses you can’t pretend to comprehend, but that blot warmth along your cheekbones at the oaky depravity of which he utters them.

He seals over your mound, blood pumping at your seam, bundle of nerves pulsing steady against the heel of his hand. Immobile, he waits, hovering stagnant and teasing before his lust to feel you outweighs his desire to make you be good and wait—and parting through your curls, he kisses the tips of his orange gloves into your honeyed cunt.

It’s dirty. He’s dirty, he’s fucking filthy—covered in foreign blood and alien soil—and you feel depraved, unclean. Powerful. You feel, perhaps, as the Maker intended—wild and without shame, to roam his gateless garden and sully the soles of your feet.

You feel raw. Din Djarin sands you raw.

The pump of his wrist is merciless, pistoning in and out in shallow thrusts, knuckles angled to prod at that spot— that piece of primordial heaven sequestered at the channel of your cunt—and he keeps discovering it over and over again with a sharp shooter’s precision—zeroing in on his mark and releasing the trigger. Dead eyed.

You grab greedily at his bulge, at his cock begging for regard beneath the protective fabric covering him, and you squeeze the best you can. The angle is awkward and unweildy and it’s not nearly enough for either of you, but it conveys your intention well enough.

Can I have this? Will you give this to me?

Din growls his reply, leaving your pussy to fumble with the waist of his trousers, fidgeting over the pesky buttons—the final of the flimsy holdouts separating you and the tempered steel hanging solid between his legs. It bobs free from his pants, ruddied tip straining and pining for you, and without spending another moment idle, he rediscovers the warmth of your naked body— molding himself to your form, his grip once more finding the pit of your knee and bracing it to his side.

He ruts the underside of his shaft through your slick folds, his blunt head nudging at the swollen cleft of your center—each pitch of Din’s hips sending bolts of pleasure crackling through your core. He’s stifling a string of moans while he does it, while he undulates against you, the sighs and gasps digitized to near silence as he coats his cock in your gloss—and not for the first time do you find yourself considering how fucking colossal Din is. How fucking virile and engulfing, like blaster smoke and tabacco and cedar. Like coaled smog from a cremulator. Like giving life, like taking it away— like mercy. Vengeance.

Din swipes your standing leg up to match the other in a fluid motion, effectively levitating you off the ground with only his palms secured beneath your hamstrings and your strangled hold around his neck to suspend you.

“Tell me to stop and I will.” He’s practically begging you now, anguish wrecking through the timber of his voice—grasping blindly for an excuse not to lose himself in you completely, not to bury his primal drives and fears into the chasm of your sex.

You’ll leave him you’ll leave him he’s terrified you’ll leave him

“I-I don’t want you to stop— I want this. Din, I want you, I missed you. I miss you.” You miss him. He’s right here, cock streaking through your middle and still, you miss him. You’ll never stop missing him—wanting him. An unscratchable itch at the median of your back, burning for his affection, for his touch.

He releases a husked sound at that, as if hearing it from you hurts— your words, purpling a bruise into the bloody beat of his heart—and like a dipping sun sinking below the crust of a darkening planet, the last of Din’s resolve fades to utter black as he finally - finally - buries himself into where you weep for him.

Oh Maker. Fuck, fuck—

You muffle a relieved cry, forehead collapsing to the slope of his shoulder. Your walls shutter, blinking and gasping around his cock as he rolls up into you, lips pulling taut around his girth with each drag through your cunt. Din fucks you slurred and languid—his pace, sweltering like a summer fever—heavy, punitive. Smothering and thick. You can feel every vein, every silken ridge, as he notches himself inch by inch— the cant of his hips meditated, aiming to melt you open with each wave.

Stuffed to the hilt inside you, he rakes in a ragged breath, calming the race of his bloodstream drumming percussive in his ears.

It occurs to you then that he might be trying to be careful with you, curled around him like this, crushed up against the bulkhead. You think he might be treating you as a jeweler would handle a rarified gem— gentle and tip-toed, afraid of letting you clatter to the counter, of scuffing your facets— devaluing you.

But you don’t want that. You don’t want cautious or considerate or any of those awfully pious things. You want to be owned. Devoured. You don’t want to feel anything else but him. You want him to need you so terribly, so primally, he bleeds. You want to forget your own damn name and replace the memory of it with his—just his, to sit besot like liquor on your tongue. Din Din Din.

“Fuck me— please - please - fuck me harder Din.” Fuck me like you need to. Fuck me like you want me— please just tell me you want me. Tell me I’m wanted. Tell me I’m worth this.

You can see the deliberation span over his mask, the light glinting off the steel there hesitant, wary. Are you sure?

“Fuck me.” I want this. I want you.

He wants to give this to you somewhere soft— somewhere you deserve. With a feathered mattress and molted down pillows and gauzy curtains billowing in a sea breeze as light dapples prismed patterns on your dewy skin. He wants to give this to you somewhere beautiful—perhaps on that planet you once probed him about - Adega - with its red trees and warm nights and friendly natives you’d cherish and keep aloft in your breast.

He wants you to feel safe. Adored.

But what he wants and what he needs are two vastly different things—two opposing extremes at odds with the other. Because he needs to fuck you here— it has to be here. Needs to score your backside with metaled bites from the Crest’s unforgiving interior; needs you crumpled and sloppy, panting out his name to echo shamelessly into the deviled bowels of his gunship.

He needs you charred for him. Scorched earth.

And with your panted pleas, lilting addictive and irresistible, he is all but helpless to deny you— to deny himself. Relenting, resolved, his voice bottoms out.

“I-I’m gonna fucking ruin you.”

He fucks you frenzied. The snap of his hips drives you into the wall; he lifts you off his cock just to spear you on it once more, fucking up up up into you, unleashing all his strength— his neglected need—into the grail of your womb. The salted slaps of skin are loud enough to make a lecher blush. It’s a chorus of beskar rattling, wet and ugly and Maker, he’s splitting you open and all you can do is mewl.

You screw your eyes shut, lost to oblivion—crown of your head shoved back, jugular bared for him like prey before the slaughter.

“No.” Leveraging his mass against you, Din clasps at the nape of your neck to command your focus, forcing your chin. “No, look at me,” he orders, brutal and sinewed and there’s desperation there. Din needs you looking at him — seeing him— the embrace of your gaze like a life raft, tethering him here, grounding him to this plane of existence, the one where he has found salvation—if only fleeting, if only like hourglassed sand sifting through his fingers—within the temple of your body. Struggling and led-lidded, you pry your lashes apart, shivering as you drink in the punishing expression leering across his visor; and as you always do, you peer past the murky T there, meeting his eyes camouflaged in their sockets behind it.

“There you are. There you are, my pretty thing - hnng—” He silences himself with a hoarse moan, the sensation of you clenching firm around him, gripping Din like a man would a rope, dangling some feet above the ground, hiccuping him to stutter. “T-That’s it, dala—fuck, y-your pussy is so godsdamn tight.”

You go boneless at the praise—at how he tongues out those fond epithets, vehement and covetous and brined in sincerity—and your breathing quickens as you soak the coarse weave of Din’s flight suit, chafing your clit to shambles with each bow of his starved sex.

You’re close. Stars, you’re so kriffing close—reach out and touch it and you’re there, a promise fulfilled dancing at your fingertips—and you almost tell him; you wish you could - don’t stop don’t stop please right there Din - but you’ve lost your voice, vocal chords stricken with tension. More than that, you’ve lost the wedge of your brain that recognizes articulation all together. Speech itself. You’re wasted. You’re shattered. You’re being fucked within an inch of your sorry life.

Nimbled, without a word of warning, Din relocates— grappling under the plats of your thighs and bracing you featherlight to his chest—negligible in comparison to the ton of armor he dons cycle after cycle, weightless when compared to that of his Creed, hanging like a yoke around his gullet. You yip in surprise and scramble around him, calves digging into his back, forearms clamped around his shoulders—his cock remaining delved within your pussy with each footfall.

Four long strides and he’s reached his destination: a large crate, stranded just outside the hallway leading to the galley. Stooping at the waist, he lowers you down with astonishing ease until you’re flush on your back, knees flanking his frame. You heave a sigh, petulant and wanting, when he slips from you mid-adjustment, a lewd squelch accompanying the movement. It is to the fervor of your clawing, desperate nails scratching down metal - please please please - that he glides back into you with one deft sweep, a satisfied gasp tumbling loose from him.

He looms over you now— Din, a tower unyielding—thrusting into you rough and hard and perfect. He’s filling you in undiscovered places long gone unrealized, nooks you didn’t know you had—the length of him completing you, making you whole.

“Tell me to stop,” he pants, orange pads of his gloves dimpling your hips.

With a tremor of your chin, you moan—broken and chirping. “Don’t - please - please don’t - shit - don't stop—” Your prayers convulse, dying in your throat, sentence cut short as he circles his thumb over your clit, catching at your slippery bud. Ever the marksman, he’s debilitatingly attentive to you, the hide of his glove snagging against your cleft, and combined with the steady rock of his dick shredding you open, you’re all but defenseless to the dawning of your release, crawling closer and closer and—

“Din,” you pant, ”Din Din Din, I think I—I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna, oh Maker—”

The muscles in your stomach seize, a twisted expression cramping your brow. You scamper to his arms, reaching out for something - anything - a parcel of real estate to clutch onto while you unravel. You’re grappling with his pauldrons, the pulsepoint at your wrist humming over the symbol welded to his shoulder, and you mage into starlight. You’re fizzing. You’re blind. You’re atomic and phasing in and out of realities and you burn— a meteor hurtling through the upper atmosphere crashing crashing crashing and—

Language exhausted, all there is left for you to do is cry, the evidence of your orgasm ricocheting like a hail of gunfire against the Razor Crest walls.

“That’s a good girl, that’s a good girl for me—f-fuck." It’s like taking a jab to his solar plexus, how you cinch around him— the corset of your walls milking his cock until he’s shaking, stumbling. The drive of his pelvis has gone erratic, the throbbing bloom gnashing its teeth in his gut—that rabid thing desperate to be released, uncaged—teeters on the identical ledge you’d just leapt from.

“Tell me to stop - please - tell me to, tell me to stop—” You’re all eyes. Your whole face, swallowed by the sweet, glassy orbs notched below the quiver of your forehead, and you’re looking at him like he could hang the damn moon and it’s too much— it’s too much too much he can’t levee this raging need— and with a hurried gasp he pulls out of your heat to tug at his slicked cock— panting ragged as he gushes onto your stomach, your legs, your pretty pussy made pink and puffy with abuse.

His breathing is labored; you can see it in the mountainous rise and fall of his chest plate as his strokes slow, his other hand digging into your flesh, indenting you. He exhales, scraping clean the fissure between his lungs, and Din tips his head, angling it backwards— granting you a rare sliver of the stubbled swath along his neck. The sightly patch, treasured behind his silvered grotto, shouldn’t be the thing that plays upon your heartstrings like one would pluck a harp— not after he’s burrowed himself inside you, not after he’s carved you to his likeness— but it does. You’re butterflied and cherry blossomed and you grin— not so much on your lips but in your soul, and there is a purring warmth that’s radiating like candle flame from the anima alive beneath your breasts and—

And then, suddenly — like time, like memory— he is gone.

He leaves you. Mirrored, he does as he did that night—laying a squeeze into the meat of your hip, he transpires to atoms, dissipating round the unknown bend of a corner and you’re alone again—alone, with only the citric bile steeping in your insides to accompany you, threatening to rise up your windpipe.

No. No no nonono—

Din’s presence, a beacon in the moonless night, disappears— leaving you orphaned and moored and mortified. He’s done it again— he’s left you, he keeps leaving you— and it renders you sick; viscerally, you’re angered and ill and green-washed with naivety.

Fool you once, shame on them. Fool you twice, and what in Maker’s name did you expect? A declaration? An about-face? As if a Mandalorian could let the beskar from his blood. As if Din could reanimate the cadaver of his past—could slip into that old snakeskin he’d shed cycles before.

It paralyzes you. Immobile, you are chambered flat on your back in the resin of your embarrassment, bereft of your vision as you stare sightless into the steel. You’ve separated—your mind and your body disjointed like oil and water, and you don’t hear it. You don’t hear the tread of Din’s feet, you don’t register his aura, Illuminous in the archway; you don’t see the stray towel fisted in his grip, you don’t feel the clench of a frozen hand around your heart as he does his. For he sees you there—a tick in your jaw; eyes distanced, fogged—and he knows he’s done this to you. The scarring of how he derelicted you then tarnishing the new-leaf flesh of the present.

He steps towards you, closer now, and your alerted gaze pins to him. A surprised expression makes a home there, astoundment freckling your face— and although he hasn’t earned the right, it strikes him bullseyed between his plated ribs because it hurts— the obvious shock of him returning for you hurts. Din is not a good man— not all of him. Sometimes, you and all your heaven-lit gleam, you make him forget that.

But sometimes, you make him remember.

And Maker, if you don’t look good like this. Streaked with his seed, creamy white pearling the maps of your body, the shine of it catching in the cannistered shafts of filtered light.

There’s a word for this—for you, for how you look, splayed and painted with his cum—with him. It puffs up like petals would, there in the square of his center. He’s never said it. His mouth doesn’t know the feel of it, his lips don’t know its shape. It’s scribed in Mando’a, and as native as the language is to him—as fundamental as Basic, if not more so—the word itself is foreign. Gawky. The thought of it alone hobbles through his mind on foaled legs. Din keeps this word barred, its essence clinging to the iron partitions of his skull, its perfume clouding his senses, his better judgement, his confounded rationality dangling precarious by a string.

Beautiful. Mesh’la.

You shift under his watchful eye, knees steepling mousy, and gingerly, he prizes the two apart and you let him.

You let him you let him of course you let him.

Din runs a damp cloth up your seam, up those hypersensitive folds, towards the expanse of flesh leading to your belly, and you hiss—a startled chill icing through your body.

“It’s cold,” he informs you, well after the fact, and you chortle a note in response. He continues to lave you clean, the drag of the material smoothing over your stippled planes and it’s intimate—how he takes you under his care, how he unmakes his mess.

Your heart, silly flustered thing it is, it tells you the act feels worshipful—reverent, maybe—but your head convinces you to look away, to cower, to do anything but address the blaze left in the wake of the rag he’s swiping over you. It’s too much. You feel vase-like— fragile and dainty, for the bounty hunter to either fill with wildflowers or crush under the heel of his boot— and it’s too unbearable. Bringing a hand to your sweat-sheened face, you shadow your eyes, ostriching shyly— if I can’t see him, he can’t see me.

A clipped tone escapes his helmet and it’s a sound you can’t place— it’s short, a blip—and you presume he’ll remain mum until he speaks. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

You don’t have to hide from me. I don’t want you to hide from me.

You nearly whimper at that. There’s something endearing and bronzed about how he says it, something torn, too—and you peak through the curtain of your fingers to watch him perform his ministrations. Almost begrudginly, you remove your hand from it’s shelf, resting it on the swell of your breast while he passes the cloth along your inner thighs, erasing the sticky traces of himself. There’s a quiet pause, a moment of distilled nothing before—

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” you admit, small.

He soothes his thumb into the crook of your hip, voice blunt with guilt. “I know.”

Sighing, you nod a little thing, a half-gesture, practically creeping under the Mandalorian's radar undetectable. Thunder shouts, lightning cracks— the bombastic storm outside apathetic to the lull within. Din clears his throat, rasping. “Was that okay?”

You resist the temptation to snort. Din is such a juxtaposition—one you don’t imagine you’ll tire from any time soon. He’s dangerous and protective and clever and strong and kind, despite his best efforts to snuff his compassion to ash like the butt of a dead cigarette. Lifting your palm from its perch, you extend to him, measuredly sliding your fingers against the crate— stretching stretching until he meets you, dubious and toddling like a child’s first steps, orange-dipped digits touching nude flesh. Your everbright grin brightens all the more— bewitching, back-breaking—as you entwine your hands to mesh.

“More than okay,” you say coyly. “Was that-was that good for you?”

Din huffs out an airy chuckle rich with disbelief, like he can’t fathom you’re even asking him—like you’d even have to ask at all. “That was—that was good. Very good,” he confesses gruffly, never a man for poetry, breathlessness still apparent in the bleed of his vocoder. “Even better than I imagined.”

A feline grin unfurls your lips, boldly quirking the droll corners of your mouth. “You imagine this often, Mando?”

Smirking wry and devastating, Din ushers you up by your woven hands, your body pliable and easy to his will; uprighted, his hips slot between your pretty knees, and he expertly twists your arm behind your back, snaring it there. Spine swooped, breasts brushing against his beskar, your nipples pebble cold. “Don’t let it go to your head, dala,” he gravels, visor tilted down at your dwarfed form, tenting you.

“Well," you tease lightly, "I’ll try my best.”

And you look at each other with all the tender awkwardness of two people standing on the edge of a brave new unknown.

Nervous, girlish, you smile.

Fluttering, pussy-drunk, he smiles back.

///

Nested in the pronged branch of a tall tree spindling up from the graveled soil, Din— a man, a boy too— reclines supine against the bark. His feet dangle like they did then, back when he wasn’t so afraid, and the air is dusted with a rosy haze as dusk settles upon the tired day.

The sun sets. The world twinkles a midnight blue, winking starshine as she spins.

Somewhere, behind him, his mother calls him home for supper.

tags: @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @pedros-mustache @miranhas-art @djarrex @djarinsbeskar @bookloverfilmoholic @keeper0fthestars @misguidedandbeguiled @bookishofalder @helmet-comes-off @grumpymuffinmama @niiight-dreamerrrr @spideysimpossiblegirl @janebby @greatcircle79 @gracie7209 @thatonedindjarinfan @altered-delta @email2ash @stevie75 @shegatsby @onebrownoneblue @uniquebiscuitmongerdonkey @severinsnape @kirsteng42 @justanothersadperson93 @mrsbentalmadge @radiowallet @librariantothejedi @whataperfectwasteoftime @babydarkstar @punkremus @mandobloggin @alma-rt1 @not-the-droids @pedrostories @kylieann0716 @jk7789

#King of Cups #din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem!reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x ofc #din djarin #the mandalorian #mando x you #mando x reader #mando x fem!reader #din djarin fanfic #din Djarin smut #the mandalorian fanfic #star wars fandom

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hobidreams · 3 years

Text

july 1869.

does some part of him still remember the smiles you once shared?

pairing: joseon king!yoongi x reader genre: fluff, angst, very brief smut words: 1.2k contains: old friends. memories.

moonlit throne index. this is drabble 22. start from the beginning?

Today, the sky is an overcast of grey clouds, promising at least a few drops of rain before hopefully giving way to the sun as you weave through the crowd in the town marketplace with a package in hand.

“Uinyeo-nim!” A bright voice cuts through the bustle of citizens trying to do their best to earn their living.

You turn, and smile when you see a face you’ve come to know rather well in the past month. “Scholar Park!”

He clutches a bundle of books in his arms as he walks up to you. “If I had known you were going to town, I would have waited for you.”

“You are kind, but I always have an escort.” You gesture to the guard assigned to you today, another stern-faced man with one hand on his sword at all times.

Scholar Park presses his full lips tightly together at the subtle reminder of your status. “Right. Well, at least we can walk together now! Are you finished with your errands?”

“Not yet. I have one last stop. We’re almost there, actually.” You fall into a comfortable step, keeping your pace light as you begin to walk forward again. “What’re you studying today?”

He groans. “I have to memorize all the guidelines on taxation. Even though they seem needlessly complicated, and I am far from interested in that area. I would much rather focus on agriculture.”

“But you’re working hard on it anyway, right? Not sneaking in any romance novels in with the texts?” You grin, giving the books a light poke with a finger.

“Um! No, of course not!” He denies it too quickly, and you make a note to bring him one of your favorite books later to see if he’ll take. Master Taehyun’s novels have only gotten better as the years pass, and his latest is a riveting story about a dashing young soldier and his childhood friend, who disguises herself as a man to bravely join him in the military ranks.

For now, you let Scholar Park off with a smile. “We’re here.”

Before you, Chun-ja scowls down at her son with a loose fistful of his hair caught between her fingers. “Yah!” She yells, “how could you break another plate?! I told you, no more running inside!”

“Sorry mom…” The kid shuffles from foot to foot, glancing to the side for a way out. His guilt-ridden face lights up when he sees you approach: the perfect escape plan. “Uinyeo-nim!” He runs towards you, slipping out of Chun-ja’s grasp before barreling right into your stomach.

You laugh as fondly pat his head. “Hey there, Han-jae.” Then you give him a knowing look. “You’re causing trouble for your mom again?”

“When is he not, is the question.” Chun-ja rolls her eyes, but in good humor now that you’re here. “It’s so great to see you. Grandma’s going to be overjoyed you could come. Let me go get her.”

“Here. Take these books I brought for you first.” You hand her the package, which she accepts with a grateful bow. “Oh, and Eunuch Kim included some for you as well. With a letter.”

Chun-ja flushes, her smile easily pulled wider at the mention of the kind man before she disappears through the door.

Left alone, Han-jae turns his head to the man beside you. “Who’re you?” Han-jae asks Scholar Park, regarding him with some suspicion. “Are you with uinyeo-nim?”

“A scholar. Who’re you?” is the reply, said with the same amount of maturity in the tone (though you can tell Scholar Park is mostly playing along. You think.)

“Han-jae.”

They stare each other down, and you leave them be to sort out whatever man to man fixation they’ve got going on as Sook-ja opens the door. “Uinyeo-nim!” With a huge smile, she immediately pulls you into a warm hug. She soon proceeds to interrogate you about your health and the importance of drinking hot water, even in summer, before she pushes a box of colorful dasik treats into your arms, making you promise to give some to the young lord that is still most definitely not your betrothed. Inevitably, Han-jae tries to steal a sweet before long and you’re forced to play keep-away from the rambunctious boy for a little while until you’re breathless, but smiling so hard your face hurts.

Even as the rain starts to fall on your way back to the palace, today is, without a doubt, a good day.

At the palace gate, upon your return, you are immediately instructed to go to the king’s quarters. You bid goodbye to Scholar Park as the guard escorts you through the palace grounds. You wish you could change, as your hanbok is rather soaked, but there is no time.

As soon as you enter his room, you sense a tension in the air, a thickness that makes you feel uneasy. The king sits at his desk, his back straight as he intently studies parchments. You know he was scheduled to have a particularly grueling meeting today, and it seems to have taken its toll on him by the scowl on his face. You aren’t sure whether to announce your presence again, and are just mulling it over when—

“Where were you?” He snaps, his stare still on the papers. “You weren’t in your room.”

“I was in town, jeonha.”

“Alone?”

“With the guard. And with Scholar Park.”

Now he looks up. His eyes are narrowed as he takes in your damp appearance. “Park? That recently acquired academic?”

“Yes, we met by coincidence in the market.”

“I see.” His attention is drawn downward once more as he flips the page. “Strip.”

“N-Now, jeonha?” He will have you, even when he seems wrapped up in his reading?

“Unless you would rather catch ill, su-uinyeo-nim.”

Oh. Your chest tightens ever so slightly at the unexpected reason. You do as he instructs, peeling off the outer layer of your blouse and skirt before hanging them over a nearby chair.

“I, um, saw Sook-ja-nim in town. She’s doing well. She asked after you, and asked me to bring you these dasik.”

You wonder if he remembers her. And if he does, if he even cares. Still, you pick up the box and approach the desk to set it carefully on the solid surface. He watches you lift the lid to reveal the assortment of sweets, but doesn’t reach for them.

“You don’t wear it anymore,” he says suddenly, his eyes concentrating on your skin. “The bracelet.”

Instinctively, you wrap fingers around your bare wrist. “I’m sorry. It broke.” (An accident with a sharp edge just last week. You still keep the pieces in a small case buried beneath your clothes, but you don’t tell him that.)

“I’ll send Eunuch Kim for another one.”

“But that’s not the…” You shake your head, biting off the truth. “No, thank you, jeonha. There is no need to go to the trouble. It’s fine.” It could never be the same.

His brow wrinkles at your answer, but he seems to accept what you’ve said, so he doesn’t fight you. Instead, he stands. Takes you in his arms as he leads you to the bed, always the solution when he no longer wants to talk and risk letting you in that tangled, thorny mind of his. Among the luxurious fabrics, he claims you again. Reaffirms over and over with his head between your thighs that you are his, with a fervor that makes you want desperately to believe that he needs you as much as you do him.

#ficswithluv #bts fluff #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #bts angst #yoongi x reader #historical au #bts imagines #bts scenarios #min yoongi #rain writes #moonlit throne #do you feel it?#the... shift?

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warmau · 4 years

Text

“so,,,,,,,where exactly did you find them?”

the boy infront of you scratches the back of his head, his eyes shifting nervously to the floor

“outside the skate park.”

“someone just put them there? in a box?”

“yeah, like i told you - one second there was nothing and i was you know - skating - and then i looked back at the same spot and there was this box with -”

he motions and you look down at the four baby kittens, all curled around each other, all matted fur and raggedy looking tails

“ok. and you brought them here, which was the right thing to do - um-”

you look at him for a solid moment, piercings in every ear, nose ring, oversized hoodie, beat up board under his arm

“yuta. my names yuta.”

“well yuta, if they’re not yours then ill be taking them in as strays.”

he straightens up

“are you going to ..... are going to take care of them? or are you going to-”

you get what he’s insinuating from the way his face pales a little with fright

you shake your head, no - this isn’t a kill shelter first of all, and also kittens are always in demand to be adopted so once they get in healthy shape a loving family will probably take them in

you explain this all to yuta, who fidgets in front of the counter, and then leaves without a word when you ask him if there’s anything else you can help with

you are a little ticked at the rude exit, but a small and hungry meow shifts your focus

maybe four days pass - when the door to the shelter opens again

you’re on night duty, the other volunteer - taeyong - is in the back working on some adoption paperwork processing

and so you stand up and expect someone to scurry in as usual, looking ashamed and embarrassed, handing you off their ailing cat or misbehaving puppy

which isn’t the animals fault at all - but usually the incompetency of a novice owner

but instead you see yuta. again.

“are the kittens ok?”

you register the question and narrow your eyes

“listen if you didn’t just find them and were actually their owner you can’t jus-”

“no, no - id never abandon them like that - i-if they were mine.”

his eyes blaze a little and by the way his voice goes higher you realize he’s probably telling the truth

he has the some board under his arm and the same old looking hoodie - this time his hair is more messy, as if he came here in a rush

“i just wanted to make sure they’re ok.”

you tap your fingers against the counter and sigh

“follow me.”

he breaks into a smile but you snap your fingers and point to the board

“that thing stays out here.”

he obliges, leaning it up against one of the walls and tailing behind you as you open the door to the back

taeyong only shifts an eyebrow at the sight of you too - but goes back to flipping through papers as you stop in front of an incubator

“two of them are in here because they were in a critical condition, but the other two are over there - probably romping around with the others.”

yuta looks through the opening and the light reflects back on his face, the worried look he had been wearing turns into a heartwarming smile

and he coos at them a little before you almost have to drag him away

back behind the counter, you watch him pick his board up

this time he thanks you before he goes and asks;

“are you the one taking care of them?”

“for the most part, but other volunteers do too when im not on my shift. why?”

he pushes the door open and shrugs

“you seem like you’d do the best job at it - taking care of them and all.”

before you can even respond, and you can’t because the shock of the statement kind of paralyzes you, yuta is gone

all you see is him get on his board and skate away through the window

we’ve met once - well twice - but it’s nice i gave you such a good impression?

you check your watch two weeks later when you’re on night duty again. there’s no way he’s coming, but this is around the time he stopped by-

“hey.”

you look up and yuta’s at the counter. no board this time, but the same hoodie.

if you had known each other longer, you might have realized he got another stud in his right ear.

“are you here to finally adopt them?”

you ask, because you’re genuinely curious, also what other reason would he have for showing up here a third time

he shakes his head

“no, i can’t take care of them - even if i wanted to.”

you are about to tell him that’s a lame excuse, but you hear him mutter after

“i have to figure out how to take care of myself first.”

so you don’t answer, instead you motion for him to follow you

this time, you let him play with one of the kittens and you see the way he giggles and holds them carefully, they lean into him and although skittish with most

they seem comfortable and almost serene in the palm of his hands

you know you shouldn’t really be letting him back in here, but the happiness painted across him in the moment washes away any caution you would have harbored with anyone else

when you have to say goodbye this time, you are surprised that yuta asks when your night shift ends

“6 am.”

“woah, isn’t it still dark out then?”

“it’s the middle of summer so the sun comes out while im on the train.”

he nods, waves, and disappears again.

when your shift ends - you pack your things - and say goodbye to the animals and taeyong

you shrug your bag over your shoulder and don’t even realize yuta is sitting on the curb outside until you turn in the direction of the train and hear him go

“hey - wait!”

you feel slightly weird, but not unsafe as he walks beside you

“how long were you out there?”

“not that long, i went back to the skate park - skated till like 4ish with friends then just went down to the beach.”

“is that what you’ve been doing with your summer nights?”

you mean it as a bit of a joke, but he nods - running a hand through his hair - “not much else to do.”

“isn’t anyone worried you’re staying out that late?”

“no. no one tends to worry about me.”

you think about that phrase on the ride home.

realizing that you should have asked yuta about it when you had the chance

so instead you show up the next day at the skate park

you look around, and then you see him

he’s leaning against the fence - his board on the ground beside him, with his hoodie pilled ontop and a half finished energy drink

he’s got a sleeveless black tanktop on, messily tucked into scuffed looking jeans.

some other skaters are talking to him and he’s laughing

but he has his arms crossed and even though he looks part of the group

something about him is defensive and keeping others at bay

you don’t meant to stare, and you start thinking this was actually foolish of you to do, until he turns his head and catches your gaze

he jogs over - some people from inside the park wolf whistle and he flips them off

“i know you didn’t miss me or anything, so what are you doing here?”

you narrow your eyes - that’s the first thing he thinks to say?

“well, i just was thinking about something and- well ill just ask.”

he puts his hands in his pockets and looks at you in a way you are not used to being looked at

like he’s searching inside your expression for truthiness

or maybe safety

“is that why you brought the kittens to us. because you thought like you, no one else would worry about them?”

your voice is low, almost a whisper and the look on yuta’s face softens

“yeah.”

he chuckles, but you can tell it is sad

“kind of pathetic, huh?”

“no.”

you reject

“taking care of others is never pathetic.”

a silence quilts the conversation, but you don’t feel like it is depressive at all

instead you suddenly announce

“ill do it.”

“do what?”

“ill worry about you, so for starters, stop hanging out here until 4 am and go home and sleep.”

he’s smiling when he asks and so it betrays what point he’s trying to make

“hey, i didn’t ask for you to worry-”

“too bad. im making the decision to on my own. also, if you want to see the kittens, come during the day.”

surprisingly, yuta takes you up on the order

he shows up the following week at a normal hour of the day and when he’s playing with those kittens again

the light on his face is somehow stronger

he waits for you again to finish work, this time you ask him why - it’s light out and you don’t need to be walked to the train

“oh im not here to walk you to the train.”

“then why are you here?”

“to take you on a date.”

the date is - as you might have guessed - at the skate park

where you wobble around on the board as yuta holds you steady by the waist

you keep almost falling over so in due time you just tell him to let you give up

the two of you can go spread out on a bench and drink something cold instead

yuta agrees, but he insists that with more practice you’ll get better. you just don’t think so.

and this little day, becomes an almost weekly endeavor

you work your job at the shelter and yuta picks you up

you two usually end up doing absolutely nothing together, just walking around and talking

and yet it feels at the same time that you are doing everything together

everything that people do to survive

eating, talking, breathing, touching

when yuta first kisses you it is on the steps leading down into the train.

he kisses with an intensity you have never experience from anyone else before

so much so that you get shy and stop him because you are in public and it is broad daylight

“are you suggesting we continue somewhere more dark and private?”

he tickles against your ear and you push him playfully away

escaping down into the train before he can pick apart your embarrassment

needless to say, it does happen - how can it not when yuta ignores you telling him to not wait around after your night shift ends

and he’s there, and the summer darkness is sweltering, and he is too

and taeyong is off on sick leave, no one else is there to watch the animals with you and the little office in the back is cramped but it fits two people just perfectly

you mutter when you’re both getting dressed again that you hope the animals didn’t hear anything

and yuta, with just his jeans on - prances out to check on the kittens

then the day comes - when a young couple stops in and decides they’re going to adopt all four.

it’s bittersweet to let them go, and it almost hurts to tell yuta about it later on

with you pressed into his arms. but he just squeezes you.

“im happy they find someone that’ll worry about them.”

you agree and then his lips speak against your hair

“im happy i found someone who will worry about me too.”

you pull back and yuta waits for your reaction you lean in and kiss him gently

“im happy i get to worry about you, yuta.”

he grins and mumbles that you can’t say things like that and expect him not to keep falling more and more crazily in love with you.

but that’s exactly what you expect, and you expect that he’ll keep feeling that way

because you do

even years later

when it’s both your turn to finally worry about something together

“can we adopt four?”

“no, only one yuta.”

“fine - but what if we find four kittens like i did when we first met?”

you roll your eyes, “that’ll be a miracle.”

you walk through the doors of the shelter and are greeted with a wave from the receptionist

“are you guys looking for a dog or a cat?”

“we’re looking for a kitten, do you have any?”

yuta’s arm is around your waist and you want to tell him to stop looking at you and pay attention when the receptionist brightens

“yes! we actually just got a whole litter, would you like to see them.”

you nod and catch yuta’s wide eyes - he mouths

“a litter? isn’t that more than four? are we about to adopt like eight ca-”

you pinch his cheek, tell him to stop dreaming, but he just nuzzles in against your ear

the receptionist giggles into her palm at the affection between you two and you mumble that gosh, looks like you already adopted a big kitten all those years ago.

#the way im not posting this weeks after his actualy bday win for me #nct scenarios #nct au #yuta scenarios #yuta au #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 au #nct #yuta #sfw

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missymurphy1985 · 3 years

Text

The Return

It's been 2 years since you were last in Dublin. 2 years since you up and left without warning, saying goodbye to your life there and restarting somewhere completely new. Sometimes, you have to go backwards in order to move forwards.

Requested by @noctvrnalmoth I hope you like it!

*Featuring Jim from the Delinquent Season*

Stepping off the train into the platform, you sighed. It all looked the same, and yet so different. Pulling the buggy open, you gently strapped your sleeping son in and made your way to the taxi rank, your suitcase trailing behind you. A kind lady helped you with your bags and waited with you for an available taxi.

"You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders there, are you okay?" She sat next to you on the bench as your son murmured adorably in his sleep. "Sorry, I don't mean to pry..."

"No don't be sorry.. just been a long time since I came back here is all. Few loose ends to tie up." You glanced at your son's sleepy features as his eyes started to open. Beautiful, ocean blue eyes alongside his dark hair, growing more every day... The memories of that night flooding back before you took a large gulp of water from the bottle in your bag, forcing them back down. You'd done so well... 2 years and you'd built a new life in London. New friends, amazing new job allowing you to put that degree in marketing to good use - you were finally making a complete fresh start. But the secrets you had buried deep inside kept coming to the surface the more your son grew. He deserved to know his roots, who his father was, you knew that, but you couldn't do it.

Choking a tear back, you thanked the kind lady for helping you as a taxi pulled up and she helped you to get in.

Pulling up outside your cousin Natalie's townhouse in the city centre, she was waiting for you at the gate to help with Jackson and your bags. Grinning from ear to ear she pulled you in for a huge hug once you'd got inside and settled on her couch as Jackson sat in this new lady's lap tugging at her earrings.

"I can't believe I'm only just meeting him y/n.. he's the image of you!!" She kissed his cheek, bringing him up to look at him properly for the first time not over Skype.

"I never see it, I just see.... I just see him I guess..." You mind wandered to the man you actually saw, but you didn't let it slip.

"Those EYES!!! So blue and vibrant, just beautiful!" Natalie was swooning now, she'd never seen eyes that blue on a baby. Your eyes were brown, so he clearly inherited them from his father, although you had never revealed his identity - just a drunken one night stand and he wasn't involved. You weren't lying, technically...

After catching up properly, Natalie told you she'd planned a few people coming over to welcome you back that evening - nothing major, just a few friends from years ago that were keen to see you after so long away.

"Oh.. yes, that would be nice... Um, who's coming?"

"Well I think David and Amanda, possibly Caroline.. I think Liam is asking Jim too but I'm not sure if he's up for it - he's been through a tough time lately.." you caught a gasp in your throat at the sound of his name. Last you heard, through Natalie, he and Danielle were going through a rough patch. Cheating accusations on both sides, they'd agreed to a trial separation. "Apparently she isn't as broken hearted as once thought - already shacked up with someone new, fancy house on the coast, new Jag on the driveway, she's doing quite well for herself!" Your chin began to wobble, not unnoticed by Natalie, who placed Jackson in his bouncer on the floor and moved to place a hand on your shoulder.

"I'm fine Nat, honestly I'm good. It was a long time ago, things have changed. I'm not that silly little girl with a crush anymore..." Natalie looked into your eyes. Nothing ever got past her.

"Y/n.. when I said I'd never seen eyes that blue, I meant on a baby. Only one person I know has eyes like that, and I think you know too. Tell me the truth, please?" You were frozen, until tears escaped and you couldn't stop them. Jackson looked to see his mum crying and began crying too. Scooping him up, you held him close.

"It happened once... Just once Nat... And he doesn't know and he doesn't need to know, let's just leave it there, yeah?"

"What?? This is Jim's son? I was almost kidding y/n... How could you keep this from him for 2 years??" She was stood up now in complete shock. Jim wasn't just her friend, he was her husband's brother - this made things even more intense. The atmosphere could be cut with a knife.

"Please Nat... This wasn't easy okay? I was 21, I slept with a married man, and I got pregnant... Then mum died.. I had to go back to London to sort out the funeral and the will... I didn't want to be seen as the homewrecker that got herself knocked up..."

"And what about Jackson? Doesn't he deserve to know his father?"

"Of course... And he would.. when I was ready Nat. And I'm not ready..."

"Not ready for what?" Liam, Natalie's husband was stood in the doorway, as you heard the front door close. Now standing next to him was the man you were desperately trying to avoid... Jim stood behind him, eyes wide at the sight of you with a baby in your arms.

"Baby, we need to go pick up that delivery from the post office, remember the one we missed last week?" Natalie pulled a confused Liam out of the room, leaving his brother and you alone.

"Y/n... Hey.. um.. how are you?" You tried to smile in response but your heart was pounding in your chest, you could barely breathe.

"I.. yeah.. um, yeah I'm okay.." you glanced down at his hand.. the wedding ring was gone. "I'm sorry to hear about you and Olivia..."

"Probably for the best eh... We weren't exactly getting along, just stayed together for the kids I think. They're older now though, they're fine. Y/n.. where did you go? Why did you go?"

"My mum was ill... She'd had a stroke and they couldn't save her, I had to go... I just stayed.. and things happened.."

"You had a baby..." He looked at the little boy in your arms, feeling extremely nervous now. "He must be just over a year old, right?" You nodded.

"13 months.."

"And we... We had sex y/n.. the day before you left..." His own breath was faltering now as the dates in his mind started to catch up. Again, you nodded, tears rolling down your cheeks. The realisation of what was happening dawned on Jim. He started to back away, before shaking his head and storming out of the house, the door slamming behind him making you and your son jump.

Your sobs came out in full force now, Liam and Natalie coming back into the room. Liam took Jackson into the kitchen to find him something to eat as Natalie held you.

"It's okay y/n... Give him time yeah? Poor guys just had the shock of his life, he'll come round." Your heart was sinking.. you hadn't meant for any of this to happen, but here it was. The memory of that afternoon had never left you, you hadn't even been able to move on - your son, for starters, looked just like him, how could you find love with anyone with the constant reminder of the man you'd never have around you 24/7.

Flashback

"I'm so sorry Jim, I didn't know who else to call..." You climbed into his car, cheeks burning as he picked you up from outside the pharmacy. You'd been walking along the road when a pothole in the pavement took you by surprise and you'd tripped, your ankle turning funny - the pain was horrific, but no one seemed to be answering your phone calls when you rang around for someone to come pick you up. Reluctantly, you'd dialled Jim's number, your cousin's brother in law. He'd given you his number the previous week, after offering to help you move into your new apartment later that month.

"No problem, I was just dropping the kids at school so I was only round the corner." He helped you into the car and drove you back to his house. "I figured your place is in boxes, no chance of a first aid kit either, I'm guessing?"

"No," You laughed. "Thank you so much.." you grimaced as you turned your foot round, trying to ease the pain.

"Definitely not broken, just need to rest it. I'll put the kettle on." Jim led you into the kitchen and sat you down at the kitchen table, and grabbed an ice pack from the fridge. Lifting your leg onto the chair opposite, he placed the ice pack onto your ankle. "Feeling okay?" He asked, flicking the kettle on and preparing two mugs of coffee.

"Much better.. thank you." Definitely better.. the physical contact from him was driving you insane, you had to swallow the blushes in your cheeks, praying he hadn't noticed.

"I've only got instant coffee... Hope that's okay - Danielle won't let me buy a coffee machine." He rolled his eyes. His wife was one of the tightest women he'd ever met.

"It's fine, thank you.. and I honestly can't thank you enough for coming to get me.. I can't believe how clumsy I am!"

"Hey those pavements are a nightmare - I'm surprised no one's broken a leg yet! Don't you be moving now, I'll take you back home once that swelling has gone down."

"How did you know how to fix it all?"

"I have a son, y/n, who at one stage a few years ago thought he was an actual superhero and would fling himself off anything to check if he could fly.. you learn the difference between a broken ankle and a twisted one pretty quick!" He laughed, remembering the time his son climbed the tallest tree in the park, giving him a heart attack before throwing himself from the top - luckily Jim caught him before he hit the floor.

"I think it's better now, Jim, I can try and walk." You said, after chatting for a while in the large kitchen.

"Let me help you.." he held your hands and guided you upright, your chests now pressed together as you placed your foot gingerly on the floor, testing it's strength. Stumbling slightly, Jim caught you, your bodies now even closer together. You could feel his heart racing, could he feel yours? His hands wrapping around yours, holding you up, an arm snaking round your waist. You looked up and found him looking right back at you, your face inches from his. Before you had time to think, you kissed him, before quickly pulling back.

"Shit I'm sorry... Oh god.. no... I'm sorry..." He took your hand in his and pulled you back to him, pressing his lips back to yours. This time you didn't pull back, your mouth opening allowing his tongue to dance against yours. Lifting you up, he sat you on top of the counter, his hands roaming your body hungrily.

"I can't... I shouldn't..." He murmured against your neck, the vibrations driving you wild with need. "You're so fucking beautiful y/n..." He ground your hips against yours, you could feel his erection through his jeans as you reached down to cup it through them, kneading it slightly. He growled, pulling your hand up to his chest, his heart hammering underneath his shirt. "You feel that? Feel how fast that's going?" Silently you took his hand and placed against your chest.

"Feel mine...." You pushed his hand down lower.. over your breast... Down your stomach and under the waistband of your skirt. His fingers found your folds, and he gasped your name. "I'm wet... I'm so fucking wet..." Lifting your skirt up, he pulled your underwear down. You relieved him of his jeans and they fell to the floor, revealing no underwear, just his huge, hard cock already leaking.

"I see you are too..." You ran a finger along the slit, taking some of the precum and lifting it to your mouth. "You taste good..."

"You want this...?" He asked, lining himself up against you. You nodded, and he pushed in easily, you gasped his name and threw your head back as he filled you completely. Pulling on your hips, he rocked you against him as he moved his own hips back and forth, fucking you against the countertop. You legs wrapped round his waist as his thrusts came harder, deeper, faster.

"Fuck... Right there... Jim... Oh god...." He bit down on your exposed neck, hands pushing against your still covered breasts, he moaned.

"Feels so good y/n... You feel so good... That's it baby, I need to feel you... Cum for me..." You leaned back, and eyes locked with his you drew a hand down to circle your clit as he moved inside you.

"Gonna make myself cum on you... Gonna cum hard for you... Faster Jim..." He pounded into you now, your moans echoing through the kitchen as you came over him, his release following seconds later. Both of you leaned your heads together as your worlds came back into focus.

Present Day

"Hey."

"Hey.." you'd agreed to meet Jim for a coffee a few days later. He'd called you the evening before, slightly tipsy which made you chuckle. Liam and Natalie were watching Jackson while the two of you caught up.

"How's the hangover?" You smiled, he grimaced.

"Well I've definitely felt fresher.. it was a bit of a shock y/n..."

"Listen.. for what it's worth.. I'm sorry. I didn't know I was pregnant until I was nearly 20weeks. With the stress of losing mum and the funeral, I hadn't had a period for a while but I thought it was just the stress.. then my friend convinced me to take a test and the doctors confirming it.. it was too late to do anything about it.. then I heard you and Danielle were trying for another baby and I just couldn't do it Jim.. I couldn't destroy your life like that.." your hands were shaking. He leaned over and took your hands in his.

"I understand y/n.. I do. I spent most of this week thinking about it. I don't blame you for what you did.. but I do wish you'd told me."

"I'd done enough damage Jim, sleeping with a married man? On his kitchen counter where he makes his kids breakfast? Where his wife makes her coffee in the morning? I couldn't face you.. I couldn't face what I'd done.."

"You know where my wife was, that morning?" He leaned back, smiling a little. "At her office, bent over the desk while her boss fucked her from behind. She called my number by accident while it happened. I didn't answer, obviously, I was busy.. but my voicemail picked up the whole thing. I'd had my suspicions for a long time, but that confirmed it. We were never trying for another baby - that's just what she told people to distract them from the fact we were clearly falling apart at the seams. Couldn't exactly be mad at her after what I'd done with you though."

"Did you tell her?"

"Yes, but she didn't know it was you. Then you up and left.. I thought there was no need to tell her who it was. I guess now we kinda have to, right?"

"Jim, I don't expect anything from you, okay? I have an inheritance from my mum, I'm fine for money, there's no need to be involved if it'll cause you problems.."

"No. You've kept him from me for nearly 2 years y/n, don't do this again, please? I'm not asking you to move in, I'm not asking for a relationship, I just want to get to know our boy.. that's all.. please?" You saw it in his eyes. It was there, for all to see. Was it love?

"I'll call Nat.. ask her to bring him over, maybe we could go for a walk?" Jim smiled, nodding. You made the call, and an hour later you were walking to the local park, Jim pushing the stroller. He took Jackson out of the buggy and placed him inside a baby swing, pushing him gently while pulling silly faces making him giggle. Your heart swelled watching them.

"He's incredible.. those eyes.."

"Your eyes, Jim." He looked up at you and smiled listening to his son's giggle, before he started becoming grouchy again.

"He's teething... Come on little man, let's get you back shall we?" Jim lifted him from the swing and placed his little finger in Jackson's mouth. He responded by sucking his gums along it, finding relief. You smiled, watching Him soothe your son's whimpers of pain as his teeth came through.

Making your way inside Natalie's house, you were surprised to find it empty. A note on the kitchen counter read that they'd gone out for the afternoon, they wouldn't be home until the evening. You warmed a bottle of milk for Jackson as Jim gave him some Calpol. Taking the bottle from you, he fed his son, as you watched, heart pounding as you watched the man you were still in love with take such good care of your baby. Within 15 minutes, Jackson was fed and had been rocked to sleep in his father's arms, you took him and placed him upstairs in his cot to nap. You knew he'd be out for at least an hour after all that fresh air. Walking back into the lounge, you found Jim sat on the sofa waiting for you.

"Come here, y/n..." You sat next to him as he turned to face you, hand gently caressing your cheek. "What are we going to do now?"

"I'm heading back to London tomorrow Jim..." His eyes glistened slightly. He'd just found his son, and now he was going again. He'd just got you back in his life, and now you were disappearing again...

"What can I do to make you stay?" His question took you by surprise. Stay?

"Jim, I..."

"I haven't stopped thinking about you.. about what happened 2 years ago. How long I'd wanted you, how long I'd dreamt of you, how I still dream of you even now.. and we share a son y/n.. I can't let you go again, it'd break me.."

"I'm half your age Jim! I'm barely older than your eldest child, how can this possibly work?" He answered with a kiss. Leaning forward to take your mouth against his, without thinking you returned it, linking your fingers with his as he pulled you into his lap.

"It'll work because we'll make it work.. nothing else matters.. all of that other stuff is irrelevant.." he felt you grind your hips against his and his erection was burning against his jeans. He needed you, now.

"And Danielle?"

"Is fucking a man old enough to be her own father - opinion invalid. I don't care about her, I care about you.. please.." he was aware of how desperate he sounded but he didn't care. He had his hand under your t-shirt against your breast, no bra in the way this time. Lifting you up, he carried you upstairs to the guest room you were staying in, and laid you down softly on the bed underneath him.

"Birth control?" He looked at you, smiling.

"The coil - don't worry, I'm covered this time.." You smiled back as he lifted your t-shirt over your head and kissed you again. The reason for being at the pharmacy 2 years ago was to collect your prescription for the pill - you'd not taken it for a couple of days after running out suddenly. After Jackson was born, you switched to a more efficient form of birth control.

Pulling your skirt down and off, along with your underwear, he nestled his face between your thighs, now parted by his hands.

"I want you to watch me y/n... Watch me as I make you cum..." Your core burning, you raised yourself up on your elbows as he blew a hot breath against your wet folds, causing you to shiver under him. He parted your lips with his fingers, before licking from your pulsing hole up to your clit, finding a rhythm that made you cry out and shudder underneath his tongue. Smiling, groaning into you, you tried to keep your eyes on him as he licked and sucked your throbbing clit in his mouth.

"Jim.. don't stop.. oh god..." You hadn't had sex since that afternoon 2 year ago, no one being good enough to compete with the man currently buried between your legs. No pleasure you'd given yourself since was a patch on this, and you felt that burning feeling in your stomach starting to rise. "I'm close... Mm... Fuck I'm close..." Your words barely a whisper but he heard them, pushing harder with his tongue as a finger entered you, hooking upwards to find that spot inside, the one you didn't think actually existed, but there it was.. you bucked against his mouth, coming hard and fast - you felt your liquids gush over his chin, there was no stopping them... "Aha... Oh god Jim... Fuck... Stop, it's too much..." He smiled, blowing another warm breath over you before moving back to your mouth. You could taste yourself on his lips, turning you on even more.

Flipping him onto his back, you lifted his clothes off him and kissed down his chest. Your core needed a breather before you took him inside you. Licking the top of his now rock hard cock, you slowly sank your lips down, taking him fully inside your mouth. You'd never had a strong gag reflex, and you enjoyed the feeling of his cock hitting the back of your throat.

"Holy fuck... Jesus y/n... That's it baby..." Up and down your head bobbed, swapping between hard and light sucks, your teeth gently scraping the underside of his cock and your fingers lightly playing with his balls underneath you. Every time you felt them tighten, you'd ease off, allowing him to catch his breath, before bringing him into your mouth again. After a few near explosions, he couldn't take anymore and lifted you off motioning for you to sit on him. "Ride me y/n..." You smiled, and sank your pussy onto him, allowing him to fill you. Slowly so as to adjust to his length, your hips moved, back and forth, up and down, finding the right rhythm for you both. He sat up, chests together and his hands under your thighs as he rotated his hips from underneath, driving his cock against that magical spot again.

"Yes... God that feels good... Jim..."

"I'm not gonna last long y/n..."

"That's okay.. we've got plenty of time to make up for this... Cum in me, give me all of you..." You felt his cock twitch inside you as he moved your hips faster. Leaning back, you rode him hard, the bed frame squeaking underneath as you both cried out, your climaxes arriving simultaneously. Coming back to rest your head against his, you clenched your core once more causing him to gasp as you drew yourself off him slowly. Lay down next to each other, he pulled you into his arms.

"Did you mean what you said?" He asked, kissing your head gently. "Plenty of time?"

"I meant it, Jim... I need to get back to London to sort a few things, put my flat up for sale.. my job... But yes. If you'll have us, we'll come back.." you looked into his eyes. He lifted your head to kiss you and you felt it. All the love you thought you'd never find, in the man you thought you'd never find it with.

Everything was going to be fine, you couldn't wait to start your life over again, this time for the last time.

@margoo0 @queenshelby @peakyscillian @cloudofdisney @ntmynouis @being-worthy

#delinquent season #jim delinquent season x y/n #cillian smut #cillian x fem!reader #cillian murphy #cillian x smut

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iliveiloveiwrite · 4 years

Text

Paging Healer Malfoy // Chapter Three - How To Save A Life (D.M.)

A/N: CHAPTER THREE! This is a loaded chapter. We see a lot of Draco’s centre as a Healer through this; we see just how his job affects him. So there’s a lot in this. This, so far, is my favourite chapter and I know I say that about everything I write, but I am so ridiculously happy with how this has turned out. So please, if you read, like/reblog/comment - let me know what you think whether it’s just a keyboard smash or a whole essay, I eat that stuff for breakfast, dinner, tea.

Summary: A promise Draco made to himself when he first became a Healer is broken - smashed to pieces in front of him, and he doesn't think he can fix it.

Warnings: angst, death, grief, a large time skip - looking at months, arguments, feelings, crying.

Word count: 4.3k

Prologue// Chapter One// Chapter Two

January gets off to an interesting start. It always does when Draco works the New Year’s shift; drunk witches and wizards entering the emergency room with alcohol poisoning or injuries they have no recollection of getting. (Y/N) had covered Christmas Day so he could spend it with his family, as per demanded by Narcissa, but he had covered Boxing Day and New Year’s to repay for that favour. He doesn’t mind it either; he would rather be working than sitting in his empty flat with nothing but his insomnia to keep him company.

Draco has always liked January; the idea of new beginnings sits with him, offering him the opportunity to start again from scratch and build himself up.

His New Year’s Resolution for this year is for him to finally be honest with (Y/N) about his feelings.

-------

January always brings with it the coldest weather despite the knowledge that spring is just around the corner. It brings with it red noses, warm scarves, and dragon’s breath.

He stands with Vera at the admit desk; going through their latest stock intake and what they would need to order more of if the flu season should continue well into February.

“Is that my favourite Healer?” A feminine voice sings out from behind them.

Draco spins around; a smile already crossing his face, “Violet! What are you doing here? Is isn’t a dialysis day?”

She shakes her head; holding up the pager she has carried with her since she was nineteen years of age, “I was sitting down to breakfast and this went off.”

Draco’s eyes grow wide, “It went off?”

Violet nods rapidly, “It went off, so I pushed my breakfast away, grabbed my suitcase and rang Jonathan from the tube.”

Draco claps his hands together in delight, “That’s great news. Did they say you were to get prepped down here?”

She nods, “A Dean Thomas rang me as I was on my way here. Told me to get the initial tests done here and then he’ll come fetch me when the kidney has arrived.”

Draco makes his way around the desk; holding out a hand for her to shake, “I’m so happy for you, Violet.”

“Thank you, Draco.”

He leads Violet into an empty exam room; making sure that there would be no-one to bother her as she waits for the green light to be taken upstairs.

“How are you feeling?” Draco asks quietly; calculating Violet’s blood pressure.

Violet releases a long sigh of relief, “Happy. Scared. Relieved. Nervous.”

Draco laughs, “That’s a lot for one person to be feeling.”

She smiles; eyes shining with unshed tears, “We’ve just been waiting for so long.”

And she has. Draco had treated her all those years ago when she was rushed in by her then-boyfriend Jonathan. Violet had been feeling ill for over a month; it had started with shortness of breath, and then she started losing weight but retaining water in her ankles and feet leaving them swollen as well as complaining about blood in her urine.

Having had enough, Jonathan rushed her to St. Mungo’s where Draco saw her and diagnosed her with kidney failure. She hadn’t even known she had kidney disease; feeling well enough to continue her active lifestyle and her work as a teacher.

From there, Draco had placed her on the transplant list – desperate for a match for a nineteen year old who still had her whole life to live. She hadn’t been out of Hogwarts a year; still very much a Ravenclaw through and through. After that, Draco had her assigned to dialysis which was where he saw her so often that a friendship struck up between him, her and Jonathan.

Draco finishes his examination of Violet; sending off samples of her blood to the lab to be checked for anything he hadn’t picked up. He smiles down at her, “I think you’re getting a new kidney today.”

The smile that breaks out across Violet’s face is blinding; pure happiness personified as if the very sun was sitting in this very exam room.

“Have you told Jonathan?”

Violet nods; her curls bouncing with the movement of her head, “He’s on his way. I think he’s more excited than I am.”

Draco laughs, “I can believe it. Alright, I’ll let you get settled whilst I go ring surgery and see how long it’s going to take.”

Violet smiles, and Draco briefly wonders whether her cheeks already hurt from the happiness shown on her face. “I’ll be back to see you soon,” He says as goodbye; heading straight for the nearest phone to pester Dean Thomas.

(Y/N) joins him at the admit desk a short while after Draco has left Violet.

“Will Dean be coming down to get her himself?,” A pause, “Thank you, Shirley,” Draco answers, putting down the phone.

“I see Violet is finally getting her transplant.”

Draco smiles; eyes flashing towards Violet in exam room four, “She’s been on the waiting list for over three years.”

“You’re happy for her?”

“I was the one to diagnose the kidney failure. She has been through numerous false alarms; the false hope of getting a kidney to find out its been donated elsewhere. I have sat with her through her dialysis when her fiancée couldn’t make it because of work. Yes, you could say I am happy for her.”

“You seem to have struck up quite a friendship,” She comments lightly; reading over an old chart.

Draco rolls his eyes, “It’s hard not when I see her so often and I’m her primary physician.”

(Y/N) sighs; not missing the undercurrent of warning in Draco’s tone, “Well I wish her all the best.”

---------

Dean Thomas had trained with Draco, but rather than continuing in the emergency room, Dean had chosen to go into surgery. He had done well for himself; he had quickly risen through the ranks on the surgical floor, having a knack for putting people back together again.

Arriving in the emergency room, Dean greets Draco with a large smile and a handshake, “It’s been too long, Malfoy. When are you next coming out with the lads?”

Draco laughs, “When Weasley can admit he can’t handle his firewhisky.”

“So never then?”

Both men laugh. Thinking back to the same night where Ron had gotten so drunk on the stuff that he performed his and Hermione’s song outside their window at nearing three in the morning. Other than disturbing the nightlife of urban London, Ron had woken up a very sleep-deprived Hermione.

Dean shakes his head; still chuckling, “How’s our patient?”

Draco smiles, “Brilliant. The perfect candidate; all her tests came back with no signs of trouble.”

Dean rubs his hands together, “That’s what I like to hear. Where is she?”

“Exam room four. I’ll take you there now.”

In the time that Draco has made his phone calls and seen other patients, Violet’s fiancée, Jonathan has arrived with a bouquet of pale pink roses, it seems. He stands upon the entrance of Dean and Draco but does not let his hand leave Violet’s. He smiles at both of them, “Draco, Healer Thomas – this is it, huh?”

Dean nods; smiling, “This is it,” He looks towards Violet, “How are we feeling? Are you ready?”

Violet nods once; firm, decided, “I’m ready.”

-----

Dean helps the porters move Violet to the surgical floor; Jonathan following with his bouquet of pale pink roses, whispering words of luck quietly. It’s a touching sight to see; the love they feel for each other written so clearly over their faces.

Draco knows (Y/N) joins him to watch them take Violet up; it’s hard to ignore her presence, the usual scent of lilies and citrus wafting over him, sending his heart racing.

“She’ll be okay, Draco,” (Y/N) murmurs; her eyes on the couple waiting to get into the lift.

Draco nods; turning to face (Y/N), “I know she will.”

(Y/N) reaches out to poke his cheek, “Then look like you believe it.”

Draco catches her finger with his hand; holding onto it for a minute, “I do believe it.”

Something passes over (Y/N)’s face that Draco can’t define; he drops her finger, clearing his throat at the strange atmosphere that has settled over them. “How busy are you today?” He asks, in the hopes of dispelling the awkward fog between them.

(Y/N) shakes her head as if coming out of a trance, “Not overly. Four patients so far and a capable trainee not demanding my attention every minute. Why do you ask?”

Draco shrugs, “Wanted to see if you would be free for lunch in an hour or two.”

(Y/N) smiles, “I’ll make time for you, Draco.”

Draco places a hand on his heart, “Then I should be so grateful as to buy the lunch.”

(Y/N) grins wickedly, “If you’re paying then I’m definitely making time.”

Draco gasps and (Y/N) starts to laugh in earnest; covering her mouth as she snorts. She shakes her head, laughing fit subsiding, “Let me know when you’re free and we’ll grab some food.”

He smiles at her, “Sounds like a plan.”

(Y/N) touches his shoulder, her fingers lingering, before leaving; needing to see patients and catch up on charts as well as keeping an eye on her trainee. A simple touch and it sends Draco’s heart rate through the roof; such a gentle touch but one that felt like it held so much promise. It had lingered slightly, and Draco wondered whether that was how lovers touched each other when saying goodbye. Either way, he so desperately wanted to know. He thinks back to his New Year’s Resolution; beginning to think that just maybe it’s time to tell the truth.

Draco shakes his head at the plan starting to form in his head; of questions and answers, of dimly lit restaurants and kisses against front doors. With a yearning filled sigh, he goes in search of a trainee, needing a distraction from his wandering mind.

Jude Prewett had proved herself highly independent within her first week of working in the emergency room; having hailed from a long line of Healers, she understood the role she played, but also lived with a huge weight on her shoulders in trying to fill shoes that had been worn so many times before.

Draco finds her with a patient; gathering their history before asking any further questions for their visiting St. Mungo’s today.

She startles slightly at his presence in the room, but soon settles quickly. “What do we have, Healer Prewett?”

“Jonah Ashford, 67 years old. He complains of shortness of breath upon initial examination.”

Draco nods; happy so far, “What have you gathered from his history?”

Jude raises an eyebrow, but nevertheless, continues, “Mr. Ashford has a history of asthma along with brief spells of dizziness that come on suddenly. These spells tend to last fifteen minutes each time and come and go when they please.”

Draco leans against the wall; happy to let Jude continue, “What are you thinking first?”

“He isn’t having an asthma attack though he does need a refill of his medication which I will give him a prescription for. I am concerned about the dizziness and how often it comes on.”

Draco looks towards the patient, “When was your last dizzy spell, Mr. Ashford?”

Mr. Ashford frowns; thinking back, “Last night.”

Draco nods, “Are you getting enough to eat and drink?”

Mr. Ashford looks down, “I try, but I find it hard to remember. My wife, Lacey, used to cook and clean. I lost her last year, and it’s been hard to find a routine when everything reminds me of her.”

Both Draco and Jude nod understandingly; both sad at Mr. Ashford’s story though it’s something they see often. Widows who simply desire company; who can no longer sit in their empty houses and watch time tick by.

“Have you got this?” Draco asks Jude. She nods; eyebrows furrowed as if to say she had this before he interrupted.

“Excuse me, Mr. Ashford,” Draco hears Jude say, “I won’t be a moment.”

Draco pauses outside the exam room; letting Jude catch-up to him. “Healer Malfoy?” She asks.

“Yes, Jude?”

“Is it just me you’re checking in on?” Jude asks; concern lacing her voice.

Draco shakes his head with a smile, “I check in on everyone. I’m checking on Healer Shannon after this. Don’t worry, Jude. You’re doing well.”

Jude relaxes and smiles; relief now evident in her tone, “Alright. Thanks, Healer Malfoy.”

Draco laughs, “It’s fine, Jude. Go,” He nods towards Mr. Ashford, “Continue with your patient.”

Making his rounds of the floor, Draco is relieved to see that the trainees are more than content to work with supervision from their assigned attendings. No complaints from either parties which makes Draco’s life a little easier when it comes to the reviews in just a couple of weeks.

He starts to collect patients to keep his mind off ringing the surgical floor immediately. He rings once, and they update him – Violet has just gone in, it looks to be going to fine, and then he makes himself wait to ring again.

“Draco,” Her voice sings; pulling him from his daydreaming as he sits at the admit desk.

He checks his watch, then checks the clock hung on the wall, “Is it that time already?”

(Y/N) nods; a large smile on her face, “And I do believe you said you would pay.”

He pats his pocket, checking for his wallet, “I do believe I said that. Come on then, let’s go eat.”

She hooks her arm through his. Draco has to resist the urge to pull her in further; to kiss her senseless. “I’m fancying chips, what about you?” She asks; ripping him from his yearning.

He shrugs, “I’ll have to have a look when we get there.”

She frowns, “Are you still worried?”

Draco shakes his head, “No. I’m not,” Then he smiles, “But I am hungry, so hurry your butt up, will you?”

(Y/N) snorts but fastens her pace, nonetheless.

--------

After the third time, Draco rang the surgical floor, they refused to accept any calls from him. Instead, ghosting his calls in order to annoy him further. Draco hadn’t worried; not through lunch with (Y/N) and not as he continues to see patients.

Draco can’t help but continue to glance at the clock; it has been well over the allotted time to complete a kidney transplant. Worry now settles deep within Draco’s gut, but he tries to remain positive as he flits about the emergency room; taking on as many cases as possible in order to keep the worry at bay.

It’s when he sees Dean get off the lift that Draco has any idea what’s happened. Dean looks tired and beaten down; as if all the fight has left him through the last few hours. With a nod of his head, Dean gestures to an empty exam room for Draco to join him in.

Taking a deep breath, Draco steels himself for what he’s about to hear. He knew Dean’s tactics from training and from seeing him work on the surgical floor; he would never let anyone else deliver the news of a patient to friends and family.

From the expression on Dean’s face, it doesn’t look to be good news, “Draco, I’m sorry.”

Draco nods; sadness settling like a boulder in his gut, “What happened?”

Dean looks reluctant to say, but he sighs and replies, “Cardiac arrest two hours in. We tried for half an hour to bring her back.”

All his life, Draco had seen signs that witches and wizards were not immortal – he had survived a devastating war; he worked in a profession where death stalked the halls like a hunter finding its prey. And yet, he had hope for Violet. He had hope that the transplant would be a success and she would go on to live a long and healthier life with her fiancée.

In the span of a single surgery; the hope had been crushed by the skeletal hands of the reaper that wanders the halls of the hospital, collecting souls.

Dean claps Draco on the shoulder in what is supposed to be an offer of comfort, but it does little to quash the growing sense of loss Draco feels.

“If you need anything,” Dean starts in kindness before giving up and saying, “I knew you two had a friendship.”

Draco nods silently; watching Dean had for the stairs. Throughout his career, Draco had never let himself get close to a patient. Sure, there were those who he saw regularly. The frequent flyers, the pain potion seekers, Mrs Larkin – a widow who needed company more than she needed medical treatment. However, Violet came in so frequently for dialysis that it felt almost inevitable they would end up on friendly terms.

Draco rubs a hand down his face; feeling almost devastated at this loss of such a young life.

Needing to be alone – if only for a moment – Draco enters the break room, taking calming breaths. He feels ridiculous; letting a patient’s death affect him this much when he had been at the deathbed for so many – young, old, infant.

He’s so caught up in his emotions, he doesn’t hear the door open. Draco startles slightly at the sound of her voice calling his name.

“I heard what happened,” She murmurs comfortingly – her hand outstretched as if to offer support.

Draco clears his throat; dislodging the lump that has taken root there, “Yes. It’s a sad loss.”

“Are you okay though? I know that you two were close.”

Draco looks down to the chart in his hands; a patient still needing to be seen. He smiles humourlessly, “It’s always sad to lose a patient, no matter how long you’ve been doing this.”

(Y/N) frowns, “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

Draco throws his arms wide; emotions bubbling to the surface, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She throws her hands up in surrender. Her voice is laced with frustration as she answers, “Fine. Keep it bottled up.”

(Y/N) slams the door as she leaves the break room; making her anger known. Draco, for a brief moment, loses his temper, sending his fist into the door of his locker. It does a little to curb the wave of grief submerging him, but the wave doesn’t ebb. Draco rests his head against the cool, gunmetal grey door of his locker, taking in deep breaths.

He gives himself a minute.

One minute. That’s all he gets to feel it all; to let the loss consume him. To feel the guilt and the sadness.

The minute passes and Draco stands straight. He pushes his hair back from his face and straightens his lab coat.

Clearing his throat, Draco leaves the break room, needing to continue working.

-------

It’s hard to miss the pitying look from the nurses as Draco continues to work; as if the entire floor has decided to walk on eggshells around him.

He continues to work because he needs to; he has no grounds to leave work – it wasn’t a family member he had lost; it was a patient. That was how he was rationalising it in his head. It was just that Violet had been his patient for three years; seeing her so frequently.

Draco shakes his head; ridding himself of the dark thoughts that threaten to break through.

He continues to work because that’s who he is. Through Draco’s adolescence, he found himself being defined by what others thought of him and his family. He was bending to a self-fulfilling prophecy that he didn’t want thrust upon him.

Through his first week as a trainee Healer, Draco found himself redefining every aspect of himself. He did not have to present the hard, touch exterior that his family and fellow students expected of him at Hogwarts. Rather, Draco found himself to be someone who could be soft; who could laugh and joke with the best of them. He found himself to be someone who wanted to help people in their time of need; in their most vulnerable state when all they need is someone to trust and someone to listen.

As he takes on more and more patients, it’s because he needs to work. He has to work through this; he doesn’t often show how death affects him so, but on some level, he had known Violet. He just didn’t expect her death so soon.

Focusing intently on the charts in his hand, Draco blinks away the tears threatening to fall. With a deep breath and a fake smile, he enters exam room two, ready to meet another patient.

--------

Violet’s fiancée, Jonathan, approaches him a few hours after her death. His face is tear stained and puffy as he clears his throat to gain Draco’s attention from a conversation with Nurse Janice.

“Jonathan,” Draco greets, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jonathan nods wordlessly; blinking fast to get ready of the already building tears. He clears his throat again, “I just,” He takes a deep breath, “I just came down to thank you.”

“For what?” Draco asks; confused.

Jonathan lets his tears fall, saying, “For sitting with her when the dialysis was draining her, and for helping her laugh. For keeping her company when I couldn’t be there because of work.”

A lump forms in Draco’s throat, “That isn’t something you have to thank me for.”

Jonathan shrugs, “Regardless, thank you.” He turns to walk away but he pauses at the last minute, “Would you come to the memorial? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I think it would mean to a lot to her family if they met you.”

Draco nods; not even second-guessing his answer, “Of course. Let me know the details and I’ll get it off work.”

Jonathan nods; his face puffier than before from the freshly fallen tears. He holds his hand up in a wave before leaving St. Mungo’s.

-----

How Draco makes his way home is beyond him. He works the rest of his shift in a stupor; the all too familiar heaviness of grief settling over him for which he feels foolish and ridiculous.

He doesn’t feel the rain that soaks him through to the bone. He doesn’t remember entering his flat; doesn’t remember shedding his coat, letting his bag fall to the floor. Sitting on the couch, Draco submits to the grief. He submits to overwhelming sense of loss battering his walls; demanding to be felt.

On the inside, Draco is a storm; raging, raging, raging.

On the outside, he’s as calm as anything, staring at the mantle piece as he lets himself finally feel.

---------

Draco’s building was one of the many converted mills in London; brown bricked and grand, it stood proudly on its street, wearing its history like a badge of honour. His flat is on the fifth floor; one of the largest in the building – a gift from his parents after completing his training with high honours. He had lived there ever since, and (Y/N) had visited often over the years of their friendship.

(Y/N) knocks three times, calling his name with each one before she tries the door.

Entering his flat, (Y/N) always takes a moment to admire the pictures that line the wall. Admiring the beauty of Draco’s mother, and almost flinching at the imposing figure his father presents.

This time, however, she marches straight past them, calling Draco’s name for him not to reply. She only knew to come over here when he hadn’t met her to catch the tube together like they usually did when their shifts coincided. The words she flung at him earlier, she hadn’t meant. They had settled in her bones with an uncomfortable feeling; leaving a sour taste in her mouth. Truthfully, she had been worried about Draco since the news of Violet’s death had made its way to her ears; the gossip chain of the emergency room never one to falter.

She finds Draco on his couch; still wearing the clothes he left work in. Dropping her bag and shrugging off her coat, (Y/N) takes a seat next to Draco on the couch. He barely registers her presence; barely even blinking at the change of weight. She tries not to let it hurt her, but it does. Seeing him like this… it was something she hadn’t ever seen before.

Draco always presented himself as collected. The most dishevelled he ever got was whenever he worked nights and for most of the week, he would sport stubble. However, that was always gone by the time he came back onto day.

This was something new, though. His grief wasn’t anything she had encountered, and though they spoke often and told each other they cared for one another, they had never truly spoken about the feelings between them.

She coaxes his head onto her shoulder, and it’s there that Draco lets the first of his tears fall and the first of his sobs escape his chest.

He has seen death. He’s courted it for years – through the war, through his job. He has had patients die om him and had mourned each of their deaths, but he had never felt loss this keenly before. He felt scrubbed raw from the inside out.

He doesn’t know how long he cries for; he doesn’t know how long she holds him for but somewhere in between in it all, he manages to choke out his thanks which she hurriedly hushes. Her response being to hold onto him tighter.

Time passes, and his sobs start to slow, but they do not let go of the other, needing their anchors more than anything in this moment. In the pain of it all, Draco finds solace in sleep.

**********

Paging Healer Malfoy taglist: @sycathorn-slush @obsessedwithrandomthings @kpopgirlbtssvt @kalimagik @brycelahelalover @fallinallinmendes @mischi3f-manag3d @remmysrecs @willowbleedsonpaper @nao-cchi @haphazardhufflepuff @soundsquid27 @mytreec @maydillydally @chaoticgirl04 @pregnant-piggy @rhyxn @acciotwinz @birdie-writes @reaganwonders @chanelwonders @izzytheninja @ravenclawbitch426 @ohissandhalasta @missmulti @nebulablakemurphy @pointlesscoconut @cherrylita @harpersmariano @slytherinlovesgryffindor

Draco Malfoy taglist: @the--queen-of-hell @obx-beach @obxmxybxnk @sycathorn-slush @dracomalfoyswifey @kashishwrites @justmesadgirl @detroitobsessed @reaganwonders @sophia-gwendolyn

***if your username is in bold, I was unable to tag you.

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chaoticallysapphic · 3 years

Text

just the start chapter one

summary: It’s such a sweet beginning and such a horrible end. Before you die for someone, you have to love them with your very being. You have to see just how much this world needs them despite their doubts and you have to be happy up until the very end. If not for you then for them.

a/n: I give to thee part one of the just a scratch prequel. This is a series that I will most likely very slowly update because tgt has my full attention and this is all I have for it so far. Please tell me your thoughts on it and as always thank you @medeliadracon

word count: 3k

Your kids are going to be the death of you. It was meant to be an easy, minimum stress day where you handed the kids a test you’d been helping them study for over two weeks. Afterward, it was a lesson on the creation of the Earth Kingdom and its early history, but ten-year-olds never like to make things easy on you. You caught three of your students trying to cheat off of one another and two forgot to bring pencils to school. Someone tried to feign illness to get out of it, which led three others to try their luck as well.

Another one of your students decided to continuously interrupt what was meant to be a painless fifteen-minute lesson into a thirty-minute lesson that had everyone groaning in their seats towards the ends. You did not get paid enough for this.

You may have been a bit harsh by assigning them more homework than normal and it would come back to bite you in the ass when it came time to grade them. The problem is that if you yell at them or call them assholes you’ll lose your job so instead you decide to punish them with more work and you finally leave the classroom with a tense demeanor and a need to see your favorite person.

You usually don’t let work get to you like this, you're known as the sweet teacher that everyone adores so on the days when you snap or hand out extra work your students know they messed up big time. But last night you may have lost track of time as you read a new book you had purchased the day before.

You couldn’t help how it sucked you in and locked you inside its pages until late into the evening, so you woke up late with the book lying flat against your chest and your head laid in a weird angle on the arm of your couch. You weren’t able to eat any breakfast as you ran to school with half of your shirt untucked and your hair messily pinned back.

It’s early evening now and you know she will most likely stay late at the office so you decide to bring her some of her favorite food from a fire nation food cart. By now the owner knows you by name and happily whips up the usual as you tighten your coat around you. Summer is slowly saying goodbye and in its wake autumn is bringing a chill as the sun goes down. Soon enough it’ll be the best kind of weather to cozy up inside with a mug of tea and a novel.

You’re suddenly thankful for your outfit choice, a pair of dark brown loose slacks that button at your waist with a white long-sleeved blouse tucked into the waistband. You do regret the pair of burnt orange heels you paired with the outfit, school required women to wear them which you felt was incredibly wrong with being on your feet for the majority of the day.

Usually, you’d pack a pair of flats to change into but this morning you forgot it along with your scarf. So as your feet ache you decide to strike up a conversation with one of your favorite people.

“How are you doing today?” Kaito, the food cart owner is a sweet old man who you’ve been coming to way before you met Lin. It’s only a block away from the school so when you first started working there you’d rush out during lunch to get something to eat in hopes that food would calm you down.

“I’m doing okay, although I must say the local gossip has kept me entertained today,” he places the boxes of your food into a paper bag as you hand him the yuans for the meals. You quirk a brow with an amused smile and ask “and what is the gossip today?”

“The Avatar has come to Republic City!”

“Wow, are you sure about that?” You grab the bag of food from the cart and wait for his reply before leaving.

“Well, my buddy told me, said he witnessed it himself and I believe him.”

“I’m putting my trust in you Kaito. If that’s a lie I’ll be very sad,” you say teasingly before taking a step back to walk away. He calls after you, claiming he’d never lie and while you know he’s telling the truth you still decide to playfully stick your tongue out at him over your shoulder. “Have a nice night!”

Those around whom don’t know you, which is everyone except for Kaito, watch in bewilderment at the thirty-nine years old woman who acts like a child towards the elderly cart owner.

That little encounter helped ease your nerves a bit as you walked towards the police station, cars zoomed past as the streetlights flickered on to illuminate the streets. Lin had been talking to you about needing a mode of transportation, she hated you walking everywhere for fear of getting mugged, but you enjoyed walking. It gave you time to look back on your day and think about what needs to be done before your head hits the pillow.

Some overpriced car will slash that time in half and with it your moment of silence. That being said it would be nice on your feet and back. You jog up the long stone steps in front of the precinct, a few officers are filing out for the night, all of which have slowly pieced together who you are.

They throw smiles your way as you hold the door open for them before walking inside. Ishi, the lady who runs the front desk smiles as she watches you walk past with the bag of food in hand. Everyone here likes you, which is no surprise, especially since anytime you visit Lin is left in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Phones are ringing as you walk through the main office where desks are lined up, a couple of the detectives and rookies offer a hello in between flipping through pages of paperwork or dialing the phone. Without knocking, because at this point you know it’ll just result in Lin yelling, you open the door to her office.

You find her hunched over her desk with her glasses resting at the tip of her nose. She’s got papers scattered across the desk with her chin resting in her hands. At the sound of the door opening, she glances up and lets out a sigh of relief at seeing you instead of some officer.

“Thought I’d bring you an early dinner and hopefully rip you away from your work for at least a few minutes,” you say as you set the bag down on the desk. She pushes away from the desk and, taking off her glasses, collects the mess of papers to help prep the desk for the meal.

“You know you didn’t have to do that, right?” She asks you this as she moves past you to put the stack of papers on the couch. You shrug and begin to pull out the containers of Komodo sausage and spicy fire noodles. “I wanted to, besides I know you probably skipped lunch.”

At the site of the containers from Kaito’s Lin shakes her head with a smile. “You know, one of these days I’m going to make you eat something other than Kaito’s food.”

“Hey!” You look up with a playful scowl, chopsticks in hand. “I eat my own food and that meal you made me.”

She rolls her eyes and comes up to pull you into a brief kiss, you smile as her lips touch yours and lean closer to her. Any ounce of stress left from your workday vanishes just as it always does when it comes to Lin.

“Fine,” she says, her lips gently brushing against yours, she’s smiling too. “I’m going to make you eat something other than our home-cooked meals and Kaito’s.”

“Never,” you whisper before pecking her on the lips. You pull yourself away from her, truly you want to stay in her arms and kiss her until you're breathless but you know she needs to eat. Plus you don’t want this food to get cold. “Now c’mon, eat up and tell me about your day.”

You hand Lin her chopsticks as you sit down on the leather chair opposite her desk, she rolls her desk chair to sit beside you and picks up her container of sausages and pours them over the noodles. With your legs crossed over one another your foot brushes against her leg as you do the same. This is a routine picked up long ago, just at the start of your relationship actually.

Most days you’d come here for dinner or drag her out of the office to eat at your apartment. She was grateful for your care, to be honest at first she tried to push you away, to keep you at arm's length, but she couldn’t. Lin gave up within two days of knowing you and has ever since been enraptured by your mere presence.

“It was…” Lin sighs, “the Avatar has come to town and destroyed public and private property along with interfering with Republic City Police business. I’ve been neck-deep in paperwork ever since Tenzin came to bail her out.” She stabs her chopsticks into her noodles with a scowl and swirls them around to gather a bunch of noodles around them.

“I heard about her coming to town but I didn’t know she did all of that.”

“Yeah, and she tried to tell me how to do my job!” Setting your container down you reach over to rub your hand up her arm in a soothing manner. You tend to let off steam by reading or spending time with others whilst Lin bottled it up and let it twist into something akin to resentment.

Thankfully she recently started opening up to you and somehow she was surprised by the fact that you actually listened to her. “She’s some privileged teenager who knows nothing about this city or the law, and she tried to tell me how to do my job.”

“Lin you have to think about what you were like as a teenager. What she did was wrong, but they tend to be a bit entitled at times. Once she finds out how much you really love this city she’ll take it back and respect you.”

“Well, thankfully she won’t have to because Tenzin said he’d take her back to the South Pole.”

You roll your eyes at the mention of Tenzin, not being able to help yourself. You are a nice person, really you are and you try not to let people get to you but fuck does that Airbender get on your nerves. When he found out Lin was dating someone, a woman on top of that, he freaked out and somehow tried to make it about him.

When Lin said she happened to like men and women he stood with his mouth open in confusion. You know how hard that was for her to say. You were the second woman she had ever been with, the first some one-night stand she had met some years ago in a smoky bar. But you were the first woman she had ever dated and for her to finally admit it was a big step. You had stood there with her hand in yours as you tried to silently support her.

He shut up when she said she loved you. She hadn’t told him until a month ago so your irritation was still warranted, but you knew it was probably time to get over it. It just upset you that he expected her to spend the rest of her days alone while he happily creates as many airbenders as he can with the woman he cheated on her with. Due to him, Lin still held back to some degree regarding your relationship, which you understood and didn’t hold it against her. But you did hold it against him.

“C’mon, I know you hate him and I definitely don’t like him but at least he’s getting rid of her.” Lin sets her container down to thread her fingers through yours. You nod and gently squeeze her hand twice, a little thing you came up with a month ago. She squeezes back twice and you smile, she smiles back.

“You’re right, at least he’s doing one good thing.” Lin can’t help but laugh at that, she slowly lets go of your hand so you both can go back to eating. For a while, it’s comfortably silent as you both chow down. Lin didn’t realize how hungry she was until the delicious scent of Kaito’s cooking wafted through the air.

You’ve been happily in a relationship for almost a year, with your anniversary just days away it makes Lin wonder what these kinds of days were like before you. She can’t seem to remember, all the memories of this office that she can conjure up involve you in some way.

Lin already made sure to have time off for that day, she scheduled herself to leave early and has even been scoping out the best restaurants and jazz clubs in the area. She’s surprised herself with how much effort she’s putting into planning this. To be fair Lin Beifong never does something half-assed but even when she was with Tenzin their anniversaries were a bit simple, and she let him plan them.

“By the way can you be ready by six on Saturday for me?” You bite your lip with furrowed brows as you try to think up what's happening Saturday. With your muddled brain, it takes a few seconds for you to remember your anniversary, which is surprising seeing as you wrote it down in your calendar two months into your relationship. You even found a present for her last month.

“Hmm,” you tap your chin as you try to fight off a smile. “I don’t know, what’s Saturday?” You quirk a brow and Lin knows you’re teasing her by the look on your face.

“You know what’s Saturday.” She stares you down with an exasperated expression and sets her empty container on the desk. Biting your lip you try to continue playing dumb “I don’t think I do, can you help jog my memory?”

Your chair is close enough to hers that she can easily grab onto it and pull it until your knees are touching. In a swift motion that you could definitely never succeed at doing on your own, Lin grabs you by the hips and pulls you off your chair until you're straddling her lap. The last of your noodles go flying to the floor, not that either of you notices, as you let out a shriek of surprise.

“What happened a year ago on Saturday?”

“Y’know I think I rearranged my bookshelf that day, it was life-changing if I’m-” You begin to laugh as she scowls, “being honest.”

“You’re impossible,” she huffs. You lean down to peck her lips, your free hand going to cradle her scarred cheek. She leans forward to kiss you back but you teasingly pull away and watch as she chases after your lips.

“Hmm, did I go on a date with someone almost a year ago?”

“Y’know what I am perfectly fine going back to being single.” Lies, she doesn’t know how she’d cope without you in her life. You’ve added color back into her world and reminded her what it feels like to be happy, to feel loved and secure. It terrifies her if she’s being honest. Everyone she’s ever loved has disappointed her, she doesn’t know what she’ll do if you end up leaving her too.

“Okay, okay! Yes, I know what Saturday is.” You reach behind you to place your container on the desk, it falls onto its side due to the awkward angle but you’ll just clean it up later. Now with both hands-free, you gently cradle her face between them. Lin’s hands rest on the curve of your hips. “What kind of outfit should I wear? Something elegant or something you can easily take off?”

“Why not both?” She says with a smirk. Lin pulls you into another kiss, this one is slow and less innocent than the others. Her lips slant against yours as she pulls you closer by your hips.

You kiss her back at the same, slow pace, neither of you pushes further than the kiss. For a few minutes, you both lazily kiss one another, you missed her. Yesterday was so hectic that all you could do was call her when you finally finished grading some papers.

Reluctantly you pull away, you’re all for going further, but just not this second. You want to keep teasing her, you just can’t help it. Lin doesn’t hate your playful side, if anything she adores it which surprised quite a few people. You were this cheery woman with a bounce in your step who looked at Lin like she hung the moon.

Grumpy, bitter Lin, or so she thought. In your eyes she was amazing, she had a dry sense of humor that caught many by surprise, and she was so incredibly gentle with you. Before you even started dating she let you hold her hand or pull her into a hug, even if she did grumble about it at first.

She wouldn’t tell you then, but she secretly loved how you kept coming back despite her trying to pretend like she wasn’t totally head over heels for you. It made her feel desired and important.

“Now you’re just being greedy.”

Lin shakes her head at your words, her eyes locking in with yours once more. “I can show you greedy.”

You slowly move your hands from her cheeks to softly scratch her scalp, she lets out a relaxed sigh at your ministrations. You smile as you move them further back, her usual simple hairstyle is messed up in the process, but she doesn’t mind. It’s easy to fix.

“I’d like to see that.” You know you’ve egged her on, challenged her, and she does not back down from a challenge. Perhaps you could help relieve some of her stress on the couch before dragging her out of the office for the night.

The idea of teasing her and dragging this out flees from your mind as Lin pulls you into a heated kiss. You can’t help but think when she slips her tongue into your mouth, this woman will be the death of me.

#lin beifong #lin beifong x reader #lin beifong/reader #lin beifong fanfiction #fanifc #lok fanfic #legend of korra #lok #just the start #jts

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sckyie · 3 years

Text

word count: 1.1k

genre + warning: fluff; comforting when sick

pronouns used: they/them

a/n: i rewrote an old fic i have on my wattpad

mr. dino man: hey kageyama said you looked sad when you passed him in the hall, you okay?

you: not really, i'm not having a good day and i didn't pass my exam

mr. dino man: well if you'd study like i said you should've, you're would've passed

you: whatever

mr. dino man: awww little baby upset i told them the truth?

you: i'm going home alone

you: i'm not particularly fond of your bullying as of rn

you: i have a migraine and everything is bugging me. ill text you tmr

mr. dino man: wait, baby i was joking

mr. dino man: don't leave me on read

Tsukishima stares at his phone just as the final bell began. His teacher dismisses class and he goes to look for you where you'd wait for him. You weren't there like you usually were. In actuality, you had gone home early. He sighed, checking your location to see that you were already at home.

He took a deep breath before walking towards Coach Ukai's store. Tsukki enters the shop, greeting his coach once he enters. "Tsukishima? Aren't you supposed to be back at the school?" He asks.

"Is it okay if I miss today? Y/n isn't feeling well and I made it worse when I talked to them. I can make it up tomorrow?" He asks.

"You're lucky today is just conditioning," Ukai scolds. "You owe me extra tomorrow."

"Yes sir," He bowed. Tsukishima walks down the aisles with a basket. He places onigiri, instant ramen, and some tea in before walking towards the medicine aisle. "Do you know what treats migraines?" Tsukki asks aloud as he looks at the different boxes.

"A nicer boyfriend," Ukai laughs. "The orange box." He makes his way to the cash register to have his items scanned.

"Thanks Coach," He says as the items are getting bagged. The two say their goodbyes before Tsukishima makes his way to your house. As he approaches your doorstep, he notices your parents about to leave. "Oh, hi Mr. and Mrs. L/n."

"Oh Tsukki! You're here early, Y/n isn't feeling well. They're locked up in their room," Your mom explain.

"I know, is it alright to come in and cook for them?" Tsukishima asks. Your parents agree, telling him where things are in the kitchen. He enters and place everything on the counter. He takes out what is necessary in making instant ramen. He decided to add some vegetables and ginger to make you feel a bit better.

You never took Tsukishima as the cooking type. It took you by surprise the first time he cooked for you. It had always been buying take out and eating at restaurants or in some cases you'd cook for him.

As he was chopping up green onions, you could smell the aroma of the soup from your room. You lugged yourself to the living room, expecting to see one of your parents. You furrowed your brows once you spot your boyfriend cooking. "Kei? What are you doing here?" You ask.

"I came over because you said you weren't feeling well. And because I know you, you weren't going to take you medicine and just sleep," Tsukishima says. "I'm making tofu ramen with vegetables."

"But I'm not-" You started, his eyes met with yours sending a chill down your spine.

"You are hungry because Yachi said you didn't eat at lunch," He scolds. "Here, eat one of these and take the medicine I bought you." He held out an onigiri and the bottled tea.

"Thank you Kei," You say softly, walking to sit at the dinner table. You unwrap the little triangle and munch on it while Tsukki continues to make your guys' food. He watches you take the medicine to make sure that you don't just say you took it.

"Do you need help?" You ask.

"Yeah," Tsukishima says. "Go set up your bed for us to cuddle later after we eat. Also pick out a movie."

"Wait what about cooking?" You tilt your head.

"Go, just let me take care of you, no questions," He says. You nod, walking over to give him a kiss before you went to the bedroom. He leans down and pecks your lips before letting you go.

You clean off your bed where your uniform was laid and your stuffed animals scattered. You pulled out an extra blanket from the closet, placing it on the bed. You turn on your laptop and look for a movie to watch.

"Food's done!" Tsukki called out. You walked over to see him place two bowls on the table for the both of you. You seat yourself across him and you looked down at the noodles.

"Thank you bubba," You say.

"No problem," He says.

"Aw, there's ginger in it," You whine.

"Eat it, you'll feel better," He says. You pout at his words, dreading to eat the musty root. You slurped up the noodles, the flavor of the ginger hit your throat making you shut your eyes. "You're so cute." He laughs at your scrunched face.

"Shut up," You say after chewing your noodles.

After the two of you finished eating, you attempt to wash the dishes but he shoves you away from the sink. "Warm up the bed, I'll bring you ice cream," He says, cleaning up the bowls. You sighed, kissing his cheek and walking towards your bedroom.

Snuggling into the sheets, you waited for your boyfriend to join you. After few minutes, he walked in with a bowl of your favorite ice cream and two spoons. He hands you the dessert before laying himself beside you. His arms drape around you, pulling the laptop on his lap with his free hand.

"When Marnie was There? What movie is this?" He asks, looking at the title.

"Oh, my friend recommended it," You say scooping some ice cream to feed Tsukki. "Thank you by the way...I'm grateful for you..."

"You're welcome," He says. "Sorry for being mean to you babe."

"It's okay," You say looking up at him. "I love you."

"I love you too," He places his lips on yours. "You taste like ginger."

"Oh hush," You laughed. The two of you finished up eating the ice cream together as you watched the movie. You snuggled into your boyfriend's chest as you watched. Shortly after settling into his body, you began to slowly close your eyes.

"Woah, that's trippy," Tsukki says, looking at you. "Oh, you're sleeping."

"No, I'm-" You get interrupted by a yawn. "Okay maybe I am sleepy."

"It's fine if you sleep Y/n," He says. "We can finish this movie later."

"Mhm," You hummed. You listened to his heartbeat as you were slowly falling asleep. You had that fuzzy feeling in your stomach as Tsukishima held you. It was the first time in a while where he spoiled you. You were more than thankful to have him with you. "I love you."

"I love you more idiot," He says, kissing the top of your head. He reaches over to turn off the lamp and put your laptop on the desk. He shifts his body to hold you easier before slowly falling asleep with you.

taglist: @amillionfandoms-onlyoneme @just-a-siiimp @d0llpie @elianetsantana

#haikyuu!!#hq #haikyuu x you #hq x you #haikyuu tsukishima #hq tsukishima #tsukishima x you #tsukishima kei #tsukishima fluff #forbes dreamz

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yanagiin · 3 years

Text

CANCER

cancer- my chemical romance (covered by 21pilots)

relationship: tsukishima kei x reader

synopsis: she had cancer but he was oblivious to the signs. his last words?

warning: angst, illness, death, swearing, cheating

i don’t know the symptoms for cancer and this is my first fic so pls forgive me for any mistakes

“you have cancer.”

it’s been a week. a week shes known she was sick. sitting on her desk, her face buried into her arms, looking off to the side.

“how do i tell him?”

“tell me what?” y/n visibly flinches at the sudden voice of her boyfriend, kei.

“oh nothing!” she says w a fake smile. how is she supposed to tell him. what was she supposed to tell him. that her hair was falling out? that she was potentially dying? he just shakes off her unusual behavior and sits across from her.

“so are you gonna come by practice later?” he asks her.

“ah i can’t I have uhhh” she trails off, “grocery shopping to do for my mom!” truth is she had a doctors appointment, but he didn’t have to know. she didn’t want to be a burden. since when did she do grocery shopping the tall blonde thought.

this suspicious behavior has become a daily thing, he noticed that she would run off right as the last school bell rings. until one day he saw her get in a car with another guy. so that’s why huh?

hey kei wanna go mall later?

sent at 1:47

said boy stares at the text from his girlfriend. he knew she was cheating so why not have some fun right?

sure

y/n arrives at the mall and she sees girls swarming her boyfriend. she pouts, but doesn’t get jealous as she trusts he won’t do such thing. she waits till the girls leave to approach him. tsukishima has a smirk evident on his face.

“where do you wanna go?”

“can we go to the costumes and cosmetics first?” she says with a smile. the morning of she witnesses the hair already falling out faster than she expected. he shrugs and mentally grins to himself as he sees her smile dropping at his blunt response.

“why do you need wigs? need new hair to look pretty?” his words stung her but she hid her expression.

“why don’t you just tell him?” y/n’s brother said standing at the door way.

“i just want to enjoy the rest of my time with him w/out.”

“but-” he was cut off by his sister walking past him and shutting the door.

“want to walk me home?” she asked. he replied with a shrug, heading towards her house. they got to her driveway when he saw the same car. the same car she got in with another guy.

“oh no he’s still here...” she says with fear when she saw that her brother’s car still in the driveway. fear that he might expose her secret. tsukishima looks at her with disgust, but she was to worried to notice. “you can just drop me here i can get to the door fine! bye kei! love you” she says running to her front door.

it’s been a week, more hair has fallen out, she had gotten permission to wear hats and her hoods from the faculties as they knew about her condition. but her boyfriend has surprisingly not noticed but someone did. his best friend, yamaguchi tadashi.

“are you okay y/n-chan?” the freckled boy asked with a worried visage.

“I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone. not even kei” she trusted the boy as if he was her brother. “I have cancer.”

two months ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. but in the last two weeks, tsukishima became more distant. she became worried and went to his practice after school.

“is kei here?” everyone stared at her as if she has grown a third head. hinata then walks up and says something that made her heart drop.

“oh he just left with his girlfriend, who are you?” of course they didn’t know about her. she never went to his practices, she was too busy with her appointments.

“ah okay. sorry for the interruption!” she bows and takes her leave to look for her boyfriend. but stops when she sees the blonde making out and groping a girl from class 1-5. watching as they touch eachother as if they can’t be disrupted by anything. her eyes filling with tears and anger. she walks up to her boyfriend and punch him square on the jaw.

“ow! WHAT THE FUCK” he shifts his attention to his girlfriend that is shaking her hand to rid the pain. the commotion caused the team to come out of the gym. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOURE DOING YOU SLUT?” he yells at her. she was taken aback. slut? “YEAH DONT THINK I HAVENT SEEN YOU SNEAK AROUND WITH THAT BOY TOY OF YOURS?!”

his insults being cutoff with a slap. the sound resonates through the wind. “FUCK YOU TSUKISHIMA KEI!” with that she runs off to the direction of her house. yamaguchi then steps up.

“ARE YOU FUCKING DUMB?!? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?” punching the blond once again and grabbing his collar to bring his face close.

“IM DUMB?! SHES THE WHORE WHO FUCKING CHEATED!”

“SHES NOT CHEATING! GET IT THROUGH YOUR DAMN SKULL! SHE HAS CANCER, BUT YOURE TO DAMN BLIND TO SEE THE SIGNS! SHE COULDNT GO TO OUR PRACTICES BECAUSE HER APPOINTMENTS. DID YOU EVEN NOTICE HER HAIR FALLING OUT? SHE STARTED WEARING HATS AND WIGS BECAUSE YOU CALLED HER UGLY FOR BUYING WIGS! BUT NO. YOU DIDNT NOTICE BECAUSE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WAS BUSY FUCKING OTHER GIRLS TO NOTICE.”

by this point, the rest of the boys are pulling them apart.

“w-what?” the blond was appalled. she had cancer? the wigs, the hats, coughs and hacks. it made sense now. “b-bu-but who was that guy she rides with?”

“her fucking brother who came back from the states to see her!” yamaguchi shakes the boys off him and starts walking away.

tsukishima starts sprinting to the direction of her house. why didn’t she tell him? how would he have known if she didn’t tell him?

he comes to a stop, when he sees an ambulance drive off from her house. the tall boy knocks on the door to see her mom open the door. “where’s y/n?” her mother starts crying. and he knew.

“let’s go to the hospital” he looks to see y/n’s brother heading down stairs with a coat. the blond nods and gets in the car with the h/c hair male.

“she didn’t want to tell you yanno? she wanted to enjoy the time she had left with you.” the car ride was silent. when they got to the hospital, the two men quickly jumps out and heads to the front desk. as they entered they saw her fragile figure barely holding on. her lips are chapped. her color is fading fast.

it’s been hours when they’ve arrived, she still hasn’t woken up. tsukishima looks at the time and realizes visiting hours are almost over.

“I’ll be back, okay?” leaning over to give her forehead a peck and exits out the door.

but he never went back, he couldn’t stand the view of seeing her so delicate, so pale, so tired. it’s been weeks since he has last seen her. but he remembered that all she wanted was to spend time with him.

putting on his shoes he gets up and heads to the hospital. he arrives at the front desk and requests to visit y/n. he was met with the most dreaded words he never knew he would ever be met with.

“im sorry sir, but it says that she didn’t make it” the lady at the front said.

the day of the rosary came, he didn’t want to face the fact that she was actually gone. tsukishima enters her house and passes the strawberry shortcake he has brought to her mother. in the middle of the rosary he walks up to y/n’s room.

her room was decorated with anime posters and many plants. there was a cork board on the wall, photos of all their dates and her friends. on her desk was a framed selfie of their trip to tokyo. tsukishima resting his chin on her shoulder pouting while she holds up a peace sign with a big smile on her face. next to the picture we’re two dinosaurs. one is a brachiosaurus and the other is a triceratops. she would always say that the two toys were them and always kept the two together.

he picks up the framed picture and takes out the picture. he wanted to remember her. as he was taking out the photo a note slips out. he glances down at the note and read aloud,

“hi kei bae!! if you’re reading this you wanted to keep the photo right? anyways im writing this just in case anything happens to me. oh yeah i have cancer! ta da!! yeah yeah it’s not a good thing but hey, I wanted to spend all my time with you. so pls grab the picture with this and the box under my bed. there should be more photos for you. well i guess this is it. sayonara kei. ♡

-love y/n

he grabs the box under her bed to see all the photos she has take throughout their relationship. what broke him the most was a dinosaur post-it note on the bottom. it read “i love you my dino boy<3”

he never got to say goodbye, he was scared for the closure. he wanted her warmth, her soft lips against his, her angelic laughs, his shoulder to lean on. she was always there for him. his last words to her was not “i love you” or “see you later” he just wanted to hold her in his arms one last time. holding the pictures in his arms, crying his eyes out.

“sayonara y/n♡”

#tsukishima x reader #haikyu x y/n #haikyu x reader #tsukishima kei #hq angst #angst #Spotify

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tailorvizsla · 4 years

Text

A Proper Mandalorian Courtship: Chapter 7

Title: Calm Before the Storm Pairing: Paz x f!Reader (finally), mentions of Paz & various characters Word Count: ~10.1k Rating: PG-13 Warnings: References to illness, as well as the fear that someone might hurt themselves (but that’s as heavy as it gets), feelings, Paz With Children

📚 My Master List 📚

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 10

❤️❤️❤️ This beautiful moodboard is by the amazing @huliabitch! Thank you so much!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Tags: @hdlynn @ffiiggyy50 @princessbatears @ben-is-a-hoe @oloreaa @andromedanerds @phoenixhalliwell @mandhoelorian @dornish-queen @corrupt-fvcker @kazzilla

[flashback]

Slouching in his chair, Paz stares out at the blue lights zipping by across the windows as they navigate the hyperspace lane. Exhaustion fills him down to the bone, yet he cannot find rest. When they come into range of the communication buoy, he sends a short message ahead to Doctor Shen and asks her to clear the hangar out. She does not ask questions.

In the half hour it takes to get home, Paz gets Zephyr’s things together – he grabs a spare set of clothes and does a quick spot-clean of his armor to get the worst of the filth off. After that, Paz returns to the cockpit and guides the ship into the hangar. The doors are shut and one of the people break off to leave, leaving behind Doctor Shen’s familiar white armor.

He opens the ramp from the cockpit and goes to check on Zephyr. His heart sinks as he steps into the room. The young man is sitting up, arms wrapped loosely around his knees, his glazed-over eyes staring blankly at the far wall. Paz kneels next to the bed, reaching out with a tentative hand. He places it gently onto his shoulder.

“Hey,” Paz says softly. “We’re back.”

Zephyr’s only response is a short nod.

“Doctor Shen is here,” he continues. “I want you to go sit with her for a bit while I deal with all this, alright?”

Another nod. Paz hands him the pile of clothes and sets the armor down next to him. Then he exits, turning the light on and shutting the door to give him privacy. At the bottom of the ladder, he finds Doctor Shen waiting.

“What happened?” Doctor Shen asks urgently.

“Something extremely traumatizing,” Paz says. “I need you to talk to him, just…I need to deal with this. I’m going to set up a cot for him in my room.”

Doctor Shen’s response is cut off by the sound of Zephyr’s feet hitting the top rung of the ladder.

“Hey, vod,” she says. “Let’s head to medical, and we can talk, alright?”

Zephyr turns to look at him. Paz nods encouragingly. Once Zephyr and Doctor Shen have disappeared, he turns his attention to the boxes and promptly decides it can be dealt with later. Right now, he needs to use his hands, to move and to not think. In the main hall, he finds Armorer waiting for him.

“What happened?” she asks as she falls into stride next to him.

“Can we talk somewhere more private?” he asks quietly.

“Yes, of course,” she says.

At his door, Paz types in the code, and lets Armorer in.

“What happened?” Armorer asks.

For the first time in his life, Paz is speechless. He turns to face her and leans his weight against the wall. He had tried to come up with a way to bring it up with Armorer, but now, he has forgotten everything he had wanted to say. He decides to just blurt it out. Well, there is no way to put this delicately, regardless.

“Liam didn’t die on Nevarro. He survived.”

The silence stretches on.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Paz says, his voice just above a whisper.

She understands the unspoken question.

“We never found his body,” Armorer says slowly. “Zeli looked for hours. When she brought back his helmet, I suspected he might have abandoned the Tribe. I did not want Zephyr to try and return to find his buir.”

He lets his head fall back against the wall with a dull thunk. One breath in, hold, and let it out slowly. His armor suddenly feels hot and itchy, suffocating him with its weight. His gut twists as he clears the emotion from his throat. Zephyr would have clawed his way back off the ship if he thought there was a chance his buir survived.

“Liam…Liam told us a grenade knocked him out. He said he woke up to a group of bounty hunters taking his helmet off,” Paz says. “He killed them just as Zeli came looking for him.”

“Do you believe he spoke the truth?”

He does not need to consider the veracity of Liam’s claim - deep down, he knows Liam had spoken the truth.

“Yes.”

“He did not abandon the Tribe,” Armorer says. “However, he knew what would happen if he returned. Did he know Zeli would likely be exiled alongside him?”

Paz nods once. He can still see Liam lying on that narrow cot, sick and barely clinging to life. Regret at not having said goodbye to his wife. Self-loathing. Fear. Yet as soon as Zephyr had pressed their foreheads together, it had all dissipated, like a wisp of smoke in a breeze.

“It would not have been just your decision to exile him,” Paz says.

Armorer nods once in confirmation. Like before, it would have been a Tribe vote. Given how high tensions had risen, they would have exiled the two of them on the spot without even thinking it through. Without thinking of the possible ramifications of their decision. Armorer folds her arms under her chest plate, watching him intently. Paz can feel his hands shaking, the adrenaline starting to wear off with the lack of movement.

“Where is Liam now?” she asks, but her tone indicates she knows the answer to that question.

“He was dying when we found him,” Paz says, unable to keep the sorrow from his voice. “He had growths that spread to his vital organs. Beyond what he could afford to pay.”

Armorer nods once more.

“What can I do to help?” she asks.

“Liam hunted until he could not continue,” Paz responds. “We brought his final offering back. I would really appreciate your help in going through it.”

“Of course,” Armorer says. “What about Zephyr?”

“I am getting him set up in the spare room,” Paz says. “I just need to clear it out.”

“I will go get him a cot,” Armorer says. “Do you know his door code?”

“No,” Paz says. “But I can get it from him later.”

Armorer nods and disappears. He starts moving again, losing himself to the repetition of lifting boxes and carrying them into his bedroom, trying to stop himself from thinking. From feeling. When it is completely empty, he takes a moment to breathe. Center himself. Collect his thoughts. Plan the next step.

Be strong for Zephyr, he thinks to himself. Be strong for Tribe. Be strong for those who cannot be.

Paz exits the spare room and glances out at the living space, which doubles as a workspace when he wants to be alone or needs to take his helmet off. Now, as he takes stock of the situation, the cold, harsh reality of the situation seems to sink in. Zephyr has always been such a gentle boy, always feeling deeply, always hurting when others hurt. He is still rash and impulsive, immature in some ways.

He also never had the best coping mechanisms growing up, even with Liam and Zeli’s guidance. He does not think that Zephyr might do something drastic, but Paz refuses to risk it. He unfolds another plastic crate. Balancing it on his hip, he goes from table to table, packing the various blasters and knives away. For the weapons that are still being rebuilt or cleaned, he removes the battery packs. He hides the firing mechanisms in a box and stuffs it behind linens in a cabinet.

In the kitchen, he starts pulling the narrow drawers open, tossing anything sharper than a spoon into the box. From there, he moves to the cabinets over the tiny heating unit. He has a modest collection of alcohol stored away. For a few seconds, he debates on whether to keep it, but then he remembers the bottles littering the clearing near Liam’s home. How many of those were used to self-medicate? To numb himself to the pain? Shaking his head, Paz reaches up and starts emptying the bottles into the sink, even the ones he has never cracked open before.

A tap at the door interrupts him.

“Come in,” he calls out.

Armorer comes in with a bag of linens in her arms. She is followed by Din and Terys. They roll the cot into the spare room and leave without a word. Paz checks the bathroom medkit, but he does not have any painkillers aside from a small packet of aspirin. Paz sends the door code to Zephyr and Doctor Shen, telling them to let themselves in if he is not back by the time they are finished. Once the bedroom door is locked, Armorer accompanies him back to the hangar. They stand in silence for several moments, looking at the boxes filling the cargo bay.

He reaches for the first battered crate and pries the lid off.

“Metal ingots,” Paz says automatically, lifting a bar of crude iron out of the box. “Looks like mostly iron and copper.”

He wheels it out to the main floor. From there, the two of them work quickly, going through the biggest crates first, sorting it into piles for easy moving and storage later. Liam had found several crates worth of raw metal for the Foundry. It was enough to keep their munitions cache stocked for nearly a year. In another crate, they find hard-to-get electrical components. The knives, blasters, ammunition, and explosives are moved off toward the end of the line. He can deal with it later. Much, much later.

They keep the chatter to a minimum as they sort through the smaller crates. It almost seems disrespectful to speak when dealing with a hunter’s final offering to the Tribe. The next few crates are filled with a variety of goods, ranging from rolls of leather to vacuum-sealed bags of spices and dried herbs. They are finally left with two wooden crates, both battered and worn. Paz grabs the crowbar and pries one open. The tool slips out of his fingers and clatters to the floor when he sees the armor within.

The cuirass is badly damaged, the paint worn away in some places and scorched in others. Near the karta bes’kar, the metal has been torn open to reveal the innermost electronic components. The cuisses and bracers are in worse condition. They look like they had been repaired with temporary patches, the silvery marks crisscrossing every surface. He’d been in many fights, all without an armorer to repair his beskar’gam. How had he survived so long?

Underneath the mismatched set of shoulder pieces, he finds Liam’s original right pauldron. It looks nearly pristine, save for the violent gouges where Liam had pried off the clan signet. Finally, at the bottom of the box, Paz finds the clan signet. He reaches for the mangled piece of metal.

“Leave it,” Armorer says, her sharp tone stopping him.

“Armorer?” Paz asks, watching as she reaches into the box. She picks up the signet and runs her thumb along the edge. Then she pockets it with a quiet sigh.

“Liam severed himself from his clan,” Armorer says.

Paz has heard of clans disowning or exiling members, but never the reverse. His gut twists when he considers how desperate Liam must have been to avoid including anyone else in his shame.

“And the rest of his armor?” he dares to ask.

“I will store it with the utmost respect until Zephyr is ready to decide what will be done with it,” Armorer says.

The last box is much smaller, and in even worse condition. Paz almost dreads what he is going to find inside. He lifts the lid and inhales sharply. Row after row of bes’kar ingots glitter up at him in the dull light. He picks one up. No Imp stamp, meaning it came from another source. Third-hand dealer? Battlefield scavengers? Armorer picks up a piece and turns it over in her hands. Then she raps it sharply against her bracer, causing the ingot to sing a familiar, sweet note.

“Pure bes’kar,” she confirms.

Paz picks up one of the heavier bags and opens it. Imperial credits. The next bag contains Calamari Flan. He goes through the satchels, pure ice filling his stomach at the small fortune Liam had sent back. For this kind of money, he had been taking some dangerous bounties, if not outright dealing with spice.

“He could have bought a bacta tank with all this,” Paz says, shaking his head in denial. “Hell, he could have bought ten…”

He trails off Armorer returns the ingot to the crate.

“I think that, in his sorrow, Liam truly believed that his death would redeem him in our eyes,” Armorer says softly. “That this – “ she gestures at the crates neatly organized out in the hangar “ – would make him worthy of our respect. Perhaps, even our forgiveness.”

Paz sits there for a moment, digesting her words. Even when they were young, Liam had always worried about the Tribe. He had always wondered if his offerings were enough to feed them and clothe them. He had always just worried, more than what any sixteen-year-old should have worried in a lifetime.

“I will store the money with Liam’s armor,” she says. “I know Liam said that this is a Tribe offering, but I would like to give Zephyr the opportunity to decide if he will keep a portion for himself.”

As Liam’s only surviving child, Zephyr has the right to keep it all to himself. Paz doubted the young man would want any of the money. He likely would only want his father’s armor, perhaps a bit of the bes’kar to put aside for his own children one day.

With this amount of money coming into the Tribe coffers, Paz knows he should be grateful. They will not need to worry about food or medical supplies for several years at least. Yet, he feels that pang in his chest worsen. Welcoming a Mandalorian warrior back into their ranks would have been a fortune to which no amount of money or bes’kar could ever compare.

If only there had been time, Paz thinks to himself desperately, time for tempers to cool. If only there had been more time.

Looking at the wealth surrounding them, Paz decides he would trade it all away in a heartbeat if it meant Zephyr could spend a few more hours with his buir.

He looks up as Armorer starts to leave.

“Armorer…”

She stops and looks to him.

“Is he…” Paz trails off. She watches. “Would Liam be considered…dar’manda?”

After a few moments, she speaks.

“Even with our strict interpretation of our oaths, we still show leniency to our members,” Armorer says. “Losing ones’ helmet does not make someone dar’manda. It is the willful abandonment of our heritage, our culture, and the Resol’nare that renders one unfit to join in the Manda when we pass on.”

She looks at the crates littering the hangar.

“He gave up everything he knew and loved to ensure his child had a future with us. He hunted to provide for his Tribe to the very end, even when there was no guarantee his offerings would be accepted.”

She lets the silence linger.

“If you are asking my opinion, Paz, then I would not have considered him dar’manda. He helped raise a warrior. He fought like one from the time he donned the helmet until he left us to go march,” Armorer says quietly. “He still had his soul, however much he had disappointed and shamed this Tribe. Would he have been welcomed back here with songs of glory? Certainly not. But with time, I think he could have restored his honor and earned our respect once more.”

Paz nods as an unexpected wave of relief fills him.

“Like many of us, he struggled to adhere to his path. He made terrible mistakes and he tried to rectify them in the only way he knew how – give all he had until the day he had nothing left to give. In the end, Liam was the only person who could decide if he was still a Mandalorian.”

Armorer tilts her head at him. Then she pushes the cart down the ramp. He watches as the little wheels clatter over the uneven seams in the concrete until she disappears. Paz sinks down onto the floor, one knee drawn up toward his chest, the other leg stretched out in front of him. He stares at the floor of the cargo bay, idly cataloguing all the little scraps of detritus that had fallen out of the boxes.

He should be grateful for Liam’s dedication to the hunt. He should be comforted that Liam and Zeli have reunited in the Manda. He should be happy that Zephyr had the opportunity to say goodbye to both his buire. Right now, all he feels is tired and empty, like someone has wrung his entire body out like a wet cloth. Paz lets his head fall back.

No matter how hard he tries to find his inner peace, he cannot stop his thoughts from racing. Is Zephyr okay? Would the kid let him talk to Doctor Shen? Hell, does Zephyr even want to stay with him? Shit. He probably should have asked first. Paz stares at the wall, trying to work up the will to move his body, but the heaviness in his soul weighs him down, threatening to pull him into his despair.

Peering into the hanger, you see that Paz is still sitting on the floor, his bulky blue armor barely visible from here. You don’t know what’s going on, but you know for a fact that the crates he has brought back are not the food and the medical supplies the Tribe is in need of. The others are bunched up behind you, clearly worried for him, so you turn to face them.

“I’ll go talk to him,” you say, volunteering yourself.

“He needs a stiff drink,” someone says. “I got a stash.”

“You di’kut,” you snap at him. “You know he doesn’t drink to cope. Maker, he needs someone with at least half-a-braincell.”

“Hey, it was just a suggestion, Shu’shika.”

“You all go make yourselves useful somewhere else. I hear that Hannah needs help with the kids.”

Predictably, the rest of the Tribe scatters like cockroaches, all hoping to avoid being voluntold into childcare duties. Shaking your head, you turn back to Paz. You gather your wits about yourself and edge into the hangar. Though you know he will not miss your approach, you make sure he can hear you coming. It isn’t until you kneel on the ground next to him that he looks up at you.

“Hey,” he says.

“What do you need?” you ask quietly.

His head falls back against the wall. In that moment, he looks like he has been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Surreptitiously, you glance over his armor and kute. Both are pristine. So Zephyr’s sorrow is not due to seeing combat on his first hunt. Something else had caused the two men this tremendous pain.

“Zephyr’s in medical,” Paz says tiredly.

“There is no force in this galaxy that could get between Doctor Shen and Zephyr,” you say gently. “I’m asking what you need, Paz. How can I help you?”

He looks up.

“Me?” he asks, almost sounding confused.

“Yes, you,” you repeat. “How can I help you bear the burden you carry right now?”

“I…” He trails off. “I don’t know.”

A wry smile crosses your lips, though he cannot see it.

“People don’t ask you that often, do they, hunter?” you whisper to him, your heart breaking cleanly in half for the warrior in front of you.

You wonder if anyone has ever shown him their appreciation for the difficult job he does. Does he view hunting as something he should not be thanked for? That it is something that he is expected to do, without consideration of his needs? How long has it been since anyone last helped him bear his burdens? Your throat tightens. You have been complicit in this – you have not shown him your kindness, nor your appreciation for what he does to care for the Tribe. Your heart burns with regret and sorrow.

You have called this man family, yet you have not taken the time to take care of him.

“No,” Paz says, at long last. “They don’t.” After several long moments, he continues, his voice heavy as lead in your ears. “It isn’t my place…to tell you what happened.”

You make a solemn vow to make sure no one else in this Tribe will ever be so woefully unappreciated again.

“Then tell me this, Paz. How do you feel right now?”

He lets out a mirthless huff of amusement.

“I haven’t failed this miserably at a hunt in almost twenty years.”

You tilt your helmet and frown.

“Was it a failure?”

“I set out for food and medical supplies,” Paz says tiredly. “I came back with none of it. I failed to provide for my Tribe.”

Ah, you think to yourself, that’s what is bothering him. Well, one of the things that are bothering him, at least. You gather your courage. You might have only known him for a few months now, but you have always secretly admired him. His strength. His dedication.

“Paz, do you really think that bringing back the wrong items means you have somehow failed us?” you ask quietly. Before he can answer, you dare to slip your own small hands around his, sandwiching his massive palm between yours. “You are so much more than just a hunter to us.”

He looks down at your hands. For a brief moment, you think he might tell you to let go, but he does not. Instead, his fingers tighten around yours. You have seen how strong those hands are, how easily he handles that massive cannon of his, yet he squeezes you with a gentility that makes your cheeks heat up.

“I know we’ve been Tribe for only a few months now, but in that time, you’ve made yourself our family,” you continue. “From day one, you looked after our children the same way you look after your own. You saw one child shiver in the cold classroom, and that was all it took for you to start waking up early enough to go turn environmental controls on.”

Paz tilts his helmet down, almost…shyly?

“Caring for the children is my job,” he says, his voice a bit gruff.

“By day four, you had every single one of our kids following at your heels,” you say in a faintly teasing tone. When his head tilted down further, you dared to continue, relishing in the warrior’s sweet embarrassment. “Gazing up at you in wide-eyed wonder, begging you to play with them.”

“They’ll do anything for sweets,” Paz muttered. “I didn’t do anything special.”

“Do you think so?” you ask. “You sat your shebs on the floor, let them all pile in around you, and taught them how to tie knots. In all those cables you spent hours organizing.”

“Learning is how a Tribe grows strong,” he counters stubbornly. “It’s my job.”

“On your next hunt, you went and picked out a small toy for each one,” you remind. “It took you so long to pick them out that you missed your return deadline by six hours. Is that part of your job?”

He sighs grumpily. A puff of laughter escapes you in response. He knows he has been caught. You forge on bravely, hoping that he will not think poorly of you for sitting here and spilling your innermost thoughts out to him. But he needs to hear it, you think.

His Tribe came from such dire straits. You do not know much of what they had gone through. Paz had not been forthcoming. All Dezha would say was that the rest of his Tribe was gone, with no presumed survivors. It was no wonder that Paz felt like he had to be responsible for every little thing. In a way, he kind of had been. He had been his peoples’ source of stability and strength, putting aside his own needs and wants to ensure the most precious members of his Tribe could thrive.

“No matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise, you are a respected and trusted figure of authority here. You are a leader, Paz. A teacher and caretaker.” You swallow. “You are dedicated to providing for each and every last person here, but you never ask for anything in return. We basically have to harass you until you tell us what you need. What you want.” He does not look up, nor does he refute your statement. He knows it is true. “We all do our part to ensure we remain strong, but you go above and beyond what is asked of you every single time. No matter what we ask of you, you give us everything you have. And I don’t think you have gotten the same back from us.

He stays quiet as he looks down at your entwined hands.

“That isn’t fair to you,” you whisper.

Then his strong fingers curl a little tighter around yours, sending heat shooting into your cheeks and making your breath hitch a little. Maker, you truly hope he did not hear that. How could holding someone’s hand make you so nervous?

“S-so please don’t ever think you are not doing enough for us, Paz,” you continue, stammering slightly. “Even if…even if we aren’t the best at showing you our gratitude…you are a trusted and cherished member of this Tribe. We care deeply for you.”

“You don’t need to show me your gratitude,” he says a bit gruffly. “This is my job, Shu’shika. Do yours the best you can. And that’ll be enough for me. For all of us.”

He still hasn’t let go of you.

“You do not need to bear this burden alone,” you say. “Let us help you. Let us take care of you, the same way you take care of us. I will – we will always be here to support you, Paz. That is what we do as a Tribe and as a family.”

“Once I can get this taken care of,” he says, gesturing at the piles of crates, “I just…I just need some sleep.”

“I can handle getting everything where it needs to go,” you say, volunteering yourself immediately.

“Can you handle those idiots?” Paz asks, tilting his head toward the doorway. “On a good day, I have to threaten to shoot them a few times before they will listen.”

“They probably enjoy threats of violence,” you say. “I have something more creative in mind.”

Paz lets out a huff of amusement, a low, rich noise that makes you grateful for the helmet on your head, hiding the way you are biting your lip and blushing cherry red.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Regrettably, you let go of his hand and climb to your feet. You lead the way out and make your way to the group of hunters loitering in the hangar. When you draw abreast of the group, you take a few moments to decide which hunter is best suited for which job.

“Terys, I need you to take the munitions to the Armory, please,” you say calmly, watching as his head turns down in your direction. For a brief moment, you wonder if he is going to give you sass, but in the end, he nods.

“Aye, Shu’shika,” he says, going toward the boxes at the end.

“Revala, would you please move the raw ores to the Foundry?” you ask.

“Aye,” she says. She goes off for the cart in the corner.

Your good luck ends there, unfortunately, and some of the others start to file out, clearly ready to ignore your requests.

“Neten, Lyras, I think that the two of you can handle the supplies going to the kitchen,” you say. “Hannah will need some help getting the heavier items moved onto the shelves.”

Lyras comes forward, but Neten turns away.

“Neten, come on,” Lyras says. “We have a job to do.”

“She doesn’t tell me what to do,” Neten scoffs.

All heads turn in your direction at the challenge issued by the much larger hunter.

“Neten, you do not have to do what I ask you to do,” you say calmly. “But let me remind you that I schedule childcare duties around here. If you choose to not help here, your ample amounts of free time will be spent in the nursery for the foreseeable future.”

Neten stares at you, clearly in shock at your threats. You really are not in the mood to fight right now, so you keep your posture as nonconfrontational as possible. Not only that, you’ve managed to leave your knife in your room again, so you have no weapons on your person. Neten then looks at Paz.

“She can’t do that,” Neten says to Paz. “Right? She can’t just decide – “

In that instant, Paz growls and his posture changes, making him look twice as big as he stalks forward. Even though Paz is only a few centimeters taller than Neten, he seems to loom over him, advancing with slow menacing steps until Neten shrinks back into the wall.

“Imagine the hell your life will become if Alor and Armorer find out you are refusing to do your assigned duties,” Paz growls quietly.

Neten decides to try his luck.

“But she has no authority over me,” Neten says, squaring his shoulders and giving you what you assume is a glare. “She can’t tell me what to do – “

Paz lifts his hand and places it on the wall right next to Neten’s audial, leaning in closer. Neten shrinks back against the wall.

“Well, guess what, Neten. I have decided that Shu’shika oversees you from now on. If she tells you to jump, you will do so, and then you will thank her for the privilege,” Paz says, in a soft, silky voice that makes your knees tremble. When Neten splutters indignantly, Paz jabs one finger into his chest plate, silencing his retorts. He continues in a heavy growl, “Do not test me again.”

Wisely, Neten turns his head down in a clear show of his submission. Paz lingers for another second to ensure Neten knows his place. Then Paz backs up a step, and the tension in the room dissipates entirely. In theory, you have always known that Paz’s position as Alor’ad means that he must have ironclad control over the hunters to keep them in line. Up until now, he has never had to prove that he has the biggest brass set in the room, so to speak.

Paz stares at Neten expectantly.

“I will do as I am told,” Neten says grumpily.

“You will do as Shu’shika tells you to do,” Paz corrects.

“I will do as Shu’shika tells me to do,” he repeats, though it sounds positively painful for him to repeat.

“Thank you,” you say politely.

“If any of these idiots so much as breathe in a way that offends you, let me know,” Paz says to you, ensuring everyone can hear him. He stares the crowd down for another moment, “I will come deal with the problem.”

No one dares to move. After a few seconds, Paz stomps off, clearly annoyed. As you watch after him, you realize the hunters are waiting for their orders, so you quickly finish assigning everything as fairly as you can.

For your duties, you grab some cleaning supplies and head into the Desert Lark to begin tidying up. It is not necessary, but you really would like to make things a little easier for Paz. You have a strong suspicion that Paz is going to go back out on a hunt. Given how strongly he believes his worth to the Tribe is tied to his offerings, you are surprised he is not already trying to refuel. Well, the least you can do for him is make it a little easier for him.

After a little subtle snooping, you find that Paz has been held up in medical for some reason or another. You know it has something to do with Zephyr. Your buir always said that every Mandalorian needs to take some time to themselves after enduring something stressful. Some go shooting. Others spar. Others yet meditate. You are not sure which of those would most likely appeal to Paz, but you do know he will neglect his needs to look after Zephyr. Veering off course, you go straight to the kitchen. It is closed for the night, but you figure Hannah won’t mind terribly if you reopen for Zephyr.

You put together a small but nourishing meal for him – a clear broth, hot and lightly spiced, with buttered bread and some pickled vegetables. You make sure to add some cookies from your secret stash of snacks so he can have something sweet to nibble on. For Paz, you grab some standard rations. As much as you would like to make something special for him, you get the feeling he would prefer as much normalcy in his routine as possible so he could focus on Zephyr.

Zephyr had that listless, almost catatonic quality to him, as if Doctor Shen’s hand at his elbow was the only thing keeping him upright. He has always been such a sweet and gentle young man, someone who has always hesitated to bring harm to another, even during sparring. Even though he tries to avoid babysitting duties as much as he can, he does make up for it by doing other chores around the place. Something has hurt him very deeply, and your heart aches for him. When everything is packed away, you send Paz a brief message asking if you can bring some food for the two of them. He agrees and meets you at the door. You hand the bag over to him.

“Thanks,” he says.

“If you or Zeph need anything else, we are here,” you say quietly. “Please don’t hesitate to reach out, vod.”

He glances back over his shoulder.

“Thanks,” he says, looking back at you. “I will keep that in mind.”

You nod once and turn back down the hallway, your thoughts slipping away from you. The next morning, you find a small box at your workstation. Frowning to yourself, you pick it up and open it. Inside, nestled in a ragged piece of burlap, you find a tiny carved loth-cat, barely bigger than a strawberry.

There is no note included, but you know it is from Paz. He is the only person who would ever go out of their way to find something so small and beautiful for someone he barely knows. Smiling to yourself, you put the tiny cat back into the protective box. You didn’t even know Paz had been paying attention while you were talking about how much you wanted a pet loth-cat.

Then you nestle the box into your pocket, a strange feeling taking root in you.

[End Flashback]

[Current]

Once your work for the day is complete, you check the time and find you have several hours before dinner. Normally, you would go see what other chores are available to you, but today, you consider doing something else instead. Something self-indulgent. Gnawing on your lower lip, you nervously put your tools away, sorting them into the right boxes and trays. Could you really skip helping the others, just so you can go see Paz? As you close the lid to your toolbox, you happen to look up. You jump a little when you see Armorer standing there.

“Armorer,” you say. “How can I help you?”

“I noticed you had marked your work for the day complete,” Armorer says. “I wanted to ask what plans you had for this evening.”

Ah, she needs help with something. Oh well, you think to yourself. It was a silly thing to think that you could skip for the day to go sneak in a few minutes with Paz. It had been a selfish thing to consider. Though, you do wonder how she had gotten here so quickly.

“I did not plan for anything tonight,” you respond. “Do you need something specific?” You are already reaching for your toolbox, but she cuts you off.

“Dezha was supposed to be helping Paz with the children,” Armorer says in a casual tone. “However, I need his help elsewhere. The children have been unusually unruly this week, and with Paz’s injury…” She trails off deliberately. “Would you be willing to help him?”

“Of course,” you say, the words slipping out of your mouth without hesitation. “I would be happy to help. Are we doing language lessons today?”

“No, no specific lessons today,” Armorer says. “We just need the children kept out of the way while the rest of us clean up the hangar.”

“The hangar?” you ask in confusion. “What happened - ?”

“Do not concern yourself with that,” Armorer says in a soothing tone. “Will you please help Paz?”

“Yes, absolutely,” you say, nodding. “I’ll head to the nursery now.”

“Excellent,” Armorer purrs. “I will walk you there.”

The walk to the nursery is a short one. It is past the normal work hours, yet you see no one else lingering in the hallways. Home is strangely empty. It almost unsettles you. Armorer keeps you moving at a brisk pace before she finally directs you into the nursery, physically blocking the doorway behind you. Paz is not wearing his armor – only his suit and padding – while he carries a child under each arm. It looks like he is in the middle of reenacting some science fiction scene in the middle of the toys, one foot poised over a pile of toppled blocks.

“Hey,” Paz says, as he sets the two children down. “What can I help you two with?”

“I need Dezha’s assistance with something,” Armorer says. “I brought Shu’shika as your backup.”

“Shushi!” Ola shrieks, throwing down a wad of wrinkled paper.

The little girl comes barreling over and throws herself at your legs. Immediately, you scoop her up onto your hip and tweak her nose. She has a rainbow of marker ink smears all over her face and arms. As you look at the other children, you see they are in a similar state, and you find yourself hoping that Paz had given them the water soluble markers to draw with.

“Ba’vodu!” Ellyn whines from the floor, “I want to play hunter and prey, please!”

“Sure,” Paz says.

“But your knee, Paz,” you say, coming forward a step.

“That little burn could barely be called an injury,” Paz scoffs. “Bacta took care of it in a few hours.”

Before you can think further on Armorer’s reference to his injury, Ellyn covers her eyes and starts to count. The other children scatter like leaves on the wind, scampering into their hiding spots. Paz looks around. Then at you. He comes to stand behind you. You give him an incredulous look over your shoulder. Tem comes skittering over and climbs up Paz’s leg. He scoops the child up against his chest and holds one finger up in front of his modulator as he sort of crouches behind you.

“Shh!”

You sigh quietly and stand there while Ellyn finishes counting. You are pretty sure there’s more of Paz hanging out from behind you than you actually cover up, considering how much larger he is.

Ellyn gets up and sprints to the other side of the room. She hits the timer and starts to race around the room, ripping the cushions off the couch and turning boxes over. The blood drains from your face as the already messy room becomes an actual disaster. From behind you, you can hear Tem and Paz snickering to themselves. You watch in fascinated horror as Ellyn finds all the children except for Tem and Paz. At this point, you think Paz has cemented himself as an oversized child.

“Tem!” Ellyn shouts. “Ba’vodu Paz! Where are you?”

At that moment, the timer goes off, and Ellyn lets out a noise of frustration. She kicks a stuffed animal out of her way. Paz steps out from behind you. When Ellyn sees them, her big brown eyes go wide with surprise. Then she lets out a scream of frustration.

That’s enough to set Paz and Tem off in a fit of hysterics.

“CHEATER!” Ellyn screams.

“We did not cheat,” Paz counters through his guffaws. “We hid behind Shu’shika.”

“But you can’t do that!” Ellyn wails.

Her lower lip wobbles and she goes off to sulk. Paz sets Tem down and he goes off to the pile of stuffed animals in the corner. You gingerly step through the piles of toys, still incredulous that the child had not noticed Paz hiding behind you. Well, she had probably focused on everything at eye level. And Paz…well, he is well above eye-level for most people in the Tribe.

As you are trying in vain to put some of the toys back where they belong, one of the toddlers comes forward on unsteady legs, holding a book up at you. Taking it, you find that it’s covered in something wet and sticky. When he wipes his nose with the back of his hand, you realize your fingers are covered in snot. A shudder of revulsion creeps up your spine.

“How about a story?” Paz asks the room at large, coming to your rescue.

“Let’s clean up,” you say, “Then we can all sit on the floor together.”

You quickly hand Paz the book and wipe the snot off your hand onto your pants.

“Clean up! Clean up!” Ellyn chants, rolling onto her knees. “Let’s clean up, everybody!”

The other children join in on the chant, organizing the piles of toys into their proper storage containers. You only have to corral the toddlers toward the right boxes a few times, while Paz gathers the drawings into a neat stack. From there, you settle into the chaos quickly. At times, it feels like the children are making a bigger mess than the one they are trying to clean up.

Surreptitiously, you watch Paz. You cannot help but to notice how good he is with the children. His voice is always gentle and patient. When they tackle him for a Paz Pile, he indulges them, playing for a few moments before redirecting them to the monumental task of cleaning up the playroom. The same snot-covered toddler picks up a toy ship and pats Paz on the leg. He crouches and wraps both hands around the boy’s waist.

“Alright, vod’ika,” Paz says gently. “Let’s jump up really high and put the toy away, alright?”

“Ba’vodu!” the boy squeals.

Paz lifts and the boy shrieks in delight. As soon as the others see what Ba’vodu Paz is up to, they go running over with their own toys, clamoring for their turn. Ola is halfway up Paz’s leg by the time you go to offer backup. Slowly, but surely, the room is tidied up and readied for tomorrow. Then Paz takes the book back to the seat. Ola scrambles out of his way before he sinks down.

Paz starts to read, his voice low and soothing. The story is about a beggar and a merchant. You don’t recall the exact plot points, but you do know the moral of the story is to always be kind to those in need. While Paz keeps the children entertained, you go gather up the last few toys and put them away.

Then you grab the broom and start sweeping up the crumpled tissues and candy wrappers. You purse your lips at the amount of candy he had fed them. Ah, well. If strille could be trained with positive reinforcement, so could children. As Paz gets further into the story, the littlest ones start to drift off, and you carefully nestle them onto the sleeping mats.

Ola’s buire are the first to come back for her. She presses her forehead against Paz’s shoulder as she yawns into her fist. Then she pats you on the knee as she stumbles to her parents. She is quickly scooped up and carried away. One by one, or sometimes in twos, the children go home with their parents, until you and Paz are standing alone in the empty nursery. Paz marks his place with a bookmark and puts it away. Then he gets up and stretches out a bit.

“Looks like we’re done with our assigned childcare for tonight,” Paz says. “Thank the Maker.”

“Yes,” you say, almost stammering. “Uh. Childcare.”

He tilts his helmet inquisitively, clearly having picked up on your anxiety. Before you can stop yourself, you speak up.

“Paz, what are you doing tonight?” you ask.

“I don’t have plans,” he says. “Why do you ask?”

“Want to ditch evening chores?”

“You want to ditch evening duties?” he asks, tilting his head the other way. “Shu’shika, people will accuse me of corrupting you.”

You laugh in response.

“I’ve done my fair share of double duties for at least ten years,” you respond. “How about it, Paz? Want to be irresponsible with me?”

“Yes,” he says. “Let’s go before anyone gets any ideas.”

The two of you go to the door. You peer down both ends of the hallway. Near the hangar, you can see people streaming loitering. One of them looks up and immediately turns around, grabbing a box. Weird.

“Okay,” you say to Paz, “Looks like they’re still working in the hangar.”

His hand settles at your waist as he peers down the hallway over your head. When the last person enters the hangar, you grab his hand and pull, leading him away from the others.

“Come on, let’s go,” you whisper to him.

You lead him away from the rest of the Tribe, muffling your laughter, sneaking from shadow to shadow like an oversized pair of misbehaving teenagers. At the main entrance, you find your plans to go pick berries thwarted by an incoming thunderstorm. You let out a noise of disappointment. Paz joins you outside as the wind picks up, the trees dancing and swaying as the pit-pat of rain grows louder. When you shiver, Paz’s hand settles at your waist, and he pulls you closer to him.

“Well, looks like we’re stuck inside,” you sigh to Paz, curling your face toward his shoulder, his torso blocking the worst of the cold.

“We can watch from here,” Paz says.

The first crack of lightning makes you jump, and as if the skies had been waiting for that exact moment, the rain begins to pour down in sheets. You can feel Paz tilt his head down to look at you. Rather than tease you, he runs his fingers against your back comfortingly. That is all it takes for you to melt against your warrior, eyes drifting shut as you dare to wrap your arm around his muscular waist.

When his other arm wraps itself around you, enclosing you in his tender embrace, you surrender immediately, offering no resistance to him. You can no longer deny what your heart has been screaming at you. You love Paz Vizsla. You’ve been in love with him for Maker-only-knows-how-long. As you listen to the steady thumping of his heart, you feel giddy and lightheaded, almost as if you are drunk on his touch alone. Then, his hand rises from your waist, his fingers settling at your jaw, making your breath hitch in your throat. Paz tilts your face up toward his gently. You rise onto your tip-toes to close gap, anticipation making your stomach flutter.

When only a handspan separates you from Paz, you think there could not have been a more perfect moment for this to happen, for you to finally kiss your warrior –

Then, suddenly, the door slams open, bathing the two of you in harsh, bright light. You and Paz freeze in place as the speaker starts to come outside.

“ – figure out how to make it look like there was actually a spill,” Din says, as he steps through the doorway.

When Din notices the intimate embrace you and Paz are sharing, he freezes, one foot in the air, and lets out a noise of pure despair. Dezha peers out after him and he inhales audibly. He grabs Din by the backplate and yanks him back, shutting the door behind them, but the damage has been done.

The warm pleasure that had once filled you is now gone, replaced with the mortification at having been caught in such a compromising position. Your buir would be so disappointed that you were sneaking off with someone and then being stupid enough to get caught trying to rub helmets with him. Your stomach drops straight through your feet. What if that had been Armorer?

“Shu’shika,” Paz says, in that low rumble of his, his hand falling to your waist once more, his intentions clear as day to you.

“What if that had been one of the children?” you ask softly. “What sort of example would we be setting for them?”

He tilts his head in confusion. Keldabe kisses are one of the few ways Mandalorians can show love and affection for each other.

“Paz, I can’t,” you say in a rush, “Not until we’re marr – I mean, not unless – “

You fall silent and exhale in frustration. You take a full step back, regretfully leaving that warm, wonderful place against him that smelled like leather and something woodsy.

“Paz, for my family…it’s not,” you stammer out.

“I will respect the boundaries you set for our relationship,” he says gently. “You do not have to explain anything to me.”

Our relationship? His words make your knees wobble dangerously. You take a deep, calming breath.

“I know I don’t have to, but I would like for you to know,” you say softly. “My family is conservative, Paz. Helmets only come off after the vows are exchanged. Touching each other the way we were…it is…generally discouraged.”

You swallow. Your refusal to engage in a lot of physical acts has made it difficult to find a partner. You hope Paz is willing to wait, but you do not blame him if he wants to move on.

“I know we are both adults, but I…I truly feel something for you, Paz. And I do not want you to be in a position where I might give you the wrong idea,” you stutter out, face flaming with heat. “For my tribe of origin, it’s…considered inappropriate. Not without stating my intentions.”

“…and what are your intentions toward me?” he whispers.

“Paz, I…I cannot give you my body without also giving you my heart,” you whisper, so softly you wonder if he can hear you. “I-I…I would want something permanent between us. Before any of that happens.”

He thinks for a moment.

“Would…Would it be alright if I called you cyar’ika?”

“Y-yes,” you whisper, hardly daring to believe that Paz wants to call you his cyar’ika after what you just told him.

“There’s something I would like to tell you,” he says. “Something I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now.”

You nod to encourage him, and he clears his throat, looking away nervously.

“I’m not good with words. I’ve already forgotten half of what I wanted to tell you.”

You laugh a bit breathlessly.

“Don’t worry,” you whisper back. “Speak from your heart, Paz, and you will tell me what I need to hear.”

“I…I ah…feel something for you too,” he says. “For months now, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, all the effort you put into supporting the Tribe.” He clears his throat again, looking away shyly. “I can’t stop thinking about all the tiny things you do for me. The number of times you have stayed up to wait for me to return from a hunt. In case I need help. So, I won’t be alone another night. I have never had the privilege of having someone like you covering my shebs…and for so long, I did not see your devotion to me, the way you show me your affection each and every day.”

He swallows and reaches up with trembling fingers. A wave of tears escapes you as you tilt your face into his touch. Maker, you are falling apart at the seams. If he keeps going like this, you are not going to last long enough for him to get to what he is trying to tell you. His thumb brushes against the curve of your cheek plate, brushing away the tears he seems to know are coursing hot tracks down your cheeks.

“For years now, I’ve been holding off, waiting for the right time, waiting for the right person,” Paz says quietly. “Someone who will make me strong where I am weak. Someone who will allow me to be their strength where they are weak. Someone who will be my equal, here at home and when we hunt. Someone who will help me raise our future warriors.”

Your heart starts to pound so hard you fear Paz will be able to hear it hammering up against your ribs. Then your throat tightens up and you cannot hold the cascade of tears back any longer. They fall freely now. You just barely manage to turn off your modulator in time to hide your choked whimpers, equal measures of fear and hope filling you. Fear that he will turn you down, reject you for your decision to abstain from a physical relationship. Hope that he has come to see you for who you are. Hope that he understands. Hope that he will still want to share his life with you.

“May I hold your hand?” Paz whispers.

You place your shaking hand in his without hesitation, a choked sob escaping you, one that you know he registers. He looks down, staring at your tiny hand in his. His fingers enclose yours firmly, gently. Reverently. He clears his throat.

“When we are together, you fill me with such overwhelming joy and peace. For the first time in my life, I finally feel whole, like you’ve filled a void in my heart that I never even knew was there,” he whispers. “I can’t stop thinking about the loss that consumes me when we are apart. There are times when I am on a hunt and I cannot even sleep because I miss you so much. Every second we are parted, I long to return to your side.”

You nod vigorously, still trying to stifle the stubborn tears coursing down your face. He continues, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other.

“You have always been the beacon of light that guides me home through the storm, cyar’ika,” he says. He places the flat of your palm against the karta bes’kar embedded in his armor. “One day, I would like to be the same to you.”

With those words, you promptly lose whatever tenuous control you had over your emotional state. You start to sob as you place your free hand over his, and draw closer, pressing your forehead against his chest plate. He draws you into a tentative hug, resting his chin atop your head. As you nestle into that safe place in his arms, you come to a realization that steals the breath from your lungs.

This is where you feel respected, cherished, and loved.

This is where you will raise your future warriors together, as equals.

Here, in his arms, you have finally found your home.

“Cyar’ika, I have always intended for this to be a permanent relationship,” Paz says. “I’ve been talking to Armorer about asking you to accept me in courtship, so I can do this the right way for you. So, I can give you a relationship that honors the paths we have both sworn to walk.”

You sniffle and nod, struggling to stifle your tears long enough to speak. At this point, you don’t care if he knows you are crying – there’s no way you can hide the shaking of your shoulders. Maker, who knew that Paz had such a way with words? You’ve known him for years now, yet you have only now just glimpsed the passion he’s kept locked up so deeply inside himself, hidden from everyone but you. And Maker, you want to feel every bit of the passion he has for you.

There had been just one other before Paz, someone you had loved with all your heart and soul. They had promised themselves to you, promised to wait until it was time to marry, and you had accepted their promise. Within weeks, they were pressuring you for more and more, attempting to convince you to turn away from the promise you made to yourself when you were sixteen. You have always wanted to find love with someone who loved you for your adherence to your faith, for your skills, and for who you are. Someone who would respect your desire to limit physical touch to only kissing, out of respect for your tribe of origin. They had promised you all of that, but it was a lie.

When they had pulled you in for a kiss, you resisted, yet they had forced it on you, their hands falling to grope you. You had ended the relationship on the spot. That unwanted touch had been a blatant violation of your trust in them and their promise to you. It had hurt to lose them, but they had made the choice to violate your boundaries and make you feel unsafe and unloved.

You truly love Paz, in that way that makes you feel dizzy and lightheaded. You are older now, more capable of seeing those warning flags that you had not recognized as a young girl. Paz has only ever been respectful and considerate, not a single inappropriate word or gesture escaping him. He has only ever treated you like an equal. Your heart swells with your love for this man, to the point where you feel you are going to burst with joy.

Now, you find yourself aching and wanting for this man so intensely that it frightens you. And that is why you know you have to hold back – right now, you aren’t sure you have the willpower to stop yourself from giving your kind, gentle warrior anything he might ask you for.

Hearing the way he speaks to you, the gentle tone, the way he asks for your permission to hold your hand and to call you his cyar’ika…you know he will respect you. That he will not ask you for what you cannot give him right now. That he will wait as long as you need.

“Cyar’ika,” he says softly.

You turn your modulator back on.

“Yes, Paz?” you whisper hoarsely.

“Would you…would you be willing…to talk to the Elders?”

“Paz, my answer is yes,” you say. “I will accept courtship with you.”

“You have made me a very happy man, cyar’ika,” he says. “May I give you something?”

Nodding, you take a half step back and sniffle back the tears that spring to your eyes once more. You watch as Paz reaches into his pocket and withdraws something flat and small, pressing it into your hands. As you unwrap it, he speaks, and your face drains when you recognize what he is giving you – his clan signet – and not the one any regular member of the clan would wear. This one is intricately detailed, hand-carved by a master craftsman.

“I know this isn’t a blade, but I just can’t wait any longer, I want to give you something special to me,” he says shyly. “If you are willing, I would like you to become lady of Clan Vizsla. You don’t have to answer right now. Please just think about it, I just…I just want you to have that.”

As you stare down at the signet in your hands, it suddenly feels heavier, and you realize the responsibilities you will have to shoulder if you accept his request. You will be more than his riduur – you will act in his stead when he is away. You will guide the newlyweds in their journeys together. You will be there for the birth of each child to tend to the new buire. You will teach, you will negotiate, and if need be, you will wage war on his behalf. As you look, he shifts nervously again, clearly waiting for you to say something. Swallowing, you square your shoulders and take a deep breath. Looking up at your beloved, you do your best to keep your voice steady. With Paz by your side, there is nothing you cannot accomplish. You will succeed, so long as you have him with you.

“It would be my greatest honor to one day join your clan,” you stutter out, your voice shaking. “As both your wife and lady of the house, I will serve our family with pride and humility.”

Paz exhales shakily, as if he had been holding his breath. You lean in and give him a gentle hug. Paz returns it. The two of you linger for a few minutes before finally parting. You wrap the signet in the cloth and tuck it into the pouch where you keep your tools. Squeezing his hand, you look up at him, giddiness filling you at the thought of standing by his side.

[Bonus Scene]

Din sinks against the wall, pressing his hands into his bucket.

“We worked so hard to get this to happen,” Din groans, “We worked so kriffing hard for this and I fucked it up – “

“Calm down,” Dezha responds. “They haven’t come back inside yet, so that means they’re still talking. There is still hope – “

“What if he was proposing?” Din hisses at Dezha. “What if I fucked up my only brother’s proposal – “

“You said he wants a proper courtship, did you not?” Din snaps.

“Well, yeah,” Din says.

“So, he has to ask if she’s willing to accept courtship before he can ask her to marry him,” Dezha retorts. “You didn’t ruin anything. Calm down. He was probably just kissing her.”

“He said he wouldn’t do anything against the rules,” Din retorts.

“Oh, right,” Dezha says. “Let’s get going before someone comes to investigate. We do not want to spread gossip – “

“Ooh, is Paz kissing Shu’shika?” Jalyn asks in a sing-song tone from the hallway. Then mischievously, “Or is Shu’shika the one kissing Paz, hmm?”

“Jalyn, I will break every bone in your body if you spread lies,” Dezha hisses at him.

“So, no kisses yet?” Jalyn asks. “How much longer are they going to make us wait?”

“Make us wait?” Din asks incredulously.

“I have been getting my offering for the wedding feast ready for a year now,” Jalyn says, turning his nose up haughtily, “My gift will be one they cherish for decades to come.”

“Oh fuck,” Din says, “I need to get a gift – “

“Calm down,” Dezha says. “We are not going to scare either of them from – “

“Ooh, are we talking gifts?” Revala asks from the doorway. “I bought the most beautiful set of baby onesies a few months ago – “

“They aren’t even married yet,” Dezha says incredulously, “They may only wish to bring foundlings into their family – “

“Please,” Revala scoffs, “Have you seen how broody Paz gets around the babies? If that man could carry an infant, I have no doubts we’d be up to our armpits in Vizsla brats.”

“Okay, let’s have this discussion elsewhere,” Dezha says. “If they come back in and find us here, they’ll know we set them up.”

“Paz already suspects we’re trying to help things along,” Din says. “We need to tone it back before he gets mad at us.”

“Listen, we have been dying for a proper wedding,” Jalyn chimes in. “If he proposes tonight, I think Hannah could have the feast ready by tomorrow morning.”

“GET OUT,” Dezha roars, finally losing his patience. “Give them privacy, for kriff’s sake!”

“I wonder if Shu’shika will finally let him have a kiss,” Jalyn muses, as he heads toward the door.

“Jalyn, I will make your life miserable if you tease her,” Dezha warns.

“A little teasing – “ Jalyn begins.

Dezha advances, pressing one finger into the karta bes’kar on Jalyn’s breast plate.

“Do you know what an accordion is, Jalyn?”

“The…the fuck does that have to do with anything?” Jalyn asks, voice tiny with terror.

“Do you?” Dezha hisses.

“Yes,” Jalyn says. “It is a musical instrument from the Far Reaches – “

“Alright,” Dezha says. “If you do anything to make Shu’shika uncomfortable, I will cram one fist down your throat, the other up your arse, and play you like a fucking accordion. Are we clear, shabuir?”

Jalyn’s mouth moves, but no sound comes out. He eventually gathers his senses and nods. Dezha points down the hallway and they move away.

- Di’kut - idiot Buir(e) - parent(s) Resol’nare - 6 tenets of Mandalorian tradition Dar’manda - a state of being soulless, something that traditional Mandalorians fear greatly Riduur - spouse Bes’kar - Mandalorian steel Beskar’gam - Armor Shabuir - jerk, but really strong, not a nice word Shebs - rear Cyar’ika - darling, sweetheart Karta bes’kar - the indentation in the chest plate, lit. iron heart

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unsaidholland · 3 years

Text

‘tis the damn season | s. holland

i hope y’all enjoy 4.9k words of sam holland missing his first girlfriend and having a brief second chance with her :)

warnings: none!

sam had met y/n in high school. he went to an all-boys school, but y/n went to its sister school, and though they didn’t see each other often, there was always something there between the two of them. from the awkward school dances to their shared graduation, whenever the two saw each other, they couldn’t help but feel some sort of attachment. their friends were no stranger to it either. sam was constantly teased over not asking her out or not making a move, to which he would counter with, “how do you even know she likes me?”

after their graduation, sam had worked up the courage to ask her out, and they dated for just a few months, only calling it off once sam found out he was to work at the ski resort in france. at the time, they thought letting go was easier than trying to make it work, but it left them continually wondering what would’ve happened if they had just stayed together.

sam had come back to london with a new girlfriend, not that y/n minded. the two kept in touch, but it was usually long conversations that occurred once every few months, but there was no bad blood between the two. sam’s new relationship had taken off, and again, only ended once he was set to work in scotland, finding a good culinary opportunity there. letting go was always easier than trying to make it work.

sam spent some of his nights in edinburgh wondering what would’ve happened if he had never let go of his first real girlfriend. maybe they would still be together, or maybe they would’ve ended up hating each other. the alternate timelines swam around sam’s thoughts, but the one thing that stayed was the memory of her watching him walk away towards his gate when he left kingston the first time. he thought about the tears rolling down her cheeks and the way she couldn’t bear to let go.

sometimes sam wondered what she was doing, but if it really bugged him, he knew he could’ve just asked, after all, there were no ill feelings between them. he always wondered how she knew him so well. she could read his expression like a book, and just like an appraiser, y/n was able to tell when he was faking a smile.

broken from his thoughts by the phone ringing, sam looked at his phone screen to see an incoming facetime call from his mum. he answered it, and his screen suddenly showed nikki’s face, a smile gracing her cheeks, happy to see her second oldest child.

“hi darling!” she cheerfully said, and her joy radiated through the phone, making sam smile as well.

“hi mum! how’re you?” the conversation started off with them catching up, mostly nikki asking sam about how work has been, and then he talked about how well he played golf the other day against his boss, knowing that his father wasn’t out of earshot.

“you’re coming home for christmas, yeah?” she asked, just before they were to bid each other their goodbyes.

“yup, i’m off on the twentieth, so i fly in that afternoon. i can make a roast dinner for us on the 24th, is granny tess making pies?” nikki nodded, and sam nodded along with her. they quickly said their goodbyes, seeing at how late it had become, and all sam could think about after they had hung up, was being back in his hometown with y/n just a few miles away.

•••

sam had stepped off the plane and went to check-in and grab his bags from the carousel. the airport was busy, filled with people flying home to their family or leaving with their loved ones to go on holiday. he had flown in two days early, wanting to surprise his parents, and was waiting for harry and tom to land. their flights landed thirty minutes apart, but because sam’s flight was ahead of schedule, that thirty minutes turned into forty-three minutes, though he didn’t mind the slightly longer wait.

sam went to the nearest cafe and bought himself a butter croissant and a small coffee. though it was already four in the afternoon, he was feeling quite tired and needed a quick pick me up. it also killed more time than expected seeing as the line was so long.

it wasn’t long until he reunited with his twin and his older brother. the three of them shared a long hug in the middle of the waiting area, gaining some soft smiles from bystanders. harry called their mum and asked them where they had parked, and soon enough the three boys were reunited with their family at last.

“i thought you weren’t coming in until sunday?” nikki exclaimed, arms thrown around sam. he could’ve sworn she was tearing up a little, but he brushed it off knowing that if he brought it up she was going to cry some more.

“i wanted to surprise you guys!”

“i haven’t cleaned your room yet!” nikki quickly remembered. upon sam’s departure, his room quickly turned into another storage space, where one would find small storage boxes of summer clothes from each of the residing members.

“it’s fine mum, i’ll clean it when we get home,” sam said, and with that, they quickly packed all the suitcases into the car and drove to the holland household. the car ride was filled with stories that tom and harry were telling from being on set and the six of them catching up together for the first time in what felt like forever. there was truly no other place sam would rather be, but for some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl he dated the summer after high school graduation. he couldn’t stop thinking about the first kiss the two of them shared and the way her lips felt against his - so soft and tasting of vanilla frosting from the cupcake she had just eaten.

sam’s mind continued to drift far from the conversation and closer to the girl who sat at home with her family, to the girl who sam hoped longed for him as much as he longed for her. somehow, whenever he thought of her and what could’ve happened, it always led him back to kingston. maybe he’d have stayed if they didn’t break up.

•••

that night after dinner, sam went to drive tom and harry to their house. it was late in the evening, but the roads were still busy. the thin layer of snow that laid on people’s front lawns reflected the lights of the cars that passed him.

sam was sure that harry could feel him reminiscing and focusing on what could of been, but harry didn’t mention anything and neither did tom. after dropping his brothers off and helping them bring their stuff inside, sam left to drive home, but found himself taking the long way. something pulled him to go to his old school. he parked between the church and the school building and thought back to when he asked y/n out on the football field after leaving the graduation ceremony. his parents were ringing him asking where he was, and he heard your phone go off too, but in that moment all that mattered was you two.

the holidays always seemed to remind him of y/n. ever since he moved to scotland, coming back to kingston was like picking a scab and causing that wound to never heal. he always felt cold whenever he thought of her, cold from the pain that they had brought each other all those years ago. how that pain had never healed was unbeknownst to him, but it always brought him back to the street between the methodist and the school.

as sam drove home, he for some reason couldn’t stop thinking about the day he left for france. they weren’t together, but she was still there to say her goodbyes. it was one of the last times he had seen her, but sam couldn’t stop thinking about how he walked over to the gate and looked over his shoulder only to see her still standing there and watching as he left her. the image of her standing still as everyone else in the airport kept moving around her was burned into sam’s brain and was something he could never forget.

the memories of y/n and sam driving around the countryside were the only things flowing through his mind. he thought of how they had had countless picnics at the fields they were allowed to, and how that summer was practically perfect. sure he followed up his relationship with y/n for one with ciara that lasted for almost four years, but the short-lived relationship was filled with nothing but passion that was turned on high, the idea of it being a summer fling had fueled it, but the slow burn was also something he had missed.

ciara and sam had always had something between them, that was evident in france, but it was different. sam couldn’t put his finger on it, and the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if she was a replacement for someone who was long gone or if she was genuinely someone he had quickly fallen in love with.

•••

as christmas eve rolled around, sam found himself busy with food prep. and when dinner rolled around, and he was busy with his family. he had an urge to text her, but the fact that he was consistently busy kept him from doing so. when his family decided to watch a movie in the living room, he found the time to text her. his fingers tapped on the screen, finding her contact and opening their last conversation, but then sam paused. what was he supposed to even say? he leaned forward so his forearms were resting on the edge of the kitchen island, the feel of the granite cooling down his skin.

while sam’s thumbs hovered over the keyboard, figuring out what he wanted to say, harry was walking into the kitchen in search of another beer. sam was so focused on the task at hand that he didn’t even hear his brother come in until he said, “what’re you doing?”

sam’s head shot up in the direction of where harry was standing, by the fridge.

“mate you scared me,” sam said, knowingly avoiding the question harry had asked. harry raised an eyebrow at him, but sam knew that harry had a feeling something was going on all due to the fact that they were twins.

“so, what’re you doing?” harry asked again in search for an answer. sam thought between telling a white lie or just telling harry the truth. it wasn’t groundbreaking that he wanted to text someone who he hadn’t seen in more than four years, right? sam was about to lie when harry snatched sam’s phone right out of his hands.

“hey!”

“why are you texting y/n?” they practically said in sync. sam couldn’t form a coherent sentence to explain this. he kept opening his mouth, but then closing it seconds afterwards, his brain not being able to form a sentence. harry’s jaw dropped when he made the connections. “you wanna see her again. i knew you still had feelings for her!”

“keep your voice down you idiot!” sam scolded the younger of the two, trying to cover harry’s mouth with his hand just in case he would say something else that he wasn’t ready to share with the family. “yes i want to meet up with her, but,” sam paused. but what? what was supposed to come after that? “i don’t know. is this stupid?” sam asked, mostly to himself, but also directed at harry.

harry just looked at his twin brother baffled. sam knew that y/n was the last person he should’ve been thinking about, not because she did anything wrong, but because she was someone who he was with when he was seventeen. a lot has changed, but how come his feelings stayed the same?

“there are so many girls you could’ve wanted to text. literally anyone. maggie, ella, haley, ciara, but why y/n?” harry asked. sam knew he wasn’t supposed to answer that question, that harry had asked it to only feed his thoughts, but his brain quickly scrambled for an answer.

“home just reminds me of her is all,” sam mumbled. it was the only thing he could think of, but it wasn’t a lie. being at home in kingston always reminded him of the summer nights he spent sneaking y/n in and out of his house, and driving to the nearest mcdonald’s at two a.m. when it seemed like they were the only people awake. well, them and the drive-thru workers, but it still felt like they were the only ones there. kingston always reminded him of the days they would stroll through london with no plan, and how they always took the train home absolutely knackered with their feet so sore from how far they walked, but he wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.

“mhm, sure.” as soon as harry spoke, a whoosh sound came from sam’s phone, and he had only realized that harry texted her.

“mate what the fuck!” sam exclaimed, immediately reaching over to grab his phone back, eyes scrambling to read the words his idiot twin brother had sent.

“thank me later,” was all harry said before he went back into the living room to continue watching elf with his family.

i’m back in town for christmas, do you wanna hang out this weekend for old times sake?

sam sighed knowing he couldn’t take anything back, but damn did he want to.

•••

y/n was sat on the couch with her family asleep upstairs in their rooms. she was the only one awake on christmas eve, mostly because she had fallen into the habit of sleeping late. whenever she had to work, her shifts were always later in the day, which meant she got home later and would always fall asleep around two a.m.

her christmas dinner wasn’t anything extravagant. she and her family never did anything big for christmas, or for the holidays in general, but they just used the holiday to spend time with one another, even though it usually ended with them just sat around a tv with dinner plates on their laps as they watched and ate. y/n enjoyed the simple things, and dinner and a movie were exactly what she needed and prepared herself for. it wasn’t until how the grinch stole christmas finished when she received sam’s text. it was maybe ten pm when she saw it, but her brain spent the hour following it just processing what was happening.

i’m back in town for christmas, do you wanna hang out this weekend for old times sake? the words floated around her brain over and over again as she tried to process the situation. she hadn’t seen him in years, and they only talked every few months, but their conversations were typically just a “how are you?” and an, “i’m doing well!” and never anything more than that. she wanted more though. she wouldn’t be lying if she said she didn’t miss him, but y/n just blamed that on how reminiscent she always was.

what was she supposed to say to the boy she dated when she was seventeen? maybe it would be nice to feel like she was seventeen again, even if it was just for a few days. would there be any feelings attached? she couldn’t help but wonder about the circumstances of it.

“what the fuck is my life,” she groaned as she threw her head back onto the back of the couch. maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, right?

pick me up at two am, saturday morning, just like old times :) she replied with, hoping that she wasn’t biting off more than she could chew. maybe they’d go back to the old mcdonald’s drive-thru that they used to frequent, or maybe they would go down that backroad that sam first took her on right after he got his license.

y/n’s mind then drifted to the last time she saw him, to her standing in the middle of the airport watching sam walk away from her. she felt the same hurt that she felt that day, and somehow she knew she would feel it once again once the weekend was over, but she wanted to feel that thrill once more, the thrill of being seventeen and in love.

•••

the evening of the twenty-fifth was filled with joy for the hollands, but for sam it was riddled with nerves. in just a few hours he would be driving around with y/n, someone he hadn’t seen since he had left her standing in that airport however many years ago.

he immediately started wondering what was going to happen when they hung out. whatever ended up happening, he was going back to scotland, that wasn’t going to change, but what if y/n asked sam to stay? what would happen then? the first time sam left, he wanted her to ask him to stay. he didn’t say anything because he knew he had to go, but how different would things be if she had asked him to stay? sam knew that this time would be different, but it would end the exact same way it did the first time.

sam knew that y/n would always remind him of home, that wouldn’t change. she would always remind him of being home, of his firsts. she’d always remind him of his first kiss, his first time, his first drink, and his first party. y/n would always remind him of the all-boys school he and harry went to and how she was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on. granted, they were fourteen when they met, but he knew his feelings weren’t just infatuation. y/n made him feel different. he had always felt different towards her, and maybe it was just the constant thought of what could’ve been, but regardless, sam had a second chance, a second chance of calling her babe, even if it was just for the weekend.

one a.m. had quickly rolled around, and before sam knew it he was getting ready to go pick her up. after putting on a heather grey hoodie he was sure he had stolen from tom, and a pair of black jeans, he went downstairs and grabbed his coat, making sure he had everything he needed.

the drive to y/n’s house didn’t take as long as he had given himself, but he also needed time to mentally prepare before he let her know he was there. after turning down every street he could turn down in her neighbourhood just to kill time, sam found himself parked outside of her family’s house and sending a text letting her know he was out front. just seconds later, she had come out from the side door of the house wearing a black, puffy winter jacket, and a pair of black joggers. her jacket was unzipped to reveal a university sweater, and sam quickly noticed it was the one she dreamt of going to, but didn’t get into.

“hey, you!” she said once she got into the car. they shared an awkward hug, each of them leaning over the centre console, and sam kicked himself for not getting out of the car to greet her.

“hi there darling,” sam greeted her, the pet name rolling off the tongue as if it was supposed to. he knew he shouldn’t have called her that, but he couldn’t help himself.

“where are we going mr. holland?” she asked after buckling herself in. sam looked over at her and swore she was an angel. she was glowing in the moonlight, and even though they were around each other for less than a minute, sam could feel that there was still something there.

“you’ll see,” was all he said before he put the car in drive and headed down the street to the old mcdonald’s drive-thru they used to go to. he had the night planned out, and luckily for him, he had remembered to get gas before going over to her place. they were going to drive around like old times, and if he played his cards right, then maybe they would end up watching the sunrise sitting on the roof of his house, just like they used to.

they spent the whole car ride catching up, talking about ex’s, but then they reached a point where they felt like they both were seventeen again, and sam could tell by the way she seemed more carefree.

after ordering their food and driving around for a bit, sam decided the rooftop was going to be the best place to talk. they were sat next to each other, the roof tiles covered with a blanket. sam and y/n shared a blue blanket that laid across their legs, the mcdonald’s bag sat in between them. it was silent for a bit as they looked out at the stars. sam couldn’t stop thinking about how small their town felt, how nothing seemed to matter except him and y/n. was this what he wanted? for nothing to matter except for the two of them?

“do you ever think of what would’ve happened if you had stayed?” y/n asked, breaking the silence. sam took a minute to think. of course he did, but where was this conversation going to lead them.?

“mhm, but what i come up with always changes,” sam admitted knowing that she wouldn’t have brought it up if she didn’t think about it herself. part of him hoped that she was going to ask him to stay, but he knew she wasn’t planning on it. he reached over and grabbed her hand, intertwining their fingers together. y/n’s hand was so cold, but she’d always been a cold person sam remembered. “what happens in your alternate universe?” sam asked, wondering if her hypotheticals aligned with his.

sam looked over at y/n only to see her deep in thought. he recognized that look anywhere. her eyebrows were furrowed and she was biting on her bottom lip. sam always wondered why she did that when she was thinking deeply, but never asked why.

“i guess i just always imagined that if you had stayed we would’ve lasted longer, or maybe we would’ve still been together,” she mumbled. sam just nodded not finding the words to say, what was he even supposed to say to that? he knew that she was right, they would’ve lasted longer if he didn’t leave, but he couldn’t change that it happened.

“for whatever it’s worth, i’m sorry i left.” he would always be sorry for leaving, that’s something that had never left. the guilt of leaving y/n in the airport always made itself known, and sam didn’t know how to fix it. he knew the weekend was going to end with him leaving again, that’s something he couldn’t change, but he hoped the guilt wouldn’t grow.

“i know,” y/n whispered, barely audible for him to hear. sam could tell that this was hurting her from the way she was trying to close herself off by bringing her knees up to her chest. maybe he had reopened a wound that hadn’t healed by asking to hang out with y/n, maybe he was breaking his own heart by wanting to see her again, but the road not taken was so appealing.

“i just wish you would’ve stayed,” she whispered. those six words made sam feel like someone had stomped on his heart and shattered it, but there was nothing he could do to change the past.

“i’m leaving on january second, so we have until then,” he stated, hoping that they would make the most of those few days that they had left together. sam watched as she processed it, then glancing down to where their hands were connected. he let go to put his arms around her and pull her into a hug, the black jacket compressing under the pressure of his arms. “what do you say?” he asked, then kissing her cheek. there were unsaid feelings still lingering between them, and sam knew from the way that y/n stole glances at him while they were in the car that she still felt something for him.

y/n smiled and nodded her head, but sam knew that this was only going to hurt more by the time he had to leave. he knew that nothing was going to change, nothing was going to get better. she wasn’t going to ask him to stay, she didn’t the first time, and sam knew that there was too much on the line for her to ask him to stay this time around.

they stayed on the roof for a few hours longer, waiting for the sunrise. all sam and y/n did was just talk, but with the way y/n laid on his lap, sam could feel that she also was hanging onto the moment as much as she could, that she was grasping onto it for dear life.

as the sun rose, y/n sat up and tilted her head so it was resting on his shoulder. sam’s arm came up to wrap around her shoulders, bringing her closer to his body. the orange and yellow colours of the sun melted and dissolved the dark night sky, and if sam thought that y/n was glowing in the moonlight before, he definitely thought she was glowing now with the way the sun cast a warm glow onto her skin. sure it was five in the morning in the dead of winter, but he hadn’t felt this warm in a long time.

once the sun had finished rising and was above the horizon, they began the climb back down to the ground. as they climbed down, sam looked into the kitchen window only to see two pairs of eyes staring back at him, one of them being tessa’s, and the other being harry. y/n sheepishly waved at him, a wave that felt like they had been caught doing something wrong. sam nodded at his brother who only returned a smirk in his direction, to which sam rolled his eyes at. they got back into the car, and sam found himself taking the long way back to y/n’s place, not wanting the night to end just because the sun had come up.

as they pulled up to y/n’s house, sam bid her an innocent kiss goodbye, the feeling of her soft, slightly chapped lips against his lips, also slightly chapped from the cold, sent sparks through his body.

“i’ll see you tonight?” he asked, and she let out a hum of agreement before saying ‘goodbye,’ and walking up to her front door and sneaking back into her house.

on the drive back to his house, sam knew that harry would be waiting for him with questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. he knew that harry would be sitting at the kitchen table, his tea in one hand, and his phone in the other, waiting for sam to come back just so he could interrogate him, and boy did he interrogate him.

as soon as sam opened the door to the house, harry immediately called out, “so how was your date?” sam shut the door behind him and took off his shoes and coat before he walked into the kitchen where harry was sitting just as he predicted, with a cup of tea in one hand and his phone in the other.

“it wasn’t a date, but it was very nice, thank you for asking,” sam stated.

“yeah yeah, whatever. what are you going to do when you have to leave again?” harry was looking at sam with an all-knowing look on his face, but even a blind person could see how this was ending, and it wasn’t going to end well.

“i’ll get there when i get there.” sam didn’t care that this was going to hurt him much more than when he left for france, but he didn’t care because the second chance he had with her was far more exhilarating than just wondering what would’ve happened. sam sat down in the chair beside harry, leaning down to pet tessa who was sitting by his feet.

“you’re only going to hurt yourself,” harry said, a tone of concern tinting his voice. their family was always honest with one another, but harry and sam were always honest on a different level. their honesty usually came in a form of protection, and sam knew that harry was just trying to protect him, but he didn’t care if he was going to get hurt, it was all worth it to him.

“‘tis the damn season,” sam shrugged. the eight days they had left with each other was all sam needed, even if she didn’t ask him to stay this time around.

anything and everything taglist: @hollanderfangirl @hxrryhxlland @ohmy-moonlightx @musicalkeys @notsosmexy @writertoo18 @icyhollands @in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh

#sam holland #sam holland x reader #sam holland x y/n #sam holland x you #sam holland fic #sam holland imagine #sam holland imagines #sam holland fluff #sam holland angst

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monumented · 8 months

Note

[Propo] What made you want to join the the rebel cause?

"Hope, you know ? Hope that we can change Panem, that humanity still has a fighting chance."

Juniper's words were soft. Her hands were in her pockets, feeling so much more HERSELF since her last propo interview. She had really come into her own here in 13, had come to appreciate the structured order of it, even if she'd perpetually hate the color grey. She understood it all, though. No one was above anyone else. No one stood out because it wasn't about the individual, it was about the collective. They had given her so much, too, from gardening to training as a soldier. She knew that in a place that only made decisions out of necessity, she had been chosen because of her capabilities and not out of pity.

"I think about my life back in 7 and while I had purpose for my own life, I didn't — I didn't really," she continued as though realizing something for the first time. "I was a pawn thinking that the rules were made for me, meant to obey, and so I was happy. I never questioned any of it. I was helping my district provide for the Capitol but I never really saw it that way. I liked the order, you know ? The structure made me feel safe because it was what I grew up in, and it can be really hard to put faith in something that hasn't ever been done before."

Juniper smiled and looked into the camera.

"So it's about hope. Hope that we will form a democracy, that we all have power individually and as a collective. We can, and will, overcome the oppressors, and that's why I knew I had to join the cause."

#eventideevent04 #( ill tell you the truth but never goodbye — ASK BOX )#( the only words i owe you — INTERVIEW )#( i’m right where you left me — QUEUE )

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writings-of-a-daphodil · 4 years

Text

Fire Keeper: Chapter 12

Douxie x fem reader

Chapter 1

Masterlist in bio!

Series Summary: You are Jim’s older sister who is taking a break from college and has moved back home to Arcadia. You end up joining Jim and his friends on their adventures.

Chapter 12 summary: Jim has stood his trial and you're devistated. On top of that Usurna is out to kill you. You're too weak to defend yourself, so you go to Douxie for help.

Warnings: Illness and Angst

The week had started out good. A few weeks ago you had gone on a picnic with your mom and Jim and you had had fun. Everyday after that you and Jim went out for brief walks so you could get some fresh air and talk, it was great to spend time together.

Then Monday rolled around and Jim had been convicted. You hadn’t seen him since and you were getting more and more sick. You couldn’t go to Trollmarket because you couldn’t get out of bed.

So, you had to wait for Claire or Toby to text you about what was going on. You hated not being able to do anything, you hated Kanjigar for giving you that awfull spell, and you hated that the spell had actually helped you. The spell had distracted the gumm-gumms and they hadn’t fought back, but it had given you your illness.

You checked your phone for the billionth time and saw a text from Claire: We are gonna prove Jim’s innocence, we found a changeling spy.

The text filled you with hope, but seconds later your hope deflated with Toby's text: The trial’s not going well, any chance you’ve been hiding a law degree somewhere?

You replied: I wish.

You continued to stare at your phone. It was dead silent in your room and you had given up on trying to do anything else. At first you had gone through website after website, watched video after video, and read book after trollish book on law, texting Toby notes. Apparently that hadn’t done much good.

You didn’t know what else to do other than worry.

Eventually your phone lit up with Toby calling you. “Please let these be good,” you begged, answering.

“Y/n, I’m so sorry. We lost the trial Jim’s been sentenced to exile in the Deep.”

“Not the Deep,” you mumbled, you had read about the deep and how no troll had ever come back. You faced your greatest fear down there. You didn’t know what Jim’s was, but you hoped he could overcome it.

“Y/n? Are you there?” Toby asked.

You felt a tear slip down your face. “I’m coming to Trollmarket.”

“Are you sure you’re up for that?” Toby asked. “No offense, but you haven’t been able to leave bed since Jim went on trial.”

“I’m coming,” you repeated. Your decision was made, so you carefully made your way downstairs, summoning your sword to use as support. You almost collapsed by the time you got to your car, but you made it.

One coughing fit later you were driving towards the bridge. It was a miracle you didn’t get into an accident. You used your Horngazel, and made your way down the stairs. It took you forever, and you hoped they would wait long enough for you to say goodbye to Jim.

You burst into the room and saw Toby and Claire with tear stained faces. Blinky and Aaarrrgghh were there as well, with somber expressions. The only person who wasn’t there was the one you wanted to see the most. They hadn’t waited for you.

“Y/n—” Blinky started with a pity etched on his face. You cut him off.

“No, those...they...no, no, no. This can’t be happening! They didn’t even let me say goodbye!” You barely noticed your feet leave the ground as you wailed.

“Y/n,” Claire said, putting her hand on your shoulder. You were about to push it away when your eyes cleared and you saw you were levitating everyone around you.

It was such a strong show of magic, when you realized what you were doing you collapsed immediately. Your friends yelped as they dropped to the ground. Thankfully they hadn’t been more than a few feet up in the air.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized as you struggled to push yourself into a sitting position.

“It’s fine, y/n/n,” Toby reassured. “They took Jim from us. You have every right to be angry.

You sniffed. “How did this happen? I thought you two found evidence?” You asked Claire and Blinky.

“We did, and we told Vendel, but he never showed up at the hearing,” Claire explained.

“Speaking of Vendel, I’m going to go find him,” Blinky announced.

You pushed yourself to your feet, determination giving you strength. “I’m coming too.”

Blinky helped you to the Heartstone and you arrived to silence, Vendel was nowhere to be seen.

“Vendel? Vendel where are you, you old goat?” Blinky called.

You froze when you saw a pile of rocks “Vendel!” Blinky screamed and you felt a new bout of tears come. He ran towards the pile, leaving you to stand on your own.

“Why?” You asked. This was not fair.

“No! Not you too,” Blinky mumbled and you fell to the floor in a sobbing heap. You were losing everybody. Vendel had been like a father figure to you just as Blinky had been one to Jim. It felt like all you had left in the world was your mom.

Oh! What were you going to tell your mom? She would have to know the truth even if it would break her. She deserved to know the truth and the two of you could heal together. At least you had each other.

You slowly got up from the floor. Having another coughing fit, you leaned on Vendel’s desk and saw a note with your name on it. You picked it up and began to read:

Ms. Lake,

I only write this as a last resort. I hope you never have to read this letter, but these are uncertain times.

I want you to know that you have been a fantastic student. Though you have much to learn until you get your staff, I want you to have the piece of the Heartstone inside the box on my desk. I wish you the best of luck in your life and I hope you grow to become a fantastic sorceress.

Best Wishes,

Vendel

Tears soaked the paper as you read it over and over again. Eventually you stopped and went over to the box. Opening it you saw a small piece of orange Heartstone, it was as big as your hand and you knew it would be the perfect gem for when you were ready.

You looked over to Blinky. Holding the stone close to your heart, you saw he was holding his own stone. You tilted your head at him and saw that it was an Anamnesis Stone.

“You crafty old goat,” Blinky whispered.

“I’ll call the others,” you said, your voice thick with sadness.

Soon after you hung up your phone, your friends arrived and you and Claire immediately hugged.

“First Jim, now this,” Toby said, wiping away a tear.

“Why did you leave us?” Blinky asked and his question broke your heart even more. “It was not your time.”

“Let’s use the stone, I don’t want to put it off any longer,” you announced, handing Blinky the player.

“What?” Toby asked.

Claire tilted her head. “What is it?”

“He was holding an Anamnesis stone,” Blinky explained excitedly. He put the stone in it’s player and a yellow sphere bloomed out of it.

You watched as a yellow outline of Vendel walked over to his desk. “What did you want to show us?” Blinky asked.

Suddenly Usurna appeared behind him. “There are only two agents of Gunmar, the changeling and the changeling’s master.”

Usurna held up a dagger. “How do you know this?” Vendel asked, turning around.

“Because I’m the master,” Userna grunted, stabbing Vendel. You watched in horror as he began to slowly turn to stone. It was a horrible thing to watch.

“Vendel!” Blinky exclaimed, grasping at air, unable to do anything.

You sobbed harder. “I’m sorry Vendel. I was hoping you’d live long enough to see Gunmar’s glorious return,” Userna apologized and you scowled through your tears.

Vendel groaned and fell to the floor. “Userna.”

“He used his last moments to warn us,” Blinky whispered, his voice filled with grief and gratitude.

You fell to the ground once again, but this time was different. Earlier it had just been you over exerting yourself, but this time you were beyond exhausted, emotionally and physically. You barely even had the energy to cover your mouth as you coughed.

You tried getting up again, but you couldn’t, you just fell again.

“Y/n, I believe you need to go home soon, but I fear for your life. Userna may be out to kill you as well,” Blinky said and you nodded, finally getting off the ground.

“I know a place,” you rasped. You were breathing heavily and Aaarrrgghh picked you up. “Just get me up the stairs and I’ll call someone for help.”

“Very well,” Blinky said. “Just be safe, I can't lose you, Master Jim, and Vendel all in one day.”

You nodded. “I’ll get some rest.”

“We’ll figure everything out,” Toby promised as Aaarrrgghh walked to the door.

“Stay safe guys,” you said with a cough.

Aaarrrgghh carried you up the stairs and as far out of Trollmarket as he could without getting burnt. “Thanks Aaarrrgghh, I can take it from here.”

“Y/n stay safe,” he replied and you nodded, holding in a cough.

Once he was gone you called Douxie.

“Hello darling,” Douxie said, making your face grow warm, well warmer than your fever was making it.

“I need somewhere safe to stay and you and I need to talk,” you coughed, urgency, exhaustion and grief filling your voice.

“I’ll be right there,” Douxie said. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the bridge, by my car. I can’t drive.”

“How did you drive to the canal? I thought you were sick. Are you okay?”

“I’ll explain everything later. Just come, please.”

~~~~

You were sitting on the ground, lying against your car when Douxie arrived. During the time you were waiting you had only begun to feel worse.

“Oh! Y/n, are you alright?” Douxie asked, helping you to your feet.

You coughed. “No, but I can explain later.”

“Alright,” Douxie said, and you handed him your keys. He helped you into the car and started driving.

“So...I didn’t get to hear the story before, but what happened? That girl who got me, Mindy, said that you had been looking for me.”

“Oh?” You took a drink of some water that you had in your car. Douxie seemed to sense that you weren’t ready to talk, so the rest of the ride was silent.

“Here.” Douxie offered you his hand after he parked the car. You took it gratefully and he helped you inside the bookstore. You fell into one of the chairs and made yourself comfortable.

“I’m all ears,” Douxie said, taking a seat across from you.

“I-It’s a long story and you probably already know a bit, but a couple months ago my brother Jim came across this amulet. The night he found it some trolls visited our home and I discovered I have m-magic. I-I began training with-with...an elder.” You began to sob. “Now he’s gone, murdered. I-I don’t know what to do. My brother’s gone too, they sent him to his death because he went into the Darklands a few weeks ago!”

“Oh, Y/n, it’s gonna be just fine,” Douxie consoled, patting your back.

Archie nuzzled you. “Yes, Y/n, Douxie is right.”

Your head snapped up when you heard his voice. “Archie?” You asked, looking at the cat. You hadn’t known he could talk even if you knew he was a framilier.

“He’s my framilier,” Douxie explained and you nodded, going back to crying.

“What do you need?” Douxie asked.

“I-I don’t know. I feel awful, I got sick the other night because I used dark magic to save Jim and I’m still sick and losing both my brother and my teacher on the same day hasn’t helped,” you cried, putting your face into your hands.

“Um...why don’t I get you some tea?” Douxie suggested. You felt him leave, but you continued sobbing while Archie sat by you.

Suddenly a crash snapped you back into reality. “Douxie?” Archie called and the two of you looked around the now dark book shop.

“What was that?” You wiped your eyes, trying to clear the tears away so you could see better.

“I’ll get the lights,” Archie offered and you slowly stood up. You almost collapsed back into the chair when your legs gave out, but you caught yourself on the table. You summoned your sword and once again used it as a cane.

You only took a few steps away from the table when you felt someone’s hand on your shoulder.

You screamed, twirling around you held your sword at the person’s throat. Your hand was shaking and you hoped whoever it was couldn’t see how weak you were.

“Calm down, Y/n. It’s just me,” the person said and you realized it was Douxie.

The lights flickered on and you immediately collapsed to the floor, unable to support yourself for any longer.

“Are you alright?” Douxie asked and you shook your head.

“Personally no, but we didn’t make the crash,” You explained as Archie settled into your lap. You began stroking him and it actually helped calm you down, at least a little bit. You still felt horrible, inside and out.

“Well, I didn’t make it either so something must be in here,” Douxie theorized.

You scooted closer to Douxie, holding your sword out as you heard footsteps come down the stairs. Only problem was you couldn’t actually see anybody walking.

Archie leapt out of your lap and into the air where he all of a sudden had wings and looked more dragon than cat.

“Huh,” you mumbled. You were surprised that Archie was a dragon, but reassured that he was on your side.

“Y/n, stay behind me,” Douxie said, stepping between you and the staircase. You were too tired to even bother protesting.

Douxie stood in front of you with Archie hovering by his side. The three of you stayed still, waiting for whatever had broken in to come down the stairs.

It was dead silent in the store and you wondered why you couldn’t hear the footsteps coming down anymore.

You didn’t want to break the silence, but a coughing spell was calling you so you gave in. Your coughing turned into screams as you felt tiny claws grip your shoulder. You turned your head to look and saw a goblin.

“Waka Chaka,” it said and you flinched out of its grasp. Your fear gave you the energy to stand up and you swung your sword at the little beast, killing it. Douxie turned around to see the goblin mess on the rug and the goblins that were staring at it. You had just killed their leader.

They had probably been sent to kill you and now they had their own reasons to want you dead. This day was just getting better and better.

The goblins roared as Douxie’s wrist glowed blue and he began firing spells at them. You retreated behind the wizard, aware that you weren’t fit to battle it out with a ton of bloodthirsty goblins.

You felt horrible for not being able to do anything, but you tried your best to help. Three goblins ganged up on Archie and you managed to muster up enough energy to blast them off the framilier.

You didn’t have to help Douxie though, he was handling himself perfectly. You watched as he took down goblin after goblin, not tiring once.

Soon, the shop was covered in green and there wasn’t a goblin in sight. You fell to the floor, exhausted even though you had only killed a couple. Douxie and Archie were the real heroes of that battle.

Douxie helped you to your feet, putting your arm over his shoulder he helped you sit down again.

“I’m sorry for the mess, and the trouble,” you apologized, looking guiltily around the room.

“I’m just glad I could help,” Douxie said. “You stay here and I’ll get that tea.”

You watched as Douxie went up the stairs. “How long have you known?” Archie asked.

“Since I last came in with Enrique. I noticed that Douxie’s aura was intertwined with magic,” you explained, coughing. “How long have you known?”

“Since before, Douxie gave you that book a few months ago.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“We didn’t know if you were ready to talk about it yet,” Archie explained and you nodded. It was probably for the best that they waited til you found out.

You settled into a comfortable;e silence as you waited for Douxie, who was back in record time with the tea. “Here, it should make you feel better,” Douxie said, setting the cup in front of you. You took a drink and you immediately felt better. The sore throat and migraine you had had since you used the dark magic faded to the back of your mind, as did the other symptoms.

“Thank you, that is some tea.”

“It should help with your dark magic related illness,” Douxie informed and you smiled up at him. You noticed he was covered in scratches.

“Well, it only seems fit I should do something for you,” you said, taking his face into your hands you began to chant a healing spell. Your foreheads touched and you squeezed your eyes shut, focusing on the orange magic that was flowing from you to Douxie. After what felt like forever, you finally let go and fell back into your chair. Maybe using that much healing magic just as you were getting better wasn’t a good idea.

You took another, long, sip of tea.

Relaxing you looked back to Douxie and saw that he was blushing a bit. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Just, doing what I can to pay you back for saving my life,” you responded.

“Do you think you're well enough to finish your story?” Douxie asked and you nodded solemnly.

Tears slipped down your face as you began to recount everything that had happened since you discovered your magic. You described how you and your friends found the Killahead bridge and destroyed it and Bular. Then you told Douxie about how Strickler was a changeling who had sent Angor Rot after Jim.

Continuing on with your story you talked about how you had defeated Angor Rot losing Aaarrrgghh in the process. Then you told Archie and Douxie about how your brother had gone into the Darklands, alone, to rescue Enrique because he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.

Fearful that if you slowed down your story you wouldn’t be able to finish it, you began to talk faster.

You described your trip to the Darklands to save Jim and how Kanjigar had given you the spell. Then you described everything else, bringing Douxie and Archie up to the present.

“That is quite the tale,” Douxie said, “I don’t know what I would do if I lost Merlin or Archie.”

You raised your eyebrows at him. “Wait Merlin is your master? I thought he was dead.”

“Nope, he’s just asleep,” Douxie explained, you laid your head on the table.

“I want to be asleep,” you mumbled.

~~~~

You didn’t know where you were, but it had a nice aura. You panicked for a bit then looked for other auras. Eventually you found Douxie’s and then everything came back to you.

You had gone to Douxie for help after your brother and Vendel had died. You felt your eyes well with tears. You took a few deep breaths to calm yourself down.

Sitting up you reached for your phone. The home screen was filled with notifications of missed calls and texts.

You unlocked your phone to read them, but you were interrupted by your phone ringing.

It was Jim.

You answered the phone, “Hello?”

“Y/n? It’s me, it’s Jim. I’m alive. Blinky and Aaarrrgghh said you left right before I got to the Heartstone yesterday. How are you feeling? Are you safe?” Jim asked, pushing out questions before you could answer them.

“Oh! I can’t even begin to explain how happy I am to hear you’re okay,” you cried. “I-I’m safe and I'm actually feeling much better.”

“Good,” Jim said, sounding relieved.

Now it was your turn to smother him with questions. “Are you okay? How’d you make it out of the Deep? What’s going on?”

“So to sum it up, I faced my fear and got out of the deep where I saw Usura and she said I killed Vendel. After I listened to her I went to find everyone. Blinky, Claire, and Toby were in the Heartstone and you and Aaarrrgghh had just left. After that we went to the Janus Order to find Gunmar and we battled Otto who was pretending to be Gunmar. When we found out he wasn’t Gunmar we realized Gunmar was now in Trollmarket and we would have to evacuate everyone,” Jim ranted.

“Do you need my help?” You immediately asked.

“Only if you are up for it.”

“I am.”

“Okay, I’ll text you a location. Steve and Eli are on their way to help the trolls get across a clearing.”

“I’ll be right there.” You hung up and smiled brightly at Douxie who was coming down the stairs. He was carrying a muffin and another cup of tea.

“Good news?” He asked, handing the food to you.

You nodded enthusiastically. “The best news. Why don’t I tell you about it over Coffee tomorrow?”

“It’s a da-plan,” Douxie said, smiling.

~~~~

It felt amazing to be out of the house again and the woods had so much fresh air. It was the perfect place for your first mission after your illness. The tea had healed you greatly, but the fresh air would help you even more.

You pulled your car over and made your way to the clearing. Steve and Eli had already arrived with a bunch of yellow umbrellas.

“Hey,” you greeted and Steve turned to you.

“Who are you?” He asked, glaring.

“I’m Jim’s sister,” you stated, taking an umbrella.

“Oh, so you know all about the creepers?” The other kid asked and you recalled his name was Eli.

“Yep.”

“Cool,” Eli whispered and you smiled.

“So are you some kind of Trollhunter too?” Steve asked and you laughed at his hostile attitude.

“Actually no, I’m a sorceress,” you explained. The three of you chatted as the sun set and you managed to get all the trolls hidden in the woods. Afterwards you sat and talked while you waited for Jim.

Suddenly a bunch of trolls appeared in the clearing and you jumped up, immediately beginning to look for your brother.

You pushed past the crowd of trolls and you found him with Claire. Yo noticed she looked weak, almost how you had when you first used dark magic.

“Thanks guys I owe you,” Jim said as Steve and Eli pushed past you.

Steve smirked. “Yeah, Big time.”

“Maybe you can start by answering a few thousand questions,” Eli prompted.

Jim shook his head. “We’ll talk, later.”

“Yes!”—Eli exclaimed and he and Steve fist bumped.

You turned to Claire. “What happened?”

“We opened a portal,” She explained, coughing.

“What you did was over exert yourself. I’ll bring you some tea tomorrow. It should help.”

“Thank you, Y/n.”

“Of course Claire.” You gave an exhausted smile and then turned to Blinky.

Blinky sighed, devastated. “Our home is gone. Vendel is dead. Who will lead us now?”

“His Staff?” Blinky asked after Jim held it out to him.

“Your staff,” Jim corrected.

“Master Jim,” Blinky mumbled, shying away. He glanced around the clearing and all the trolls kneeled. When he looked at you, you nodded encouragingly.

Aaarrrgghh gently nudged Blinky. “Don’t make it weird.”

Blinky took the staff. “What now Blink?”Toby asked.

Blinky turned to face everyone. “We survived another day. But these forests are not secure. We will wait until midnight and seek safe haven. Gunmar will not give up. And he’ll have an army. But we will do our best to win this fight!”

Everyone cheered and you hugged Jim. Things were still bad and your grief was overwhelming, but you were hopeful for the future.

****

Voila, I hope you like it and I’m sorry for so much angst, but the next few chapters are going to be happy. I’m really excited to write the next two chapters and I have been for a really long time. Anyways, there will be a half chapter out tomorrow and I’m gonna try to post chapter 13 Friday! Have a great night/day and stay safe!

P.S. if you want to be on the taglist feel free to ask. I hope it works and please message me if it doesn’t.

#douxie x reader #douxie imagine #wizards imagine #trollhunters imagine #tales of arcadia imagine #toa imagine #toa douxie #douxie #wizards douxie #wizards #trollhunters #trollhunters douxie #tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia douxie #toa

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invisibleinorange · 3 years

Text

Chapters: 11/? Fandom: Bridgerton Rating: T Warnings: Presumed Character Death Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington(besties), Bridgerton Family Dynamics, Simon Hastings/Daphne Bridgerton Characters: Colin Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Featherington, Benedict Bridgerton, Portia Featherington, Violet Bridgerton, Genevieve Delacroix Additional Tags: Bridgerton, Polin Summary: Unexpected bad news arrives for the Bridgerton Family (and friends) regarding Colin's travels. This will be a series that is set after "The Duke and I" or season one of the show. It is a companion piece to "Goodbyes".

Benedict’s head was spinning by the time he made it out of the dining room and into the solitude of the study with Anthony. The last fifteen minutes or so of his life had been particularly perplexing. Everything in life had been a bit topsy-turvy of late though so he couldn’t be quite sure about anything.

“Did you do it?” he asked in an accusatory tone toward Anthony as soon as the door was shut and there was little chance of the women of the household eavesdropping on them.

“I’m the one who told you to let the girl breath and then come to realize she should take your offer,” Anthony told him, reaching for a decanter full of brandy. He had a feeling it was going to be one of those nights where it was very much needed.

“I didn’t do it though,” Benedict confessed shaking his head. His hand rose to his head, fingers massaging at his temple. “If it wasn’t me and it wasn’t you, then who?”

“Daphne?” Anthony suggested after a moment’s thought. “She honestly could have been a bit clearer in her messaging though. You know how our sister loves to interfere in matters that don’t necessarily concern her.”

“She did involve herself with the whole Marina Thompson matter,” Benedict rationalized. Daphne definitely didn’t know how to not get involved in things and she had read the letter from Colin. She knew how close Penelope had always been to their family. It was a strong possibility that she’d been involved in this.

That still left the question of what to do about it if she did.

Everyone had already made up their mind that Benedict had been the one to make the purchase and it had made a bit of an impact. Was it really such a terrible idea if they continued to think that he had made the purchase?

He didn’t quite feel right about taking credit that he didn’t deserve though. There was something about the whole situation that felt off and he couldn’t quite place it.

He wasn’t quite sure he could bear to crush Penelope Featherington by telling her that he had nothing to do with it; especially since she seemed to be warming up the idea of being his wife.

What sort of marriage would it be if it began on a lie? The truth would eventually slip out. If it was Daphne, she’d inevitably see Penelope in the dress and say something that would reveal the secret. If it was some other prospective suitor, they’d likely make themselves known eventually.

“How am I supposed to tell her that it wasn’t me?” he asked, frustration clear in his voice. “I’m damned regardless of the way it goes.”

“Maybe we figure out some more information before you do anything,” Anthony said honestly. “I mean, you distract and I’ll sneak into Penelope’s room and investigate.”

“How exactly do you suggest I distract?” Benedict asked with a shrug knowing that this was probably the best scenario to go with.

Anthony let out a bit of a laugh putting down a now half-empty glass before moving around to a cabinet that was locked, unlocking it and pulling out a box and tossing it at his brother like it wasn’t some priceless family heirloom.

“Well if you’re going to have a fiancé, you should probably follow the dress with some jewelry,” he said with a smirk.

“I hate you,” Benedict said as he opened the box, admiring the ring that he knew was his to give. Each child would get a certain number of heirlooms from the family to pass on. Anthony would get the lion’s share but as the second eldest, he had always had their late Ledger Grandmother’s ring.

“But you’re grateful for me for coming up with a scheme so impenetrable, they’ll be cooing over your display and not even notice that I’m off doing reconnaissance,” Anthony argued.

Benedict couldn’t begin to argue with that logic.

By the time that Benedict made it back to the rest of the family, they’d relocated to the music room. His mother was working on her embroidery while his younger siblings were busy playing. He spotted Eloise and Penelope sitting on the couch, sharing a box of candies.

He took a deep breath before he pushed past the threshold, unable to stop his brain from screaming that this was a terrible plan and that he ought to abort it immediately. Surely there was a better way to distract.

His mother looked up from her embroidery prepared to ask about where her eldest had gotten off to but before the words could get out, Benedict was coughing as if he wanted the attention on himself.

It was very effective in gathering the attention of the room.

“I know that the excitement over the… package you received hasn’t quite worn off,” he said to Penelope after a long moment. “Perhaps it is ill-advised to push the matter further but I have something… that I think would look quite splendid with any dress.”

Violet seemed to perk up at that, especially as her son moved closer.

The stunt was working. He had a captive audience. Even Gregory and Hyacinth had paused their play to observe.

“I do not deserve all of this,” Penelope argued.

“I’m going to give it to you anyways,” Benedict argued moving over, long hands moving over his box to open it. Inside was an immaculate gold ring with pearls and sapphires adorning it.

Penelope’s eyes widened at the sight.

This was certainly a statement and the sheer weight of it had everyone in the room breathlessly engaged.

“You want… me … to wear this?” she asked trying to wrap her mind around how much her life had changed in recent weeks. As much as she would have liked to say that she’d kept an open mind about her future, she’d only ever seen two scenarios. It was Colin or nothing at all.

Benedict Bridgerton was in front of her now and it was very difficult to wrap her head around. As weird as it was, it was admittedly nice to be doted on and to be part of the story instead of some side character to the bigger plot. She wasn’t the girl who watched from the shadows anymore.

“That’s generally the point,” Benedict said. He made a gesture with his free hand to her own.

After a long moment of not moving, Eloise was the one to kick her shin to drive her to action. Whatever misgivings Eloise had about her best friend marrying Benedict, she’d apparently gotten over it.

Penelope extended her hand after a long moment. It was as close to an out of body experience as she’d ever had. She’d danced with all the Bridgerton men through the years and held their hands as part of it. She’d never quite given much thought to any of it aside from those moment with Colin.

Benedict’s hands were surprisingly warm but rough. It was clear he used them regularly with his art. She could see hints of charcoal that hadn’t quite been washed away in the cracks.

Her gaze moved over his face as he moved her hand, carefully secured the ring to her fingers. It was a little bit of a tight fit but it did look nice there. Just as quickly as he’d placed it there, she fully expected him to take his hand back.

She was surprised when he dipped down to kiss the top of her hand.

She wasn’t quite sure if she’d even fully agreed to proceeding with an engagement but she also wasn’t sure that she could stop this if she tried.

As he took stepped away again, she couldn’t help but see how thrilled Violet looked and after being taken in she would be hard-pressed to want to disappoint the woman.

Though any further thoughts were lost to the smell of smoke.

Anthony knew that it was vital he not be anywhere near the Music Room while Benedict put on his charm and distracted their family. He honestly would have given his right arm to laugh at Benedict making a fool out of himself though.

It was relatively easy to sneak through the halls without anyone paying him much attention. He stayed alert though, cautious to not draw the attention of any their staff. He didn’t need a maid ratting him out.

He considered himself lucky when he made it into the open guest room. It was neat and the bed appeared to be freshly made. The abandoned box was still sitting on a table though and he moved to investigate, opening it first looking for clues. It empty. Clearly someone had saw it fit to move it to the wardrobe.

His next move was to look at the note. The writing was definitely not a member of his household but he did recognize it. He’d received many an invoice in that familiar handwriting and paid each and every one of them.

He then moved to look at the box itself.

It came from France. It made sense with what he knew. The Modiste had escaped to their weeks ago. He only knew as much since Benedict had been enjoying her company prior to her departure and as the eldest Bridgerton he saw fit to know everything.

Another clue was in where it had gone.

It had gone to the Featherington’s first.

There as literally no one in the Ton who didn’t know that Penelope had taken up residence with them though.

It all seemed to make sense that it would have been the Modiste.

A new theory came to life in his head.

Women could be dangerous when jealous. What if the rumors of something between Benedict and Penelope had reached France and the Modiste felt slighted? What if the dress had been meant as a revenge on the poor girl?

Anthony had to protect her.

He stormed over the wardrobe, opening it with a slam and cursing when he realized how many dresses were in their and how little he remembered of what Penelope actually wore.

“Bloody Hell,” he muttered before grabbing them all, stuffing what he could into the box and proceeding down the hall and down the stairs to their backyard. The only solution was to burn it all.

He threw them in a pile once a safe distance from the structure, using a matchbox in his pocket to ignite a light and toss it one it to start a small fire.

Penelope’s entire wardrobe was well engulfed before anyone bothered to notice what he was doing.

Benedict came first, followed by the rest of the motley crew. There was something accusatory in his features.

“What in God’s name are you doing, Anthony?” he asked. Searching for a bucket or something that he might be able to retrieve water and smolder the flames.

It took a moment for everyone else to figure out what was being burnt exactly and when they did, there were a bunch of angry people to contend with.

“Have I done something to offend you?” Penelope couldn’t help but ask wondering if this was some backwards way of demanding her return to her own family.

“Hardly,” Anthony argued.

“Then why would you destroy all of her dresses?” Eloise asked, sounding like she could very nearly slap her own brother.

She wasn’t the only one though.

“Someone saw fit to mislead you,” he explained. “The dress was meant for revenge and no one under my roof is going to fall prey to it.”

“It was just a dress. The most beautiful dress and – why would Benedict want to get revenge?”

Benedict had found some water and was tossing it on it though it didn’t completely put out the flames. His head turned at the accusation.

Fucking Anthony.

“I didn’t send it,” he was forced to confess which resulted in all the anger that had been directed toward Anthony to turn on him.

“What do you mean, you didn’t send it?” Penelope asked.

She didn’t stick around for the answer though. Instead she elbowed him hard in the stomach before storming back inside.

The impact definitely must have hurt because Benedict winced before mouthing ‘traitor’ at Anthony and attempting to chase after her in hopes of explaining.

Anthony wasn’t going to have it much better though since he was left with Eloise and his mother who both looked like they might kill him.

#⚜ writings — polin #polin #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington

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