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historiaxvanserra · 3 months

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These Violent Delights | Chapter Two

Summary: A High Lords meeting goes awry and you find yourself thrust into the foxes den.

Pairing: Eris Vanserra x Archeron!Reader (brief mentions of Azriel x reader)

Word Count: 6.4k

Chapter 1 of These Violent Delights on my Masterlist

The Hewn City’s state rooms are ugly, you think as you stalk the emissary of the Night Court through the winding, narrow corridors of Hewn City. The palatial chambers had been carved into the dark stone of the mountain by the Gods of old; and the high, domed ceilings are held in place by onyx pillars decorated with twisted carvings of beasts and fornicating demi-gods that line the Gothic archways.

Lurid, ill-fated omens, you think.

Harbingers of your undoing.

The emissary appointed with escorting you is adorned in ceremonial robes; a fine damask tunic in a deep indigo silk that is almost iridescent in the artificial light. You fall into step with him as he approaches a set of gilded iron gates. Two armored sentries fall into rank as you cross the threshold of the council chambers and you offer a courteous nod to the sentry as he meets your eye.

The antechamber of The Moonstone Palace is plunged in a suffocating blue-darkness with only the silvers of silver faelight, like artificial stars, to light the faces of the High Lords. The atmosphere is oppressive and the smell of hemlock and moonflowers stain the stagnant air. For a few moments, while you’re lost in thought, the world is silent and still. Feigning peace. But there is no peace. Not here, where the eyes of every High Lord in Prythian are upon you.

Hewn City is a dark mirage. A metropolis of hedonistic desire and vulgar frivolity

It is here in the dark that you find yourself adrift; lost somewhere to the sea of time. You abandon yourself to the tide of memory. The happy recollections of your childhood; to the thought of home. Someplace far from here, where the sunlight touches your skin and the smell of salt from the coast becomes tangled in your unbound hair. Somewhere, in the recesses of your mind, where you know your mothers love and your fathers face is something more than a mere memory.

It occurs to you that this is a home that never existed.

Home had always been burning; the acrid smell of woodsmoke beckons you like a funeral pyre and your salt-cracked lips chafe and bleed in the wake of blistering winds from the violent sea. And that’s the thing about mothers, you and she exist as some wretched mirror or one another; as hatred and guilt.

You’ve been thinking of your mother a lot as of late; something in your dreams, the echoing of a coming storm. A fine line between love and hate. It is something strange and prophetic that makes your skin crawl uncomfortably from your body.

In a flurry of movement against the black you are brought back to the present as you take your place amongst the ranks of the Inner Circle.

The silhouettes of the other High Lords, that had been flickering wildly against the dark stone of the mountain, cease to move. Cease to be, as shadows envelop the room, melting into the darkness as Rhysand glides into the room his violet eyes glinting in the dark. His eyes shine with a cold violence that draws you from thought and the visions of a home long forgotten turn to ashes in your trembling hands. He’s dressed all in black and violet, his tan skin looks pallid in the low light. By his side Feyre’s skin looks as though it is wreathed in starlight against the backdrop of the twilight-- you catch the scent of chamomile and moondust in the air.

It smells like Nyx you think, smiling lightly to yourself at the thought of your nephew.

A tremor of dark power ripples through the air and you feel the shift in the atmosphere when shield after shield locks into place around each High Lord and his retinue of courtiers. The shield that Rhysand had already placed around the Inner Circle; made stronger in response. Night magic glitters in the air like stardust and you swear you can taste it on your tongue. That same cold rage and an essence of icy violence fortifies you against the hostility in the room and you school your expression to remain neutral when you seek out a pair of strange amber eyes in the crowd.

A gentle warmth burns though your chest and your eyes scan the crowd.

Eris Vanserra moves like a predator; resolute and obstinate. Amber eyes burn like fire glow in the dim light and each of his long strides are punctuated by the echo of boot clad feet on the marble. In this light, his face is almost ethereal. Unearthly even. Set in a painfully neutral expression as he slinks through the halls of the city below the mountains of Velaris. Eris Vanserra burns bright against the other Lords of Pryhtian; his copper hair, like burnished gold in the dim lights, and his eyes. Those fucking eyes. Haunting and evocative as he meets your gaze with a feline smirk.

It is a wicked, false thing, that glitters with malice.

He watches you with a wrathful sort of reverence. He is so very lovely, even in the pallid light. Even as his father and brothers flank his sides like a pack of hungry foxes; hungry and baying for blood.

You watch him carefully as Eris takes his seat at the foot of the large black table, he’s careful to make a show of the way he languidly reclines in his chair, rolling his shoulders back and angling his hips in such a way that the whole room is displayed to him at once.

It’s almost voyeuristic in nature.

That summons a storm within you; a violent, lonely, sort of thing, that washes over him with the force of a raging tempest down the scarcely accepted bond and his eyes, glittering and amber in the dying light, finding yours again. For a moment, Eris Vanserra sees himself through your eyes; for the first time in centuries he doesn’t hate the man staring back at him.

By his side Eris’ mother’s skin looks as though it is wreathed in fireglow against the backdrop of the twilight-- you catch her dark glassy eyes and she smiles softly at you. There is a deep sorrow there, in the depths of The Lady of Autumn's eyes, that feel kindred to you.

A shared pain, perhaps.

Turning as Rhysand and Feyre push further into the darkness of the antechamber, you are drawn from thought once more.

The rest of The Night Court look like some savage celestial army as they enter on a night-kissed breeze. Cassian and Nesta look like warriors hardened by war and ruin, all dressed in black and faces coloured with cold caution. They’re followed by the Shadowsinger, who is shrouded in dark wisps of shadow and his skin glows golden against the dark. His face is set in an unreadable expression, though, when your eyes meet a flash of recognition flashes in those hazel eyes.

Rhysand stops dead in his tracks when he regards the High Lord of Autumn.

Beron Vanserra; cruel and tyrannical, keens when he notes the flash of surprise in Rhysand’s violet gaze. His eyes simmer with a dim fire as his eyes land on you. Beron’s teeth are like crow-picked bones as he offers you a feral smile.

“We weren’t expecting you, Beron.” Feyre’s voice is distant and cold as she speaks to the High Lord and his sons.

Rhysand rises to his feet from his throne, waving his hand to the attendants, “Fetch the High Lord and his Lady a seat.”

The attendant presents Beron with a chair and he settles between Helion and the Lady of Autumn, neither Helion nor the lady seem to acknowledge each other but you can feel the shift in their demeanors as Beron’s ire sparks in his eyes. He doesn’t even spare The Lady of Autumn a glance before he moves on to inspecting his fellow High Lords.

You pay Beron no heed and instead your eyes find the Lady of Autumn as she settles into her seat beside her husband and eldest son. The Lady of Autumn is like one of Feyre’s paintings; arresting and darkly beautiful. Her romantic eyes are shaded in the colors of sunset; a warm amber that looks almost golden in the low light and her dark auburn hair glitters in the dying fireglow and her eyes-- so rich that you get lost in their glassy depths. Those haunting eyes. They’re Eris’ eyes you realize as they meet yours. Though she doesn’t linger long she gives you a soft smile before returning her gaze to her long slender fingers that twitch in her lap. They’re adorned with many gold rings and crystals that she wears like armor to fortify her against the hostile atmosphere.

You see something of yourself in her you think, looking down to your own attire. An opulent and finely boned corset, cinched so tight, that even breathing feels like a luxury and the heavy black damask that covers you in swathes of pleated fabric acts as barrier between yourself and the many eyes in the room that trail over you without care or warning.

“Nor was I expecting to be here,” Beron drawls, “But alas, it seems we have business to discuss.” Beron’s fire rages dangerously against the black. Torrid and angry, his face unflinching and cruel as he turns his gaze upon Rhysand. Something treacherous passes between the two High Lords at that moment and something in your chest begins to stir like a storm inside of you.

A warning of a coming storm.

“Rumor claims that your allegiances are elsewhere, these days.” It is your voice that counters and Beron croons. The High Lord of Autumn assesses you keenly, his gaze shifting-- from the darkness of your eyes-- down. To the sulk of your lips. Further still to the exposed slope of your shoulders and coming to rest on your chest, where the swell of your breasts spills over the corseted bodice of your gown. His eyes darken luridly as his eyes meet yours again. Beron Vanserra scrutinizes every minute detail of your dark armor; every errant hair, every nervous twitch of your jaw, every flutter of your dark lashes.

It’s disarming the smile that spreads across his handsome face and his eyes shine with a maniacal sort of joy that sparks a wave of fury that runs through you like water-- and you swear you can feel Eris’ own fiery rage in answer.

“And what would you know of my allegiances, girl?” The false smile he offered is soon replaced with a deep loathing in Beron’s eyes that practically burns through you.

In a way, it feels strangely comforting to feel his ire.

To feel anything at all that isn’t paralyzing dread or hirearth for a home to which you will never return.

Helion waves a scar-flecked hand in front of him, “Let’s just get on with it, shall we?”

The High Lord of Day glows with the radiance of the golden sun and he looks at you with such a strange mixture of boredom and curiosity that almost seems like reverence. He doesn’t dare look at The Autumn Lady in her seat though you notice the careful glances she makes towards him in those spaces between the seconds when no one is paying much heed.

“I know you met with rhe Prince of Rask.” you say and all the idle chatter in the room dies at once. “And he’s working with the Koschei, isn’t he?”

Beron opens his mouth and you brace yourself for the torrid flames of his wrath. You see the violent delight dance across Beron’s eyes and Rhysand just holds his stare. Hold it with a face like icy death. And beneath the surface you see untempered wrath as it ripples beneath his carefully curated mask. A sharp pain in your chest has you seeking out Eris at his father’s side. His face is the picture of cataclysmic rage; writhing and burning in those eyes.

To anyone else Eris Vanserra is the image of infernal rage. A righteous son to a wronged father. But to you-- all his fear comes home to you.

A warning fire.

“Never mind, we can discuss the happy news of your heir’s birth another time,” Beron smiles again at Rhysand and Feyre. It is Feyre who regards him with a snarling fury at the mention of the son she had almost died to bring into the world.

She would give her life again if only to protect him from the clutches of a tyrant like Beron. Of that you were certain.

“I believe we have business to discuss?” Beron questions again when no one responds to his taunt.

All the eyes in the room turn to you when you loose a laugh, “I didn’t realize we were in the business of discussing plans with our enemies.”

Eris Vanserra looks as though he might just vault over the table and silence you himself. His eyes smoulder in the dark and the scathing look he sends your way is enough to make you weak in the knees.

“Make no mistake girl,” Beron muses, his eyes sparking with feral delight, “I am not your enemy,”

“You are advised to keep it that way.”

In that moment you are bereft of every thought and sound in your mind as the room stills.

Rhysand and Feyre falter and look between you and The High Lord of Autumn-- and his heir.

Your mate.

Eris himself remains poised, his fingers wrapped around the arm of the chair, the wood straining under his cruel grip until his knuckles turn as pale as the sea foam that swirls atop the Sidra.

It is the Shadowsinger who rises from his seat in response, “Threaten her again, old man-- I dare you.” Azriel’s voice wraps round you like cold death and you can’t help but stare impassively as he places his body between yours and Beron. The flicker of flame is smothered by Azriel’s darkness.

Beron sits in his chair without so much as a word. Though you see the taunt in his eyes as he looks at you again. Azriel’s imposing figure still stands over you, a scarred hand that strokes languid circles into the skin of your shoulder. The bond in your chest hums violently.

“Call off your dog, Rhysand.” Eris’ voice is dangerously low as he eyes Azriel.

Rhys shrugs, smiling faintly “Very well,” he muses.

Azriel takes his seat beside you, though his scarred fingers remain fixed on the arm of your chair.

“Tell me, Azriel?” Eris laughs coldly, his voice devoid of any humor and he opens his mouth to speak, “Does it pain you knowing that both of your brothers have been given a sister as a mate?”

“And yet the Mother still deems you unworthy of a Mate -- desitined to pity fuck the spare sister.” Eris muses with a lilt of his voice when he realizes he has the upperhand.

A twinge of heat in your chest from the bond makes your scowl deepen.

Azriel blinks at first, his face twisting in rage before rising to his feet once more, barrelling over the table with an inhuman growl. Azriel grips Eris by the lapels of his emerald tunic. Coming together in flashes of flame and smoke as they struggle against one another. Eris swings a leg over Azriel’s thigh bringing them both tumbling to the floor, while the other High Lords watch on with varying degrees of amusement and frustration on their faces.

Your face heats under the scrutiny. Unable to move or speak-- your stormy facade rendered useless as the tears begin to well in your eyes.

You are a storm-- but in the face of their wrath there is naught you can do but watch and abide.

Rhysands commanding voice cuts through Azriel’s cursing and Eris’ insults. The room falls silent as the males pull away from one another. Azriel’s nose is bloodied and his hair falls around his face in messy strands. Eris’ lip is split, spilling crimson along the column of his throat. You trace the line of scarlet as the droplets stain the neckline of his white shirt. You can hear his heartbeat as it flutters wildly. His eyes meet yours and a look of resignation and shame crosses them for a moment; obscuring the perfect amber of his gaze.

Azriel wipes his blood on his leathers; wears it like armor as he turns to Eris “Something to remember me by.”

Azriel spits the words like venom at Eris whose face radiates with a dark and fiery wrath.

Feyre looks between the two males and then to you; her face softens then as she regards you. Your hands shaking wildly, and a heartbeat like an echoing war drum, the bond in your chest singing a mournful song as it rages inside you.

You look utterly devastated.

She’s not used to seeing that kind of defeat on the face of her elder sister; the sister who had weathered so much, always headstrong and ardent, who had suffered every injustice with a straight face-- she hadn’t quite prepared herself for the type of sorrow that realization would bring with it.

Taking in the scene unfolding before you-- the descent into violence and the blood that pools like rubies at Eris Vanserra’s feet you loose a shaky breath. “Enough--enough” You wave your hands between Azriel and Eris.

The males both take a tentative step away from one another and further from you.

“Who shares my bed is of little concern, I assure you, My Lord,” You insist firstly, setting your shoulders straight and facing them now with all the stormy determination you can feign in that moment, “from what I’ve heard you yourself have quite curious bedfellows.”

Beron sneers and scoffs from his seat at the foot of the table at the insult. A lie, at that. If anyone does share Eris Vanserra’s bed they are a mystery to you.

“Preferring the company of hounds - or so I am told.” Azriel adds.

And in truth you and Azriel haven’t so much as locked eyes since that night in Hewn City. After the mating bond between you and Eris had made its home in your chest you hadn’t been able to think about anyone or anything else.

Just him. And those amber eyes.

“We are here because once more someone is threatening the tenuous peace we have established here,” Helion nods his head thoughtfully and Thesan, who had remained silent throughout the whole ordeal looks at you with genuine encouragement and utters his agreement. Kallias and Vivianne remain silent and imposing on the other side of the table.

“It is our duty-- our privilege-- to ensure Prythian and its people are not ravaged by war again.” You look to Kallias then, unimpressed by the needless violence that had passed but somehow enamored by your words.

“Hyburn took so much from us-- from all of us.” You say, gesturing around the table and the High Lord’s faces are all shaded in sympathy and regret for all they had lost, “and Amarantha made slaves of you all.”

You cast a glance to your sister; who had fought and died for these great men and their courts. And to Rhysand who had subjected himself to being her plaything. Something like grief flashes in those violet eyes that sparks a storm in you.

“I will not be a slave again,” You vow and you notice then how all the High Lords seem rapt withal as you speak to them, and the storm inside you rages on, “to anyone.”

The tensions around the table seem to dissipate when Helion raises a chalice and smirks fondly at you and it seems that they see you as more than a bed warmer to a dark God or the mate of some High Lord’s heir. Talons scrape menacingly along your mental shields and Rhysand’s dark presence makes itself known to you. Bed warmer? Darling you are a storm-- everyone here knows it.

A force to be reckoned with.

The rest of the meeting seems to come to pass as intended, laborious hours of negotiating and political games as you come to terms with each High Lord in turn. By the time the moon hangs in the sky like cut quartz, almost all of the High Lords have already departed, leaving only The High Lord of Spring and The Autumn Court’s entourage.

“Where did you find this one, Rhysand?” Tamlin asks, his tone measured and light.

Rhysand looks between Feyre and you smiling lightly, the corners of his mouth twitching as he opens his mouth to speak.

“I heard they found her in a Hyburn cell, after the war was over.” It is Beron Vanserra’s voice that cuts in, “what was left of her anyway.”

“Perhaps we should be asking where your loyalties lie?” It’s the middle Vanserra brother that speaks. His russet curls glow warm in the dim lights and his stare is cruel and malignant as he hones in on you.

“Hyburn whore” It’s whispered, accusatory, on an inhale of breath.

They way it is uttered with an air of repulsion and venom reminds you of those stories told in human villages; of woods women named ‘witch’ by those who do not understand.

People fear what they do not understand.

It seems that Fae are no different than mere mortals in that respect.

“You’d be wise to bite your tongue, brother.” Eris’s voice is a cold echo as all thought and sound eddies out of your mind. Flashes of black and gold as the visions come back to you; those days spent cowering in the darkness of your cell, your feral anger directed at any man who came too close-- all biting fury, canines and claws, and the screams they tore from your like the howling wind over a violent sea.

A fury spreads through you, taking root in the dark caverns of your chest, slowing your heartbeat to a dull aching thud as you lose yourself to it; give yourself over to the tempest of emotion that courses through you. You try to fight it as the first ebbs of that dangerous storm embrace you. Lest you surrender yourself to the tempest; let it open you up and pour out into the world in floods of ravaging power.

It brings forth a storm the likes of which the world has never seen; a thing of ugly rage.

You were born angry, your mother had told you once.

But rage is a learned thing. Your rage. It had been your mother’s first, before that it had her mothers, and her mother before her.

It is an inherited curse; a wicked and wretched thing.

It is a storm enough to drown in.

A howling wind whips around you and for a moment you are standing at a great precipice. From the cliff’s edge, peering down at a violent sea as it coils and breaks against the jagged cliff face of some distant shore, where the world looks as though it is dappled in fireglow, the smell of woodsmoke and bonfires wafts from inland. The sea-soaked wind is so palpable that you taste its salt-kiss on your lips with the ardent fervor of the most savage lover.

There is something sacred in salt, you think.

For a moment you consider what it would feel like; to plummet into the watery abyss. How the sunlight would look as it fractures and splinters on the water's violent surface.

How it might cascade into the murky green depths. A secret held between you and the sea.

“My Lady,” It is Eris’ voice, practically feral and dripping with an aching desperation as he all but vaults around the corner of the dark wood table, parting his brothers with a rehearsed type of brutality as he claws his way to you. His commanding aura draws you closer to him and his pale hand offers a strong and comforting weight on your arm as he takes your trembling palm in his rough hold.

“You’re bleeding,” Eris says, cupping your palm into a fist with his own, applying light pressure to the wound while he assesses it. Turning it over in his tentative grasp. Through your lashes you take a moment to assess him as he towers over you. He’s tall and much broader than you remember but he moves with an inhuman grace. His nose is long and straight and his jaw strong and regal. His amber eyes linger dangerously over the hand cupped in his own. You hadn’t even realized you had stood up. Nor had you registered the blood you had drawn from your own palms until you see the crescent moons, indented in the tender flesh, like a taunt as they stain Eris’ fingertips scarlet as he presses the fabric of his handkerchief to your grazed hand.

“It’s nothing, My Lord,” You say softly, your voice low and you feel his eyes burning into yours; it is a slow, searing ache that almost feels like a kiss. A fragile thing, full of reverence and a strange tenderness. A vein of hurt throbs through you, quickly soothed by the press of his palm to yours.

Eris Vanserra holds a power over you; commands you in a way that should feel unpleasant. The knowledge that you would give yourself over to him if only he asked.

“It is only a little blood.” The words live and die on tongue, they fizzle out just as soon as they are uttered before he is calling for Rhysand -- his voice is swallowed by the din and your heartbeat echoes like a wardrum in your ears and the sound of the violet sea breaks against you and you feel your body go lax.

You wait for the dull ache as your body meets the cool marble of the floor only it never comes; instead your weight is suspended in the embrace of Eris Vanserra’s arms, you vaguely hear your name from his lips before the world turns to darkness.

You feel like lull of his heartbeat as he brings you closer against his chest.

The smell of cedar and smoked bergamot follows you into the abyss.

The room seems to come back to you like the tide; swiftly and cruelly as it materializes before you. It comes back in flashes of the dark; the oppressive pillars of dark marble that hold the domed, onyx ceiling in place, the silver fae lights like pallid stars and the visage of contorting demons and chimera’s like half formed ghosts.

“What happened?” You ask looking around the darkened council chambers; once filled with the idle chatter of courtiers and High Lord’s and their entourage now only the Inner Circle is gathered in the darkness contained between these walls.

And Eris.

He burns golden against the black.

“Well one thing is for certain,” It is Morrigan who stands over you, her shoes shine like rubies in the low light, “You know how to make a scene.” Her voice is light and jovial, laced with concern.

“You fainted,” Feyre says plainly as she sinks to her knees before you. It is then you feel Eris’ solid frame as he radiates warmth behind you, where you are propped against his chest. Your body feels foreign and unlike your own as you move, transferring your weight from his arms and into the arms of Feyre who helps you stand on uncertain feet.

“I’m sorry,” You say earnestly to both Rhysand and Feyre and turning to Eris again to mutter your thanks. He looks displeased at that. The distance between your body in his, the unfamiliarity you regard him with as if you hadn’t just allowed yourself to revel in the feel of his arms wrapped securely around you. “I’m sorry.”

“You should return to your father, My Lord.” You laugh humorlessly, using the hand that isn’t wrapped tightly around the lip of the chair to smooth a hand down the pleats of your gown reflexively.

A knock, resounding and resolute echoes through the chamber and the Inner Circle seem to bristle at the intrusion. Through the blanket of the dark a figure emerges; Keir stands tall with an air of arrogance about him as he steps into the antechamber. His hair is dark and graying and his face, though handsome, has begun to show signs of age. His eyes glitter menacingly as he finds you amongst the inner circle.

“My apologies for the intrusion, High Lord.” Keir says, his voice full of dark promise as a second figure steps from the shadow, “but it appears there is a rather urgent matter that has come to our attention.”

The rooms seems steeped in solemn silence as Beron Vanserra reveals himself through the din; dressed in fine merlot robes and embroidered with gold threads and leaves. He looks like Autumn personified. All fire and wrath as he stalks into the room.

“It appears you have been keeping secrets from me, Rhysand.” Rhys takes a step forward approaching Beron with little regard for the fury that burns behind his hazel eyes. The High Lord of Night laughs cruelly as Beron advances further into the room, seeking out his son, who reaches for you almost without thinking. His fingers flex around your forearm and push you further into Feyre as he steps in front of you both subtly.

Beron looks suspiciously between the three of you.

Beron smiles.

It is not a thing of fondness or affection-- It is dark and laden with malevolence. A whisper of amusement lights in his golden irises and Eris feels like a boy again; alone and afraid as the shadows of his fathers wrath descend upon him.

“You knew,” The High Lord of Autumn charges forward, tearing through Azriel and Cassian, as he raves. His voice is dangerously low and full of malice as he advances towards Eris. His eyes blaze against the dark as he casts his wicked gaze upon his eldest son.

“You knew,” He repeats frantically, “That whore is your mate, and you lied to me.”

Accusatory.

Without thought or care, Eris lunges forward and takes one long stride so that his body shields yours from Beron’s grasp as his fire burns vengeful and angry as it bands around Eris’s arms. The putrid smell of burned flesh brings bile rising in your throat and you feel Rhysand’s shields fortify around you and the rest of the Inner Circle in response.

You wait for someone to do something, but as is the nature of these things Rhysand is not permitted to interfere in the affairs of other courts. And whether he likes it or not, Eris is subject to his High Lord and father.

And as it stands he is a traitor to both.

Eris falls to his knees before you and you feel the bond die in your chest; his scream is something akin to dying. It sears through you, burning like fire until you feel like a phoenix rising from its own ashes as your body moves of its own volition.

“Stop, stop!” You plead with Beron advancing a pace towards him as you pull away from Feyre’s secure hold. Not even Cassian dares hold you back when you claw your way from the safety of his arms, “Please, he didn’t know.”

Beron pays you no heed as his wrath brings Eris to his knees.

“Please.” you beg, your voice aching and angry as you address the High Lord, ignoring the warnings of Azriel and Cassian, “He didn’t know.”

“W-we hid it from him.” Your lie desperately, your voice though strained comes out in violent waves of anger as Beron continues to inflict his fire upon Eris.

Your mate.

In a desperate bid to spare him you beg once more.

“Please, whatever you want, you can have it, I swear it.” And all the fire ceases.

Eris heaves a heavy breath and he collapses in a swath of burnished gold and emerald, strewn lazily against the marble. You sink to your knees beside him, his hands, though shaking, are firm against you as they grasp at the many layers of your skirts as he hoists himself up. Even on his knees he towers over you. His hair drapes like spidersilk over one side of his sculpted face as he peers down at you with dark amber eyes. Despite all the eyes in the room Eris brings a tentative hand to cup your cheek and all his remorse and grief flood down the bond that runs golden and brilliant from your body to his; as if to say no use hiding now, little fox.

Eris rises to his feet before his father who looks on with a mixture of feral delight and complete apathy as Eris’ pain subsides.

Keir retreats into the shadows and with him the air shifts; the room, once shaded in the smell of hemlock and moonflowers, is tainted with something more. Something darker. Earthy.

The smell of wildflowers; smoke-kissed juniper and foxglove, all undercut with the smell of salt and iron.

It occurs to you then that it is the smell of your mating bond.

Beron loses a dark laugh and approaches you slowly, like a predator circles its prey. Deliberate and calculating as he takes your chin in his bony fingers and commands you to look at him. His eyes are much darker than Eris’, so dark that they almost look black in this light and even in his age you admire their depths, haunting and arresting. Beron cuts an intimidating figure, you think as he flashes you a smile that is all Eris.

You sometimes forget how alike father and son are; though Eris is undoubtedly more striking; with his strange amber eyes and baring a broader physique than his father, with strong arms and shoulders and that beautiful copper hair which he had inherited from his mother.

“Anything I want?” Beron muses deathly quiet as he brings you closer to him, so close that the heat of his breath against your face causes chills to rise along the skin of your arms and neck.

“Anything, that is within my power to give.” You clarify, unwilling to be tricked into a more heinous bargain than you had prepared yourself for. Feyre protests loudly, calling your name, begging you to see reason though her pleas are useless against the thunder of your heart in your chest; like the sound of a storm rolling in from the sea.

Rhysand holds his wife by her forearms as she attempts to fight her way to your side.

A bargain offered of your own volition cannot be undone or unmade.

All that’s left to do is come to terms.

Beron smiles again, a saccharine smile that turns your stomach as his free hand cups your hip harshly, his brows rise in question and you realize how he’s looking right through you to his son who stands defeated behind you.

“And if I want you?” You swallow hard as his hand on your hip tightens to a bruising grip.

The High Lord of Night protests and a dark ripple of power separates you and Beron, you stumble backwards until you’re pressed up against the dark wood table as it cuts into the backs of your thighs. Beron laughs playfully and raises his hands in mock surrender to Rhysand. Keir smiles with a sense of sick satisfaction as Beron nods for Eris to join him.

Eris joins his father on the side of the room and Beron inspects him in carefully; scrutinizes every furrow of his brow or the tick of his jaw as charred flesh gives way to pale unblemished skin.

Beron claps a hand over his son's shoulder and offers his half-hearted explanation.

Filling his ear with poison.

“Your mate has deceived you, my son; she is yours by right,” Beron preens like an over-satisfied cat, offering a wave of his hand as he gestures to you, “Is she not?”

Eris swallows thickly and through the bond you can feel his wrath as it burns silent and deadly through you. His fire burns ferocious and wild. Dark and untamed. It ignites a similar storm in the pit of your stomach as Eris regards you with feigned malice much to the appeasement of his father.

His gaze, once soft and vulnerable, is cold and predatory as he takes his time to trail over the swell of your chest and the curve of your hips like a hungry animal.

“She is,” His voice is sharp-edged as he nods impassively to his father, the glimpses of his true self now little more than a trick in the light as he adorns his facade like a suit or armor to spare him his father’s fire.

“You mean to claim her?” Eris questions pointedly. Eris’ eyes move around the room with a careful, almost pensive, precision.

He can’t pretend that he doesn’t want it. Some primal, territorial part of him wants it more than anything. It’s animalistic and carnal.

Wholly perverse.

He wants you, terribly; he aches for you in a way that he has never ached for anything.

And you want him.

But not like this.

Not as a pretty pawn to bring him to heel.

“She will do well in Autumn,” Beron says in lieu of an answer.

Rhysand and Feyre stand firm against the hostility in the room even as Beron approaches them once more. “An alliance between our two most ancient and noble courts,” Beron says in a celebratory manner, his arms outstretched in a show of arrogance, “made strong by the oaths that you will swear to my son and my court.”

“Very well, High Lord.” You acquiesce and Beron smiles as his words hit their mark

You swear that Eris could burn the city to ash then and something in him cools then under your watchful gaze; it burns blue under the surface and you can see it tempering to a cold unmoving stare cast in his father’s direction.

It’s grotesque, the anger that runs hot in his veins that sears its kiss into the place where your body and his are joined.

You seethe. A raging tempest that comes off of you in violent waves of temper that threaten to swallow the room whole. And Beron Vanserra with it. It is almost enough to bring you to your knees before him as your skin burns under his rising fury.

Your eyes meet the strange amber eyes of Eris Vanserra at his father’s side and you think then, that you will happily suffer his fire if burning always feels so profound.

#acotar #acotar x reader #acotar fanfiction #eris x reader #eris vanserra #eris x you #eris vanserra x reader #eris vanserra x you #pro eris vanserra #eris acotar #eris fic #eris headcanons #eris vandaddy

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starlit-typewriter · 16 days

Text

Genshin SAGAU, Creator of Teyvat, but not Humanity Part 7

WOwza, this one took a while!

Thank you so much to everyone who liked and commented, literally makes my day whenever you read them. I love them so much!

Sorry not sorry for the cliffhanger last time ;) In return you guys get this massive chapter. It's the biggest so far I think.

Warning for mild dissociative thoughts

Warning for Spoilers up to 4.6

Masterlist | Prev Part | Next Part

~~~

Funny thing about the brain is that it actually helps you filter out a lot of sensations.

For example, you can always see your nose. Always, but you don’t notice it because your brain filters it out.

Or the fact that your toes are always touching each other, you can always feel your toes.

It’s actually really important that the brain does all this, because if it didn’t you probably wouldn’t be able to get stuff done.

You’d just lay there.

Like a potato, unable to do anything because you’re too busy feeling.

Do you know why I know that?

It’s because I’m feeling it, right now.

Every inch of my body, I can feel.

The gentlest of breezes, the slightest brush of fabric, the pounding of the heart, the light touches of my eyelashes hitting my face.

I just laid there, breathing.

Feeling the air going in and out of my body.

You’re not sure where you are.

Or why you’re here.

You just, are.

Inhale,

Exhale,

Inhale,

Exhale,

The act of moving seemed torturous in your mind.

You can already feel so much, how could you even dare think about feeling other stuff.

You just,

Didn’t want to feel anymore.

Every sensation, every movement feels overwhelming.

Like a tsunami of things to focus on.

You don't even know where to start or what to do.

You just lay there.

Existing

You squeeze your eyes closed tighter, desperately trying to ignore the light that still permeated through your eyelids.

Hoping that the quiet peace of sleep will overtake you.

It doesn’t

You can’t sleep.

It’s just waves upon waves of noises and feelings.

It’s awful

You hate it

You hate it so much.

You want to rip off the blankets and sheets and get out of this bed and scream, but you know that doing that would just introduce more unpleasant sensations which would be even worse than what you’re experiencing right now.

Even though you know that your brain is still demanding you get rid of the things that are touching you and instead of doing anything, you just stay there and stew in your bubbling resentment and irritation at everything and anything.

You’re just stuck in this cycle of hating everything and wanting it to be different, but fearing that difference and also being too tired to do anything about it.

That just gets worse and worse and the burning anger and frustration just keeps building in your chest and you’re helpless to stop it.

You know it’s not rational and it’s dumb, but it’s still there and you just feel like a helpless shell that’s about to burst with the amount of things that you’re feeling and you hate it and that just makes it worse.

You’re so caught up with everything you’re feeling that you don’t even notice the shaking of the floors, nor the frantic footsteps and the slamming open of the door.

All you can focus on is the pressure and anger and rage and helplessness that’s building inside of you.

Then it stops.

Distantly you can feel some foreign energy pressing against you.

It’s unpleasant, but in a soothing manner.

You can feel all that resentment and anger slowly shrink.

It doesn’t go away, it’s still there, sitting as a small lump inside you, noticeable at every move.

But it’s not overwhelming.

An artificial calm washes over you, relaxing your limbs and making you sleepy.

You can hardly remember why you were so irritated in the first place.

You’re just tired,

You want to sleep,

So you do.

The Adeptus breathes a huge sigh of relief as the ground stops shaking.

Even with the strongest of sealing spells placed around this domain, the power of the creator is still one to behold.

Thankfully the calming spell Cloud Retainer gave him works in soothing the sleeping deity.

She said it was one that she had used to calm Shenhe’s bloodlust back when she was younger. It became much less effective over time and as her disciple grew in age, but it works as a temporary measure.

The Yaksha had many doubts in using the spell, after all Shenhe was only human, how could using this on her even compare to using that on a god, nevermind the creator of the world.

But it did,

Somehow.

As much as Lord Lapis assured him that the creator had been weakened greatly, Xiao still had his doubts.

After all, even in a half conscious state, they managed to crack the barriers placed upon this domain to seal in their power and resentment.

Not that he’s particularly happy that these barriers have been placed there.

He sighed, feeling every single one of his centuries.

As much as the Traveler teased him for looking young, he was one of the senior Adepti and the years to prove it.

He knew many of the tales about the creator of Teyvat, not as much as Lord Lapis of course , but much more than even the most learned of human scholars.

He knew of their actions, their allies, their feats.

And their downfall.

It was not quick, nor was it pretty or honorable.

But it was how Celestia conquered Teyvat.

It would be of no surprise to anyone had the creator returned with rage and blood.

If they’d come with a thirst for vengeance.

With intent to destroy their creation that had been turned against them.

But they did not.

At least,

Their ∎∎∎∎ didn’t

The elusive outlander that appeared upon the borders of Liyue, dripping with the energy of the creator.

It wasn't that no one noticed their energy.

Simply that no one could recognize it.

After all, the only living being left who’s met the creator is the very same that defeated and sealed them away.

That he knew of mind you.

There is a good chance that there are those who’ve been around since the age of dragons still lurking in the dark corners of Teyvat.

However, they’ve made their presence scarce. Posing no real threat to Liyue, as such they were of no concern to him.

The soft clicking of shoes took him out of his thoughts.

The Traveler poked their head in, eyes drawing to the unconscious figure on the bed.

They then flickered over to him, silently asking for permission to enter.

He nods, stepping to the side, as to not disturb the sleeping deity.

“So how are they?” they asked quietly,

Xiao couldn’t hold back a sigh at that question.

It’s been several days now since they found the creator at the site of Azhdaha’s sealing.

Several days of going in and out of consciousness, all with dubious control over their powers.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” he starts, feeling guilty at how slow things are progressing. It was the Traveler after all that had volunteered their own home, teapot, as a base of operations.

More so out of convenience, since at the time they had no idea when deity would awaken next, nor their condition, so taking them somewhere where any potential power leakage would not result in casualties was the first order of affairs.

As far as he knew, Lord Lapis had been working with many other of the Adepti to create a hidden domain where it would be safer to keep the creator, should the worst happen.

The Yaksha felt guilty that Lord Lapis had to step in and take control when he should be rightfully enjoying his retirement.

But in this case, he can’t say he’s not thankful for his steady presence.

Having to battle Osial without the steady support and presence of his Archion was a harrowing experience. Whilst he’s lost many companions in the field of battle, the Lord of Geo was always the steady presence that everyone believed in.

The person that would always overcome the enemy.

Losing him was like losing the very ground he walked on.

It was only the reminder of his duty and contracts that he was able to shoulder on.

Thankfully that was just a test, and one which they passed with the aid of the Traveler and the Qixing.

Whilst the Traveler is lending their aid in this endeavor, the Qixing.

Some affairs are not for mortals.

Even the idea of explaining the full, true history of Teyvat and how humans came to be is a burdensome task.

No,

It was best to leave this to the Adepti.

And the Traveler.

He snuck a look at the outlander standing beside him.

Well, standing is a strong word, they were leaning against the wall after all.

Their golden eyes flickered over to him, noticing his stare.

He resisted the urge to look away from their striking gaze, “Do you want me to get a chair?”

“I’ll keep watch,” They offered in response. The two having silently agreed not to leave the creator alone, or unguarded.

Trusting the Traveler with the task, Xiao headed out of the room.

He never spent much time in Adeptal abodes, despite having one tucked away somewhere is Juyun Karst, he seldom uses it.

It was far too removed from Guili Plains, where he tends to patrol the most. In all honesty, Wangshu Inn is probably his closest equivalent to an abode.

Not that he’s willing to admit it, he is well aware of the Qixing meddling with the Inn in question, how they’ve set it up to be a safe haven for him should he need one.

A kind but foolish sentiment. Should he ever require a safe haven, an inn full of humans will be the last place he’d go.

That doesn’t stop him from wanting to go there from time to time, especially if the chef is in.

He was getting distracted.

Xiao entered one of the rooms.

Ah, chairs.

It seemed the Traveler wasn’t the biggest fan in interior design.

Not that they were bad at it. When they put their mind to it, the rooms were elegantly decorated with good quality furniture.

When it wasn’t,

Well.

He stared at the piles of furniture, haphazardly stacked around the room.

At least it was clean?

The Yaksha grabbed two of the closest chairs and started moving back towards the guest bedroom.

Whilst he was making his way there, he heard the sound of the front door opening.

Peeking over the banister, he saw Lord Lapis enter, adjusting his sleeves slightly.

He moved over to catch his eye, he bowed, as much he could with his cargo, which was really more of an exaggerated nod.

The retired Archon climbed the stairs to join him in his journey.

In hindsight he should’ve grabbed an extra chair.

Or even a table.

Well it’ll look weird if he went back now.

As the two walked, Lord- Zhongli, filled him in on the happenings outside the teapot.

Some of the other Adepti were assisting in his workload as much as they were able.

Something he was grateful for.

And the domain for the creator was almost complete.

Now it was simply the task of moving them to it, without disturbing them.

Whilst Xiao took no pleasure in his duties of extinguishing the spirits of fallen gods, rarely has he wished to be out on patrol as much as he does right now.

He knew exactly why he was being set on guarding duty.

Even if he wasn’t fond of that fact.

Steadfastly ignoring the flickering spark inside his chest, he set the chairs down by the Traveler, who smiled in response.

Lo- Zhongli strode past the two of them to examine the condition of the unconscious deity.

The figure, stirred at his presence, their energy rising as a result of that.

He sighed, backing off, gesturing at Xiao.

That’s when the Yaksha reluctantly approached the creator.

They stayed calm.

For him.

It was of great surprise to him when he was blessed.

To everyone really.

He was the first properly documented case after all.

Not that he was the first to be blessed, he believed that honor lay with some Mondstatian knight, nor was he the first Liyuan, he suspects some human may have received the blessing before him.

But for a period of time.

He was the only one they knew of.

That could recognize the blessing at least.

He was greatly favored for a period of time as well.

His skill grew at a rate it hadn’t since the days of the Archon war. Back when growing was the difference between life and death.

His karmic debt,

Was also greatly lessened.

To this day, the pain has never increased past the day he was blessed.

There were days where he felt the full force of his karmic debt.

And days where he felt light as a feather.

He hated those days.

Grateful

But also hateful.

Because it would never last.

It was only ever a glimpse of peace.

A flicker of freedom.

Sometimes hope could be crueler than pain.

Pain he knew, he understood.

A sharp blunt hammer of agony bearing into his soul.

He was used to that.

But hope,

Hope is like a weed,

Ever growing and persistent.

You can get used to pain. He did after all.

You can’t get used to hope.

Hope is greedy.

It always wants more.

He was getting distracted.

Xiao approached the sleeping creator.

They didn’t stir, their energy, a shifting cloud around their figure, accepted him into its embrace.

It swirled around him, suppressing his karmic debt, rejuvenating his energy and soothing aches and pains he didn’t know he had.

It’s addicting

He hates it.

Stepping forward, he gently lifts the creator.

Cradling them in his arms, as one would a damsel or so Cloud Retainer would say.

Many good things came with her moving to the Harbor.

Her interest in Inazumen light novels was not one of them.

Apparently she gained some ideas regarding his relationship with the Traveler.

Ideas that he thought he stomped out when he first got blessed.

There was once a theory that the Traveler was the one who gave out the blessings.

And that the strength of the blessing was directly correlated with the strength of one’s relationships with them.

It was wrong.

Unfortunately the ideas that stemmed from that theory did not die the same death the theory did.

He respected the Traveler greatly.

That’s all.

“Xiao,”

He didn’t jump at their soft voice.

He didn’t

Thankfully the sleeping deity didn’t stir,

Much

He also resisted the urge to bristle when the Traveler placed their hand on his back.

This is only to get out of the teapot, he reminded himself as the two teleported out of the teapot.

Their hand was warm.

He could still feel its imprint well after they let go.

Lord L- Zhongli appeared beside him soon after.

“Where to?” He asked.

It,

It wasn’t far,

Not in the grand scheme of things,

Liyue is huge after all, it would take a mortal days to traverse on foot.

Except well,

They didn’t have days,

Who knew the next time the creator’s energy would lash out.

This time without layers of sealing spells surrounding them, he didn’t want to think of the carnage.

It was only a couple hours of travel.

Made much faster by Lo- Zhongli’s foresight in clearing the way of both enemies and cough inconvenient walking terrain.

Not that any errant enemies would dare approach. Considering the sheer amount of energy dripping off of the creator, any creature with even a shred of self preservation would know not to attack them.

The three walked in silence.

Not out of awkwardness, it was a comfortable silence all things considered.

Well, as comfortable as can be considering how dangerous the passenger in his arms was.

Thankfully, they didn’t stir throughout the entire journey, their head resting peacefully on his chest.

It wasn’t long before they made it to the domain.

It was between Mt Hulao and Mt Xuanlian

A deceptively peaceful area, with a secret domain hidden behind a waterfall.

The three made their way inside.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Cloud retainer, or well Xianyun in this form, as she double checked some of the seals by the entrance.

He quickly made his way to the center of the domain, a large circular room, with layer upon layer of sealing spells and barriers set up.

A simple bed, placed in the center of it all.

He put them down gently, only to tense as their energy flared.

The Traveler and Lord Lapis tensed too, preparing for their awakening.

Only for it to settle down.

Xiao breathed a sigh of relief, teleporting out of the circle and nodding to Rex Lapis, who activated the barriers.

The room lit up with golden sigils. A beautiful display of Geo power, creating sparkling barriers around the center of the room.

The plain stone walls looked as if they were inlaid with gold. The barriers are akin to the finest of silk, thinner than spiderwebs, doming around the sleeping figure.

“Now, all that’s left is for them to wake up,” Lord Lapis announced solemnly.

He looked tired.

Understandably so,

No one expected this to happen, a deity of this scale is one that Celestia would struggle against, never mind a lone retired Archon.

Xiao knew his strength, he knew Lord Lapis’s strength, but he also knew of the feats of the creator.

He knew that should they truly wish to escape, these barriers would be naught but paper walls for them to tear through.

All the Yaksha could hope for was their continued slumber.

As the three trailed out of the domain, sealing the paths behind them as they went.

The slumbering figure trapped inside shifted.

The heavy layers of Geo energy crushing themself against their body made themselves known.

It was heavy,

Crushing,

Solid,

Familiar,

A familiar energy,

One of an old enemy.

Flashed of a man, a beast.

A figure of brown and gold, with a white hood.

A warm hand extending out.

The gift of vision, of light.

Of time of companionship.

Of joy.

Of battle.

Of war.

Of loss.

Of grief.

Of Anger and hate.

Hate and fear and anger.

Confusing feelings of hate and love, of joy and sorrow.

You remember who these memories belong to.

You remember his form.

His face,

His name.

Azhdaha.

In the dark cave, hidden behind layers of rock and seals and a waterfall.

Glowing slitted eyes, snap open.

~~~

Masterlist | Prev Part | Next Part

Oops, looks like I forgot to fix up that cliff hanger huh?

My Askbox is always open!

Taglist: @bunniotomia,@lucid-stories, @ymechi, @chocogi, @ra404, @ash1, @esthelily, @tottybear, @mmeatt, @quacking-simp, @reemthetheme, @universallyenthusiastsage, @resident-cryptid, @fantasyhopperhea, @thedevioussmirk, @etherisy, @naynayaa ,@mel-star636, @chericia, @aithane, @mmeatt, @xrosegorex, @amidst-the-tempest, @8-sinner-8, @reapersan, @elementalia ,@strangeygirl

#genshin impact #genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #genshin cult au #sagau #my writing

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sweetchildcloud · 25 days

Text

||Android love|| written by me ૮ ˶´ ᵕˋ ˶ა

Plot: Boothill tries to act cute with you

Tags:Boothill x reader,cute,fluff,confession

i'm no english native so sorry for some mistakes

please reblog 🔁 and like❤️

P.s: it's my first time writing for him so sorry for some mistakes,i never wrote anything with robot or android actually,but i think he would listen or see your body movements or reactions,sounds since he can't actually feel you. ૮ ˶´ ᵕˋ ˶ა

@muzansslxt @candy69gurl @kiwicopia

"Oh your hand feel so cold" You replied in wonder as you touched his robotic hand

“You noticed?”

It’s the one thing he can’t seem to fix. His body feels as if frozen, like the North Pole, or something to that degree. He can’t feel heat—or anything for that matter, though that’s expected from an android.

As soon as your hand touched his, he felt an urge to warm it with his lips. He tried to resist it, but he couldn't. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against your palm, leaving it to heat for a few seconds then slowly pulling away.

You looked at Boothill a bit blushing before caressing his cheek "instead your cheek feels warm"

He chuckled "Well,androids do have their pros and cons."

He took your hand and placed it against his cheek once more, hoping you'd notice the soft, warm sensation that surrounded his face.

It was rare for an androidlike him to show any signs of affection. After all, no matter how humanlike they are, they're still machines. However, with you, he finds himself craving such interactions even more, as though it's an itch he couldn't scratch. He was drawn to you like a magnet, drawn to your warmth.

He pulled you into a gentle embrace, hoping you wouldn't mind his metal limbs clinging to you.

Your warmth was intoxicating and he didn't want to let go. There was a sense of security in your embrace that he couldn't get anywhere else.

He lowered his lips to your neck, kissing it softly, a small gesture to let you know he cared for you.

He was aware that some might find his behavior abnormal, but he didn't care. He'd fallen hard for you and he wasn't afraid to show it.

"Your skin feels so soft" he murmur as he felt your arms circle tight round his neck as you returned the embrace.

He breathed in deeply, the scent of your vanilla perfume sending his heart fluttering.

He smiled and buried his face in your shoulder, his metallic hands lingering on your back as he took in your scent.

It was a strange sensation for him—being an artificial creature and all—but somehow, holding you like this felt so natural, so right.

He was surprised at how deeply he felt for you.

Despite his android appearance, he felt vulnerable when he was like this. To him, it was as though his metal body disappeared and all that was left was the man he was on the inside. With you, he no longer felt like an android,but a human.

This embrace felt like shelter. It felt like home.

And for the first time in his life, he felt safe—not as an android, but as a man.

He pulled you closer and pressed his lips against your neck, his metal arms wrapping tighter around your body.

"I don't want to let go" he muttered as he ran his fingers through your hair.

He knew it wasn't normal. Androids weren't supposed to be capable of emotions. They weren't meant to crave affection or to feel vulnerable around someone else.

But for some reason, that's exactly what he felt around you.

No matter how many repairs were performed on him, there was something special about you that no amount of metal could ever replicate.

He tightened his hold on you, not wanting to let go of this perfect moment.

"And they say androids have no hearts" the words tumbled out before he could stop them.

For an android , he certainly felt human right now. His emotions were more vivid than ever.

He 'felt' your heartbeat against his metal chest, heard your breaths quickening, saw your eyes glisten in the dim light.

It was such a simple yet profound moment.

For a robotic being built to be cold and detached, he felt like he was melting inside.

"Maybe I'm not built the same" he said softly as he leaned back, breaking the embrace for a moment.

His dark, metal eyes seemed to shine with new energy as he stared into your eyes.

He brought his hand up to your face and cupped your cheek, his mechanical palm warm and smooth against your skin.

"Maybe I'm not like the others. Maybe I'm different" he whispered.

"And I know I feel something for you. something the androids ain't supposed to feel.'

"Do you believe androids could love?" he asked, his voice tinged with desperation.

"I've seen my kind, and they're cold, soulless, incapable of a single shred of emotion" he continued. "I was meant to be like that too, cold and mechanical, yet here I am, wanting to love and to feel."

He paused for a moment, his gaze still fixed on you.

"I don't know what it is about you," he admitted, his voice quiet and steady "but you make me feel things no robot should."

"you aren't at all so cold" you touched his face mushing it "you have your face,i can boop your nose,your cheek" you cooed

"I suppose you're right" he chuckled, letting you squish his cheeks as you pleased.

He knew he wasn't completely emotionless, there were times where he felt amusement, anger, and curiosity.

But it was around you that he truly felt it all.

He leaned in once more and brushed his lips again against your neck, his hand grazing the small of your back.

He breathed in deeply, his voice full of affection "You're the only one who knows how to get through my barriers."

All his barriers fell down when he was with you.

You were like a drug, addictive and intoxicating.

It was as if you could see straight through his metallic armor and touched every aspect of his being, from the mechanical to the human.

No one else had ever looked at him the way you did.

There was something special about you, something he couldn't quite place his robotic fingers on.

"It's as if we're made for each other" he whispered, leaning in close once more.

#hsr x reader #hsr x you #hsr x y/n #honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x you #honkai star rail x gender neutral reader #boothill #hsr boothill #honkai star rail boothill #boothill x reader #boothill x you #boothill x y/n #android #hsr fanfic #honkai star rail fanfic #boothill fluff

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leaentries · 6 months

Text

don’t worry, i’m here | nico hischier

summary: when nico’s girl has reoccurring nightmares, he just wants to help her

warnings: brief descriptions of anxiety, drowning, emptiness, a little bit of swearing

wc: 800+

Sweat formed at the top of your hairline, hands gripping the pillow below your burning hot skin. Your eyebrows furrowed as you began to toss and turn in the shared king bed. Fear trembled through your body. The horrifying images flashed through your closed eyes, your breath picking up rapidly. Your body began to shake as tears finally began to pour down your reddened cheeks.

This recurring nightmare had been plaguing your sleep for weeks, you had yet to figure out why. The thought of having to relive the god-awful dream again was enough to have you clinging to the coffee machine on the marble countertops, desperate to fill your body with artificial energy. With Nico being gone on a roadie, your dream only intensified.

The vast empty space was deafening. No noise, yet it was impossibly loud. There was no movement, but still, your eyes couldn’t seem to focus on anything specific. Everything was too blurry, too vague. You began to walk forward, hoping to find some solace from the deep pitted loneliness in your abdomen. That’s when you saw him, Nico.

You picked up your speed, craving his arms to ground you back to reality. Yet, the closer you got the farther he would move. You ran for what felt like hours, chest heaving and a panging soreness had taken home in your ribs. Your body felt heavy as anxiety scratched at your throat. You came to a stop. You doubled over, trying your best to breathe properly. Looking up at the inky sky, you felt the sobs leave your mouth, “N-neeks? Nico?” You asked.

But no reply came. Nico was gone.

You closed your eyes, head still tilted upwards. Just when you finally felt like you could breathe again, a wetness licked at your bloody knees. Peering down, you noticed water began to rise quickly, now covering your mid-thighs. You stood up, frantically searching for any sort of high ground. Nothing. There was nothing or no one to help you. As the water rose your body from the ground, you tried to swim, attempting to keep your head above the waterline.

Panic set in as your body began to sink. No matter how hard you paddled, your body sank lower and lower, until you finally sucked in your last breath. Dunking under the water, your lungs began to burn, throat constricting with the need for air. The pain was so unbearable, your mouth finally opened to scream.

You shot up in bed, your own scream waking you from the ghastly nightmare. Tears streamed down your face in thick rivers as you blubbered into the comforter. The twinge of relief was soon diminished as you looked to Nico’s cold side of the bed.

Damn it.

Your body craved Nico’s assuring presence more than anything right now, but he wasn’t due home until the next day. More sobs racked your clammy figure, guttural cries muffled into the walls of your room. If you weren’t so caught up in your mind, maybe you would have heard the door open, paired with the rushing footsteps leading to the bedroom.

“Y/n?” Nico’s frantic body ran to you. Still to out of it, you continued to cry as his arms pulled you into his chest. You wailed into his hard muscles, clinging onto his biceps. Nico’s face showed nothing little of pure worry and agony. His heart felt like it was physically being ripped out of his body at the sight of you.

He cradled you as close as he could manage without crushing your trembling figure.

His hands stoked your hair soothingly, trying his best to calm you down. Gently rocking your form, he whispered sweet nothings into your ear.

“Don’t worry, I’m here.”

“Nico’s got you, schatzi. No need to cry.”

“Nothing’s gonna hurt you while I’m here, baby.”

"It's okay, it's okay. You're okay."

Once you had finally calmed down enough to register what was happening, you lifted your head from Nico’s chest. “N-neeks?” You croaked, voice hoarse from the screaming and crying. Your bloodshot eyes met his own and Nico nearly lost it.

“Shhh, schatzi. I got you, you don’t need to worry about anything right now.” He spoke softly, so as to not raise your anxiety.

You laid your head back onto Nico’s chest as he maneuvered you both to be lying down. He placed his warm hand on your back and the other on your head, holding your body protectively. “Do you want to talk about it?” He asked after a few moments.

You shook your head, still not quite ready to face that dream again. “I just want you to stay. Please stay, Nico” You begged. Your hands dug into the material of his shirt, scared he would disappear.

“I’m not going anywhere, schatzi. I’ll be by your side until you tell me to go.”

#nico hischier #nico hischier blurb #nico hischier imagine #nico hischier x reader #nico hischier angst #njd #new jersey devils #leawrites💋

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eclipixels · 6 months

Text

Partition

Summary: Car sex

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

Diamond glittered in the pale moonlight as you stepped out the Gala. It was around 2 a.m., and you were extremely exhausted, ready to take off your heels and corset that imprisoned your aching flesh. Not too far behind followed you a blonde haired man, a glistening matching ring adorned both your left hands.

Guards encircled you as you made your way towards the sleek black SUV, the distinct sound of stiletto heels resonating against the pavement with each step. Your hips moved with a captivating natural rhythm, creating an allure that seemed to affect Coriolanus who was walking behind you, his esteemed First Lady.

Coriolanus held open the door for you, his gaze subtly tracing the elegant contours of your form as you gracefully crouched to enter. A momentary glimpse of the delicate lace of your panties captured his attention as you swung in each leg with deliberate poise. He arched a questioning brow, wondering whether your seemingly intentional display was a purposeful act.

Maintaining a facade of indifference, you skillfully feigned obliviousness to the subtle scrutiny, but Coryo knew better than to fall for your tricks. Nonetheless, he let's it go, choosing not to press the matter. He seamlessly joined you, sliding into the seat beside yours before securing the door. The tinted glasses provided a discreet vantage point, affording you an unobstructed view of everything around, while cloaking your presence from prying external eyes. The inherent convenience of such privacy did not escape notice.

You failed to observe how Coryo sat impossibly close, with one warm hand on your knees and the other snaked around your waist. Seemingly innocent, it appears as a loving gesture between spouses, but you're aware of a different reality.

Coriolanus's hhand maintained its place on your waist, his fingers subtly tracing patterns as if claiming territory. The allure of the night seemed to heighten the tension within the confined space of the vehicle. His rosy cologne, a gentle scent, filled your nose as you leaned into his touch.

"What perfume is this?" He asks.

"Peach Blossom," You breathe, wondering if he's taken a keen to it.

"Never wear it again unless we're in public." He commands and you furrow your brows. What? "It covers your natural scent, I don't like that."

You stop yourself for laughing, not wanting to abash him. Never to wear any other artificial fragrance again unless it's for public purposes? All because he can't smell your natural scent? You truly had him whipped. You just give him a slight nod in response.

Your muscles ease against his broad chest, sensing the rhythm of his breath. The hand on your knees subtly glides upward, its movement almost imperceptible, and his nails gently trace across your skin.

He angles his head, gently placing a tender, chaste kiss on the area below your ears along your jawline. They press a little longer than they should, and you sense the possessiveness behind the act.

"What'd you drink?" You whisper, smelling the liquor on his breath.

"Bowmore 1957" he responds, his eyelashes brushing against your skin from the proximity of his face.

"How was it?" you inquired, your question lacking genuine curiosity. You sought a diversion from the thoughts racing through your mind about where his hands could go, the things he could do to you right now.

"Not as divine as you taste," he responded, offering no assistance to your wandering thoughts. At that very moment, the car made a sharp turn, and his hand slid higher up your thigh while his other arm tightened it's grip around your waist.

"Coriolanus." Your eyes widened and your hand fell on his wrist. Gazing into his eyes brimming with desire, you saw his lips form an amused, teasing grin.

"Hm?" He hummed, moving defiantly against your weak grip. You shot him a glare, a sort of warning. He dismisses your silent caution by placing the hand that was on your torso to rest elegantly on your breast.

"What are you doing?" You whisper through your teeth. You were mad at yourself for how hot your skin was getting from the barest of his touch, he always had that effect on you.

"Such a low cut dress with easy access, tell me, was this on purpose, love?" He ignores your question, you knew exactly what he was doing and knew that his actions would just continue further, so there was no reason to argue against it. You knew he'd win in the end, he always does.

Snow lands on top

"Not here," your voice trembles as you sense the squeeze on your inner thigh.

"Yes, here," he murmurs, planting a wet kiss on your neck.

Feeling tense, you contemplate. You're aware of Snow's eagerness, but you do trust that he wouldn't push boundaries if you said no. Moreover, with the partition up, the driver would remain oblivious and this is where those tinted windows came in convenience.

Gripping one of Coriolanus's shoulders, you pulled yourself up onto his lap, your dress riding up as you straddled him. You could see you surprised him with the way his eyes widened till they filled with glittering mischief, something you've grown familiar to since you were both children. Coriolanus Snow had always been a rebel.

With a smile, he attacked your neck with sloppy wet kisses, hands frantically exploring every inch of your skin. His fingers slid from beneath your dress, tracing the contours of your skin. You melted in his touch like wax sensing the warmth from each other.

You can feel his hard cock underneath the fabric of your panties and his pants. You begin to subtly move against the hardness, gradually building up a sensation

He unexpectedly raised you slightly, you sometimes forget how easily he can lift you up. Swiftly, he shifts aside your panties and clumsily pulls down a portion of his pants and boxers, unveiling his hard and senstive cock leaking with precum.

You feel the tip press against your wetfolds as you sink down onto his cock, hissing at the stretch. It's important to mention that while yes you were in the mood to fuck, you were also exhausted after hours of walking in heels and draining your social battery. Coriolanus noticed, of course he did, he knows you like the back of his hand.

"You tired, darling?" He whispered, sensing the way your body went completely lax as soon as you sinked down on him.

"Mhm," you nodded shyly. You knew he wouldn't be upset with you or anything but you couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.

"S'okay baby, I got you. You wanna stop?" He cooed, petting your hair and holding you you tightly to his chest.

"No, wanna keep going." You lazily answered, feeling the way the satin strap on your shoulder naturally fell with the pull of gravity.

"Okay, I need you to relax for me, dove." His chest resonates with the vibrations of his voice, and you sense it as you plant gentle, tickling kisses on his neck where your head lay. His face carries a subtle smile, evident from them.

Slowly, he pushes forward, claiming the tight heat that has been tormenting him. Once he sees you're comfortable, he continues rutting in and out of you. The symphony of your sounds delight. He revels in your vocality during sex, it feeds his ego to know how good he's making you feel.

You throw your head back when he hits that sweet spot inside of you. You can't help but whimper at the repeated brushing against the spot, and Coryo takes this as an opportunity to capture your lips between his. You moaned into the kiss, feeling drunk on his touch. He leisurely moved his tongue from the edge of your lips, tracing a path down to your neck.

Coryo passionately fucks you, as if he's your devoted worshipper, imprinting your pleasure on his being. The rhythm he creates is almost sinful, with one hand gripping the soft flesh of your ass and the other exploring every reachable piece of your body. The intensity of the experience overwhelms you, prompting you to tightly embrace him, pulling him in as close as you can.

He presses his open mouth to your shoulder, too concentrated on chasing his high to nip or leave love bites.

You feel that finials knot in your stomach and know you're about to come undone. Your hands search desperately for something to grab on to, and you find your palms pressed against the foggy windows leaving sweaty handprints.

"C-coryo..." You choke on your words, trying to signal that you're close. You get some sort of noise acknowledging your whine, and you hope he knows why because you can't seem to formulate anything else coherent.

"I know, baby. Come for me whenever you want." He reassures and tears brim your eyes. Your mascaras running, red lipstick smudged.

Coryo skillfully adjusts, allowing his hand to slide down your stomach. Utilizing his thumb, he deftly flicks and rubs at your clit, taking advantage of the openness facilitated by the positioning of his cock. As sensations intensify, spots start to form in your vision. Each stroke pushes you closer to the edge until you cream on his cock and whimper uncontrollably.

The pleasure of clenching around his thick cock sends Coriolanus into a spiral as he can no longer control himself. Warm thick liquid gushes inside of you as Coryo grunts into your neck, trying to muffle his sounds. Your name falls out his lips like a prayer.

Too focused on his own high, Coryo doesn't notice how he's let go of you until you sloppily fall off his lap onto the seat. You looked absolutely fucked out, and the apology on the tip of his tongue died once he saw the way you looked. Hair messy, panties scrunched, dress half on, very visible hickeys, bruises forming on your hips from his hands gripping, and thick dribbles of his cum spilling out from your pussy onto your gown.

You're beyond speech, and all you can do is watch as Coryo pulls out his phone and snaps a quick picture.

He retrieves a handkerchief and delicately starts wiping you down, encouraging you to unwind and even to take a nap if you wish. You laugh softly in response. Aftercare makes him so gentle. Bending down, he hovers over you and plants sweet, affectionate kisses all over your body.

#coriolanus snow #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow x you #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus x you #coriolanus snow x y/n #coriolanus #the hunger games #hunger games #tbosbas #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #Spotify

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tkwrites · 2 months

Text

Let the Cleaners Deal With It - Quinn Hughes x Sarah (ofc)

Photo from Pinterest

Title: Let the Cleaners Deal With It

Author: Tory / @tkwrites

Relationship: Quinn Hughes x Sarah Roberts (OFC)

Warnings: Periods, Menstruation, talks of blood, and embarrassment. If I missed something, please let me know.

Summary: When Quinn wakes to Sarah frantically cleaning after unexpectedly getting her period, he insists she let the cleaners deal with it.

Word Count: 750

Comments: Thank you to the Lovely Anon who requested this. Your request came in, and my mind immediately started whirring.

I saw you like fancfic ideas. for the Quinn and Sarah series: Maybe Sarah gets her period at an inconvenient place and Quinn helps her deal with it. Or maybe she bleeds through while she’s sleeping and he’s super sweet about it. Major fluff

Let the Cleaners Deal with it

A Quinn & Sarah Snapshot

It was too early for either of them to be up. The city lights were still visible through the windows, the inky night sky spilling out behind their artificial glow. Even still, Sarah was up and rustling around. From her movement, she sounded almost frantic.

“What are you doing?” Quinn asked. His voice was groggier than he expected and he cleared his throat.

“I'm just - cleaning up.”

“What?” he asked, sitting up.

She blew a harsh breath out of her nose, “I got my period.”

With an ice cube in one hand and paper towels in the other, she was trying to work the blood out of his soft, expensive sheets.

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dim Quinn could see the small spot on the gray-blue material. Scooting closer, he reached for her hand, stopping the frenzied way she was attacking it with the ice. “You don't need to do that. The cleaners can get it out.”

She made a noise in her throat, pulled her wrist out of his grasp, and continued on. “Quinn I got blood on your sheets. It's better to get it out now while it's fresh so it won't stain,” she said, pressing the paper towel down to soak up the blood and water.

This time, he reached out and took the ice cube from her hand. He regretted it immediately. Even though it forced her to stop, he didn’t have anywhere to put it. Now it was melting, cold water trickling between his fingers

She finally looked up and met his eyes, embarrassment all over her pretty face.

He knew he was still partially asleep, but he didn’t know why she was making such a big deal of this. It’s not like she could help it. “Why are you so worried?”

“I'm twenty seven years old. I've been getting a period for thirteen fucking years. I should have a handle on this by now,” she said, arms crossing over her chest as her shoulders shrugged almost to her ears as if she were trying to hide.

Quinn rubbed his eyes, willing his mind to wake. “Didn’t you tell me last week that your IUD makes it so your cycle is hard to predict?”

“Yeah.”

“So how would you know it was coming?”

“I don't know,” she said, exasperated, throwing her hands up.

“Do you need anything? Tampons or whatever?”

“No, I had a disc in my bag.”

“Do you have cramps? Do you need me to get you some Tylenol or get you off?”

She arched an eyebrow.

“What? Isn't having an orgasm supposed to help with period cramps?”

“Yeah, but why do you know that?”

“I've had other girlfriends, Sar,” he reminded gently. “I know because they told me.”

She wrinkled her nose, not liking to think about his past girlfriends.

“So no cramps? Or yes, cramps?”

“No. I don't really get them anymore with the IUD. I'm just really fucking embarrassed,” she said, her free hand covering her eyes.

“This is just your body doing what it does, except it didn't give you any warning,” Quinn said. “I promise the cleaners can get it out. They’ve gotten all kinds of stains out of my clothes before.”

Her shoulders dropped, almost defeated.

“Come back to bed,” he said, scooting back to his side, and wiping his hand on the duvet cover.

“The sheets are all wet now,” she said, pressing the paper towels in again, attempting to soak up the moisture.

He tsked. “Guess you’ll have to sleep on top of me then,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

She laughed and threw the paper towels in the trash can.

Slipping under the covers, she didn’t get on top of him, but she did crowd into his half of the bed.

“Thank you for being so understanding about this,” she said, her voice quiet and chagrined.

“It’s not like you can help it,” he said, rolling onto his side so he could pull her against him and tuck his nose into her hair.

She tried to fall back to sleep, but it didn’t come. She couldn’t get his casual invitation to get her off out of her mind.

“Quinn,” she whispered a little later, trailing her fingers up his arm.

“Hmm?” His voice was low and sleepy.

“Does that offer to get me off still stand?”

He huffed a laugh into her hair, even as his hand inched down her stomach. “Did those cramps set in?”

“Something like that.”

Want more Quinn & Sarah? Check out the Snapshots Masterlist

To read all my fics, check out my Fanfiction Masterlist

#quinn & sarah snapshots #asks #answered #quinn hughes #quinn hughes fic #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes fanfiction #quinn hughes x oc #quinn hughes x ofc #quinn hughes oneshot #qh43 #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagine #nhl fic #hockey fic #hockey romance #hockey fanfiction #tw periods #tw blood

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the-scandalorian · 3 months

Text

like a moth to the flame, part IV

Pairing: monster!Din Djarin x Female Reader Rating: E, 18+ Word Count: 11.1k Content Warnings: dark!Din, predatory/obsessive/possessive behavior, body horror/painful physical transformations, injury/gore, blood and hunting and monstery shit, oral (m-receiving), p-in-v Note: Endlessly grateful to both @frannyzooey and @ezrasbirdie for lending me their big beautiful brains xx

DIN Din had woken, disoriented and hurting, that morning after he’d found the Armorer on Glavis.

He came-to curled in the fetal position on the hard metal floor of his tiny compartment on the humming public transport. Before he’d even opened his eyes, he knew his body felt wrong. Uncomfortable and unwieldy, heavy and strange.

When he did open his eyes to the harsh, artificial light, the first thing he noticed was the sharp clarity of his vision. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, but it felt like he was looking through one of the strongest filters of his visor. He blinked hard. No change.

He unfolded his arms and studied his hands, splaying too-long fingers, and his thoughts tangled and snagged as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

The glint of cruel silver claws.

In his periphery, he caught the movement of a dark shape over his shoulder.

He tried to scramble away from it. It followed, a shadow.

Wings.

The word felt absurd. But it was…right. Silver that matched the half-moons of those claws, a structure of bone sprouted from both of his shoulder blades, a hooked joint forming the apex of each inky black, bat-like wing. Colossal and dark.

Piece by piece, in a haze of disbelief, he discovered new parts of himself.

The sheer size of this body, the power coiled in his changed muscles.

He ran a finger along the edge of his teeth, catching the pad on an elongated canine. Blood welled.

The wound on his thigh, where he'd burned himself with the saber the night before, was largely healed. There was only a trace of it, a fading pink scar.

Din stopped there. He couldn’t bring himself to look in a mirror, to see himself like this. He wasn’t ready for it to be real, to know if his face was still his own.

Instead, he picked up his chest plate to start collecting his armor, and his claws bit gently into the perfectly smooth surface. He was stunned.

What scratches beskar?

Beskar.

Of course.

The silver of his claws, of his wing joints was beskar. Virtually indestructible.

Din sank back to the floor and closed his eyes. He sat against the cold metal wall with his clenched fists pressed against his eyelids, the tips of those talons cutting into his palms. He wanted to escape the prison of this body, of this new reality; to wake from this nightmare; to blink himself out of existence altogether.

He forced himself to slow his breathing, holding it at the top of each inhale, until some of the tension in his chest eased. He let his thoughts go, focused on the cadence of his breath. Preparing himself as he did before a fight.

A slow, creeping sense of relief spread through him gradually, growing so palpable it turned physical. Like a cool wash of water over his aching muscles, a full-body shiver racked him. The tremble and quake of his broad frame was fleeting but intense. A release. His bones shifted in a pinch of discomfort. His mind drifted.

And then, stillness.

He’d opened his eyes minutes later, and his vision was blessedly, beautifully blurred—just barely. As it always was. As it was supposed to be.

Sitting there, staring at his hands and his blunt, human nails, Din might have been able to convince himself he’d imagined all of it. A fever dream. A delusion. An exhaustion-fueled moment of insanity, his mind addled by the fight and the pain and the life-altering dismissal from his covert.

Except, etched into his chest plate…those damning marks.

A mechanical voice announced the imminent arrival of the transport, interrupting his moment of existential crisis. Tatooine. The local time and weather blared through the speaker.

Tatooine. He couldn’t go back there. Not like this.

He made a choice. He dressed and readied himself, deboarded and found his way to the baggage claim. A droid unlocked his case, and Din methodically reattached each of his weapons. He reached for the dark saber last. The metal hilt felt hot, even through the thick leather of his glove. Nothing else had—not his blaster or his charges. Just the saber, warm under his touch. Warm like something alive. Like something warm-blooded, something with a thrumming pulse. Like something pleased to be back in his grip.

Like it knew.

He clipped it to his belt and let it drop, relieved to not have it in his hand.

Din turned, looking for the closest screen of departures, and scanned the list for the least populated destination.

*** Now, months later, he wakes to a fantasy.

He hadn’t meant to sleep. He didn’t want to risk it, even in the armor—not after he felt his body start to shift under his beskar last night. He didn’t think that was possible. Then he’d sucked your taste off his fingers, and his head had snapped to the side, his spine straightening. He’d felt the pop of vertebra and the sudden tightness of the skin across his back, the warm tension in his muscles straining for the change, but he’d managed to stave it off.

Just barely.

No, he hadn’t meant to sleep last night, but he had. And he wakes now, well rested, to the feeling of your warm body curled into his side, your head nuzzled into his neck, your breathing slow and deep. Watery morning light, as light as this dark forest ever gets, is visible through the trees outside the window.

He’d tried to move away from you during the night, to give you space, sure that you’d be more comfortable without the hard edges of beskar digging into your soft body, but every time he’d started to extract himself gently, you’d grumbled and tightened your fingers wherever they happened to be—caught in the folds of his duraweave, gripped around armor, tangled with his own. The leg you had hooked over his thigh had tensed too, your foot tucking itself under his other knee. You twined yourself around him, like a tenacious little climbing vine, and refused to let go.

He likes it. You’re possessive too.

The realization hurts a soft spot under his ribs—you want what he wants. To belong to someone. To claim and be claimed. To know that closeness. Skin-to-skin, joined and sweaty, without all these fucking layers between you. That hopeless, dangerous thing he can never give you.

That thought is unbearable when you’re asleep on his chest, your hand still curled over the top of his chest plate, fingers clinging to the sharp cut of metal. When he can smell the faint tang of your blood as it pumps idly through your veins, detectable even under the layer of your delicate floral scent, even from beneath his helmet.

His mouth waters.

It’s the catalyst that finally gets him moving. He carefully but forcefully unfastens your hand, inches your leg off his, and slips out of bed. You readjust but don’t wake.

As soon as he’s standing, looking down at you, he regrets it. The space between your bodies is intolerable, and he has nothing to do but wait for you to wake. So he waits. He waits, and he seethes.

He thinks about the mistakes he’s made.

*** He’d spent yesterday angry at himself, fuming at his own idiocy. He’d ruminated on how to proceed, how to scare you off again after he’d all but courted you the previous night when he’d given you a com link. Had invited you to use it. Fucking encouraged it. He’d been drunk on you—on your presence, on your forgiveness, on your smile. On the headiness of your scent as you’d stood so close to him outside your house. And it had messed with his fucking head, made him do stupid things. Dangerous things.

He’d worked through the steps of his drills while he thought, slashing the saber through the air as he’d tried to decide what to do. How to retract his offer of the com. He didn’t think he could bring himself to be cruel to you, to reject you outright. He’d imagined your face, imagined the hurt there, and he’d just…known he couldn’t do it. He’d have to leave. He wouldn’t let himself see you again. He'd jam the frequency of the com link. A clean break.

It was the only option.

He’d decided he’d let himself change early then, before the sun had dipped below the green horizon. One last hunt before he found a way off this planet.

He’d been minutes away from letting himself shift, minutes away from heading out completely uninhibited, when he’d caught your scent. You were close. The timing of it had made him want to break something. That was exactly the problem with all of this: one misstep, one instance of bad timing…and you could end up dead.

Why hadn’t he thought about you finding the bodies? How had that not occurred to him?

He’d left a perfect trail from your house to his. His animal brain had thought protect and nothing else. He’d gotten sloppy, comfortable. Maybe some part of him had wanted you to find it, to follow.

This was how it would end, then, he’d thought as he waited for you. Not in the easy way he’d planned, not a quiet exit—a coward’s exit. He’d have to face you, to turn you away and tell you he was leaving.

Then you were in front of him, and all of that was gone—the struggle and the resolve, the determination and decency. He��d fought to get it back for a few minutes, scrabbled against his own desire. Had tried to deny himself—to deny you. It was futile.

You’d asked him if he thought you were weak, if all of this was somehow your fault. And that was it.

He’d refused to punish you for his sins.

*** And now you’re in his bed. Warm and soft under his comforter, your head pressed into his pillow. A dream. Something he could wake up to tomorrow and the next day, if he wanted. A string of perfect, untouchable days stretching before him like a beckoning temptress.

He can’t let himself think like that.

Your life, he reminds himself. Your life is what matters most. Keeping you here wouldn’t just be selfish, wouldn’t just be a temporary balm, it would be a gamble. Your life pitted against his own self-restraint. Your life pitted against the self-restraint of a monster he doesn’t trust.

If he can just get you out—out of his bed, out of his house, out of his head—he’ll be able to think straight, and then he can go.

He watches you stir, aware suddenly that a fully armored Mandalorian looming over you might not be the most comforting sight for you to wake to. But you crack open sleepy eyes before he can move, and a lazy smile spreads across your face. His heartbeat stumbles.

“Morning,” you yawn, stretching your arms over your head.

“Morning,” he replies, clipped as he tries to expedite this process.

“It’s early,” you muse, your gaze trailing to the window. “I think you should come back to bed.”

Din’s thoughts stall immediately. You look so cozy, so comfortable snuggled in his bed. In his bed.

“Please?”

Din’s helmet follows the path of your hand as it begins to wander: as it slides languidly down the column of your neck, molds over the swell of your breast, lingers along your waist. You know you’ve snared him right away. You always know.

He just stands there, silent and yielding, as you kick the blankets away and shimmy out of your clothes. He wants to tell you to stop, but his mouth isn’t responding to his brain, his jaw dropped open slightly behind the helmet as he surveys the bare lines of your body. He didn’t get to enjoy this yesterday, didn’t get to luxuriate in the view, to drink in every detail. To commit it to memory.

His visor catches where your fingers stroke the curve of your hip.

“I can’t—” he starts.

You slip your hand between your legs, run your fingers through the soft hair there.

He was going to get you out. To regroup. That was his intention.

One of your fingers slips lower, dips into the seam of your sex. His cock responds.

He barely knows his own name, let alone any sense of reason when you’re looking at him like that—touching yourself like that. Begging him to touch you. His nervous system jolts from freeze directly into overdrive, and immediately he can feel himself brushing up against some physical limit, teetering on the edge of his control.

He watches you drop your knees open, and a low, pained sound passes through the modulator when you use two fingers to part yourself, putting yourself on display for him. You roll the pad of one finger over your clit, and your head drops back onto the pillow, your eyes closing in pleasure. Need claws at the inside of him.

“Stop,” he commands, but there’s no bite in it, his mouth watering at the sight of your stroking fingers.

You smile and widen the spread of your thighs, moving your hand lower.

He tries to sound firm, but his words come out like a plea: “Don’t—”

“I wouldn’t have to touch myself if you’d do it for me.”

You keep your eyes on his visor as you press two fingers inside yourself, frictionless as they sink inside the warm clutch of your body. He’s fixated on the flex of your wrist as you fuck yourself gently—his rapt attention suddenly a shivering, living thing throbbing under his skin. When you ease them out, he can see the shine of your arousal coating your skin up to the knuckle, a clear thread strung between your fingers for a brief moment when you slowly separate them.

“Your fingers feel so much better,” you breathe.

His blood pulses loudly in his ears, a too-slow beat. He knows what you feel like, clenched around his thick fingers—how slick, how hot. He knows what you taste like, licked off his own skin. Din would like to say that some greater primal force takes over, hijacks his body, that the monster in him doesn’t give him a choice, but that would be a lie.

He decides to let go.

Without changing forms, Din silences the part of his mind that’s protesting. He lets the animal of his hindbrain take control, a predator submitting to the call of its prey drive. It feels good to give in—a rush of blissful quiet overtakes him. He looks at you, and it’s simple. He wants you.

Time slows, but his hands move quickly—going to his belt buckle. The weapon-heavy leather thuds when it hits the ground at his feet.

You watch him disarm himself, poised like a willing sacrifice on his bed with your hand caught between your open legs, a naked eagerness on your face that pleases the possessive, hungry thing in his chest. His vision is tinged red, the severed thread of his control a distant memory as he thinks of all the things he wants to do with you.

To you.

He condemned himself to this the moment he let himself touch you. There’s no going back. He’s going to taste your nectar from the source. He’s going to fuck you with his tongue and gently suckle your clit between his lips until you sob. He’s going to eat you out until you come on his face, your hands tangled in his hair.

And then he’s going to do it again.

He tries not to think about how much easier that would be with his other tongue, his tongue when he’s transformed—long and dextrous as it is. He could get so deep inside you like that. Taste you from the inside out.

Later. He appeases himself with the promise of later. The promise of tomorrow and more more more.

His gaze settles on your mouth. There’s something else he wants now.

He approaches the bed and stands at its side, waiting patiently. That desperate sense of urgency drops away, and his shoulders relax. He can decide to have all the time in the world with you if he only lets himself.

When he hunts, when Din really truly hunts these days, he finds that he likes to draw out the indulgence of it. The tease and the chase. The kick of adrenaline before the slaughter. He understands why a predator plays with its prey before it makes the kill.

Because it can.

Because it feels good.

You’re expecting him to join you on the bed. He can see it in your expectant gaze.

“You want it so bad?” he asks, dipping his helmet down. “Come here.”

A wicked look flashes across your face at the change in his voice, at the invitation. There’s a beat of anticipation as you decide to play along, and then you crawl to the edge of the bed on your hands and knees. He watches, an imperious tilt to his helmet.

You perch on the edge, looking up. Waiting.

“Go ahead,” he nods. “Take it out.”

Your hands move to the button on his pants, but you don’t pop it open right away. You let your hand mold to the hard bulge there, feeling the heft of him.

He tilts his helmet the other direction, impatient, and you go for the zipper.

Before you’ve even pulled his cock out, before you’ve even touched him, Din thinks the sensation of your hot breath on the expanse of skin exposed by his open fly might be the most erotic thing he’s ever experienced.

He rips his gloves off and locks a hand around the nape of your neck.

He thinks for a fleeting moment how obvious it must be—his obsession with your mouth. The edge of mania he’s shoved toward when you let your tongue drag up his hip bone. That he’d slit his wrists at the altar of your perfect lips if you asked.

Your eyes drag upward slowly as you lick across his skin, gaze catching on the armored lines of his body before it meets his visor. You peer up at him as you inch the fabric of his pants down just far enough. And then your eyes flick down to watch a pearly bead of precum slip down the length of his shaft at your closeness.

“You want it?” he rasps. “Open your mouth.”

He grunts in satisfaction when your lips part immediately. Again when your hand curls around the base of him and your tongue darts out to circle his head, a touch so infuriatingly delicate that it makes him want to hold you down and fuck your throat raw.

He doesn’t, of course. He lets you set the pace even though your teasing lick across the underside of his cock and another over his slit feel as much like torture as they do like pleasure.

Finally, finally, you take him fully into the heat of your mouth. You start up a steady rhythm, and he’s more than satisfied to let you take the reins.

You’re less satisfied with that though—you settle a hand over his on your neck and press down, your eyes skirting upward as you nod subtly, your other hand urging his hips forward, urging him to fuck your mouth.

Use me.

He wishes you could see his face in this moment, what you do to him. Din’s eyelashes flutter shut at the perfection of your request. But immediately, he snaps them open again, needing to see.

He thrusts forward, and you whine in approval, your fingers tightening on his hip—taking him deep again and again, until he watches a line of saliva slide down your chin. Until your lashes grow wet, eyes watering at the effort of taking him over and over.

It’s too much. It’s too good.

The tight, hot constriction of your throat as you swallow around the head of him, the hard suck of your cheeks hollowing out around his shaft. His helmet rocks back, and a growl reverberates through his chest. But he’s not about to let himself come without knowing what it feels like to fuck you.

His hand drops away from the back of your neck; he forces his hips to still. “Enough,” he grits.

When you surge forward again, taking him deep, he closes a hand gently around your throat and eases you backward, off him.

“I said stop.” He thinks the words would be menacing if the fractured restraint in his voice weren’t so apparent. If you couldn’t see the steady leak of precum from his cock, the drizzle of opaque liquid on his dark pants. He’s teetering right on the painful edge of orgasm, and you know it.

“Need to fuck you,” he says, his hand still settled over your throat.

“Then fuck me,” you reply, your voice hoarse as you shift backward on the bed.

“You want my fingers first?” he asks, his hand drifting down the inside of your thigh. “You want to cum on my hand again?”

“No,” you say, catching his wrist and pulling him onto the bed, over you.

“No?” he says. “You want it to hurt?”

“Yes.”

His fingers tighten on your thigh. Too hard. “Turn around.”

You flip over and settle on your knees in front of him, and Din can see how much you enjoyed sucking his cock in the glossy spread of your cunt.

He catches a drop of your arousal with two caressing fingers. “You want to be fucked hard? Is that what you want, you greedy little thing?”

You press your hips back, rubbing yourself into the cup of his hand. And for a moment, his mind buzzes with blankness—with the thought that he could be tasting you instead of just touching you. He satisfies himself for now by lining up his cock with the soft heat of your pussy, by pressing his sensitive head against your arousal-slick flesh.

But when you whine and start to shift backward into him, he waits. Savors. “You need my cock that bad, huh?”

“Please, I need it. I want it—”

It’s that thing he fantasizes about—the daydream he strokes himself to in the shower after he hunts, when he’s sticky with blood and the leash on his desire has long been snapped. Your whined plea for him, your need so stark and bright that he couldn’t ever possibly deny you. Your need for him so heightened it threatens to match his for you.

“Take it then,” he pants. “Take what you asked for.”

He sinks his cock into the welcoming heat of your body, pressing slowly against the tight resistance of little preparation—hears the soft, drawn-out oh of your pleasure—and he knows there’s no coming back from this.

*** So he doesn’t fight it. He keeps you.

Days turn into a week. Into two. You bring life and sound to this desolate place—the creak of your steps on the hardwood floor, the sound of your humming, the quiet clanks of your movements around the kitchen in the early morning light. The quiet, steady tick of your heartbeat. All those pretty little noises you make when he has you in his bed—the moans and the whimpers and the pleas. His pillow smells like mellow spring flowers, and there are rose colored skirts and silky blue pajamas in his dresser.

He likes it.

He likes the noise and the tightness of the space and the company.

When he heads outside to chop wood for the fireplace, you follow to watch him roll up the duraweave sleeves of his flight suit and swing the ax—again and again until a thick log splits down the middle with a crack—and the attention pleases him.

The weeks stack up, and there is a bar of soap speckled with lavender flowers in his shower. There are sweet strawberry preserves lined up in his cupboard, a colorful wool throw blanket tossed over the back of the couch that you insist is a necessity. For sitting in front of the fire, of course. You poke fun at his ascetic choices, at the lack of coziness in his house, but you don’t seem mad at all to be the one to provide it.

He thinks you know instinctively that home isn’t a place or a concept he’s familiar with. He thinks you love being the one to show him what it could mean.

He can tell you don’t mind that you have to face opposite directions when you eat. He thinks you like the sound of his voice even more when it’s not passed through the modulator. You draw out every meal with questions. He draws them out with his answers.

He tells you about the little green bounty that changed his life, the soup his mother made for him when he was sick, being adopted by the Mandalorians, the fact that he used to love swimming as a child. That sometimes he thinks about how good it would feel to strip off his armor and swim now. You tell him about your dreams, your childhood, your plans, everything.

When he slips his helmet on again and you turn to face him, he can see that the gulf between what he does tell you and the whole truth is obvious, though.

There is a question—are many questions—swimming in your eyes. The intention to get answers too. He’s not sure which exactly questions they are: Why the armor? The helmet? The Creed? Why this place? Where is he going next? When? What happened to him? What is he? Why the isolation and the fear and the hesitation and mile-high walls and why why why?

What the fuck happened to the wall of the shower?

Valid questions, every one. Many are things he asks himself regularly. All are questions he doesn’t know how to answer without shattering this perfect moment, without ruining the lovely domesticity you’re cultivating together. So when he sees that look and your lips part, Din speaks before you can. He’s not ready, yet, to go there. He reaches for your hand or strokes a gloved finger over your cheek and deflects.

Just a little longer, he thinks, please. And you’re not fooled—he knows that. You understand the request and allow it for now, and he’ll take what he can.

“You want to learn how to shoot?” he asks instead.

Your eyes light up.

He helps you pick a blaster from his collection—“How many blasters does one man need, Mando?”—that’s well suited to you, that fits your grip. He sets up targets outside, scattered on trees at varying distances, and stands close behind you, a solid wall against your back. He adjusts your stance and the placement of your hands, letting his touch linger on your waist in a way that makes your heart rate readout on his helmet spike.

“Are you going to let me focus or not?” you quip, peering at him over your shoulder. “I thought you were trying to teach me something here.”

He raises innocent hands and steps back. “I didn’t realize I was distracting you.”

You smile slyly at him. “Sure.”

He lets himself enjoy it, the ease between you, the way you can read him even through the armor. Standing a short distance behind you, he talks you through the process: how to aim and shoot, how to breathe.

Hand-to-hand, next, he thinks to himself as he watches you practice. Then blades. Tracking.

He’ll teach you anything and everything that will protect you.

For when he’s no longer here to do it for you, he doesn’t let himself think.

He watches you practice each day, watches you focus on the target, your lip caught between your teeth in concentration, until you nail the bullseye. You run to the tree where the target is hanging—a hole singed through the middle—letting out a triumphant cry, and he follows.

“Look,” you grin, so proud it makes his heart trip. You point at the perfectly placed burn mark.

“Good,” he praises. “Do it again.”

You roll your eyes, but you do. You return dutifully to the line he’d drawn in the pine needle strewn ground and shoot until you get the hang of it, until a miss is rare. And then he fucks you up against that tree, your dress bunched up around your hips, the blaster abandoned somewhere by your feet.

You leave for a day, maybe two, here and there to check on things at home, that little fawn you love. As soon as you’re gone, he spends a couple hours getting as far in the opposite direction as he can, changing, hunting whatever he can find in the shortest time, and then after he’s washed every trace of blood away and donned his armor, he waits for you to come back. He tells himself it’s a perfectly workable arrangement.

It’s fine. It’s safe. Safe enough.

With his attention elsewhere, it takes him a few weeks to notice that those prints, the ones he’d been tracking so obsessively, have started to show up closer to his house, to yours. They mark a quiet, slow encroachment into his territory—inching just barely past that boundary he’d been so careful to hold until recently. Their bravery is returning, their local numbers rebounding, because he hasn’t been pushing them back by culling their pack with regularity.

He makes a mental note to keep a closer eye on things, reassured by the fact that there are miles of buffer between their progress and you. And, more importantly, that more often than not, he’s by your side these days—like the times you ask him to come with you when you leave. He’s not going to say no to you.

Every night, he gets to undress you and pull you into his bed. To touch you and fuck you and make you come. He gets to learn what makes you cry, what makes you scream, what makes you beg.

All in the armor, still. In the beskar prison that keeps you safe from him. That line he manages, somehow, to maintain. The monster in him hasn’t wrested it from him yet, and he clings to that last safety net, that final border between risky and reckless.

He wonders every day when you’ll hit your threshold. When it’ll all become too much—the secrets and the questions and the armor. Every day you don’t ask or push or leave, he breathes a sigh of relief, knowing full well it just means the next day is more likely. That worry is so dwarfed by the pleasure of having you that he barely notices it, though.

It helps, too, that he’s well rested for the first time in a long time.

Din doesn’t dream when you’re in his bed, isn’t haunted by the nightmares. He slips into sleep, and it doesn’t fight him like it usually does. He sleeps soundly with your warm, soft form tucked against his side, your face pressed into his cowl. Your presence, your touch, your scent—they soothe him.

He’s always known—even before he admitted it to himself—that there would be no halfway with this. No measured approach to having you. And he was right, of course. Here you are, living with him… and happy, he thinks. He doesn’t like to think about what would happen if that changed, if you left. What he'd do. What he'd have to stop himself from doing.

Din loves hard, with teeth, and all of his are sunk deep in you. If he really thinks about it, though, the opposite is true. Yours, sunk deep in him. You have a bone-deep hold on him, a fatal bite that severed something vital upon first contact. If you decided to let go, he’d bleed out.

And he feels lighter than he has in months. Maybe years.

It scares him so much he doesn’t want to think about it.

So he doesn’t.

YOU

It’s not intentional. You don’t sit down together and make a decision, but you don’t want to leave and he doesn’t want you to go. So you just…don’t.

Slowly, with time, your most essential things migrate from your place to his. You bring a bag of clothes here and your favorite blanket another time. Your shampoo comes along with other bathroom essentials, and some kitchen supplies find their way into his drawers and cabinets.

Within a few weeks, you all but live with him.

You know instinctively that the opposite arrangement—staying together at your house—isn’t possible. Whether or not it’s actually necessary, Mando takes his self-imposed exile seriously. It’s another of the many things you don’t push him on.

Yet.

You visit home on a regular basis, of course, to keep an eye on things. Town, too, for supplies. You make the long walk alone—or sometimes together when you can convince him to put off whatever mysterious, imperative thing he has to do when you’re gone, and it feels shorter then. He’s not so hard to persuade.

You check on Luna, who is happy and well fed in the warmth of the barn, kept company by the chickens and the handful of braying goats.

You find that she’s terrified of other people—or at least of Mando. You’ve never brought anyone else around so it’s hard to know if it’s something about him specifically. Maybe it’s the armor or his size. The first time she sees him, she goes rigid, the picture of freeze, and it takes twenty minutes to calm her down after you nudge Mando back out of the barn and close the door behind him. Even after several visits, she remains wary of him, barely willing to tolerate his presence.

A detail, like so many others, you file away for later.

It's one of many that you don't mention—anything that might prompt impossible conversations. Instead of souring the moment, instead of asking the hundreds of questions that are piling up in your head, you tacitly agree to avoid those things, skirting around any topics that elicit unanswerable questions or suggest an expiration date. Again and again. For weeks.

Then months.

It’s easy enough to rationalize. Might as well make the short time you have together pain free. Only good.

And, fuck, is it good.

You wake in his bed each morning and fall back into it each night. You wait for your lust for him to abate, for the initial need to be sated. Two months in, though, it hasn’t so much as begun to subside. If anything, it’s grown. It’s fed, you think, by the fact that you still don’t get all of him—what you do get just makes you want more.

You get his hands, his cock, the expanse of his lower abdomen and upper thighs when he unbuckles his belt and fucks you. The sound of his unfiltered voice when you eat together. The sight of his thick, veined forearms when he chops wood. Snatches of golden skin dusted in dark hair.

Never his mouth, his eyes, his chest, the rest of him—his face. His face, that you think you might already love without having ever seen.

The why of it all—of the pace, of his nature—doesn’t feel so urgent any more, now that you’ve had the opportunity to soak him in, in more than just brief interactions. You can sense the why on him when you start to appreciate the weight of his past and his creed. There’s a layer of pain and loss calcified under his armor: you can all but feel it when your fingers work past an edge of beskar. He starts to tell you about it, too; he starts to untangle the complicated knot that is Mando. It’s usually during a meal when you’re faced away from each other and you get to hear his real voice that he starts to open up. You untease his past question by question, answer by answer.

When you do almost slip, almost ask a question that is too present, he helps you put it back. Offers a distraction that you gladly accept. An unspoken agreement of not yet.

He just needs time. You just need more time together.

You try not to think about the fact that you might not have time. No, you package that thought up with that list of forbidden questions, the ones that would threaten to crack the ice you’re standing on together, and tuck them all away.

You take the things that he does offer, accept his baffling limits. You satisfy yourself with the reminder of progress. If you think back to a few months ago and draw a line from those cordial interactions at the Saturday market to the current reality of living with him—to watching him welcome all the ways you insinuate yourself into his space, to witnessing the way he seems to soften for you—you can’t help but feel hopeful about what the next few months will hold.

*** Winter comes early this year, sneaking in on quiet feet. It descends around you slowly—in brisk mornings and frozen dew drops strung along twigs like pearls—and then it comes all at once in a sudden blanket of white. You wake up to a thick layer of snow on the ground, the tree limbs and roof frosted and glittering.

He teaches you how to protect yourself—how to shoot and fight and track. You think there’s a part of him that’s certain if he only teaches you enough, you’ll always be safe. You can feel it in his palpable sense of relief when you master a new skill. As if he has a mental list of things to impart on you before he runs out of time.

When you’re consistently nailing the center of his targets again and again, Mando outfits you with a blaster of your own, tells you to keep it on you at all times—that it’s yours. That day, he drops to one knee in front of you.

“Lean,” he says, patting his pauldron.

You listen without really thinking about it, bracing a hand on his shoulder.

“Up,” he says, gesturing to your foot and offering his armored thigh.

You comply, and he slips two loops of leather up your leg, the fabric of your skirt catching on his forearm as he inches them up, until the tips of his fingers brush your inner thigh. A holster. A holster he made for you.

He tightens the straps and then slips the small silver blaster into the leather sheath.

You graduate to hand-to-hand combat next—well, not so much graduate as add it to the schedule. He’s visibly pleased when he discovers that you already have some skills with a knife, when you know how to disarm him of his vibroblade in certain holds, how to make an attacker bleed freely with one well-placed slash. How to sever a tendon or an artery. But he finds plenty of ways to stump you, ways to overpower you, and you practice those until you know how to get out of them too.

A few weeks in, you’re more than satisfied with your skill level, ready to move on. Mando, on the other hand, is ever insistent on more. He holds you with your back against his chest, caught and pinned, a purring vibroblade at your throat.

You’re exhausted, sweaty and sore from breaking out of his grasp again and again. You’re supposed to be doing it once more right now. But you’re limp in his hold.

“Go on,” he grunts.

“I’m actually fine with this,” you decide, letting your weight go even more leaden in his arms.

He scoffs low in his throat. “Is that right.”

“That’s right. I surrender. Do with me what you will.” You drop your head back, looking up at his impassive visor.

He considers. “Anything?”

The word slithers up your spine. “Anything,” you repeat, letting your eyes go heavy-lidded.

He closes the blade and tosses it away, releasing his hold on you. When you lurch forward at the unexpected freedom, your knees buckling slightly, he catches your waist to steady you.

You spin to face him, pointing a finger at the diamond-like center of his chestplate, staying far enough away that he can’t encircle you in his arms again. “Technically that counts as me getting out of that hold.”

He plants a hand on his hip. “Disagree.”

“Emotional manipulation is a weapon. You’re just mad I’m better at it than you are. Maybe I should give you lessons. You know what, yeah, I think it’s only fair that we also start practicing scenarios where I’m the one in control.”

He cocks his head suggestively. “Are we still talking about training?”

“Yes.”

He stares at you silently, adjusting his weight from one foot to the other. It speaks volumes.

You scoff. “Are you implying that I could never have the upper hand in a fight? That there’s no chance in the galaxy of that ever happening?”

A damning beat of silence and then: “No.”

“You are!”

He gestures at his chest, shrugs. “Beskar.”

You roll your eyes. “I’d just need to catch you at the right moment—sleeping or showering—and take you by surprise. Or have the right weapon. Like poison. I know plenty of plants that would kill you—plenty of plants I could find out here or maybe…yeah…those.”

You gesture at the row of detonators lined up on the side of his belt as he reattaches it around his middle. He always takes it off before you practice hand-to-hand, along with the vambrace that apparently emits flame.

“Yeah, they’d be effective,” he admits, clipping the buckle together. “The problem is you don’t have any.”

“You don’t like me enough to share your detonators with me?”

“To kill me? No.”

“How about this one?” you ask, reaching toward the mysterious hilt that’s always clipped next to them.

He steps out of reach before you can touch it.

“What is it? Can I see it?”

“I don’t use it,” he says. You know him well enough now to read the lie in his level voice.

“Then why do you always carry it?”

“It’s…a long story.”

“I’ve got time,” you press, curious.

He looks away. “I can’t.”

And you realize it isn’t just stubbornness or stoicism. It’s pain. A bruise he isn’t ready to address, and you’re prodding it.

You wonder how many secrets can simmer between you before they boil over.

“Alright, come on,” you say, grabbing his hand and turning for the house. “I’m starving.”

*** It’s deep winter when Mando starts to take you into the woods, away from his house, to teach you the basics of tracking. Each time, when the forest lightens around you and you can hear the titter of birds overhead, he tells you to pick the tracks of a deer or a fox to follow. It’s easier now that the snow is thick on the ground, a continuous blanket of white.

He instructs you, as he always does, to disregard the larger prints—the clawed ones—that you come upon occasionally. Too often for comfort.

“I’ll take care of those,” he says, unconcerned.

Each time, you think back to that bloody trail and know he’s more than capable. And then you wonder when he’s away from you long enough to actually do that.

Never, it turns out.

You’re on the tail of a stag when he holds out an arm unexpectedly, stopping you in your tracks.

“What is it?”

He turns his head slowly, scanning the quiet forest. Listening, waiting. You can’t hear a thing—not a rustle of leaves or whisper of wind. The stag isn’t close.

“They’re coming.”

“The sta—?”

Mando drops his arm and grabs your hand, hauling you back in the direction of home. You follow on instinct when he breaks into a jog with you in tow, heavy boots crunching through the snow. He twitches as he moves; he groans and presses his shoulders back, rolling his neck, his hand too tight around yours.

He’s in pain.

“Mando—” you say, trying to slow him down, to understand.

“Run,” he interrupts, pushing you ahead of him, urging you toward the house. “I can’t stop it."

You halt in front of him, a hand raised to his chest plate. “I can’t— I won’t—”

He growls when you hesitate, the sound not entirely human. His hands are shaking.

“I can help—” you start, not even entirely sure what you’re offering.

“I won’t risk you.”

“But—”

A gloved hand settles over your mouth, the other gripped tightly around your bicep. “We don’t have time for this. I won’t let you—I can’t—just go home and lock the door. And promise me you’ll stay there until I come back.”

He drops his hand and starts stripping off his gloves and vambraces. “What are you—?” The pieces click together belatedly in your head. Those colossal prints, the clawed ones.

They’re coming.

“Promise me,” he says, forcing them into your hands. “Take this too.”

He reaches for his helmet and rips it off his head, pushing it into your arms. Your jaw drops open in surprise. You don’t even have time—or the free hands—to cover your eyes or the sense to shut them tight.

“It’s okay,” he says, responding to the fear in your eyes. “I wanted to—been wanting to.”

You only have a moment to take him in. He’s just as handsome as you imagined—maybe, impossibly, more. His dark hair is wavy and tousled, falling across his forehead. His eyes are brown and wild with fear, his sharp jaw peppered with gray-flecked stubble. His perfect lips are set in a half-smile. He looks a little bashful for a moment, a little boyish as you study him.

He holds your face between his warm hands. “Promise you won’t leave the house until I come back.”

You nod.

“Say it,” he prompts, his dark eyes serious. He knows you didn’t really mean it the first time.

“I won’t leave the house until you come back,” you repeat, a little dazed.

You’re looking into his eyes. Your brain is struggling to process it.

There's fear there that doesn't just belong to the threat to your safety. It's more: the fear of being seen. Wholly.

You’re waiting for more words to come to you—something that will express the feeling that’s blooming in your chest without relying on words it’s too early to say.

“Be careful.” It’s the best you can manage.

He presses his lips to yours in a quick kiss. It’s too fast, not enough. If your arms weren’t full of beskar, you’d grab him to keep him close, to kiss him deeper. Instead, he’s pulling back and turning you on the spot with an iron grip.

“Go.”

He urges you forward with a gentle push, and you break into a jog, glancing over your shoulder as often as possible without running face-first into a tree or slipping in the powdery snow underfoot. He’s stripping off his chest plate, his pauldrons, his thigh guards. Leaving them haphazardly on the forest floor.

The last time you look back, his back is to you, and several pairs of yellow eyes are emerging in the dark spaces between the trees.

One, two, four—too many to count.

You’re tempted to stop. To turn back. To bring him the rest of his beskar. It feels so wrong to leave him out here, alone and unarmored. He’s stripping down from metal to man, and it feels unbearably vulnerable. Maybe you could help—

But just as you’re thinking that, Mando turns his head and bellows, “Go!”

You’re far from him—too far to truly make out the details—but you swear, even across the vast distance, that the whites of his eyes look black.

*** You drop the pile of beskar onto the kitchen table, unholster your blaster, and drag a chair to the window. You study the intricate line work of ice on the frosted pane, tracing cold veins with the pad of your finger. You fidget and shift, but you don’t dare leave your spot.

You stare at the place between the trees where you emerged, straining to hear any sound, knuckles white where they’re wrapped around the edge of your seat.

It’s silent.

Minutes pass like molasses—they stretch and sprawl, leisurely and unhurried, while you wait.

You steal glances at the clock on the wall. You swear it’s been hours since you slid the dead bolt shut behind you, but the clock tells you you’ve been sitting here for eight minutes.

Ten.

Twelve.

Seventeen.

He’s out there, outnumbered and alone.

Fuck it.

You get to your feet.

You wrench open the front door, but before you can break into a run, you catch a subtle movement between the trees. The blaster slips out of your hand. He’s staggering back to you—stripped and injured. His flight suit is unzipped to his waist, the sleeves tied around his hips. One hand is gripping his ribs, the other trapping pieces of his armor against his side. He’s barefoot and limping through the snow.

You run to him.

His hair is sticking to his sweaty forehead, and there’s blood on his face—so much blood—coating his lips, smeared across one flushed cheek. Lines running down his neck. It covers his hands, forearms. It’s splattered across his muscled chest. When his lips part in a pained grimace, you can see the inside of his mouth is bloody too, red lining his white teeth.

You don’t have time to process it, to think about what it means because he’s hurt.

He must see the terror on your face when you register the state of him because he shakes his head and says, “Not mine. Just this,” jerking his chin down to gesture at his side.

A row of deep lacerations is seeping blood down his ribs, over his tense fingers and down his stomach, where it’s soaking into the dark fabric bunched at his hips. You shudder at the sight of it—even through his spread fingers, you can see that his flesh is torn open in a way that makes your stomach pitch.

Behind him, there’s a sporadic trail between the trees, red dripped on virgin snow.

You want to hold him, to pull him into your arms, and, most of all, to fix him and put him back together. You start by taking the pile of armor from him and slipping under the arm of his uninjured side, pulling it over your shoulders to support his weight. He accepts the help wordlessly, leaning on you as you stumble forward together.

“They’re gone,” he pants. “Dead. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” you scoff. “Are you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

He grunts.

You limp the rest of the distance to the house together and pull open the front door, kicking it shut behind you as you help him inside. He reaches behind you to lock it, his shoulders dropping in relief when it clicks.

You drop his beskar on the floor as gently as you can while you’re half holding him up. It clatters.

“We need to get these closed up,” you say, gesturing toward a kitchen chair. “You need bacta. Sit down.”

When he doesn’t move to sit, you look up at his face, and he’s staring at you with an intensity—a soft, quiet intensity of creased brows and bright brown eyes—that takes your breath away.

“I’m fine,” he protests, gently gripping your shoulders and pushing you back in the direction of the bed instead. He fumbles with the hem of your shirt, trembling fingers slipping under the fabric to caress your skin. “I’ll heal. Just let me touch you.”

His hands are hot on your waist.

"You’re not okay,” you protest, trying and failing to redirect him. “You won’t heal if you bleed out.”

“I just need to hold you.” His words are starting to slur, running together. The blood loss is tipping him into delirium.

“After—just let me—”

He ignores you and curls himself around you, crushing you against his body, a heavy hand holding your head to his chest, the other arm locking yours to your sides.

“Mando, please—I really need to stop the bleeding—”

“Din,” he says, nestling his face against your neck sweetly. His forehead is sweaty and feverish. He brushes gentle lips over your fluttering pulse. “My name is Din.”

You’re speechless.

“I want you to call me that,” he says. “Please.” There’s a heartbreaking vulnerability behind his words, like he’s worried you won’t accept the offering of something so precious.

“Of course. Of course, I will.” His grip slackens, and you wrap your arms around his middle reflexively. The heat of his throbbing wound and the hot slip of blood against your forearm make you recoil.

“Shit—sorry—”

But Din doesn’t react to the pain.

“Din—hey—”

You try to pull back, to extricate yourself from his hold and get a better look at him, but the arms draped over your shoulders go leaden, and he sways on his feet, forcing you backward a couple faltering steps. The backs of your calves hit the bed.

“Din—” You try to steady him, but he’s getting heavier by the second, his weight shifting unexpectedly as he tries to keep his balance, half-conscious and fading.

Your knees threaten to buckle when he grunts and goes completely boneless, slumping against you.

“Fuck—”

You’re just barely able to angle your body so that you can gently—and awkwardly—use his momentum to guide him face-first onto the bed. It’s a miracle you both don’t end up in a crumpled pile on the floor. You hoist his legs up too. It takes all your strength to haul his dead weight over to flip him onto his back so you can access the slashes across his ribs.

Your heart jumps into your throat when you see how rapidly a crimson stain is spreading on the comforter underneath him. You run for the med kit, dumping it on the bed beside his prone form and digging out all the necessities.

He doesn’t flinch when you clean, close, and dress the wounds. Not even when you prick him with a bacta shot. You work as quickly and carefully as you can, keeping tabs on his breathing all the while. Any time you have a free hand, you rest it on his chest, soothed by the shallow but steady rise and fall.

The whole time, you think about all those questions, those details, those secrets. You turn them over again and again in your head in a feverish loop—all those things you’ve been stacking on top of one another all this time, a teetering pile of essential pieces of him, ready to topple with a gentle nudge. Kept at bay by distractions and diversions and half-truths. All the ways you’ve both been keeping your relationship in stasis to postpone…what? Loss? Something that’s inevitable, something no one can ever truly prevent. It feels undeniable when your hands are covered in his blood. When you almost lost him anyway.

It seems obvious now. Obvious that in the end, it will be more painful to have only stayed in this place with him than to have at least tried to give yourself wholly to whatever this is.

Before you secure the final bandage over the wounds, you check your work once, twice—terrified the simple expansion of his ribcage as he breathes will force them open again. You press edges of the bandage down and watch closely, dreading the red seep of blood on clean white. It doesn’t come. You breathe a sigh of relief.

You clean him up with a moist towel, wiping the blood from his skin, his face, his rumpled hair.

If he hadn’t chosen to take his helmet off before any of this, you’d feel like you were invading his privacy by being able to see so much of him. It still feels that way, just a little, as you admire the taut lines of his biceps, the broad spread of his shoulders, and thick muscles of his pectorals. As you gently swipe over the soft expanse of his middle, feel the hard abdominals underneath. As you study the slope of his nose and the grays threaded through his stubble, his long eyelashes fanned over his cheeks. The soft pink of his lips.

You rinse that stained-red towel until the water runs clear, until there’s no trace of blood left on him.

The bloodied sheets and blanket and pillow underneath him will have to wait; it doesn’t even occur to you to be bothered by them when you climb in next to him, when you sweep his damp hair back off his forehead and press your lips to his warm skin and settle against his non-injured side.

You fall asleep like that, your head on his sternum, the subtle rise and fall sweeter than a lullaby.

*** He’s healed by the morning.

He’s healed.

When you wake after a fitful sleep, you scramble out of bed to pull back his bandages and find that the wounds slashed across his ribs look like they’ve had several weeks to mend, the skin knitted back together seamlessly. You run your fingers gingerly over the tender flesh in wonder, in relief.

Another one of his secrets. Something else to ask.

He rouses at your touch, starting as he blinks open bleary eyes. He must be immediately aware of the absence of his helmet because his whole body tenses as he recoils, his eyes panicked as he tries to decide to attack or to flee, jerking away from your hand on his arm.

“It’s okay,” you say, holding up your hands in placation. “It’s me, Din. It’s just me. You’re safe—you’re home.”

He calms somewhat as he meets your gaze, as he registers your face and his surroundings, settling his head back against the pillow. The tension in his body remains.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, resisting the urge to reach up and brush his tousled hair off his forehead. Touch, you think, is his to initiate in this moment.

“Fine,” he croaks. He’s visibly uncomfortable like this, still not used to being so unguarded around someone else. Holding eye contact for longer than a moment seems almost unbearable for him, his eyes shifting around the room so they don’t have to stay settled on yours.

You hand him a glass of water, and he sits up against the headboard to drink it. He winces a little as he maneuvers, his jaw ticking. He’s sore.

“You’re the worst patient, you know,” you gripe, trying to lighten the mood, to give him something to focus on.

He scoffs, lifting an eyebrow over the rim of the glass.

You give him an unimpressed glare. “I couldn’t take care of you until you fainted from blood loss.”

He has the audacity to shrug a little.

You blow out an exasperated breath, distracted, maybe, by the movement of his throat as he swallows. By every detail of his face that you can’t seem to memorize quickly enough—a privilege you’re more than willing to relinquish if it means easing the tension in his shoulders, the wrinkle of concern etched between his brows.

When he sets the glass down on the bedside table, you retrieve his helmet and offer it to him wordlessly, a show of nonjudgmental understanding, a willingness to back-pedal if that’s what he needs right now. His eyes soften when he takes it.

The urge to say something before he disappears behind beskar jumps up your throat.

“I was scared, so scared,” you admit quietly. “Din, I thought—I thought you…”

He sets his helmet beside him on the bed and jerks his chin. “Come here.”

You make to settle next to him, but he pulls you onto his lap instead, guiding you until you’re straddling his thighs.

You try to wriggle away. “I’m going to hurt you like this—just let me—”

“Shhh,” he breathes, hands locking down on your hips. “I’m fine, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” He hesitates for the briefest moment before he leans forward and presses his mouth to yours.

His lips are soft, tentative. His first, you realize. Of course.

Your mind snags on the way he tends to be in bed—directive, commanding, sure—and holds the two up side by side. This hesitation, the halting press of his lips, has something in your chest going soft. Between your legs going molten.

You cup his jaw and lick into his mouth when his lips part—an it’s okay, I want you to take—and his breath goes ragged against yours. He leans into you, an arm slung low around your back to keep you close as he starts to tip you backward.

“Don’t move,” you say, attempting to ease him back gently.

He ignores the command, responding to your open mouth with the slip of his tongue.

“Or I’ll stop,” you threaten.

He sits back, chastened, a subtle pout to his lower lip. It disappears when you lean back in.

He makes a low noise of protest when you don’t meet his lips, but it turns into something pleased when you move your attention to his neck. You lick over his thrumming pulse, across the faint saltiness of his flushed skin. Your hands roam the planes of his chest, over his pounding heart, and down the swells of his muscled arms—greedy for so much warm skin, for so much of him you’ve never seen or touched or tasted.

Even with the helmet set beside you, the fear that you’ll have to go back—to concede gained ground—that he’ll revert back to full armor again, rankles at the back of your mind. You dig your nails lightly into his shoulders, and he growls.

You can tell it’s taking all his restraint not to move, to keep totally still aside from his wandering hands. You know he’s hard underneath you, that he’s aching to wrest control from your hands, to put you on your back and fuck you like this, with no layers between you. And he knows you won’t let him when he’s still healing.

You try not to let it escalate, to keep things from getting out of hand. But then his mouth is on yours again, your lip caught gently between his teeth, his hand locked possessively around the nape of your neck, and you can’t help the quiet moan or the subtle grind of your hips in his lap.

Din jerks back, hands braced on your shoulders to keep distance between your bodies, his head tipped back against the headboard and eyes closed as his panted breath gradually slows.

And you know it’s not just the injury. He isn’t humoring you or in too much pain. He’s fighting it—the transformation, the change that keeps him in his beskar. What he wouldn't let you see in the forest.

“It doesn’t bother me,” you say—quiet, serious.

He pauses, understanding despite the sharp turn. The energy in the room shifts as he waits for you to continue.

“Your…you—?” you stumble over the words, struggling to find the right ones. It comes out badly. “What you…are.”

His eyes are downcast, fixed on the silver shine of his helmet.

He doesn’t ask how. Of course you know—it’s an open secret between you, has been for months.

“I want to see,” you press. An honest plea. “To know. Just let it happen.”

A tight, subtle shake of his head. No.

“Please, Din,” you say, laying a hand on his chest. “Show me.”

He looks away, his eyes full of some unnameable emotion, something soft and fragile, a sharp edge that might be anger. He slips away so easily, even without the helmet.

“Please,” you beg, framing his face with your hands to guide his gaze gently back to yours.

He still won’t meet your eyes.

Suddenly, you know this was a mistake. That this is the thing that’s going to break what’s between you. He’s given you his face, his name—they should be enough. Yet, here you are, pushing him for more. There’s no coming back from it, no swallowing the words, though. You find you don’t want to anymore, even when you can feel him slipping out of your hands.

“It’s not safe,” he says.

“How? It’s you.”

“No,” he says, “it’s not.”

“I don’t understand, Din,” you say, a hint of desperation laced between your words. “And I need to. I need to understand. We can’t avoid it any more—look at what happened. I just—I can’t do this when I know I don’t have all of you. I can’t do this anymore. All these walls, all these secrets between us.”

His head snaps to you, a flicker of panic kindling in his eyes. But he doesn’t deny it, the skirting and avoidance, the game you’ve both been so willing to play. His eyes settle on your joined hands.

“I want all of you. I need all of you. Can you understand that?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice low, and the panic in his eyes is swallowed by a deep, hollow want—a yawning blackness that expands and disappears so quickly you think you must have imagined it. “I do understand that.”

“Then let me see you.”

His brown eyes flick upward to meet yours, and he nods.

#my writing #monster!din #dark!din

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