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no-droids · 2 years

Text

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!

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #mando x reader #mando x you #reader insert #fanfic #star wars #rough day #no-droids

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crackedpumpkin · 8 months

Text

𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 | 𝟎𝟏 |

a/n: about fucking time lol im so exhausted. hope yall enjoy <3

Warnings: Contains cursing

AU Inspo: Soulmates can hear each other listening to music. The further the distance, the softer the music. The closer, the louder until they find each other.

| [ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ] | [ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ] |

— — — — — — — — — —

“Soulmates are essential to survive. There is nothing like the sensation of meeting each other for the first time, and subsequently knowing that you’re fated to be with each other forever. Through thick and thin, they'll always have your back.”

You snort. Miss Grenadine lifts her brow into a delicate arch, her unamused expression remaining the same as you cover your mouth, trying to fake a cough. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class on your last day?”

People around you start to snigger, and you can feel the glances poking your skin like tiny mosquitoes buzzing all over. “Not really.”

“No, no. Please, enlighten me as to what exactly you find so amusing about soulmates.”

“Maybe it’s because she hasn’t found hers yet?” Another classmate suggests. You turn around to see Henry smirking, high-fiving the rest of his friends who’re evidently entertained by his jab.

You roll your eyes, letting a huff slip past your lips. “And you keep arguing with yours, no wonder I’m not jealous that I don’t have one yet.” His friends suck in a sharp breath between their teeth in a hiss, glancing warily between you both.

“Thank you for your input, Henry. But I asked your classmate, not you.” He’s silenced from uttering another word under Ms Grenaline’s sharp gaze, wilting into his seat with a muttered retort under his breath.

You turn your attention back to your teacher who’s waiting patiently, hands folded over her stomach in a motherly manner. But you know better. This is fake sympathy, flaky pity in her eyes as she thinks to herself how unlucky you are for not having yet met your soulmate.

You get it. You’re an anomaly. It’s ‘not normal’ for people to not yet meet their soulmates by the time they’re 18. One way or another, the universe always finds a way to pull two people together by the age of 16. Yet, you’re the exception.

“I just think the whole music thing is annoying. I mean, do you all not get annoyed? What if you hate metal, but they love it? Even then, it’s just insane how much our lives border on needing someone. Why not just travel alone? Enjoy life?” You lean back in your seat, crossing your arms defiantly as Ms Grenaline’s eyes widen with every word.

You watch her take a moment to compose herself, plastering a smile on her face as she comes up with the right words to say. Honestly, you couldn’t care less what she wanted to say to you; it’s your last day here anyway.

“Well,” She pauses, clearly struggling on how to phrase her words in a way that wouldn’t get you to retort once again, “It’s…a very difficult process to describe in words. I understand where you’re coming from with the music aspect, but over time just like how one day you can wake up and decide that you like the colour purple, you’ll experience something similar.”

“You’re right.” You nod. She’s momentarily taken aback by your agreeable response, only to frown when you continue speaking. “It is a difficult process to put in words. And you know what? Maybe not everyone needs a soulmate.” You flash her a toothy smile just as the bell rings, grabbing your bag and starting for the door. “Been good, Ms G.”

You don’t turn to see her reaction, focused on getting to the diner on Sixth Street where you’d promised to meet up for one last meal with your friends before you moved to Ninjago City. Putting the earbuds into your ears makes you wince, shaking your head slightly as the familiar yet nauseating sound of jazz plays faintly in the back of your mind.

Stupid jazz, stupid music, stupid soulmate.

Right. Your soulmate. You still haven’t told anyone this, but a few months ago, you began to hear the faint sounds of smooth jazz play now and then in your head. You thought you were just going crazy at first, but upon further observation, you concluded that there could only be one cause: Your soulmate was nearby.

But for some annoying reason, your soulmate loves jazz with a passion. it was always either that or soft rock. Plus, they’re always annoyingly far enough to not have it impounded into your head, but still close enough to have it constantly on repeat in your head.

The day it first started, you had just finished watching a horror movie and were about to go to bed. However, your soulmate had decided that 5 AM was the perfect time to start listening to soft rock. The sharp twangs of an electric guitar and the steady beats of the drums were enough to keep you up instead of getting your beauty sleep.

lil binder [ 02:00 PM ]: u otw yet?

You grin at the message on your screen, typing out a reply to your friend, Melody, as pop music blasts away through your earbuds and effectively drowning out the beginnings of a saxophone.

smartie pebble [ 02:00 PM ]: yea be there in 7

Melody was just one of many of your friends. She had found her soulmate at the tender age of 15, accidentally spilling ice cream on him because she had been too distracted talking to you. Having bore witness to the entire ‘love-at-first-sight’ moment between them, you scooched away as she proceeded to forget about your entire existence in the next hour.

However, now Luke and her were inseparable, and wherever she was, he was bound to be there too. Luckily though, you had bonded with him over your mutual love of cooking, with Melody constantly being on the receiving end of many of your competitive inventions.

“Yo, it’s the one and only rockstar of our generation!” Luke crows as you enter the diner, and you instinctively stick up your middle finger at him. He grins, slinging an arm over your shoulder as you set down your bag in the booth seats.

“About time you got here.” Brendan greets, subtly nudging Nico who glances up from his game for a moment to say a quick ‘hi’. The former is in his uniform as usual, while Nico decided to change out of his, relaxed vest and tapered pants his go-to outfit.

“You’ll never guess what happened today.” Nico arches an eyebrow, though his gaze is focused solely on the rhythm game on his screen.

“Let me guess, you got into another argument about soulmates again.” You look up to see Melody arrive at the table with a large tray of food, tucking away the strings of the apron around her waist. “When will you learn that it’s inevitable?” She sighs, pinching the skin between her eyes and shaking her head in disapproval.

“Maybe it’s because she’s around us too much,” Luke pouts, snaking his arm around her waist. She grins, ruffling the top of his head.

“Please, for the love of the First Spinjitzu Master, make it stop,” You groan, pretending to gag and narrowly dodging the packet of chilli she throws in your direction. Picking it up, you tear it open and squeeze out the sauce, dipping the fries into it and eating them with relish.

“So, what’d Ms Grenaline say this time?” Luke focuses his attention on you, letting go of Melody who slides into the seat next to him. Nico steals a fry, munching away even though his meal is right in front of him. He even put away his phone, eagerly waiting to hear what new fight you’d gotten into today.

“She just said some shit about soulmates being essential to survive. Y’know, the usual mumbo jumbo.” You shrug, unwrapping the double cheeseburger and taking a bite.

“Sounds about right to me.” Melody raises her hands in surrender once you glare at her. “But hey, who am I to judge? Definitely not because I have a soulmate, and definitely not because he’s right next to me.”

“You’re so right.” She rolls her eyes at your automatic reply, barely audible through the massive chunk of pickle in your mouth.

“I know your family’s kinda complicated, but it doesn’t have to affect your outlook on soulmates forever. Besides, aren’t you moving to the city for your stepmom? That’s kinda progress.” Brenden volunteers his opinion, sipping away at his diet coke. “Don’t you glare at me young lady, you know perfectly well why you’re going. You like her.”

“As if,” you scoff, forcing down the last bite of lettuce and crumpling the empty wrapper. Melody doesn’t blink an eye at how fast you’ve consumed the burger, already having seen it for at least 6 years.

“She got you the signed copy of Black Beauty, remember?” Nico says quietly, tilting his head. “And besides, you haven’t fought with her in a long while.”

You bite back a retort, hating how right he is. It’s been at least three months since you’d gotten in a fight with your stepmother - the longest duration so far. “Look, she can try to bribe me all she wants, but I’m going to quickly get through school and move out so I can travel away from her.”

“Mmhm. You’d have a good chance, considering that you got into Business Relations at Ninjago University, so…” Your friends go quiet at the mention, as if just realising that you’re leaving tomorrow morning.

“I’ll be back for summer vacation anyway,” you casually state, finishing off the fries with a satisfied grin. “With autographs from those ninjas you’re always raving about.”

“You promise? I’ll cut off your pinkie finger if it doesn’t come true. You know a pinky promise is legally binding.” Melody warns.

“I don’t know how you put up with her.” Luke shrugs as you turn to him, amusement in his eyes as he glances at Melody who’s still glaring at you.

“River time?” Brenden suggests, trying to lighten the mood. Melody nods, turning to face the kitchen staff behind the counter a short distance away.

“Hilda, I’m heading out!” She calls out, untying the apron and draping it on the seat as everyone leaves the booth.

“Fuck off!”

“Will do!” Melody grins slyly, gesturing to the exit. “Let’s bounce before she realises I didn’t clear the tables.”

“Love you too Hilda!” You shout back to the grumpy old lady with a fond smile, waving goodbye as you leave.

“River time! River time! River time!” You join in on their chanting, laughing without a care in the world - and ignoring the faint sounds of guitars and saxophones playing in the back of your mind.

— — — — —

The truth of the matter is, picnics by the river are among the top few activities you’d willingly leave the house for. After having a few drinks and getting up to a couple of shenanigans, your friends dropped you off at your place with tearful goodbyes.

Nico had refused to let go of your arm, citing ‘who would I hug when you’re gone?’ as the reason why. He had let go after you promised to hug him all he wanted when you came back. It was also then that you vowed to never let him drink again.

After showering and emerging from the steam with a clearer (and significantly less tipsy) mind, you make your way to the comfort of your futon, avoiding stubbing your toe on the luggage near the door. The moving company had already taken most of your stuff, and all that you have to your name now is a singular suitcase, a sling bag, and your futon.

You wriggle under the blanket, staring up at the ceiling and feeling the tiredness finally hit you with full force as your eyelids slowly close. The warmth draws you to sleep, dreams calling your name and reckoning for you to come into their embrace.

Unfortunately, your soulmate doesn’t like to sleep at 1 AM. Soft rock starts playing, and you press your face against the pillow to muffle your annoyed groan. You press the pillow on top of your face, wishing desperately for the music to stop, though you know it’d do nothing to help. Forcing your eyes shut and thinking of anything else to drown out the noise is the go-to method for you, and hopefully, it’ll work this time as well.

Stupid jazz, stupid music.

Stupid soulmate.

— — — — —

A quick Google search in the morning while you brush your teeth reveals a plethora of cafes in Ninjago City, all ready for you to explore. Accidentally clicking on a notification, however, brings you to a separate page where the headline of a news article practically screams at you.

‘Famous Author to make an appearance at Ninjago Museum Fundraiser! All proceeds from the auction are to be donated to preserve local history.

The bestselling author who goes by her pen name of Hanla will be making an appearance at the Ninjago Museum’s Fundraiser occurring next week. Locally curated pieces of artwork and a book of poems written by Hamla herself will be auctioned off. Hamla has also stated that 100% of all proceeds made in her name will be going toward the local conservation of Ninjago’s history. For all fans of her works - You, Me, and the Beat, Beauty and her Phone, and critically acclaimed bestseller Honey, Where Are My Pants?, be sure to stop by for an autographing session that Hamla will be attending! Our local heroes - the Ninja, will also be attending the session, so make sure to get your photos taken with them!’

“Are you ready yet? We gotta leave in an hour, Munchkin.” Your father calls out from downstairs. You pause to spit out the toothpaste in your mouth, gargling the residue and letting the menthol sting your lips after rinsing.

“Yeah, just gotta shower and I’m good to go.” You reply loudly, turning your attention back to the mirror. A round, puffy face stares back at you, eyebags apparent after only managing to fall asleep at two in the morning.

You really should stop drinking so late at night. Luckily, a shower helps to reduce the puffiness in your face, and you step out of your room looking somewhat presentable in a lavender hoodie and shorts.

The gentle sunlight shining through the bare windows breathed life into the room and the curtains that once decorated the small window seat. Where your bed once sat was empty with the polished mahogany wood underneath.

Endless nights of laying in your plush bed with your bedside lamp's dim yet warm glow seemed so distant in your memories. Your hand lingers on the doorknob, mumbling a soft goodbye before shutting the door and heading downstairs to where your father is waiting.

“Shall we?” He grins, placing the last of your luggage in the car boot. He closes it, offering a hand to you. You take it, allowing him to guide you to the front seat where the radio is already playing your favourite pop songs.

As he starts to drive, you’re momentarily distracted with taking the perfect picture for your Instagram story, singing along with your tone-deaf father who’s belting out ABBA as he drives past the massive signboard signalling goodbye. You watch it pass, fields and clouds dotting the sky moving by steadily.

It’d be a lie to say you wouldn’t miss home. But this is a chance at a new beginning - maybe one that could change your life for the better. As faint jazz starts up in the back of your mind, you smile softly. Not even that could dampen your mood.

— — — — —

You stir, eyes fluttering open at the annoying sound of drilling and construction. You blink a few times, sitting up from where you had slumped against the window while you slept. Your vision clears, and you move your hands away to see bright lights and skyscrapers galore around you.

You're here.

Ninjago City is filled to the brim with people and endless traffic. Your dad scowls at the long line of cars in front of him, glaring at the red light that seems to take forever to turn green. You fiddle with the games on your phone, focusing intently on beating the next level of Candy Crush.

You mumble a cuss when 'Game Over' appears on the colourful screen, and he immediately turns with a suspicious gaze. You smile nervously, trying to play it off as though you hadn't said anything.

Luckily, he turns back around, choosing to let it pass.

You stare out the window, watching the shops pass by in a blur until you spot one that catches your eye. “Dad, could you drop me off here?” He doesn't question your sudden request, making a turn and parking next to the sidewalk.

You open the car door and exit, looking up at the sign on the storefront.

'Ninjago Doomsday Comix'

“Emily’s already making dinner, so just meet us back at the new apartment.” He texts you the new address quickly, eyeing you suspiciously. “Be nice.” He warns, satisfied with the small nod you give in reply.

“Yeah, just gonna take a look around the place, y'know, before I get lost tomorrow.” You joke. You adjust the straps of your small bag before settling it in a comfortable position on your back.

“See you later then, munchkin. Call us if anything happens. Should be safe since those ninjas are around.”

Before you can question what he means, he drives off with all the rest of your luggage. You were lucky that your dad had visited the city multiple times on business trips and that he was primarily a hands-off parent.

“Right. Ninjas.” You mumble with a shake of your head, striding off toward the comic book store. The door swings open easily, a jingle catching you off guard. A man at the cashier counter greets you with a friendly grin that eases your nerves, and you walk up to him.

“Hi, do you know where to find Starfarer comics?”

“Well, right here, of course!” You cringe at his response, realising how poorly worded your question was. It elicits a chuckle from the man in front of you.

“Just kidding. I'm Rufus, Rufus McAllister, or you can call me Mother Doomsday. You're a new face around these parts. What's your name?”

“I just moved here, so maybe that's why." You reply, clutching the straps of your bag with a small smile at the friendly man and throwing in your name as well as an afterthought.

“Well, welcome to Ninjago City! I hope the city treats you well. We got the ninja protecting us, so that's added security too.”

“Right,” You smile emotionlessly at him. Is everyone here such big fans of the Ninja? Sure, Melody’s a fan, but not as much as bringing them up every chance she got. “Good to know.”

Rufus pauses with his lips parted, seemingly processing your words. A relaxed grin slowly forms on his lips. He glances towards a specific aisle, seemingly contemplating.

“It should be fine then….” He mumbles. You're just lost in where this conversation had ended up.

“Aisle Eight is where we keep the best-stocked Starfarer comics.” He gestures to the area he had been staring at earlier. You thank him with a brief nod, walking over.

The aisle is relatively empty, save for two other people. A blonde guy in a green hoodie is flipping through the latest issue of Starfarer with keen interest, engrossed in the colourful pages.

Next to him is another boy with slightly wavy and choppy black hair, the smooth and silky strands making you both envious and curious about his hair care routine. In contrast to his friend(you assumed), he regards you with a suspicious gaze.

Oh no. He’s hot.

You find it odd, feeling mildly unsettled by the intense stare he gives you. It wasn't a good one; more on the wary side than interested. You brush it off, ignoring the pair and scouring the shelves for issue number three.

You finally find the comic you're looking for, but it's directly opposite the pair.

After all, what would you be if not cursed with horrid coincidence?

You practically tiptoe over, clearing your throat slightly as you grab the comic book and start reading. Green Hoodie(Greenie, you decide to nickname) looks up in surprise, only now noticing your presence. Mr. Grumpy Pants(The nickname suits him perfectly), on the other hand, doesn't bother hiding the grimace on his lips at your presence, looking away.

You stiffen, eyes shifting into a glare.

Rude.

Greenie hits his friend's shoulder in a light punch, looking at you with an expression of apology. “She should be fine. Rufus wouldn't send anyone over here without vetting them first.” Greenie whispers to Mr. Grumpy Pants, referring to his earlier behaviour.

“Yeah, but what if they're…you know? I don't want another repeat of what happened with Jay.”

Oh. Oh. I see now.

You almost drop the comic book in your hands, caught off guard by how attractive Mr Grumpy Pants' voice is. You tense, now more aware of their presence. Even though you don't want to eavesdrop, you can't help how your ears practically perk up, hoping to hear more of the deep voice from earlier.

Plus, they weren't doing a very good job of keeping their conversation a secret.

“I trust Rufus. He's a good friend.”

“...Maybe.”

“Is that…? OMG! It's them!!”

You're interrupted from blankly staring at the same page for the past ten minutes, having focused on the conversation behind you, though the pair had stopped talking a while ago. You look up at the store's glass windows, startled by the sudden sight of a group of girls pressed against the glass, staring intently at the two boys behind you.

“Fuck.” You watch all the colour drain from Greenie's face while Mr Grumpy Pants smacks his palm against his face, sliding it down and sighing heavily with an utterly defeated expression.

"Not again…" You hear him mutter. “And watch your language,” He adds, elbowing Greenie who just sticks out his tongue. The girls grab their phones, snapping photos of them. You realise that you're probably in them, too, considering the lack of distance between you both.

"Girls, there's the door!!" The tallest and most commandeering of the group holds open the entrance to the comic book store, and they swarm towards it.

"Cole, run!!!" Greenie yells, taking off to the back door that Rufus quickly ushers them both through. You grab the issue of Starfarer that Greenie dropped on the floor in his hasty exit, watching the fabric of Cole's shirt almost get stuck in the doorway.

At least now you know his name.

You place both the comics back on the shelf, leaving with a quick wave to Rufus, who nods goodbye. You pull out your phone, look up directions to the apartment and slowly make your way there. You grab your earbuds, put them both in your ears and start your playlist from the beginning.

You're next to an alleyway, just steps away from a ramen store, when your arm is grabbed and pulled into an alleyway next to you. A yelp rips free from your chest, losing your balance and almost falling.

A strong and warm arm holds yours firmly, pressing you against the cold brick wall. Your eyes automatically squeeze shut when your back hits the wall with a grunt, opening your eyes to see Mr. Grumpy Pants from earlier.

What the everloving fuck-

His hand is pressed firmly against your mouth, and your hands curl into fists, summoning all the strength in your body to land a solid punch on his chest. He yelps, pressing his lips tightly together to silence himself. He glares at you, and you return it just as angrily. Your fingers close into fists, readying yourself for another punch, aiming for his jaw next.

He shushes you, and you only just notice his pinched brows and the shine of sweat on his forehead. He had tugged you behind a wall that separated into a small alcove, out of sight from the sidewalk you were on earlier.

"Turn that nauseating song off." Cole winces, muttering through clenched teeth. Your hands slow to a stop, confused by his words. He grabs your phone out of your hands, pressing pause on your beloved playlist before you can protest.

Your eyes widen in shock, staring up at his stupidly handsome face. His dark brown eyes are filled with the fear of being caught, and you catch yourself admiring the shaggy black hair that frames his face in the most annoyingly perfect manner.

Your mind races with incoherent thoughts, but one sticks out like a sore thumb.

Your soulmate's a celebrity?

For a celebrity, his music taste sucks ass.

"Am I getting kidnapped right now?" You voice out the most pressing concern on your mind, though it comes out muffled. He turns back to face you with an incredulous expression.

"You don't know who I am?" His voice is hushed, waiting for the horde of fangirls to run past your hiding spot. Your eyes narrow, pushing his hand off of where it's placed on your shoulders. You try to ignore the tingle his touch leaves behind that spreads to your hands and how his choppy bangs somehow manage to fall over his eyes in a somewhat attractive manner when he turns to face you.

"In the past twenty minutes, you've glared at me, been rude, and practically held me hostage," You snap at him, irritated by the lack of common human decency he seems to display. "And what do you mean nauseating? If anything, you're the one giving me headaches with that god-awful noise you call music that you play daily! I mean, who wakes up at 4 AM?? Only a psychopath, apparently."

You finish your mini rant, having reached the end of your already thinning patience with the boy in front of you. You pant slightly, trying your best to reign in your temper.

"Noise? Noise?? I could say the same for you! You're disturbing my sleep at night with those ear-splitting synths and breathy singing that sounds like they're on the verge of hyperventilation!" Cole retorts with thinly veiled disgust, taking a step back, dusting off his hands, and wiping them on his pants.

You eye the action, feeling insulted. Both of you stand in the alleyway, silently glaring at each other. Cole breaks the stare first, scanning the area behind him once he realises the fangirls are gone. You grin, elated at the quiet victory.

“You really gotta get more variety.” Your smile drops as soon as the words leave Cole's lips, and yours press into a thin line.

“Speak for yourself.” You can barely hold back another biting remark. If anyone were to see you now, they'd mistake you as enemies rather than the soulmates that you are.

He groans, rolling his eyes. You're tempted to ask what he does for a living but choose to stay silent. You shake your head, still in disbelief that you've found your soulmate. “Out of all people…” You mutter under your breath with a scowl.

“I could say the same. I don’t know how someone like you ended up as my soulmate.” He retorts, seemingly having overheard.

“I’m glad we share the same view then. At least that’s one thing we can agree on. Now, let’s make a deal. You go right, and I go left and we never run into each other again. Deal?” You propose, holding out your hand for a handshake. He eyes it for a solid moment, mulling over his decision. Instead of shaking your hand, however, he merely nods, crossing his hands over his chest. Your eyes narrow.

How insufferable.

“Looks like they’re gone.” He takes a moment to glance out of the alleyway, starting in the direction opposite and leaving you to your own devices. You continue to glare at his retreating figure, driving home your irritation by placing your earbuds back into your ears and hitting play.

Immediately, Cole's songs start playing in the back of your mind, much louder than before. You let out an irritated groan, turning to glare at his broad back. Curse his well-chiselled body and toned arms.

Stupid soulmate.

— — — — —

“So, how was your first day in town?” Your stepmother, Emily, sits down opposite you, taking out one of the hair clips she used to keep the bangs out of her face. Her hair is messy, tied into a ponytail and her skirt is stained with spaghetti sauce.

“Decent. Went to a comic book place.” You say through a mouthful. Your response is short, but it’s more than what used to be quiet dinners around a tension-filled dining table in the past.

“That’s good. Doomsday Comix, I assume?” She doesn’t flinch from your wide-eyed gaze, caught off guard by how eerily accurate her guess is. “I used to work there when I was younger. I hope you found the comics you were looking for. Starfarer, right?”

“Right,” You reply unsurely, spooning another bunch of pasta into your mouth. You forget that Emily had been born and raised in Ninjago, only having met your dad during one of her trips for ‘inspiration’. You and she had a rocky relationship, but one could say that you’re currently making progress - you think.

“Did you meet the ninja?” Your dad asks, taking some sliced-up steak on his plate and placing it on Emily’s. You eye the way she lights up at the action, a nauseating feeling beginning to stir in the bottom of your stomach. “I hope if you got in trouble, they got you out of it.”

“Oh yeah? What’re the ninja gonna do, spin me around till I get a headache?” You snort, chewing on an irritating broccoli stem that refuses to get chowed down on. “Mystify me to pieces? Bore me to death?”

The sarcastic jabs don’t phase your dad in the slightest. He shrugs, used to your disbelieving comments. “Just be careful out there still, okay? I know Ninjago City is safe but there are still pickpockets around and petty crimes.”

“Which is exactly why I called in a favour from an old friend.” Emily smiles softly at your father, but it fades slightly when she looks at you, uncertainty in her gaze. “He’s an instructor, and I’ve asked him to teach you self-defence so you can at least protect yourself.”

Your hand slows to a halt, the singular piece of spaghetti dangling off your fork as you blink owlishly at her. “I never asked for your help.” The words slip out before you can stop yourself, hurt flitting across Emily’s face before she composes herself, clearing her throat and picking up a piece of broccoli.

Aaand that’s a streak of 3 and a half months without being mean, gone.

“I just thought that maybe you should stay safe. Besides that,” You can sense the carefulness in her words, trying to choose the right ones to say. “I have an event coming up that I’d like you to attend. It’s a fundraiser, and I would like you to be there.” She pauses for a moment, looking from your father to you. “Both of you.”

“No thanks,” The clang of the metal fork against the porcelain plate makes her wince slightly at the harsh sound. You stand up with your half-empty plate, appetite vanishing just as quickly as a passing breeze. “I’m gonna head out. School stuff to catch up on and all.” You spot your father starting to stand up with a frown, only to stop when she places her hand on his arm and shakes her head sadly.

You ignore it.

Besides, you have a best friend to call.

— — — — —

“I think I met my soulmate today.” You instinctively pull the phone away from your ear just as she starts screaming.

“What? Where?? When?? How????? WHO???”

“Comic book store, today,” you reply, playing with a strand of your hair to distract yourself.

“Comic book store? Oh no, he’s a nerd.” The mock horror in her voice makes you suppress a defeated groan, picturing exactly how wide her smug grin is. Closing your eyes, you take a moment to inhale slowly. Damn. She remembers.

When you were younger, you had made a bet with Melody as to what kind of person your soulmate would be. Being the naive child you were, you had bet on him being a superstar.

Melody, on the other hand, had bet that you'd end up with someone the complete opposite of you. A secret nerd.

Even at the tender age of 15, she had already read countless romantic books filled with cliche tropes. Right now though, this knowledge is absolutely terrifying to you. You hear a sigh of satisfaction over the phone, lips curling into a frown. “I’m not going to do it.”

“You have to! We pinky promised. Plus, Todd’s back home and if you don’t want me to tell him about-”

“I’ll do it,” you groan, cutting her off from the effective threat. “The First Spinjitzu Master sent you down for just one reason and that was to make my life even worse.”

“Wait.” Melody says, “What happened to your whole spiel about ‘oh I hate soulmates and I never want to have one, bleh bleh bleh’ ?”

“First of all, that is not how I sound. Is that really how I sound to you??” You gasp. Maybe your whole stance against soulmates was getting a bit too much, even for Melody. “Besides, it’s nothing new. His stupid jazz started a couple of months back or something.” You grumble, deciding to collapse on your bed instead of pacing your room.

“And you didn’t tell me??” She says incredulously, her voice raised. You can hear a faint “What didn’t she tell you?” in the background, recognising the voice as her brother’s.

“Nothing!” She shouts back at him, “I expect details. Right fucking now.”

“It’s not much,” You sigh, looking up at your ceiling and letting your phone rest beside your head, her voice filling the quiet room through the speakerphone. “It came outta nowhere and honestly? If nothing happened, no way am I about to fly across the world just to see him. I have school. And homework.”

“You’ve never handed in a single piece of homework on time.” Her voice has a hint of accusation.

“What can I say? Moving gives you a whole new perspective on self-reflection.” You shrug nonchalantly, though you know she can’t see it.

“What’s his music taste?”

“Smooth jazz and soft rock.” You groan at her awws on the other end, “Yeah, let’s see if you still find that cute when you’re trying to sleep and he decides to blast music at 4 AM.”

“An early riser. Maybe he works out?” Melody’s wistful voice doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I sense dissatisfaction with your current soulmate.” Your snarky reply makes her chuckle.

“You wish. Luke’s gonna start going to the gym 'cause I said I liked his biceps last week.” She says with amusement, “Right, I have a date tomorrow. Should I wear the pink blouse or blue?”

“Blue.”

“Pink it is.”

“Why do you even bother asking me?” You say blankly, grinning when she barks out a laugh. “Have fun on your date.”

“Remember to get autographs!”

“I won’t if you don’t shut up and get to bed.” The call instantly concludes with a monotonous dial tone after you hang up, placing your phone on your table with a grin. You open your laptop with a new sense of purpose, searching for articles on the ninja. Your unfulfilled promise haunts you, knowing full well that although most of your friends thought it was a joke, Melody would be intent on at least fracturing your pinky finger if you didn’t get their autographs.

A sudden knock on the door startles you and your hands quickly close the laptop instinctively. The door slowly creaks open, and your dad steps inside. You turn away, pretending to busy yourself with tidying your desk with minimal clutter. “Is this about dinner?”

“Well,” you hear him hesitate. “Kind of. Look, it’d mean a lot to her if you went, y’know. Besides, the self-defence instructor we asked to teach you has already accepted.”

“Can’t you get a refund?” You finally turn to face him, lips parted to say more until you scan his face. Sunken cheeks and eyes filled with sadness stare back at you, hoping that maybe, just maybe, you’d be more open towards his wife. Towards her.

And just like that, your temper which had slowly begun to bubble up again at the mention of your stepmom dies down, left with nothing but wisps of resentment. You swallow down the lump in your throat, unable to meet his gaze.

“Fine. Tell Hamla that I’ll go to her charity fundraiser, whatever.”

He breathes a sigh of relief, while you focus on your fingers already picking away at the skin on your thumb. Tiny flecks of peeled skin land on the floor, invisible in the lack of light. The skin is red and raw underneath, but you can’t feel the pain, focusing instead on the repetitiveness of the action.

“Thank you, munchkin.”

The door closes without any further conversation, and the weight on your chest suddenly lifts. It’s still there, but significantly less than before. You close your eyes, hands curling into fists as you breathe out slowly but shakily. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

You open the laptop back up, allowing the bright screen to distract you from any further thoughts. The picture of the ninja fills your screen, one in a black gi catching your eyes. What was he again? The Earth Ninja?

Glancing at the closet, you mentally flit through your outfit options for the fundraiser. A thought nags away at your brain, as if on the edge of remembering one very important fact. You pull up the article from this morning, rereading it once more as it hits you, looking from the article to the picture a few times before your lips pull up in a slow smile.

Looks like you’d get their autographs sooner than you thought.

#ninjago #lego ninjago #cole brookestone #cole brookstone x reader #cole x reader #ninjago x reader #cole ninjago #lego ninjago x reader

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silly-circus · 5 months

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★SillyString’s story/background★

(Way long overdue lmao and long I’m so sorry guys, also made some edits because I wanted to word some things better)

I want to start off by saying she is me, me is she(Im not sure if I made it clear or not so apologies I’m kinda dumb🫰). I say “her” in my posts instead of “me” because idk it feels right since I make her look differently than I actually do. Even so, we share the same name and I do the clown look all the time when I go out to places that I get an excuse to🧍‍♂️so really it is just me but anyway,,, time to begin! This is my first time actually writing this out so I’m sorry if it’s formatted and explained terribly

First off, Silly String is my persona’s clown name. She came up with it herself, everything else was Pennywise’s idea. She was originally a human, and still looks like one and has the appetite of one(when she changed Pennywise assumed she would want to eat people. He was wrong.) She lived in texas(yee-honk) before moving to Maine literally because she thought “why not?” and ended up in good old Derry. Her life growing up wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t the best. She was always into odd and strange things, or things that most would find creepy(clowns. Love clowns. They’re so cool) so she was kinda outcasted from others at a young age but soon people learned to just let her live in peace which of course she was happy about. She did manage to make some friends, solidarity. After moving, she continued pursuing freelance photography and painting, but her full time job is as a barista in a local coffee shop(wow, how interesting💀).

The way that she met Pennywise was kinda stupid. All she was doing was taking photos of the local wildlife and next thing you know a kid is running by before she notices a fucking weird ass clown creature from hell charging straight towards her(she still snapped a photo before running). He does catch up to her and jumps her. How she managed to not get away, but the kid did, don’t ask me. She survived, her camera unfortunately did not(he gets her a new one eventually guys trust).

since then, they kept bumping into each other. He does try to kill her again but she kept managing to escape him(pissed him off more and more each time) but soon enough he starts to chill out and basically decides to learn more about her. The more she realized he was going to not continuously try eat her every time he visited she would start asking him questions about who he was as an entity and where he came from. It does start out as a weird friendship where he would mess with her at work or appear out of literally no where to hang around. He does start to enjoy her company and watching her do normal, human things since her doing it made it seem entertaining. After a while of slowly getting closer and closer they become loving parters yay(she was still human at this time).

Fast forward and they get “married” which they really call their “eternal binding.” Basically what it means is that she became a part of him. As in if he dies, she dies. She unfortunately didn’t gain any cool shape shifting and such, she just gets to live and thrive as long as he does. When it first happened she was having a hard time with it simply because she’s going to outlive everyone she knows and will continue to, but over time she made her peace with it and saw it as a privilege to watch the world change around her and of course stay with her beloved.

Also the year they met was set in the 1980s, or honestly it could be any time after that or something I don’t know yall get creative I’m just going with the flow.

That is it :) sorry again this is long, and I hope every one has a good day/night(it’s 3 am why do I do this to myself). I also hope you guys continue to follow along with me on their lover clown journey :D

AND- little sneak peek of an upcoming piece I’m working on for Mermay 😙

#pennywise #it #it 2017 #i heart them #pennywise the clown #artists on tumblr #clown artist #clowns #pennywise the dancing clown #pennywise x persona #self ship art #silly clowns in love #married clowns

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stormphantomnightingale · 4 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/dcxdpdabbles/737569117273456640/there-are-so-many-fics-out-there-where-danny-is?source=share

So after reading this ☝️for the who knows how many time, when an idea or something just popped out. Now we all know that in this magnificent fandom(dpxdc) that Amity is a no go area right? Well what if and I mean what if the Bats after talking with sad trenchcoat man(Yes I called John that and no I will not stop thank you very much) about Amity, Conny goes hesteria cause he outdated and stuff or just didn't know King Phantom but yeah starts talking about Pariah Dark(who is redeemed or just in the dog house cause he pissed of clockwork), ghost zone being dangerous etc etc.

Now this makes the bats assume even more that our space boi Danny is not safe. So what they do? After idk bribing the judge or somehow provide 'proof' of abuse which makes the Fenton's lose custody(Danny is not happy), takes Danny to Gotham(via knockout cause my boi will go feral), then returns back to amity as the furry squad. Do some hacking shit but since they don't know Fenton tech and Fenton thinking(I genuinely believe the Fenton's are Hella smart like Hella smart it might piss of Lex) and probably set up the self destruction system(TUE vibes).[which to normal people is the portal closing shut permanently,data is gone or encrypted by which a Fenton can access idk it's your choice person who decides to read and write or see this interesting].

Now we can make it that either one adult comes back alive or survived the blow due to being heavily ecto contaminated or be a ghost but I'm hoping Maddie (and Jazz) cause guys lets be honest here. Maddie is a beast when it comes to her family and kids, I can tell through canon wise she will literally go through hell, Tartarus, hell even throw hands with some ancients just for her kids. But anyways one Fenton comes back, teams up with Vlad(could be poly or good asshole uncle Vlad) along with the Elinor or Elizabeth(Yes Dani's other name is Elizabeth or Elinor) and Dante to try get Danny back.

Now to our boi we love, care Danny. So we have suspicious, angry and so many emotion Danny Fenton-Wayne. So we Danny who was practically taken away from his safety, his home, family, his friads and into another on in America. Now we can all agree that Danny is not happy about this and not because of the -whole taking me away from my family and no I'm not being in denial they love me so stop talking u ancient poorly dressed furries- It's about something much bigger and we all know, we hate it, despised it and we call it.... ANTI ECTO ACTS or as I like to call THE REBOOT WITCH TRIALS.

So that abomination there is something Danny hates,fears so him being in America puts him in bootleg men in black because of a bitch named Lex Luthor. It's like painting a bullseye on him, a huge ass arrow pointing at him with the signs 'Im a ghost in America come cut me up'. So yeah its bad for him especially when he finds out the Wayne's are sponsoring The furry squad and the justice league which in turn make things worse for him and the ghost zone cause the ghost(and other supernaturals cause u can't tell me, once a vampire or mermaid find out humans are now hunting ghosts they wont immediately assume they are next? Let's cause mass panic with the other supernaturals, witches having PTSD, they tweeking seeing the acts)are demanding blood, war, retribution from the living. So he is in emeny territory trying to survive, try get back to his family and try to calm the other ghost cause they thought he died to the explosion(yeah Danny won't be okay)but never came to the ghost zone so vengeance for the king.

Welp that what came up in mind, u can ignore it, or whatever just thought I share something with yall. But yeah basically for the last paragraph I want maybe the Justice League to either face backlash or punishment for agreeing with the law, cause in most fics we don't get to see what the ghost think or if they forgave em. Cause while the humans(idk why I'm calling people human when I'm human as well) think the Justice league was writing a wrong most will question if this won't happen again. I want the supernatural to actively be upset with them especially those from the magic committee, to question whether they should be trusted seeing as this was a retry of the Salem Witch Trials Era. And to exactly be wary and suspicious of Bruce or just genuinly not trust or like him cause guys let's be fucking honest here while yeah the bats is awesome we forgot one thing he is human flesh and bones, something so fragile in the eyes of all supernatural that they can accidentally squish him because they used to much strength or smth. And suddenly some supernaturals are scared of him? They fear him because of what? His paranoia, his contingencies? Nah that should be a warning cause logically and I mean logically can u tell me straight in my face that u trust this man while knowing he stalks you 30/7, goes through Ur personally stuff without permission btw, breaks in your house when u were at a wrong time, wrong place?? Have either his kids pretend y'all are buddies or your lover just to keep u on a leash?.

And if we are going to do the Lazarus Pits is ectoplasm, then the bats are done for especially Jason. Cause I can tell once the ghost found out the league agreed to the acts be lawful they won't help, cause why help the ones that tried to eradicate them?(how u may ask? Well it's simple, some soon to be fading corrupted ghost escaped when the portal first opened causing massive damage, some deaths etc and maybe the other reason maybe the citizens first cause of the negatives in the show, public enemy number 1 so forth). So the league after failing formed the GIW and soon left Amity thinking the people will be 'safe')

One note, would it be funny if the League of Shadows find out about the Acts and Lazarus pit being ectoplasm and just had straight to Amity for protection and probably swear loyalties to the ghost zone since the be liminal asf lonly to be stopped by Maddie and after some good ol' fashion Fenton style shenanigans, Maddie is either adopted to be the new Demon head or is the demon head??

So yeah that's what came to mind, so tell me what u think.

#good Fenton parents #Let Maddie have a good fanfic #Ghost king Danny #Dan phantom #Can we all just admit the Anti Ecto Acts is just a gorey reboot of the witch trials back in Saleem #Ra's pledging loyalties to the ghost king #assumed abuse #Bruce trying to forcefully adopt Danny and the Fenton's are refusing #Danny Fenton #Good Vlad Master #Fenton-Masters Clan #Supernatural gang being in mass panic right now #Witches having flashes of Saleem #BAMF Maddie #DpxDc

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ysljoon · 1 year

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Whumptober Day 5-Keegan P. Russ

✲Prompt: Debris

✲Warnings: angst (its rlly angsty read at your own discretion yall), main chaarcter death, explosion, feelings of grief

✲a/n: yall i shed some tears as i wrote this my goodness but anyways enjoy this is my first time writing keegan and idk if this is too ooc for him but fuck it we ball

✲MINORS DNI (have your age in your bio or you're getting blocked)

There was smoke thickening the air and obscuring your vision. Your eyes dilated to get back into focus. The last thing you remember was a loud boom and you blacked out after. You squinted trying to look around trying to understand your surroundings as the dust started to settle. You don’t know who detonated an explosive but it was pretty easy to assume it wasn’t anyone from the team or any accompanying allies that came for assistance. You clambered from the rubble your body was rag-dolled into and steadied yourself, but stumbled once you realized there was a gash down the entirety of your outer thigh. Your adrenaline is through the roof for you to even feel it right now.

You limped through the rubble trying to see any familiar faces from your team or just any individual to know you weren’t alone. The sun was still bright and the heat was stifling. You needed to pace yourself or else you would be stranded with no one to help you if you passed out from heat exhaustion or dehydration. You decided to take a break and sat down on the closest pile of rubble by your feet. Suddenly a hand wrapped around your ankles and it startled you. The scream you let out was earsplitting, to say the least.

“Kid you’re gonna kill me off with that scream alone.”

The raspy and strained voice you heard was too familiar for it to be a coincidence. You turned and dropped to your knees without any hesitation and were presented with the sight of Keegan with half of his body covered under a pile of wreckage leftover from the explosion. Your body went into immediate panic mode and started to push away the rubble piece by piece. Keegan reached out and tried to stop you, but you were too caught up in trying to help him out.

“Just hold on, I'll get you out and then I’ll patch you up in the meantime until evac comes and then we can properly get you taken care of!.” You began to speed up your movements and this time he clutched your wrist. His grip was so much softer than what you were used to and it pulled you out of your panicked frenzy.

“Doll I’m done for you just gotta leave me here. I’m bleeding out as we speak and even if I do survive this I’m paralyzed from the waist down. I’m not useful either way.” He gave you a soft smile and tears started to well in your eyes. “Keegan you can’t expect me to just leave you here!” You started to tremble from your sobs. You were at a loss as to what to do after hearing Keegan’s words. There was no way you could leave Keegan here he was your everything. He was the one who kept you grounded when missions got to be all too much for you.

“Just keep me company until my last moments, doll, it’s all I ask for.” He grasped your hand and rubbed his thumb soothingly across your knuckles. The sobs started to come out even harder as you finally came to accept that this was the end. You slid down onto your stomach and just stared at Keegan. You couldn’t bring yourself to even say anything. He craned his neck and placed a chaste kiss on your forehead. “I love you, kid, don’t ever forget it, and don’t forget about me.” His hands were trembling more and his skin was getting paler and paler and the sun started to set. You wailed and let all the tears flow out as you watched his life gradually leave his body. You couldn’t bring yourself to sleep, you stared at the stars with your body curled up next to Keegan’s corpse just hoping that you could be taken away soon enough to meet with Keegan once again.

#whumptober 2023 #keegan p russ x reader #keegan p russ x you #keegan p russ #keegan russ x reader #keegan russ x you #keegan russ #keegan x reader #keegan x you #keegan #cod keegan #cod ghosts #cod mw2 #cod angst #keegan russ angst

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obsessedwithpedritoofc · 8 months

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Wᴇᴀᴋɴᴇss (Dɪɴ Dᴊᴀʀɪɴ)

ℙ𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘: Din Djarin × Male/GN Reader.

𝕎𝕠𝕣𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥: 4,2 k.

𝕊𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪: You had barely managed to survive that night with Grogu. You really didn't think he would give you much trouble, but damn he did. Luckily for you, Din was back to get him as soon as he had said he would. And luckily for you, he didn't just take Grogu with him.

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: idontknowifitcanbecountedas light violence, awkwardness, grogu making a mess (multiple times), teeth rotting fluff, mentions of alcohol, slight descriptions of smut, allusion to din being top and reader bottom, angst, no physical descriptions of reader, no use of Y/N. (lmk if i missed any).

𝔸/ℕ: why tf do i love writing angst so much HAHAHA im sorry for yall. anyway, i did like writing this especially the angsty part im so evil mwahaha. ahem, enjoy <3

𝕡𝕥 𝕚 𝕓𝕒𝕓𝕪𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣

𝕡𝕥 𝕚𝕚 𝕨𝕖𝕒𝕜𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤

𝕡𝕥 𝕚𝕚𝕚 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

You almost didn't make it through the night.

Let's be honest, you could handle any type of kid. Well, almost any type. It's not like you had taken Din's advice too seriously either. What bad would a cute little green creature like Grogu cause?

Oh, you were so wrong.

You spent the whole evening hoping and praying for Din to get back as soon as possible. Not only so you could see him again, but so he could take that goddamn kid off your hands. He had said he would be back first thing in the morning. You hoped he was safe and that he'd keep his promise on coming back soon.

When you finally got Grogu to fall asleep, you tidied everything up as well as you could. You knew he would probably make a mess of it again as soon as he woke up, but at least you'd be able to get some sleep yourself. You could barely enjoy some hours of it until the kid was putting it all upside down first thing in the morning. Luckily for you, Din was back early enough to keep his promise.

He knocked at your door when the sun was just starting to rise. You screamed a quick "In a minute" as you were running after Grogu and trying to grab him so he would stop making everything float, like he did with your cup the first time you saw him and Din. When you finally got to put him in your arms, you walked to the door and opened.

"Hi", you could almost feel Din's smile, even with his helmet on.

"Oh, hi!", you gave him a wide smile. Having him finally there with you made you forget about how difficult the previous night had been for you, trying to take care of the green child. As soon as you saw him standing in front of you, your eyelids stopped feeling heavy. "How did it go?".

"I reckon better than you with him", he tilted his head to look inside your place, seeing an identical mess than the one you'd had to deal with the previous night.

"Oh, that", you looked inside for a moment as well. "He did give me some trouble, but nothing I couldn't handle", you forced a smile. You weren't going to deny you wanted to impress him.

"Sure...", he grabbed Grogu from your arms. You felt a huge weight lifting off your shoulders. "Your eyes say otherwise".

"Yeah, well", you cleared your throat, trying to keep it cool. "Nothing I couldn't handle, but it kept me awake for a while", you crossed your arms and leaned on the doorframe. "Bet he's way more tired", you gave the kid an evil smirk. He stuck your tongue out to you.

"I'm sorry, I really had no one to leave him with. I know he's not usually good to people that aren't me or—".

"Hey, it's okay. I had fun", you smiled up at the Mandalorian. "It was a new challenge. Now I've grown stronger as a kid caretaker", you said in a dramatic tone. Din laughed.

Oh, you had missed that sound.

"Well, I'm glad your time with him was useful. I'll make sure to leave him to you more often".

"Oh, no need!", you almost didn't let him finish. "Take your time, you enjoy your time with him", you let out a nervous chuckle. Din laughed again. "Oh, d'you want to come in? Maybe I can give you something to drink, and I can tell you more about the trouble this little one gave me", you patted Grogu's head. He smiled and squealed. It almost looked as if he had forgotten about that last night.

"Well, I won't say no", Din sounded like he was smiling again. You stepped aside to let him in. "Thank you. For taking care of him, I mean. Well... And inviting me in", he sounded nervous, too. You felt relieved to not be the only one.

"My pleasure", you smiled at him. "Uh... Sit wherever you can...", your face heated up in embarrassment. "I'll try to leave it as decent as it was before", you let out a heavy sigh. "You weren't supposed to see this place like this...", you whispered the last part to yourself.

You put some water to boil while you tidied it all up —again. Behind you, Din was whispering something to Grogu as they both sat on your couch. His distorted voice sounded soothing in the background as you did your things. When the water was ready, you put a glass on the table along with some spices jars so he could choose what to put in it. You smiled at Din before getting back to fixing Grogu's mess.

A sudden noise made you turn back around. The first thing you saw was pieces of ceramic spread all over the floor. You looked up to Din a second too early to see part of his chin uncovered. That second was enough for you to take note of his short stubble, barely covering any of the tan skin under it. You were left unspoken, knowing it would give you something to fantasize about that night.

"Dank farrik", he whispered, taking you back to reality. He took Grogu and put him up away from the broken ceramic pieces. "I'm s—".

"I didn't see anything", you spoke involuntarily, fast as a speeder. Din cleared his throat.

"Sorry, he doesn't usually do these things", he kept talking as if nothing had happened. You tried to do so as well.

"Don't worry", you tried to keep the conversation on, despite the uneasy tone you both had.

He helped you clean the mess Grogu had —once more— caused. Both of you kept an eye on him as he stayed away from it all, seeming focused on keeping a little piece of food afloat.

"How can he do that?", you whispered to Din.

"I don't exactly know", he whispered back. "His race seems to have a strong connection to a natural force that allows him to do that", he turned his head slightly in your direction. "Sorry about it, by the way. I know it's pretty uncomfortable to deal with a child with such... abilities".

You laughed at the word.

"It's not your fault, you don't have to apologize", you smiled at him. He sighed as if he also did. "I already knew what I was in for when I told you I'd take care of him, and I didn't really take your warning too seriously. Many parents give me those, but all of their children end up being little angels", you smiled to yourself this time. "Guess not yours...".

"I suppose it was your fault, then", Din cleared his throat. "And I suppose I also owe you one for the messes he made. How about I pay you something to eat? You still have to tell me how did he manage to keep you awake for that long".

Right. With that other mess, you hadn't had time to relate yours and Grogu's adventures from that last night. And he was inviting you out to eat —the very Mandalorian Din Djarin himself—, how could you say no?

"Alright", you got up from the couch. He followed suit after you. "You better pay me the best meal in all of Nevarro".

"Don't get too ahead of yourself", he chuckled lowly.

He grabbed Grogu and exited the house so you could close the door. You walked through the streets, just following Din to wherever it was that he wanted to take you for that meal. The child spent the entire walk giving you murdering looks every time Din wasn't looking. You just decided to play along and stick your tongue out when he gave you those looks. Deep, very deep inside you, you did like that kid, despite all the trouble he had been giving you the previous hours.

You started telling Din everything about it as soon as you took a seat and started eating. With everything you said, he looked down as his kid and gave him the same murdering looks the little one had been giving you all the way to the canteen. He was also trying to excuse his manners, telling you Grogu didn't usually like people he had recently met, and people not close to him and Din, in general. His abilities were just his way of blowing steam.

"I'm sure he didn't want to make such a mess at your place", Din said. "He was just overwhelmed and uneasy in a new place with someone he'd just met".

"Yeah", this time, you were the one to give the kid a murdering look. You still hoped Din wouldn't notice. "I'm sure he didn't", you forced a smile.

It was already late afternoon when you finished your food. Of course, you thanked Din for paying it himself, and for having freed you from Grogu's caretaking. When you came to realize, the green kid was sleeping in his father's arms. For the first time in all the hours you had spent with him, you felt tenderness towards him. Your heart swelled with the same love a parent feels for their kid. You smiled at the feeling, suddenly remembering why you liked children.

You walked Din home to make sure he and his kid were safe —"How gentlemanly of you", he said. It was a long walk, but at last it gave you more time to talk with the Mandalorian. He also invited you in when you got to his place. You couldn't reject it either, since it made things technically equal for the both of you. Then, he told you to get comfortable as he put Grogu to sleep on his room. And then he brought a drink.

"I don't think I should—".

"Come on", he interrupted you, sitting beside you on the floor. "It's my way to repay you. I'm too much of a womp rat as to pay you with credits", you heard him chuckle. For the first time in the two days you had known him, you could feel he was calm and relaxed. Maybe it was because he had finally gotten home —his home—, with his kid safe.

"Next time you leave him with me, I'm not letting you pay me in any way", you gave him a dissatisfied look.

"Fair enough", he shrugged.

He served a glass for each other. You didn't cheer for anything in particular, you just clinked your glasses and gulped it down. Well, at least you did. Din stayed still and silent for a moment, thinking.

Oh, right, the helmet.

"It's okay, I won't look", you said before turning around and giving him your back. You heard him sigh, as if he was smiling again.

"Thanks", was his answer. Then you heard him swallow. "I'm done".

You turned back around. None of you said anything, and he didn't serve more of the drink for any of you. The air was suddenly feeling tense, and you could tell the situation was now uncomfortable.

"Hey, about this morning...", you started. "I meant what I said, I didn't see anything", you stopped to think for a moment. "Well, I saw one bit, but... it wasn't that bad, if I might say", you couldn't help the smirk that formed on your lips, though you tried not to look at him.

"Huh", he let out the beginning of a chuckle. "Thank you... I guess".

A weight seem to be lifted from you both. Din poured more alcohol in each of your glasses. You clinked again. He made you turn around every time he had to drink, but you kept talking with as much enthusiasm as if you were looking into each other's eyes all the time. You were already a few drinks in when he served another one and you, as the previous times, turned to look at the wall behind you. Unexpectedly for you, he grabbed your shoulder and made you face him.

"You already saw this one bit, right?", was the only thing he said before lifting his helmet just enough for his mouth to show, and he gulped down his drink. Then, he put the helmet back in place.

You didn't say a word. Your mind was too busy thinking of the way his lips enveloped the edge of the glass and pursed when he swallowed. When you became aware of how your jaw was dropped mid-air, you shut your mouth with a dark blush, embarrassment being evident on your face. You tried to keep it cool, so you took a sip from your own drink. Still, your eyes didn't leave his helmet —specifically the downer part of it, as if you were expecting to see his mouth again. A hoarse chuckle roamed from the bottom if his throat, then he served more drinks for the two of you. He grabbed his glass again, and lifted his helmet to gulp the alcohol down. Even when he was done with drink, though, it stayed in place.

And then, he took it off.

You barely had time to process what was going on before you found yourself mesmerized by his appearance —again. The small stubble and mustache you had seen that morning looked even better in that dim light, the small gray hairs in between the brown ones making your insides flutter. His lips looked more delicious than any meal you had tasted before —full, pink, tanned like the rest of his skin, and that smile sent you straight to the skies. His nose was perfectly shaped —well, everything in him was— despite the small scar on it, so much that it made you want to run your fingers through it all. His hair did, too. Even disheveled as it was, you had never seen such perfect, beautiful locks. His brown orbs were looking into yours —no, they were staring into your soul. It was all a mix that resulted in a serious expression.

He had taken his helmet off.

You then understood that it wasn't easy for him to do so. The fact that Mandalorians like him were supposed to never show his face to anybody hit you harder than you had expected when you realized that he was looking directly at you, and with no visor in between you two. He probably hadn't showed a bit of his skin to anyone in years —you wondered if Grogu had seen him the way you were seeing him now.

He cleared his throat involuntarily, making you jump in your seat and taking you back to the real world. He noticed immediately and lifted his hands up in an apologizing way, his expression shifting to one of slight concern.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...", he paused to search the correct words. "I know I'm... not too—".

"You're so beautiful", you whispered before he could say anything else. It had been an automatic sentence, involuntary like most of your actions now. The alcohol was starting to get to your head, and to his, you figured.

He didn't answer back. You could see how he was blushing now, his skin going from tan to red. You tried to hold back your smile as well as you could. Instead, you approached him and grabbed his hands. You heard him swallow hard.

One of your hands went up to his face, cupping his cheek as softly as your shaking fingers allowed you to. Din sighed and closed his eyes, leaning into your touch. The feeling of his breath on the inside of your wrist turned your heart into mush.

You had definitely fallen hard for this man.

As soon as his eyes opened again, you almost jumped over him in an attempt to kiss him. A little peck was all you got, but you didn't want to push it too far. He was the one to kiss you back, for longer. He didn't really wait for you to pull fully back, he just went right in as another automatic answer to your previous action.

What happened next went too fast and too slow at the same time. You didn't have much time to process the fact that Din was leading you to his room and taking his armor off. As soon as alcohol allowed you to catch up to him, you started taking your own clothes off. When you were finally naked, he threw you onto the bed and climbed on top of you.

He touched you like no one had done it before, fucked you like no one had done it before. He was soft, slow, patient with you —even though he wasn't in reality, but he did it, for you—, and still he went all rough and hard when you asked him to. He wanted to make you comfortable about it, tried to make you like every part of it, reaching all the right places in just the right time. And it felt so good.

He left you exhausted. You slept straight through the night, feeling safe in his arms. For the first time in years, you felt full, contented, your heart swelling with happiness. It seemed like you had finally found your place with the right person for you.

Din, on the other hand, didn't have it that clear.

He had revealed his face to you. It didn't sound that bad when he said it that way, but then he started thinking more and more about it. For him, the only thing you had done was taking care of his son. You hadn't even known each other for more than two days! How could he have done that?

How could you have done so much to him in such a short time?

It didn't make any sense. He wasn't supposed to be falling in love with someone like you. He wasn't supposed to be falling in love with someone at all. And yet there he was, arms wrapped around you in the dead of night after giving you the best orgasms of your life. He hadn't felt so confused since the Armorer told him he wasn't a Mandalorian anymore, all because he had taken his helmet off voluntarily for someone else to see.

Did that mean he wasn't a Mandalorian anymore as well?

He pulled away from you and got up from the bed. He went to check on Grogu, who was still sleeping soundly in his room. It looked like he was even more tired than you, after making such a mess back at your place. It made Din smile for a moment, then he remembered you were in his bed.

He walked to the living room, where you'd had the beginning of your encounter the previous night. He grabbed the glasses and put them in the sink, throwing the bottle of alcohol into the trashcan. Din stood still, looking at it in complete rage. That damn bottle had been the cause of his troubles at the moment. He told himself that, after what'd happened, he wouldn't drink a drop of alcohol in a long, long time. Especially not with anyone else, especially not with you.

He put on his armor as fast as he could. The windows let the first rays of the morning sunlight come through and bathe the room. Din sighed, knowing what was going to come later on. He then sat on the floor by the table in the center of the room and waited for you to wake up, as he thought of what he would say to you.

The rays of sunlight danced on your eyelids when you rolled on the bed. You almost didn't wake up, your body too comfortable on the bed of the man that had given you the best day in a long time. A smile played on your lips when you remembered the previous night's events.

You turned back around to wrap your arms around him, but instead you found an empty spot next to you on the bed. You frowned in confusion.

You got up and stretched as well as you could. Your legs were still a bit stiff, but they let you walk.

You found Din sitting on the floor by the living room. He was already dressed, even with his helmet on. You would have thought he was asleep if he hadn't lifted his head up to look at you when he noticed your presence.

"Good morning to you, too", you chuckled and walked in his direction. "It's still early. Maybe we can go back to bed", you grabbed his helmet, ready to take it off. It shocked you that he grabbed your wrists with such strength you thought he would break them right there. "Hey!", you frowned again, pulling your hands away in a quick move. "What's wrong with you?", you made sure to sound upset.

"We have to talk", he said with stern tone.

You feared the worst.

"Don't you dare", was your only answer. You fought as hard as you could to not let the tears escape your eyes.

"Get dressed", he almost sound like he was giving you an order. You knew better than to go against him, so you just did what he had asked you to. "What happened last night can't be repeated", he didn't even wait for you to be seated in front of him.

"Seriously?", you dropped your weight on the floor. "Not even one day?", you scoffed. "I know, maybe it was a bit soon, but we still could've—".

"It's not that", his voice echoed in the room, distorted by the helmet but still sounding angry. "It can't be repeated".

You stayed silent for a moment. Then, you let out a sarcastic laugh.

"So what?", you kept your ironic smile displayed on your lips. "We're going to pretend this didn't happen?", you threw your hands up. "Because I'm not forgetting it easily".

"You should", Din stood up. "It's what I'm going to do".

"Oh, right", another sarcastic chuckle left your mouth as you got up, too. "I forgot you're one of those lonely Mandalorians who can't get close to anyone because whoever it is they love gets hurt", you paused to grab some air. "Or maybe you think you could repay my babysitter services with a special night with Din", you said the last part with a high-pitched voice.

"Could you be a bit less loud? You're going to wake Grogu u—".

"What if I don't wanna take care of him anymore?".

Silence ruled between the two of you for a little while. Then, Din was the one to laugh in a sarcastic tone.

"Okay, you're just acting like a child now".

"Oh, me?", you huffed. "And it's so mature to tell me to go fuck off because you think you're gonna hurt me if I stay by your side for too long—".

"I told you it's not that—".

"Then what is it?!".

A distant squeal interrupted your conversation. You were so desperate trying to understand why Din was pushing you away like that and you didn't realize you were talking a bit too loud.

Din walked towards Grogu's room. You heard him talking as the kid squealed again. You needed nothing but his absence to walk out of the house as fast as your legs let you move. You looked back many times, waiting for him to, at least, come out and look as you walked away —you didn't even care that he wouldn't say a word. But he didn't. He was way too proud and full of his Mandalorian bullshit to feel any kind of empathy towards you anymore, you thought. After a while of cursing yourself for letting all of that happen despite knowing how Mandalorians were all the same, you stopped looking back and tried to focus on how to get back to your place . You knew it was a long walk, so you had time to think and cry.

But you didn't.

You wouldn't let one single of your tears be wasted to cry for someone like Din. Not after he had taken all of you and then thrown you into the trash as if you were just that —trash. Not after you had opened not only your house, but your heart, to him —and his son—, and he had still treated you like that. You should have known it would happen. Because you did know better than to trust a Mandalorian enough to develop feelings for him. You just happened to be wrong, thinking Din might be different.

He had heard you walking out. He knew it would happen, and he let it be. He knew you were mad at him, and to be honest, he was also mad at himself. For letting all of that happen, for letting you see his face, for letting you get into his heart. And he wanted to go after you and tell you he was sorry —for letting you be his weakness.

But he let you go, and didn't dare to look as you did.

He thought it was the best for you, both of you. But deep, deep inside him, he knew he hadn't done well. Deep, deep inside him, he wanted to go and tell you to come back, that he was wrong and you were right. But he was too proud —and full of his Mandalorian bullshit— to even take a step in your direction. And even being as Mandalorian as he was, he still wanted to go after you and tell you he was sorry.

Because you really were his weakness, but he didn't want to admit it out loud.

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x male reader #pedro pascal characters #din darjin #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x reader #din djarin x male reader

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atiny-piratequeen · 1 year

Text

𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒚 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒉.𝟓 (𝑷.𝑺𝒉)

✧.*Summary ✧.*-Due to olden traditions, you’re sent off to be a sacrifice to an unseen beast on an island far from home. You’re not exactly the one to go down without a fight and you promise when you get yourself out of this situation, you’re going back for revenge.

After an encounter in the ocean and arriving on the island in question, you collect yourself and begin making preparations to get yourself off of this island.

All while being watched over by a pair of unfamiliar, narrowed emerald eyes.

✧.*Pairing ✧.*-Siren!Park Seonghwa x Fem!Reader

✧.*Genres ✧.*-Angst, Romance, Smut, Action, Fantasy, Survival, Slight Horror Elements, Hurt/Comfort, Revenge, Siren AU, Monster AU, Enemies to Lovers

✧.*TWs ✧.*-Guilt, Intimidation, Stabbing, Blood, Biting, Pregnancy (Oh Look, the Consequences to our actions-)

✧.*Sws ✧.* - Creampie, Chase Kink, Cunnilingus, Breeding Kink (Yall look what all that stuffed poosi did-), Double Penetration, Monster Anatomy (Double Cocks), Scent Kink, Fingering

✧.*Rating ✧.*- Explicit (18+)-Minors DNI

✧.*WC ✧.*-+ 11.9k

✧.*Previous Chapter

✧.*Next Chapter

✧.*A/N ✧.*This was originally a 3k+ paid commission thanks to the lovely @jacksons-goddess-gaia but I loved the idea so much that I decided to make this into a short series! Thank you again for allowing me to turn your comm into something of a bigger scale and I hope you and everyone else also likes this little series! Just a note of warning, the ending of this series does have a pretty dark ending so please be mindful of the tws of each respective chapter (tbh I don’t think its any darker than the shit I make yall suffer through write anyway but just a fair warning, you are not ending this as any kind of pacifist lol)

✧.*Series Playlist ✧.* (I keep fidling with this one so dont be surprised if songs are added lmao)

✧.* AO3 | Ataraxia Info| Taglist Form | Commission Sheet ✧.*

✧.* ©atiny-piratequeen. do not repost, translate, or use my works. Minors DNI✧.*

✧.*Network Pings- @kwritersworld | @kdiarynet | @k-vanity

Divider Cr.- @benkeibear (tysm ily)

“It’s time to wake up, my love.”

You feel lips against your head and grumble, tucking yourself firmly against the warmth pressed against your cheek. There’s a deep chuckle that rattled your bones and for a moment, you are under the wrong assumption that you’d be able to go back to sleep.

Instead, you’re lifted clean up, and your eyes snap open, large and silver as you scramble to hold onto the giant so rudely mocking you with his dumbass handsome face.

“Good morning, Y/n.”

You stare at him, unimpressed, and for a moment you lament not being able to shift into your SeaBorn form at will. You’d found slapping Seonghwa with your tail was surpiringly effective when it came to him teasing you.

You could only do it when wet, though.

For now.

Speaking of wet, you blush feeling a distinct wetness run down between your legs, reminding you of last night's messy love making. You huff, crossing your arms as Seonghwa held you up off the ground.

“How wrong are you going to hold me up?”

Seonghwa looked at you for a moment in confusion before he chuckled.

“Long.”

You arch a brow.

“Yes, you’re wrong.”

He shook his head, gently, touching your lips.

“You’re still getting used to your new language. Here, follow me.”

Seonghwa repeated the sentence and you flush, realizing your clicks had, in fact, been off. You’d come a long way since you and him mated a week ago, but you still found yourself stuttering over your clicks or holding down a note too long occasionally as you spoke to him.

As flustered as it made you, Seonghwa found your pattern of speech rather cute, calmly helping you every time you stumbled.

He’d actually been pleasantly surprised when he found out you wanted to talk to him only in your new language, and for the first three days after you’d mated, you couldn’t understand a damn word he was saying.

Seonghwa had been surprised by how adamant you had been to understand, fumbling through your tones and hums until he’d perked midday through the third day, hearing you call to him and ask him for a kiss because you were frustrated.

The look on your face when you’d gotten the desired kiss all but made him fall in love all over with you again.

“I dod it!”

“‘Did’ it, baby.”

“I did it!”

Back to the present, Seonghwa walked you to the beach, the salty air blowing his bangs as he looked out at the ocean. You look up at him and then follow his gaze.

“...Wanna go tell Hongjoong the good news?”

You don’t miss the way he perked, his eyes lightening, excited as he nodded. You kiss him, cupping his jaw lightly before he walked you to the water.

“Remember, don’t panic. I have you, and I won’t let you drown. Ever.” He assured you. You smile and kiss him gently.

You hadn’t gotten the hang of holding your breath quite yet. Seonghwa had assured you the more you did it, the longer you’d be able to do it, and you’d be able to talk freely as well.

For now, all of your focus usually went into not panicking while underwater.

Seonghwa waited until you were ready and gently waded into the water, holding you bridal style so your legs would shift, the dark grey speckles of your legs stretching up to your torso, a thick, rather smooth tail forming. Seonghwa ran his fingers up the speckles, smiling to himself despite the shiver that ran through your body at the intimate touch.

“Sorry, I got distracted. Let’s begin. If you do well, we’ll go down and visit Hongjoong.”

You smile and nod, floating vertically with your head above the water as Seonghwa let you go. You drifted a bit from him before gently keeping yourself in place, your hips working gently as you watched his tail slap the surface in his usual fashion.

You feel his hand lace into yours and dive in, smiling as he pulled you lower.

The water is pleasantly cool, but you find yourself marvelling at Seonghwa’s tail.

While yours was a simple grey, dotted with different colored splotches, and much rounder and thicker than his, Seonghwa’s tail had definitely gained some color since you both had mated.

Before his tail was a simple, yet elegant ombre of platinum and gold, now it held many intricate designs and colors along the expanse.

Thick, brown stripes started along the midway point of his tail, with beautiful orange and yellow dots speckling the space along the stripes, all the way down to his tail, which was a contrasting black with a single, distinct electric blue stripe going along the tips of his tail fin.

You found yourself mesmerized by the upper half of his tail, which was the same electric blue as the tips of his tail, a series of mesmerizing (and sometimes glowing) platinum rings drawing your gaze directly to him.

He smiled at you and swam backwards, encouraging you to follow after him, and you clumsily do so before you get into the groove again.

The two of you swim in tandem, twirling around one another, swimming through reefs and enjoying each other. Seonghwa didn’t rush you, and instead waited until you took your breaths before continuing. Each time, he’d keep you for longer and longer, encouraging you with clicks and words of affirmations.

After the fith dive, you hear a loud, distinct bellow that drew your attention.

“My, look at this.”

You look down and find Hongjoong casually circling you, his expression interested as he eyed your tail. You smile and wave at him.

“Helho!”

He blinked before chuckling and swimming closer, greeting Seonghwa with a gentle nudge.

“Hello, Y/n. You’re learning the language a lot quicker than any human I’ve ever met, besides myself. How are you handling swimming?”

You purse your lips, frowning for a moment.

“I still can’t stay underwater indefinitely.”

He chuckled and crossed his arms.

“You wouldn’t be able to, anyway. It’s the Landling in you. We are Reborns. Humans turned Seaborn. We have to come up for air eventually. It's just a matter of perfecting closing down one breathing system and using the other.”

You blink slightly and tilt your head at him.

“‘We’ have to? Hongjoong? Were you also-”

“A story for another day, but yes. I was.” There’s something…dark in his eyes the moment you mention him previously being a human, and you immediately decide it’s none of your business to pry.

Hongjoong seemed to appreciate you not doing so, and in an instant, you watch his eyes lighten back up as he looked at Seonghwa.

“You’re doing a wonderful job, Angelfish.”

Seonghwa’s scales tinted pink for a moment before he coughed and looked away bashfully. Both you and Hongjoong noticed immediately, matching grins on your faces.

“Cute~” You both chirrup.

“Oh oceans no, please don’t start ganging up on me” Seonghwa immediately half heartedly complained. You laugh, raising yourself to the surface for a fresh breath of air with both of the men trailing behind you.

When your head surfaces, you find its night out, the stars twinkling in the sky as a crescent moon illuminated the surface of the water.

The three of you don’t say a word, simply bobbing in the water as you enjoy each other’s company. Seonghwa kissed the top of your head, a calm smile on his face as he hugged you close to his body.

“I think it’s about time she meets the others, don’t you?” Hongjoong inquired sometime a while later. You hadn’t even realized you’d been nodding off, your head resting on Seonghwa’s chest as he held you from behind to keep you from drifting.

Seonghwa let out a nervous laugh that made your head perk up.

“I’ll call them, Wooyoung probably will need to be warmed up first.”

You frown and turn your head to look at his expression. His eyes were tinged white around the edges, something you’d never seen before.

Was he…afraid?

“Who is Wooyoung?” You quietly speak up, reminding both of the men that you were not only right there, but able to understand them through the bouncy notes and hums of their conversation.

Seonghwa looked at you and gently rubbed your hips.

“He’s our best friend. One of them.”

You purse your lips.

“So why do you look afraid?”

Hongjoong chuckled quietly.

“Because he’s worried Wooyoung might not exactly take it kindly knowing you stabbed Seonghwa and nearly killed him.” he answered honestly.

You feel the weight of the world slam into you. Your lips part and you find yourself unable to speak. It hadn’t came up again since you’d dragged Seonghwa to the ocean to save his life. You glance at him again, and Seonghwa doesn’t respond, staring at the dark inky waves as he held your hips, the cogs in his head turning quickly.

“What…what exactly does ‘not take kindly’ mean?” You ask slowly, putting your hand over Seonghwa’s. Hongjoong clicked his tongue, floating past both of you, looking at the sky.

“Do you want to tell her?” He looked at Seonghwa but the SeaBorn simply shuddered and kissed your head.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him tonight using the resonance stone.” He muttered. You could smell his scent, tinged with anxiety and fear, and press yourself back into his chest more to comfort him as much as you could. Even though you had no idea what was going on.

Hongjoong hummed and gently flicked his tail hard enough to send both of you drifting to the left. Seonghwa sent him a curious look before Hongjoong waved his hand dismissively.

“Go to sleep. I’ll check back on you both tomorrow.” He encouraged before he dove down, disappearing into the dark waters. Seonghwa took your hand and guided you to the shore, carrying you once you got there.

You cup his chin and kiss his cheek several times until you make him turn his gaze down to you. When he does, you steal a kiss from his lips.

“I really am sorry I hurt you.” You whisper. He nodded.

“I’ve long since stopped being angry and hurt about it. You were scared and defending yourself.”

You nod and then gently press your forehead together with his.

“I’ll explain myself to this friend of yours. Even if they yell at me, I deserve it. So don’t look so sad. We were having such a wonderful day, tomorrow will be the same.” You encourage and Seonghwa sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.

You had no idea the beast of a man that Wooyoung was, but Seonghwa would undoubtedly handle the man’s ire first that way you could meet everyone worry-free.

It’ll be fine.

When he opened his eyes again, they were back to their normal emerald, and he gently walked you back to camp, settling you in your bed. Since you couldn’t hold your breath as long as Hongjoong could, you still preferred to sleep on land and Seonghwa didn’t mind accommodating you.

You find yourself drifting once more against his neck and he gently sung, soft, airy notes swirling through your mind. Seonghwa rubbed the space between your shoulders, kneading out any tension his fingers found there.

“Just rest. Tomorrow I’ll make a big breakfast for us.” He promised. You smile and let the embrace of sleep pull you under.

For the briefest of moments, you feel as if you’re being watched by the sky itself, but you pay it no mind and drift off.

.·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·.

Something warm began to rouse you from your sleep the next morning. There are undeniable puffs of air blowing directly onto your face, and while tinged with the scent of amber, you couldn’t help the way the hair at the back of your neck stood on end.

You should wake up.

“Rrrrr.”

The moment you hear a growl, your eyes fly open, and in an instant, you’re greeted with a mass of hair, a GIANT canine standing over you with blazing, molten eyes that looked like fire peering out at you past their undeniably bear-esque face.

You stare up at them in horror, your voice caught in your throat. The canine doesn’t move from their spot above you, though you watch where you assume the ears are under all of that fur twitch and rotate, listening. They raised their head, looking North East before looking back at you, letting out a bark that rattled your bones.

You scream and scramble up to your feet, grabbing your knife in a hurry, but the dog made a snap at your heels, and you decide running is much more viable for you in this moment.

“SEOGNGHWA” You scream, rushing into the trees with the giant dog on your heels. Every time you moved to make a turn and shake them off, they threw their massive body in that direction, howling and barking and forcing you to pivot in the opposite direction.

Had you had been a bit of a calmer mind, you’d realized this demon dog was much faster than you, and seemed to be corralling you in whichever direction they wanted you to go in.

You, however, are not of a calm mind, and keep running for your life, screaming Seonghwa’s name, panic flooding into your system when you realize he hadn’t came for you yet.

Above you, the sky is blotted out for a brief moment as something humongous flew overhead, obscuring the sun for a few seconds before it was gone, also heading in the direction you were running in. There’s the sound of a primal roar that vibrates the air.

You pay none of that any mind, nearly tripping over your own feet as you catch a root on your ankle. The dog grabbed your dress in their jaws and spun their body, nearly hurling you in the direction you were running in. Surprisingly, the maneuver doesn’t tear your dress, and you keep sprinting after the close call, finally breaking the treeline.

Seriously, where the fuck is Seonghwa?!

“SEONG-”You stop yourself, eyes wide as you finally see your lover.

Your stomach drops in an instant.

He’s being held above the water of the ocean by his throat, a different man staring at him with an unimpressed look in his eyes. They were glowing a shifting deep purple and blue.

In an instant, all of your fear melted away, your claws elongating and your eyes bleeding red. Seonghwa looked in your direction, and threw his hands up.

“Y/n, wait, no!”

You don’t heed his words, rushing over, tossing the sheath to your knife away, your feet moving faster than they did even with the dog on your heels.

You don’t ask questions, driving and twisting the knife hard into the man’s back, throwing your body between them as much as you could and biting down on his forearm, tearing the skin and crunching down on bone.

Seonghwa paled and the man hardly flinched, his gaze, once fixed on Seonghwa’s face, now snapped down to you.

You don’t back down, your nose scrunched as you lock your jaw, biting harder. His blood runs down between your lips, into your mouth. You ignore all of it, glaring hateful daggers at the unmoving and infuriatingly smug looking man.

“So. You’re the mate, hm?”

“Wooyoung, listen to me, calm down.”

You don’t hear anything but the blood rushing through your own ears. Wooyoung smiled at you, but you can see a wild look in his eyes as he cocked his head ever so slightly to the left.

“Is this how you did it? Did you stab him the same way here? Or was it a little higher? How about to the left? Mm? Hit any organs? How about we try again? I don’t quite feel like I’m getting the full experience, little seal woman. Though, the bite is certainly new.”

You hear a bark from somewhere behind you and Seonghwa reached to touch your head and try and push you off.

“Y/n, baby, my angel please I’m begging you, let go. You’re making it worse.” He genuinely looked terrified, his eyes pale platinum as he glanced at you and Wooyoung.

“No, no, Seonghwa. Let her do what she wants. I’m finding out every little thing I need to know here.”

You hesitate and Wooyoung’s arm flexes in your mouth, in a moment, he lets Seonghwa go, grabbing your jaw and leaning into your face.

“I don’t take too kindly to having harm fall upon my loved ones. So, what should I do, seal woman? I’m facing a dilemma.” He sighed dramatically, ignoring Seonghwa’s rapidly protesting and trying to separate you both.

Suddenly, he perked, looking at the tall SeaBorn for a moment.

“My, that was a dangerous thought, Park Seonghwa. Were you thinking of biting me too? Putting your fist through my chest? Are you sure that’s what you want to do here?”

Seonghwa froze and you frown. He hadn’t said anything threatening. Hadn’t even moved. But the look on his face told you everything you needed to know.

Who is this guy?

Instantly, purple and blue eyes are back on you, as deep as the night sky, speckled with stars.

What is this guy?

“Jung Wooyoung. Eldritch god. Any other questions? I’d be careful, if I were you. I’m not sure how much of my blood you’ve consumed~ Who knows what could happen to you consuming the blood of a god like this.” He teased.

You let go in an instant, and everything hit you in an instant, horror crossing your face.

This was the friend, the one Hongjoong mentioned. You look at Seonghwa and he looked distraught, reaching for you. Wooyoung narrowed his gaze, and a barrier instantly separated him from the two of you.

“Haven’t I let you do whatever you want for too long, dear Hyung?” He inquired, though the honorific sounded more like teasing venom with his tone of voice. Seonghwa locked his jaw, red bleeding into his pale eyes as anger began to swell in him.

“Wooyoung, that’s enough.”

“Is it? You nearly die, don’t call me even once to save you, and now you think the person responsible can suffer no consequences? When you fell, did you crack your head, perhaps? I gave each and every one of you a resonance stone and instead of it being anywhere near you for a case of emergency, where is it? Hm?” He turned his gaze to you, and you shrink back from the overwhelming pressure coming from him as he looked at the peridot earring dangling from your ear.

“I was hoping you’d help protect her from harm in case I wasn’t enough.”

“Protect her? She almost killed you.”

“The spider almost killed me. The toxins would have killed me before I bled out.”

Wooyoung looks infuriated, turning his head in an instant.

“And WHO could have avoided all of that if he’d just called me? Are you out of your mind, Park Seonghwa? Do I need to remind you of how important you are to m-”

You can see he’s about to lay into him, and before you can think, you reach out, grabbing his face and forcing his head back to look at you.

“I’m sorry. Whatever it is, I’ll take responsibility, just…please, enough of this. My mate is upset and I hate this. You think I don’t already feel horrible for what I did? I did then and I do now, every time I see him, I see the scars he got from that day and it won’t go away, it never will. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. So whatever it is that you’re going to do, whatever punishment you feel I need or deserve for it, just do it already so I can go back into his arms. This has been a very long and fucking chaotic morning.” You speak a mile a minute and Wooyoung stared at you with a half lidded look once more.

“So, you’ll die? Because that’s what I deem appropriate for hurting one of my seven.” He answered flatly, all emotion gone from his voice. You hear a bark again, and a different noise that sounds like a growl, but you don't tear your eyes away from Wooyoung. Seonghwa pounded on the barrier, frantic and enraged.

“WOOYOUNG?!”

You feel his killing intent, but don’t look away from him.

“If that’s what you think I deserve. Just make sure he’s not hurt.”

Seonghwa’s voice nearly breaks from the sheer rage in his voice as he slammed on the barrier, and for a moment, you think you hear a crack. Wooyoung looked into your eyes for a long moment before looking down at your stomach, cold fingertips pressing against your abdomen. A thoughtful hum left his lips. Seonghwa’s enraged voice grew louder.

Wooyoung looked up, meeting your unwavering gaze. You were terrified, but you didn’t back down. A long pause stretched between the two of you.

Then, he chuckled.

“Welcome to The Fold, Seal.”

He snapped his fingers, and in an instant, you feel the world rush by. Colors and scents whirl past you until-

-you jolt upright, heart hammering. You’re back in your hut.

…what were you doing?

Seonghwa startled from beside you, and the moment you lay eyes on him, you burst into tears, kissing and embracing him tightly.

“Y/n? Why are you crying, my love?” He inquired. You open your mouth to ask him if he was alright after seeing…who, again?

Why are you crying?

Seonghwa looked at you, checking your head, your face, and your neck for any injuries. You relax the moment you feel his touch, putting your hand over his.

“I guess I had a bad dream. I’m okay as long as you are.” You kiss his nose and smile. He sniffed gently, making sure you weren’t hurt before he kissed you deeply, hovering over you.

You run your fingers down his abdomen, smiling at the way he rumbled and shuddered into the kiss. Seonghwa’s scales turned pink around the edges of his eyes and he smiled.

“Oh? Is this how you want to start your morning?” He purred, pressing his hips down and grinding between your legs. You smile and thread your fingers through his hair, intending on pulling him into a kiss when a bone-shaking bark drew a loud scream out of you.

Instantly both of you jolt up and Seonghwa looked perplexed for a moment, standing and sticking his head out of the hut.

It took a brief second before a black and red blur tackled him back into it. You scream again, reaching for your knife and then frowning when you note it definitely wasn’t where you’d left it last.

When the hell did it get so far from you?

“Yunho!”

You turn your head to the sound of your mate's voice, and in an instant, you relax when you hear Seonghwa laughing.

Your gaze falls upon this massive mass of black and crimson fur. They appeared to be a canine, and you got the confirmation when they licked Seonghwa’s face, nudging his hand until he began roughly rustling and ruffling their fur.

“Y…Yunho?” You parrot, slowly coming closer, the knife forgotten. Yunho turned his head towards you and keened.

“This is one of my best friends. What are you doing here?” Seonghwa inquired. Yunho wagged his tail, sitting straight. You were amazed at his massive form, and you nearly forgot to wave in greeting to the canine.

“Wooyoung said we had to meet your partner.” Yunho spoke despite his form. Seonghwa paused, and you could smell the twinge of anxiety in his scent.

“Oh, please. Just come outside, we made this feast for you and it's going to be eaten completely the longer we wait.”

You hear a voice seemingly coming from the sky and Yunho made a gruff keen before turning himself around and lowering himself, seemingly waiting for you both to get on his back.

“Yunho, I’m too big to be riding-”

You jolt as Yunho let out a dramatic yowl, slamming his weight playfully against Seonghwa and nearly knocking him over. Seonghwa caught himself and sent him a scandalous look.

“Fine!” He huffed and turned to you, smiling sweetly and picking you up. He kissed your nose and raised you high, setting you carefully on Yunho’s shoulders. He rumbled and you smile, gently scratching his ears. He radiated warmth, but he wasn’t uncomfortably hot to the touch. Seonghwa mounted him next, wrapping his arms around your waist. Yunho rumbled and stood up to his full height.

If you weren’t tightly clenching your thighs to keep yourself in place, you're sure you’d fall right off. Falling from this height would hurt like a bitch.

Was Yunho as tall as Seonghwa on all fours like this? Was he taller?

"Hold on, I'm going to go fast." He warned before he walked outside. Seonghwa tightened his grip on you, kissing your head before Yunho broadened his stance and took off like a shot.

You let out a scream before you cover your mouth and burst into joyful laughter as Seonghwa held you. Yunho wove through the trees as if he’d done it a thousand times before.

When he stepped foot on the beach, he slowed down to a trot, walking over to a group of men talking amongst themselves.

“I brought them.” Yunho keened, closing his eyes and wagging his tail as the tallest of the group, a man who towered over the others, scratched below his chin.

“Good job. I hope you didn’t startle our new friend too bad.” the man with the golden hair with the deep orange tips spoke. Yunho nudged his hands.

“I didn’t mean to, if I did.”

You look at the two of them and then take the time to survey your surroundings.

Hongjoong is here, his arms crossed as he looked down at a man who was sitting on….air? His legs crossed and a cup of tea to his lips. A man with long hair and a ponytail stood with them, seemingly scolding the man sitting on nothing with his quiet gaze.

There was a fire pit on the beach, and beside that was another man clad in tight, form fitting black clothing. He had part of his pendant in his mouth, and he seemed to be focused on getting the food on the fire cooked to the perfect degree. The man beside him watched on quietly, though he cast you a few cautious glances, the scorpion tail swaying behind him twitching every now and again.

Seonghwa got off first, gently letting you down and smiling before he looked over at the man floating in air. He took a breath, seemingly steadying himself.

“Just wait here, I’ll go talk to-”

“There’s no need.”

You’d blinked, and in an instant. The man with the teacup was floating in front of you, his blue and purple eyes twinkling like the night sky itself. You startle, Seonghwa’s hand instinctively goes in front of you.

“Wooyoung, I want to-”

“I said there’s no need. I’ve learned everything I needed to know already. Isn’t that right, Seal? Or, rather, Y/n?” He inquired, offering his cup to you. You blink at him and then gently take the cup, sniffing.

It smells sweet.

Seonghwa looked stunned, watching the two of you and the look of joy bloom on your face as you sip the tea. Wooyoung smiled casually and leaned back, sending Seonghwa a mysterious smile.

Seonghwa pursed his lips.

“Did…did you do something? You’re taking this a lot…calmer than I expected.” He admitted. Wooyoung shrugged a shoulder.

“Have I done anything? Is there something wrong with me greeting one of my seven’s partners with open arms and a cup of healthy, immune system boosting tea?” He inquired, looking in your direction as you drank another sip, peeking over the rim of the cup at the two of them.

Something about him seemed familiar, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Seonghwa touched his abdomen subconsciously but then he relaxed, putting an arm around you.

“Y/n, these are my seven. They’re…the most important people in my life. I didn’t know everyone would come to greet you.” He shied, rubbing his neck as he looked at the others. Hongjoong shrugged, wearing attire you weren’t familiar with, though he looked comfy as he approached you. It dawned on you that you hadn’t seen him on land until today.

The man who was beside him followed and stopped in front of you, a row of freckles stretched across his cheeks and nose, and a nearly heart-shaped, splotchy birthmark at the corner of his left eye. You stare at him for a moment, taking in the unique look of his eyes. They were an interesting mixture of blues and pastel yellow and they glittered in the morning sun as he smiled sweetly at you.

“My name is Yeosang. I’ve heard you’ve had quite a rough time. If there’s anything I can help you with, please let me know.” He greeted, glancing at your stomach for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment before looking back at your face.

The man with the gold and orange hair towered above you, smiling and extending his hand.

“Name’s Mingi. The weather is quite nice out here today.”

You took his hand, marveling at how huge every part of him was. Two thick horns sprouted from his forehead and the moment you nodded and greeted him back, you noticed his massive tail swaying to and fro behind him.

Speaking of massive, the dog you’d come to know as Yunho shifted before you all, standing taller than Seonghwa, as well.

The corners of his crimson eyes had smudges as if left from the cinders of a once-burned fire and he smiled from ear to ear as he offered his hand to you, as well.

“Hi, Yunho. Thank you for carrying us here.” You smile and hand Wooyoung back the now-empty teacup. Yunho’s tail wagged so fast, it thumped into Yeosang’s hips.

“Who are they?” You inquire, pointing to the men by the fire pit. Seonghwa took your hand and gently brought you over to the two.

The man with the scorpion tail tensed for a moment before relaxing the moment Mingi sat to his left and Yunho to his right. His ears, rounded, yet cat-like, twitched and swiveled.

“Good morning.” He quietly greeted. You nod and sit across from him.

“Good morning..uh…sorry, what is your name? My name is Y/n.”

“....San.”

He didn’t meet your eyes, but you found Mingi subtly opening his posture so the man could press closer. The small, yet familiar action made you smile.

‘He must be nervous because of something.’ You think, not realizing you’re doing the same, leaning into Seonghwa’s chest as your eyes fall upon the last man.

The one with the black clothes and hazel eyes. He had a laser focus on the food in the fire, his pendant firmly in his mouth as he turned the fish and gently stirred the pot that had what looked like a stew inside of it.

Where on earth did he get that on this island?

“Jongho, baby bear, you’re being rude.” Yeosang gently scolded, touching the back of his neck to get his attention.

He tensed in an instant, his spade-shaped tail sticking straight up. That was the only indication of him being startled aside from his wide eyes. In an instant, he relaxed and looked over the fire at you, smiling.

“Oh, uh. Sorry. I spaced out. My name is Jongho. It’s nice to meet you.” He greeted. He smelled incredibly sweet, almost mouth wateringly so.

You waved at him and introduced yourself, looking at the group.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting all of my mates…seven?” You’re not sure what the significance of them calling each other their ‘seven’, but you don’t pry. They all seem very close with one another, no matter what.

“We figured we might as well stop by and say hello just in case a certain angelfish decided to not bring you around to greet any of us.” Yunho answered, staring as Jongho finally finished one of the bigger pieces. He nodded in his direction and he picked it up right out of the fire, seemingly unbothered by the flames nor the heat of the fish as he immediately tore into it. Mingi followed suit, splitting his piece with San and continuing between bites.

“Our den isn’t exactly ready for other people to be in it.” He rumbled. San made a sour face before biting into his fish to seemingly keep his comment to himself.

He didn’t seem privy on you being in their ‘den’ yet.

You hummed and accepted a cooler piece of fish on a stick Seonghwa had passed over to you. It was full of flavor and you can’t help the seal-like bark of joy that came out of your mouth.

All eyes land on you and you blush, clearing your throat and looking away.

Wooyoung smiled smugly as Seonghwa gently broke off more of his fish to hand to you.

“Jongho, make sure to give our lovely new friend extra.” He instructed. Jongho nodded and handed you a bowl.

You look down into it and tilt your head.

“It’s full of protein, and I brought some freshly harvested veggies to stew in there. I added some spices, too. Not too many, though, I promise. It's very good for you.” Yeosang smiled softly and handed you a spoon. You sniff gently, the aroma smelling slightly spiced and savory. You take a sip with the spoon and smile, going in for more.

Seonghwa leaned over your shoulder, blinking owlishly.

“I want some.”

“It’s not for you.” Hongjoong muttered flatly. Seonghwa gasped in horror while Wooyoung laughed, leaning on Yeosang.

“Why not?! There’s a whole pot full of it!” He complained. Hongjoong arched a brow at him and San eyed the two of you before speaking up.

“Y/n needs the extra protein.” He spoke gently, wiping his mouth. He seemed to be trying to convey something, but it seemed to have gone over Seonghwa’s head.

Instead, you tilt your head and look at the bowl before sneaking him a spoonful anyway.

“It’s okay. I know I’m still growing into my size now that I’m SeaBorn, but I still will share with him, and you all, too. I can’t possibly eat an entire pot full of food all by myself.” You tell them.

They seem to exchange a look with one another before Yeosang sent you a gentle smile.

“Well, it’s alright. We’ll all eat until you’re full. If you want more, just call us back and we’ll be happy to make more. Or, Seonghwa can bring you around The Whetū Faewilds and I can cook something different, but just as nutritious for you.” He cooed, and you can see the freckles along his skin twinkle and glitter.

“I’d love to visit everyone’s home one day. Maybe I can make some food from my old home for you all….”you trail off, thinking about your village.

Oh.

You’d been so engrossed in your new life, you forgot your promise of revenge. You stare idly into your bowl of food, brows pulled together.

Wooyoung looked at you from across the pit, eyes narrowing for a split moment before he gently was slapped on the back of the neck.

“Stop reading the poor girl’s mind.” Yeosang scolded him, his voice low. San, Mingi, and Yunho perked regardless, looking over at you as you nurse your bowl in your hands, unbothered by the heat. Your eyes had begun to bleed into a deep red color.

“Not my fault her thoughts are so loud. That woman’s mind has a storm just festering below all the goody goody emotions Angelfish is giving her.”

Yeosang blinked before he looked over at you, as well. A stormy expression crossed your face before it disappeared the moment Seonghwa kissed you. Your grip on the stone bowl in your hands loosened and you relaxed once more into his grip, clicking and purring as he peppered kisses all over your face.

“Give it a few months, tops. She’ll call us. I’ll bet on it.” He rumbled, leaning on Yeosang. The faerie exhaled and looked at him.

“True as it may be, you need to let it come to pass naturally. For now, stop prying.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re no fun.”

You eat and listen to the stories of the group of unlikely friends until you feel yourself dozing off, your eyes growing heavy. Seonghwa wrapped his arm around you, smiling softly.

“I think it’s time we head to bed, everyone. I promise I’ll be better about visiting.”

San sent him a look and then looked at you instead.

“....I’ll let you in our den if you make him stop by. This one is terrible at keeping his word. He gets too comfortable on this island taking care of sea turtle babies and monkeys and neglects us.”

“I do not!” Seonghwa gasped, scandalized. Jongho snorted and Mingi arched a brow.

“You haven’t stopped by in months.”

“It was during Season! You two were-” His cheeks flared red before he cleared his throat, San's face igniting as well while Mingi stared back, unbothered.

“And I told you, you could have joined. I have two-”

“I’llDoBetterLet’sJustDropIt.” Seonghwa muttered quickly, his face dusted with pink scales. You looked at him before snickering.

“It’s a promise. I want to visit, anyway.” You tell them through a yawn. Hongjoong gently motions with his hand.

“Go rest. We’ll clean up.”

You wave goodbye to them and get on Seonghwa’s back, your limbs dangling as he chuckles and disappeared back into the trees.

The seven remaining men watched the two of you leave and Yeosang glanced at Wooyoung.

“I know what you did in the first meeting, Wooyoung. Must you threaten people like that all the time? What if the stress was too much?” He scolded. Yunho sent them a curious look before tilting his head.

“Did you do something? Is that why I have this weird sense of deja vu?”

Wooyoung yawned, stretching his limbs before he flopped back, his head resting on San’s thighs. San gently ran his fingers through his hair, looking down at him.

“If anyone intends to get near you, they go through me. I needed to see if she was worthy. Besides, she’s not nearly at the point where overstress would be a concern. If I were you, I’d worry about that hatred she’s got in her pretty little head instead of me testing her.” Wooyoung checked his nails before locking eyes with a concerned Yeosang.

“That woman has murder on her mind. It’s below the surface, quieted only by her love for him, but it’s there. All we need is one monumental event, and it’s all over for that sorry-ass village. And when that time comes…”Wooyoung trailed off, humming softly.

“We help. Where she goes, Seonghwa goes and where he goes, we go.” Hongjoong cut in.

In an instant, all of their eyes hardened. Wooyoung’s lip quirked.

“Now who’s the one who’s being threatening?”

Yeosang looked at him flatly and threw a ball of magic his way. It exploded into dandelion-esque puffs and Wooyoung instantly began sneezing.

“Oh, shut up, you sound like a damn villain. Help us clean up the beach.”

.·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈*¨¨*:·.

1 Month Later

.·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈*¨¨*:·.

You feel the wind blow by you, and your lungs protest from the strain as you rush through the trees.

Several tree branches snap behind you, but you pay it no mind, rushing faster through the island’s forest.

You’re almost there. You’re so close.

Goodness, you’re a bit more winded than usual today, aren’t you?

In the briefest of moments, as your mind trailed off, you feel yourself get swept off of your feet.

“I caught you.”

You look up, sweat running down your temple as you meet Seonghwa’s gaze. He’s looking at you with deep magenta eyes, his chest rising and falling as he catches his breath.

You smile.

“You won this round. I won before. That means we need a tie breaker.” You tell him through pants, reaching to wipe his face. Seonghwa gently set you on your feet and held you close to him instead, burying his face in your neck.

You look at him, smiling softly. He’s breathing in your scent deep, and with him so close, you find yourself doing the same, grazing your fangs over his shoulder, pressing yourself against his sturdy body.

“How about we do something else?” You coo, running your fingers through damp blonde locks and tugging. Seonghwa purred deep from his core, his cock hard against your thigh as he tilted his head back.

“Kneel for me.”

Seonghwa doesn’t make you ask twice, getting down on one of his knees before you and looking up. You run your fingers through his hair, pushing it back before you lift your thigh and set it on his shoulder, smiling sweetly.

“Go ahead. Enjoy your meal.”

Seonghwa let out a keen, grabbing both of the globes of your ass and pulling you flush against him after muttering a soft ‘thank you’.

You clench and sigh, feeling him work his tongue into you, his claws leaving indents in your skin as he curled his tongue.

You move his head, thigh flexing every now and again as the sparking pleasure from his saliva started to creep into your system.

“Don’t make me cum yet, I want to make a mess of your cocks.”

You watch his pupils dilate, a reverberating growl tearing from his lips as he looked up at you. You smile, sweet as nectar as you push his face flush between your legs, challenging both him and yourself to actually fulfill that wish.

Seonghwa, for his own credit, ate you out slower and more deliberately than he usually did, kneading and panting against your pussy as your juices ran down his chin.

You don’t think you’ll ever get tired of the look on his face when he’s between your legs, dazed with his eyes deep and pink.

He could be there for hours, if you let him. You’d tested that one day and he’d only stopped because your eyes were full of pleasured tears and your legs were trembling.

You pull and tug at his hair and grit your teeth. Reluctantly, he stilled all movement, looking up at you with half lidded eyes.

“Where?” He growled, short and simple. You growl back at him, trembling and impatient.

“Right here. Both.”

He stared at you for a moment before he chuckled and pulled away from you, letting your thigh down and slowly licking his lips. He stood to his full height, backing you against a tree and leaning into your space, tilting your chin up to make you gaze deep into his eyes.

“My, you haven’t had a single time where you didn’t ask me for both.”

You stare back at him, brow arching.

“Why should I? You’re mine and that means both of them are mine too.” You fire back, running your fingers down the expanse of his abdomen until you stopped over the slit at his pelvis, smiling at the way his eyes darkened.

“You’re insatiable.” He whispered, though it distinctly lacked any real reluctance. You smile, regardless.

“Am I?”

“Yeah.”

You pretend to think for a moment before nodding, kissing the tip of his nose.

“Okay.”

He blinked, head tilting, and in an instant, you bolt back through the trees, leaving him stunned in your wake.

“I’ll take care of myself, then~” You call over your shoulder.

It took another second, and you fight the urge not to laugh as you hear the loud, undeniable roar of your name come from behind you.

The birds in the trees squawked and flew off as Seonghwa tore through the island, chasing you with renewed vigor.

“Y/N!”

“Seonghwa~!” You mock him lovingly, calling his name as you make sharp turns and pivots through the familiar terrain. This island had become your home in your time here, you were more than familiar with all it hid.

Seonghwa, of course, knew this place like the back of his hand and in no time he skid into your view, scales shimmering and glittering beautifully in the sun as he laid eyes on you. A smile stretched across his face as you rush to the left, giggling to yourself.

You find yourself at a familiar rock formation, the same from when you first arrived on the island, and realize with a pout that you’ve hit a dead end.

The sound of Seonghwa growling behind you confirmed it and you don’t even get the chance to turn around before you’re being embraced from behind. Seonghwa purred, planting kisses upon your shoulder and up your neck and ear before he nibbled the shell of it, clicking slowly.

“I caught you again. What do I win?” He purred. You smile and turn your head to kiss him, taking one of his hands and guiding it between your legs. He got the hint, long fingers working you open while he held you flush against his body.

You sigh and relax into his grip, moaning as your head rolled onto his shoulder. Seonghwa kissed you with an urgency his fingers did not share, and the mixed speeds made your head spin.

You move his other hand to your breast, smiling as he kneaded it in his free hand, rutting his cocks against your ass. You can feel him dribbling against the dimples at the small of your back and you have a passing thought.

‘He’s wasting it.’

You’ve long since stopped being flustered about these thoughts, and cup your hand over his, pushing your own fingers in beside his as you kiss him with a tad more aggression.

“Want you.” You growl, hoping he gets the hint. Seonghwa moaned into the kiss and pinched your nipple between two fingers.

“Bend over.”

You pull your fingers from yourself, sending him a searing look over your shoulder as you lick them clean. Seonghwa followed the movement with his eyes before they drifted up to yours.

“Ah ah, down here.” You spread your legs and hold your folds open, your core aching. Seonghwa pressed himself against you in an instant, slowly guiding his cock coated in essence into you first. Your eyes nearly roll back at the pleasure of finally having his warmth inside of you. A shaky gasp left your mouth as he held your hip, pushing the other into you once he was sure you’d adjusted to the first properly.

Seonghwa waited until you were ready, kissing your head and singing sweet nothings into your hair.

“Put your arms back.” He instructed and you do so, feeling him work one of his arms through both of yours, pinning them back as he slowly rolled his hips forward and keeping you arched.

“Seonghwa~”

“You’ve become such a fast baby, Y/n. I wonder what you would have done if you got away from me. Maybe I should’ve let you this time, just sit back and watch you pleasure yourself just right.” He growled against your ear, taking your earlobe between his teeth. You whine, clenching down possessively on his cocks.

He noticed, a deep, throaty groan ripping from his chest as he snapped his hips up before reminding himself he wanted to drive you crazy, slowing himself back down.

“I would have called to you-ah…faster, it’s too slow-” You whimper, trying to rock your hips back. Seonghwa’s arm flexed between yours as he held them back, clicking his tongue in your ear.

“I’m enjoying my mate. Be still.”

You shudder and feel yourself gush around him. Your body is getting hotter again, and you loosen up. Feeling precum run between your thighs as he moved faster over time.

You stand on your tiptoes as he rocked into you, moaning his name like a chorus as he nuzzled your neck.

“Sweet…you smell so sweet.” He panted, both of his cocks rocking hard into your gspot at the same time.

You feel your brain disconnect for a moment, your mouth falling open before a guttural moan of pleasure fell from your lips as Seonghwa repeated the action. Encouraged by your song, he angled his hips, focusing on making you melt in his arms, his teeth sinking into your shoulder.

Beautiful, glittering silver droplets run down as you feel him let go of your arms, pressing them above your head on the smooth rock wall as he thrusted into you.

“Seonghwa! S-seonghwa slow down I’m gonna cum-” You try fruitlessly to drag it out for longer. Seonghwa had other plans, his free hand finding its way between your legs, rubbing your clit in rapid circles as he licked your shoulder bites closed.

“Cum for me, then. You sound s-so pretty for me, clenching me like a vice….c’mon, don’t hold back. Make a mess. That’s what you want right? To make a mess of your mate’s cocks?” He chuckled into your ear, both of his cocks throbbing deep inside of you. You can feel them, and your mouth waters at the undeniable need to be bred swirling in your mind.

“K-kiss me?” You plead, nearly crying in relief as he immediately tilted his head to do so, his tongue melding against yours as you feel yourself standing on your tiptoes due to the force of his thrusts and his heights.

Your stomach bulges from the size of his cocks and the moment you hear him growl ‘I love you’ into the kiss, you feel yourself clench down, fingers flexing and clenching as you came with a spine-shaking orgasm.

Seonghwa moaned, your scent flooding his senses as he sped up his own thrusts, cumming deep inside of you and keeping himself still as he kissed you, keeping you pinned between him and the wall.

“Love you, I love you.” You pant, mewling as you look back at him, your eyes no doubt matching his in their magenta color. He smiled and hugged you close, keeping himself inside of you.

“I love you.” He rumbled, letting both of you catch your breaths and settle down before pulling out, watching as his cum and essence roll out in thick pearls, leaving a glittering puddle on the stone between your legs.

You pant, and for a moment, you consider cupping yourself to keep it inside, but you blush and perish the thought, instead.

Seonghwa picked you up, kissing your temple and carrying you off to the waterfall where you both had first gotten intimate. He gently guided you into the water, chuckling at the way your legs instantly shifted into your tail.

You look down and he ran his fingers over your tail, smiling fondly.

"Your tail really is beautiful."

You look at the gray speckles and purse your lips.

"Yours is stunning. Mine is just…"you trail off and Seonghwa clicks disapprovingly.

"Beautiful." He ran his fingertips in small loops, tracing words of love and patterns of lace along your tail and chuckling as you shudder.

"You can always tell the difference between a Seaborn who was born that way and one who used to be human. We call them Reborns, at least, the older generations did. As Hongjoong told you, humans who were turned into Seaborn will retain mammal traits. Namely, the tail." Seonghwa hummed, drumming his fingers along your tail. You look at his face, watching the cogs turn.

"Everything else is basically the same no matter the type. Our strength, our longevity, our basic anatomies, how we give birth, it's very similar regardless of being Reborn or Seaborn." He continued, beginning to wash your tail with long caresses after opening the container of self-made soap he'd left at this particular waterfall since it held sentimental value for you both.

"How do Seaborns give birth?" You inquire. He blushed and rubbed his neck.

"Laying eggs and keeping them warm?

You blink at him.

"Laying eggs…and then keeping them warm after that?"

"Yes."

"Like a chicken?"

Seonghwa gave you a funny look, his eyebrows and nose scrunching up.

"....did you just compare us to chickens?"

"....its kinda chicken-like"

He stared flatly at you and pushed you into the water further, face deadpan as you came back up laughing.

"Seonghwa! I'm right!"

"No, wash yourself, chicken girl"

You snicker and come close to him, resting your arms on his knees as you feel him work his hands into your hair, gently washing and scratching your scalp.

“Our village is fortunate. There is an underwater volcano within our territory. There is a nursery nearby that is protected by magic and round the clock security. This is for couples who are active in hunting or may not have time to incubate them above water, in sand. During particularly busy egg hatching seasons, Yunho will come and stay within one of Hongjoong’s gardens and use his body heat to keep them warm. We have had our numbers quadruple and our success rate for hatching guppies almost perfect itself because of him and Yeosang enchanting our nursery gardens for Hongjoong." Seonghwa explained, purring softly as you close your eyes.

You don't even realize the way your tail slapped the surface of the water, just enjoying the feeling of him taking care of you. He chuckled and reached in, picking you up out of the water as he continued to wash you.

His hand wanders as he sings and hums to you, but so do your lips, and it takes but a few minutes of him cleaning his essence and cum out of you before you press your face into his throat, kissing and nibbling at his pulse.

Seonghwa opened his mouth to tease you again, but paused. Once again he can smell it. That sweet scent lacing your usual one.

His fingers twitched. As you place nips and kisses along the edges of some of his scales, you can hear him rumbling.

".....sweet."

You look at him, blinking.

"Sweet?"

"Yes. You smell sweet."

You blink before you hum quietly. Your eyes drift between your legs.

"Your fingers are still inside of me."

Seonghwa’s platinum scales along his cheekbones and the corners of his eyes turn a dusty pink, but all he did was hold you close.

"Y/n."

"Yes, Seonghwa?"

You can tell there was nothing to panic about-yet-Seonghwa had spoken in a calm tone, his scales never paling or his scent tinging with fear.

Instead, excitement? Nervousness?

"I think you're pregnant."

You stare at him.

He stared back.

For a while, you think the world had stopped, had it not have been for the rushing sound of the water behind you and the gentle, steady sound of splashing as he continued to wash you with gentle, reverent hands.

Then, your eyes well up. Seonghwa bit his lip and smiled as you bring your hand to your stomach.

“Pregnant?”

“Your scent has changed. It’s sweeter than usual, gentler.”

He gently ran his hand over your stomach, landing on top of yours.

Tears roll down your cheek as you pull him down for a kiss, feeling like you were floating. He smiled into it, holding you securely as you both sang and purred words of love and adoration to one another.

That would explain…a lot, actually. The hunger you felt growing steadily, your portions growing significantly, getting winded easier while doing work around the island and in the ocean, and the increased clinginess from Seonghwa.

You two clean up and Seonghwa held your hands in his, smiling softly.

“How about we visit The Whetū Faewilds tomorrow? Yeosang may be able to help us out. He’s really good at helping out new families and I want him to give you a protection enchantment. I need to see if I can have my own seagarden somewhere here for our eggs so you can lay them separate from everyone elses. Maybe if Yunho brings a magma stone we can keep them warm on our own and-”

You watch fondly as Seonghwa excitedly chattered on about setting up your own nursery for your eggs. You cup his cheek minutes later and he stops mid-sentence, looking into your eyes.

Neither of you say a word and he simply pressed his cheek into your palm, smiling.

“Let’s get settled into bed early. We’ll leave for Yeosang’s early tomorrow.” Seonghwa suggested. You nod and smile, letting him carry you off to bed, a new kind of joy settling in your body as you cuddle into his arms that night.

˚*＊✿❀༓❀✿＊*˚

“So how are we getting to Yeosang’s faewilds? Do we swim?” You inquire, looking over at Seonghwa the following morning as you both stand on the beach.

Seonghwa fiddled with his ear, blinking as they brushed against a peridot earring.

He had a feeling something had been misaligned, but couldn’t put his finger on what. Instead, he gripped the earring and called out to the ocean.

“Wooyoung?”

There’s a silence that stretches between you both. The ocean swayed calmly, unbothered.

Seonghwa furrowed his brow and opened his mouth.

“I’m right here. What do you need?”

Both of you look behind you, finding Wooyoung standing on the air above both of you, looking down as you clutch your chest, startled. Seonghwa rubbed the small of your back and Wooyoung cocked a brow.

“You two don’t look like you’re in danger. What do you want?” He yawned, stepping off of whatever invisible platform of air he was standing on, getting right in both of your faces.

“We need a lift to The Whetū Faewilds, please.” Seonghwa informed him, smiling in greeting. Wooyoung blinked before looking at you.

Whether you noticed or not, you’d been idly rubbing small circles along your stomach, taking note of the subtle bulge forming.

“Oh, good. You both realized she’s pregnant. I see.” Wooyoung stretched and ignored the stammering coming from Seonghwa.

“You knew?”

“We all knew. Now, c’mon before I change my mind. I don’t recall when it was I said I was suddenly a transportation service.” Wooyoung grumbled. He took a few steps towards the ocean, and you could see trails of stardust glinting with his every step.

You blink.

His feet never actually made contact with the sand, now that you looked closer.

Wooyoung made a sweeping motion and in an instant, a tear appeared before you all. You frown, looking at the unnatural tear space and peer through it, holding Seonghwa’s hand. Through it, you can see a lush forest.

“I don’t have all day, go on.” Wooyoung urged, nodding towards the tear. Seonghwa smiled at you, kissing your knuckles before he pulled you towards the spacial tear, guiding you into it.

Immediately, the aroma around you changes.

The smell of sea salt disappeared into the distance, now replaced with fresh rain and flowers. You breathe deep, smiling as it caresses you and brings about an instant calm. The forest seemed to welcome your presences, and you watch as a tiny, cotton ball shaped entity bounced over to you.

It made a noise you could only describe as a puppy-like squeak before it ran down a row of fragrant plumeria and gardenia bushes.

“That’s a faerie, they’re leading us to Yeosang.” Seonghwa explained. You smile and turn to thank Wooyoung, but find him already missing.

“Oh-uh, okay, let’s go.” You take Seonghwa’s hand and follow the fae through the forest. You are careful not to step on any flowers along the way. A few other fae peeked out of the bushes, watching you before they began following you both, some of them cooing and climbing up Seonghwa’s body with a sense of familiarity.

You smile, watching as the small glowing puffs dot your mate. One of them crossed the bridge between your and his shoulders, squeaking as it pressed against your cheek and began to shake in what you assumed was excitement.

“Ah, you’re here. Welcome.”

You look up and blink in surprise, finding yourself standing in front of a beautiful hut in the center of a village you don’t remember walking into. You look around, lips parted as you spy faeries of all shapes and sizes, looking curiously at you as they held fruit and flora in various baskets.

Your eyes drift back in front of you and you find Yeosang smiling softly at you both, his hair secured back in a clip and a dangling jewled hairclip catching your attention as he walked closer.

“You kept your word and stopped by. I appreciate it. We’ve missed you,Seonghwa, and my people have wanted to greet you, Y/n.” He gently gave Seonghwa a hug. Seonghwa closed his eyes and leaned down, pressing his forehead to Yeosang’s. Yeosang closed his eyes back, gently holding Seonghwa’s forearms.

When they pulled away, Yeosang muttered something in a tongue you couldn’t understand, smiling softly before he looked at you.

“Do you mind?” He asked, holding his arms open. You smile and lean into his embrace without a second’s hesitation. Yeosang smiled and hugged you back. He pulled away after a moment or two and you follow what Seonghwa had done, closing your eyes and tilting your head up slightly. You miss the small look of surprise on Yeosang’s face before it melted into a fond look, with him leaning down to press his forehead to yours, breathing gently.

A sense of warmth and welcome washed over you, and just like with Seonghwa, Yeosang pulled away and muttered something. This time you could understand him.

‘Welcome home.’

Seonghwa put his arm around you and guided you into Yeosang’s home, sitting down first and patting his lap. You sit down with a small blush, settling into his embrace as Yeosang began to move about his home, grabbing some decorative cups and setting them in front of you both before he set down a few small ceramic bowls.

“So, I can smell the excitement on you both, and I noticed you had Wooyoung bring you here instead of making the day-long swim…I’m assuming you both have come to realize you are with children, yes?” Yeosang inquired, his movements graceful as he removed the lids of each bowl. You lift your head to peek, seeing dried flowers and fruit inside of each one, as well as the one at the end having some form of glittering powder.

“Was I really the last to know?” Seonghwa frowned. You laugh behind your hand and kiss his jaw after turning your head and Yeosang chuckled, gently adding certain petals and leaves to a small bag, tucking them carefully into it.

“It’s alright. Love is as exhilarating as it is blinding.” Yeosang mused, looking at both of you with a gentle fondness in his eyes.

“How are you feeling, Miss?” He inquired. You wave gently.

“Y/n is fine, Yeosang. I’ve been slowing down a bit but I’m okay. I imagine in the next eight months that may change drastically.”

Both he and Seonghwa looked at you curiously before Yeosang hummed gently, adding dried apple and lemon to one bag.

“Seaborns do not hold their eggs for nine months like humans do their young. You will probably need to lay in about two or so months. You’re a month in, so you’ll notice your body adjusting and changing fairly quickly from here on out.” He explained. You feel your lips part, staring at him in surprise.

“Two months?”

“Or somewhere about that time, yes. I recommend you keep your stress levels down and try and stay away from dangerous situations until then.” He met your eyes and you feel like there’s something he’s not saying in this moment. You don’t look away, rubbing Seonghwa’s knuckles as he adjusted his embrace.

“What would I be doing that’s dangerous, Yeosang?”

Yeosang’s eyes didn’t betray anything in his head, and instead he only shrugged a shoulder.

“I don’t know, I’m just warning you regardless.”

He put the bags in the cups and gently poured the water into them. A pleasant aroma flooded the room and you find yourself sniffing eagerly, watching as he covered each cup with a small lid made of some kind of wood.

He closed his eyes and took a moment, seemingly thinking before he looked at you both once more.

“You would like me to place a protective enchantment on your womb, correct?” Yeosang inquired. You and Seonghwa nod in unison and Yeosang hummed, staring at the cups.

“Have you chosen a place to lay your clutch?” He inquired, looking into Seonghwa’s eyes.

“On the island, in a mini spring with a waterfall.”

“Is it deep enough to have a magma stone placed in it without overheating it?”

“I would need a smaller stone than usual, but yes. It's a good twenty-five feet deep. At least.”

Yeosang tapped his lip and nodded quietly, humming to himself. He took the lid off of the cups and gently grabbed some of the glittering dust from the final ceramic bowl, sprinkling it into your cup before smiling softly and handing it to you.

“Here.”

You take a moment to take a deep breath, enjoying the aroma of hibiscus mixed with dried fruit. You sip gently and lean back against Seonghwa’s chest fully.

“How many guppies do Seaborns usually have?”

Yeosang looked at Seonghwa, arching a brow. Seonghwa rubbed your hips, putting his chin over your head.

“If all goes well, usually two or three. If they aren't incubated properly, they won’t make it. We also would have to watch for predators. Usually, the creatures of the ocean stray clear of Seaborns but nurseries that aren't properly guarded have been known to have opportunity hunters go after the eggs.” he sighed.

The sound of a growl drew both of their attention to you. A deep leer settled on your face, your eyes bleeding into crimson as you gripped the cup tight.

“Baby?”

“I’ll kill anything that comes near my fucking babies, Seonghwa.”

He blinked in surprise before he rubbed your hips and kissed your cheek.

“I know, baby. Nothing will get close to our nursery.”

Yeosang watched the two of you and moved closer, sitting in front of you.

“Can you lift your shirt? Just so I can see your stomach?” He inquired. Seonghwa moved his hands away from yours so you could decide and after you sit up a bit, you lift your shirt up until it was bunched over your belly.

Yeosang’s eyes gleamed, and he held his hand over your stomach, fingertips glowing. He blinked for a moment before he exhaled, laughing to himself. You frown at him, worry settling in your brow.

“What? What’s wrong?” You ask quickly. He waved and pressed his palm firmly against your belly.

“Nothing, just thinking. Hold still for a moment.” He instructed. You hold your breath without thinking. Yeosang’s fingertips begin to glow with a soft, pastel yellow twinkle, small symbols appearing around the curve of your stomach before he pulled his hand away and gently lowered your shirt.

“I’ve put some protective magic over your womb. Remember to be careful, it doesn’t make you immune to injuries, but it simply makes it easier for you with carrying and eventually when you lay. I’ll send you both home with some fae meals to keep your energy high and boost your health. Because you are a Reborn, you will find that your body will most likely begin to lactate, as well. Only Reborns can, seeing as you hold onto your mammal genetics to some extent. You can come back to me when your guppies are born and I will provide you with more Fae meals in order to keep your body healthy and cleansed of toxins so you can nurse them…if you choose to do so.” Yeosang explained, moving to sit back down, taking a sip of the tea in front of him. You touch your stomach ever so slightly and looked over at the kind Fae man.

“That’s so kind of you…all of this is…Is there anything I can to repay you for your kindness?”

Seonghwa kissed your head and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“Yeosang, I’d like to show her around the village and your forest. Is it alright if I do it alone? I want her to see the Vermillion Gardens. If you don’t want anyone there, I understand, too.” Seonghwa spoke gently, and you could tell from the way Yeosang had paused his drinking, this was something of a special place.

He rose his gaze up to the two of you before he smiled, his nose scrunching slightly.

“Just be mindful of the flowers. Do not stray too far from them. My Faewilds may be friendly towards those I welcome here, but that does not mean you shouldn’t watch your own back.“

Seonghwa smiled wide and took your hand, pulling you out of the hut and guiding you through the beautiful village.

Yeosang watched the two of you leave and sat down, bringing a cup of tea up to his lips.

“I never expected you to be such a softie for an addition of The Fold.” He spoke into the brim of the cup. For a moment, there was no response in the seemingly empty room.

Then,

“A ‘softie’? You wound me. I don’t give a damn about that woman or those kids, I just want to make sure-”

“There was an Eldritch rune on her womb long before I touched her. I wonder who that came from.” Yeosang cut him off and motioned to the empty spot beside him, his fingers glowing as a second cup of tea began brewing. Sure enough, Wooyoung emerged, taking a seat beside him, pouting.

“I really can’t hide a thing from you, huh?” He grumbled. Yeosang sent him a smile, eyes twinking with mirth.

“No, you can’t. I don’t even know why you try at this point.”

˚*＊✿❀༓❀✿＊*˚

You step carefully as you trek through the Vermillion Garden, the petals of countless spider lilies tickling your ankles as you walk beside Seonghwa. There was a gazebo in the center of the field and Seonghwa carefully helped you sit in a bench, touching you with added care, as if you were to lay at any moment.

It was as equally adorable as it was endearing.

Seonghwa put an arm around you, looking at the illuminated flowers as he took a deep breath. You admire your surroundings, holding Seonghwa’s hand.

“This flower field…is it special?” You inquire. Seonghwa nodded, looking up at the stars above. The sky was a much different color than the one back on the beach.

Instead of a pitch black or a deep blue, the night sky was a deep purple. A shimmering aurora flowed through the sky above the two of you, and for a few moments, you forget to breathe, simply taking it all in.

“The heart and soul of the Faewilds. It all started here. Yeosang always brought us here when something good would happen in our lives. Something about the flowers helping lift the soul and spirit. So…its only right I bring you here.”

You blush and smile, kissing him slowly. Around you, the flowers begin the glow, wisps of light dancing around the night sky like fireflies. You cup Seonghwa’s face, feeling like you were floating.

Everything was going to be alright.

….right?

︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

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︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

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