#LITERALLY WANNA BOUNCE AROUND RIGHT NOW BUT I DONT WANNA BREAK THIS THING

[palettepainter]

NEW MUPPET MERCH JUST ARRIVIED AND IM LOOSING MY MIND OVER IT!! IM CLEANING IT UP RIGHT NOW SO WILL POST PICTURES LATER!

[no-droids]

Another Rough Day

gif credit @chrishemsworht

Part Twenty of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 13.7K

Warnings: Angst, violence, canon-typical blood and gore, language, hurt/comfort

A/N: i wanna thank yall for sticking around during my hermit era, in the time ive been gone i am now officially a junior at a university majoring in aerospace and it’s a fuckin nightmare and i hate everything and god help us all literally kill me and I will be posting INCREDIBLY slowly because of that (I’m talkin weeks or months in between updates yall, im sorry I can’t dedicate more time to this but I am going to finish this fic within the next handful of chapters idk maybe 5 or 6 so you shouldn’t have to wait too too long).  As a heads up there will be hard angst as we enter the final arc, there will be hurt and it’ll get dark but everything is gonna turn out alright so thanks for sticking with me and continuing to stick with me. im sorry if you dont like it or your expectations were subverted or if this isn’t what you’d hoped it would be after following and waiting around for so long but this was planned a long time ago and it took me a good year or two to recognize that I started writing this fic for me and now I’m going to end it writing for me and I hope yall can respect that

ALSO I asked my best BEST FRIEND in the entire world @cptnbvcks to collaborate with me for this after we both took a very long break from creating and she drew some GORGEOUS artwork for this chapter so it will be posted at the end, everyone please go follow her and say hello

ps brittany girl you’re a fuckin menace i had to use my own two ears and listen to ethan literally say the words “the mandalorian cums, hard” what the fuck was that im actually suing

anyways chapter below the cut lets get serious yall

---

You take two of them down before they even realize they’re being attacked.

Your aim is as swift and steady as if Din were behind your shoulder right now, calmly pointing out which stationary tree to hit next in rapid succession.  You’re positioned perfectly at the bottom of the ramp to take full advantage of the ambush, the only thing running through your mind is strategy and the constant calculating of angles and ricochets.  The other three troopers are trapped inside the open Crest and you’re right next to a large boulder that you can step behind for cover, but it proves unnecessary as the rumors were apparently true.

They’re… awful.

Not a single blaster is even fired in your direction—you think you see maybe one panicked red shot bounce around in the hull, but that’s it.  The troopers fumble for their guns and trip over each other at the unexpected attack—a few scream like children through the modulators, but you’re temporarily deaf to anything besides the screech of your weapon hitting its target and the crumpling of armored bodies.

Later on, if someone were to ask you to describe exactly what happened—who died first, who ran for cover, who cried out for help—you don’t think you’d be able to.  You don’t even really feel like a person right now.  The entire thing is cold, robotic survival instinct, pure ruthlessness rising in your soul for the first time in your life.  It feels sick.  Wrong in your bones.  Born from preemptive defense in fear of your life, but that doesn’t mean you stop.  Not until all of them stop moving.

You empty the entire fucking canister for a handful of stormtroopers, firing plasma and char marks across every square inch of the pristine hull even after the last one drops.  Your heart is beating too fast, your finger keeps pulling the trigger multiple times even after the blaster clicks uselessly, completely empty and beeping a warning that it must’ve begun emitting ages ago.  Being out of ammo scares you—you suddenly feel vulnerable, even though the very far away logical part of your mind reminds you that they have to all be dead at this point and no physical threat was ever able to graze you.

Regardless, you quickly spin behind the boulder and grab another canister from your belt, giving it a spare check for leaks while the empty one slides and drops to the rocky ground.  It’s the first time you’ve ever had to reload this weapon instead of just pointing and shooting, but the mechanics are relatively simple and your brain makes up for your lack of coherent thoughts with lightning fast perception.  What's difficult is that your hands are starting to shake now that you’re not aiming, you’re not breathing correctly because you’re not really breathing at all.  You can’t tell the difference between the adrenaline-fueled dissociative silence that muffles everything around you or if it really is just that quiet now.  No more clatter of armor, no modulated voices or terrified screams.  No blasters, no footsteps along the ramp, no birds singing.

You quickly pause to lift your elbow and check the enormous eyes blinking up at you, tiny claws still holding tight to the fabric of your tunic and completely unharmed, and then you force yourself to move.  The blaster is held out in front of you while you walk forward and your finger rests on the trigger, begging to be pulled again.  It’s suspenseful and terrifying in a different way than before—now it’s less about psyching yourself up for confrontation and more about the fact that any sudden movement could mean your very swift end.

Silence.  Silence.  You’re numb and raw at the same time, walking up the ramp as your eyes fly everywhere, not even registering the blood or gore, just searching for movement.  You don’t know if you feel like a predator or prey, you’re that much more brutal and inhuman because of how fucking terrified you are.  You count four stormtroopers in the hull laying crumpled and still on the metal floor, but the one in the far corner only has blood on his shoulder.  You quickly swing the blaster around to remedy that, but then—

“P-Please don’t kill me!”

His words remind you of something.  Reality, maybe.  A world outside yourself and the kid’s survival, the living beings behind the bloody armor your enemies wear.

It’s a miracle your finger stays hovering over the trigger, and you watch him throw the blaster at your feet with a clang and scramble to show you his empty hands.  “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me—I’m not loyal to the Empire, I don’t want to be here, please, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die—”

Behind the mask, your expression furrows.  Stormtroopers are loyal to the bitter end, what is he saying?  They embrace their expendiality, it’s the only thing that makes them any sort of a real threat.  Kuiil told you horror stories about them during your childhood, the cloning facilities and the propaganda they’re force fed since infancy.  It’s nearly impossible to find one who hasn’t been raised from birth to serve the Empire, no matter how crumbled and trace its remaining authority may be.

No, this is a trap, it has to be.  Your expression twists with dread after hearing him speak, readjusting your aim with the blaster and preparing yourself for the years of nightmares that’ll follow—but then he cries out, “Wait!” and then removes his helmet with trembling hands.

You pause, staring down at him in shock.

It’s him, you recognize him immediately.  It’s the same face from a hologram puck you bore into your memory, spent multiple days staring at so you’d be able to spot him under any disguise or circumstances.  Oshua Ryler.  Your quarry, the fifth puck, the one Din was out Maker knows where searching for before this entire mess happened.  A stormtrooper?  His puck said nothing about the Empire, this doesn’t make any sense.  What is he doing here?  Stormtroopers don’t have pucks, they don’t have bounties or relatives or loved ones searching for them.  They’re brainwashed, replaceable, faceless soldiers in suits of armor and they don’t even have names.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begs again, staring at you with wide eyes even as he cowers.  “I have a family, I-I just want to go home, please—”

“Shut up.”  You can’t think straight with him crying like that and you’re wasting so much time just standing here trying to process when your brain had to literally shut itself down to even do the things you’ve already done.  You have to kill him and escape, you have to—you can’t trust this complication, not with the tiny claws currently digging into your back and reminding you of your purpose, but it was so much easier when he had on a helmet.  You hate looking at his face.  It’s going to haunt your dreams now, just like the man you stabbed on Corellia.

“Please don’t kill me—please don’t kill me,” he screws his eyes up and breathes over and over instead, and your stomach wrenches with disgust.  His posture and expression are so fucking pitiful, you can barely keep your eyes on him through the overwhelming nausea and aversion that climbs up your throat.  He’s with the Empire, and they’re looking for the baby.  You know what needs to be done.  Pull the trigger, just one small movement from you and it’ll be all over.  It would be the easiest thing in the world, it would be so easy.

But then instead, you ask, “Why are you a stormtrooper?”

“I’m n-not—I hate the Empire—”

“The Empire is ashes.”  You don’t know if you’re yelling or whispering with how much blood is roaring through your ears.  “They hold no power anymore.  Why are you with them?”

“Because the one thing they have left is money!”  The quarry shrills the words at you, ghostly pale to the point of turning green.  “Th-They buy troopers now—they opened up a whole new market for the smugglers, there’s a base nearby that’s used for training and…”  He stares wide eyed at you and gulps.  “C-Conditioning.”

Your brain is already going a trillion lightyears an hour and it doesn’t have the capacity to empathize or understand anything beyond the child’s survival and the relevant details right now.  “Were they expecting the baby?”

“W-What?”  He squeaks up at you.

“Was the bounty put out on you a trap set by the Empire?”  You ask him, lifting your free arm just enough to flash him the tiny child clinging to your side.  “He said they’re coming after the baby, so tell me if this was planned from the beginning.”

“Who is ‘he’?”  The stormtrooper asks, furrowing his eyebrows and looking around.  “What are you talki—”

“Tell me if the bounty on you was a trap to take this baby!”  You roar, your blaster shaking as you aim it down at him.  Your mind is acutely focused on the tiny claws hanging onto your tunic, the continued safety of the kid and the life or death situation facing him that you were given absolutely no information about.  “Now—”

“If it was I didn’t know!”  He quickly cries out, pleading with you and clamping his eyes shut in terror under the barrel sight.  “I don’t know anything about a b-baby, or a bounty!  They just put blasters in our hands and told us to search for a ship and to bring back anyone we find alive, I swear!”

You’re silent for a moment, biting your lip under the mask and caught halfway between discerning and stalling.  You could still kill him.  You should still kill him, time is ticking down and more troopers could be heading this way any second.

Shit.  “Who put the bounty out on you?”  You ask sharply.  It might not be a completely fair question, but he can’t exactly blame you for not feeling completely fair right now.

“I—I don’t know,” he gasps, clutching his bleeding shoulder.  “Could’ve been anyone—my mother, Cyra, o-or my dad, Obediah, or Thia, or Benja, or S—”

“Thia,” you interrupt his rambling, catching the slurred word and repeating it back to him.

“Yes!”  Oshua jerks his head up, tears and hope immediately filling his eyes at the sound of her name, “Yes, Thiadura Celi Ryler, that’s my sister!”

Maker, if he’s lying, then he’s fucking brilliant at it.  You look towards the cockpit of the ship, biting your lip under the mask.  Get to Nevarro, tell Karga and he’ll… something.  Din was cut off before he finished.  Help?  Know what to do?  You’re lost, but you have a clear directive and the precious seconds are sliding by.  The controls are right up there, two steps to the ladder and less than a minute until you’re rising into the atmosphere.

But then you think back to the terror in Din’s voice.  The blistering panic that made him speak faster and with more urgency than you’ve ever heard from him.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.

You look back at the quarry.  “How many of you are there?”

“At the base?  Around three hundred,” he immediately spills.  “Half of us are in the hole right now getting brainwashed, they do it in shifts, but they can be mobilized in a few hours.  There were a lot of bodies outside when we were ordered to split off, maybe a third of our squadron, but the rest were still shooting at whatever was—”

“So around a hundred left,”  You finish breathlessly, almost wanting him to speak faster and cut to the chase so you can calculate quicker.  “How many were dispatched on the search?”

“Uh, there were eight groups of five sent in each major direction,” he informs you, still trembling on the ground.  “Told us not to come back until we covered the entire sector.”

Of which, four you’ve already taken care of.  In other circumstances, you’d be nauseated at the thought, but right now, it’s just another number to subtract, just more panicked math in Din’s frightening absence.  That leaves at least sixty troopers left wherever the base is, minimum, and likely a couple more hours before they’ve combed the sector.  If this wasn’t a preconceived trap purposefully set for the kid, then that means reinforcements haven’t arrived yet but likely will soon.  And if this is a base meant for training and conditioning, then that also means there’s a chance not all of them will be loyal yet.

You make the decision immediately.

“Okay,” you announce, clicking the blaster’s safety switch and holstering it, sounding lightyears more certain than you feel.  “Then you’re going to help me carry out a rescue mission, and I’ll take you back to your sister.”

“You…”  He looks uncertain, blinking at your blaster and slowly lowering his hands.  “You want to rescue the men?”

Ideally?  Sure.  Realistically?  You don’t say anything in response.  Instead, you kick his regulation firearm at your feet further away from the quarry just in case your judgment is flawed, and then turn around and grab one of the bodies behind you.

Your adrenaline is still blaring so fast that you only just barely note the severity of what you’ve just done and what you’re continuing to do.  The corpses aren’t real to you right now, they’re inanimate things that you need out of your ship before you can close the doors to it.  They are, however, heavy as fuck, but the only other adult here has a wound in his arm from the gun on your hip.  Regardless, you have experience with lifting dead weight without a big, strong, capable man to do it for you.

“Help me out here, kid,” you mutter over your shoulder, and in response, you feel his claws dig in and climb up just a little bit until he can peek out in front of you.  Thankfully, the burden is suddenly lifted and you can quickly slide the dead troopers down the ramp with ease.  It takes hardly any time at all—you just yank and haul and release and all four of them tumble the rest of the way all by themselves.

When you stand back up, Oshua hasn’t moved and he’s looking at you with a pale, queasy expression.  Glancing down, you see that your white robe is now stained with streaks and patches of rusty blood.  Instead of swallowing back bile at the sight and bolting to the shower to scrub off every last remaining trace, you breeze past it, noting nothing more than a change of color.  Dirtying your white, pristine clothing with the consequences of protecting this baby—you’d rather have blood-soaked fabric with an unharmed kid clinging to you than any other combination of those things.

“Can you make it up to the cockpit?”  You ask the quarry, kicking his rifle off the ship before closing the ramp and then gesturing up the ladder.  Your voice is calm and steady but your hands are beginning to shake again.  “I need as much information as possible about the base.”  You know that’s where Din is, judging from the wall of blaster screeches that drowned him out through the comm.  Logically, you know you could be headed right into a trap, and every instinct inside you wants to find safety, but… you just cannot imagine flying the ship away from this planet without Din onboard.  It isn’t fucking happening, you’ve made your choice.

Without waiting for a response, you climb the ladder and plop down in the pilot’s seat of the Crest.  While Oshua finds some way to clamber up the steps behind you in bulky stormtrooper armor with one good arm, you hold the kid closer on your lap and begin flight checking.  Din will be fucking furious, but the scolding you’ll be sure to get is the least of your worries right now.  Following his instructions and going back to Nevarro is just making shit infinitely more dangerous for him, turning what could be a potential rescue mission into an undeniable suicide mission.  Even if Karga somehow decides to send a few guild members along to infiltrate the base, it’ll be a war you want to avoid.

Besides.  What did you always tell him about running away from him, even when he instructs you to?

It’s just… not really your thing.

---

They’re everywhere.

They crawl like flies out of the base, and for every single body that falls, three more spill from the open doors.  Rapid fire plasma beams launch from the end of Din’s blaster, melting white armor with every twitch of his gloved finger.  Their aim is terrible, as is to be expected, but the sheer number of them more than makes up for it, as is by design.

Din’s heart pounds with exertion, his breath comes in ragged huffs through the modulator as his helmet identifies and isolates which body is closest to him, which body he needs to bring down next.  His blaster is so hot it nearly burns his hand, even through the thick gloves he wears.  When he runs out of ammo, he holsters the pistol and swings his rifle from around his shoulder, spinning to catch a handful of troopers behind him in the obliterating blast.

He’s not thinking much.  He can’t think, even though your safety and that of his son is currently dangling by a thread.  If he focuses on that, he’ll be dead before he can even picture your faces.  He just reacts, he maims and kills without a single thought in his mind.  Blood splatters, screams and sirens blare as he becomes surrounded by more and more troopers.  Din can hear the sound of plasma colliding and ricocheting off his armor; every single one of them is a potential injury he could currently have but might not even be able to feel right now.

His helmet starts beeping rapidly and he turns just enough to see, highlighted in bright red on the screen, two enormous artillery turrets slowly rising up out of the roof of the imperial base.  He feels a fierce flash of anger burn in his chest, it’s like a lightning strike to his veins.

Din needs to go.

And yet… if he was another man.  If he wasn’t a father, or a husband, if he had no family and no attachments like the creed declared he should, he would go.  With just a twitch of his fingers, he could be launching into the sky and retreating as far away from this battlefield as he could reasonably get.  He’s never been the type to run from a threat, but this isn’t just a threat.  Dozens of troopers are gaining on him, they’re trampling their own dead to get within range.  Plasma pings off his shoulder, another one hits his back as they flank from behind.  He can feel the heat through the sizzling beskar, he can see them surrounding him on all sides, and the propulsion trigger for his jetpack is right there under his wrist.

Din holds his ground and continues firing, he plants his feet firmly to the dirt with only one thought in his mind.

Run, sweet girl.  Run.

---

You type in commands to scan for Din’s signal, quickly locating it through the Crest’s computer onboard.  Not far from here, three minutes or less.  The ship rumbles to life beneath you, slowly lifting off the rocky ground and rotating in place as it hovers.  It’s not on autopilot but you feel like you are, you can barely feel your hands as they move the yoke forward and the Crest takes off in the direction of Din’s blinking frequency.

“Tell me about defenses,” you instruct Oshua, restlessly bouncing your leg while the baby coos.

“Two plasma turrets on top of the base,” the quarry quickly answers.  “There’s usually guards stationed around the perimeter, but everyone who’s capable will be outside right now.”

Your mouth twists downwards under the mask.  Blasters don’t scare you much from this high up, but Din’s armor doesn’t cover every inch of his body, he’s not completely invincible.  Doubt churns in your stomach, but you have to stay focused on one task at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed.  The turrets, then.  “Are they automatic?”

“Manual,” he corrects with a shake of his head.

“Radar?”

“Old.  Only engages above fifty meters.”

You eye your altitude and dip the Crest considerably, beginning to weave through the rocky canyons and dodging crumbling cliffs while you travel.  “What about ships?”

“None,” Oshua says, “except for a passenger shuttle used for transport.  TIEs are flown in the Vesta sector, this base is remote and used for basic training only.”

“Anything else?”  You ask, stomach twisting with the knowledge that barely four questions is all you’ve got.  You’re planning to drop into an imperial base to save the man you love and you can’t think of a single other question?  

The quarry shrugs, and your heart slams, does somersaults in your chest at the mere notion that you could fucking die here.  Today, in two minutes or less, you could die here.  The child in your lap looking over the ship’s front panel with a quiet determination in his eyes could die here.  Din could already be dead—that signal broadcasts his location to this computer regardless of whether he’s still breathing or not.  He could already be gone and you’d be flying the baby right into a trap without knowing any differently.

Whelp, you think while taking a deep breath, some strangely calm existential acceptance beginning to flood your soul.  If he isn’t dead, he will be soon if you don’t make it to him on time.

You immediately lift your wrist and speak into the communicator.  “Mando?”  You have no idea if he can hear you, but you need to try anyway.  Your voice is still firm, there’s a strength to it you don’t feel in your chest, but it certainly sounds convincing.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Try to figure something else out.”

That’s it.  That’s it, improvise until you don’t have to.  Even if you’re lacking confidence, you can at least scrounge up some conviction.  Your arms gain feeling again while you veer the Crest through the stony terrain, the familiar reverberations under your feet begin to fill your body with a powerful sense of purpose.  Your breaths begin to come steady, every falling rock you see through the transparisteel feels like it drops in slow motion, allowing you to evade them easily.  It would normally be stupidly dangerous to fly this low with so many unexpected obstacles and hazards narrowly missing the ship, but considering what you’re flying into, a few boulders seems comical.

“Where’s your helmet?”  Oshua asks out of nowhere, and for a second, you don’t think you heard him correctly.

But then it strikes you all at once what he’s attempting to imply, and the sheer lunacy of the thought is enough to make you laugh while you clutch the controls.  “I’m not a Mandalorian.”

“You wear the armor of one,” he points out… rather fairly, you have to admit.  “You cover your face like one.  You have a blaster that fires Philithiorium, a rare and expensive gas native to Mandalore’s stratosphere, and you’re a bounty hunter—”

“I’m not a Mandalorian.”  Your words are short and cutting, you have a daunting task to focus on and don’t feel like having small talk right now.  “I’m not a bounty hunter, either.”

But then again, Karga made you a member of the Guild, didn’t he?  He handed you Oshua’s puck and said this one is for you to find, and you are technically part of a Mandalorian clan.  All of this seems like it happened without your knowledge.  You may be marrying a Mandalorian, you may wear his armor and mother his child and shoot a blaster with his signet branded into it, but war isn’t in your blood.  This robe was a costume when you first made it, this armor was a relic that was restored as a hobby.  In a sense, it still feels that way.  The mask covering your face lended itself to a temporary surge of bravery earlier, but beyond that, the only thing that’s keeping you moving forward now is your family.  The man you love that may or may not be alive right now, the baby holding tight to your leg while the ship sways and weaves through the stony landscape.

Your eyes quickly flick down to the child in your lap, both of his three fingered hands clutching onto the stained fabric of your knee without moving a single inch.  He’d know, you tell yourself.  If his father is gone, he’d already know somehow.  Din is still alive, and he’s counting on you.

---

There’s too many for Din to handle.

They swarmed him, overpowered his endless artillery with massive numbers and there’s nothing he can do anymore.  The backs of his knees are kicked from behind and he slams down to the ground with a clatter, his sizzling hot blasters are ripped from him, and Din folds his hands calmly behind his back even as one of the stormtroopers barks out, “Binders,” to another one, who disappears quickly in response.  In the meantime, a few of them apparently decide to just attempt holding his arms in place, and their measly combined grip is almost enough to make him roll his eyes under the helmet.  These imperial soldiers are even more pitiful than they usually are, but his silent resolve to stall to ensure your escape is enough to keep him stationary and compliant for the time being.

Eventually, a few voices call out from beyond the crowd and there’s some movement from the back.  Dozens of troopers with their blasters all pointed at him begin to shuffle to make way, careful to keep their barrels aimed at him while a path slowly forms.  The crowd of white parts and a stormtrooper with a singular red pauldron on his right shoulder saunters confidently towards Din as he kneels on the ground.

An officer, he assumes.  Conveniently missing from the firefight, the scanner inside his helmet would’ve caught the change in color and Din would’ve made sure to kill him first.

“Well now, what do we have here?”  Comes his thin metallic voice through the tinny filter.  The officer studies him curiously for a few moments, before slowly looking down by his feet, reaching out one cheap, plastic covered foot to gently nudge the body of a dead trooper on the ground with a sigh.  “What a shame.”

Coward, he thinks, his lip curling with disgust under the helmet.

“This is an imperial training base,” he turns his attention back to Din to inform him when he doesn’t immediately respond, rather stupidly he might add.  “How were you able to find us?”

Silence.  The grip on hands held behind his back is even looser now.  He just tilts his chin up slightly in defiance, the scanner inside his helmet locating each weapon strapped to the man’s body and highlighting it red.  Small text boxes blink into existence under each one with a manufacturer and classification—a BlasTech E-11 rifle, a Merr-Sonn thermal detonator, a Kolvo vibroblade—and Din is severely unimpressed with the quality.  The detonator is the only weapon that even catches his eye, and that’s only because the chamber inside that houses the explosive baradium has a release mechanism that’s completely dead.  Useless, then.  Good to know.

After a long moment of quiet tension where Din refuses to speak and the officer continues to confidently scrutinize him, in some strange sort of silent battle of egos that only one seems to have a genuine interest in, another stormtrooper makes his way to the front, shoving past his fellow soldiers to address the superior in charge.

“Commander, we’ve sent out an alert for an intruder,” he tells him, slightly out of breath from running through the crowd in the lightweight armor.  Din wants to roll his eyes, but what he says next makes him snap to immediate attention.  “The fleet informed us that Moff Gideon is currently on route.”

Gideon.  The last time someone spoke that name, it was a quarry on Coruscant and you just barely managed to stop Din from suffocating the bastard for even saying it aloud before freezing him in carbonite.  It would’ve meant half the return on a hunt that lasted nearly a month but he saw red and his hand was crushing his windpipe before he realized what happened.  But he’s dead, Din thinks with a clenched jaw and fists tightening behind his back, he watched that TIE fighter explode and slam into the ground, crushing the man inside it.  The wreck was unsurvivable, he can’t be alive.

“For what?  This Mandalorian?”  The trooper in charge scoffs in response, and Din remains completely mute.

“Yes, sir,” the other one confirms.  “Orders were to capture him, alive.”

“Hm.”  The officer turns his attention back to him, less analyzing and more musing while he tilts his head.  “I see,” he eventually says, and he sounds like he’s grinning, before strolling slightly closer as Din stays completely still on his knees.  “He must want the beskar.  I’m sure it’s worth more than this entire battalion combined.”

All of a sudden, a gloved hand carelessly catches the rim of his helmet and tugs, and Din’s movement is explosive.  He launches off the ground, arms easily slipping from the pathetic grip they were being held in and his fist colliding with the side of the officer’s flimsy white helmet, the plastic making a deafening crack against his face.

Multiple hands immediately rush forward to grab him and yank him back down again while the commanding trooper stumbles backwards in shock, and Din amicably drops to his knees and folds his hands behind his back once more like nothing happened at all.

“Binders!”  A trooper behind him roars loudly once more, and a few men surrounding him begin trotting away this time.

The officer in red stands a few feet away from him now, grabbing his helmet and twisting it back to its proper position on his head where it was skewed.  There’s a shattered hole near his jaw where the material splintered and busted like the cheap piece of banthashit it is, and while he might normally feel pleased with himself for being able to see his skin peeking through, it just fills him with more righteous fury.  It’s such a punchable jaw.

After a few awkward moments of silence, the other one clears his throat and continues.  “He… has inquired about the location and status of a child that should be accompanying him.”

Din inhales deeply through his nose and grinds his teeth.  He wants to snap their necks one by one for even just mentioning his son, but there are just too many, more than even his whistling birds can neutralize.  Still, he gave you as much of a head start as physically possible.  You should be rising into the atmosphere right now, making the jump into hyperspace towards safety.  Karga will know what to do—he’ll protect his family, separate you and the boy so the threat is evenly dispersed instead of collected all in one place, and arm dozens of trained hunters to keep watch over you both individually.  It’s the best Din can do, and it’s the only thing keeping his knees planted on the ground and his body completely motionless while they continue speaking.

“We are combing the sector for a ship with as many men as we can afford to lose,” the trooper in red says, but his voice filter is shattered and now sounds like a puny little droid with a broken voice box, “but our numbers are unimpressive.  Assistance may be required.”

It’s too late, Din thinks, mouth twitching under the beskar with a satisfied smirk.  They’re wasting their time, looking for a ghost.  You’re both long gone by now.  They’ve got no idea you even exist—

“He also spoke of a girl.”

And then he feels his heart stop in his chest.  Every single cell in his body turns to fire, it’s a fucking miracle he doesn’t move a muscle in response.  His sweet girl, the one so far removed from the nightmare of the Empire that she made best friends with the orphans of it.  How the fuck did he know?  He shouldn’t even be breathing, let alone gathering information about you, how did he know?

But then Din thinks back, remembering your makeshift bed on the floor, your panicked eyes and heaving chest as the quarry taunted him with a sick little smile.  Who’s this, Mando?  She’s just darling, isn’t she?  Does Gideon know your crew has a lovely new addition?

“A girl?”

The trooper nods.  “Moff Gideon insisted that if the Mandalorian did not have a child with him, then a girl would likely be protecting him instead.”

He’s going to kill them, Din decides.  Every single one of these imperial pigs, every single soldier standing right now is a dead fucking man.  The blood pumping through his body suddenly turns to acid, deadly black hate poisoning his soul.  His heartbeat morphs into a war drum, the armor strapped to his limbs is the barrel of a gun.  He’s going to fucking kill them and leave an imperial base full of bodies to greet his old nemesis upon his return, and he’s going to enjoy every single second of it.

Except, then—

“Mando?”  The sweetest voice in existence suddenly crackles through the earpiece under his helmet.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Figure something else out.”

And, as Din kneels there in surrender, surrounded by a crowd of enemies he thought he destroyed long ago, all the anger—all the fury and defiance and murder surging through his veins—suddenly morphs to fear.

The emotion is so foreign and old to him, it feels like a face he barely recognizes and a name he can’t remember.  He’s panicked before.  He’s been in situations where a threat has made him blind with rage, he knows what it’s like to look death straight in the eyes and say that he’s busy and to come back another time.  This is different.  This is ice cold that freezes over beskar.

He can’t speak out loud to warn you—he can’t move his hands to press the button on the back of his helmet and allow him to talk without detection.  There’s plasma turrets on the roof of the base, he can see them right now.  The helmet’s scanners say they’re manned and engaged, and though he is outside and this is how you retrieved him before whenever he needed a quick escape, he has fifty fucking imperial blasters trained on him and you know absolutely nothing about this threat.  You’re flying right into a war zone and if either you or his son dies, he won’t ever be able to forgive himself.

Behind the helmet, his eyes fly to each and every trooper, wondering which blaster will be the one to do it.  Which weapon is going to be the one he can’t block in time when you descend, the one that’ll kill him right in front of you.  Which turret will be the one to obliterate the Crest with you and his son inside of it.

“Maker, where are those fucking binders—” he hears someone behind him snarl, but the white noise of pure terror roaring through his ears drowns them out.  His chest starts heaving against his will, sheer panic begins to blur his vision.  For the first time in his life, his armor feels too heavy, his lungs feel like one of these boulders are sitting on them instead of beskar.

All too soon, his helmet starts making a familiar sound that signals quietly in his ear, alerting him of an incoming ship, and the only thing he can physically do is count down the seconds to prepare himself for what is to come.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

Like lightning, Din breaks the grip of multiple troopers and surges up, tackling the officer in red to the ground.  There’s a clatter as they both slam into the rocky floor, but in the ensuing scuffle, he easily snatches the thermal detonator from his side holster and holds it up for everyone to see, before pressing the red button on the front and hearing it begin to beep rapidly.

---

You’re right on time.

The Crest rises up through the rocky cliffs surrounding the base and you spot the turrets you were warned about.  Weapons controls are already engaged and you’re too low to be detected by radar—you fire once, twice, and blast both of them to smithereens from behind before they can even rotate around to target you.

Alarms start wailing but the guns are destroyed.  It’s not comforting, though; blasters won’t touch you up here, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fire at Din on the ground.  Your eyes dart across the sea of white, looking for a flash of silver anywhere, and then you spot him instantly in the chaos.

For some reason, the troopers in his vicinity all seem to be bolting away from him.  Their rifles are down, clutched in their hands while they nearly fall over each other to run away as fast as possible, and your heart soars when you spot his jetpack firing up.  Din launches into the sky while another trooper is revealed underneath him, seeming to juggle something in his hands and then throw it into the crowd of retreating soldiers, but the sight of the man you love rising into the air while a flurry of blaster shots from the far edges of the imperial structure follow him gives you the confidence to immediately turn the guns down towards the horde of troopers.

“Which ones are in charge?”  You ask Oshua breathlessly, who leans forward and points out the transparisteel.

“Red pauldrons—” he barely has time to say it before you aim and fire at one of the troopers wearing red that was closest to Din, the plasma beam launching from the Crest so powerful and devastating that it outright obliterates the surface he’s laying on.  Pieces of shattered armor fly and a smoking crater of rubble is all that’s left behind, but your mind is whirling and you’re already onto someone else wearing red at the edges of the complex, and then two more near the doors, and then another—

To their credit, you think the sixty or so soldiers in training seem to figure out that you’re not aiming into the enormous collection of them.  If you were, the damage would be catastrophic and spraying everywhere, but you’re precise and meticulous with your shots, and the only ones who are loyal enough to the cause to hold still and raise their blasters at the incoming threat tend to be the ones you need to mow down anyways.  The rest of them scatter in all directions, scrambling over each other to escape and then disappearing into the distant boulders surrounding the base—but you notice that not a single one of them runs back inside the safety of its open doors.

The hull dips with the weight of Din dropping in, and relief floods your soul even as you continue raining hell down on the superiors in charge.  Any flash of color you see is a target, your eyes lose focus of everything, your vision blurs and turns monochrome as you just search for red.

“Lift up!”  You hear Din’s voice roar from the hull.  You can hear his rifle unloading through the open door.  “Now!  We have to go now!”

You press the button to shut the hull door with Din inside and punch it, rising so fast that the shove of gravity makes it difficult to keep your head up.  Through the sudden surge of downward force, you just barely manage to raise your incredibly heavy arm to push the button that pressurizes the Crest and ignites the launch boosters, preparing the vessel for space travel.  Outside the transparisteel, the gray sky begins darkening as the atmosphere eventually disappears.  The ship’s engines roar, burning so much fuel at once that you’re actually accelerating through the climb, you’re boosting through the gradual ease of gravity as the planet’s curvature and glow becomes softer and softer below you.

As soon as the blackness of space begins to fill the windows, the slight subsiding of force allows you to plug in the coordinates for Nevarro with less difficulty, but you’re still moving, still rising, still escaping.  You can’t find it within yourself to slow down, but then something catches your attention.

Claws suddenly dig sharp into your thigh, sharp enough to sting and cause you to wince, and you look down to see that the kid has gone incredibly tense.  Deadly tense.  Your heart is still pounding even though you’re away from danger, you’ve got Din in the hull, everyone is safe, and yet—

It flickers into existence all at once.  One second it’s just space, just the endless depths of nothingness spread out for light years in front of you, and within the blink of an eye it’s suddenly there.

A star destroyer.

Your body freezes in horrified awe, having never seen a ship so fucking big in your entire life.  It looks like a massive satellite, the size of an enormous asteroid instantly appearing in your vision and dwarfing the vastness of space around it.  All the stars you used to dream about are suddenly blotted out within a fraction of a second, terror so immense seizes your soul that you stop thinking.  You stop calculating, you stop being yourself for a split second that lasts an entire lifetime.

Before you can move a single muscle, the computer beeps quickly and lurches the Crest into hyperspace.

---

The stars streak across the transparisteel like so many times before.  Utter silence nearly deafens you with how abrupt it is after so much noise, but the peace it used to bring does nothing to quell your fear.  Everything is the same as it always was, same bursts of light as you hurdle faster than it towards Nevarro, same quiet, same rumbling hum of the ship.  But now, everything has changed.

You hear the quarry next to you suddenly inhale and exhale loudly, and it shocks you a little bit, reminds you that there’s a person next to you and another is on your lap.  Other people exist outside of the vision of death that just flickered out of existence just as quickly as it appeared.  They’re breathing, Oshua is shakily unbuckling his seatbelt, life is continuing on in the quiet cockpit but you can’t seem to move like he is.  You can’t seem to breathe like he is.  It’s only when the baby slowly maneuvers himself around on your thigh and blinks up at you, placing a tiny hand on your stomach that you finally feel air enter your lungs.

After a moment, you reach down and click open your seatbelt with trembling fingers, scooping the kid up in your arms and slowly attempting to stand.  Everything feels wobbly and dreamlike, you have to brace yourself on the headrest to prevent yourself from falling back into the chair again.

“That was…” Ryler mutters, his voice sounding foggy and distant, “uh.  A close one.”

You look over at him, recognizing that he’s speaking but not quite able to understand the words right now.  Red catches in your vision, and you blink down at the way he’s clutching his left shoulder, the smear of blood darkening the white armor he’s wearing.  You blink a few more times at the sight of it, and though it feels like you normally would be sickened at the wound, somehow shocked out of your state of shock, it does nothing to you.  When you look back up at his face, his expression seems strangely grateful, even when it’s screwed up in what you know must be excruciating pain.    You did that, a quiet voice whispers in your mind, even though the rest of it seems incredibly blank.

Instead of responding, you stumble a few steps over to the ladder, spinning around and hesitating for a moment.  You’re severely lacking in coherent thought, but one thing seems to break through.  You’re not sure if you have enough coordination to do this safely right now.  However, when there’s movement in your peripheral and you look to see Oshua gently offering his right arm to you, seeming to understand you’d like to use both hands for this, you snap back to your senses just the slightest bit and hug the baby tighter to your chest.  Carefully, you begin making the slow climb down the ladder with the kid, still trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline.  Your limbs feel extra heavy, but eventually the floor meets your feet.

Din is standing there when you slowly turn around, armor gleaming and still as a statue, but he has his back to you.  His helmet is tilted down at the ground, and when you follow his gaze, you’re met with the sight of the bloodstains of dragged bodies that leave dark red streaks all the way up the ramp.

You feel something this time.  It’s… cold.  A burning, searing cold that creeps into your skin.  Like your heart decides to pump nitrogen through your chest instead of warm blood.  You did that.

There’s a sudden urge inside of you to speak, to address him and inform him of your presence, tell him everything is okay, everything worked out, but you can’t find it in yourself to say a single word.  You can’t find a single word to say.  The kid twists as best he can in your clutch, his ears drag against your chest to greet his father, but for some reason, there’s still a strange sense of fear in your bones.  It’s enough to wake you up slightly, it’s enough to tell you it’s not over yet.  There’s a terror in your heart that hasn’t left since he first called over the comm and begged you to run, a crippling dread that you thought climaxed after seeing that star destroyer appear, but it’s somehow only increased after laying eyes on him like this.

You watch as his helmet turns, slowly meeting the pauldron on his shoulder, and for some reason, you feel yourself harden.  Your feet brace against the metal floor like this is another threat you have to face, you let its unyielding metallic strength transfer up through the souls of your boots to your heart in your chest.

But the second you hear cheap white armor clatter as the quarry steps down the ladder behind you, Din bursts into movement.  He suddenly spins and storms up to you in one single step while catching your holstered blaster on your hip.  It’s out and aimed in the blink of an eye, and it’s a miracle you remember how to speak before he remembers how to kill.

“Mando—” you warn, just in time for the quarry to land on the floor of the hull and turn around to reveal his face.

Din holds there for a second, his helmet locked on Oshua’s features.  His gloved fingers twitch wildly on the trigger of your gun held over your shoulder, like he has to remind himself multiple times not to.  You hear Oshua’s armor clack while he likely raises one good arm in surrender, but then Din’s helmet moves a fraction of a millimeter to your face and holds there.  He just stares down at you, and the air feels heavy, your body feels heavy, the feather light child in your arms feels heavy.

Slowly, he lowers his arm, lets it fall while he continues looking at you from behind the visor.  You look back at him, unblinking, unfeeling, and there’s a few seconds that last an utter eternity where nobody moves.  Nobody speaks, nothing happens, but then a soft coo comes from your arms before you can finally break eye contact, knowing there are still some things that need to be done.

You eventually turn around and lift your chin to address Oshua.

“You have to go into carbonite,” you inform him quietly.  Your voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from outside of yourself.  “We’re taking you to Nevarro, and then you’ll be transported to your home planet. When they unfreeze you, your sister will be there to collect you.”

He looks uncertain, one hand still raised while the other hangs uselessly at his side, and you don’t blame him.

But you also don’t feel like saying anymore, not unless he decides he doesn’t want to go in willingly.  Normally you might’ve tried to empathize, offer him further reassurance beyond just a couple short sentences, but you don’t.  Speaking feels difficult, thinking feels difficult.  You’re still in survival mode, not active but reactive.  There’s also no reason for you to lie to him about this, and you can see him glance at Din standing silently behind you, who hasn’t moved a muscle.

He eventually nods and you walk him over to the chamber without another word, watch him turn to face you as he backs into the opening while you reach up towards the control panel.

But then there’s a moment.  One where you hesitate slightly, one where your vision flashes back to the sight of those bloodstains on the floor, and that burning cold fills you again, so cold it feels completely numb.

“I’m… sorry,” you whisper quietly to him, though your voice sounds so empty.  There’s so much emotion that should be there but isn’t, so much regret and pain that should break through but can’t.  “I’m sorry I… killed your friends.”

Later, you’ll think about how you felt absolutely nothing saying it.  Your heart doesn’t constrict with remorse at the mere words leaving your mouth, guilt doesn’t flood into your soul, pain doesn’t wrack through your bones.  You could’ve been saying anything at all and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

He blinks at you, flicking his eyes between yours for a second or two, but then you press the proper button and watch the gas quickly freeze him where he stands.  He’ll be conscious the entire time, but Karga will send him to the correct location and you have no doubt that this elemental purgatory is leagues better than where he just escaped from.  It’s a benefit being the last quarry to be retrieved—he’ll only have to spend a few days trapped in here before being reunited with his family.

When that’s done and Oshua is a complete statue in front of you, bulky white armor now colored a dull metallic gray and frozen in time, you will yourself to finally turn around to face the enormous mountain of a presence behind you.  The baby gently reaches out for him, but Din doesn’t move from where he’s stood.  Your blaster is still clutched tightly in his hand, and he isn’t looking at you.

Slowly, you walk over and stop directly in front of him in the middle of the hull, blinking at him while the helmet subtly moves to lock onto your face.  The kid begins wiggling in your arms, making soft impatient noises while you both stand in complete silence across from each other.

After a few moments, you hear him flick your blaster’s safety on by his side and then toss it carelessly to the ground.  It skids along the floor, light enough to be mostly quiet.  Gloves reach out as he carefully takes the kid from you and settles him in the crook of one arm, and then he looks you up and down, still not saying anything.

Your eyes follow his movement, watching his arm slowly reaching out to you, and you think he’s going to cup your jaw, or brush your hair back.  Give you some sort of physical reassurance since he hasn’t spoken a single word of it.

Instead, Din suddenly grabs the armor clinging to your chest and starts ripping it off you with one hand.  It clangs to the floor so loudly in the silence of hyperspace, the kid’s ears twitch and flutter with each shattering bang.  You hold still while he does it, you barely respond except the unavoidable movement your body experiences as the pauldron is yanked from your shoulder and thrown against the ground.  The ammo belt is tugged over your head and hurled away, the thigh braces are snatched from your legs and they clang to the floor, and the pearly, opalescent fabric revealed underneath is stained in dead man’s blood, rusty and in such great quantities that it shows up as brown instead of red.

“Are you hurt?”

He sounds… dead.  So monotonic that you can’t possibly gauge his emotional state.  He doesn’t move.   His fists don’t clench, he says every single word like it means the same exact thing as the last.  If nothing at all was a person who could speak, they’d use his tone of voice.

“No,” you eventually whisper.

The helmet nods once, and then he spins around and walks away without anything else.  Without saying anything, without touching you, or double checking you for injuries in case you were lying.  You stand utterly still while Din climbs the ladder with the kid cradled in one arm, and you don’t even flinch when the door to the cockpit slides shut behind him.  You have no idea how long you stand there in the splitting silence afterwards, numb and unmoving.

You feel… nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

The hard defenses you strapped to yourself today to reconcile the things you had to do are still high and strong, guarding your soul even if he stripped away your physical armor.  Self preservation is still animating your body, and your facial expression barely changes.  Your first thought, as soon as you remember that you can have one, is that there are things that still need to be done.  Tasks to complete.

Alone, you shower the lingering traces of blood off your body, the normally clear and refreshing water running a sickly, toxic brown.  Alone, your stomach rolls and suddenly decides to empty itself of the very little that was in it as the scalding drops rain down over you—mostly liquid and bile that easily rinses down the drain.  The water is too warm, it beats down on you like blazing hot sand pelting your skin in the desert.  You feel like you did those first few months with Din, where the silence was suffocating, where you’d only interact with the baby if he was on a hunt or if you could tell he didn’t know how to calm him when he was fussy.  If you were in hyperspace, you usually spent time by yourself in the hull while he lived in the cockpit, and if he decided he needed to be in the hull for whatever reason, then you’d trade places with him.  It was… isolating.  Lonely by yourself.  The quiet used to haunt you before it became your cherished friend, but now it’s a betrayer, a ghost that whispers memories and nightmares in your ears.

When you finally finish rinsing the blood from your skin and get dressed, you see the sheets that used to make up your bed now have fried holes in them from your charred plasma marks, the inside of the hull is covered in them and the trails of dried blood where you dragged the bodies down the ramp.  Your armor is still strewn about the hull, the kid’s hovering shield lays dead in the corner.  Everything you meticulously cleaned and organized and collected and created, now the scene of a bloodbath.  One committed by your hand, your blaster still laying uselessly on the floor forever linked to this atrocity.

You spare a glance towards the ladder, but you don’t want to come face to face with Din yet.  You already knew he’d be furious, but… you had hoped that he’d at least…

What?  At least what?  Comfort you?  Coddle you after you deliberately ignored his instructions?  What exactly, in the past year or so of learning Din’s inner workings and intricacies, would ever give you the impression that he’d come give you a big hug after you purposefully defied him?  You flew the kid directly into an imperial base after being told to protect him, you ignored every order he gave to you in the moments he thought would be his last, and though you did it to save his life, you have a feeling that Din has never valued his life even a fraction of what you do.

The misery stabs at your soul, but your mind is finally beginning to process things logically.  He’s alive, the kid is alive, the quarry is secure, and you’re all onboard the safety of this ship hurtling through hyperspace where nobody, not even the Empire, can touch you.  You weighed the consequences before making your decision, you did what you had to do.  If he wants to be mad, then he can fucking well be mad and you’ll find some way to comfort yourself.  At least he’s here being mad, at least he’s alive and safe and breathing and mad, and your rare act of disobedience is to thank for that.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize it’s probably easier than it should be to reconcile the punishment.  Right now, you welcome the exclusion, the negativity and sorrow beating itself into your soul.  Four innocent people died today on this ship, gunned down under your blaster while they panicked and ran for cover.  You keep hearing their screams.

So you start to clean up the hull, needing another task to focus your thoughts on.  You work to erase every inch of the evidence of your deeds, make it disappear like the pool of blood Din once cleaned up while you were sleeping and never acknowledged again.  You only allow the bloodstains to fuck with your head for a single moment, and then you swallow back the nausea until you’re a blank slate again and sink to your knees with a rag in your hand.  After that, your vision stops focusing and it just becomes red contrasting against gunmetal gray, and you work tirelessly to get rid of all remaining traces of it.

Then you start on the blaster marks, you need them gone.  After a few informed attempts at mixing cleaning chemicals, you find one concoction that allows you to wipe them away like they’re nothing more than dirt that got tracked in.  The Crest’s oxygen recycling system works overdrive to constantly purify the air so you don’t get high or pass out, but your nose still stings.  It’s fine, it’s sterile, it burns a bit but it smells sharp and metallic and keeps you hyper focused on the task at hand.

After that’s done, you pick up the charred blankets and ball them up to throw into the trash vent.  You don’t feel anything as you do it.  You don’t think about how long it took you to collect these over months and months of being stuck on this ship, how comfortable they were when everything else was industrial and rigid, how many nights you spent with Din curled up in their softness while he breathed easy and warm.  Sheets are just luxuries, they can afford to be lost.

Next, you gather your armor and wipe it down with the rag, put it away along with your blaster.  The stained robe goes in the trash, along with the sheets and the blood soaked cloth you used to clean everything.  They’re all ruined, you’ll never be able to make them right again.

The hull is sparkling clean when you decide to take another shower.  Nothing on you is dirty except your hands, but you feel filthy.  Wrong, cold, numb, cold, stained, cold.

After scrubbing your skin raw under the water and changing clothes again, since you don’t really know what to do with yourself anymore, you slowly climb the ladder to the cockpit, keeping perfectly silent.  When you reach the upper platform and come face to face with the closed door, you can just barely hear Din’s whispered voice speaking quietly to the baby beyond it.

You raise your hand for a moment, hovering your knuckles over the metal, but then it eventually falls.  Instead, you look over and spot the corner, the same corner Din bunched himself into when he snapped at you for even suggesting going on a hunt with him, blew up at you for the mere notion of something happening like what happened today.  You back yourself into it in defeat and slowly sink down on the floor, resting your head against the metal and hugging your knees to your chest since you don’t have a tiny baby to take their place.

You can’t sleep.  You don’t even try, it’s pointless.  The concept feels foreign the longer you sit here by yourself.  You don’t hear Din or the baby anymore, but you feel… so fucking awful that it’s fitting that you don’t knock or go looking.  You don’t want to hold that sweet child with hands that were covered in blood just a few hours ago.  You killed more people than you can count on your fingers today, and of the ones who had done nothing wrong…  They screamed like younglings, ducked for cover and were able to fire off one single useless shot in the mayhem before you closed their eyes forever and left their bodies to rot in armor that wasn’t ever their choice to wear.

You didn’t know they were kidnapped and smuggled and forced into that situation.  You couldn’t have known, but that isn’t the point.  In this case, knowing doesn’t make one bit of difference.

You also can’t face Din yet, not like this.  You don’t want him to see you cowering, shattered with guilt over the decisions you made under pressure.  How will you ever get him to forgive you for not listening to him when you can’t even forgive yourself for the result of your choices?  Din is a hardened man who grew up in blasterfire and bloodshed, just because you love him doesn’t mean he’s going to magically become someone he isn’t.  You’re here letting guilt sink sharp claws into your chest over four dead men when he had a good fifty or more corpses scattered on the battlefield around him.  You decided to wear that armor, you decided to fly into an imperial base with the kid on your lap, and this is now your penance.  You’ll accept it with your back straight and your chin held high.

Figuratively, of course.  Physically, you’re smaller than you’ve ever been.  Crumpled up into a ball, taking up as little space as possible, curling up as tight as you can like an animal protecting all your vulnerable parts during a brutal attack.

So, since he isn’t here to comfort you himself, you just try to think about what he would tell you.  A long time ago, what would he tell you?

Din would tell you… that you killed someone.  Multiple people, this time.  He’d also tell you that it doesn’t matter what he tells you, what you could have reasonably foreseen or what you should have done.  The end result won’t change.  You own this now.  You’ll carry their deaths with you.

You take a few deep breaths, self-soothing with the undeniable truth that would be murmured matter of factly from his quiet voice.  He wouldn’t argue with you.  He wouldn’t deny the decisions you made or the consequences of them.  It happened, and at the end of the day, you either learn how to handle that, or you don’t.

And, for the four you did shoot, you were responsible for freeing ten times that amount.  You’re responsible for reuniting Oshua Ryler with his family, even if your place in yours is momentarily shunned.  You’d rather be out here alone than in there with the kid, wondering where his dad is or if he’s even still alive.  You rescued Din and now he gets to be here to shut this door on you, hold his son, and whisper calm reassurances to him.  If you listen really hard and imagine, you can pretend they’re for you, too.

That’s it.  Focus on them both, alive and well together.  Focus on the bodies wearing white armor that were moving, the ones that were bolting away from the imperial training base as fast as they could, free from the torture of imprisonment and conditioning.

Finally, you close your eyes and slip into unconsciousness.  It’s not a testament to your exhaustion, but rather just how long you’ve been left to sit here by yourself.  Hours, maybe.  Time is strange in hyperspace.

You dream of a faceless man ringing bells.

---

When you wake up, a small baby has been placed in your arms, and you’re being dragged into a strong, secure beskar hold on the floor.

“Din,” you suddenly lift your head as soon as you’re conscious and nearly bonk it into solid metal, apologies rising in your throat before you even remember where you are.  You did what needed to be done to keep your family alive and together and you’d do it a thousand times again if necessary, but that doesn’t mean you won’t apologize anyways.  After the deeds you’ve committed today, regret feels as natural on your lips as speaking your own name.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know you’re mad at me but I—”

“Shh,” he whispers, running his gloves through your hair.  He’s still wearing his helmet, he hasn’t taken anything off yet.  “Don’t say anything.  Just… stay here, stay right here with me.”

“I tried to save you,” you croak, tears instantly flooding your eyes.  You did save him.  You saved him and the baby and yourself but you’re so physically and emotionally exhausted that all you can recall is your intent.  “I tried.  Wasn’t gonna leave you there by yourself.  I tried to be brave, like you—y-you wouldn’t have left without me.”

His arms tighten around you, cradling you in such a strong embrace that you burrow into him, you find a place for your head on the hard metal strapped to him and bury yourself there, wishing that you had shovels of dirt being piled on you to justify the death you still feel staining your soul.  Your heart is starting to pound now that you’re remembering, your body is starting to shake with tremors of shock now that you’re aware of your own skin again.

“I was so sc-scared, Din, I didn’t—didn’t know what was happening,” you lament through watery eyes, gasping it out in hopes that it’ll relieve the slightest bit of the gut wrenching guilt just mercilessly crushing you.  It caught you before you could protect yourself against it, that armor you built around yourself isn’t on when you first wake up.  “I-I didn’t want to kill them, but they were already on the ship and y-you said—you said they were coming after the kid s-so I had to, I had to—”

“Stop,” Din whispers, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him.

“I-I cleaned up the blood,” you turn your face against the cold beskar to let all the positives you listed for yourself before scrape across your throat.  They don’t sound comforting anymore, they just sound like excuses.  “It’s gone, it’s like it never happened, everything is okay now, I got the quarry, I protected the baby, I saved a bunch of people, you’re both safe—”

“Stop,” he chokes out.  The modulator cuts off before you can hear his next breath, but you feel it shudder under your body.  “St-Stop it, please.”

Your eyes clench shut so tightly you feel like the streaking stars outside are behind them, tears drop down against his pauldron and you press your face tighter to it like it’s a wound, like the pressure will somehow ease the bleeding.

“Listen to me,” he says very quietly, and you instantly brace yourself.  The walls you just let down shoot right back up, your body physically tightens in preparation for another pain, another trauma, another scar you’ll carry, and you stop shaking.  You stop breathing, even when his hand comes up to ease your face away from his armor.

“You,” he whispers, holding your chin so you’re staring right at him, and your eyes flick fearfully in between his behind the visor, “are a sweet girl.”  Din’s leather thumb brushes along your skin, dragging over the tears below your puffy eyes.  “Not,” his voice catches, “a Mandalorian.”

Your heart goes cold.  Again, everything turns numb.  It doesn’t matter that you already said this yourself out loud earlier today.  It doesn’t matter that you acknowledged this fact, verbally insisted it more than once to hammer home the truth and felt some sense of comfort in it.  For some reason, hearing the words from his mouth is a fucking knife to your chest.

“I taught you how to fight, how to shoot a blaster,” he murmurs, thumb catching every single tear that continues to fall as he speaks.  “I taught you everything I know, everything that’s been taught to me.  I taught you how to defend yourself, how to protect yourself when you’re in danger.  I gave you your blaster, I gave you my armor, I gave you everything I could give you to keep you safe.  And when I thought you were ready, I let you loose on Sanctuary II.  Do you know why I did that?”  The helmet tips forward the slightest bit at the question, probing deep into the most shattered part of your heart.  “After all those months of fighting, and shooting, and training, do you know why I told you to run?”

You blink silently at him, a shaky breath quaking through you, and your expression wants to crumple under the reprimand.  You’re so fragile right now, taking hit after hit after hit to the softest parts inside you, and you want to just give up.  Let the guilt and remorse take you, let it wash you away.  But then, instead…

There’s a flicker of something inside you.  Something strong, endlessly strong, and it makes you want to revolt against what he’s saying.  It replaces the hurt and fear and desperation for comfort with a strange sense of insurgence, like it did earlier when you were hiding behind a boulder, cowering and trembling and not wanting to die.  You’re filled with a quiet urge to defend yourself in the face of this, stand up for yourself and refuse to be beaten down any longer.

“Because you needed to know how to escape danger,” he answers himself when you don’t.  “You needed to know how to disappear, how to outsmart any pursuer and find safety, even the trained ones.  Especially the trained ones.  Anything else was meant to be your last resort.  Not your choice.  Not something you chose.”

“I couldn’t leave you,” you admit to him quietly, voice shaky and tears still coming even as you try to speak up for yourself.  The regret you carry has nothing to do with this, and you decide right now that you won’t feel bad for saving him.  Your hurt comes from the meaningless things, the ones without any need whatsoever, not the necessary ones, and you tried.  You repeated his words to yourself over and over again, told yourself to run, told yourself to get to Nevarro, and it wasn’t going to happen.  “I couldn’t do it.  It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was,” he tells you.  He says it softly, whispers it like it’s the gentlest thing in the world, but the power and inherent distance of the armor strapped to his body finds its way into the words.  “And it was the wrong one.”

“What was I supposed to do?”  You ask, just a hint of that rebellion swimming to the surface now, rising out of the waves of self doubt, the one that feels like a spine growing in your back, an energy coursing through your veins that makes your heart start to beat faster.  Din’s hand slowly drops from your cheek but you don’t care.  “Was I supposed to run away and just let you die?”

“Yes.”  It’s quick and blunt and completely emotionless.  Delivered like a punch to the vulnerable parts of yourself he taught you how to protect, and the utter silence following this single word is comparable to the physical pain you learned to defend against.  It jabs hard against everything good and sweet and tender inside of you, and you’re left speechless even as he continues impassively.  “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

It takes a second, but then that unfamiliar feeling suddenly surges up, breaches with the power of an entire ocean.  Your voices may be nothing more than whispers in the dark, you may be clinging to each other, holding each other with the softest, gentlest love in your hearts, but the strength of your conviction on this would rip metal apart.

“No.”  The word holds the might of your entire being, and it stands alone and defiant in the face of everything you fear, everything that threatens you, him, and this child.  Never.  You’ll die before that happens.  “I love you, and there’s nothing in this galaxy that would ever make me do that.  Not fear, not danger, not the Empire, nothing.  Not even you.”

Din stares at you.  His visor reflects your hardened expression back to you, the force in your soul and the purpose in your eyes, and you don’t even realize the gravity of what you just said because like your love for him, gravity is a constant.  It’s a fundamental truth cemented into the rules that govern your actions and it stays true no matter where you are, no matter what terror you face, or how scared you become.  You have him, you have this little boy in your arms, and if that’s all you have, then you have everything.

After an eternity of this, of feeling his eyes pierce deep into you from behind the helmet while you refuse to wither under his stare, you watch him slowly turn and look down, landing on the sleepy child tucked between you both.  He holds there for a long time, before finally whispering, so quiet that the modulator barely picks it up, “It was the wrong choice.”

You stay quiet.  It happened.  What’s done is done, you can’t change the past.  He can scold and reprimand you about this as much as he wants, but you did the right thing and that decision is the only reason he’s even here to be able to do so.  This exhausted child was reunited with his father because of your choices, and this exhausted father was reunited with his child.  You won’t argue anymore, but it’s a certitude that lives deep in your heart now, builds a home there right alongside the both of them.  Din eventually looks up, his eyes find yours again behind the visor, and his hand rises once more to gently cup your jaw.

“I… thought I’d enjoy seeing you in my armor,” Din finally whispers.  It’s not what you expected, but his voice sounds… weak.  Broken.  “You wore mine once before, and it was…”  He brushes his thumb along your cheek, and then his head shakes slightly, pushing the thought away.  “It wasn’t real.  It didn’t fit.  It dwarfed you, it made you look out of place, it made everything soft and innocent about you stand out.  I liked it because it wasn’t real.”

“Was it… really that bad?”  You whisper back, partially to ease the tension just slightly but quickly breaking eye contact with him when you realize it doesn’t land correctly, it just sounds self conscious and sad.  You try to find that conviction again, that strength and assurance that propped you up so sturdily before, but…  Not a Mandalorian, he’d said.  Of course not.  Of course not.

“It wasn’t the armor.”  Din gently tugs up on your face so that you look at him again.  “It was you covered in blood.  It was you purposefully putting yourself in danger.  You killed multiple armed soldiers of the Empire, you dragged their bodies off the ship.  And then you flew into an imperial base, where you killed the officers, too.  You…”  He shakes his head slowly at you while speaking, and although you can’t see his face, you don’t need to in order to hear the horror in his voice.   “You… collected a quarry… in the middle of a massacre, sweet girl.”

Not a Mandalorian.

“You don’t chase down bounties,” he tells you.  “You don’t fly into war zones.  You don’t kill imperials, you don’t collect quarries, you don’t sacrifice yourself, or our son, to save me.  You said you tried to be brave… like me.”  His fingers tighten against your cheek, he dips his helmet to make sure you understand.  “I’ll never ask you to be brave.  I’ll ask you to survive.”

“I’m… sorry,” you finally whisper, and his arm drops from your cheek to join the other in wrapping around you and holding tight.  They hug you and squeeze, encasing you and the baby in a beskar shield and staying there for a long time.  Long enough for you to tuck your head back into its proper place under his helmet, long enough to start to feel okay with the silence again.  It brutalized you the last time you were surrounded by it, it made you feel alone and desolate and barren inside.  You greet it warily now, settling into it for an unknown amount of time until it’s forgiven once more.

After a while, Din quietly breaks it.

“How many?”  He murmurs to you.  You already know exactly what he’s asking, there's no more clarification necessary on his behalf.

You slowly close your eyes and think back to the smoldering craters, the blood soaked ramp, the fear in Oshua Ryler’s eyes as he begged you not to kill him.

“That didn’t deserve it?”  You ask, clenching your eyes tighter at the memory.  “Four.”

And maybe, maybe six or eight months ago, you would’ve begged for some guidance on how to reconcile that.  Hell, maybe a few hours ago, you could’ve used his arms around you exactly like this, his low voice repeating the same things he’s already told you before, over and over again, if only for some semblance of stability when everything feels turbulent and uncertain.  You’ll never be able to change it, though.  This belongs to you now.

This time, all Din says is, “I’m sorry, too.”

And that covers everything.

The silence envelops you both again, but… there’s something else.  Something that still sits deep in your worries, an image that isn’t a scar of what’s happened but a dread of what’s to come.  You need to tell him.  You don’t feel like saying it, you don’t want to speak it aloud for fear of bringing it into existence, but you need to tell him.

“Din?”  You breathe out, and he makes a soft noise in his throat while cuddling you on the floor.  “I saw…,” you whisper, every word sitting tight and reluctant in your throat.  “Right when we made the jump, I was looking through the window and I-I saw…”

“A star destroyer.”  He says it like… like it’s the worst thing in the world and also completely expected at the same time.  He says it like he already knew, yet can’t even imagine.  You lean every bit of your weight against him since you can’t hold him in return, squish him as best you can against the small corner and curl up even tighter in his arms for comfort.

He takes a deep breath, a shuddery sound you don’t think you’ve ever heard him make before.  It holds untold anxiety, unsaid conflict, uncertain action, an unknown path forward.

“I don’t know what to do,” Din eventually whispers to himself, to you, to the baby in your arms.  His voice is barely a breath through the modulator, his fingers digging into your skin with how many emotions he’s repressing.  “What do I do?”

He sounds so distressed that you automatically feel your soul find the floor—instantly, you become steady and calm and you locate all that rationality that kept you going today.  All your worries still twist deep down, all the guilt and the turmoil wrestles with your soft, easy nature until you can only find bits and pieces of it in the most vulnerable places inside you, but if he’s struggling this terribly, then the least you can do is offer some good, true, unwavering faith in times of uncertainty.  You’re in hyperspace, everything worked out, and it’s going to stay that way for right now.  If he doesn’t know how to talk about it yet, then you trust him enough to wait for him.

“It’ll be okay,” you tell him with a newfound confidence and purpose, carefully easing the baby into one arm so that the other can find its way to the other side of his helmet and pull him closer.  Din tucks his head and allows you to brush your lips against the metal, whisper the words soft and steady to him.  “We’ll figure it out together.”

---

@cptnbvcks thank you so much for the incredible art!

[xserpentlife]

Spaces

Jadestark-parker Maybe one where the gang is hanging out at the worm and y\n slips into one of her Spaces and is literally beg pea for sex in Secret and he’s getting really upset because they cannot see her like this but he doesn’t wanna leave. If it's not too much can you please use the phrase “is this what you wanted”. Just one more thing a lot of degradation, maybe also a spit kink? A little girl space. She really needs that dom attention from pea

A/N: Hope y’all love this sorry requests are a little slow, I also do not like to do two smuts in a row because I know I have some people on my page who do not read smut so if you have non smut ideas send them in as well because as of right now most of my inbox is smut. Thank you to my amazing beta @wayward-river​ as always go send her stuff and follow her

Word Count: 1901

Warnings: Filthy Smut, Degrading 

The Wyrm was your safe space but not more safe than Sweet Pea was. You felt like yourself there, safe to be who you were and hang out with your friends. You loved the Wyrm like it was your second home.

You were sitting at the bar waiting for Pea to bring you your drink when you heard the familiar sound of your favorite song, a few drinks in and you were already ready to dance. After the week you had had you wanted to let loose and have a good time with your friends. You got up going to the dance floor moving your hips back and forth as you felt Pea come up behind you and whisper into your ear.

“Hey baby”

“Hi daddy” Pea gasped looking at you wide eyed.

“C’mon your water is on the table”

“But I thought you were getting me vodka”

“I was but now its water”

“Fine” you pouted as he grabbed your arm bringing you to the table, he sat down as you wrapped your arms around his neck and leaned against his back and the chair.

“Baby sit down, c’mon” You swayed your hips to the music, eyes closed in another world.

“Don't wanna” You watched Fangs, Toni and Jug walk up taking a seat at the table around you. “Hey” They all waved ordering drinks from the bartender that was taking rounds.

Soon a loud sound came from the back corner of the bar, two new recruits fighting over a game of pool. You were never one to like when people fought. Call it anxiety, call it ptsd from your childhood didn’t matter. Your one arm tightened around Peas neck as the other snaked around his arm. He felt you tense around him. His hand reached up to your cheek as his eyes met yours. “Hey look at me, I'll take care of it”

“It’s okay”

“No its not baby, they are acting like jackoffs, yo Jug, you wanna deal with these losers”

“Yeah, might as well before they break the cues” You watched as Pea walked over grabbing the larger kid by his collar and yanking him up, before slamming him against a wall, knuckling white as his hair flung in his face. The words he was saying jumbled together in the bar scene around you. You didn’t care what was being said. You saw the kid try to punch him with his free hand, as Pea dodged it and grabbed the kid by his shirt. You watched the snicker form on his face, before throwing him out of the Wyrm. He knew you were never one for violence. He was trying to protect you, not trying to cause more of it.

You were calm again, the anxiety leaving your chest as Pea had taken care of the violent situation that had been unfolding, but the wetness forming between your legs was another. In that moment you knew you needed Pea, you didn’t want to wait until you got home, or wait until any other monet then, right then and there. You moved forward standing in front of him as he sat in his chair and took a seat on his lap. Turning your face up ever so slightly to place a careful peck on his chin. You watched as Toni and Fangs began their own conversation, looking towards the dance floor Fangs pointing towards one of the members of the Serpents he had been crushing on for months. Toni, probably trying to convince him to make a move. The song that came on in the background of the bar making your hips move against Sweet Peas lap, a moan slowly escaping him as he recovered himself with a cough.

“Yo, you good Pea?” Fangs looked over “Yeah, yeah just needed a drink” you giggled to yourself before putting your head into Peas shoulder to stifle your laugh.

Pea reached up grabbing a handful of hair before pulling your ear down to his mouth, “think you’re funny baby girl?” You nodded. Bouncing up and down slighting watching Pea smirk to himself. ”want it daddy”. Peas eyes went wide as he looked at you. “Hehe what daddy?” He didn’t want to scare you or freak you out, or make anything out of the state you were in, all he wanted now was to take care of you, take care of what you needed. The fight must've put you in a spiral after the week you had had. Maybe letting you do what you had been doing on his thigh would get it out of your system, enough for you to enjoy the rest of your night with your friends. Pea doesn’t like for people to see you like this, because you don't like it. It's a secret between the two of you, something intimate and special. “Daddy…” he looked at you before grabbing your hips “yeah princess, wanna ride my thigh hmm?” you nodded before looking forward. He grabbed your hair once again yanking your head back towards him “Listen princess be a good girl for daddy okay, ride my thigh like the good girl you are and cum for me okay, but you gotta be quiet and secret okay, make sure no one knows, got it” You nodded excitedly as he let go of your hair.

You lifted your skirt slightly draping it over Sweet Peas knee as you spread your thighs further apart. You began to ride Sweet Pea, your body leaning into his for stability, hand grabbing his other leg. Pea leaned up “I can feel how wet you are and I’ve barely touched you”. You bit your lip, his words echoing through your body. He moved a few strands of loose hair, biting his lip and putting his hands on your hips to help you move faster. Pea couldn’t help the growing beneath his jeans as your moans echoed into his ear. “Gonna…” Pea leaned down placing a peck to your lips. “Gonna what princess? Cum for me? Do it baby girl, but remember to be quiet okay?” Your body gave out and you leaned into his, your breathing heavy as his lips meant yours to stifle your moans. You were never known to be quiet. But it wasn’t enough, as you leaned your hand to catch yourself you felt the bulge that had been growing and craved more.

You got up seeing the wet spot that had formed on Sweet Pea’s thigh. You leaned towards him, hands placed on both his thighs to whisper into his ear. “I know you know I’m wet daddy, you can feel it, and see it, and I know your hard” you moved your hand towards his hard cock as you slowly unzipped his jeans “Lets go have some fun”. His face red; anger, joy, embarrassment all in one as he grabbed your hand dragging you to the upstairs lounge where no one would bother either of you.

Your back hit the wall with a thud as you heard the lock of the door, lips instantly on your neck. “We shouldn’t be doing this, we are in public”

“S’okay daddy”

“Fine, but only this once, and only because FP is out of town and we can be in here alone” You smirked at him before his lips met yours again. “You’re being a bad girl princess” His hand came down to your clit, your underwear ripped off your body, and thrown across the room. “Is this what you wanted baby girl? You nodded biting your lip while your thighs came together craving more of his touch.

“Kneel for me baby girl” you nodded “what was that?”

“Yes daddy”

“Open” you opened your mouth as you felt his hand squeeze your cheeks as spit came into your mouth, you swallowed it down. “Who's my dirty little slut”

“Me daddy”

“Such a dirty girl yeah, only for me and no one else” he grabbed you up before leading you to the couch and pushing you on it before slapping your ass. Quickly he flipped you over to be under him. Starting to pull down his jeans before you stopped him. “Do you want to stop princesses?”

“No daddy” you got up pushing him on the couch before undoing his belt and pulling off his jeans and boxers, placing a quick kiss to the head of his cock before grabbing his hand and making him stand up and getting back into the position he once had you in. He grabbed your legs and put them over his shoulders. You cursed into his neck as you felt the head of his cock hitting the walls of your pussy. His thrusts hitting deep every time.

“That’s it. Fuck you take my cock so well angel. You love it when daddy fucks you like this huh” You were a whining mess.

You were drawing in the scent of his cologne and his breath up next to you, your eyes ready to lull back into your head, and he saw it in your eyes. “Not yet baby, dont cum yet princess, not until daddy tells you, remember the rules”

“Please daddy” you begged and pleaded for him to cum for you and to let you cum, you needed it and you needed it now. “Oh fuck.” you cried out as he picked up speed, thrusting into you faster, “Feels…so good.  your voice broke as you cried out. “P-please daddy” He gripped onto your hips, thrusting as deep as he could getting ready to ride out his high. Your eyes rolled back, a loud moan escaping you. “Oh what princess does that feel good”

“Please!” you begged, “I’m close! Let me cum” you cried out a tear slipping down your ear, by the stimulation you were feeling, and that's when Pea knew it had been enough.

“Go ahead and cum for me, princess.” Your breath hitched inside your chest as you reached your hands into his hair. The walls of your pussy clenching around his cock. Your back arched as your eyes rolled back. Pea is still thrusting to help you ride at your high as he was so, so close to his. You breathed heavily looking up at him above you, now wanting his cum more than ever.

“Open wide princess, The little slut can’t wait for me to cum, hmm? Just a little cumdump for me to use” he degraded, before moaning lowly he pulled his cock out of your wet pussy, his precum dripping out mixed with your wetness.

“Open” You opened, tongue out as his cock was placed into your mouth. His head fell back, eyes shut as a guttural moan escaped his lips. White cum making its way into your mouth as your mouth remained open. His hand reaching up and grabbing your face.

“Such a good little slut for me.He spit in your mouth and you held it open until he gave you the command to swallow. His thumb dragging across your lip and into your mouth.

“Only for you daddy” You giggled smiling up at him

“DId you have fun baby girl”

“Yes daddy” you nodded and continued riding out your high as your mouth met his. He soon let you down as he picked up your dress and slipped it over your head. His flannel also made its way around your arms. “Wanna go home daddy”

“Of course princess”

[ennoshawty]

HQ CAPTAINS AS THINGS

i was bored and felt like doing a crackfic thing but i didn’t have any solid themes or good ideas

SO I PRESENT TO YOU - THE CAPTAINS. AS THINGS. IDK HOW TO WORD THIS BUT YOU’LL SEE AS WE GO ALONG.

warnings: VERY LONG, slandering a crybaby oikawa (lovingly), mentions f!reader, shitposting, mentions of violence in kita's, (a bit) yandere!kita, cursing, unedited, me being an idiot

officer!daichi

we are: vigilante/troublemaker

loving the enemies-to-lovers trope so much

nah bro you ain’t full criminal (bc my preppy ass could never) you just do the small vandalism things y’know like drawing peepees on government buildings and knocking over bins

u literally confessed to him by spraypainting the entire billboard by his workplace “I LIKE YOU” like way to go girl

He didn’t appreciate the creative graffiti but he rlly likes u so all u had to do was clean it and then next thing u know yall are out on a cute cafe date

but let’s talk about before yall got together

he’d CHASE u thru alleyways when he’d catch you writing “police sux” on the fuckin wall

bro is NOT AT ALL afraid to jump onto the roofs it’s FRIGHTENING to see this huge ass police officer storm after u

HES SO FAST HOT DAMN WOMAN HOW DO U GET AWAY FROM HIM??? USAIN BOLT WHOMST???

you’d almost always get away by a hair - he’s SO SO close

and it frustrates him but excites u oooooo arrest me shawty

and this would continue for a while

but yall have such fun fun banter - you’d tease him and he’d say something back and you’d bolt and he’d chase

some days he’d catch you. but in those times u slip away somehow

he’s having so much fun and doesn’t even know it

and then at one point he doesn’t even care about bringing u to justice anymore. he knows it’s bad for business and it’s unprofessional but he’s so attracted to u

he doesn’t even know it. HES IN DENIAL!!! his mind: “oh i’m just asking about her so that i know her motives” bruh no u just asked about our fav pastry this aint about crime anymore

and when he finally gets it,,,DINGDINGDINGDING SOUND THE ALARMS !!! MAN IS WHIPPED!! he’s more shy around u awww,,,doesn’t even want to chase u anymore but he will still engage in banter w u.

yall get a little peace treaty in the lil crush stage - you both are kinda aware of ur feelings towards each other but don't really wanna mess it up and jeopardize whatever's going on like bros PLEASE JUST KISS ITS INFURIATING

it’s more of a competition to see who will break the other first (and you lost he’s too hot)

he lets u joyride his cop car in an empty parking lot <3 he is the one <3 this is true love

u gotta marry him right now bro no excuses

u are no longer on the crime side of the law,,,u support him and only him fuck the rest of the cops (i’m jk of course...or am i)

u are his badass sidekick <3 unofficially of course until he marries u

u help him with the small things like helping lost children find their parents and helping old ladies cross the street

but you want to do the FUN stuff - chasing thieves and arresting drunkards.

unfortunately, he loves u too much to put u in danger so he keeps u from doing the dangerous things

after some protesting later, he trusts u to take care of urself. and now yall have a competition just like old times - whoever catches the most baddies at the end of the month wins (he WILL scold u if ur too reckless though)

THE TWO OF U ARE JUST GOOD COP BAD COP UHAHAHAHAHAHA

but it’s much more complicated than that - it’s either ur the laidback one and he’s the strict one or ur the fiery one and he’s the person like “calm down”

PLEASE HE HATES BRINGING U TO INTERROGATIONS he’s trying to be serious but you keep making him laugh istg he has to kick u out each time

u still make him laugh when u pout-glare at him thru the glass

bro says he’s not the stereotypical cop but the moment u surprise him with donuts and coffee in the morning he will make out w u right then and there

even though yall dating he still won’t let u play with his equipment

but sometimes u grab his walkie talkie when he’s not looking and prank call the others

and his coworkers know by now they’re like “oh it’s daichis gf” and go along with it HAHAHAHA “this is alpha 1, daichi just contracted ligma, over.” “roger, but what’s ligma? over.” “*inhale* LIGMA-” *daichi takes the walkie talkie back*

his coworkers are chill lmaoooo they love u two as a couple THEY ARE VERY SUPPORTIVE they planned a surprise anniversary party of when u joined the force (unofficially)

the juniors tanaka and noya are jelly ooooo but they respect their captain <3

u loooooove hanging out w the starry-eyed new recruit hinata and he’s bouncing around asking u personal questions “how did you date the commander!!! what’s he like as a bf??” he also accidentally exposes how much daichi talks about u in the office before he drags him away and murders him off camera

he does get u a walkie talkie that’s just connected to his line, tho. for emergencies. it’s ur second phone basically that only has his number in it

daichi LOVES it when u massage him after he’s had a long day but his shoulders are stiff as a statue,,,he’s also super stronk and can carry u anywhere <333

IMAGINE HE HAS A POLICE DOG - he doesn’t, but he’ll get one of his buddies to bring u a k9 unit so u can pet it and when he sees how happy u are he considers getting one PLSSS IT WOULD FIT HIM HELPPP

bro is VERY strict on safety. bulletproof glass in yalls house. alarms + cameras everywhere. trackers on every device. underground bunker. (just kidding lol)

daichi teaches u self-defense and gets u a bejeweled taser for ur bday <333 MARRY THIS MAN RIGHT NOW OR I’LL-

in other words i love daichi and he is husband material WIFE ME UP BUDDY

househusband!oikawa

we are: girlboss sugar mommy

somehow you tamed this bish to becoming your obedient malewife

and by obedient i mean whiny but compliant

IS MORE ATTACHED TO YOUR BLACK CARD THAN TO YOU. I SAID IT. THE TRUTH.

sure, he’s pretty and gives affection sometimes but the only time he’s bein cute and snuggly w u is when a new fendi purse came out and he wants it

his specialty is cooking but he’s so lazy he’s all “just get the maid to do it”

please give ur workers a raise he’s so demanding

when you take him to ur business parties hes ALWAYS bragging about you and ur large house with this and that and his favorite: indoor hot tub. he always brings up the indoor hot tub.

only reason you bring him is cuz he’s pretty and he whines when you leave him alone for too long

yall cant even stay for too long - he’ll practically drag u out of the building and whining that it’s too hot and his suit is too stuffy and to call a limo

he’s not afraid to embarrass u if u dont give him what he wants and he will spit out food at a formal dinner if its not to his liking

probably in competition w househusbands! makki and mattsun about who gets the best house so he’s constantly begging u for an extension to the house “please babe!!! makki has-” “no.”

8/10 times throws tantrums in public and 1465/10 times throws tantrums in the house

he wants to cry for the sake of crying. one time he lost his shirt and he wouldn’t stop bawling for 15 min

please find him a hobby

crybaby . the moment u give him the glare of death it’s over. but he’s got a cute crying face which makes up for his annoying whimpering

like he made the mistake of throwing a temper tantrum in the mall only for you to glare at him with a look that said “we’re discussing this when we get home and you’re gonna get your ass beat” and walk away. immediately stopped what he was doing and he was running after u, sniffling and mumbling apologies

please humble him and have him sleep outside. the couch is too luxurious to banish him to. he made sure of it himself. it’s reclining and has charging ports. he will not learn his lesson that way

does NOT want you to get a pet or a kid or even another sugar baby/househusband - he wants to be the center of ur attention

speaking of which he HATES it when you work for too long or work overseas. when u come back he’ll pout at u and give u the petty silent treatment

don’t bother trying to comfort him he thrives off of it and he’ll keep going so u can keep paying attention to him. if u just ignore him back he’ll come crawling back to u. “WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME IGNORING YOU?? DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME ANYMORE???”

one time yall got into a fight and he was all like “since ur being a rude mommy i’ll just find someone else !!!” inside u were like “oh god finally” but instead u said “okay”

ohmygod he panicked. he was rlly expecting for u to fight for him,,, but he doesn’t want to admit defeat first so he tries to go thru with it but you literally dont care. even when he has his chanel luggage packed and he’s standing by the door ur just like “ok bye bitch”

So he’s trying to stand by the door and wait for u to say that ur joking. ur not.

“fine! I’m leaving now!” “okay.” “...*sniffles*” “tooru, go.” “WAAAAH NO IM SORRY I DONT WANT TO-”

u knew this was going to happen sadly. u even hid the keys to all of the sports cars u own just in case he was actually going to go thru with it

tries to get in the gossip circle with the neighborhood trophy wives but they don’t think he’s cool enough. they like u though. they think ur hot asf and oikawa doesn’t like them no more bc theyre hitting on his ATM. but thanks to that u know all the gossip and shit even though u don’t ask for it

Every time u pass by a store where he thinks he wants something he’ll just cling to u and give the puppy dog eyes. like it could be out of nowhere and u see it and you’re like “where. which store.”

bro once he went luxury he never went back. he wouldn’t EVER step foot into a grocery store ever again congrats he’s been bimbo-ified

beat him with ur gucci belt pls it’s so funny

also please please PLEASE discipline him. tell him it’s NOT okay to just randomly purchase the entire swarovski store or to throw a party at ur house just bc he’s feeling petty about u being at work for too long. ofc he’ll bitch about it but you need to be firm

but don’t worry,,,he’ll get the idea when u take away black card privileges and slap him around (lovingly)

now he has to ask permission like a good boy. he’ll kneel and hug u and give a lil pout and whine

you got a bigass man child i’m sorry maam u should’ve picked tobio or ushi

ceo!kuroo

we are: secretary

bruh keeps it mostly professional during work hours

but that all gets shedded off like a snake when we on break

one minute he’s all “get these papers done by today or i swear on all that is holy i will destroy you” and then later he’s all “hey sweetheart wanna grab a cup of coffee”

flirty flirty FLIRTY FLIRTY AAAAA HES A MENACE

but you’re less than impressed bc y’know when the time clocks out and its time to go back to work he’s ruthless once more

HUMBLE HIM FOOL only when you’re on break though

will NOT stand for anyone else in the workplace bullyin u - NO WAY. only HIM

he’s got TONS and TONS of dirt on everyone in the office - NO ONE is safe so they wouldn’t even dare

RIP janet from accounting

that dumb bitch made the mistake of insulting u to ur face and in front of him. never heard from her again

it’s not even limited to the other employees - he’s not afraid to go off on a potential business partner if they dared disrespect you

bruh tries to call u on ur off days for the most randomest shit and to get ur attention

*picks up phone* “sir?” “ah! my favorite secretary ever! listen, i need you to grab my pens from my desk at the office and bring them to my place.” “...with all due respect, it’s 2 am, sir.”

but u have to comply with his ridiculous demands cuz he’s the bank

and he depends on u completely. as much as he hates to admit it - u have his schedules, itinerary, provide coffee, performance rates, stock info, you name it.

once u were out sick and he had the worst management - he’s not used to working without you

def tries to get some of ur workload off of u bc he’s worried that the stress of working for him made u sick + he doesn’t want to go thru scheduling again

prolly gets bored in meeting rooms and sends u little smirks and wiggles his eyebrows and weird looks while he’s sitting and ur standing in the corner like bruh pay attention

maybe sometimes he’s secretly makin fun of the presenter and doodling on his spare sticky note something funny to make u crack a smile

he’ll tease u for it of course “oh, secretary! you should be paying more attention! what would you do if this was important?” bruh i can multitask now keep airdropping me ur selfies i’m saving all of them (news flash: u dont save his dumbass selfies otherwise his ego will inflate too much)

sometimes likes to pull u aside from work to hug u - you say it’s highly unprofessional but he says it’s his stress reliever

you ALMOST got caught by one of the newbies and he was kabedon-ing you

he tries to play it off (since u were embarrassed too) but u know better,,,DO NOT LET HIM FORGET ABOUT IT he turns red and embarrassed every single time USE THIS TO UR ADVANTAGE !!

never goes into an elevator without you bruh is so attached to u n holds the doors open for you

but you have to open normal doors for him if he doesn’t know how it works (hint: manual doors. “why isn’t it opening on its own?” “sir, there’s a handle.” “but?? what does it do??”)

bruh acts like a dumbass sometimes so you can baby him :/// wtf man just because you’re rich doesn’t mean i’ll- ...wait...how much did you say…? that many zeros? HAND ME THAT FORK YES I’LL FEED YOU COME HERE- HERE COMES THE AIRPLANE BITCH

brings u to overseas trips and he spoils u too

no matter how much you insist that you’re ok he gives u a lot of luxurious items. “think of it as a bonus from me.” NOW YOU JUST HAVE A COLLECTION OF NICE SHOES/BAGS/JEWELRY AND HE LOVES IT WHEN YOU WEAR THEM TO WORK IT MAKES HIM SO HAPPY UGHHHHH

BRUH just a sugar daddy at this point “you have to look presentable for the next focus group so here’s a nice rolex watch” “sir, i don’t need-” “ah ah ah - it’s my treat.”

it’s pointless to refuse him but he still teases u for it like what???? “if i didn’t know any better, secretary, i’d say you’re just doing it for my money and not my fabulous looks and personality.” “exactly.” “hey!”

yall go for drinking parties a lot. whether with the whole branch or just the two of u

KARAOKE W KUROO AFTER A LONG DAY OF WORK <333 becomes a ritual between the two of u

he’s so silly when he’s drunk lmfaoooo goofy ass mf

but that’s only when it’s the two of u. he controls his alcohol around others and his uncool side is only for u <3

also ur the only one he trusts to take him back to his place and handle him

it’s the other way around too - when u drink a lot he looks after you <333

you have a higher tolerance than him and sometimes u have competitions between the two of u on who can drink more but then yall always end up shitfaced

HES the one who has a crush on you

you know the drill - gaslight gatekeep girlboss

he’ll do anything for u but wouldn’t ever admit it he simp

offers u the keys to his estate and offers for you to LIVE with him

bruh just marry me already ok WAIT WE’RE NOT EVEN DATING YOU NEED TO WORK ON THAT SIR-

he’s so awkward tryna confess to u,,,he may be this big hotshot ceo but he’s acting like a schoolgirl in love

probably prints u a confession when he asks u to go to the fax machine lmfao what a nerd

in other words ceo!kuroo is a nerd and you need to top him immediately get that bank

dog hybrid!bokuto

we are: owner

Husky-malamute breed!!! BEEG DOGGIE VERY HAPPY N DROOLY <333

OVERLY HYPER. JUMPS ON ANYONE AND U AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT

he’s well trained i swear but the moment he sees something of interest then i’m sorry you just lost him

please if a robber came in he wouldn’t even attack them he’d just tackle them w hugs

he loves loves loves snuggles <333 u busy? nope!!! hug time!!! cooking something?? oo lemme see!!! whoops look at all those tomatos on the ground. u got a deadline coming up and u really need to focus?? CUDDLE TIIIIIIME- w-wait - huh?? why are u shoving me off?? do you - do you not - huh?!?! WHY ARE YOU LOCKING ME OUT OF THE ROOM?? NO!!!! I LOVE YOU!!! IDK WHAT EXAMS ARE BUT I WANT CUDDLES!!! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME????!!!

the WORST things u could ever do to him is leave him and call him a bad boy

HE CRIES ON THE SPOT </3 HOW COULD YOU </3

soso bummed when u go out of the house without him </333 waits by the door patiently waiting for u to come back </333 sob sob

the moment he hears the door unlock he LEAPS and his tail is wagging like CRAZY

he is SO STRONG. almost always knocks u over whenever he jumps on u

destroys EVERY toy u bring him. u leave him for 5 seconds and there’s stuffing all over the floor and whatever u brought him is nonexistent

tugs on the leash when u walk so much that it SNAPS

loves romping w the other dogs in the dog park but he needs to tone down on his friendliness he almost killed a lil orange chihuahua

gets distracted by EVERYTHING. ooh, squirrel! oo, butterfly! OOO HUMAN CHILD!! MUST EAT!!!

ok while he might be friendly, he still gets super super jealous. you both were outside and u were petting the neighborhood black cat and bruh almost swallowed his head

which u thought was weird bc the two are normally friends and are pretty nice around each other

so now he’s more feisty around him and any other cat that’d get ur attention

If it was a person, then that’s another thing. He’d be very friendly at first but then slowly realize that ur attention is more directed on them than him. then he’d go ballistic

but when u scold him for practically assaulting the poor dude and call him a bad boy,,,he’s lost it

u have to lock him in the other room and he’s crying and whimpering, scratching at the door. all he wanted to do was protect u from that bad bad man who took away his owner’s attention !!!

def snarls at the dude next time he comes into ur house/apartment...dude never came back

“GRRR” “AAAA GET UR FRIGGIN DOG B-” “he don bite” YES IT DO GET UR-”

doggie bokuto rlly tries to be slick...it doesn’t work. like he tries to do that thing when he’s a total demon towards the guy but then act like an angel around u but it doesnt work bc he’s not smooth

doggie intelligence: 2 IQ. one time u got him a puzzle box and hid a treat in it but bruh couldnt figure it out just straight up monched the entire puzzle simply bc he smelled his fav bbq treat in it

speaking of intelligence - he only knows how to say a few words like ur name and incomplete sentences. speaks in barks and whines and sometimes a word

SO BIG THAT HE GRABS FOOD FROM THE TABLE WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING

u had some delicious beef steak? oh dear, where did it go? there’s ur puppy kou with steak sauce all over his lips

big fan of hiking trips, sports, literally anything that involves going out

he LOVES getting dirty outside playing. boi cant control himself from rolling around in the mud

hates baths at first but then he likes how u spray the water on him and giggles awww he likes bath time now

we all know he’s not the brightest pup of the pack but,,,he’s somehow psychic. he knows when ur taking him to the vet

HE THROWS A BIG FUSS ALL THE TIME - sometimes he tries to hide but his huge tail under the couch gives it away

and he knows when ur thinking of taking him on a walk. he also begs u to take him outside by settling his head in ur lap and pouting until u give him what he wants

he likes the big ol doggie sweaters/pjs u buy him...but he always ruins them. no matter how much u buy him, they’re all ruined. he complains how scratchy it is and it feels weird on him

knows LOTS of tricks but if u teach him more than what he already knows he will forget one of them he’s like a damn pokemon

he feels ur emotions :((( if ur mood is down his tail droops :(( and he gives u cuddles and tries to make u feel better

he even likes to make a fool out of himself and be silly if it makes u laugh :((( he’s so precious

in other words i love doggy bokuto

pirate!ushijima

we are: kidnapped

ah yes we’re are captives of the most fearsome pirates of the seas: shiratorizawa

just so you know, tendou was the instigator. he was all “let’s kidnap a noble’s kid and get the ransom money!” (whether you actually are a noble or not is up to you)

thing is, nobody’s willing to pay (if you aren’t a noble) or the pirates really pissed off the folks in charge and are now doing a manhunt

so yeah you aren’t going back anytime soon

but he’s a pretty good sport about it - very hospitable

he notices the little things u like and gets them for u <333 sighs <333

he saw you reading that book? wow look at that, there’s suddenly a stack of them and the same genre he saw you reading

but you definitely shouldn’t test him. he’s SUPER scary when it comes down to it

you saw how ruthless he was with the rogues that had dared to challenge him on sea

mf made them walk the plank

you help on the ship bc u wanna be useful and also shirabu keeps being mean

he asks u to teach the crew how to read cuz theyre dumb as shit and only know water and treasure

speaking of treasure - when he leaves u on the ship to explore a cave, he gets u really pretty jewelry <33 anything u ask for

“oh, welcome back captain. how was your mission?” “i brought back a few trinkets i thought you might like.” *reveals whole chest of priceless gems* “are they to your liking? if not, we can set sail for something else that might interest you.” “I-”

bruh got a pet eagle - u ask the crew and they dont even know how tf it happened

hell, even he doesn’t know how it happened wtf. “oh. one day it flew down to me and i fed it. that’s all.” wtf

equivalent to diluc’s bird - he didn’t even give it a name so he gives u the honors

U name him rigatoni (you got a great naming sense btw)

oh my god oh my god oh my god HE TRIES TO PROTECT U WHEN PPL WERE TRYNA INVADE THE SHIP

it was the first thing he did no cap - burst into ur room and scoops u up <33333

“what the-” “we need to get you to safety. we are under attack.” and holds u close to his chest AAAHSIDHFPSDHFN OH MY LORD YES

HAS THE TEAM GIVE U SELF DEFENSE LESSONS AFTER THAT

tendou tries to give u a sword but ushi says no “she could hurt herself.”

“but ushiwaka! we can teach her not to hurt herself” “...it’s my orders.” “c’mon, be more honest, ushiwaka! what’s the real reason?”

he goes quiet then looks at u “...i’ll always be there to help. she’ll have me.” AOISHSDHFSNDF

HELPPPPP SIOJFDSKFJP HES SO CHARMING AND HE DOESNT EVEN TRY

but the rest of the crew are like “then what’s the point”

but tendou sneaks u a dagger just to be safe

sorry ur apart of the crew now - but they’re like a family even if they did kidnap u

oh whatever your life before wasn’t as cool as this (no offense)

they are given orders to protect u at all costs

speaking of which - ushi isn’t all that great w guns

almost blew his own head off tryna figure out how it works before reon snatched it from him

he brings you with him to towns and cities and he likes taking u to the markets to get you stuff

ushijima tell me your love language is gift-giving without telling me your love language is gift-giving-

he finds out you’re pretty good at bargaining and brings you onshore a lot more

is mesmerized at how you absolutely BERATE the merchant who was tryna rip you off like sis where is this violence coming from??? he loves it??

he also likes to stop by some pretty islands and imagines just settling down in such a nice place w you <333 SIGHS <333 VERY <333 LOUDLY <333

no matter how much he likes you...he will NOT let you drive the boat under any circumstances </3 its his livelihood c’mon man

whenever you have to stay on the ship while he’s away he sends rigatoni to give messages and the two of u talk thru messages

speaking of which rigatoni is fierce and can definitely sink his talons and his sharp beak into any bastard that dares get near you while the captain is away

wakatoshi “swimming is for pussies” ushijima - he’s water resistant

bruh so powerful he walks on water

second coming of christ who

IM JUST KIDDING he does swim but we hardly ever see it

legends say (tendou says) he looks rlly awkward doing it and only knows how to doggie paddle

speaking of our homeboy tendou - he loooves spooking the team (and especially you) with scary stories . don’t worry tho - this is all a ploy to get the beeg pirate husband to comfort u at night ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) he is ur wingman u can count on him. but his suggestions are ridiculous

“Jump off the deck and see if he’ll catch you!” um excuse me- THOU SHALT NOT PUT BIG HUSBAND TO THE TEST

he’s got good intentions...i think…

but everyone literally knows he would dive after you

in other words pirate!ushijima is a softie at heart but goddamn he probably secretly has a pet shark so dont test him or u goin overboard

mafia leader!kita

we are: associate from different group/family

kita highly respects u and yall have been acquainted since u were young with the alliance of ur families

so in a way ur childhood friends but yall do have lil bit of friendly rivalry a bit

arranged marriage whuuuutttt...yeah thats what happened but u love him <3

nobody else knows about ur arranged marriage but you two

POLITE GENTLEMAN <333 !!! HNNNNNNNN his granny raised him right even tho he’s a mafia leader

RICH BOY RICH BOY RICH BOY- ALWAYS DRESSES DASHINGLY AND SMELLS GREAT MMMMMM

he owns the majority of the underground casinos

and has lots of connections with others. countless, might i add.

you on the other hand specialize as an arms dealer so he cherishes your services the most

prob has the traditional tattoos allllll over his back and shoulders w like a dragon or sm and def a fox or kitsune

when u two were little he asked ur favorite flower and GOT THAT TATTOOED ON HIS BACK <3 probably secretly has your initials hidden in there somewhere

u both have a silent understanding of each other and he talks to u more than he does anyone

before he used to smoke but once he figured out that you didn’t like the smell of cigarettes he quit just like that

his underlings, the miya twins are so confused on how kita switches from totally brutal and ruthless to so soft around u

they can’t tease him for it, though, cuz he’d pulverize them

but they want to know more about u,,,you mysterious enigma,,,but kita would kill them if they dared asked about you

so they go to inarizaki’s most secretive informant/cyber mercenary, suna rintarou

and suna knows all about you. he saw you one time and he was curious about who you were and is now rlly scared of you because he dug too deep and you’ve got LOTS of history

he doesn’t dare tell the twins what he found no matter how much they bug him

until they bribe him at just the right price

and when aran finds out and tells kita?? ohhh boy it’s lights out for all three of them

oh my god ,,, would kill for u he loves u so much

one time you were kidnapped and held hostage

bro saw red

MAFIA ANNIHILATION SPEEDRUN ANY % NO GLITCH

he got world record time

wiped out the entire conglomerate behind it - nothing and nobody left behind after that

and of course, made sure you were safe.

yandere? ofc not...i mean...just look at him...so innocent...he would never...sharpening that knife...with splattered blood all over him...

is now joined at the hip with u,,,no matter how much you tell him you’ll be fine now and that you have tons of reliable bodyguards he won’t let it go

“don’t you have to go back to your place?” “this is my duty as both a fellow associate and your future husband.” aww,,,ur so sweet...but BRUH PLEASE GO HOME ARAN IS DOING EVERYTHING OVER THERE

makes sure to build a headquarters DIRECTLY NEXT TO YOURS so that its faster

and it’s not long until he just signs a deal to merge ur factions together (since yall getting married anyways)

and oh my god...ur underground wedding is SO SO PRETTY

absolutely DOESN’T care if he’s smuggling jewels from different countries - he’s having your ring CUSTOM MADE and the way you want it. “the diamond is too small? sure thing, darling, i’ll have it 7 times that size.”

makes sure everything is perfect in ur wedding <333 its very extravagant and even though its not really his style he’ll do anything for you

he absolutely WOULD take your last name if you wanted. FIGHT ME ON THIS

takes you to his private island for ur honeymoon so that the two of you don’t have to worry about work

meanwhile aran is scrambling around the place trying to cover for the both of you

he’s a VERY romantic husband - NEVER takes off his ring even for security. he says its practically a part of him just like you are <3

the ring has a built in tracker connected to an app. possessive? noooo...

in other words this escalated pretty quickly but i aint complaining if it gets me married to kita

--

--EXTRA EXTRA!! other characters’ roles!!--

officer!daichi:

karasuno squadron consists of:

cops: daichi (duh), asahi (mostly patrol, he hates confrontation), tanaka & noya (mostly accompanied by ennoshita), hinata & kageyama

investigators/detectives: sugawara, ennoshita, yamaguchi, tsukishima, kiyoko, yachi

surveillance: narita, kinoshita, tsukishima too

househusband!oikawa:

makki and mattsun are also househusbands

iwaizumi is a malewife fhasodjkasdhf-

ceo!kuroo:

lev is the newbie that walked in on u two-

janet still a bitch

kenma is his fellow ceo buddy. he also owns a multimillion dollar company and kuroo’s and his have a sort-of contract so you see him a lot in meetings

yaku is like one of the top performing managers so whenever yall have branch meetings he’s there

dog hybrid!bokuto:

kuroo is the black neighborhood cat bokuto almost murdered cough cough i did that on purpose yes i did

kenma is also another neighborhood cat. you don’t see him around that often but now that bokuto got jealous he stays far away.

hinata is the orange chihuahua i briefly mentioned

i couldn’t decide whether akaashi would stay human and be his previous owner or also be a cat/dog/owl. so lets say he’s ur human friend that is your bestie and comes over a lot. bokuto likes him, though. still gets jealous a bit.

pirate!ushijima:

tendou is practically is right hand man

the rest of the team have something to give idk how to explain pirate team members okay-

BUT BUT BUT- they do have sea rivals which are the seijoh pirates. you ran into them one day and oikawa thought you were kidnapped (you were, but you liked it there) so he tried to do you justice and failed miserably. ushijima ragdolled him into the ocean when he flirted w you.

mafia!kita:

the twins are something akin to mercenaries basically. or just plain lackeys.

suna is an informant/cyber mercenary. he gathers information about ppl which is how he knew about you. and he’s a hacker lol.

aran is his second-in-command, omimi + ginjima are his bodyguards

a/n: im going to regret posting this

[mermaidxatxheart]

Better Together Chapter One

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Word Count: 828 

Warnings: Poe being charming. It’s just a baby chapter. Only a couple swear words, mild for me lol.

A/N: this is my new story. It’s angst ridden. I was in a mood. If you like my works, please reblog, leave a comment. My works are not to be posted anywhere else without my consent.

Series Master List

Princess General Leia Organa. 

Legendary badass. 

Ruthless military tactician.

Leader of not one, but two rebellions. 

Beacon of light and hope for millions across the galaxy. 

Powerful Jedi warrior. 

And she’s just given you a mission. It’s not your first, or your second. Shit, it’s not even your fiftieth. But every time she gives you a mission, hands it to you directly, your stomach tingles and you have to fight the stupid, idiotic smile that threatens your face. So what if you have the biggest lady crush on your boss? You’re a Maker-damn professional. Act like it. 

Luckily, you can feel your leader next to you, feeling just as thrilled. 

Poe Dameron.

Flyboy.

Best pilot in the Resistance. 

Probably one of the most trustworthy people on this base. 

A good friend. 

A solid leader. 

Wickedly charming. 

Reckless with his own life, but never anyone else’s. 

He barely glances at you while Leia speaks, giving you the directive. It’s a supply run of sorts, but also a recon mission. Is the planet suitable for habitation, find a decent spot for a secret base. It’s not a big party, just the two of you. You and Poe work well together, you have a gift for maps, charts, a logical head; Poe can be impulsive, but his gut feelings are usually spot on. 

“You’re both dismissed.” She says and you turn to head for the exit, the data drive in your fist. 

Poe only just manages to wait until you’re clear of the doors before his grin breaks free and he’s literally bouncing next to you. “Time to fly again, gorgeous.” He says and you roll your eyes, pretending to be unmoved by his effervescence. 

“Poe, your ship isn’t even here.” You tease and he barks out a laugh.

“Beauty isn’t just limited to my ship.” He remarks, nudging your elbow. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. My girl is probably the most gorgeous thing ever created, but you come in at a relatively close… second.” He shrugs and you can’t help it, you laugh.

“Gee, thanks. It makes sense now.” You say and he looks at you as he subtly guides you out into the bright sunlight. 

“What does?”

“Why you’re always so very single.” You point out and he cackles, head tipped back, hand pressed against his belly. 

“And this is why I keep you around. You keep me humble.”

“Humble? Dameron, you’ve never been humble a day in your life.”

“Don’t know what you mean.” He smirks. “So, we have a couple hours to kill. Think you can convince your boyfriend to let you join us for a night-before drink?” 

“Poe. As much as I like being your friend, I’m not gonna see my boyfriend for a few days. I’d rather spend my time with him.” You say bluntly and Poe shrugs. 

“Don’t know why. Guy’s a dick, but whatever.” He holds up his hands in surrender and you decide to ignore him. Poe and your boyfriend, Bryce, have never gotten along. From day one it’s been a dick measuring contest between the two. Bryce doesn’t understand how you can tolerate the smug pilot, and Poe doesn’t understand how you can let Bryce kiss you. Any time he sees it in public, he makes loud obnoxious gagging noises until you throw something heavy at his head. 

But right now, you don’t care. You bump your fist against his closed knuckles in a friendly goodbye and head off in the other direction. 

“Hey! Predawn means before it gets light.” He calls after you. 

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t show up hungover, Dameron!” You shout back and you can just make out his cheeky grin. 

You practically skip to Bryce’s quarters and knock a secret knock. Rap, rap, rapraprap. It takes a minute before the door slides open and there he is, in all his handsome glory. Light blond hair disheveled, hanging in his soft blue eyes. He looks sleepy, like he’s only grabbed a couple hours of sleep after a long night of being on post. Your eyes trail up the exposed ridges of his abdomen to his broad shoulders to his face. 

“You’re leering.” He yawns. 

“Admiring.” You correct. 

He studies you for a minute before sighing. “When do you leave?” 

“First thing in the morning. It’s only for a few days.” You say, stepping forward and leaning against his chest to look up at him. 

“Who’s going?” His big hands rest on your hips as you hum thoughtfully. 

“Just Poe. It’s a small mission.” You rise up on your tiptoes to kiss him but he steps back with a small scoff of disgust. “B, do you really wanna spend my last night arguing about a friend? Or? Do you wanna give me something to remember you by?” You sigh. 

“Well, when you put it like that.” He grins, scooping you up by your thighs and carrying you over to his cot, his soft lips searing into yours.

Chapter Two

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[daydreamingintheimpalax]

Unexpected

Prompt: “what happened to your clothes?”  “I think i’m falling in love with you.” “I think ive always known, deep down, i think i’ve always loved you.” 

Dean x Reader

Warnings: Swearing, somewhat detailed sex scene, iunno not much really. 

A/N: Sorry it’s so long, i had this idea and thought it’d be a fun read. Enjoy :)

Dean sat on your bed, mindlessly watching and waiting as you hid in your closet, dress after dress, skirt after skirt flying out, one almost hitting him in the face. He caught it mid air before tossing it down next to him. 

“I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up, its just a few drinks at the bar, Max already knows you, you dont need to impress him, he already likes you.” Dean spoke, watching as you popped out from your closet, three different shirts in your hands.

Dean was your best friend, you had met him and Sam as a child, your fathers had been hunting partners for a few years, always leaving you and the boys at bobby’s to cause trouble for the old man. You could still hear bobby’s voice sometimes, demanding Dean stop influencing you with his schemes. 

His buddy Max had run into him at the bar last week while you guys had stopped in during a hunt and they had caught up for hours, you had connected with Max off the bat, and when he’d asked you out, you were skeptical, see deep down you always knew Dean was your guy, your never ending crush on him had turned into deeper feelings years ago, you tried to deny it for years, and definitely never told him, but when Dean had convinced you to give it a shot, go out on ONE date with a guy he knew and liked, you gave in, never being able to say no to him, i mean, to be fair you hadn’t been with a man in over 2 years and you could use a night out, maybe even some quality time in bed with a good looking guy, plus, Dean trusted him, and that was enough.

“Dean, i haven’t been out with a guy in 2 years, i’m not going out with a guy looking like a swamp monster, first dates are everything, and looking your best can make or break the date.” You huffed, holding out a shirt to him for an opinion, he shook his head, grimacing. 

“First, you never look like a swamp monster, you’re stunning no matter what, you hardly have to work at that, secondly, that’s an old ratty tshirt you stole from me, really?” He pointed at it, now realizing he was right, why the hell you were even suggesting this. It was time to pull out the big guns. You sighed, hiding back into your closet, you had to have something date worthy. 

Dean had popped away, grabbing himself a beer, giving himself a break from outfit advice. You were his best friend and he wanted nothing more than to see you happy, even if it meant trusting Max to take you out on a date. It was one date, it’s not like he was stealing you away forever. He had always had a soft spot for you, you were his first kiss as a kid and he’d looked out for you ever since, and even though he trusted Max, seeing you get all worked up over a guy that wasn’t him still didn’t settle well with him, but he shoved his feelings down and tried to be as supportive as he could. 

He walked back into your room, realizing you were finally working on your makeup, you were slightly bent over your bathroom sink, reaching closer to the mirror as you did your eyeliner, truth be told, he loved when you did that black wing thing, it enhanced your big E/C eyes and drove him nuts everytime. He looked you over, realizing what you finally had chosen to put on, a shorter than he’d like black leather mini skirt, a matching leather shirt thing that looked similar to a bra more than anything. He cleared his throat. 

“What happened to your clothes?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

You finish your eyeliner before walking past him, fetching lipstick out of your little makeup bag before making your way back to your bathroom, “What do you mean? Theyre fine.” You spoke, applying your lipstick as he piped up.

“I mean like, where’s the rest of it?” he sassed and you rolled your eyes as you walked back into the room. “It’s not that bad is it? It’s literally all i can find that isn’t covered in holes, old blood or stained monster guts.” You looked down at yourself, smoothing out your skirt. Dean cleared his throat as he eyed you properly, trying hard to calm his way out of a boner. 

“Uh, no, no i’m just teasing, you look incredible.” He smiled, nodding, you shoot him a innocent smile, “Better, Winchester. Much better, right answer.” You shoot him a small wink and he chuckles. He had come a long way on talking to women because of her, she helped him realize as a teenager and a young man that he didn’t need to be vulgar or gross to pick up women and he’d learned a long time ago thanks to her that chivarly was key.

He watched as she put on her coat, Max waiting by the door to take her out, she gave him a little wave as she told him not to wait up, she’d be fine. 

“Be safe, have fun.” He smiled as she walked out the door, his internal groan coming out of his mouth and he kicked himself for being too scared to ever make a move himself. He’d liked her since they were teenagers, but he was too stubborn to do anything, his fathers voice telling him hunter relationships never worked. 

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

The night had been a blast so far, you and Max were having a great time chatting, dancing and enjoying each others company at the bar, he was sweet, nice and had a good view on life and hunting. He told you entertaning stories, some even involved moments he and Dean shared as young teenagers hunting together, being boys and trying to get girls, Max pranking Dean. They had a good friendship and you were happy Dean had someone besides you and Sam he could pal around with. 

You had moved to his truck a while ago, the mix of alcohol and pure need affecting you both as you made out like teenagers, the windows began steaming up, it was an unusually warm evening in lebanon and you were thankful you wore this outfit or would have soaked right through it from the heat. 

His hand moved freely on your thigh and you straddled him, his back against the backseat of his pick up with you on his lap, dry humping him like some silly teenage girl who hadn’t had sex yet, you made the first move, desperate to feel a mans touch, it had been so long. 

You yank your top off, nothing but some nipple covers to cover your exposed breasts, Max lets out a soft moan, “Beautiful,” he mumbles while he kisses softly around your skin, he slowly peels off the covers off you and his mouth lands on your nipple and you let out a louder Moan than you want to but it doesn’t seem to bother him. 

Before you know it, your both down to nothing but your underwear, you reach down and pull down his boxers, reaching a hand in and grabbing him and placing him at your entrance, you’re already so turned on you don’t need foreplay tonight, not when you’re this sexually frustrated. 

You sink down on him slowly, and you both moan out, yours comes out as more of a shout, and you begin to move, slowly at first before changing into a soft but faster bounce, he’s making sounds, you know that for fact but you’re so distracted by the feeling of pure pleasure you haven’t felt in so long you aren’t even fully aware of what’s happening, you let out a shout, and before you know what’s happening, it all suddenly just stops.

You come back to reality and notice Max has pushed you off, he’s pulling his pants back on and avoiding your eye. Oh for fuck sakes, you haven’t even came close to your release and Dean set you up with a 2 minute one pump chump. You were going to kick his ass. 

“What’s wrong? are you done already?” you ask, his looks at you, letting out an exasperated huff before licking his lips and shaking his head. “I’m sorry Y/n, i don’t think this is going to work out, besides, you shouldn’t really sleep with a guy if you’re not going to rememember his name.” He scolds, glaring at you before he shoves his shirt on and climbs out the back, you put your skirt and shirt back on, deciding to skip the panties all together.

“Hey! I do remember your name, it’s Max, i’m not stupid!” You yell at him, angry now that he would even suggest that. Max turns to you, glaring, “Oh yeah, then next time maybe you should try screaming my name out and not Dean’s, jesus christ y/n, if you want him that bad just go fuck him, i doubt he’ll say no!” He shouts and you stand frozen. 

“What? Dean?, i didn’t...I don’t-” you stutter, he cuts you off. “It’s kind of obvious y/n, you screamed his name for a reason, you obviously have lingering feelings for him, and im not going to be your pitty fuck.” He sighs, he ushers you into the passenger seat, offering to drive you home in what is the most uncomfortabe, quiet, embrassing drive home ever. 

You slam the bunker door closed, worst date ever. You make your way past Dean and Sam in the library as you try your hardest to avoid them, especially Dean, you were embarassed enough, you didn’t need to face him right now, and you sure as hell hoped Max kept his mouth shut about it too.

“Y/N? That you? “ You hear Dean call out but you avoid answering, flying past them to your room before slamming the door shut. 

Dean’s eyebrows furrow.

“I guess the date didn’t go well then.” Sam speaks out, looking over at Dean. He shrugs, before getting up and walking towards your room

He knocks on the door softly, “Y/n, you okay? did Max do something cause if he did i’ll beat the living crap outta him.” He calls out, he can hear your sniffle, he sighs, before softly opening your door. You’re cuddled up in bed, watching your favorite episode of golden girls as you cry softly. He sighs and heads over, sitting on your bed. 

“Bad date?” He asks and you shrug, “Something like that.” He gives you a soft smile. “Want to talk about it?” He asks and you shake your head. “No, i just wanna forget it.” You speak, he notices you never meet his eye. He nods and agrees to leave it alone, he joins you quietly, watching tv with you but giving you your space. When you finally fall asleep, he goes to bed himself, but not before shooting Max a text. 

“Whatever the fuck you did man, she’s upset, and if i find out you hurt her, i’ll kill you.” 

                                                      ---------

It’s two weeks later when things finally come out, you haven’t spoken to Max since that night of your date. The bar is busier than usual, a few more college kids then there usually is but it is spring break, most of them are probably home for the much needed time away from school work. 

Dean is at the pool tables, hussling some airhead jock out of pool money. You watch and laugh when he heads over to you, cash in hand. 

“Ha ha, stupid brainless jocks. Always so much fun seeing how much of daddy’s money i can get out of them.” He chuckles, setting the money back in his pocket. You roll your eyes but smile. Why did you put up with this dork. 

Before you know it, someone is calling out for Dean. “Yo, Dean!” You both turn to spot Max, waving Dean over for a game. You swallow, nervous that the details of your date will come out, you still weren’t fully over it, and you dreaded Dean ever finding out, he’d never let you live it down and he really didn’t need a bigger ego. Luckily Max hadn’t noticed you yet. 

Dean motions he’ll play one round and be right back and you try to give him a smile, dreading this inside. Just don’t ask him about the date, you interally tell him, even though he’s long gone and can’t hear it. 

You sip your drink, asking for another one and you try to keep your cool at those two being in the same room all of a sudden. 

                                                      -----------

One game had turned into 4 and before you knew it, the two guys had captured a crowd, some betting on Max and some on Dean. It was becoming a friendly competition between the two boys. 

“Aw come on Max, don’t be a sore loser, i’m sure you can come back from that.” Dean teases, watching as Max lines up his next shot. 

“Easy for you to say Winchester, tell me, do you ever get sick of being a pompous prick?” Max winks at him and Dean smiles, “Eh, Sometimes, but then i remember how fun it is to watch you lose and its all worth it.” Dean chuckles, Max suddenly isn’t in a joking mood and he shoots, it goes in, he gets a few more and Dean’s actually surprised. 

“Not bad, man. You’re getting better.” Dean smirks, “Still no match for me though, i always win.” Dean leans in, takes a shot and gets his last three balls in, He lines up with the 8 ball, looks up at Max, and smirks, then his eyes find you, sitting behind Max a few tables down and he shoots you a wink, before sinking in his ball. Game over. 

Max turns around, realizing who Dean winked at, he turns back around, slamming his pool stick down. “Good game, I’m done, guess you won Dean, you got the money, and the one girl i’ve liked in a really long time, guess you always do win, huh?” He spits out, a bitter tinge to his voice. He scoffs and walks away.

Dean’s suddenly confused, what the hell was he talking about. He looks over at you, you’re watching the television over the bar, no clue what had just happened, he follows Max outside catching him before he reaches his truck.

“Hey! I didn’t get anything, if this is about y/n, you screwed that up on your own, okay? I had nothing to do with that!” Dean shouts. Max laughs and turns to face him. “Oh bullshit Dee, you have everything to do with it!” He sneers, “I really liked her man, she was cool, but like always, Dean Winchester always gets the girl!” He scoffs, making Dean frown, confused. 

“Y/n isn’t mine! she’s my friend, whatever you did to piss her off on your date was your problem, she didn’t tell me what you did but if you wanted her that bad, you had the chance to fix it!”

“REALLY DEE? Tell me, how the fuck would you fix the girl you like screaming your best friends name in bed when shes with you? Huh? How the fuck do i fix her thinkng about you while she’s fucking me?” He swallows, “Man, forget it, you wouldn’t understand, god forbid that ever happened to you.” He spits, before he’s in his truck, driving away. Dean’s still standing there, more confused than ever.

He finally makes it back inside, his eyes roaming around for you. He finds you in the same spot, the female bar tender chatting with you and making you laugh. Your eyes find him, beckoning him over and he moves.

He finally reaches you and you smile, “I got you another beer. How did the game go? You disappeared.” You ask, and he stares at you, he finally pipes up, and your heart sinks. Oh no. Please no.

“Max seemed very upset when he saw you, what happened on your date again? Why didn’t you ever go out with him again?” He asks, you take a sip of your beer and shrug. “I dunno, he wasn’t my type, just didn’t work out.” You bite your lip, hoping to god he lets this go, you don’t need to relive that embarassing moment. 

He nods, taking a drink of his own beer, “Okay, so he just wasn’t your type, that’s all? It had nothing to do with you screaming my name in the middle of sex?” He calmly points out and you nearly choke on your beer, spitting beer across the bar table, everyone close by stares at you, you turn red, apologizing and grabbing napkins to clean up your mess. 

You turn and face Dean, “He fucking told you!” Dean raises an eyebrow, “In a not so nice way, so it’s true? You really did?” He smirks and you bury your face in your hands, “Oh god...” You call out and when you look back up Dean’s cheesy grin is staring back at you, “Actually, apparently it’s Oh Dean.”

You throw a nice solid punch into his shoulder before you run out of the bar, “Y/n...y/n wait!” Dean calls out but you’re already half way across the bar and out the door. He throws down some cash and chases after you, catching you half way down the road.

“Y/n...” He calls out, “Just leave me alone Dean, i knew you would use this against me, i knew it. You’re a jerk.” You wipe away a tear, he finally reaches you and grabs your arm, turning you to face him. 

“Hey, i didn’t mean to upset you, i’m sorry, i just, i was surprised, that’s all.” He sighs, “Why didn’t you just tell me? I thought Max was the one who hurt you or something.” He speaks softly and you sniffle. 

“it’s embarassing, i didn’t even know i did it, i was so into it and then he just stopped, for a second i thought he’d already, you know, i was disappointed then we got into an argument about it and he took me home.” You shrugged. 

Dean nodded, he was quiet for a while, and then he spoke, revealing something that made even you question if you were drunk.

“I uh, i guess i wasn’t expecting to hear that, and i guess i got a little excited cause iunno i just, i think i’m falling in love with you, and when Max told me i just uh, i guess i was hopeful that maybe it meant you felt the same.” He swallows before going quiet, watching your reaction carefully. 

You nodded, frowning as you realised you weren’t dreaming, Dean loved you, Dean Winchester loved you.

“I think i’ve always known, Deep down, i think i’ve always loved you.” You shrug, “Every since we shared our first kiss, i think part of me has loved you ever since.” You smile, finally meeting Dean’s eyes, the grin on his face tells you all you need to know, this man is crazy about you, always has been.

“oh yeah?” He smiles, reaching out to grab you, you chuckle, leaning up and placing a slow, deep kiss on his lips.

“Yeah, what can i say, you’re just my type.” You smirk and Dean laughs. 

“Well then, why don’t we get back home and i’ll give you a real reason to scream my name.” He smirks, leaning down quite a bit to place wet warm kisses along your exposed neck. 

“You’re never going to let me live that down are you?” You roll your eyes, he meets them and a sexy grin appears on his face. 

“Not a chance.” 

[pod95]

Pairing: Finn Balor X OFC (Ciara)

Word Count: 1310

Warnings: Mature to explicit as the story goes on.

Description: After moving to the USA from England to start her career as an NXT superstar, Ciara gets to meet her long time crush, NXT champion Finn Balor. It's clear the pair have chemistry, but when tensions start to rise, will they find they want more than a no strings attached relationship?

So this is the first piece of fanfic I have written literally ever. I will be posting them here periodically, but I already have 6 chapters out on my Wattpad, AO3 and FanFiction pages.

This series will involve romance, drama and (although it will take a little while) some smutt too. Hope you enjoy it! 😊

Chapter 4: Up Close and Personal

I awoke startled to the sound of my roommate banging on my door. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I checked the time on my phone, 9:36. Shit! I'd slept through both of my alarms and needed to be at the Performance Center by 10 for my first day. I opened my bedroom door and a panicked Alex was standing on the other side.

"You're gonna be late! Quick, take a shower and I'll drop you off on my way to work." She handed me some towels as I gave her a thankful look before rushing into the bathroom to get ready.

I don't normally sleep in but I didn't get back from the party until late and I definitely went overboard with the alcohol. Fergal and I talked way into the night before sharing a taxi back to our respective homes. Nothing happened obviously, despite my drunken attempts to flirt with him. I cringed at the thought of my clumsy pickup lines and awkward attempts at being alluring. I would have to be very careful around Fergal from now on, after all this was the second time in as many days I was trying to wash away my shame with water and shampoo.

I was washed, dressed and in the car in record time, arriving at the Performance Center a little after 10. Not too bad considering how late I woke up.

"Ciara! Follow me," Paul greeted me as I entered the lobby, "so like I said before, you debut in 3 weeks. You'll be entering into a feud between Tegan and Dakota as Tegans tag partner. Obviously you're very experienced in the ring but here in NXT we have our own rules, own way of doing things so you'll be working with some of our trainers today just to help you adapt."

He led me to a ring, where I was taught the basics of wrestling for the WWE.  There were so many rules, some of which didn't even make sense. Obviously certain moves were banned, no blading, no head shots, all the usuals. But then there was a lot of differences too. Matches often have "agents" that help to set up a match, if you wanted to use certain weapons you need written approval, and don't even get me started on the list of banned words. I was starting to become worried that I was out of my depth here.

After going through the rules and doing some initial training, I was introduced to Steffanie (Tegan Nox), Cheree (Dakota Kai) and Victoria (Raquel Gonzalez)

"Oh hey you're working with us right?" Steffanie asked, extending a friendly hand.

"Yeah! I'm Ciara! Looking forward to working with you all." I introduced myself to the girls and got to know them a little better before getting to work on our tag match

We'd been working for a couple of hours and had some good spots perfected. It was just the finish left to go, where I would hit my finishing move ( a Canadian Destroyer I called the "Natural 20") on Dakota and make the pin.

After practicing it a couple of times, I began to feel like someone was watching me. Glancing around the room, I spotted Fergal, leaning casually against a wall and observing our practicing.

Thankfully for my heart he wasn't shirtless today, in fact he wore a baggy hoodie which concealed his physique like a well hidden secret. I gave him a small smile and turned back to the girls.

"If I might offer some advice..." Fergal interrupted.

"Please." I gestured for him to join us in the ring.

He climbed up onto the apron and jumped over the top rope, clearly showing off.

"Your finisher is a Canadian Destroyer right? It's a good move-"

"Thanks!"

"-But, it's a little overplayed. In WWE alone there's Sin Cara, Adam Cole, Rey Mysterio and Chelsea Green who use it. If you wanna stand out, I'd switch it up a little."

I didn't know how to respond. He was right of course, but I'd always had the same finisher. I didn't want to change it.

"I've always had the same finisher, it means a lot to me. I don't wanna do a different one."

"I'm not saying to do a different one. I'm saying to tweak it a little."

After thinking it over for a few moments, I still didn't have any idea what Fergal was getting at.

"How?" I yielded, knowing that it would result in a cocky smile.

"Have you ever seen anyone do a springboard Canadian destroyer," he smirked.

"I haven't.."

"There's a reason for that. Its not done that often."

He took his hoodie off and threw it into the corner of the ring, revealing a tight vest which hugged his torso.

"Jump at me," Fergal instructed, taking me by surprise slightly. Physical contact with people who are practically strangers wasn't unusual in our line of work, but I still felt nervous at the thought of being that close to him. I did as he told me.

Taking a slight running start, I jumped at Fergal, his strong arms catching me beneath my thighs. As he held me there, explaining the next part of the move to me, two things crossed my mind. The first was that this man was even stronger than I realised. He was holding my full body weight with only his forearms and not even breaking a sweat. The second thought was how close his face was to my chest.

"Right, now I'm gonna bounce your back off the top rope, kinda like a rope assisted powerbomb, only on the rebound, jump over my shoulder into the Canadian Destroyer. OK?"

He spun me around and bounced me off the top rope, but I didn't quite have enough momentum and ended up bashing my chin on his shoulder blade.

"Ahh!" Fergal put me down gently before inspecting my chin.

"Are you OK? Can you move your jaw?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

"I'm fine, don't think it's injured at all, just hurt a bit."

Relieved, he backed off a little, seeming a little guilty that his suggestion had hurt me.

"Shall we try again?" I smiled at him, hoping to reassure him that I was fine and he had nothing to feel bad about.

"OK, but this time you need to really just dive over my shoulder OK? It'll be easier with the girls cause they're smaller."

We went again, and this time I used my full body weight to push myself back off the top rope, Diving elegantly over his shoulder and completing the move. It was a little clunky due to never having done it before, but after a few more attempts, I was able to do it perfectly.

After we'd finished practicing, I collapsed in the ring exhausted. Fergal handed me a bottle of water before sitting cross-legged next to me.

"Good job today. You worked really hard."

"Things are a lot different here in the big leagues huh?" I commented, sitting up and taking a much needed sip of the water. Fergal chuckled.

"You'll get used to it. I can see why Paul likes you."

It was only upon hearing this that something occurred to me.

"Wait, you were here to train too right? Damn, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk up all your ti-"

"Dont even worry about it. I came here today to keep an eye on the newbies, " he smiled, reassuringly.

"I know but you could have been helping the others and instead you were stuck with m-"

"Are you hungry?" Fergal interrupted "I'm starving. Come on, I'll treat us to dinner," he stood up, helping me to my feet and leading me out of the training room before I had a chance to refuse, not that I would have done.

[hansolmates]

vernon; blossomed (m)

feat. tattoo artist!vern x flower shop fem!reader based on nonnie’s big brain

genre/warnings: flangst, lang, wild generalizations of how tattooing works, gratuitous love for side characters, mild drinking, phineas and ferb references, mild foreplay

word count: 12k

Vernon called you his Rose. 

Not exactly his Rose, because you were definitely not anyone’s property and he wanted to give you nothing but your full autonomy, but it’s because he’s never had the chance to ask for your real name. 

But when he first spotted you in the little lavender and honey colored flower shop across the street, you were tending to the rose bushes at the front entrance. You were cutting roses and you didn’t look utterly graceful, in fact you stabbed yourself more than once with the thorns. He couldn’t help but laugh when you laughed when your co-worker had to hand you a new bandage every minute. 

He decided then that he liked you, even if it’s not wholly sexual or romantic, he liked you. 

Or maybe he just liked the idea of you, the way you’d lounge around in the canopy swing with your boots tucked under the seat, fluffy yellow socks wiggling out in the sun. Sometimes you’d read a book, sometimes for well over an hour. He liked how you soaked up the heat and created your own little world, happily unproductive. 

It was only a seven meter walk from the flower shop to the tattoo parlor, but the view from his front window required zero walking distance and a sure-fire lack of ever bumping into you. 

“Vernie’s got a crush on the Flower Girl,” Yoongi sing-songed, chugging along a box full of random-ass materials that Vernon was supposed to clean in the morning. 

Vernon scowled, and swatted away the older one’s hand when it dived in front of his face. 

Yoongi whistled like he was an old-time animation, singing the day away. “Vernie’s stalking his crush.” 

“I’m not stalking,” Vernon snapped, swiveling around in his rolling chair. “that involves shit like literally following her around,  photography, I dunno, being a weirdo?” 

“You definitely qualify for one of those.” Yoongi replied tartly, and he fought the urge to grin when Vernon finally turned back to the window, only to narrowly miss your form. The swing was now unoccupied, the only thing remnant were your working boots lined up against the entrance. “It’s been what, two weeks? Just ask her out already.” 

“You think I would’ve done that by now if there wasn’t a reason why?“ 

Soooo you were dating someone. Some super tall, super handsome guy would stroll up to the flower shop every morning, coffee in hand. Before you’d take your proffered coffee, he’d pucker his lips for a good-morning kiss in repayment. Vernon looked back to Yoongi, who was staring right back at him and confirming his suspicions that yes he was being a fucking weirdo for paying attention to things like that. 

Yoongi pressed his lips together, puffing his cheeks out in slight irritation. “So you’re stalking a taken girl,” he whistled lowly, “should I regret hiring you?” 

“Not funny.” 

“As repayment for effectively creeping me out,” The older one slipped his hand into his electric yellow windbreaker to twirl Vernon a ring of keys. “You’re closin’ up for tonight.” 

The brunette’s jaw dropped to his lap, and he got up from his spot by the window. “What? What happened to Minghao?” 

“Sick,” Yoongi shrugged. 

Closing up meant that Vernon had to stay until 12AM, at the very least. The area was off a college town and that meant a lot of young lucrative artists would stop by pretty late, hence the closing time. Usually Yoongi and Minghao were the night owls, but tonight Minghao was supposed to fly solo because Yoongi landed a last-minute recording gig. “C’mon, can I at least close early?” Vernon whined, “it’s summer. No one’s here.” 

“What, ya gotta date or something?” Yoongi smirked, swinging the entrance open. Halfway out the door, he added loftily, “don’t forget to water Patricia. It’s been two weeks.” 

The door slammed and Vernon was left alone. He spared a glance at the window, only to see that your boots were now gone from the patio and only one light was on in the shop. Vernon turned to his company for the night, their jade succulent, aptly named Patricia Planty. 

With Patricia Planty watered and a stomach full of Wendy’s nuggets in his body, Vernon busied himself up for a grueling five hours. Thankfully he brought in his laptop, as if he were expecting Yoongi to pull a fast one on him tonight. He drew some random things on his tablet: rockets, stars, the occasional squirrel, and roses. When he was tired of drawing, he’d blast the speakers off the joint and mess around with some of his music programming. When he was tired of doing both, he’d vegetate on the couch and read Reddit articles. 

It was past eleven when the first customer of the night stumbled in. Vernon fought the urge to groan, putting down the pen of his tablet on a particularly intricate constellation. 

“We’re closed!” He yelled through the office door. A white lie, but who would know? 

“Google said you were open until 12!” A voice yelled back, sounding slightly strained. 

Crap. Vernon lowered the volume and pushed away the swivel chair, swinging the office door open. With a rough clear of his throat and hoping not to look like too much of a jerk, he faced his customer, “Welcome to Nu ABO—” 

It was you. Cheeks ruddied, and your eyes glassed with a fresh glaze of tears. Your lower lip worried into a wobbly frown. Vernon’s Reebok’s glued to the concrete of the parlor, effectively stopping him in his tracks. The smell of mulch and a mixture of flowers penetrated his nostrils, but it did nothing to distract the utter hurt etched on your face. 

“Um, hey,”  his voice was gentle, yet unsure. “What are you doing here?” 

You just looked at him, incredulous. Vernon could have sworn he saw your left eyebrow twitch. Of course, you’ve never met him in your entire life, yet Vernon felt like he knew you since the beginning of your summer work. “Gettin’ a tattoo.” You replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, rubbing away a stray tear. 

He didn’t want to say it, but Vernon sighed and reasoned, “But it’s just that, ya kinda look—” 

You brushed past him, going straight into the artist room and plopping on the worn leather chair meant for customers. It was still high up because Vernon was cleaning the underside of the metal, so you had to do a little hop to get on. “I don’t care what kind of design. I looked up your Yelp online and everything looked pretty good.” And you then proceeded to unbutton the top of your blouse. 

“Holy shit,” he bounded over to you, grappling his fingers between your shirt before you could undo the rest of it. His breath was probably hot and heavy, compared to yours which was fresh from the cool summer air. Your faces were so close, closer than he ever fathomed. He didn’t think you two would meet this early in the year, as he was emotionally preparing to visit your flower shop at the end of the month, making up some spiel on how he needed to purchase real roses to replicate a commission. Not now. Now was a spontaneous episode, where he was trying to refasten your shirt and ignore the petal pink lace of your bra baiting his eyes. 

When he sensed that you would in fact, stop taking your shirt off, he backed up. “It’s just that, after eleven we don’t really apply tattoos. We just take consultations.” He tried to sound defeated, rubbing the back of his neck. Again, another lie. But Vernon wasn’t about to ink you on the spot, especially when you looked like this. 

“Is it because I’m upset?” You cried, “because I assure you, I’m in the right mind!” 

He winced, lolling his head back and forth. “That’s debatable.” 

You frowned, “C’mon, I have money. Just do me this one solid.” 

“What? No, you don’t even know what you want!” Vernon was exasperated. Not that he imagined the first time meeting you would be a walk in the park, but at the same time he wasn’t expecting to argue with you. 

"Don’t you want to be part of my spontaneous young life? Give me a tattoo that I’ll think about with my children 30 years from now?” He would laugh if you didn’t look like you were crying a river ten minutes ago. “As long as it’s not a tramp stamp, because I don’t think I can pull that off—" 

"Did you break up with your boyfriend or something?” Vernon blurted out before he could regret it. 

Your face morphed into something Vernon couldn’t understand. Pain, for sure. But a sort of relief knowing that you didn’t have to hide it. “Damn,” you give him a tired smile, “does the whole town know or something?" 

You cried again. This time, Vernon reacted quicker. Pulling out a Wendy’s napkin from his flannel pocket, he proffered it to you. He was thankful you didn’t question whether it was clean or not (it was!) and you proceeded to cover your snot and tears all over it. 

"Do you wanna talk about it?" 

You sniffled and blew a particularly large chunk of snot before you shook your head. 

"Do you… want fries?” He gestured to the small table in the room, which had some leftover fries from his combo. “I can heat ‘em up in the microwave." 

Due to the fact that you ran out of tissue room, you rubbed your face with the entirety of your sleeve. You peeked out mid-rub, and replied with a soft, "hell yeah I do." 

His heart twitched. Even betwixt your teary expression, you were so freakin’ cute. He shuffled back to the office, nuking the leftovers in the microwave until they were piping hot. Vernon waited a bit for them to get cool, and fiddled with the music so a soft R&B playlist bounced off the walls. He couldn’t believe you were here. Scratch that, he could, because you were bound to run into him one day due to pure proximity. 

But he didn’t imagine you’d be plopped in his artist room at 11:32, bleary eyed and shoving potatoes in your mouth. 

Vernon busied himself with his phone, and typed a hasty you wouldn’t believe what just happened… to the employee group chat. 

[June 11, 11:33PM]

Bo$$ man: dont tell me u put aluminum in the microwave AGAIN

Hao hao: the chinese mafia came for me, didnt they? good thing I called out 

Jeonghan is a prick: use your resources! sharp items are everywhere :) emergency money is under Patricia’s table

Bernie: tf is wrong w all of you 

Bernie: SHES HEREEEEEE

"M'sorry,” you mumbled with a mouthful of fries, breaking Vernon from his mid-text crisis. He felt his phone buzzing like hell as he shoved it in his pocket, but ignored it for the sake of you. Your previous high of emotions has long worn off, and now you were looking a little embarrassed as you fixed your gaze on the empty container of fries. Your face is blotchy and red, and you’re especially puffy due to the salt you just consumed. “I should go home." 

He didn’t want to be intrusive, but the look on your face showed it was clear that you didn’t want to go home just yet. Drumming his fingers against the metal table, he casually suggested, "Why don’t I do your back?" 

You looked at him like he was crazy. "You still wanna tattoo me? After I cried like an idiot and ate your fries?" 

"You’re not an idiot for being upset. And I offered you my fries.” He pulled out an ink canister, and a thin needle. “This is temporary ink we use to practice, or for customers who wanna test out the look. Lasts one to two weeks. And y'know, it’s a nice distraction." 

You looked skeptical, unsure of his kindness. "Why my back?" 

He shrugged, "It’s the biggest canvas. And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to look at it." 

Still, you’re not convinced. There was something strange about him, something almost too sweet. While your schema may be marred by television and movies, the man in front of you didn’t seem like he quite fit into this little shack. He’s full of color, in his eyes and in his stature, his words clean and pure as he tries to soothe your aching heart. And as much as you tried not to check him out, you spotted no tattoos on any viewable part of his body. 

"And it’s kind of cathartic, really.” He watched your lips quirk up in a smile at the word usage. Not only sweet, but probably smart. Your first smile all night. Cheeks effortlessly heated, he continued, “you kinda just let go into the feeling. And it’s always fun to not know what’s been drawn until the very end." 

You’re curious. There’s excitement in your vision as he gestured to the available cot, inviting you. "Alright. Ink me up." 

Vernon grinned, and started preparing the workspace. Handing you a medical gown, he quickly shuffled away to prepare the ink and needles. He didn’t really work with the clients as deeply as this, he was really just a glorified secretary that took care of the consultation. While he washed his hands, he heard the faint rustle of fabric, definitely your shirt and bra. He turned up the temperature of the water, acutely aware of how hot his hands were getting. 

"Um,” your voice is muffled from being pressed up against the cot, your face presumably propped with pillows. “So are you Yoongi?" 

"Nah, I’m Vernon.” He wheeled over a cart full of supplies, the metal clanging against the concrete. “’M usually the guy who wipes the sweat off his brow." 

You hummed your own name in response, resting your cheek in the plushness of the cotton pillow. There’s a number of sounds paired with the R&B in the background. The smack of Vernon putting on gloves, the click of the needles and the slickness of the balm Vernon has applied on your back. His touch was warm, as his palm crescents across your back to soothe the balm into your skin. He then wiped it down with a paper towel until your skin was smooth and dry. 

"Any ideas yet?” He asked, and from the corner of your eye you see him switch out a needle for a new ink pen. 

“Maybe, stars?” Your voice is muffled against the cushions, as you’re hugging them close to your body. “And maybe something inspired by Spiderman? I liked that new one with Miles, he’s a cool one." 

You could hear the smile in his voice, "I liked that one, too." 

You stuff your own smile in your pillow, how embarrassing could it be that this stranger can make you feel better so fast? Mingyu would be groveling if he saw you now, topless, letting a man ink you up in however way he wished. "Will it hurt?" 

He chuckled at that, "Nah. The ink will sit on top and sink in, I barely have to apply any pressure. Just relax." 

Under the discretion of Vernon, who offered you fries and liked Spiderman, you relaxed. The first stroke of the needle and you were a goner. You closed your eyes and let him do his thing, You couldn’t tell what exactly was going on through his mind as he was painting your back, but you could tell his art was rather cacophonous: stiff pokes here and there, smooth strokes, and wide breaths of ink staining your back. The ink melted into your skin, bonding to your cells under Vernon’s careful control. 

It was almost 1AM when he finished. He tapped your back, urging you up. Tired, and slightly dazed, you sat up. You realized a little too late that you’re only wearing a thin hospital gown, the straps having fallen midway through the process. The air was cool against your skin. 

Vernon totally would’ve gotten a complete view of your sideboob if he wasn’t blushing like a maniac and looking away, and you respected that. His arm is punched out, fisting your button down. You hastily snatched it away, and turned around in order to look decent. 

“The ink won’t show up fully for another six hours, so until then let me know how you like it.” 

“Thank you so much,” you smiled gratefully as you do the last button of your blouse, and pulled out your phone. “Do you accept Venmo or Cashapp?” 

“Oh, yeah.” He accepted the proffered device, and put in the necessary charges. 

Once he gave back your phone, you added a sizable tip to the price he typed up. “The time really flew by,” you noted the time on the corner of your phone, 1:07. “It was really, an experience like you said.” 

He shrugged, and threw you an easy smile. “I try.” 

"Can I get a real tattoo from you someday? Y'know, when I’m ready?" 

"Ah, no. I’m not really under the apprenticeship.” He looked bashful when he said it, as if he were caught doing something wrong. “I just work here for the part time money. I do art on the side, though.” 

You had the urge to ask what he doesn’t do on the side, but it was late and you were probably holding up the poor guy for your trivial questions. “Regardless, I’m still thankful it was you that did this for me.” 

In three strides, he opened the small door for you. “My pleasure. Have a good night. Or, morning. Or if you’re one of those people who don’t consider it morning unless it’s light out, then good night?” 

“Good night,” you giggled, “get home safely.” 

“You too.” 

The screen door slammed shut behind you, along with the main door. Your car is parked in the grass patching of the flower shop. You jogged over, and the summer air made you shiver, your back still raw and warm under Vernon’s touch. 

You couldn’t wait until the flower shop closed. 

If Wonwoo noticed that you moved the porch swing relative to the placement of Nu ABO, he hasn’t brought it up. You weren’t spying on Vernon, no. But your skin was starting to itch with curiosity and in your haste to leave last night, you didn’t even ask what he designed on your back. 

“Are you stalking the tattoo guy?” 

Despite the voice being petal soft, you flinched. Assistant Manager Joshua Hong with a bouquet of boat lilies, was accusing you of stalking. His Converse tapped rhythmically against the wood paneling, looking down at you like a guilty child.  

“What?” you floundered, waving around the florist magazine in your hands. “Josh, I’m studying! And the sun was in my face so I moved the swing.” 

“You’re studying,” Joshua flickered his eyes to the run down shack across the road. “The tattoo guy?” 

“I already said I wasn’t!” 

“Then you’re telling me you spent all last night doing that,” he reached over to tug at your starched work collar, “all by yourself?” 

Your hand flew to your neck, as if you were trying to hide Vernon’s hard work. “I just wanna see what he did, all right? And I’m trying to be very patient until closing because if Wonwoo sees me going there,” you jerked a head none-too-gracefully at the direction of the parlor, “he’s gonna tell you-know-who.” 

Joshua frowned, because he already knew. After all, he stayed in the back room with you all last night, wiping away your tears. “Well, whoever did it is truly an artist,” he said genuinely, “it’s beautiful.” 

Joshua finally left you alone, and you suddenly felt emptier than before. Sure, the breakup with Mingyu was conventionally bad, but why were you so conflicted with your feelings? You didn’t want Mingyu to know you were hanging out with other guys, but you wanted to let go of him. Maybe you were trying too hard too fast. 

But Vernon made everything so, so easy. 

No, you are not letting him be a rebound. The inner conflict in your head was giving you a massive headache, you couldn’t tell if the vibes you were feeling last night were because of the recent breakup or just an authentic spark. 

The storm door shuttered boldly, and you jumped. Wonwoo stepped out, and gave you a weird look. “You alright?” 

“Me? Yeah, fine.” You gripped the collar of your shirt and pretended to fasten the buttons. 

He was unconvinced, either that or the pinched look he was sporting was an indicator of a bad day. “Listen, I know things are gonna be weird because my best friend is your, y’know,” he trailed off, painfully trudging through this conversation as easily as trudging through quicksand. “He’s gonna stop by a couple more times during the week, doing me a few errands. So if you wanna take the week off, recalibrate before the the month ends, just let me know. ” 

“Won, please,” you wanted this to end, “we don’t have to talk about this, alright?” 

He awkwardly twirled around his car keys. “Alright.” As simple as that, he threw himself in his sedan and drove off, dirt brushing the pavement. 

You glared at the dust cloud until his car was far from your sights, the mustard color blinding your vision. “Honestly,” you said to yourself, finally hopping off your swing into the direction of the shack, “he thinks I’m five and never experienced heartbreak.” 

“Welcome to Nu ABO!” this voice was different, and you slowed your steps. It doesn’t quite have the husk that Vernon’s voice held, but definitely matched the energy. The boy stepped out, and his eyes sparkled in recognition. “Flower Girll,” he said to himself, and you suddenly felt like you got caught, “I don’t think we’ve met before.” 

"We haven’t,” you replied warily at the pet name, “where’s Vernon?" 

"Oh, he’s around.” The guy waved noncommittally to the air in the room, crouching his head to look down at you. He stuffed his hands in his black overalls, which covered a painfully bright rainbow tye-dye tee. “Curious to see Vern’s ink though. He’s only ever done small stuff.” 

“I thought he wasn’t an apprentice.” 

 He flicked his wrist around to show you a beautiful line of Chinese calligraphy. "Keep the secret between us, ‘kay?” He winked. 

“Minghao, leave her alone.” Vernon stepped out of the small bathroom hidden in the artist room, a white towel behind his neck. You took in his disheveled appearance. His face was red from washing his face, and he wore the same clothes from yesterday. “Hey.” He said. 

“Hi,” you replied, “did you sleep here last night?" 

"Uh, yeah.” Vernon rubbed at his neck again, and stuffed the towel in his backpack. “I usually do the morning and afternoon shifts, I covered for this guy last night,” he jabbed his fist in Minghao’s shoulder, “but still had to do my day shift.” 

“So,” Minghao rocked back and forth in his boots, “why are you here?” 

You suddenly felt self-conscious, and gripped your phone between your two palms. A little part of you was disappointed that Vernon was not alone, but another part of you was relieved. It helped slow down the pace of your feelings (feelings?) that was heading in a direction you were not anticipating. “I wanted to say thank you again for last night.” You coughed, and Minghao grinned wider at your explanation. “And I was wondering if you could take a picture of my back? I haven’t had a chance to look at it.” 

He beamed, and you could tell he was happy that you wanted to document his work. “Oh, of course! I completely forgot last night.” 

Vernon moved to grab your phone, but Minghao swiped a hand in front of him. “Can I take your photo?” He asked you, although the look in his eyes said that you didn’t have much of a choice. 

Your cheeks burned at the sudden intrusion. “Huh?” 

“I mean, have you seen this guy’s Insta?” Minghao scoffed, albeit playfully as Vernon mirrored your flush. 

“What are you talking about?” Vernon exclaimed, thoroughly insulted, “my profile is tastefully abstract.” 

“It looks like it was tastefully done by a three year old.” Minghao pulled out his iPhone, and adjusted the filters. “I’m doing you a favor here, Flower Girl.” 

You looked warily at Vernon, who slumped in defeat, “If you’re going for that e-girl vibe, I guess Hao’s a better photographer.” 

“Better than your pictures coming out blurry.” Minghao shot back, holding the camera to your face. “There’s no light in here,” Minghao glared at the singular window in their tiny studio, the sill decorated with a single jade succulent. “Got any ideas?" 

Vernon shrugged, "You said I have the taste of a three year old, so." 

With Wonwoo gone for the day, you realized that you did have an idea of where you could take a tasteful picture. The thrill excited and terrified you. You only wanted a simple picture to see what it looked like, but Minghao looked as equally as excited to see your ink. Maybe it was the fact that the art was fleeting or that Vernon was really that talented, but it encouraged you to offer the setting up.

"I think our greenhouse has plenty of light,” you gestured out the studio’s only window, which was in perfect view of the flower shop. “We should be closing up soon, so it’s free." 

Minghao nodded approvingly, "We can try." 

And with a hasty "be back @ 4:20!” sign taped on the front door to Nu ABO, the three of them walked across the street to the greenhouse. 

You went in first, nearly bumping into Joshua who was bent over, pot in hand. 

“Hey Josh,” you grabbed the keys from the front desk, “borrowing the greenhouse." 

"Hey Josh,” Minghao and Vernon mimicked, who found it amusing that you just brushed by without an introduction. 

You rolled your eyes, hearing them exchange pleasantries and bro fists. The plexiglass doors to the greenhouse unlocked with a turn of your key, the smell of heat and grassy rain hitting your nostrils. Joshua placed the pot somewhere, following suit as the boys were right behind you. 

“Awesome,” Minghao exhaled, stepping further into the greenhouse. It was a small one, but comfortable enough for a couple patrons to browse around. “I’m gonna move around some plants if that’s okay, I gotta vision.” 

Joshua looked a little frazzled watching Minghao talk to himself and start moving the settings around (“The hydrangeas don’t go there, are you crazy?”) and started helping Minghao move the pots and placements around. You and Vernon hung around the entrance, giggling to yourselves. 

You tried to bump his shoulder, which didn’t even reach his. “So, what’s your Insta handle?” 

He quirked his brows at that, “Why, so you can judge my aesthetic too?” 

“No,” you replied, faking your shock. “I would never insult your taste!” 

With a roll of his eyes he said, “Speaking of taste, since your shift is over and my shift is over,” Vernon rocked back and forth on his feet. “Wanna grab a bite?” 

Something’s fluttering in your stomach, and you stomp it down. It’s an innocent invite, yes. Unfortunately it was not-so-innocent in your twisted mind knowing that you are still fresh from a breakup, yet your backed is marked with Vernon’s work. “You must be tired though,” you tried to reason, “you should get some rest, I don’t wanna bother you.” 

“Not a bother,” he said immediately, “besides, I wanna ask you something.” 

That got you curious. Before you had a chance to ask, Minghao was ushering you over, telling you to stand in front of a bundle of orchids. They’ve bloomed a Canary yellow, encasing you in a golden ring of flowers overlooking the terrace. The new friend has gestured for you to undo your shirt and he turned away in respect. It’s different with an audience and an expectation.  You made haste to undo the buttons of your blouse, then your bra, throwing it aside. You felt the warm, moist air kiss your back, and you heard a low whistle coming from Minghao. 

“Beautiful,” Minghao exhaled, “Vern, you’ve outdone yourself." 

Beautiful. Vernon made you beautiful.

Your body was simmering, and you could do nothing as you let Minghao photograph you. You focused your eyes on a puddle dripping from a faucet in front of you, counting the seconds between each droplet. 

“And, done.” 

You shoved on your clothes, and felt extra awkward as you fumbled to reach for the straps of your bra. You nearly slipped on the puddle as you walked back to the boys, who were busy over Minghao’s shoulder. 

“Super awesome,” Minghao handed you the phone brightly, “so much texture and feeling.” 

The screen showed a halo of foliage that surrounded your bare back, blush orchids kissing the frame with color. Your work shirt bundled under your hips, and fell under your elbows to reveal a city sky. You were breathless, zooming in to capture every detail of the ink. A navy sky, blanketing buildings across your back in a diagonal, splaying from the bottom right to the top left. On the bottom, skyscrapers reaching for the stars. 

If you zoomed in enough, you could tell that the stars were shaped like roses. 

“I don’t know how many times I’ve said thank you in the past two days,” you started, causing Vernon to grin widely. “But thank you, I’ve never felt so beautiful.” 

Vernon scoffed, “I didn’t do anything, I’ve only enhanced your beauty. That’s our shtick.” 

You handed Minghao back your phone and thanked him. He then rushed off, saying he had to stay at the parlor since Yoongi was coming soon. Immediately, Joshua began putting back the plants in their rightful places. You and Vernon followed suit, starting with the smaller ones. 

“So,” Vernon picked up a tray of succulents, “are we still on for dinner?” 

Wide-eyed Joshua crept in-between the foliage, laughably appearing under a series of hanging plants like a madman. “Dinner?” he asked, looking between you two. 

“Yeah man,” Vernon reached to pull Joshua away from the plants, “wanna come?” 

Simultaneously disappointed and relieved, you let out a subconscious exhale. Joshua was coming, which meant that there would be no possibility for feeling weird (or catching feels), being awkward or fighting any oncoming feelings with Vernon. 

"On Thursdays there’s this really good half-off sushi deal by my place. We can take out and eat at my apartment?” Joshua’s kindness was palpable at the offering of his home, and the both of you smiled gratefully.

Not more than two hours later, the three of you are bundled away in Joshua’s two-room, empty boxes of carryout stacked high. The television was playing reruns of Full House, the only source of light in the dim space. 

“Are you gonna go home soon?” Vernon asked, and turned his head to the corner of the room. Joshua is cuddled up in the single couch, tucked in a wearable blanket with the armholes. 

You shrugged, “I dunno. Usually I crash here for sushi nights,” you patted the couch lovingly, “This is my second bed.” 

Vernon chuckled, tucking his feet under his thighs. It made him look impossibly small in comparison to how tall and lanky he actually was.

“So, what did you want to ask me?” 

Vernon looked between his legs, as if he were trying to piece his words together. “Long story short, I got waitlisted at my top graduate school option,” he then pulled up his phone, revealing the picture of your back that was taken that afternoon, “but I was thinking that if I made a portfolio of this kind of art, it would really tip my application over the edge. Originally I was thinking of just sending my usual art, but it just popped in my head today while we were doing it.” He looked up through his eyelashes, wisps of copper looking expectantly at you. “If you’re comfortable with it, would you be my canvas?”  

“Live art,” you surmised, “honestly, I’m honored that you would want me to be a part of something so big. You think I’m that good?” 

No, you weren’t doubting Vernon’s art one bit. The fact that your back would be out on display for a bunch of strangers was unnerving, to say the least. 

“Are you kidding?” Vernon zoomed out of the image, revealing the curve of your back and the generation of life reflected in the greenhouse. “This is wicked. You’re stunning. We’d make a great team!” 

You felt your body heat at the statement. His presence was almost too refreshing, and you wanted to return the favor of helping you out last night. 

“Lucky for you,” you shot a quick text to Wonwoo, “I’ve planned to take this week off.” 

Over the course of the week Vernon wanted to do an artistic timeline of sorts, adding and retouching the already existing ink on your back until the canvas was full. It felt fulfilling, letting yourself become a vessel of success for someone. The following day, Vernon shot you a text revealing his portfolio, and said how excited he was to see you. 

You met in the shack after his shift, and Vernon let you into the office and locked the door. You can hear the rap being played in the artist room where Minghao and Yoongi were working with a client.

The artist was muttering to himself as he invited you to sit at the couch. Something about whether he wanted to start from the “top-down” or “bottom-up.” Instead of contributing to his madness, you turned away from him and started shedding your shirt. Today was a plain cotton shirt, and you shucked it off and balled it in your arms. 

No less than five seconds was Vernon’s hands on your back, and despite the warmth radiating from his fingertips, you couldn’t help but shiver. Vernon had explained that while he did a large portion of your back the first time, there was still room for growth and he wanted your back filled by the end of the week. 

“Do you mind if I,” his hand hovered over your bra. 

You shook your head, and with his thumb and forefinger he flicked off both your bra straps with ease. Your hands flooded themselves in the fabric of your t-shirt, which silently accepted your death grip. 

“Sorry, do you feel weird?” He definitely sensed your lack of vocality, and put one strap back in case. 

“I’m fine,” your voice is light, what else could you say? 

“Whatever you say,” he hummed, and resumed his work. 

You opt to take in the sounds. Minghao laughed about something in the other room, coupled with the zing of the needle. The music pulled to a stop and boomeranged back into a smoother arrangement. 

“I think we’ll start from the bottom-up and build from there,” he then placed his hands around your waist, poking at the dive between your waist and your bottom. 

There’s an unmistakable heat that pooled within you, which caused you to wring your shirt harder. It was going to be a long week. 

By Wednesday, he was in your apartment, working on the sides of your waist. The day after every session, Vernon would take a picture of yesterday’s work and show it to you. A gummy grin would always take over his face, either proud of himself or happy that you loved the new addition. 

Despite the fact that the only thing covering your body was a thin gown medical taken from the shop, every pore of your body felt unbelievably hot. You really shouldn’t be mixing alcohol on a Wednesday night, but Vernon was excited that he was halfway done with the project and it was time to be “poppin’ bottles.” 

You felt a little drowsy as a result of that, but nothing terrible. Like he said, the feeling was cathartic. 

“Aren’t you drunk too?” you murmured into your navy blue whale plush, “what if you accidentally stab me?” 

Vernon laughed, and it shook the couch. You couldn’t see his face as he sat on the floor, getting in the crevices of your skin. He poked at your skin a little harder than usual, as if he were testing the possibility. “That’d still take a lot of strength.” 

“You’d be surprised,” you sighed, “those little sticks florists use to keep the babies upright? Flat as a thumb and I still manage to impale tomatoes with them.” He doesn’t respond to that, and you’re left drowning in your own answer. You wondered if he truly thought you were a crazy tomato-killer, or was concentrated on detailing a particular patch of skin. “Can I tell you a secret?” you blurted, “honestly, I think flowers are beautiful, but I really hate working at the florist. The only reason I’m doing it is because Joshua really needed the help and he knew I wasn’t going to do shit until my city job starts in September.” 

“Huh,” Vernon stopped, resting the heel of his hand on your back. “That’s funny. Explains all the cursing when you’re cutting roses outside.” 

“You’ve watched me outside?” you grinned into your cushion, “creepy much?” 

“Do you wanna know a secret?” Vernon blurted, evading your question with one of his own, “I’ve had the biggest crush on you since you came by in May.” 

You tensed, and if Vernon noticed, he didn’t react. He kept on doing his business, marking your back with baby’s breath. It had to be the alcohol talking. If he drank at all, you couldn’t even tell because you couldn’t get up and he was strikingly coherent. All this time, and you didn’t even notice? 

“You don’t have to answer,” he said, as if he knew you were strung speechless. “I just, wanted to say it. We’re cool.” 

And you agreed, pretending to fall asleep. 

Friday was around the corner before you knew it, and Vernon wanted to photograph the final piece where it all started. The greenhouse was devoid of human life at the crack of dawn, unless you counted Joshua who was asleep on the counter because he was the only one with a key that knew of your recent escapades with Vernon. 

Vernon was just as tired as you are, but he was adamant about having the photo taken at dawn, as the first picture was taken in the late day. There was some contrived symbolism attached to it that you didn’t really understand, but you trusted his vision. Besides, your panda eyes wouldn’t be revealed in the photo, so you could master the art of sleeping upright while he took photos. 

“Alright,” Vernon set up his camera. He was dressed in a university zip up and matching sweatpants, like he just rolled out of bed. “Everything’s set up, whenever you’re ready.” 

Likewise with you, and you pulled off your hoodie, not bothering with a bra. Despite the fact that the room was temperature controlled, the cold morning air still managed to worm its way to your bare top. You quickly rubbed down your gooseflesh with your palms.  

You two engaged in a comfortable silence as you tested out your poses and he adjusted his frame. After a couple of practice shots, the air seemed calmer.

“Cold?” Vernon asked casually.

“Anything that isn’t under the sheets of my bed is cold as hell,” you muttered, trailing your fingers delicately across your waist. 

“That’s a nice pose,” Vernon said to himself, “we’re almost done. Then you can go to bed for the rest of your day. Unless you’re down for breakfast?" 

You two still haven’t spoken about his little confession the other day, but in all honesty there was no reason to bring it up. Your lives were going in different directions, and you knew Vernon deserved more than a halfhearted summer fling. 

"I think I’m down for bed and breakfast,” you replied wryly. 

“Smart girl,” Vernon chuckled, “can you change your pose for me? Like, pretend that you’re stretching.” 

You didn’t understand what he meant by that, so you ended up flexing your arms in different directions. 

“No, we’re not doing yoga.” He let his camera swing around his neck as he rushed over to you. The sun was a soft white, the antithesis of golden hour as you two rushed to make the magic happen. He grabbed your arms from behind, twisting the left wris in an unusual angle. 

"Ah, Vernon!” You jerked around to face him, now fully awake. “I’m not a Barbie doll, you can’t just move me like that." 

Vernon doesn’t respond. He let go of you as soon as you screamed, eyes blown wide and pupils a thick black. His stare is frozen to yours, and his hand is in mid-air, a centimeter away from your bare breasts. 

"Oh,” you said, “did I whack you with my boob when I turned?" 

"Yeah, you boobed me.” Vernon looked afraid to stare anywhere but your face. “I’m so sorry." 

"It’s okay,” you bit the inside of your lip, “I don’t mind if you touch me there." 

Now, Vernon looked terrified. 

It’s been a long week. A long, surreal week. You wanted to tell Vernon about your conflicted feelings, you wanted to ask about his little crush, and what on earth did he find appealing about you. You wanted to tell him how much you trusted him with your body, and how you wanted him to do more to you than just ink. 

It’s then, the gaping boy shook himself together. His hands encircled your neck, haloing at the finishing piece of his work, an echelon moon. Vernon’s fingers trailed to cup your face, and you felt your whole body warm in anticipation. Patient, you waited for his carmine eyes to flutter shut, and you smiled, finally closing yours—

"The fuck is this?" 

In an instant, the air was sucked out of you like a blackhole, and Vernon immediately shielded you, throwing his jacket across you like a towel. 

"Mingyu,” you said shakily, clutching the cotton coat tighter around your form. 

It’s then that a no-longer bleary-eyed Joshua stumbled into the greenhouse, seconds too late. 

Mingyu threw down the sack of fertilizer he hauled on his back, black dirt smattering the floor.  “Its been barely a week and you’re fucking someone in the greenhouse, of all places?” Mingyu was angry, plain and simple. “I thought we agreed on a break." 

"You agreed on a break,” your thighs were numb from leaning on them, but Vernon’s hand on your back encouraged you to get on your feet. “I agreed that two years was too long to wait." 

"And who are you?” Mingyu squinted his eyes at Vernon.

“He’s none of your business,” you stepped in front of him, tugging his hoodie  closer around your frame. 

Mingyu’s face fell in realization, and he looked between you two with forlornness that made your stomach churn. “C’mon baby,” your nails embedded themselves in your palm at the jab, “can we go outside and talk about this?” 

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” your voice was paper thin, but loud enough for Mingyu to hear across the room, “I’d prefer you leave us alone, and do not talk to me ever again.” 

It took all your composure to turn around, and you glared a hole into Vernon’s chest. You felt your body bleed goosebumps around your arms and legs, not out of weather, but out of anxiety. You hugged yourself to shut the prickly feeling down. You heard Joshua do the only helpful thing this morning and it’s his soft utterances that finally pulled Mingyu out of the greenhouse. ,

What’s left is the drip of the hose, and the two of you, unmoved.

Thankful for the silence, you looked up at your companion, who was speechless. Vernon’s lower lip was puckered out slightly, face contorted as if to say I’m sorry, that kinda sucked. The tell-tale signs of emotional overload began to prick at your eyes. 

“I’m so sorry,” you wiped your face. Since when did you start crying? “I’m so sorry that I let all of this happen, and I let myself let this happen, and I’m such a mess and I’ve been trying to hide it all this time, but I’m selfish and I just wanted to see what would turn out of it.” 

“What are you apologizing for?” Vernon tried to lighten up the mood, and offered you an easy smile and reached for a hug.

“I’m sorry because I don’t know if I like you or not!” you outburst, and pushed him out of arm’s reach. “I feel so fucking guilty I just got out of a relationship and I can’t tell if I like you or I like your attention, honestly. And it isn’t fair because you’re just so sweet and kind and easy to love. Either way at the end of the summer I’m moving into the city for my full-time job. And I, I, I don’t know!” 

Vernon forced his way into your space, barely a foot apart. He didn’t touch you, but his warmth still emanated from the jacket you were wearing. He didn’t seem upset, then again you were probably upset enough for the both of you. 

“Hey, I offered to do your back because I knew you needed a distraction,” Vernon said softly, “no strings attached, ever. You do you, right? Focus on yourself.” 

You wished he was mean about this. It would’ve made it easier. “What if this is the last time we talk? What if I want to ignore you for the rest of the summer?” you murmured, already knowing you. should enjoy these final moments. 

“We’ll live,” he shrugged, and finally broke the space between you. His lips planted themselves between your forehead, melting away the lines that marred your brows apart, “and we’ll heal.”

The city was daring. The city was unforgiving. 

You tugged your scarf closer around your neck, which constricted your airflow but also prevented any possible windchill from slicing your neck. In your other hand you were hauling a week’s worth of work in a luggage that had once packed your things in August and sent you to this very career path. 

As much as you loved your new life, you wished things would be a little more boundless. The box of your workspace, the box of the elevator, and the box of your goshiwon apartment were starting to feel particularly stifling this weekend. 

It was Friday (or FriYay, as your co-workers dubbed) and that meant a weekend vegging out with a comfort meal and a new movie. There was a Burger King and a Gongcha under your apartment complex, both calling your name. 

Boba and burgers, the perfect way to end a week. 

You munched on your fries as you scanned the Gongcha menu, craving something sweet to contrast with your salty meal. 

It is then a low, sultry whisper sauntered in your direction (in a Gongcha, with children) and you almost choked on your fry. “I would know that back anywhere,” the offender drawled. 

What a strange pick-up line. The paper bag crinkled in your grip, and you turn around to see a familiar perky face in a scarlet Adidas tracksuit. Of all the places, he was here. 

“Hey, Flower Girl.” Minghao greeted, wiggling his fingers in a wave. He was on a tall stool, long legs splayed out and a cup of oolong milk tea hung lazily in his grip. His cup was at least 50% ice, and he was shaking the cup like a rattle every ten seconds.

“Normally, people would start with a simple hello,” you replied wryly, ushering him over to wait with you in line. 

“Normally,” Minghao shrugged, and slipped an arm around your shoulders as if you were long lost friends, “how have you been doing? Planting gardens for the spring?” 

“Please,” you scoffed. To Joshua and Wonwoo’s chagrin, you’ve forgotten a lot since the summer. “I can’t even make a corsage anymore, my brain’s on overload. What about you?” 

It looked like he was waiting for you to ask that. You barely got your order in before he started spitting out his story. “Didn’t you hear?” Obviously you didn’t, and he didn’t give you a chance to answer. “Two letters. RM.” Again, nothing. “The RM? The hottest rapper in Korea? Anyway, he was one of our clients in August—he got a sick design of a koala and an alpaca, cooler than you think—and gave us a massive tip on his Instagram story. We were famous overnight! We were getting crazy clients left and right—fuckin’ Sana wanted a little heart on her sternum, hottest thing.” 

“So you were able to relocate the parlor to the city?” 

“The big push was when Yoongi dropped RM his demo,” he shook his cup furiously, ice clanging, as if he never got tired of this story. “Like, I didn’t even know they were texting! I’ve been running the parlor mostly, I’ve always wanted to live in the city, but RM funded a lot of it and is helping Yoongi make his mix.”

In the back of your head, the question of an aspiring grad student was niggling in your brain, but you pushed it down. “So, if Yoongi’s working on his demo and you’re supposed to be running the parlor, why aren’t you there now?” you asked.

He stared at you as if it were the most obvious choice. “Because I’m here, drinking boba with you.” Minghao then grabbed your finished drink from the employee’s hand, ushering you out the door. “And now you’re going to follow me, because my break was over fifteen minutes ago.” 

“What?” 

“I have your boba,” he’s already out the door, waving your precious beverage like a fish to its line. “Hurry up, now I’m sixteen minutes late!” 

You groaned, lugging your suitcase full of work and now cold french fries back into the freezing weather. The wheels of your suitcase are cracking in exhaustion, mirroring yours. You just wanted your damn milk tea, hot fries, and a Netflix catch-up. What was the point of following Minghao to Nu ABO, when there was no reason to be there other than … 

“Oof!” your face slammed into Minghao’s back. The light was red. “Did Vernon move here too?” 

“Duh, who else would be covering for me?” 

“You’re trying to set me up!” You cried in betrayal, jabbing him in chest with your finger. “Y'know what, I’m just going to get another boba. You keep that.”

You two glared at each other. Minghao looked relentless, ignoring whoever was bumping into him on the streets. His eyes suddenly glinted to your rolling luggage, and he snatched it from your grip, running into the streets. 

“Can’t replace your work, right?” He laughed, forcing you to chase him down the block.

You felt sweat start to develop on your back, contrasting with the icy weather. Your work blazer and pinstripe loafers were not suited for vigorous activity. Minghao has an unfair advantage, being tall and athletic, and you had just finished half a bag of Burger King. Damn him. 

Minghao stopped in front of a sunken in building, with stairs leading downwards to a neon-lit parlor with the name glittering in electric periwinkle font. Flustered, you gasp at the cold air, finally able to stop. Despite having lost your breath ten meters ago, you managed to tell Minghao you’re proud that they have a real parlor. 

Your heart was beating in your ears, and you can’t tell whether it was because you haven’t worked out in months, or because Vernon was behind that door. 

Minghao dumped your luggage behind the reception area, and went straight into the artist room. This new parlor was much bigger, so when Minghao disappeared into a hallway he was out of your sight. You wait around, letting yourself sink into the familiar hip hop playlist. There are pictures littering the walls, all covered with a clean black frame. You see Yoongi and the supposed RM, sporting his koala and alpaca ink (which actually did look sick) and some photos of Minghao’s work, all of his designs being simultaneously colorful and graceful. 

It’s then in the epicenter of this wall is a long black frame that cut across the horizon, seven images of a woman with flowers and stars inking her back. 

Your back. 

“Beautiful, right? I’m sure it takes you back.” Minghao was over your shoulder, flicking his fingers between the photos. “Lots of customers have requested these designs. He never makes them the same way, though.”

Instead of answering, you followed Minghao down the hallway and into the artist room. Vernon had just finished with a client. Poking in head first, you saw him ticking off protocol off a printed list, speaking concisely. The client was listening intently, and you see he has an arm sleeve with peonies. It’s then he noticed Minghao intruding once more, and frowned. 

“Dude, you got milk tea without me?” Vernon said, affronted. 

“Ya didn’t ask.” Minghao vigorously shook the ice in your tea like a baby rattle. 

“You didn’t mention it, therefore I couldn’t have asked.” 

“You’re so smart, Hannie,” he beamed at him like a proud parent complimenting his son, “that’s why he’s going to grad school.” 

You let yourself in fully, and you felt shy as Vernon’s lips parted slightly upon realizing who his second guest was. 

“Hey,” Vernon exhaled, and gave you a small smile. He looked happy, content. As handsome as ever, he ran a gloved hand through his hair, soft curls bouncing as he shifted around the parting. “This is uh, a surprise.” his eyes flickered to Minghao, who held his arms out in a passive shrug. “A good one to end the week.” 

“Hi,” you bit your lip, feeling shy, “so, you decided to get certified and you’re going to grad school? I missed out on a lot.”

“That’s okay, we got time.” Vernon assured, “besides the fact that I got a project due tomorrow morning that I’ve barely started, and then I have a field trip I gotta go to on Sunday—”

Before it could drag on any longer, Minghao hacked out a very loud, and very fake cough. You broke out of the rêve, and muttered a “gimmie that” before snatching your precious bubble tea out of Minghao’s hand. 

Vernon mirrored the cough, more out of embarrassment than annoyance. “Lemme finish up with this client, yeah?” And he jerked his head back to the patient, going on about safety. 

Minghao led you out of the room, whispering a “you’re welcome” in your ear that taunted you for the rest of the night. 

Vernon finished at 5, just like he did back in the little shack at university square. He came out in a 2XL neon green hoodie, leading the client out the door and telling him to “take it easy”. As soon as the client’s gone, he comes over to you. You’re still staring at your pictures, as if you couldn’t believe that you were on display, looking like a tasteful nude model. 

“Hi again,” he said, dusting the imaginary dirt off his pants. 

“Hi,” you replied, feeling tingly at the sound of his voice. Did you really miss him that much? 

"Um, is it cool if I hug you?" 

It certainly has been awhile. You nodded, unsure if you could form a coherent response because you could tell Vernon was blushing and he was being too damn adorable for you to handle. 

Upon permission, he brightened. The warmth of his cotton hoodie enveloped you like the way hot chocolate feels after a cold day. You breathed in his scent, realizing how much you missed the scent of fresh laundry, especially on him. 

"How are you?” He asked casually.

“Uh, m'okay.” You answered softly, “a little cold nowadays." 

He hugged you tighter in response. With one more squeeze he let himself go, but kept you at an arm’s length. "Wanna get dinner?" 

You looked at him funny, "didn’t you say you had a project due tomorrow morning that you haven’t started?" 

Without missing a beat he altered, "Wanna get takeout? I’ll do work and eat while,” his eyes darted to your luggage, “you do work?" 

While you wanted to say that it was Friday (FriYay!) and you weren’t planning to open Pandora’s Box until Sunday night, you obliged and followed him to his place. 

On the way over, Vernon got his well-needed milk tea (and your second round) with two matching cartons of jajangmyeon. You trailed behind him rather than next to him, due to the fact that he was also lugging a Joshua-sized canvas on his back. In fear of being knocked out or ruining his work, you settled for walking a meter apart. 

Vernon lived on the second floor of his complex. You imagined a sizable one-room similar to your goshiwon, but you’re in awe when you see a fully furnished living room and kitchen. You smiled at the singular jade plant decorating the windowsill, one you remembered as Patricia Planty one session months ago. The hardwood was so shiny you could see your reflection in them. Kicking off your shoes, you stumbled over the kitchen countertop, reveling at the onyx granite. 

"I’ve never seen this much granite in my entire life!” You cried, spreading your hands over the cool rock. It was so well polished, you could see your reflection.  He was certainly living the high life this year. 

Vernon shook his head, setting the take out down and pulling out the containers. “It’s RM’s old place. I rent it out with the guys." 

"God, this is ten times better than my place! Your kitchen is bigger than my apartment!" 

He flicked your bowl of jajangmyeon over to your side of the countertop, the sauce and noodles premixed for you. "Eat up, babe.” He stuffed a radish in his mouth, now working to mix his own noodles, “we got a lotta catchin’ up to do." 

Whether it was your hunger or the casual use of the word "babe”, you abandoned the granite for now and did as told. 

An hour later, you’re flipping through their mounted TV, taking full advantage of their Disney+ subscription as Vernon is laying on the floor.  

“I thought you were working,” you chastised, letting yourself sink further into their couch. It was like resting on a big, fluffy marshmallow. You never wanted to leave. 

Vernon is splayed out like a starfish, papers and watercolors spread around him. His large body stood out against the white linoleum floor, his neon green hoodie reflecting on the shiny surface. “I am.” he replied blandly, “I’m waiting for lightning to hit me with a burst of inspiration." 

"Grad school’s biting you in the butt?" 

"Big time." 

Another bout of silence hit the two of you, and it was surprisingly nice. You finally started to notice that Vernon is picking up some art utensils and is doodling something. (He still is on the floor and hasn’t sat up properly, but progress is progress.) 

It felt oddly domestic, but you didn’t mind. There was no need to ask about the past, Kim Mingyu, or any other silly drama you two entrapped yourselves into last summer. What mattered now was the warmth of each other’s presence on this chilly night.

Your eyes are heavy and fighting against the long day, and before you know it, you’re asleep just as Rapunzel escapes Gothel’s tower. 

You haven’t awoken to the morning sun in a long, long time. While the notion sounded awfully depressing (because it was), you really didn’t have much of a choice because the goshiwon was closet sized, and closets had no windows. But today, the sun blasted you, forcing you up. This was accompanied by the the tell-tale sounds of breakfast, which was weird because you only ever ate cold food in your room, because there was zero ventilation. The scent of dark roast muddled your senses, forcing you awake. You twitched at the sudden stench, and snapped your back straight. Were your walls always this pristine white? 

"Didn’t know you were this early in the game, Flower Girl." 

You never went home. While Vernon was long gone and probably off presenting some haphazard art, Minghao and Yoongi (for the first time, in the flesh!) were watching you from their marbled island, while you rubbed the crusties out of your eyes. "Usually, encroaching on a significant other’s apartment is reserved for the 5th or 6th date.” Minghao teased, waving his Nutella toast in your face. 

“Oh, shut up,” you glared at Yoongi, who was slowly chewing on his own toast. There’s was black spark in his eyes, like he’s relishing on whatever has unfolded. “And you, you. I know this is the first time we’ve met and you haven’t said a word. But shut up too. Your thoughts are awfully loud.” 

You’re embarrassed, and you pull up your hands to mediate your fired cheeks. Instead of your palms, you feel worn cotton dabbing at your face. You wiggled your fingers under the neon green hoodie. Vernon put on his clothes for you to wear. You were in a very uncompromising position, and his roommates were reveling every second of it. 

Yoongi shrugged, throwing you a flippant grin. “Whatever you say, Flower Girl.” 

Contact emerged in the form of texts and images. You wondered how Vernon managed to keep things casual in light of how sudden your meeting was, but you relished in the way things fell naturally. 

[February 19, 2:10PM]

Vern: Is this still your number 

Vern: If so, here’s what i submitted for my project

Vern: IMG.934

Vern: if not, pls enjoy this picture of a pink platypus. the medium was watercolor nd if you’re curious, i got the idea from sunsets and phineas and ferb. Enjoy your day

You: hey look, there’s perry

Vern: nice

Vern: wait, this doesn’t confirm if ur u or a stranger

Vern: are u just a perry enthusiast 

Vern: evidence pls

[February 19th, 6:08PM]

You: IMG.48

[February 20th, 12:22AM]

Vern: ooh

Vern: look cute in my hoodie 

You’ve toggled with the idea of just cutting straight through the bush and asking him out the next time you see him in person. A little part of you liked the chase, however. That feeling where you’re tugging between friendship and something more, and you can’t help but feel like you’re fifteen everytime his name popped up in your messages. You self-dubbed it the-honeymoon-to-the-honeymoon phase. 

[February 27, 5:34PM]

Vern: what are you up to 

You: it’s hour 32. I’ve been under the covers and have survived solely on celery and honey-butter chips. currently binging all netflix comedies. debating on whether to send for help otherwise i may never get up

Vern: that’s the spirit 

By the time two weeks passed, you felt confident enough to ride off the mutually weird text messages and constant contact to meet with him. By then, you’re knees deep in the honeymoon-to-the-honeymoon phase. You’re languidly floating in that river, hoping you’re not rushing it by agitating the waters. 

[March 8th, 10:10PM]

You: hey

You: you up? 

Vern: nah. mastered the art of sleep textin

You: just wanted to ask if you could help me pick out a tatt that would fit me

You: if you were available. I’ve heard from the mullet-monster that you’re a hot commodity drowning in appts and deadlines

Vern: wait forreal? 

Vern: i can pencil u in. tomorrow night @11? 

You: so soon? What happened to being busy

Vern: not for u. Already have an idea in mind

By the time you arrived Saturday night, Minghao was slapping your back across the door, gabbing on about a “major banger” they were missing uptown. He looked the part, the only person you knew that could fill out an all-studded denim fit. Like a disco ball at a rodeo. He barely said good-bye before he hopped in a Lyft, cheering for freedom. 

You poked your head into the artist room, and saw Vernon playing on his phone. His fist dug into his cheek, carob pupils glazed over. You almost felt bad for wanting his attention this late.

“You usually do the day shift,” you commented quietly, holding up a bag with two milk teas in hand. 

Vernon looked up, illuminating in a half-smile. “Y’know me, always covering. Just for the hour though, this shouldn’t take long since we’re just looking at ideas.” 

He slapped a hand on the client chair. This one was much better than the cot they had in their shack. This one was pure leather and gleamed high quality. You placed your drinks on the countertop and eagerly bounced onto the seat. “Comfy,” you murmured, and wriggled your sneaker-clad feet.

“Good,” there’s a sharp snap from the plastic seal and Vernon is sipping into his milk tea seconds after you put it down. He’s chewing on a particularly large gulp, gnawing on pearls like no one’s business. With his rolling chair, he slid over to you, seamlessly reaching for your wrist. 

If he noticed that you’re wearing a particular neon item, he doesn’t comment. He turned on the overhead lamp, letting a soft white light bathe your form. When he finally spoke, he chanted your name in a sing-song, tapping your wrist in beat. It’s as if he  were envisioning the color blooming on your skin. 

You let him do his thing, and he pulled out his phone, scrolling through his gallery. You see pictures of his friends, some of his family, and digital art. He scrolled slower at the myriad of images: a colorful orca, lavender constellations, and budding roses. 

You were seeing a lot of flowers nowadays, with the burgeoning of spring and the recent ending of Valentine’s. It’s only now that you notice how apparent the theme is throughout the parlor, particularly in Vernon’s affinity. 

“Why don’t you call me it?” you asked softly, peering over his form to see him mulled over a picture of periwinkle lupines. 

“Huh,” he’s distracted, and has now swiped back to the colorful orca image. 

“Flower Girl,” you uttered, “they call me that, but you don’t.” 

Vernon clicked his phone down, the lupines flicked away. He peered at you through his lashes, the white overhead making his eyes appreciably bright. “Before I knew your name,” he started slow, making faces to himself as if he were debating on whether to tell you, “I’d call you Rose. You were always by the rose bush planted outside the shop.” 

“Avoiding work,” you crinkled your nose, however relished in the endearment, “being named after a rose is too big a compliment.” 

He snorted, “That’s what they said. Hence, Flower Girl was born,” he’s easy about it, but now he’s put his phone down and is rubbing circles in your wrist. You wonder if he felt how clammy your palms were getting from the minute intimacy. 

“You know what flower I’d compare to you?” you asked, “freesias.” 

“And what do those mean?” 

“Thoughtfulness,” the pad of his thumb still lingered on your skin, his grip painfully apparent. “And renewal.” 

“Why renewal?” 

“Because,” you swallowed, “you make me feel renewed. And this time I’m sure it’s because it’s you.” 

Vernon looked like he wanted to smile, trying so very hard not to embarass you whilst you poured your heart out with delicacy. His coral lips were tucked in a thin line, teeth biting at his lower lip. Drop by drop, he was going to accept that dew with as much care as possible. “Only me,” he inquired, pressing into your pulse. 

Your mouth was sand dry.  “Uh-huh.” You exhaled a breath long clutched in your throat, hot air fanning into Vernon’s face. He paid no mind, and (to no avail) was still trying to hold in his smile. “You’re dimples are showing,” you whined, poking the little dip in his cheeks with your free hand. “Use your words.” 

“Like?” he elongated, playing dumb. You supposed you earned his brand of torture, after all, seven months is a long time to make up for. 

“Like how we want the same thing?” you tried. 

“How do you know I want what you want?” he feigned, furrowing his thick brows. Acting could’ve been another career possibility for him, portrayed by the way his eyes were blown with confusion, his mouth parted like a kitten.  

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Forget words!” you broke, nearly shaking from the nerves. 

It’s then that Vernon finally gave you a concrete response. His grip on your wrist was near painful as he eagerly tugged you closer, kissing you. There’s enthusiasm in every action from the way he pulled you closer, large hands melding to cup your cheeks. A little part of you is both breathless and invigorated at the energy stinging the room, and you can barely keep up until Vernon spilled kisses down your neck. 

He threw up the armrest holding him back, tucking his knee between your legs as he lapped you up, kissing you fully. The chair was much too small for the both of you, his large body pressing you further into the cushions. 

He sat up a bit, bumping his head on the lamp. He paid no mind. “By the way, I like you, too.” Vernon puttered cheekily, rubbing his scalp. Just as swiftly, he latches onto your neck and sucks at a sensitive spot. You can feel his teeth showing from the smile in his kisses. His thumbs rubbed lazily over your jaw, enjoying the feel of your soft skin under his rough palms. 

“Really,” you exhaled, relaxing against the headrest as Vernon’s wandering hands traveled lower. “Had no idea.” 

“But I’m happy,” Vernon is fumbly and sweet, mumbling in the crook of your neck while his fingers toyed with the waistband of your sweatpants, “happy you’ve healed, and happy for us.” 

He’s excited, almost too excited. The space between you two was warm, the lamp beating under your skin, awakening something between you two that was left behind that summer. It’s as if winter left him dormant, and you were the fresh flower waiting to be bloomed under his touch.

“Are you always,” you gasped, two fingers already worming their way inside your panties, “talkative at this part?” 

“Not if you wanna talk,” and the ever-zealous Vernon Chwe gets to work, sticking out his tongue in surprise when he finds that you’re already drenched. “Shit, you’re so beautiful,” he holds onto that word dearly, and pressed his forehead against yours, “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to hold you like this,” he reached for your delicious bud, and you felt your senses flower into pleasure. 

He makes a noise, low in his throat as he watched you melt against the seat. “I like you like this,” he said thickly, his voice matching the slick sounds emitting from yourself. “Comfy, relaxed. You always looked so stuffy in those work suits,” you feel wholly undeserving of this worship, as he licked a long strip from your collarbone to your neck, “would love to help you chill out a lil’ more.” 

A whine bubbled from the back of your throat, your eyes rolling shamelessly as you feel the pads of his fingers working circles between your folds. “Ah, I’ve—I’ve fantasized about this,” you confessed, “every time you’d ink my back. At one point we just stopped covering myself with those stupidly thin gowns. All you had to do was turn around.” Vernon blinked rapidly, mental pictures ticked like film in his pupils. His hands stuttered across your slick, inserting two fingers between your folds as you continued. His pace was slow, yet purposeful as he made sure you felt him with every thrust. Rings adorned his fingers, and the cool sensation surprised you. You shivered in pleasure. “Mm, I’ve imagined us kinda like this in that little shack, hard against the cot overlooking the shop,” 

“Dirty,” he said, as if recalling the weather. 

“And ah—wondering what kind of tattoos you have,” and in your haze you reached for him, your hand gripping firm at his gunmetal belt buckle. You tucked your fingers between the button of his light wash jeans, palming the telltale signs of something hard, “please? You’ve done too much for me, lemme return the favor.” 

“Not now,” he pressed his forehead to yours, “you can guess my ink on our way home.”

“Wha?“ You’re dazed, feeling warm with affection and drowned in the moment. You feel his fingers, slowly pumping out of its rhythm and resting on your thigh. You groaned at the premature end, his shiny digits resting on your fleece sweats. 

“They’ll kill me, this is new leather,” Vernon said, “and now we can afford security cameras, which are so small even I can’t find them.” 

“Unbelievable,” you laughed. You’re not frustrated, only endeared. 

“Besides, I’d rather have our first time somewhere private. Undisturbed,” he pressed a kiss to your forehead, "somewhere where there’s lots of granite." 

You melted, pulling at his collar to pepper kisses on his nose. The mention of coming home to his pretty kitchen was icing on the cake. "You know how much I love your granite." 

(After your granite fantasy was fulfilled, you spent the rest of the weekend huddled in Vernon’s room. You’re living off take out and mutually satisfied with the unhealthy means. When you’re not eating or watching movies, the two of you are drafting your first piece. 

Freesias and pink roses.)

(His tattoo was also very cute.) 

[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

Imagine:

Erik fucking reader in the mirror, reaching down to choke her, telling her “where you going? take this dick!”

“Prince N’Jadaka.”

A woman’s voice, one of his Doras called to him from the other side of the door. They were standing there all damn morning. Y/N was sure they heard everything. Erik steps away from Y/N in his naked glory, opening his suite door. Both Dora Milaje came face to face with the prince, trying their best to hold formation with the way he looked standing in front of them and Y/N on her knees. Y/N could make out one of the Doras eyes fluttering while she tried to keep eye contact with Erik. 

“kuzakufuneka sihambe kwakamsinya, nintlanganiso ebalulekileyo yokubuyela ekhaya ngomso.”

(We will have to leave soon, you have an important meeting back home tomorrow.)

“Shit, give me a second,” One of his Doras, Lesi was her name, was caught staring at his dick. Erik didn’t call her out on it, he just simply made his dick jump out. Lesi’s grip on her spear was almost deadly from that alone. Finally, he closes the door, turning to re-enter his room where Y/N still kneeled. 

“Looks like our little reunion is over, Baby girl.”

“Nothing new,” Y/N stands with a struggle, walking over to her own luggage to pack her things. The bounce of her ass had Erik ready to say “fuck going back to Wakanda” she was really tempting him the way she was bent over, folding her clothes. 

“You always leaving me, just take me with you.” She tried not to cry but damn was it hard. Her Daddy was a Prince in another country. Probably fucking the shit out of other bitches with that good dick too. She just knew that all up and down Wakanda there were rumors about Prince N’Jadaka breaking bitches backs. 

“Fuck is all of that for? You knew what this shit was,” Erik stretched out on the bed, his eyes looking from his dick to her, “girl, come get this dick some more.”

“Leave me alone, Erik.”

“Stop acting like that,” he made his voice all low and seductive, “You know you’re my nasty little bitch.”

“Fuck you,” Y/N sounded so weak, throwing her clothes to the floor, facing Erik now with her arms folded across her chest. 

“Tell Daddy what you said this morning when I was deep in that pussy, ma,” Erik strokes his dick, swinging it to make her look at what she was stubbornly ignoring. 

“I love Daddy’s good dick,” She didn’t meet his eyes but her leg was shaking with struggle. She was a slut for Erik, He knew she would give in.

“EXACTLY. Now, come on, get you some of this right here,” He let his dick swing back and forth like a pendulum. 

“Fuck, I hate you,” the minute she got onto the bed, Erik pulled her over him, making her sopping wet pussy lower over his swinging dick. She took in a sharp breath before bouncing on him like she wasn’t just complaining. 

“Shit...you got some wet pussy on you…,” Erik exhaled. “You letting me dig all in this…” 

Erik’s fat brown dick stroked Y/N over and over. She especially loved the way he held her hips, forcing her down over him. 

“You make my little pussy stretch overall this meat. That’s impressive, Daddy,” Y/N teases before letting out a loud moan. Y/N gripped him firmly with her walls. 

“I think I’m being too polite in the pussy…,” Erik slammed up into her now, her ass clapping on his thighs and his balls, “I gotta show you who you fucking with, ma.”

“You can’t just buss my pussy open and leave me!” She fell forward over Erik, looking over her shoulder and into the large mirror at the foot of his bed against the wall. She could see everything. Every bit of her cream, his balls bouncing and smacking into her ass cheeks, his wet pole so rigid. 

“Your balls are so heavy and full of cum, Daddy,” She reached behind to grab hold of them. She squeezed them lightly, loving how soft they were. Erik was groaning in her ear now, his hands reaching back to spread her cheeks so Y/N could see her asshole and pussy better. She knew he loved doing this to her phat ass. If only he could fuck her in her ass again before he left. Y/N released over his dick sooner than she wanted to.

“Damn, Daddy, now you gotta eat my pussy,” She slaps her own ass, Erik following behind giving both her ass cheeks a nice slap. He grabbed her cheeks up, making her arch forward. He was rubbing his fingers from her asshole down to her clit, smearing her cum around and around.

“You just knew I had to lick up your mess. You always make a mess on my dick.” He flipped Y/N over, bringing his fingers to her mouth to suck on. She sucked and sucked, purposely making herself gag for his enjoyment. Erik lifts the sheets from under him, covering himself for an extra effect. She hated not being able to see him eating her pussy. Her legs were spread and over his shoulders now, Erik wasted no time to spread her pussy open and slurp away. 

“Your moans drive me crazy.” 

No, he was driving her crazy. 

Y/N’s back lifted from the hotel bed, bare chest thrust towards the ceiling, nipples hard and ready to be sucked and licked. The Prince of Wakanda flew his favorite girl to NYC for some weekend-long sex. He would be here for a short while and she needed every second of him. They already fucked about four times; twice on Friday and twice on Saturday. Now, it was a Sunday morning before Erik had to return home. She was cursing his ass out about it a few minutes ago but now she was moaning and groaning his name while he sucked her pussy like no other.

 A tiny whimper escapes her mouth, her eyes fluttering to Erik between her legs with the covers over his head. She could see his dreads but she couldn’t see the way he moved his mouth and tongue inside of her. This was definitely a good way to wake her up. She grabs his dreads into a tight fist, her pelvis grinding into his mouth. She was trying to moan, really trying to get the sounds out but he had her stunned. How dare he do this to her pussy? Eat it like this and drive her fucking crazy? She hated hooking up with him whenever he came back from Wakanda. He always fucked and ate her so damn good she was crying literal tears.

“You’re-you’re gonna leave me again, aren’t you-D-Daddy?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Shut up.” He hissed angrily. She didn’t care about his frustration. Y/N grabbed the covers, yanking them back roughly to fully admire the Prince of Wakanda eating her tight slit, face all shiny. She grabs his chin, attempting to pull him towards her but he wasn’t having that. Erik was furious she made him stop.

“Fuck are you doing?!” He sounded desperate and angry at the same time, “Stop pushing my lips off this pussy, baby girl!”

“Not until you answer my question! I’m sick-sick of this shit...ooooh.”

He shut her up with his dick sinking deep inside of her. Her pussy parted for him, letting him in again since the tight little kitty loved him so much. She shook her head, allowing it to fall back while Erik strokes her. 

“Oooooh, this what you taking away from me. I can’t go without it,” she whispered into his ear, “I need it, Daddy...baybeee, I need it.” 

Erik brought his lips to her cheek, his groans and grunts all in her ear while his hips snapped into hers. 

“Daddy, if you leave me, who’s gonna fuck my pussy like this, Hmm?” She had to remind him about that. 

“Fuck, you know who this pussy belongs to, girl, DONT PLAY WITH ME.”

Erik wraps a hand around her neck, Y/N looking up into his stormy eyes. Her eyes were more delicate but under all that was mischief. 

“I don’t know, Daddy...I really don’t,” she was fucking him right back. Erik looked from her wet twat fucking him back to her eyes. 

“Who told you to fuck me back like this? Huh? Who told you to do that?” He couldn’t stop biting his lip though. She was sliding on and off of him something serious. 

“I guess I have to get this pussy fucked by somebody else when you leave me.”

She was toying with him and she knew it would make Erik angrily fuck her into this bed. Y/N was a starving woman for dick. 

“Who? Don’t fucking play with me, Y/N.” 

“I’ll give this pussy up...I need to be fucked good and you aren’t around.” 

Erik picked up Y/N from the bed in one swift motion, slamming her down on his thick pole. She twitched around him, her legs shaking around his hips. Erik lifts her up, doing it again and again, hitting her spot over and over with that fat tip. She could feel her arousal drip to the floor from how he filled her up. One thing she could say about this Prince was that he could make her pussy drip the best. 

“How you gonna give this pussy up when I make it do all this? You wanna lose all that, girl?”

Erik went in deep and long, all the way, and they both moaned into each other's mouths. Erik pumped his hips, pounding his meat into Y/N’s tight, velvety tunnel, her body surrendering to him like it always did. They were both bathed in sweat, burning with lust. Y/N watched as Erik’s tongue ran over his bottom lip. She caught it between her teeth and urgently sucked on it, feeling every inch of him thrusting into her. 

“You got me cumming,” she had her arms on his shoulders, “you got me cumming on you! See! This is what you do to me!!”

Erik scrunched his face at the way the walls of her pussy squeezed his dick, “Oh? See...now I gotta fuck you some more…”

“Yes, baby, that’s what I want,” Y/N was driving that pussy down onto his dick again, “mmmm, I love this hard dick.”

Erik’s dick had the perfect lubrication around it. Her cum mixed with his pre-cum. 

“I want that fat dick in my mouth...let me choke on that dick, Big Daddy.”

She was down on her knees now, practically clawing at him to get the dick in her mouth. She always told him that even if he didn’t eat her phat pussy, she would still suck his dick because she loved it so much. 

“You stay so hard for me, Prince,” Her hot mouth devoured his dick causing Erik’s eyes to roll shut. She sucked it in and out of her mouth, letting it pop each time she withdrew her mouth from the head. This bitch played with Erik’s penis like it was her own joystick. Y/N always worked her mouth over Erik’s elongated and fat shaft, taking him in fully like she didn’t have a fucking throat. 

“It’s too big for my mouth,” she moans after withdrawing her lips from his saliva-coated shaft, “But, I have another hole that I know can handle it.” 

“That sounds like a challenge,” Erik released. “Show me your skills, baby.” 

Erik turned Y/N around in front of the oversized floor mirror at the foot of his bed. He parted her cheeks, looking straight down into her slick pussy, the hole she was referring to his favorite hole on her. Erik spits, allowing it to drop down and over her pussy. She felt that, making her ass shaking against him. 

“Bend the fuck over and grab your ankles.”

She turns sideways in front of the mirror, bending in half and grabbing her ankles. She was so folded that she could put her head between her wide legs to look back at Erik. This was the way he fucked her pussy when she acted up. 

“You know what’s about to happen, right?” 

Erik walks away towards his open luggage, grabbing a belt. The thick leather material of it would imprint her flesh so painfully. Too bad she was in a compromising position. Ass cheeks open, pussy open, she had nowhere to run. 

“Oh, this?” She spoke, trying to hide the slight fear she felt, “you gonna give me an ass whooping?”

“Only cuz you being a disrespectful bitch...make that ass shake each time I give you a beating.”

“Yes, Daddy.” 

The first strike was between her ass cheeks. Her flesh stuck to that damn belt. A soft moan was her response to it. She grabbed her ankles tighter, looking back at Erik, watching him strike her over and over without giving his arm a rest. His dick was standing straight out. This nigga was so hard from this. 

“I don’t see that phat ass shaking!!! Move that ass or this dick ain't going back in that puss.” 

“Fuckkk,” she started twerking in a handstand almost, Erik lashing her ass. It started to hurt, he was really pissed that she said she could get dick from some other man. Her Prince was hurt by that.

“Daddy-Daddy-Daddy you know I was just playing, right? Baybeee it hurts,” she starts whimpering. Erik let her have one final strike before tossing the belt onto the bed.

“Why you gotta do that? make a nigga so mad? All you gotta do is tell me you want it fucked hard from the back like this,”

His dick went in her swiftly. She forgot about the pain in her cheeks, turning to look at her reflection in the mirror. 

“Prince, N’Jadaka,” She moaned loudly, “Fuck me, keep fucking me like this and I’m sure to cum all over this royal dick!!!!”

Erik has to slow down, she was gripping his shit from the back. He looked into her eyes in that mirror, the look that had him coming back to America to fuck her. 

“Come on, don’t be afraid to ram it in,” Y/N urged. 

“Girl shut the fuck up,” Erik lifts Y/N up, turning her to face the mirror now. He grabs her neck from behind, squeezing it tightly with his fingers. 

“You got them eyes looking straight ahead, right?!!!” 

“Yessssss.” 

“Telling me to fucking ram it in, what you think I do? You can’t take it when I do that, baby stop talking shit.”

Erik started urgently stroking her pussy, so hard he could make that mirror shatter. Making her arch lower, Erik pounded her insatiable pussy. He could feel her leaning forwards off his dick but Erik had a firm grip on her hip with one hand while the other was around her neck. 

“Can’t take this dick I see.” 

“It’s cuz you’re in my stomach.” She tried to move away again.

He was in her fucking guts. She was going limp over him, but Erik didn’t give a fuck. The squishing of his dick pistoning into her vagina as her body rocked back and forth over his dick with Erik’s control was the sound Erik wanted to hear. That was the sound of getting your pussy fucked by a Prince. A Prince with some good good dick.

“Ima remember this little reunion,” Erik teases, “Stop fucking running, Y/N!”

He would pull her back each time. She convulsed repeatedly, surrendering to her intense orgasm. Erik was chasing his own, continuing his thrusts while she cried out for him to slow up. Y/N could only stand there with trembling legs and enjoy the sweet torture. Erik slammed her so hard with his dick she could see stars. 

“Daddy! Please cum! Pleassseee! I can’t take it!”

It didn’t matter what direction Y/N moved, Erik was fucking the shit out of her. Both of Y/N’s hands were planted on the glass, the vision of her ass clapping back on Erik right in front of her watery eyes. She knew this cum was going to be delicious. Y/N struggled with her words but they came out nonetheless. She told Erik to let her know when he was about to cum because she wanted to swallow it all. That turned his ass out, and he really started wearing that nana out. 

“Fuck, my pussy is cumming for you again!”

She dragged her nails down that mirror. Erik pulled out and told Y/N he was about to cum like she wanted him to. Y/N turned around faster than the speed of light and caught that cum like an action hero. It was a speeding bullet, and she was about to catch it on her tongue. Erik is wild with it when he came. Tasting all good and filling up her throat. Erik gets tens straight across the board for delivery, expression, and creativity since her body was his canvas for his thick and tasty cum. Erik’s eyes were glazed and his breathing was shallow, standing there with that impressive body, an aura of a Prince. 

“Every time you cum for me, I lust after you some more. This shit does my body good.”

“You are so damn nasty,” he managed to get out between moans from Y/N licking the rest of his ejaculate off of him. Her pussy started throbbing. Her pussy lips were jumping. 

“I just know that pussy is trickling down the inside of your legs.” He was right. 

He shouldn’t say shit like this to her. She wanted him to stay forever.

@tgigoldie​ @soufcakmistress​ @chefjessypooh​ @chaneajoyyy​ @pananegra​ @theblulife​ @becincere​ @blaqwidow91​ @fish-outta-watah​ @moonlight-night-sky​ @eyeknowmywrites​  @crowngold​ @njadakillthiscookie​ @blktinkerbell​ @luvanxi​ @sheisexcellent1​ @chocolatedippedinhoney​  @brandithecrystalgem​ @dababydababydababydababy​ @soulfulbeauty19​ @btitannaaa​ @sunkissedebony97​ @youngblackndgifted​ @harleycativy​ @rbhp​ @thee-germanpeach​ @thadelightfulone​ @bugngiz​ @palmstreesallday​ @skylahb​

[kvgs]

hi so little fact about me, i love abandoned places. so have this that i made kinda based off myself and past experiences with friends going to abandoned places. so here’s karasuno at an abandoned school but it’s like kags x reader idk

tw: cursing ig?? i mean it’s kags and me we curse bb

“come on I swear it’ll be fun guys!” i stood in front of the team as we were wrapping up and told them about the abandoned school i hang out at. “y/n, this isn’t a horror movie.” tsukki rolled his eyes as he stood up from his spot on the floor. “i mean, i’m down. BUT someone else has to come with, i’m not dying alone with y/n.” tanaka explained.

“you won’t die! you know how long i’ve been going to this place and other abandoned places?” i put my hand on my hip as i explained my little hobby. “they’ve taken me guys and i’m not dead” kageyama proudly said as he came up next to me. daichi looked interested and so did noya and suga. “oh my god guys come on fuck it. let’s go. it’s like a 30 minute walk from here!”

————

“noya stop trying to bush tsukki into the bushes!” the school was down a little woods trail and we had finally gotten to the trail. kags was on my right while hinata was on my left. the rest of the team was behind me as i was of course leading the way because i’ve been a million times. “y/n are you sure we won’t get like stabbed or kidnapped?” yachi asked for what feels like the millionth time. i sighed and shook my head, “we won’t die yachi”.

the team was mostly quiet except for the side comments or someone yelling at tanaka and noya to not eat the berries or go off the trail because they saw a cat. “y/n are we near?” hinata asked as he bounced around. “you moron can you stop bouncing like jack rabbit” kags yelled at him. right as i was about to answer i saw the school out of the trees to the right of me. shit i gotta remind them of the rules i have.

“okay!”, i stopped the team and turned around in front of everyone “so i have some rules for abandoned places with friends! so, the rules are, do not break shit. we don’t do validation here. if i say shut up. please shut UP, i am on high alert so if i hear something just be quiet for once. ok, that’s it. don’t die!”

“HUH? YOU SAID WE WERENT GONNA DIE Y/N” yamaguchi yelled. i smacked my own forehead and just told them let’s go. “please be careful and look where you are going!”

kageyama grabbed my hand as i went through the door that is always left slightly open. we each got in and heard a bunch of ‘woahs’ and ‘holy shit’ because the door we entered to led to the cafeteria. the tables were all broken. there were vines growing on the inside because of the broken windows on the top and the kitchen area was closed off. “this is fucking cool y/n!” noya exclaimed as he started walking around. “DONT you need anything please” i yelled right before he went to grab an old lunch tray. i heard a phone camera going off and turned around to yaichi and suga taking pictures. “i wanna stand on the table. someone get a picture!” tanaka hopped on the only non-broken table. “wait wait let me on!” suga quickly hopped on next to tanaka. “guys don’t break anything! i’ll kill you” daichi told the two chaos boys. i looked around to see where everyone is and realized tsukki and yams were gone. “oh no. where’s the asshole 1 and 2?” i asked. “oh tsukki? he left the cafeteria like 2 minutes together” kags told me as if it was obvious. “guys let’s leave the cafeteria, there’s a whole ass school here. you guys can do your own thing but you can’t go alone. please literally don’t” tanaka, noya, suga and hinata quickly left the cafeteria while me, kags, daichi, asahi, kiyoko and yachi were still in the cafeteria. “bro, this is kinda cool!” daichi was checking out the lockers and the different left over magnets in them as we passed down the halls. kageyama still had my hand in his. i had taken him here before so he wasn’t scared or as on guard as everyone else. “i think i just saw a knife on the ground...” “asahi you’re being paranoid” “i am not y/n” “there’s no knife on the ground asahi”. yachi had clinged herself to kiyoko and kiyoko was just chilling, admiring everything. “let’s go to the roof” “no” “daichi we’re going to the roof” “we’re gonna die.” we made it to the roof after i remembered how to get there. “oh there you two are!” tsukki and yams were already on the roof as i opened the door. “oh wow you guys aren’t dead?” tsukki joked, i hope. we all admired the view between the trees and the sky. tobio kept randomly tightening his grip on my hand but he was smiling and looked content for once. i pulled out my phone to take a picture of him with sky in the back. he whipped his head around “i heard the click, did you take a picture?” i bit my lip and giggled “maybe. get over it” “oh god y/n” i heard loud foot steps coming up to the stairs door and i got ready to curse out whoever is coming up and being that loud when it would be common sense to be quiet in a trespassing zone. the door quickly slammed open and before i could even yell tanaka beat me to it. “WE NEED TO GO!” “why?” everyone on the roof panicked as the separated group from early came up the stairs looking as scared as tanaka. “i fucked up!” i wanted to punch him. honestly. “tanaka, the hell did you do?” daichi’s dad voice coming out. “i- uh?” “HE BROKE A WINDOW. LIKE A BIG ONE.” how the hell did we not hear a broke window? “i told you not to BREAK anything ryū!” everyone started yelling at tanaka and it became chaos on the roof. as we were all yelling i heard probably the scariest noise we could’ve heard right now. “guys shut-SHUT UP!” everyone shut their mouths. i looked around as everyone recognizes the noise. “is that the fucking cops?” tsukki pointed out the obvious. “RUN RUN GO, EVERYONE DOWN THE STAIRS”. hinata was the first to book it out and everyone else followed him. “I THOUGHT YOU SAID WE WOULD BE OKAY Y/N?!” asahi yelled as he panicked and we ran to the slightly open door in the cafeteria. “OKAY WELL BEANIE BOY BROKE A WINDOW” “I DIDNT THINK A SMALL ROCK WOULD SHATTER IT!” we got to the door and kiyoko was the first there. she pushed the door all the way open so it was easier to get out in a hurry. right as she left the door an alarm was sounded. “oh what the hell? that wasn’t there before” i said as i was out of breathe and running beside kags. “the door being opened all the way triggered something on top.” “oh you’re smart daichi”

kags let me through first and then he went through. the sirens were getting louder as we cursed and panicked and ran down the trail before the cops could get there. eventually we got to the street and we all took a breathe. “guys, run again!” suga pointed out as the cop car was pulling down the street.

[mggpleasedontlookhere]

winter reminiscence pt. 3

Summary: Y/N and Timothee go about the day, causing mischief and reconnecting, but where will they end up now?

word count: 1,967                                                                                     reading time aprox: 7 mins

“Yes?” I spoke with reluctance, biting the insides of my cheeks as I felt the warmth radiating off of the gentle grasp he had of my dainty hands. “Do you need anything?” I added with underlying intent, a part of me hoping he’d recognize that deep longing for him I’ve suppressed, so I wouldn’t have to recognize it myself. 

“I just-” He paused, clearing his throat and dropping his hand from mine, the sudden chill of the air biting at my fingers from the loss of his touch. “I was wondering if you’d like to sit?” He gestured, pointing to the empty chair in front of him. 

“Thank you, but I won’t be long” I returned with a polite smile. His eyes seemed to get duller as he understood my avoidance and gave me a courteous nod. Thus, sending me into a frenzy of guilt and confusion, my stomach churning at the thought of the possibility of this event occurring again. 

But, did I want our paths to meet again? 

“But..um” I interjected, raising my eyes to his hopeful ones. “I could stay a little bit” I reasoned, a soft smile guiding the corners of my lips, which seemed to have matched Timothee’s own. 

“Yeah, that’d be cool” He replied, hiding the enthusiasm in his tone as he stood up to pull out the chair in which I would be seated at. I gracefully sat down, and by that I mean ‘almost missing the chair completely’ in which Timothee had come to my saving grace by catching the small of my back. I uttered another coy ‘thank you’ and began going through my social media. 

Anticipating that Timothee would start a conversation with me, I was thoroughly disappointed when he dug his nose into his textbook. A few minutes had passed and my knee naturally began to bounce in impatience, while I scrolled madly through tumblr. 

Are we going to speak? Should I just get up and leave? Would he even notice if I left? 

To test my hypothesis, my fingers crawled to a sugar packet that laid conveniently at the edge of the table, then, with a nudge and a secretive glance at Timmy, the packet was whisked onto the floor. With haste, I withdraw my hand back quietly, examining the room around me before cautiously picking up the sugar packet, noticing the brief inquisitive looks I would receive from Timmy.

Wow, so he would notice me

I nodded to myself, taking pride in the silly experiment I conducted. A victory smile spread across my face, reveling in a feeling of claiming his attention, Though, the feeling was cut short and replaced with a much rather painful and literal knock to the head, while picking myself up, courtesy of these oak tables. 

“Ow, shit!” I cursed under my breath, holding my scalp in discomfort while my brain cells felt like they were threatening to jump out of my skull any moment.

“Are you okay?” Timothee said in a panic, jumping out of his seat and kneeling beside me to hold onto my arm. His eyebrows were contorted in anguish and his lips pouted like the way they always do whenever he was stressed. Squeezing my eyes in humiliation, my hands were glued to the side of my head, reassuring him that I was alright. 

Timmy then began climbing back to his seat, until a loud thud could be heard with an audible ‘Fuck! Shit!’ that had rang out from in front of me. I opened my eyes to investigate, and there was Timmy clutching his left shoulder in absolute agony. 

In that moment, we both stared at each other in disbelief and began laughing our absolute lungs out. My chest burned as we got ourselves into a fit, intensifying when one or the other clutched their bruised areas and winced, creating an amusing sound. 

We both had paused at tightening breaths, transitioning into a fit of coughs and half giggles, while we came off of our shared highs. We bore our eyes into each other with incredulous looks, feeling the passion and love that used to filter our eyes when in each other’s company. We both had caught our breaths, lingering at each other for a while before reserving ourselves back into our seats. 

Timothee inquired about the atmosphere around us, as people began shooting us glares and looks of disapproval. “Uhhh, as much as I enjoy losing a few IQ points from tables, I don’t think everyone’s, um, an enthusiast of us” He pointed out, gesturing to the audience we were gathering. 

“I’m waiting on a book right now, do you wanna wait with me?” I asked, my voice decreasing in volume as the words strung out from my lips. 

“Of course” He replied, wearing that same lingering stare we held earlier, with a hint of shock and enthusiasm at my proposition. 

With that, we maneuvered through the aisles of chairs and the sea of subjective eyes, dispensing apologetic smiles and nods to the people we had disturbed. 

Walking across to the bookstore, he held the door open for me and we both went inside, basking in the heat coming off of the radiator next to the front entrance. 

“Oh, hello dear!” The old women exclaimed. “Back so soon? Oh! And you’ve brought your boyfriend with you” She added, sending a youthful and compassionate look to both of us. 

My heart leaped into my throat, while my eyebrows furrowed in dread, unable to correct the women. To make matters even worse, she began talking about how Timothee somehow resembled Laurie from the book I sought to read and how he was a ‘fine young gentleman’ that I held on my arm. 

Timothee’s muffled snickering was audible behind me, while he relished in his mistaken glory. “You hear that Y/N? ‘a fine young gentleman’” He teased, straightening up his posture to impersonate a prim and posh figure. 

“Yes, and that’s why you hit your shoulder on the underside of the table, right?” Referring to the events that took place previously, which made him swallow his words right away, although the glint of mischief he wore remained. 

“I think your sorely mistaken miss, I was compensating for when YOU hit yourself over the head. I didn’t want you to- ya know, to bear the embarrassment alone” He cockily explained, holding his head high and peering at me from the tip of his nose. 

We set ourselves in a fit of amusement again, filling the air with harmonious laughter and pure energy, resembling the moments we had when our relationship was also harmonious and pure. 

It was those first introductions that I missed the most; the first hello, the first hug, the first touch. All fueled by a kindled and mutual sense of hesitation and puppy love that reminded our hearts of vulnerability. The first time when touch became electricity that flooded every molecule, when the first kiss was awkward and unfavorable, yet made you forget to breath, and the time where laying next to him felt like a home you never knew you had. 

“Anyways, if you don’t mind me asking, is my book ready?” I asked, breaking away from Timmy and facing the woman, in order to eradicate or at least dwindle the onset of nostalgia that threatens to wash over me. She hurriedly searched through the drawers behind her, shuffling through what seems to be a void of paper bags and forgotten trinkets.

“Here you go love. Come back anytime you please” The lady said as a last farewell, turning around and going about her business, staring out the glass window solemnly as the autumn leaves fell victim to the winter air. 

“Little women, huh?” Timothee inquired, gesturing to the book that rested between my palms. 

“Yes, is that a problem?” 

“Well, I find it ironic actually. A little women reading ‘Little Women’” He explained, alluding to my height, which unfortunately was always a target that Timothee would tease upon. 

“Oh, so now you think you’re funny?” I remarked, now migrating towards the entrance of the building, walking backwards as I faced Timothee. 

“Well, actually, I know I’m funny” Timmy exaggerated, following me to the outdoors, grinning with an impish smile on his face. The air seemed to be frigid and unforgiving as Timmy’s curls flew spirals around his head while the wind blew, and my hands found refuge in the creases of my elbows. “Why? You don’t think I’m funny?” He suggested, closing in on me as I drew closer to a lampost on the side of the street. 

Still facing him, “Well...I think a lot of things of you, actually” I slyly replied, squinting my eyes at him to study his reaction as my evocative words slowly registered in his mind. 

The distance between us begun to decrease, the bleak air no longer affecting my arms and legs as Timmy drew closer, keeping steady eye contact with me. He wore a dark and unreadable expression, tilting his head to the side to analyze me. “And...what things are those?” He interrogated, with an obscene tone. 

A feeling of young love and excitement surged through me like a new kind of energy filling the emptiness within my heart.

But, what was I really doing?

I would’ve let the comforting warmth infiltrate the void that filled me, but it was too soon, the feeling was only temporary. Timothee was right here, right in front of me with his boyish charm and irresistible smile that complimented the pools of green and blue, that painted his eyes. 

But, that was my mistake last time. All those times of hurt, was not because of Timothee, but because I let myself drown in the evergreen of his irises, I succumbed to his warmth and let him suffocate me with his lips, that could’ve been on another’s. I kept digging my own grave and it wasn’t anyone’s doing, but mine. 

“I was thinking that...I should, go” I explained dimly, the welcome in my voice no longer present as realization hit me like a tidal wave. 

“Why?” He voiced with concern, his expression also turning a complete 180, surprised by my unsatisfying response. 

“Because-I dont- it’s- What are we doing Timothee?” I confessed, admitting defeat as I struggled to find the right words. “I mean, what are we really doing? We’re going to talk again, then text and flirt. Why? Because it feels good” I explained. 

“But, Y/N-” He tried to interject. 

“Timmy, you and I know, whatever this is, will be temporary. We’ve been through this multiple times, on and off. Aren’t you sick of it? Aren’t you sick of starting over?”

“Y/N, it’s not like th-” 

“But it’s always like that Timmy. Don’t you see it, whenever things get hard, you walk away, and you expect me to wait for you. I don’t want to do that anymore Timmy” 

“Y/N- just let me explain” He stuttered, combing his fingers through his ruffled head. “I know, I did you wrong many times, and I understand that I’ve hurt you- and I’m sorry- If you want to leave, I’d understand it, but I want you to know that I’ve never felt the way I felt with you, with anyone else. I know, you don’t trust my words, but-” He paused, reaching for my hand and placing it on his chest. “You need to know, I put it on my heart and soul, that I’ve never felt love, the way I feel it with you” 

Complete submission emitted from his eyes, flooding my chest will all sorts of emotions that was almost impossible to resist. I could’ve sworn tears began to seep up and brim as his eyes became glassy, casting a film atop the green I used to love. 

“Timmy-” I began, taking his hand in mine and giving it a tight squeeze, watching his innocent smile form on his cheeks, but soon took a change as I dropped his hand to his side and took a step back. “I can’t Timmy, I can’t anymore. You just- you need to understand that being with you is mentally draining- and apologize if that comes off a bit mean, but it’s true” 

“Y/N, I know what I did-” 

“Timmy, we can’t just stand here and spend all winter reminiscing on what happened before, or else we’ll miss out the beautiful things during spring” 

“Why can’t we head out till spring? Why can’t we give it another chance and let it bloom into a beautiful thing, like you said?” 

“Because Timmy, I’m tired of being replanted, then ripped from the ground, and thrown out whenever you think things aren’t pretty anymore. I think it’s best if we spend this time apart” 

“Y/N, I think-” 

“I loved you so much Timothee, and you might not love me as much as I wish you did, but we need to be our own people. We keep manifesting toxicity and finding comfort in them, and it’s not doing either of us good.”

“I love you too, Y/N” 

“I just- we can’t keep getting stuck on our reminiscence of each other, we both need to move onto better things at the moment. Maybe one day we’ll cross paths again, and we’ll introduce our children to each other-” 

“But, we were supposed to have those children together”

“I hope life treats you well, and I hope you treat life well also. You’re tremendously smart, and I know you have a lot to give. Just know that I support you in whatever you do. Just keep moving forward, Chalamet” 

With that, I reached up and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek, turning around to walk away. My heart swam in a pool melancholy, but my soul swelled with a new form of freedom. 

Silence perturbed the air, as I felt his sorrowful eyes digging at the back of my head as I walked away

But now, I was the one that needed to look forward. 

for the both of us

-

part 1

AN: That was it guys, I hope you enjoyed the little narrative and I apologize profusely for the lateness, I’ve been bombarded with college application supplements. Anyways, have a good day, see you on the next one :)

[zaneryne]

Here is Zaneryne’s recap of her performance at the @succulent-tart​ All I Want for Winter Veil event and show!

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

Zaneryne stands in front of a curtain or dangling bells and icicles attached to translucent ribbon, as the music starts she lifts her fingers and taps on bells slightly, making it ring with the soft music, dropping her jaw as a soulful lyric comes from her mouth, "I....dont want a lot of Winter Veil..." presses the backs of her hands together fanning the curtain open, "There is just one thing I need..." shaking her head singing the lyrics as she bobs her head side to side.

"I dont care about the presents....underneath the Winter veil Tree...."

She steps out from the curtain, placing her left arm across her chest to the right side of her body, "I just want you for my own...." placing her right arm across her chest on the left side, "more than you could ever know..." fans her hands across her face, covering her mouth with her hands, "Make my wish come true...." kisses her hand and throws it out to the audience, "All I want for Winter Veil is you....."

Throwing her hands behind her, as the music picks up she snaps her fingers while rotating her wrist cuff, throwing her hands up above her head, interlocking her fingers, thrusting her chest from side to side with the sway of her hips, "I don't want a lot for Christmas..." spinning around with the rocking of her body, "There is just one thing I need..."

"Don't care about the presents, Underneath the Winter Veil Tree...."

Zaneryne spins around turning to the side as she rips away her outfit, revealing a candy cane colored leotard, "I dont need to hang my stocking..." planting her left leg and her to the matching hip, lifting her right hand up as she sways her hip to flick her right hand back and forth, "There upon the fireplace..." she propels herself quickly, folding herself in half, throwing herself over onto her right hand to do a one hand cartwheel, whipping her hair back she points over to Dice.

"Grandfather Winter wont make me happy, with a toy on Winter Veil Day."

Zaneryne frowns at Dice as she places her lefts together, giving a shimmy as she sings out, "I just want you for my own..." smiling again as she playfully blows a kiss at Dice, "More than you could ever know..." pops her hip to the right, her hand up, then pops her hip to the left letting that hand match the right as she waves from side to side at shoulder length, "Make my wish come true...." starts to two step, "All I want for Winter Veil is you!!!!"

As the music starts to repeat, repeating, "you" again and again with hard thumping beats, Zaneryne goes from waving her hand from side to side, to clapping them in front of her, moving the clap down to the knees then back up to her body as the beat drops and sings out looking at the audience, "All I want for Winter Veil is you...."

she turns her profile to the crowd, and runs forward a quick dash with her legs shoulder width apart, launching her right leg forward with a small hop, she plants the right foot on the ground, arms facing the ground, using the movement to kick her left leg up, now perpendicular to the ground, she swings her legs through the air doing a no hand cartwheel, immediately as she lands she twist her spine, bending her hips and swinging her arms down, pushing her toes to lift her arms up in a arc, drawing up onto her tip toes, fully extended to show the shape of her body. She kicks her left leg out, diving forward to jump onto her hands, in a hand stand.

She tosses her torso forward, spreading her legs out doing a splits in the air while walking on her hands, doing a singular push up, lowering down, her chest kissing the ground first, the rest of her tumbling down, in a snake like fashion, propping herself up onto her elbows, her chin sunk into her hands, she kicks her legs back and forth, bopping her head to the music, she smiles at everyone as the song starts back up again, "All I want for Winter Veil is you...."

The music draws back from a more electronic feel to the jazzy upbeat music it was before and starts to sing once more, "I won't ask for much this Winter Veil..." kicking her legs again, intentionally smacking them together, and clapping her hands as packs of snowy glitter burst from her hands and feet like cloud, "I wont even wish for snow...." bending herself in half literally, contorting, as she reaches between her own legs, pushing up into a hand stand once more, before planting her legs on the ground and standing up right.

"I just wanna keep on waiting....underneath the mistletoe...."

She lifts from breast pocket a single piece of mistletoe, shaking it above her head before tossing it aside, "I wont make a list and send it, to Northrend for Saint Dice...." bouncing side to side to the music, lifting up and interchanging on the balls of her feet, "I wont event stay awake..." pressing her hands together to rest under her cheek to fake being asleep, "to hear those magic coursers click."

Zaneryne spins around, with a quick whip, hands pressed to her hips, "Cause I just want you here tonight..." crossing her arms across her body to hug onto herself, shivering at the cold, "Holding on to me so tight...what more can I do....?" points to Arreves, "Baby, all I want for Winter Veil is you...."

Presses up and down on the balls of her feet, flicking her hands all over her body as the word "You" repeats again, waving her hands around her abdomen and chest, as if she was glitching out, the electronic music breaks out, flapping her arms out before posing elegantly, she jumps and spins around, landing in a splits, her feet glisten, ice upon her dancing shoes, sliding back up from the splits as if she hit reverse, hands spread out to wave magic fingers at the crowd, bouncing, throwing her right hand in the air as she almost immediately threw herself to the side with a one hand cartwheel.

She clamps her hand together in a fist, at shoulder height, hopping three times to the left, rolling her shoulders, planting her legs and spreading out her hands to flick with a wave to the right, left hand to the hip as she swings her right arm around in circle to plant on her hip bone, "All I want for Winter Veil is you...." lifts her hand and blows a kiss and white snowflake glitter sprays out from her hands

[hollyhomburg]

So a little while back you wrote about your fav cuddling position and I was wondering if you had any other kind of cute little ideas like that for yourself? Maybe like your ideal morning or night or maybe even date or something!

only one and that is literally where I get to lie on someone's chest and sorta just like press my face into their neck for hours while they talk to me about their day and just kinda like aimlessly talk about everything and maybe play with my hair a little like- I just wanna feel all cozy and taken care of. 

maybe like 🙈 if we’re gonna bring little space into this i just wanna like- have a day where i wake up from a nap feeling all fuzzy and small and i walk up to my cg (i dont have one but like yeah- if i ever get one) and i just sorta like press my face into their neck or back from behind and just kinda, flop on them, and they could turn around and say something like “oh- someones feeling small right now huh?” which would probably just make me feel more tiny. 

and they set me up with like- juice and sit me in front of the tv or with a coloring book. and maybe i try to reach for something or do something. im always super stumbly and uncoordinated when im in lil space. god- cooking for myself when im little is terrifying in retrospect. because of little me? can’t remember things break? ive broken 3 glasses while in little space? and they take it from me and they say “no- thats too big for you right now.” 

and im kinda wide-eyed. because the beginning of little space for me is always a little bit non-verbal? and then i get all chatty and wanna narate everything im doing and just them like- listening in and slowly guiding me and asking me questions and stuff- just being sweet. i get excited really easily in little space so they could probably say something simple like “want a snack baby?” and I’d literally start jumping bouncing up and down. 

but yeah! i know little space wasn’t what you asked about- but this is the soft thing that my mind wanted to supply right now- probably because im a mix of overtired and overstimulated from today. 

[rogersbabyyy]

sex, drugs, rock n’roll | roger taylor

author’s note: me? posting a fic? this is much too strange!  i really have no excuse for writing this other than i was horny and just wanted to write some filthy ass 70s sex where everyone’s high and and it’s a lot of fun. but please don’t do drugs it’s not a good idea, this is just for fictional sake and me wishing i was a groupie :) also, i tried to change up my writing style a bit a try and get into the head of someone on cocaine, hence the repetition and somewhat scattered internal monologue. i really hope you enjoy, please reblog! 

summary: you get high and fuck roger at one of freddie’s parties... that’s it.

warnings/tags: this is the most disgusting thing i’ve written. DRUG USE!!, foul language, smut (dom!roger makes an appearance), but mostly heavy drug use (cocaine) so pls pls dont read if u feel uncomfy!

word count: 3.7k

not proofread

Two hours ago, the party had conformed to become a force of life in itself; roaring and fantastical, welcoming and formidable, all at the same time. Nothing less than outrageous, there were naked girls, naked boys, lounging on Freddie Mercury’s grand staircase, snogging and touching and almost fucking right for everyone to see.

The latest disco hit playing through the stereo system was nothing but a pounding heartbeat for the writhing bodies to obey, hands clutching glasses swaying above heads, shoes kicked to the sides of the room, heads unconsciously bobbing to the beat.

It was the quintessential celebration for the release of Queen’s latest album, months and months of hard work, Roger arriving home every night (morning?) at two, and proceeding to wake you up at six o’clock anyway with the crush of his golden cymbals and throb of his bass drum. Not that you minded, but… it was nice to finally have the chance to let loose, and the boys, finally earning a proper wage of their own, had the money for parties like these now.

The host of the evening (and lead singer of the band) adorned in a leotard clinging to every curve of his muscular body and showing off his chest covered in a soft dawn of hair, had been busy all night entertaining his guests, balancing a velvet crown atop his head with one hand, a glass of bubbly champagne in the other (his matching cloak long ago discarded), his booming tenor voice always assuring that more drinks were coming, and oh, come on darling, you must have another.

Brian and John, however, were long gone; as soon as one of Freddie’s friends dumped an assorted mix of drugs onto the table (causing to Brian to choke on his beer, with someone needing to thump him on the back for a solid two minutes before he recovered), he whisked Chrissie out of there, and John was always yearning to be with his little babies these days (they were utterly precious; Freddie constantly demanded that they be brought round to the studio).

So, that left you with the drummer.

Your boyfriend, Roger, was situated firmly at your side, the hand that wasn’t holding an ice cold glass of whiskey thrown around your waist. His shirt was unbuttoned almost to his navel, exposing his toned abdomen shining with sweat (not unlike the little black dress you were wearing, with a neckline that dipped so low it really didn’t leave anything to the imagination), and oh, did he ever look delicious. And, he obviously thought the same of you; for the way his tongue was licking slow, deliberate stripes over your exposed neck, causing you to giggle so hysterically, it probably had something to do with the remnants of fine white powder littering the glass table, on which your nose was pressed up against approximately five seconds ago.

Euphoric was barely a satisfying enough word to describe how you were feeling. You were orgasmic, horny, powerful, high, burning up (God, you were hot); and from the way Roger’s baby blue eyes were fixed on you, dilated and glazed over, he wasn’t feeling all that different. Growling softly against your neck, his head clouded with a high of his own, his lips hot, so hot, burning, exerted to find the words he desired to describe what he wanted to do to you.

“Mhm, lovie,” he moaned, “Want to, want... ” he laughed softly against you, his equilibrium simultaneously failing him, as he lost what little balance he had left and swayed against you, spilling his drink all over his front in the process.

“Ah, fuck,” He discarded the glass by letting it roll out of his hand and onto the beautiful Persian rug below, and you found this unspeakably hilarious, laughing harder until his lips finally found yours in a kiss so filthy it belonged in a porn movie. Open mouths, tongues entwined in a furious dance, he tasted of his whiskey, Benson & Hedges cigarettes, the hor d’oeuvres that had been floating around all night on silver trays, and something else that was just inexplicably him.

“Naughty dress you’re wearin,” he tried again, lips breaking from yours, and then, barely suppressing a grin; “M’ so horny. M’ so horny you don’t even know. Wanna fuck you right here, don’t give a fuck if anyone sees. Need to fuck you, need your cunt, need you, need you,” He repeated the words continuously, his voice ending as a mumble as he went back to press open mouthed kisses against your neck, on which you’d know there’d be countless bruises in the morning.

Your heart throbbed faster, faster, fasterfasterfaster, and it wasn’t even a question in your mind to squeeze the stiffy growing in his too tight jeans; no one was really even looking, too busy dancing and kissing and drinking and smoking and laughing and-

“I swear to God, I will come in my jocks if you keep bloody doing tha’.” He choked, grasping your wrist and squeezing it softly.

“Well, s’much as I wanna fuck here, I don’t think Fred would appreciate seeing your cock, as lovely as it is,” you beamed up at him, and he giggled softly back, brushing your hair to one side.

“Hm, you have a point, kitten,” he peppered your neck with a few more slow kisses, before his lips found your ear to whisper, “Besides, we wouldn’t want everyone seeing your pretty cunt, because that’s all mine.”

Oh, he owned you, he owned you so bad, and you could feel your walls tighten at his words, and oh how you wished they were clenching around him instead.

“Please, Rogie, let’s go, upstairs, somewhere, the bathroom or the car, even-”

“Calm down, lovie, c’mon, let’s go upstairs… Be needin’ some o’ this,” Roger staggered sideways to snatch up one of the last small plastic bags left on the table, bulging almost to the brim with white powder, “Let’s go.”

Your hand in his as was clammy and hot, God it was so hot, as you took a grievous amount of time to scale Freddie’s staircase in platform heels that perhaps maybe possibly you might have stolen from John, it was too long ago to remember. So, you kicked them off, and they clunk clunk clunked as they bumped their way down the stairs; you’d pick them up later, but probably not, because you were so horny and so bloody fucked up that really the only thing you were thinking at that point about was grinding slowly on Roger’s cock.

Your clit throbbed at the thought, and you fell against his side, moaning softly, his arm encircling your waist to keep you upright.

“Here,” Roger grunted, sweeping you up in his arms as if you weighed nothing at all, and you howled gleefully, legs failing as your halfheartedly moaned for him to set you back down.

“Roger, stop!”

He ignored your pleas, a soft, dazed smile on his face, as he pushed open the door to the nearest room with his shoulder; which happened to be a master bedroom with a four-poster bed, surround by a floaty, gauzy fabric.

He set you down gently on the mattress.

“Right,” he smiled, and for as high as he was, he unsealed the small bag and carefully tapped out a short, perfect line of cocaine on the bedside table. “Ladies first, hm?”

Reaching for the five pound note in his outstretched hand, (“Thank you very much, kind sir,”) you rolled it into a tight cylinder with some difficulty, your hands were trembling so much (from the drug, or from the need for more of it?) and hovered over the line, sniffing as hard as you could as the powder rushed its way upward, Roger’s hands carefully holding your hair back in a makeshift ponytail as the stimulant worked its magic.

Within seconds the drug was in your blood, in your brain, sizzling and popping and making you shiver in delight, oh, it felt good, and you sniffed again, your head dizzy and the room whirling around and aroundaroundaround until your eyes came to a focus on Roger right at your side. He seemed ten times more attractive, if possible, and you quite literally drooled at the sight of him, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand as the room whirled once more.

“Good, huh?” His eyes were excited, as he unbuttoned his shirt completely now and shrugged it off, the fabric landing in a heap on the floor, his hand sliding down the small of your back to squeeze your ass, practically hanging out of your too-tight and much-too-short dress.

“So good,” you said, running your fingers through your hair, your palms coming to rest on his shoulders, “Fuck, I feel like I could do anything. And I’m so horny I could die,”

“Know the fuckin’ feelin’,” he groaned, pushing you backward onto the awaiting bed, his mouth clumsily finding yours in a messy snog, his hands obviously focused on something else;

“Please get those pretty tits out fo’ me,” he growled, his hot hands everywhere all at once, all at once, all at once yesyesyesyes, and God it felt so good, pulling at your dress and squeezing your hips and cradling your pyretic cheeks, “Been teasin’ me all night like the whore you are, mhm, such a little whore, yes,” finally, he managed to rip your pretty black dress right down the middle, your breasts bouncing as they were revealed to him.

His feverish, insistent mouth eagerly found one of your nipples, nipping the soft bud between his teeth. In return, you gasped, thrusting your chest forward ohohohohfuck and yanking on his salty hair. He sucked on it until the bud pebbled, hard against his tongue, and the other breast received the same treatment, Roger always being one for fairness.

“Lay down, c’mon,” his voice was a soft whine, a palm on your shoulder to push you backward onto the luxurious mattress, on which you fell against like one of those rich white girls in chick flicks, collapsing after a long day of retail therapy.

And before your brain could process what he up to, the bag of cocaine was in his hand, and he poured a generous line over the dip in between your breasts, a mischievous grin lighting up his face as he did so.

“Mhm, let’s get it all over, that’s it, all over your pretty tits,” he simpered, his chest heaving with anticipation and arousal, as he tidied up the line with his fingertips, “Always wanted to do this, gettin’ high off your body, mhm…”

“Oh, you’re filthy!” You gasped, as he pressed his soft, upturned nose in the valley, not even bothering with the rolled up fiver. Holding one nostril closed, he snorted the fine powder all in an alarmingly fast fluid motion, your hand entangled in his hair to hold him close to you as he did so, before he shot up like a person possessed.

“Oh, shit!”

He was a flurry of blurry blonde locks as shook his head from side to side, almost violently, his body positively trembling when he was done as he sniffed hard, a final time. His eyes rolled back in his head briefly, before fixating on your lips, and stating in a deadpan voice as clear as day;

“I might die if I don’t fuck you right now.”

You thought it impossible for your heart to race any faster than it was, but your body proved you wrong, your head and the inside of your wrists and every limb pounding hard and fast to the rhythm of the organ, like one of Roger’s particularly fast drum beats that left him panting and shaking from adrenaline (in fact, not so different from his current state).

“Fuck me then, would you? I’m so wet I think I’ve made a mess,” your voice was a soft, hoarse, giggle, as you looked down to find a noticeable dark patch on the white lacy g-string you’d had the foresight to wear.

“See! Oops!” You laughed loudly, slipping your fingers past the material to rub your throbbing clit, throbthrobthrobbing godyouweresowet, and you pouted teasingly when Roger could do nothing but stare. “What, don’t you want me, Rogie?”

His eyes flickered shut as they rolled backward again, showing you the whites as painful, animalistic whimper left his throat. His hands fumbled at a speed you’d never seen before to unbuckle his belt, tugging down his flared denim jeans (that were all the rage at the moment).

While he did so, you removed your fingers from their place over your core, you brought them to your mouth, taking your index and pointer fingers to the knuckle, before dragging them down over your lips.

Finally managing to slide the leader belt through the loops of his jeans, Roger shook his head as you this, his gaze almost becoming furious and disapproving as he leant toward you and nudged your hand away from your mouth, replacing your fingers with his own.

“Uh-uh,” he scolded, “Don’t you dare tease me like that now, lovie.”

You sucked eagerly on his fingers, tongue running thoroughly over the tips of each, kissing and sucking and perhaps wanted them rubbing over your needy clit instead.

As if reading your mind, Roger’s fingers withdrew slicky from your mouth, spanking the sweet bundle of nerves between your legs, just enough that you convulsed, shuddering at his touch; “Fuck!”

“Open your mouth,” he commanded, forcefully taking your face in his hand and squeezing your cheeks until you obeyed, eyes crazed and jubilant.

With a soft hum, he let a single strand of his saliva drip from his mouth to yours, dribbling slowly onto your awaiting tongue, as you swallowed eagerly and jutted your chin out proudly to show him your efforts.

“Tha’s my girl.”

“Can you fuck me now, please?” You moaned, sliding your knickers past your ankles to toss them over Roger’s shoulder, all the while giving him the sexiest puppy dog eyes you were able to muster up.

“Since you asked so nicely.” Yanking his boxer shorts off and kicking them toward the foot of the bed, you finally got to wrap your hand around his length as it bobbed upward to tap against his tummy, beads of precum leaking from the tip, feeling the throb of his erratic drug fuelled heartbeat pulse through his shaft.

“Such a needy boy,” you whispered, legs spreading earnestly as you greedily guided his palpitating member to your core. The cherry coloured blush that was the head of his cock slid past the swollen lips of your cunt, and the both of you shivered in a bout of ecstasy, moaning against each other as Roger clutched you to his chest.

He then slid out of you slowly, before immediately jerking his hips back toward you, making you scream, digging the heel of your foot into his back.

“You’re so bloody wet,” he gasped, collapsing his weight onto his forearms as his thrusts continued the erratic pace he’d established moments before, one slow thrust, and then fastfastfastfaster-

“You’re so fucking huge, oh my God, I love your cock, I love your cock, I love-”

-until he returned to his teasingly slow pace. Whimpering, you hid your face in the crook of your elbow, eyes squeezed shut as you shakily begged your boyfriend to increase his pace.

“I’ll fuck you how I like,” he grunted, angling his cock in a way that it only just nudged your g-spot, making your toes curl as his hips finally found the familiar rhythm that you so adored: fast, steady, and hard.

The room resumed its spinning motion from earlier as his cock sent you into a bout of euphoria, his balls making the filthiest noises you’d ever heard as their momentum caused them to slap against your your dripping pussy.

“You feel so fucking good, holy fuck,”

His cock made a slick, wet sound as he pulled out of you, and you whined, cunt clenching around nothing, so emptyemptyempty.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Get on your hands n’ knees, c’mon love, c’mon, need t’be back in your cunt,” He was panting, his hair soaking with sweat, his palms so warm so hot so boiling, as they found your waist to flip you over, making you titter deliriously as you landed on your front, ass in the air and cheek against the soft dawn of the mattress.

“Pass us the coke, angel,” you felt him smile as he pressed the gentlest of kisses against the back of your shoulder, as you stretched to reach the little bag filled to the brim with euphoria to pass over to your boyfriend.

Catching you by surprise, his palm came down sharply on the supple skin of your ass, as you jolted forward and squealed, clutching the sheets against the sting of your skin that was just the right blend between pleasure and pain.

“You like that, don’t you? Filthy little thing, an absolute slut, horny and dripping, all for who? Hm?”

“For you, for you, only for you, Rog!”

Feeling a tickling sensation between your asscheeks, you knew what Roger was doing immediately, knew he was tapping out what was left of the white powder on the barely-an-inch of skin that separated your two holes.

“Stay still,” he muttered, palms spreading your cheeks apart to bury his face in between them, snorting the powder in a quick, practiced movement.

A slurred jumble of profanities left his mouth as the smaller amount of the drug boosted the euphoria coursing around his system, and he delivered a final spank to your ass, and you yelped and laughed deliriously once more.

“Alright, c’mon, you naughty thing, back up you get,” His staunch arms encircled your waist and lifted you so were you sitting upright.

“Want you t’ride my cock, think you can do that fo’ me?”

“Yes, yes, oh, please, want you back inside me,” you begged, clambering on top of your boyfriend as he settled against the headboard of the bed, his eyes clouded with lust as you rocked desperately against his thigh. “Feel so empty.”

“I can certainly help you with that, darlin’, mhm, oh, oh fuck,” he grunted as you took a hold of his member and settled down onto it, pushing him inside you.

Grinding your hips against him slowly, it was Roger’s turn to whimper, as his hands squeezed your waist to keep you balanced against him.

“Please, love,” his voice was hoarse, “need to you- oh, yes.”

Using your knees as leverage, you re-commenced the steady tempo, except now you were in charge. You bounced on his cock, taking him right to the hilt every time, your breasts bouncing in front of his face, in and out and in and out outandinoutandin…

You went to throw your head back in a wail of pleasure, but Roger’s hand found the back of your neck to stop you, and he growled,

“Watch. Watch yourself bouncin’ on my cock.”

You looked down at the join of your bodies and moaned gutturally at the sigh of his dick soaked in your wetness, his veins pink and throbbing, so pretty, God his cock was gorgeous-

You reached down to rub your stiff, hard, slit, your movement becoming messier and erratic, Roger announcing;

“I’m so close, love, I’m so close-”

“Come inside me, I don’t care, please, want you in my cunt, Rog, please,”

“Bloody fuckin’-”

You didn’t need to tell him twice. Your words alone prompted a callous growl from his diaphragm, his muscles seizing and spasming as his warm seed covered the walls of your pulsing cunt, hips jerking of their own accord as he emptied himself inside you.

The feeling of his cum inside you, paired with the stunning sight of his orgasm, pushed you to your own.

“Roger, Roger, oh my God, Roger-!” The coil in your stomach popped, your eyes rolling backward as they did when you took your first line of the drug, falling into his chest as your trembled.

“Tha’s it pretty girl,” he encouraged, still shaking from his own orgasm and the cocaine and everything was just overwhelming as you came all over his cock, “Tha’s it, come for me, fuck, you’re clenching so hard-”

And that’s when you squirted all over his cock, drenching him with your cum, almost looking like a person having a seizure.

If he had it in him, Roger could have come again right then and there. His ego certainly inflated a solid few degrees (although it was already relatively huge; c’mon, this was the 70s), because he did that to you. He made you squirt all over his cock, and forget the cocaine; that was the most powerful feeling was capable of experiencing.

Rolling off of you in a tangle of limbs, Roger’s breathing was hoarse and loud and rough as he fought to catch his breath.

“Fuck, that was hot.”

Eyes heavily lidded, the tiny floating pinprick sized silver stars still sporadically clouding your vision, you sighed contently, feeling fuzzy and happy and high as a kite and most importantly, in love.

You knew it wouldn’t last long; the inevitable crash would creep up on you out of nowhere and have you reaching for a cigarette or glass of wine, or, most likely, Roger’s arms, where you’d have a good cry for no particular reason.

“Rogie?” You murmured, rolling on your side to rest your head on his shining chest, hearing his turbulent heartbeat thunder against your ear.

“Yes, angel?” His eyes were still bright and misty from the drug, and yet, they surveyed yours carefully, his arm wrapping around you. “That was fun, dontcha think?”

“‘Course,” you smiled, “like having your cum inside me, all dripping out.”

“Fuckin’ Christ,” he kissed you again, “n’ I love marking you up, darlin’, letting everyone know you’re mine, all mine, mine, mine…”

He smiled his perfect little cheeky schoolboy grin, “Love you, angel, you know that? ‘Cos I do, I love you, wanna be yours n’ fuck you forever.”

Your vision was hazy, the last of the cocaine beginning to thin in your blood, the crash creeping up on you as the seconds ticked by-

“I love you, Rog.”

-but, boy, could Freddie throw a party. And Roger: he was worth it.

[spicyfloaty]

Give & Take | Chapter 4

pairing: kacchako

genre: slowburn/fluff

words: 2.4k

summary: Ochako's grades are slipping. Bakugo is dangerously nearing suspension, or worse, expulsion. A certain twist of fate pairs them together for tutoring sessions. He teaches her math. She keeps him from getting suspended. A simple exchange, but what if this only brings them closer than necessary?

header credits: @alexbenedetto

[READ ON AO3]

Chapter Three

Chapter Four: Bakugo’s Fingers

If you told Ochako that her first tutoring session with Bakugo Katsuki was going to be as dead silent as it was right now, she would have laughed and thought you were crazy. A scenario she had been playing over and over again in her head consisted of flipped tables, burning paper, and repetitive yelling. She had expected all of these and more, but Bakugo just loved to prove people wrong, didn't he? 

She could have heard the tiny footsteps of an ant, if anything, she bets that she could have counted its breaths in this deafening silence. In all honesty, she’d much rather have Bakugo say absolutely anything if it meant that he would at least talk and give her something to work with. She felt as though she had been having a discussion with a brick wall for the past 20 minutes, given that the brick wall plopped himself on the other side of the room, chin cupped in one hand, looking out a window completely uninterested.

Ochako looks down at the bulk of text on her book and begins to read it out loud. She modulates her voice just right, properly enunciating each term to give off an air of confidence around her even though in reality, her head could hardly keep up with what she was saying, “So basically this means that I should...factor it out?” She asks.

The air of confidence she had while reading almost instantly diffuses after trying to make sense out of what she just read using her own words. She hated the way she sounded so unsure with every concept but asking these kinds of questions out loud was the only way she could get some kind of affirmation that Bakugo was still in the same room as her.

He grunts, not even bothering to look at her. This sound usually meant that she got it right...or wrong, she wasn’t sure, she still had a ways to go in decoding this new language Bakugo had introduced her, he was really fluent in I don’t care. Ochako resists the urge to ask him if he was even listening to her because if there was anything she would dislike more than the painstaking silence, it would be a screaming match with Bakugo. Then again, at least he’d have to say something if that were the case. 

She sighs, then proceeds to read the next few paragraphs. The tone of confidence in her voice falters as each topic she comes across becomes exceedingly harder to comprehend, “This means um,” she quickly rereads the last portion to make sure she has it right, “I factor it again?” Ochako looks up at him hoping for some kind of reaction this time. Unfortunately, the view from that window was still ten times more interesting to him compared to this conversation, if you could even call it that.

“No.” Bakugo says flatly. She waits for an explanation that should usually follow that kind of response, but to nobody’s surprise, it never comes. Ochako almost throws her hands up in frustration, but instead, she just rests her forehead on the palms of her hands. She knew that massaging her temples won’t resolve the steady decline of her patience, but she goes ahead and does it anyways. This way, the not-so-proper things she’d like to say to him right now, bouncing off the walls of her mind, won’t cause an unwanted migraine.

She lifts her head to sneak a glance at the blonde mess that was the back of Bakugo’s head, what goes on in that mind of his, Ochako will never know. She thinks back to Aizawa discussing his situation and how these sessions were quite literally the only chance he has of not being suspended, or if worse comes to worst, expelled. Bakugo’s behavior so far surely wasn’t that of someone who cared about any of that, but one thing’s for sure, he’s here, which meant that he did care. Well, at least to some degree.

Bakugo might think that all he had to do was show up for this agreement of theirs to be fair game, but Ochako couldn’t just let herself be used as his one-way ticket out of trouble when she’s sitting here wasting her time not learning anything.

“Bakugo,” she starts, and for the first time, he actually looks at her, but only for him to glare at her as if saying his name, let alone, speaking to him directly were a mortal sin. Ochako feels herself shrink under the intensity of his gaze, but she doesn’t back down. She wanted his attention, she’s got it right now.

“I don’t think this is working.” she says this in the gentlest way she could possibly put it, her heart rate races as though she was getting ready to poke a sleeping dragon with a wooden stick. One might say that she already did.

“What?” Bakugo snarls. Oh, the dragon was definitely awake now.

Ochako chooses her next words carefully, but she just stumbles over them with nonexistent grace, “I um, I don’t think I can learn just by,” she struggles to find the words to describe the ineffective mess they were doing, “this.” Great job, Ochako.

Bakugo’s eyebrows knit together so closely she’s surprised they don’t start knitting sweaters, “And why the hell not?”

Ochako decides that she’s gonna have to be more specific if she wants to get her point across, even if it means increasing her chances of getting barbequed by flaming hot dragon breath, “It’s almost been an hour and you haven’t said anything to help me understand any of this yet.”

She tries to cushion the slight harshness of her words with a soft expression, but this doesn’t stop Bakugo from narrowing his eyes into slits. He might as well have had trails of smoke fuming from his nostrils judging by the look of disgust on his face, “I don’t know what gave you the idea to talk to me like that, but you shouldn’t”

The point must have missed Bakugo’s head and flown straight out the window along with the rest of the restraint Ochako had been using up until this very second, “You can’t just expect me to not say anything when you’re supposed to be helping me with this,” she dares rival his intense stare with her own, “and I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re not.”

Bakugo grimaces, his scowl sinking deeper into his face as he shifts his whole body in his desk to fully face her, “Listen, round face, I dont know know what the fuck your problem is, but things were going just fine before you chose to complain about it.”

“Fine?” She almost laughs, “You think me talking to myself is fine?” Ochako doesn’t normally raise her voice to anyone, she had always considered herself to be someone who could stay calm and collected in any given situation no matter how stressful it was, but there’s something about him that makes her blood boil to temperatures that would make Endeavor jealous.

“Who says I have to say anything for you to learn something?”

Ochako wasn’t proud of it. Maybe it was all the stress and pent up frustration from her job, her studies, hell, maybe both, that finally snapped the last thread of patience keeping her composed and rational, “Ugh! Why do you have to be so difficult?”

She sends her eraser flying towards Bakugo, but without even flinching, Bakugo catches it before it hits his face, the corner of his mouth lifts to give her a shit eating grin, “Wanna try that again, round face?” He tosses the piece of rubber back and she catches it just in time before it reaches the floor.

Ochako takes a mental step back to close her eyes, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself down before they spend the rest of the hour bickering, and before she runs out of stationery as ammunition, “Don’t you think it would be best if you actually explain these concepts rather than just having me read these over and over again?”

Bakugo lifts an eyebrow, “You got some kind of problem with reading?”

She releases the tightening grip she had on her eraser, she knew better than to do that again since it won’t even have the chance to crash land on where she wanted it to, “No! I--god, how do I put this, it's just that,” She gestures towards her textbook, “I’m not getting anything.”

“Why?” He asks as if she just told him that she didn’t know how to count to ten. Ochako decides that she didn’t want to argue anymore, she had already exhausted enough energy from just trying to make herself make sense to Bakugo and resisting the occasional urge to throw an entire desk at him. The last one took every single cell in her body not to do.

“I don't know, okay?” She exhales, “I’ve already tried reading all of this stuff on my own, I wouldn’t be here if I could understand it just from that.” She attempts to give him the most earnest look her face can muster, “So can you please just try and help me out here?”

Ochako momentarily catches a flicker of surprise in Bakugo’s eyes, maybe she looked a bit too earnest, just before his face twists into another scowl as he turns away to direct his attention to the wall. Bakugo’s eyes seemed to dart everywhere except her direction, but after a few moments of contemplation, he throws his arms up in frustration, “Fuck, fine!”

She expected him to pull out his own textbook from his bag, but nothing could have prepared Ochako for Bakugo making his way towards the other side of the room until he was right in front of her. He grips the corner of her desk with one hand and flips her text book to face him with the other. Red eyes peek at her from behind the blonde strands of hair that fell on top of them as he offers her his free hand.

Wait, is he asking me to hold his hand?

“Your pen, idiot.” He spits.

“Oh! Right, yeah, um here you go.” He was right, she was an idiot. Ochako hands him her pen and the brief contact of their fingers only add to the heat spreading like wildfire from her neck to her cheeks.

He pulls a chair from the table behind him and sits down, “Tell me what you need help with.” he grumbles. Ochako still couldn’t bring herself to string a single sentence due to the sudden change in proximity, not to mention the fact that they were also sharing a table that wasn’t exactly meant to accommodate two people.

She flips to a couple of pages back and points to an especially complicated part of the lesson. Bakugo takes a moment to read the entirety of the text, underlining a few words and phrases here and there as he goes through each page. Ochako didn’t know what to do while he was doing this, she can’t exactly read along with him since she’d be reading upside down. Instead, she quietly watches Bakugo, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, lips occasionally parting as he muttered parts of the paragraphs. She wondered if this was what he always looked like whenever he was studying with his friends or alone in his room back at the dorms.

“You done being a creep?” He suddenly asks, his eyes still fixated on her book.

Her eyes widened as she quickly looked for something else to look at, “Yes--no! I mean, no I wasn’t being a creep.” Her eyes find the ceiling. It amazed her how she could find 30 different ways to embarrass herself in front of a single person within the span of a few minutes.

“Sure.” he mutters flatly, eyes still glued on her textbook.

Bakugo finishes reading and turns the textbook again so she could see the things he had underlined along with the short notes he wrote beside some of the paragraphs. He begins to go over each concept and Ochako had to actively slide her finger along each sentence because of how fast he was going. Despite the ridiculous speed that he was explaining in, she manages to successfully keep up, the difficult terminologies and formulas slowly but surely begin to make sense, each cog in her head finally coming together for her to actually understand the examples shown after each concept.

Bakugo hands her back her pen, “Your turn.”

Ochako doesn’t miss the feeling of their fingers touching again when she takes it. This happens a few more times as she answers a set of questions in an exercise, both of them taking turns writing down solutions to each one. After the fifth time, yes she counted, she asks, “Did you bring your own pen?”

Bakugo’s eyes settle on hers once more, a familiar scowl painting his face, “You got a problem with me using this one?” He retorts. She debates on whether it was a good idea telling him that his fingers were distracting her, phrasing, Ochako, but she ultimately decides against it for obvious reasons.

“Nevermind.”

One problem in particular had her stumped for a couple of minutes and it takes all the little Ochako’s in her head to figure out how to approach it. She had been scribbling down the beginning of a solution when she feels a pair of eyes linger on her for a suspicious amount of time. It’s only when Bakugo’s staring hits the 2 minute mark that she says, “You done being a creep?” She grins, not taking her eyes off the page.

“Tch, you wish.” She didn’t have to be looking at him to know that he rolled his eyes at the remark.

An alarm goes off from Ochako’s phone, signaling the end of their session. She had miraculously gotten half of the questions right this time which was a huge improvement considering that she couldn’t even get one right before. She was about to thank Bakugo when he suddenly sprang up from his seat, hastily grabbing his bag from the other side of the classroom. He glances her way one last time before wordlessly exiting the room, leaving Ochako alone with her own thoughts that seemed to only revolve around the warm feeling of Bakugo’s fingers on hers.

[lizzieraindrops]

Your chance to make the sun rise thrice (Chapter 2)

a river that still runs (8803 words)

Beth Childs has come to Helsinki to meet her best friend Veera for the first time in the Herbs on the windowsill universe, an alternate timeline where the original Helsinki massacre was prevented and DYAD routed by Clone Club Alpha’s successful publicity stunt back in 2001. Veera Suominen and Niki Lintula survived and decided to live in a little apartment together as qpp’s. Numerous Leda clones worldwide are now in contact via a secure online network that Veera maintains. 

Note: This chapter is a bit heavier than the rest of the AU. Beth is still struggling with a lot of the same challenges in this universe, even if the events causing them are somewhat different because of such early canon divergence. But the whole point of this story is that things can end up okay no matter how rough it's been. She's getting the help she needs and she's gonna be alright. That said, warning for soft discussion of past abuse, the effects of trauma, depression and anxiety, and some suicidal ideation. And of course, lots of love and learning how to heal, with support from her best friend.

Fun fact: Veera's username is 3mika, and she always sets her font to the precise warm turquoise of hex color #2299aa. She thinks she's hilarious, and she's right. 

Also on AO3  |  Playlist  |  Aesthetic sideblog

Part 1: Herbs on the windowsill

Part 2: Someday colors

Part 3: Your chance to make the sun rise thrice  |  Chapter 1  |  Chapter 2  |  Chapter 3

***

Beth wakes on a squashy couch that isn't hers. Morning-soft sunlight pours through the window above her, bouncing back off the walls to fill even the shady corners with a warm secondhand glow. Her limbs are soft, splayed under unfamiliar blankets and sinking into the cushions. She doesn't move yet.

The apartment. Helsinki. Beth's really here. She holds herself still, letting the truth sink into her. She half expects the usual anxious tension to clench her into a ball the instant she moves a muscle, but it isn't there. Neither is the invisible weight that so often pins her immobile. She still wakes frequently with both of them holding her body hostage, keeping her muscles unmoving but restless, even in sleep. Right now though, they're gone. She just lies there, soft beneath the window.

It's quiet but not silent. The occasional car on the little road outside chuckles as it passes. A soft rush of water echoes through pipes in the walls, running toward an early riser in another unit. These sounds fall strangely on Beth's Toronto-bred ears, isolated in the stillness of this of this little apartment on the outskirts of the city. Still, the early-morning atmosphere settles comfortably into her jet-lagged bones, murmuring a rhythm for her to sink into. The temporal upheaval of a transcontinental red-eye and a series of exhausted naps yesterday have left her a little unbalanced. And yet, here she is waking up with the day, and the ground under her feels so much more stable than she’s used to.

Beth breaks her stillness with a deep, deep breath that she can feel expanding all the way down to her feet. She stretches, too, but soon pulls the toes that get exposed back underneath the warm, scratchy blanket. The cushions of the old couch creak a little in complaint as she shifts, but her limbs remain supple. For a time, she just observes the sensations. Then, her awareness spreads beyond the couch and the window to the rest of the room.

All around her, an oddly blocky pattern covers the walls. It's one of the first things she noticed when she walked into the apartment yesterday afternoon. The pattern isn't wallpaper like it appears at first glance, but actually a multitude of small photographs. Most of them are unframed, but taped up in crisply aligned rows. In them, she sees the same face infused with a hundred different lives. Just above her, a sleeping, slack-jawed redhead with bulky headphones around her neck sprawls on the very same couch Beth's laying on now. A few rows down, a brunette and a blonde with their long hair in matching wild waves are leaning all over each other and grinning like devils. One of the few framed photos shows a girl with a hospital-short buzz cut and a delighted expression, sitting in front of what looks like a mouthwatering strawberry shortcake. Beth can see at least six others in the background behind strawberry girl. Among them are Mika with her unmistakable scars and Niki with her bright blonde hair, their arms around each other's shoulders.

Morning light glances off the glossy surfaces of the photos on the west wall. The particularly bright reflection off one of the framed photos draws Beth's eye. With a tiny jolt, Beth recognizes one of her own selfies beneath the glass. In it, she's wearing the same old turquoise blue sweatshirt that's spilling out of her suitcase next to the couch right now. Underneath it, she's wearing her track gear, so the photo is at least two years old. She'd had to quit cross-country so she could try to get the shitshow her life had become under control. She vaguely recalls sending it to Mika a long time ago. It's strange to think that her presence has been in this apartment for so long.

She's here. In Finland. Staying with Mika – Mika - and Niki. Far, far away from everything.

Sprawling on the couch she slept on with a sigh as if she hadn’t a care in the world, Beth can't believe she's really gone and done it. She's run so far away that there's an ocean between her and her problems. It’s so much better than she's dreamed, even if it's only for a little while. It’s worth it, even though she'll be going back far too soon. For the first time in years, it feels like she’s where she’s supposed to be right now.

It had all started out as foolish idea she'd floated one Saturday morning, months ago. She hadn't been serious at all. She'd woken up so relieved at not having to get up and go to work, until she remembered her weekly therapy appointment with a hopeless groan.

Putting off the genuinely daunting prospect of hauling herself out of bed, she reached out to snag her phone from on top of her dresser, checking to see if she'd heard from Mika overnight. After all, Helsinki was nine hours ahead, so Mika had already seen most of the day that was just beginning for Beth. They talked so often these days, since they'd first made contact over two years ago. Rarely a day passed without touching base. But there wasn’t anything since Beth had checked last night. She took it upon herself to send the first message of the day.

runwaterblue: god, i dont wanna get up and deal with any of thsi shit today

After her world fell apart, after finding out about Project Leda, after realizing that all her nightmares and more were real, after her father...

runwaterblue: wish i could come visit u and get away form everything for awhile

Mika replied almost immediately.

3mika: you can

It was evening in her time zone, but to be honest, Beth had no idea if she had anything resembling a regular sleep schedule. The girl was always online.

3mika: though you really should go to your appointment. you always feel better afterward

runwaterblue: howd you know i have therapy today

3mika: you always have an appointment saturday afternoons

runwaterblue: yes but how do you remember that? i cant evne remember my own appts lmao

3mika: you mentioned it months ago when you switched from sundays to saturdays

Beth shook her head with a smile. Mika was so good with details.

3mika: anyway. you’re welcome here, if you can get here

3mika:  it would be great to see you

3mika: Niki wouldn't mind. we've had a bunch of Ledas visit us here, it's always fun

3mika: except that one time Dani and Ary got into a fight over football. some French-Italian team rivalry thing. that was not fun.

Beth laughed. It was funny how Mika was so good at making her do that, even on days like these. She leaned back against her pillow and held her phone over her head without sitting up, being careful not to drop it on her own face. She'd done that before. More times than she'd admit.

runwaterblue: i was kidding. id love to visit, but idk how id get there

runwaterblue: u should see the americans go off abt their football lmao. they're nerly as bad as the hockey freaks here

3mika: pls no

3mika: no more sports. it was a year ago and I’m still exhausted

3mika: sports are banned in this apartment.

Beth snorted. Mika wanted nothing to do with sports of any kind, and with Beth's athletic record, the topic had become a point of mutual teasing between them.

In so many ways, they were such different people, DNA be damned. Mika was reticent where Beth was outgoing. (Or at least, Beth had been. She was never quite sure how to think of herself these days.) Clone drama aside, Beth had been a pretty average Canadian high schooler. She got reasonable grades, played a few sports, and kept mostly out of trouble because there would be hell to pay if she didn’t. Mika was a brilliant homeschooled autistic orphan who had been raised in near isolation by her guardian after surviving the hospital fire that marked her skin for life. Beth mostly listened to pop music, and where no one else could hear, the occasional classical symphony. Mika held fast to Finland's weird obsession with death metal and dabbled in literally everything else.

And yet, Mika understands Beth like no one else does. And it's not just because they've both been through all this Project Leda bullshit. Though Beth doesn't know what she would have done without Mika to help her through that, too.

Beth won't ever be able to forget the moment that everything changed. Recognizing a her own face from the mirror on the evening news stopped her in her tracks, as something in her gut caved in with the hollow certainty that it wasn't her. Then face after face flickered before her, a flipbook barrage of déja vu. Blonde and smiling. Scarred and pensive. Braids and piercings and a rakish grin. Beth was rooted in place as people she had never been wearing things she had never worn said things she was never supposed to know.

That utter strangeness on the screen immediately seeped into her life like an oil slick into a river, tainting every thing she thought she knew with clinging uncertainty. Her father was inexplicably even more upset about it than Beth was, yet adamant that they shouldn't look into the matter. But it was already too late to stop herself from thinking. With slow horror, the truth of what exactly his behavior must mean dawned on her. And yet, even with the desperate growing certainty about who her Leda monitor must be, it was hard to believe that he could be anything other than her plain stern father.

He was always a bit strict and overprotective - probably well more than a bit, she realizes these days. But she’d thought that's just what it was like to be a cop's daughter. He'd never done anything really extreme, nothing beyond the firm discipline any kid could expect. He was just not a man to be trifled with, that was all. So until everything she thought she knew shifted that day and threatened to topple every assumption she’d built her life on, she had never truly dared to cross him.

Outright daring him to say to her face that he wasn't her monitor was probably considered a step beyond trifling. He did not take it kindly.

Two months later, Beth and her mother were living in an apartment on the opposite side of the city. It took two months for the two of them to lay plans to leave together, for good. For two months, her every move was watched. She spent two months knowing there would be hell to pay if she didn't give the performance of a lifetime pretending everything was fine, even while sirens blared inside her day and night. Two months was more than enough to teach her things she never wanted to know about the hidden marks fear leaves on the body.

Even after she finally escaped, her life was in tatters and nothing made sense. It wasn’t just the sudden jarring discovery of Project Leda, or the crisis it had forced her to confront. It was learning that, deep down, she had known that she’d never once felt free. She’d unconsciously kept herself from knowing to avoid exactly that conflict of wills that she’d known she would lose.

Trying to come to terms with what had happened and how it changed everything, Beth was continuously losing her balance. Questioning which parts of her life had been screwed over by her father and which by being part of some ridiculous supervillain science experiment was like trying to stand on two kickboards in a pool. She couldn't find her footing, and all she could do was try and stay afloat. She had to repeat her whole junior year of high school that she lost to this shitshow, while starting over at a new school, and only barely scraped her way into senior year. Now that she knew how honestly terrible she'd been at judging who in her life she could trust, it was as hard to talk to old friends as it was to make new ones.

Therapy helped her start sorting out what she was feeling, and how the environment she’d grown up in was really not the healthiest. She hadn’t realized how much she’d learned to doubt her own perceptions. That made constructing any kind of new understanding of her situation an uphill struggle. And of course, her therapist couldn’t help her confirm anything about a human experiment that was so illegal it had been an international secret. As she continued to stumble forward, Beth even started doubting her former certainty of the identity of her Leda monitor. She questioned herself and everything she knew until she wanted to scream with frustration or weep with confusion. The floor of the counselor’s office could have been mopped with her tears. It was, quite literally, driving her mad.

So, finally, Beth had taken up the invitation on the banner of every Leda news feature to "Contact the secure, clone-run Clone Youth Group Network (CYGNet) for answers by emailing info@cygnet.org."

She wanted something concrete that would help convince her brain to stop reenacting these head games that warped her reality. It still insisted on playing through the patterns it had been taught, even in its teacher’s absence. She needed something that could brace her against the ideas that she was really just paranoid, overreacting, accusing, that this was all her fault for making a big deal out of nothing. Even with his other faults (cruelties, her mind whispered) aside, at least his involvement with Project Leda was unforgivable, and she wanted proof of it. Maybe if she had that, she could stop being mad at herself for not wanting to forgive. And if anyone had that proof, CYGNet would.

Maybe it was just because of the sheer blunt honesty about her motives, or the inescapable vulnerability of the message Beth sent, but Mika had replied to her within a day. And she'd been so gentle about it, too, enough to make Beth later question where the stereotype of autistic brashness came from. Then again, over email, Mika had all the time she needed to compose her thoughts and lay them out as softly as she wanted. She didn't have to spit them out as fast as she could to keep pace with a quick and painfully overwhelming world.

Hi Beth Childs,

I'm so sorry for what you had to go through. I still don't know how they got away with doing things like this for so long. I suppose people will always find ways to be cruel. But we've survived this long, and the whole point of CYGNet is to help us all heal. The experimental network has been dismantled, and we are assembling resources to help us. We've brought mental health professionals on to the project to develop custom programs for our needs. We can make them available to you, if you are interested.

I attached scans of some of your files that we recovered from DYAD. There are a few case reports with the signature of the person you asked about, spaced throughout your lifetime. There are also financial records with his name in the list of paid employees. He was without a doubt part of the Leda monitor program. I can provide all of the documentation that we have related to you, if you like, but I thought that would be too much all at once. I know these are hard to look at, but I hope they help let your mind rest. They are very real, and every awful thing we have experienced was also real, no matter how they tried to convince everyone that we were making it all up.

Please take your time with these, and stay in contact if you want to. You can join our mailing list, if you want to know when we have new information or new resources available. We're here for you.

And hey, if you just want to talk to someone who knows what it's like to deal with all of this, I'm here, too. You can reach my personal inbox or IM me at wiz.of.dos@cygnet.org. It'll be okay.

-Veera

Beth had started crying before she even finished reading the letter, much less opened the attachments. She cried so often these days. She only knew why half the time. But this time, it felt like the tears were extracting some of her pain as they left her, instead of just overflowing from the unending wellspring of her directionless distress. All of this was real, and someone else knew it.

Though she was grateful beyond measure for her mother’s untiring support, they were each other’s too-close, ever-present reminders of what they’d survived, trying to act like they weren’t, trying to convince each other and themselves that they were okay. Beth had needed something else, too, something until now unnamed.

This was a handhold, a backstop Beth didn't know she'd been desperate to find. It wasn't just the confirmation of what she’d concluded about her father. The ability speak plainly to someone she didn't feel the need to pretend around was an exhale of a breath held too long. At least one person in the world not only understood, but really and truly didn't want or expect her to act like any of this was normal or okay, or that she would ever be the same again.

Veera – or Mika, as she often went by online – made good on her offer of a sympathetic ear. Their correspondence started off with awkward, grammatically correct messages about the less painful details of their lives. Mika told her about the farmer’s market three blocks away where she went walking early in the morning before it got busy, and the plant stand there that her best friend and roommate Niki (also a Leda) had to ask her to stop buying so many succulents from.

At first, Beth tried to chatter like she used to, but there were no safe subjects. What had happened had touched all of her life. Normally, she’d talk about school, or sports, or her friends. But she was trying to start all over again at a new school with all the struggles that came with it. She didn’t have the time or energy for sports anymore, and talking about them hurt, now. Running used to make her heart sing. But no matter how she tried, there was no joy in the motion anymore. To top it all off, it was as hard to connect with old friends from her old life as it was to try and make new ones. She spent most interactions either doubting her own character judgement or dreading the moment people recognized her Leda face from the news.

She didn’t know how to talk about any of it to anyone. Maybe she could have if it had been just the clone thing or just the dad thing. But the two were inextricably entangled, and she still couldn’t even explain it to herself. It was all unbelievably horrifying, and any time she tried to be honest about it, people ended up disbelieving or horrified. Shocker.

Maybe, though, it wouldn’t be weird to talk about it with Mika. Mika already knew the worst. Beth didn’t have to hide that hurt from her to keep from shaking her world, or to keep her dismissal from hurting Beth. Maybe that’s what was hurting the most: the feeling that even after escaping, she still had to pretend to be okay. That compulsive stifling feeling choked her whenever it bubbled back up. On her bad days, a simple “how are you?” could reduce her to a blank face plastered over a raw tangle of emotions held motionless her own iron grip.

But Mika mentioned having bad days, too. Days came where she was too scared and nightmare-weary to do anything but make herself some tea and soak up some sunlight in the safety of home. Beth could casually say things like after those two months, i still twitch every time i hear a door open, and i wish my body would quit feeling like it doesn’t exist, my legs feel numb. It barely broke the surface of what it was like in her head, but was discomfiting enough for people that she held her tongue at school.

Sometimes, Beth got tired of constantly thinking about all this shit and tried to lighten things up. On one comically disastrous occasion of cultural exchange, she liveblogged Mika her attempt at eating the infamous Scandinavian lutefisk, along with an audio recording of the incoherent horrified noises she made after tasting it. In return, she received a recording of someone, presumably Mika, laughing harder than she’d ever heard anyone laugh before. It made Beth smile. Not many things did, back then.

Slowly, as the formality fell away from their transcontinental conversations, their heavier stories seething below the surface seeped in. Beth had been in therapy long enough now to know that she couldn't just recklessly unload on people the way she did in counseling sessions. But a counselor couldn't always provide the same kind of unspoken solidarity that someone in the same boat could.

Bit by bit, slipped into the chats that were becoming a daily occurrence, they talked about monitors, about what the experiment had really all been for, why that both was and wasn’t important, and how they'd discovered they were a part of Project Leda. Putting words to the pain hurt, a lot. But the ability to lay out long-unspoken truths in front of each other, knowing they were believed in the way that only people who have shared something can, was a healing kind of pain instead of the festering one Beth had been living with.

The two of them had more in common than they'd thought, growing up a world apart. Beth's experience raised under the subconscious wariness of her father's hovering thumb felt a lot like what Mika described growing up largely isolated with her former guardian. But sometimes, whenever they realized that something they'd both thought was normal was pretty not, they got a good laugh out of it despite the weight of their pasts. Mika seemed somewhat accustomed to her normal being considered pretty weird, so she usually took the revelations in stride better than Beth did. Beth wouldn't find out for at least a year after meeting her that it was because of her Asperger's, since it was a topic Mika seemed quite sensitive about.

Mika explained it once, in a conversation full of long pauses on her part and watching the typing icon disappear and reappear on Beth’s. The way she put it, it just meant that her brain worked a bit differently than most people's, processing sounds and sights and all the information it took in at different speeds and with different emphases. The difference could turn everyday things like the sound of a refrigerator running into a splitting headache, or something as simple as the soft texture of her favorite jacket into a kind of bliss. That alternative way of processing also extended to things like words and emotions as well. Sometimes, it took her longer than the world was willing to wait to process them into something that made sense. It often made communication tricky, trying to compensate for the gap in mutual understanding with most people. The world and the people in it could be so overwhelming sometimes, so fast and bright and full of noise and uncertainty and bewilderingly arbitrary social conventions. But the biggest challenge was other people expecting her to do everything the same way they did, ignorant of the fact there were any ways to exist other than their own, and completely oblivious to the fact that she was already putting in at least twice as much effort to communicate with them as they were with her.

And yet, even coming from such a different perspective, Mika gets it. Beth says sometimes i dream of drowning and its not a nightmare and i wake up not knowing how to feel, and Mika says I still dream of burning and wake up not knowing which fires are real, and they both say yeah. And they sit there across the world from each other knowing these things, knowing that it doesn't fix anything. And yet, it does change something. Nothing's any better, really. But somehow, the knowledge that someone else understands makes it a little easier to bear.

And that's just it. Somehow, without ever even having seen her face, Mika sees Beth clearer than anyone. All of her, all the ugly parts she hides so that they can't hurt anyone, and all the good parts that she also hides so that nobody can hurt them or take them away from her. Mika sees all of that and then just tells Beth another story about the Northern Lights she sees on the regular. Apparently, in Finnish, they’re called "fox fires." Beth hardly ever sees the aurora, living relatively far south in a bright city. But her stories about life in the metropolis by the lake intrigue Mika as much as the tales of the twisting green lights do her. And Beth can talk about something lighter again while not having to pretend that the heaviness isn’t there, too, even while she’s just once more trying and failing to explain poutine. For her, the weight never really goes away. But the effort of pretending she’s not carrying it takes more out of her than the weight itself. Mika understands that.

Maybe that’s why Beth had talked it over with Mika first, even before her mom, when she was considering taking a gap year after she hopefully managed to finish her senior year of high school. (God, it was so hard to think about English or math or whatever when just that morning she’d woken from a nightmare about being back in a not-home house that she never escaped.) Beth's mom had been so unbelievably supportive of Beth's recovery, even while she herself was adjusting to the wrenching change in both of their lives. It was both inspiring and a little intimidating. If her mom managed to run a household and raise a daughter all on her own, even while trying to heal from her own trauma, how could Beth not do her utmost, too? She was grateful to be able to talk to Mika about it, to get a reality check from someone who both understood her situation intimately and didn't make Beth feel that pressure of expectation. In the end, Beth did decide to take a year or two off before considering college, and her mom was again nothing if not supportive. Beth figured, after this entire mess, she deserved some time to herself to work on sorting her shit out, and her mom agreed.

After graduating with reasonable if not flying colors, Beth worked a series of part-time and odd jobs that didn't stress her out too much, letting herself focus on her own healing. In between her mom's support, seeing a counselor regularly, and the security of having a friend she could really trust, Beth felt like she was making progress. Slow progress, sure, but progress, nonetheless. Considering that she had seventeen years' worth of lies to unbelieve and emotional trauma to finally acknowledge, Beth figured that there was only so much she could do in the three years she'd had.

Her days were still hard. Getting sleep and waking up and eating and even just existing were still so fucking hard sometimes, and it was horrible. Some days, the thinnest sheet trapped her in bed like it was a car pinning her down. It felt so stupid for such simple things to be so hard. But then her therapist would remind her that that’s what mental illness and trauma was, that this was what the wounds in her mind and heart made her feel like. And once in awhile, sun broke through the shadows, and she had a day that reminded her what an okay day felt like – that okay days existed. That more might.

Now, she’s here, lying in a bright living room so far from home, with her dearest friend in the next room. She’s comfortable, except for the knot in her neck from sleeping oddly on the couch. The soreness pales in comparison to the usual tensions that are so strangely absent. Beth can’t remember the last time she felt this okay. She’s not steeling herself to go to work. She’s not dreading the next conversation with her mother that goes quiet as they both remember awful things they don’t mention. She’s not bracing herself for the next time her brain runs rampant worrying about whether she’ll run into the subject of her restraining order somewhere in the city and have to wonder if he'll honor it.

None of that reaches her here. There’s something about this quiet little pocket of space. It’s overrun with a proliferation of potted plants, from the sprawling lacy-leafed monster in the corner, to the fern peeping out of the kitchen, to the vine cuttings spilling out of an oddly familiar leaf-shaped glass bottle on the sill. Sunlight streaks through leaves and windowpanes and across the colorful patchwork of rugs on the floor. In the midst of it all, Beth is held by a palpable aura of gentleness. It holds her so softly that she doesn't need to hold herself in. It's like the layer of caution that she always keeps wrapped between herself and the rest of the world has simply dissolved away. In this moment suspended in morning light, she is okay.

She feels safe.

The realization undoes something in her. She feels the tears starting, and she expects the taut tension of involuntary stifling that always comes with them to return. But it doesn’t. She lies still and soft on the couch with the water creeping over her cheeks, breath occasionally catching but flowing freely. She savors it in the quiet.

The soft thunk of an ill-fitted door opening breaks into her odd reverie. Mika’s up. Beth sniffs and scrubs at her eyes halfheartedly, but she can’t hide them right now and she doesn’t want to. Mika notices immediately, and comes trotting over with quiet steps, leaning forward all concern.

"Beth," she says softly. She shifts from foot to foot like a nervous cat, watching Beth with enormous eyes. Beth has never met anyone else with such an intense stare. Or maybe it's just the fact that Beth knows beyond all doubt that she's being looked at by somebody who really sees her in her entirety. It's like she's staring right into Beth's soul. But Mika was able to do that long before they saw each others' faces. They've shared so many thousands of words over screens and seas, so many emotions that have gone otherwise unspoken, so many too-early mornings and too-late nights on the fringes of each other's dawns and dusks.

“What’s wrong?”

Finally, a flash of that sick tension runs through Beth’s body. It’s been okay when Mika has asked that before, when it was just silent letters on a screen. But out loud, the question falls on her ears like every well-meaning inquiry she’s ever had to scramble to find an acceptable answer for. The strain begins to cinch tight around her again like coarse ropes across barely-healed skin, ready to compel her to replace the truth with something safer. Her arms and legs tied, she begins to freeze, railing against herself for tainting the softness, the safety of this place.

"Beth." Mika says again, softer but more urgent.

In the gap between thoughts created by hearing her name, Beth seizes the chance to redirect them to the present. She clings to the welling in the corners of her eyes, the warmth of the sun caressing her back. The leaves of trees whisper outside the third-floor window in a mild breeze. The brightness spills over the sill and across Mika’s asymmetrical, half-craggy face and lights up tufts of her short hair as she steps closer. The couch dips as Mika sits down next to her, tilting Beth toward her.

Without meeting her eyes, Mika lifts a hesitant hand that hovers in the air between them, uncertain yet reaching. Her gentle palm falls onto Beth's forearm as softly as a floating leaf. The fingers curl around Beth’s arm just below the wrist, firm but not tight. Comforting.

The softness surrounding Beth seeps back into her, saturating her. As the memory fades like a ripple into water, the tension slackens. But it leaves her shaky, with traces of a familiar ache in her neck muscles, one that goes deeper than the simple stiffness from the couch. She sucks in a few unsteady breaths while Mika gives her arm a gentle squeeze.

“Sorry,” Beth says in a small, awkward voice.

Mika tilts her head. “Why?”

“Uh, I didn’t mean to bring all – this mess, in here.” Beth rubs the back of her neck with her free hand. “It’s so... soft, and okay, and – I don’t wanna ruin it,” she says, trailing off into a mumble.

“Hey.” Mika moves her hand from Beth’s arm to her shoulder. When Beth looks at her, she’s looking right back. Mika's eyes dart down to the floor for a moment, but then return to hold Beth’s with deliberate steadiness. “It’s alright. It’s like this here because we wanted it to be safe to be messy. You’re not ruining anything.”

“... Oh.” She’s steadied by Mika’s fingers curling around her shoulder, by the tendrils of sunlight spreading across her head and back and arms. Mika’s voice is small but steady, and somehow it comes from the same throat that makes that huge pealing laugh. It’s so strange how they sound nothing alike. Until yesterday, Beth hadn’t heard her voice since the lutefisk incident. They’d mostly kept to text and pictures. It had seemed easier, the way it gave them both plenty time to think before they spoke through their different uncertainties. Beth was already planning her trip before they realized that they’d never actually called each other. By that point, it sounded like more fun to meet in person the old-fashioned way.

"I'll make you some tea." Mika abruptly stands and lets go of her. Beth is sad to lose the contact. She flits across the room toward the kitchen in her soft cotton pajama pants, complemented by yet another black graphic tee for yet another Scandinavian metal band Beth's never heard of. Or at least, she'd never heard of them before Mika, who has something to say about all of them, and now Beth knows more than she'll ever need to.

Mika moves in and out of view behind the half-wall that separates the little living room from the kitchen. The fronds of the fern on the counter make a green rustling as she brushes by them. It sends soft feathered shadows waving across the wall opposite the window. Beth hears the rush of water boiling out of sight, and soon sees steam rising from the mug that's being handed to her.

"It's hot," Mika says unnecessarily. She sits down next to her again, this time leaning into Beth with her arm. Beth’s glad for it.

"Have you ditched the bags and gone loose leaf?" Beth says, eyeing the fragments of bright green leaf free floating in her mug.

"It didn't come in a bag. It came from the window."

"The window?"

"It's basil tea. For the fear and pain. Five large fresh leaves in two hundred and fifty milliliters water. We grew it here."

Beth takes a cautious sip. It's surprisingly sweet, and the savory smell of the steam rising from it curls into her sinuses. The aching in her head and neck begin to relax. It's unfamiliar, but it feels like home should, just like everything else here.

"Thanks," Beth says. On an impulse of craving closeness, she leans her head onto Mika's shoulder with a sigh. The sensation of contact deepens as Mika leans against her, too.

Beth holds the cup close, fingers wrapping around its warmth. She takes another sip and gets a bit of leaf stuck in her teeth. The way she scrunches up her face trying to dislodge it pulls a tiny laugh out of Mika.

“You don’t have to be okay here,” Mika whispers. “You can just be. That’s what we do.”

Beth finds her eyes wet again, but she smiles while she sets her mug down and wipes them away. “Kinda already wish I could stay here,” she says with a chuckle.

“... That’s probably not impossible.”

“Really?” Beth asks wryly. “Not even twenty-four hours, and you’d already be willing to put up with me?”

“Twenty-four hours and twenty-seven months.”

Beth melts a little even while waving the idea aside. “I wasn’t serious.”

“I know, but... weren’t you looking at the school here?”

“I mean, yeah, but... really, my mom just thought I deserved a break to get away for a little while. She’d saved up a bit, and I didn’t want to make it a big deal or anything, but she really wanted me to. She knew I wanted to come see you. Checking out the school was mostly an excuse. I know it’s a great place, but... I don’t really think it’ll help with what I wanna do.”

“What do you want to do?”

Beth sighs and leans back, looking at the ceiling. Mika follows her so that they’re still shoulder to shoulder, and pulls her feet up to tuck them in cross-legged.

She flounders for a moment, trying to find where to begin. She hasn’t told anyone this yet.

“This Leda crap has been kind of awful, right? It’s screwed so many of us up. But there’s only, what, a few hundred of us? And that’s not the only reason things get messed up.” She swallows. Her eyes trace irregularities in the ceiling: a knot in an exposed wooden beam here, a sealed and repainted crack there. “Kids like me are a dime a dozen. There’s so many people out there going through hell, just because they got stuck with people who are hurting so much that they hurt other people. And then they go on and hurt more people. It’s a cycle that’s really fucking hard to break.”

Breaths that have become harsh force her to pause and let them lengthen again. A touch on her knee draws her eyes down to a hand resting on it palm up, offering. Beth takes it. Mika squeezes her fingers in reassurance.

“When I was little, I wanted to be a cop like my dad, did you know that?” Mika, eyes wide, shakes her head. “Yeah. That was always my plan. I used to think he was so brave. Wanted to be just like him.” She shudders. Mika grips her hand, steady. “Even if I could do it better than he did, the system is still full of people like him. It’s broken. I couldn’t – I can’t end up like that. I can’t keep being a part of this shit. I want to actually help people.

“I never thought about it before I met you, but the people you brought in to do therapy programs and all for CYGNet? They’re amazing. The stuff I’ve gotten from them has helped me so much. And I don’t know what I’d do without my regular therapist. These people really help people like me. Like all of us. Those are the kind of people I wanna be like.”

Beth’s voice drops and becomes small and secretive, but firm. “I’ve been looking at the social work programs at home. There’s some really good ones at the uni near where mom and I live now. And that’s the city where I grew up. I know how things work there. I know it won’t be easy, but. I could really... do stuff.”

Silence stretches. Beth looks at Mika, only to be completely thrown off by an expression she can’t make heads or tails of. “What?”

Mika’s face is blank yet soft, only barely hinting at her thoughts in the faintest crinkling of her eyes. It’s funny, how quiet her face is most of the time. Beth never would have guessed, going off her online impressions of her. Mika’s so expressive and eloquent with her written words. In person, she is much more subtle. But even after only a day spent around her, Beth is already starting to see how her movements speak volumes in a language of their own. The flickering of her hands flares to life with excitement. The casual shake of her head tosses her hair out of her eyes even when it’s not in the way, like she’s clearing the slate of her mind. And much like Beth these days, she goes very still and tense when she’s getting uncomfortable or overwhelmed, the way she did after a particularly loud whistle at the train station. It shows in her shoulders. They’re soft now though, and she just watches Beth and squeezes her hand once more.

“You’re really amazing, you know,” Mika says.

“Wh- huh?”

“Well.” She looks away and turns their hands over, but doesn’t let go. “After the awful things you’ve been through – nnnh! Don’t pretend,” she says, looking back sharply as Beth begins to protest that she didn’t have it that bad. Mika knows her so well. Beth can’t help but laugh a little. “After all that, you just want to help people. All I ever want to do is get away from them, most of the time.”

Beth quirks a brow at her with a bemused grin. “Really? Because setting up and running an organization that provides mental health resources and extremely important information to a few hundred people is a really shit way to not help people.”

“I never talk to most of them! And CYGNet only has one hundred and thirteen members, not hundreds.”

Beth rolls her eyes with an exaggerated motion. “Yeah, so, you’ve somehow convinced, what, a whole freaking third of a huge group of scared strangers to trust you?”

“A lot of that was Niki and the press team, she’s way better at talking to people th–”

“And you’ve been careful enough and clever enough to keep them and all the information you got from DYAD safe and secure? I can’t even imagine the organization and, and cyber-security and whatever the hell else you put into all this. That you still put in. And look what you’ve done. You’re helping so many people. You found something only you could do, and do it really damn well.”

Mika looks down into her lap, half her face flushed. The raised ridges and swirls of the scarred side are pink, but not as dark. Her shoulders curl in a little, but she doesn’t pull her hand away from Beth’s. If anything, she holds on a little tighter.

“You don’t have to like talking to people to help them. You don’t have to be someone you’re not,” Beth says gently, then pauses as a new thought occurs to her. “Why did you talk to me?”

Mika gives a tiny shrug, eyes still downcast. “You reached out to me. Most people are scared, or suspicious, or hard to talk to, but you were just... honest. You told me exactly what you needed, even if that meant sharing your painful secrets with a stranger. I...” She trails off, looking toward the closed door of Niki’s bedroom. She blinks slowly.

“It reminded me of something Niki said a long time ago. When we first met. We didn’t trust each other at first. But when things got bad, we needed to, and she just... We’d only known each other for a day. She told me a true story that people had called her crazy for, and trusted me to believe her. And when I told her about... my Asperger’s, about being autistic, she just told me something about herself, too, another thing that a lot of people get cruel about when they know. This was back before she came out, too. She was hardly out to herself, then, really. But she told me anyway. ‘Secret for a secret,’ she said.”

“She’s really special to you.” It’s not a question. How could it be, with the sheer softness of love rounding out every syllable and making Mika melt into the couch and into Beth’s shoulder.

“She’s... yes. She’s my family.” Mika looks out the window, and the bright light dances over her nose. “I don’t remember ever having one.”

Beth slings an arm around Mika’s shoulders and smiles as she curls closer into Beth’s side. “Looks like you’re part of a pretty big one, now,” she says, waving a hand at the dozens of photos on the walls circling them.

“I guess so.”

“No need to guess. The evidence is right there. And I’m right here.”

Mika turns those huge eyes on her again. She’s done that multiple times now, even though Beth knows she rarely looks people in the eye. Eye contact is too much, most of the time. She describes it as too intense, too distracting, too intimate. Meeting those eyes – so like Beth’s own, but filled with such a different kind of light – Beth thinks she understands a glimmer of it. If every eye she met were as overwhelmingly expressive as Mika’s, Beth probably wouldn’t meet them all either. It keeps taking her by surprise, coming across their eloquence in an otherwise quiet face. Caught by that gaze, every emotion that lives in it touches Beth. Right now, it’s soft with adoration but shaded with a gradient of doubt. The width and depth of Mika’s eyes reveal a clear view of a vulnerable, aching, healing heart that spent eleven years starving for the love it needs and still hasn’t forgotten the famine.

It might be breaking Beth’s heart. No wonder Niki is always showering her with hugs and kind words and gentle hands on rounded shoulders. Maybe one of these days, Mika will have spent long enough finally getting to soak up all that affection that she won’t look at Beth like this when she says the simple truth.

“Hey. Here I am. Really.” Beth’s voice is a little choked up. She pulls Mika into a proper hug with both arms. Mika squeaks in surprise at being squeezed so emphatically, but returns it all the same. God, but she gives the best hugs of anyone Beth’s ever met. All contact and even, firm pressure and steadiness. “It’s so damn good to see you. I can’t believe you’re...” real, Beth thinks but doesn’t say. I can’t believe I didn’t imagine you. I can’t believe you’re just as kind as your words. I can’t believe how good it feels to be around you. “I can’t believe I’m really here.”

Mika doesn’t say anything. For a moment, one of her hands leaves Beth’s back to fiddle with something, then comes back to give her a little squeeze that Beth returns.

Beth’s phone buzzes a notification behind her on the little glass-top table next to the couch. The table’s wooden base is a round blob carved into the shape of a very fluffy and very ugly sheep with curly horns. Beth’s arms loosen from their embrace as she turns to look at it, bemused. No one but Mika really messages her except for her mom. But if it’s morning here, it’s about time for bed at home. She checks it, just to be sure she’s okay.

But it’s not from her mom.

Mika reaches out to gently grasp her forearm again as Beth shoots her a quizzical look and opens the message.

3mika: I'm glad you're here.

Beth's heart quails.

To think, that her darker days might have kept her from ever being in this moment. Beth might never have gotten to this point, hurt but healing and here. Here, she's seven time zones and an ocean away from the cycle of pain she grew up in, barely aware she needed to escape. She might well feel safer right here in this crossroads of time and place than she has at any other in her entire life. It's a realization that's as humbling as it is nourishing.

Already, the distance this journey has taken her has given her so much perspective. She wasn’t sure, before, whether the work she’s been considering was just a response to what she’s been through – or just a way for the cycle to keep her within its spiral. But she’s seen what Mika can do, what Beth could do one day, if she keeps on.

It won’t be easy. She’ll go back, and deep-seated memories will try to drag her back into small dark places. But being here, even for only a few hours, has already changed her. She can change, and she can grow, and she is already tapping into new strengths that her past has yet to reckon with. She is here, right now, in spite of all of it. And today is not a dark day.

“Me too, Mika. I’m glad to be here, too.” Beth’s tongue stumbles over the name, because she’s never said it out loud before, only read it on a screen.

Surprise sends Mika’s eyebrows up and her eyes wide again, like she’s never heard it before, either. Maybe she hasn’t. She tilts her head again like a question, touching her ear and looking at Beth.

Beth grins. “Mika.” A smile blooms on that curious face, lighting it up. She’s the one who pulls Beth into a hug this time, and it’s both fierce and soft. When she lets go, she leans into Beth’s side again and they stay like that, arms over shoulders and comfortably curled up together, soaking in the warmth of each other’s presence like leaves drink in light. The simple sweetness and companionship of it soothes Beth’s heart, seeking its way into the aching crevices. It’s an odd feeling, both seeping inward and flowing outward, trickling all the way through her until it warms her cold toes in a way that feels both new and strangely familiar.

A long, sleepy yawn announces that Niki’s awake now, too. Soon, she comes out of her room stretching her arms over her head. Mika reaches a hand out toward her to wave in greeting, though she leaves the other arm draped over Beth’s shoulders. Niki smiles at them. That kind smile, too, adds to the warmth washing through Beth. Her feet practically itch with it, and with a growing sensation of déja vu. She fidgets her toes against the floor as Niki walks over to brush Mika’s outstretched hand like a touchstone.

“How'd you sleep? Isn’t that couch the comfiest?” she says to Beth.

“Well, I’ve got a crick in my neck, but I still slept better than I have in years.”

Niki turns her sunny smile on Beth. “Good to hear it. Weird, though, I nap there all the time and my neck’s always fine. Huh. Anyway, I think I might make waffles. You two want some breakfast?”

Mika nods, but doesn’t let go of Beth yet. Beth is lost in thought, trying to remember what that light, floating feeling in her feet reminds her of.

“Sweet.” Niki ambles toward the kitchen and bends down with pursed lips to peer at the fern perched on the counter. “Hmm. You still look a little pale. Let’s get you some more sun.” She brings the plant over to the living room and is fussing over settling it on the sheep table when it clicks for Beth. A physical memory washes over her, for once welcome. She lets it fill her, refreshing like a deep breath of cold morning air her lungs are suddenly hungry for. She flexes her calves and ankles, her legs remembering the joy and freedom of stride and strike. Her bones are finally recalling how they once carried her with ease, even while they're adjusting to the new weight of who she's become. Fully alive again for at least this moment, her soles are practically prickling with the desire to eat up ground.

“How about you, Beth? Do you like waffles?” Niki asks, fluffing the fern’s crinkly green leaves. Mika squeezes her shoulder.

Beth grins and plants steady feet on the blue rug in front of the couch. “Save a few for me? I think I might actually go for a run first.”