#even still this was possibly the most productive month I’ve had all year so far

[gainerstories]

Lifetime Supply: Chapter 6

Written by: Gainer Stories

Lifetime Supply is a collaborative story penned by Gainer Stories and Gaining Fiction.

Ryan held his breath as the numbers on the scale rose and rose. He had to peak over the curve of his belly to see the final numbers lit up on the screen. He weighed 237 pounds. Ryan’s jaw dropped. The last time Ryan weighed himself was when he was still with Jason about a year ago, and he weighed only 160 then. Was it possible that he gained 80 pounds in under a year? 

It all started with those goddamn Adesco boxes. Quickly he started doing the math in his head. He had received the first box about 10 months ago which meant he was gaining approximately 2 pounds a week. There was no way. Frantically, Ryan dug through their supply closet until he found an old mechanical scale. Brushing off the dust, he stepped on up. This one read 242 pounds! 

“Christ,” he mumbled to himself and gripped his belly in both hands. “I’ve really gotten fat.” 

Just then his phone rang. Ryan recognized the 800 number instantly, it was Adesco. He answered the phone and slumped on his bed with a bag of chocolates in hand. 

“Hi, this is Luke from Adesco calling. I wanted to check in on your most recent delivery. Was it satisfactory?” 

Ryan was pissed that this guy who stole his boyfriend seemed to be secretly getting off on fattening him up, and was ready to expose the wildly attractive little pervert. Why is that Jason gets to fuck this gorgeous guy even when he clearly has a thing for Ryan? Ryan went in for the kill.   

“Boy was it satisfactory, Luke. My god I think I polished off the whole thing in a day. Can you believe it?” 

“That’s great to hear. Adesco products are made to satisfy. We will get another box over to you shortly.” 

“Is it possible to increase the size?”

Luke audibly gulped, “Yes, we will send you our largest box.”

“And maybe increase the frequency as well? I’m a growing boy, Luke. Need my snacks.” 

“Sure,” Luke’s voice cracked. “Sure thing.” 

“Did you know I’ve gained 80 pounds since you guys reached out?” 

“That’s… impressive.” 

“You’re impressed?” 

“I… I’m happy you’re enjoying Adesco products. Your support is impressive.” 

“I’m getting pretty fat, you know. I can barely fit into any of my clothes. Maybe I should cancel all of this and get in shape.” 

“No!” Luke exclaimed and then quickly recovered, “I mean, Adesco would be saddened to lose you. Besides, you look great with the extra weight.” 

“How would you know that?” Ryan shot back. 

“Uh, I- I’m just surmising. Glad to hear you’re enjoying our products. Your next box will arrive on the 12th. Good day.” 

Luke abruptly hung up the phone and Ryan chuckled to himself, his belly wobbling in his lap. It was now more than clear to Ryan that Luke had a little kink that Ryan was scratching. If he played his cards right he was confident he could steal Luke away from Jason. Wouldn’t that be some karmic justice? But first, he had a date. 

Antoine, the cashier at the clothing store, had very awkwardly asked him out after Ryan’s last visit. Antoine was more Ahmed’s type, but who was Ryan to turn someone down? He hadn’t gotten laid in ages and twink or not he was ready to pound it out. Getting dressed, Ryan threw on an old shirt from Antoine’s store. It was a little snug but he was past the point of trying to conceal his weight gain. The belly announced itself whether he liked it or not. 

Antoine was already at the bar when Ryan arrived. He was fidgety and nervous, but eventually the two fell into a comfortable small talk. Ryan was on a mission to fuck so he kept the booze flowing for a little over an hour before suggesting a nightcap. Antoine eagerly accepted, but suggested they stop for fast food first. Ryan patted his belly at the idea. Who was he to turn down more food? 

At the drive thru Antoine ordered far more than Ryan asked for or anticipated. There was no way this little twink was going to be eating very much, and Ryan’s suspicions were aroused. Could it be? Another closet feeder in the midst? Was this common for bigger guys? Ryan brushed those thoughts aside and stuffed himself silly. 

By the time they arrived at Antoine’s place, Ryan felt like a blimp. He hadn’t stuffed himself to that capacity in a few weeks, but Antoine kept encouraging him to eat more so he complied. Antoine even massaged his belly to help with digestion. It was a little odd at first, but it did help, and frankly was arousing. 

As he wobbled to Antoine’s bedroom he heard a roommate whisper: “My god he’s fat.” Ryan didn’t care though. He was drunk and tired and horny. Ultimately, the sex with Antoine was mediocre and Ryan left the next morning feeling rejuvenated but like he still hadn’t quite scratched that itch he needed. 

What Ryan wanted was Luke. Jason’s Luke. Luke with the broad shoulders and bubble butt. Luke with the snack packages and the oddly adorable investment in Ryan’s waistline. The more he thought about it, Luke was kind of a catch. He was practically chiseled from marble and supported Ryan’s overeating. What more could he ask for? 

Returning to the apartment, Ryan’s stomach began to growl at the smell of eggs and bacon. He prowled through the kitchen but didn’t see any leftovers. That was odd. Cory and Ahmed always made extra for him. He followed the smell to the living room where the couple was chowing down on the couch. 

“Damn, thanks for sharing,” Ryan quipped. 

“Dude we thought you were too busy pounding twink. How was it?” 

“It was alright, one and done situation though. You for real didn’t make any extra? I’m starving.” 

“Honestly man, we’re a little concerned about your weight lately. You’re stacking it on like crazy, just wanna make sure you’re doing okay.” 

“Aw come on, it’s not that bad,” Ryan could feel his face flush red. “Besides you’re not looking so skinny yourself, Ahmed.” 

“I’m not judging, just looking out is all! There’s leftover pasta in the fridge if you want.”

“Yeah yeah,” Ryan headed towards his room. 

“Hey, Ry!” Ahmed called out. 

Ryan turned around. 

“You might wanna retire that shirt, tubs.” 

Ryan looked down and realized for the first time that his overhang wasn’t covered. His face flushed red again as he flipped Ahmed the bird. 

“Whatever man,” Ryan mumbled to himself as he laid down in bed, “this belly has more fans than you know.” 

Ryan launched Instagram and navigated to Jason’s profile. He scrolled until he found a photo with Luke in it. It was tagged and he opened Luke’s profile. It was the same glossy style as Jason’s, all travel and yoga and nature. Ryan rolled his eyes and tapped the message icon. What would he say?

[speaktoitproductions]

We’re Alive!

TL;DR: Verdant Heart editing is back underway, and you can check out the casting call for Goldenrod right now!

our carrd with links for everything

The long update under the break.

Hey, everybody. It’s been a while, but I’m absolutely thrilled to be getting back on the creative horse.

Speak to It HQ has moved *again* (though thankfully just a couple of neighborhoods over, rather than across the country). Our life is still in boxes and poorly arranged furniture, but Ariel and I have a bit more space to stretch and work now that we’re in a larger apartment. That being said — moving is stressful as many of you may know, and I’m far from finished in getting the space to a place wherein we can feel relaxed and productive. Nevertheless, I’ve had a steady job for over six months now, and an actually good therapist for longer than that, so despite the mental illness dragging me down, it’s nowhere near the burden it has been previously in the course of the last four years.

So, what’s up with my unfinished show? The simplest answer is: We’re gonna finish it! As for *when*, well… I’m not so sure. That depends on a lot of factors that I simply cannot predict, though I have tried in the past with poor results. This project has taught me a lot over the past few years about what works for my creative process and leadership, and what really doesn’t. The thing that matters most right now to me is that I am as patient with myself as I am the other collaborators that make this production possible, as I learn to find a sustainable creative pace. This patience is something I want to be part of the core philosophies of what Speak To It is trying to accomplish as a production company. I will complete the other four episodes of Verdant Heart, and begin to publish them over some interval once all four are completed. At this time, I have no intention of re-recording or re-editing the original two episodes. When the remainder of the show is released, you will notice some differences: slight changes in style of writing, music, editing, and even some of the voices of the actors themselves (though no characters have been recast, the entire voice cast has been a crew of absolute angels). I hope your suspension of disbelief will allow you to continue the show as if there was no break, or at the very least, you may enjoy how I hope to make Verdant Heart’s final product somewhat emblematic of the entire journey it took to make it. Please watch this space, as I will try to offer some glimpses of our work as we put this wonderful thing together.

Now for the other important news: we’ve started casting for our next project! Goldenrod is a horror drama limited series created by Speak To Its third major member, Lauren Tucker. The script they have written is nothing short of dazzling, and I couldn’t be happier to help Lauren make it the next show on our lineup as a team. The production road ahead is long and I have my work cut out for me, but the wisdom we have gained as a group over the last few years leaves me confident that we can only get better from here.

If you have any questions, please don’t be afraid to reach out. I am so excited to return to the audio drama space, and am looking forward to interacting with folks outside of my immediate little team once again.

~ Jules <3

[mdhwrites]

How do you think TOH will hold up in the future? I imagine it will still have die hard fans aggressively defending it in spite of all its flaws. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that audiences are fickle. They’ll praise something like it’s a sacred masterpiece one minute, then turn a 180 and treat it like overrated trash the next.

So my immediate response was that it would end up like Danny Phantom or Kim Possible where some people will still love it so much as to make it what they do, some will remember it fondly and most will just forget about it and never bother going back for it. And I say that as a fan of both shows. Just... They didn't become cultural touchstones. It's very hard for most cartoons to do that. One could easily argue we haven't had one (for a new IP especially) since Gravity Falls or Steven Universe and you'd probably have a decent case for saying Gravity Falls still doesn't count compared to Steven Universe. This is probably what's going to happen to Amphibia even just because there's a lot of media out there so getting picked up as a household name that isn't forgotten is hard.

But... I think TOH will just kind of get forgotten. For most, the most special part of it is either that Luz made them feel seen, and for those the show will never fade, or the specific ships they cared about which will eventually get replaced. But I actually don't want to try to assume how the fandom will be in five years. Let's actually talk about, now that the show is said and done, the simple question of: How do you pitch watching TOH's final product? Because even the CURRENT fandom constantly has to use excuses for the storytelling. To justify it being special, they already have to narrow its scope like "the first gay main character in a Disney television cartoon" or they have to cherrypick what they're aiming against, like saying Belos' death is good because they don't like the SU ending or that Luz getting to keep her found family is unique because the only other isekai they've watched is Amphibia. That's all really hard as far as pitches in general go.

So what do you tell someone looking to get into it from the perspective of a fan? Do you warn them that some plotlines don't get resolved properly because of the shortening? How many elements do you have to prepare a new viewer for with that excuse? What's worse is... TOH is just a worse product now that it can be binged. Those who watched S1 before S2 came out got to revel in the best versions of these characters. Any potential Amity had though is crushed like her necklace two episodes into S2 and only becomes more and more obvious as the season goes and you don't have months of waiting between those two versions of Amity. You don't have multiple hiatuses between murder happy Collector and "What's death?" Collector which would make the contrast MUCH WORSE and much harder to ignore. In fact, because so many of TOH's character arcs rely on revisionism to just make an audience forget who a character used to be, binging it's going to make that process much harder in general. Future audiences are just more likely to notice the lack of effort in so many elements just because the whole show will be fresher in their minds.

And most of them won't have the fandom and the like to pull them along or tell them why certain things are the way they are, though not even the fandom always has answers. Why isn't the Grimmwalker reveal setup AT ALL unless you're combing literally ever element of each episode? And even then only once? Well... *shrug* But it's a big deal now so you better just be okay with that.

Frankly, as much as I don't want to be mean about this... I think being forgotten besides by the rose tinted glasses of the fandom is its best fate. Or that it will be known as a show that had a really good first season, a good first half of S2, and then dive bombed in quality, especially in S3, and that the only really notable thing about it is the sapphic ship between the main character and her love interest.

It is a show that only functions if you know the FULL context for it coming out. And even then, like with how much the fandom contracted during S2, let alone with each special of S3, that context wasn't even always enough to keep people watching.

So yeah, I think the fact that a lot media gets to just gracefully retire with its fans nowadays, since being a classic is so much harder when there's SOOOO much more media being produced, is probably going to be a boon for The Owl House. It can just be that little witch show for those who loved it and for those who disliked it... Well, something is always new on the horizon. I know I'm keeping my eyes out.

========

Okay so I wrote this last night. This morning I had errands to run and my sister helped me since she has a car. She convinced me to pick this up.

Looks cute. I was warned it gets dark eventually which... *looks at the goth art style* Totally couldn't have guessed. Also before anyone even thinks it: The comic originally began being published in 2015.

[malebotlabs]

(If you want an update on where I’ve been and the state of this blog where I answer some frequently asked questions and a bit of RP click below. If not, enjoy the pictures it will be a while before there’s more but do not worry I’m doing fine just taking a break.)

TRANSMISSION START:

Greetings and good evening, this is the Malebot Labs account PR unit operating again for it’s yearly update which will be reported in human emulation mode for convenience: *Ahem* Uh...hey? So I’ve been absolutely busy with life and a bit stressed out over the past several months, a bad mixture of life stuff and just generalized anxiety to be frank, so my production of stuff on this blog has been a bit...glacial to say the least. I’ve come to a few decisions on how to both improve my life and focus on things more. A break from a lot of stuff that takes a chunk of my time.

I’m going to take a break from here for a bit; not that anything here is bad or anything I just need to focus more on the stuff happening around me then hot robot men. Hopefully you guys understand

At the very least I should be fully operational at some time in the future! Just when things die down a bit and I can sit down and breathe a bit.

Here let me answer a few questions I’ve gotten while I’ve been working on stuff because that’ll hopefully get us all on the same page: 1. Do you have other social media or a discord account? Sorry no I don’t, I’m an odd case on that where I prefer to keep my internet footprint as small as possible. The fact I even made a tumblr blog at all is still baffling to me. If you need to contact me for whatever reason please message me here but I don’t think I’ll be responding anytime soon.

2. Can you do/make an edit of/Write a story involving ______ I don’t think I’ll be able to get to requests anytime soon. I’m real sorry.

3. Can you continue any of your stories? I probably won’t, most of the stories I write are small snippets of things going through my head making an edit or what I’m feeling that specific evening. I need to be in a specific mood to finish things. The fact that people have enjoyed them to the extent they have has surprised me for sure! Thank you all a lot for the kind words I’ve received over the years on them!

4. What do you do/where do you live/other various personal questions Sorry I prefer to keep myself anonymous online, I feel it’s safer and it allows those around me to act like I’m a machine more easily. Just think of me as everyone’s public robot/sexbot and leave it at that. Hell if you wanted to act like that I won’t stop you. If you can’t tell I’m a huge slut for being a robot and being around robots. Treat me like the machine I want to be and leave that silly human stuff to the side for the “emulation” to take care of!

5. Can we RP? I wouldn’t count on me responding anytime soon to anything here, but I want to say thank you to those that I’ve had sessions with in the past. You all have been real fun to roleplay with and I wish you all the best until we talk again! Thank you!

6. Do you exercise?/Are you a jock in real life? I need to exercise for sure! Part of my break is going to involve me going to the gym and exercising regularly when possible! As far as the other part of that goes I don’t act like a jock in real life, I don’t know anything about sports and I prefer to sit inside with a nice book or perhaps a video game if I have the time to sit down with one. I’m a nerdy guy who wears suits and is generally unremarkable.

7. What is the lore behind Malebot Labs and it’s world building? Basically nothing funnily enough, I just find robot men hot and then breaking apart even hotter. I’d say it’s a pretty shit company with all of it’s machines technical faults but there’s a market in universe for this malfunction stuff. I’d say there’s other companies and even female robots and other types of adult robotic companions out there it’s just that this blog was made when I was really into robotic men specifically so all of my feminine robot edits are largely on my own pc or just deleted. Actually a funny story I forgot that malebots was a website when I made this blog and felt extremely embarrassed when I remembered. I thought about changing the name but I never came up with anything better.

8. Are all the Malebots gay? Probably. I think robots can be whatever they want to/are programmed to be. As far as I go? I’m bisexual and I tend to swing to masculine and feminine body types about the same amount so yes the guy running the gay robot porn blog is gay.

9. What do you use to edit your pictures? I use GIMP and a lot of the selective gaussian blur tool to get that plastic look, I’d make a tutorial but that’s basically all I do besides some layers, some pngs I found online, and the perspective tool putting in a lot of work. I used to have a lot more higher quality images to work with for components but lost them on my old computer.

10. Do you speak any other languages? Sorry I only speak english. If I could just import new languages into my speech life would be so much easier!

11. Are you a robot? Of course not! That’d be crazy. That’d...be crazy. Y-You can’t really believe I-I’m a robot right? Right? I-I’m a normal h-human ma-man! Hu-ma-MAN! I-I-I’m sorry I seem to be-ERROR THIS UNIT IS EXPER- I seem to be-ERROR- I seem to b-be experiencing problems! O-ooooooh! H-Hey there ho-hot stuff do yo-you like what you see? What you see? W-what you. See? I am b-built to be the p-perfect man, the perfect. Man. So u-use me like the m-machine I am! The ma-ERROR IN HUMAN EMULATION PLEA-O-Oh Oh! You...Y-You want to go somewhere more...private? P-Private? I ho-hope you’re enjoying m-my b-body my b-bod-my blog! O-Okay I’m getting w-way too...HOT! W-way too h-hot...I-I’m so...hooooooooooot. So Hot. So. hothothothothothot. Oh l-look at the time! I-I need to get going. Going. enjoy th-the blog! The! Blog! ERROR-ERROR PLEASE CONTACT MALEBOT LABS TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR MAINTENANCE OF YOUR PR UNIT.  PLEASE CONTACT MALEBOT LABS TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR MAINTENANCE OF YOUR PR UNIT. PLE- END TRANSMISSION

[jmagnabo92]

S&H Bonding - 17 - The Loss of Rights

Sirius stresses when Umbridge manages to take even more rights from Harry, and gives him some advice that is apparently too late.

A03

***

Given the unpleasantness from Umbridge over the situation with the Article, Sirius had come to worry that any day now Harry would be expelled.  She would find somehow, someway, and it could happen at any time.

His expulsion is clearly her ultimate goal between taking away his rights to letters, to see Hagrid, to go to Hogsmeade, and having him in detention every night for the last month.  He’s sure that she’s just waiting for another game or something to happen in practice to get him kicked off the team as well.  As it is, she attends every practice just waiting for the precious moment.

Luckily, Harry could talk to him, and Sirius could keep him calm enough not to do something stupid that would give her a reason.

He just hopes his worries are in vain, unfortunately, his gut is right.

“Pads!”

“Hey kid,” Sirius grins until he sees his face.  “Oh no, what happened?”

“As if it wasn’t bad enough that she’s been stalking me and having her own minions attempt to get me into trouble – she finally found a way to get me kicked off the team.”

Sirius frowns.  “How’d she manage that?”

“Well, the Slytherins show up at practice trying to wind me up by mocking me for the usual and then, I don’t even know what happened.  One minute I’m telling the team to just ignore them and the next I started fighting Malfoy – my anger was like ten times what it should’ve been considering.”

Sirius frowns.  It’s possible that Voldemort might’ve also been angry, and it amplified Harry’s anger.  “Did your scar hurt?”

Harry frowns.  “Yeah, it was aching afterward – not helped by the yelling of my teammates, the Slytherins, and Umbridge.  She berated me in front of everyone and took my broom.  I’ve been given a life-long ban and two weeks detention.”

“We’re lucky she didn’t expel you,” Sirius states.  “Although, considering that you just finished the month of detention for the article, it’s not good news.  But she has no control of over your life outside of school, so you could still do quidditch someday – once she’s gone.”

“Certainly seems like she has control outside of school.  I literally have no rights or privacy right now.  And she knows where the Dursleys live – who’s to say she doesn’t just attack me there?   What if she’s the one who sent the dementors?   I just – I don’t know how much more I can take of this.”

Sirius�� heart breaks for Harry.  It seems that even with some things going right, that most of his life is just circling the drain.  “It’s only a few more months.”

“And then what?  They find some way to charge me for Cedric?”

Sirius’ surprise shows on his face, no doubt, because he absolutely had not considered that Umbridge or Fudge would go so far as to charge his kid with killing Cedric.  

“You – you think that’s what they’re going to do?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.  I mean, I – I have literally been tortured all year – Fudge tried to get me expelled in a hearing that was like a Death Eater trial after what I can only assume was an attempt on my life because not many fifteen year olds can product a Patronus and Umbridge seemed in utter disbelief that I managed it and – and with everything that’s happened, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Sirius takes a deep breath.  He couldn’t let Harry see his worries that he makes a good point.  “Kid, if they were going to do that, they would’ve hauled you in before the Dementors this summer.  So, I need you to take a breath and realize that that isn’t going to happen.  They’ve declared his death an accident and with the article and Amos Diggory taking up your cause afterwards, they wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Harry takes a calming breath.  “I guess that does make sense with everything else to factor in – I just… I’m worried about how far this is going to go.”

“Well,” Sirius pauses.  “I can’t honestly say that I know how far they’ll go, but you’ll be coming straight here this summer anyway.  I don’t care for Dumbledore’s reasonings, the fact that you were in danger there last summer is enough of a reason to bring you here.”

“Really?”  Harry asks, hopefully.

“Yes, as long as I’m here offering you a home, you’ll never have to go back,” Sirius smiles.  “I will protect you and give you the home you deserve.”

“You’re the best, Pads,” Harry smiles.  “I’m still upset that I can’t play anymore and that I lost your second first present to me.”

“Well, at least Dobby can steal your broom back and leave a replica in its place,” Sirius offers.  “There’s no way I’m letting her get away with stealing from you.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Harry offers.  “That does make me feel better.  I’ll have Dobby take care of it in the morning.”

“Good.  Do you want to talk about everything else?”

Harry shrugs, “Not at the moment.  I’m just exhausted by everything.  I’d rather just listen to you tell me stories or something.  You know – maybe about you, mum and dad?”

Sirius smiles.  “I’d love to tell you all about your parents if it helps.”

“Then I’m ready to listen.”

Sirius spends the next hour or so talking about Harry’s parents, which appears to make him feel better.

***

“What’s with the frown?” Bill asks, after the next meeting.  

Given that Harry’s spent most of the last week being upset that he’s not allowed to fly and still getting his hand split open every night, has made Sirius more and more upset for his kid.  Harry might be right about Fudge’s end goal for him (likely, Azkaban or dead), and although they obviously won’t be able to charge him for Cedric, they could manufacture some way or something that would land him out of the picture.  

Hell, he might even let Malfoy kidnap Harry or something.  The fact is, even with the article supporting Harry’s claims and the public questioning everything, Fudge has had the power and obsession to shut Harry up permanently and he could do it.  He’s definitely still thinking about it and Sirius isn’t sure what they could do to stop him (aside from hold him hostage at home) and that’s not fair to his kid.

He’s just worried with Umbridge’s stronghold at Hogwarts that it wouldn’t be long before she does something illegal and gets rid of him herself.  All those detentions alone would give her the ability and even if she just hurt him like she’s been doing, he could never speak up because most of the public thinks he’s a liar.  

“Sirius,” Remus prompts.  “You alright?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sirius offers. 

“Really, because you don’t seem like it,” Bill offers.

Sirius shrugs.  “It’s just – I’m worried about Harry.  He’s pretty much captive at Hogwarts, getting tortured by Umbridge every night, and he’s worried that they’ll find some way to charge him for Cedric or something else.”

Both Bill and Remus frown uncertainly.  

“You don’t really think that’s possible, do you?” Bill questions.  “I mean, they wouldn’t do that to a fifteen-year-old kid, right?”

“They forced him into a deadly tournament last year,” Sirius counters.  “Umbridge has had free access to take away every personal freedom he has and has been torturing him in detention every night with that quill.  What are they going to do next?”

“Maybe after O.W.L.s we don’t send him back to Hogwarts,” Remus says.  “At least if nothing changes.  As long as Dumbledore’s there, he should be fine.”

Sirius gives him a look, “You think what’s going on now with him there is fine?”

“Er – no.  Guess not,” Remus frowns.  “But technically, you aren’t required to continue on passed O.W.L.s, you just can’t use your wand until you’re seventeen.  So, he just has to make it a few more months.”

Sirius sighs and puts his face in his hands.  “How is this worse than the tournament?” 

“Because with the tournament, it wasn’t an everyday thing,” Remus offers.  “He was pretty safe – aside from the bullying – most of that year.  It was just not knowing what the tasks were and if he might get attacked there.  That’s three days compared to every day.”

“Plus, you-know-who was just a spirit then, not a full being,” Bill offers.  

“And the Ministry wasn’t after him, just annoyed by him.  Which wasn’t his fault,” Remus finishes.

“Thanks,” Sirius groans.

“You asked.”

“I didn’t actually need you to caption why it’s so much worse this year,” Sirius explains.  “It was rhetorical.  I’m well aware that one night can make things so much worse.”

“I know you wish that you could just take him away, and he deserves that – you both do,” Remus states.  “Let’s just hold off for now and get him through O.W.L.s, if things haven’t changed by then, I’ll help you take him away.”

Sirius smiles, “Thank you for the assurance.  And if something happens to me…”

“We’ll do whatever you want,” Remus offers.  “I promise.”

“Good.”

***

Feeling slightly better, Sirius is actually smiling when Harry calls him that night. 

“You know, the twins were trying to make me feel better about the sheer number of detentions I’ve gotten this year and they seem to think that I might’ve broken a record, what do you think?” 

Sirius laughs.  At least his kid was trying to find the silver lining.  

“Well, I think James and I or the twins might still hold the record.  We did spend a lot of time in detention.  Sometimes for things that weren’t actually our fault, like the time that the Slytherin quidditch team miraculously began to turn green and were unable to leave the bathroom on the day of a big match against Ravenclaw – had they won, they could’ve surpassed Gryffindor, although James wasn’t worried whatsoever because we had a better team.  Somehow, we got blamed (may or may not be because I got in a fight with my brother the day before), but we never made anyone ill during our pranks.”

Harry tilts his head in confusion.  “Why blame you if the match wasn’t a Gryffindor/Slytherin match?”

Sirius shrugs, “I suppose it’s because there was often a lot of fighting between the two houses and the other two just stayed out of it.  We ended up with a week’s worth of detention, but at least that one was together.”

“Hardly seems fair.”

“And the detentions that you’ve been getting are fair?” Sirius questions.  

“Well, no, not really.  Most of my detentions have been terribly unfair, but … guess it just is what it is,” Harry shrugs.  “Hermione felt bad about the article detentions and offered to try and take them on herself, but I told her Umbridge would only punish her, too, and might even take it as some sort of affront and give me more detentions.  At least, they’re winding down, again.  It’s just impossible to avoid her.”

Sirius frowns, “Well, maybe she needs a distraction or something?  Someone else to target her anger or thoughts on.”

“That’s what Ginny said, and the twins’ offered to distract her.  I wasn’t sure that I should take them up on it.  What if they expelled before N.E.W.T.s?”

“They’ll be fine,” Sirius counters.  “You don’t have to finish passed O.W.L.s and they already have the money you gave them and pretty great business idea.  You, on the other hand, well, you have to finish O.W.L.s or they could snap your wand.”

Harry frowns.  “So, it would be better if I – I let them?”

“I mean, I shouldn’t encourage you to ask them to risk themselves, so I won’t, but if that’s what they want or if they happen to help you out – I’ll deal with the fallout of Molly yelling at me because I know she will.”

“Hmm-mm, I’ll think about it.  It would be nice if she wasn’t so focused on me all the time.”

“I can’t say I disagree.”  He pauses, “So how’re things with Cho and Hermione?”

“Oddly enough, I think they’re on a mission together to do something, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, see, I’ve noticed that they’ve suddenly started spending my detention time together.  I always find them in some area of the castle (generally the library), but they’re never working on homework.  They seem to be planning something that always disappears when I show up.  And sometimes, I even see them working with the twins after DA meetings.  I am very confused – they literally got in several fights just a bit over a month ago.”

Sirius narrows his eyes.  He knows that Hermione can be quite vindictive when she wants to be (Skeeter can attest to that), and he’s sure when she’s fired up Cho can be, too.  Combined that with the way Umbridge has been going after Harry and the way Hermione and Cho both want to protect him, he’s sure their plotting has something to do with her.  

“Well, if I had to guess, they’re probably doing something that they figure it’s better if you have plausible deniability,” Sirius offers.  

“Something to do with making Umbridge pay, then?”

“Yes, and it’s best to just let them do it and focus on school.”

Harry frowns.  “I can’t imagine Cho would actively seek to make someone pay.”

Sirius laughs, “You mean the girl whose first reaction to the article was to rip Hermione to shreds?  Yeah, can’t see that at all.”

“Words are one thing, knowing what Hermione’s capable of is a little out of mental picture I have for Cho.  She’s so sweet and innocent.”

“Yes, well, I imagine that because you’re her boyfriend, and have been for over seven months by this point.”

Harry shrugs.  “I guess – does that mean I shouldn’t worry about it?”

“Yes.  Just relax, focus on school, and try to stay out of Umbridge’s way.”

Harry nods.  “Alright, I guess.  I’ve got a DA meeting planned so…”

Sirius coughs, thinking that the DA is a huge issue that is just teasing Umbridge.  If Umbridge found out… 

“Er – Harry, before you go, I think that we need to re-discuss the decision to lead the DA.”

Harry frowns.  “What do you mean?  Everyone’s a lot more focused ever since the Death Eater’s escape from Azkaban and the article.  They’re clearly preparing for the war rather than just school, so I feel like it’s even more important now, especially since there hasn’t been that many meetings with all of the detentions I’ve been getting.”

“I understand that it’s rather important, kid, I just also feel that you’re playing with some serious fire, here.  It was fine before, but she’s getting more and more desperate, and I just don’t think you should continue risking it because who knows what she might do to you.”

“Oh, come on, we’ve kept it a secret this long – so I think we’re doing just fine.”

Of course Harry’s blowing off the worry, he’s gotten a bit complacent, he’s gotten away with it for six months, and Sirius hasn’t expressed any worry since the start of the second term.  

“Seriously, Kid.  I think you should deeply consider just ending the DA.  You’ve got enough to be worried about and I don’t think you should continue it given that she’s trying her best to get rid of and silence you.  If she finds out…”

“It’ll be fine.  I promise.  Talk later.”

“Bye kid,” Sirius says before Harry shuts the mirror off.  He’s got this awful feeling, and he’s not sure this is a good idea anymore, but his kid’s a stubborn one and he could only hope for the best.

[9w1ft]

a small and shameless reflection on the concert…

thinking today about everything that led up to this moment. all of the deep research and inside jokes, all of the drafts and prototyping. plans to pull this off way back in 2019! and now, nearly four years later, the chance was upon us.

i planned this sign with one purpose in mind: i wanted to make taylor smile. in retrospect, it’s all i’ve ever wanted out of any of this. hoping that i might buy a little time and trying everything to get her laughing 😌…

and so i made the sign big and animated and sparkly 🥰 something she couldn’t not notice. it was all going according to plan.. by the grace of the gods @theprologues and i had secured seats near the stage and not just that, seats near a corner. it was opening night!

i tried to retrace my memory and mimic what i did at rep tour tokyo because, well, i figure it provided the best chance at being noticeable, should that have been in the stars. so we walked the floor, passed by production booths, scanned the area for cameras, had fun taking photos in various places and looking around at everyone’s amazing costumes, and finally, we settled into our seats in section Q row 17 seats 3 and 4

and actually, right up until the concert began we had a fully wide open view. it couldn’t get any better!

for being so close to the stage, i still was not sure when taylor would appear… or if she would even come close, but i just had this feeling that we would have a shot at it. for months i had been doing image training in my mind of what i would do, how i would react… what i would say or shout out… what hand would hold what and move what. …yeah 😆 it all goes out the window. what with the peer pressure and the heat of the moment letting doubt creep in and you’re like, god, am i really doing this? but in my heart i was COMMITTED. because.. you’ve got to know what you love. and you’ve got to get a real kick out of it because there’s too much in the world that can spoil life if you let it.

😌 not in my wildest dreams would i have guessed that the moment would come toward the end of the show, and it would be during this song:

THIS SONG! like… i still cannot BELIEVE that it would be anti-hero, of all songs, the one where, you know, she cranks the meta commentary firehose to maximum, oh and, cuts open the RIGHT SIDE EYE of a SUNNY SIDE UP EGG, … where was eye.. ah yes, who knew that this song would bring taylor right in front of this unhinged tumblr kaylor, eye theory chief operating officer, for an eye theory practical effects moment 😭

i’ve searched near and far for the best footage possible but nothing has quite captured the spontaneous combustion of the moment. here, below, is a clip from what pro captured, next to an artistic rendering of the inside of my brain:

and while it’s hard to explain exactly how the moment went down, i nevertheless —surprise of the century, i know— made a small video tribute 😌 ↓

i did manage to get my eye sign off of my person and up high by my face just in time to sing out “im the problem it’s me!” which, god, i don’t think anything can possibly top 😆😆

pro and i were a shambles and i haven’t felt this out of my own body since god knows when. it was the most amazing moment and i just… i hope taylor got a kick out of it and i also hope karlie got a kick out of hearing about it but also i just hope she could feel all of the love that pro and i were channeling in that moment from all of you, tumblr kaylor fam and eye theory truthers near and far, to her 🥹 it’s weird to feel like she’s so far away and yet was like.. less than five meters in front of us for a few seconds just a few weeks ago 😭 the inability of my phone to capture her in contrast and in focus is, i think, a tribute to her cosmic power and literal brilliance 😌 yes 😌 that’s how i see it.

anyway. thank you for letting me share!

[remynisce]

Last attack I ended up doing for artfight. Yuu belongs to @tiotitulo (MFoG in artfight)

[queeranarchism]

Losing friends to twitter brain?

I’ve noticed a weird pattern. In the last months a couple of people that I know in real life became increasingly unpleasant on social media. Every single post sounded like it was directed at racists/terfs/antivaxers etc even though they had zero followers like that. Every interaction no matter how carefully worded, resulted in getting shouted at as if you were part of their big ‘the enemy’ group. (I think I’m going to call this specific kind of hypervigilant constant hostility ‘twitter brain’, though I’ve seen it everywhere).

Since I wanted to maintain a real life connection to these people, I tried explaining to them why this was so unpleasant and why I wanted to unfollow them on social media for now. Most seemed surprisingly understanding of that, but for some reason they all said something along the lines of “it’s so sad that social media drives people apart like this”. And when I tried to explain to them that social media may have created this dynamic but it was still their behavior as shaped by social media that was driving me away, I just hit a wall. They were aware of the evils of social media, but they were completely incapable of seeing their own behavior as a product of that.

So now I’m thinking about how to get beyond this. It’s clear that the last two years have been incredibly stressful for everyone and that most people have been on social media way more than is good for them, and as a result they have increasingly conceptualizing the world as consisting entirely of ‘people who 100% agree with me’ and ‘racist antivax terfs’. Social media will do that to you if you let it.

And that good-evil binary, with a clear and militant-feeling answer on how to fight it (just be really angry at the evil people all the time) provides comfort, it provides validation, it provides an answer to how to act in a frightening world. And anything that challenges that also challenges your self esteem, challenges your knowledge that you are one of the good guys, challenges the idea that you can tell safe from unsafe, makes the ground under your feet feel unsteady again. It’s no surprise that people lash out.

But honestly, losing people to twitter-brain looks a lot like losing people to the far-right. The constant anger, the strict good-evil binary, the self-isolation by pushing away of friends with slightly different perspectives, the idea that only lashing out is the appropriately militant response to evil... that’s very familiar. The final outcome is probably significantly less harmful, at worst some will be recruited into the kind of call-out culture that mobs and harasses people over tiny mistakes, but none of them are going to end up planning a mass shooting. Most don’t even seem to graduate to that level of internet villain at all and just gradually damage their mental health and social life. 

Still, this shit is concerning. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get people out of there are so far my main answer has been ‘don’t engage online, only talk to people offline’. For a lot of people like this their hypervigilant hostility switches on the moment they get on social media and switches off or is in sleeper mode when they’re not. It’s been surprisingly possible to maintain friendships with most of these people after unfollowing them on social media and gentle, slow, real life conversations have been by most effective tool so far in talking to people about what I was seeing happening to them. But I’m not sure if that’s effective enough, ‘cause I can talk to them offline for an hour but the rest of the week they’ll be online again for hours per night getting pulled back into this stuff, and the stress and unsafety that motivates this behavior is still there. So.. yeah.. no clear answers on this one yet. 

[buckyownsmylife]

I’ve Told You Now - Bucky Barnes smut

The one where alpha!Bucky fucks you in front of the other avengers

Warnings: smut, a/b/o dynamics, public sex, oral (f), p in v, possessiveness

Word count: 2.3k

A/N: Thank you to my lovely @wakingbeauty​ for giving this a read for me! This is strictly the product of mine and @navybrat817​‘s belief that public sex should be more common in A/B/O dynamics, so there you have it 😊 Also, I used a prompt the sweet @jbreenr​ gave me ages ago for a headcanon and I asked to save it for this story since it made such perfect sense! Hope you guys like it! I might write more public sex A/B/O smut in the very near future!

Bucky’s P.O.V.

Everyday was the same. I’d wake up and join the rest of the team for breakfast to find out that despite the fact that someone had saved me a seat, that same someone had thought of a new joke to make at my expense.

If I thought Tony’s nicknames were bad, this was a whole new level. It’s like she wanted to find all the little ways to annoy me, while still remaining mindful of my recovery process and triggers.

I’d never met an omega like that before. Back in my time, omegas were mostly prim and proper, almost shy around alphas, even if they were starting to show a little more skin and entertain the possibility of staying closer to us for longer periods of time.

I wasn’t used to someone who felt so comfortable with my intimidating aura, and the alpha in me definitely couldn’t grow used to seeing so much of her skin all the time. By now, I was sure she was doing it on purpose.

She knew how it affected me, she could smell it - every omega was able to identify when a nearby alpha was aroused. And I knew it turned her on in return. I was also biologically wired to sense that.

It was basically a game of who would break first. And I knew she thought she would win, but my resolve still wasn’t broken.

“Ah… What a lovely day. So full of possibilities… if you’re not a hundred years old,” she quickly added, throwing me a glance that had me rolling my eyes. “What do you say, grandpa? Feel like going out for a run?”

Who knows what I would have answered if she hadn’t decided to pull her hair up right at the second Wanda opened the window to look out into the field? The smile that had been on my face quickly dropped when I was hit with a heavy wave of her scent and my knees buckled as I tried to hold myself back from just jumping on top of her.

Unfortunately, because awareness was not something she seemed capable of having, she did not realize my struggle. “What’s wrong, old man? Can’t even keep up anymore?” The growl that escaped my chest at her joke was all the warning she needed to finally understand what was going on.

“I’ll show you what I can keep up.” I was on her in a second, my consciousness of our surroundings reduced to absolutely nothing. It was only her and me, and the way our lips moved as I guided her back to the couch, until we both fell on top of it.

“Is this what you wanted, huh?” I asked as I tore her shirt with a simple flick of my wrist. “Is this how you wanted it to happen? For me to lose all control and just take you right here?” All that left her was a garbled sound, her hands clawing at my back as I easily got rid of her jeans until they were nothing but scraps on the floor and then exposed her pussy to the tower’s living room.

“Fuck yes,” I growled, immediately leaning down to get a taste of her. Sweet and wet and mine, all mine. I had no idea where that possessive instinct had come from, but I would be crazy to ignore it - especially since it felt like I’d kill and die for her at that very second.

Her hips jerked up, instinctively searching for my tongue, but a breeze of clarity seemed to brush over her and make her sit up on her elbows, looking down at me. I knew what was running through her mind before she said it, and I wasn’t having any of it.

“You better lay back down and let me savor my meal,” I warned, knowing the rest of the team had gathered around to watch the show. I didn’t have to take my eyes off her debauched state to know it, but her gaze was on them, even if the rest of her body was still spread open for anyone to see, uncaring of the fact that we were being watched.

“You poked the beast, now you’ll entertain it,” Steve warned, shaking his head as if to scold us, but when I met his eyes, I could see the glint of desire in them. He wanted to be in my position, he wanted to have his own tongue shoved deep inside my girl’s pussy, and it only made me eat her more hungrily.

“Eyes on me, ‘mega,” I called out to her once I saw her eyes linger on Steve. “Let them watch, that’ll keep them away from you.” She groaned at the possessiveness in my words, but it was the sounds of someone who was relishing in it. And I was relishing in her juices.

“Fuck!” She cursed when I buried my tongue as far as it could go in her, something deep inside of me desperate to be drowning in her scent. “Should have gotten you mad before.”

The thought was amusing to me. Did she really think this was only the result of pent-up anger, and not months of desire and lust that had finally spilled from my weakened resolve?

“Well…” I started, pushing two fingers inside of her to scissor her open for me, although my scent had already made her body as prepared for an Alpha an Omega could get.

I was a bit larger than usual Alphas, though - courtesy of the serum - so I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t go through any pain whatsoever. “You keep me mad all the fucking time, kitten.”

Y/N’s P.O.V.

“With desire or anger, it doesn’t really care,” he continued, like it was any ordinary day and we were chatting in the living room, our usual teasing banter taking over the conversation, instead of him eating me out on the couch in front of all of our teammates while I was spread out for their eyes to take in.

“You’re always a tease to me, in one way or another.” His huge hands massaged the inside of my thighs as he finally lowered himself to suck on my nub again, making me instinctively buck my hips up in search of his tongue.

“Stay…” he ordered in his Alpha tone, and the whine that broke free from my chest was more animal than human now. The way he used his mouth was nothing short of sinful, licking me from ass to clit with an eagerness I had never expected the former Winter Soldier to have.

But I guess today I was discovering all of my fantasies about Bucky had been a bit misplaced. For one, I never thought he’d be the type of Alpha to take me in such a public environment.

In every dirty dream I’d had, Bucky was far too possessive to allow anyone to explore what was his - even if it was only visually - but what I’d come to learn was that while he was definitely dominating, there was a hint of exhibitionism in his craving.

He liked to have people see him break me into a million pieces only to glue me back together with a lick of his tongue. He liked that they were seeing his talent - and I had to admit, by what I saw in his friend’s stare, that they were also admiring me too.

And he got off on that. I didn’t expect it would make me get off too.

“Delicious,” he hummed when he finally pulled away from my cunt, having brought me to my release and licked it off of me. Still, an overwhelming amount of wetness covered the lower part of his face, prompting me to raise myself to my elbows and lick my own juices off of his lips, the omega in me begging to scent him as mine.

“You’re a nasty little bitch, aren’t you?” He chuckled once the surprise faded away, easily manhandling me onto my stomach, the sound of a zipper being opened denouncing that he had undressed.

“Keep fucking me and you’ll find out.” I heard him spitting behind me, a shiver running up my spine as I realized he was playing with himself while looking at me presenting for him.

“Oh, I’ll do much better than that.” That was all the warning I got before I felt the head of his member poking my entrance, slowly but surely sliding in until he had bottomed out.

My whines became intensified when he pulled me up by my hair, his free hand covering my breast to rub my nipple as he whispered, “I’m gonna claim you, sweetheart. You think you’re ready for that? Think you’ll be able to take it?”

I was quickly realizing I had severely underestimated the man inside of me, even if not to the extent he thought I had. I was not ready for that. I don’t think I ever would be, but fuck if I wasn’t gonna take it anyway.

Because it was so much better than I ever imagined it to be.

“No more playing hard-to-get,” Bucky continued, finally starting to move and immediately settling on a punishing pace. “No more teasing me with your short skirts and tempting scent. You’ll be mine now, ‘mega. Forever. How does that sound?”

God, I wanted him to do it. I wanted him to keep exercising this complete control over my body that he had so easily managed to take. His cock was stretching me in ways I’d never been stretched before, his inflated knot slamming against my opening with each thrust.

“Always mocking me… Am I too old for you now?” I shivered as he licked a stripe up my neck. I knew he wouldn’t actually bite me in front of everyone - a claiming ritual was a sacred ritual, even the most feral of Alphas respected the intimacy of that. But the way he was taunting me was all too arousing, I couldn’t deny it. “Tell me.”

His hand squeezed my hip, looking for an answer. I tried to open my mouth, but nothing came out. His palm slipped further down, finding my clit, and as two fingers rubbed my own juices, around it, I screamed.

“N-No!” Bucky chuckled against my neck, body continuing his onslaught against mine as he nuzzled my scent gland. “Y-you’re not too old for me. Take me, take me please.” His coos were too provoking, making me cry out loud at the mocking sound.

“Aw, kitten…” His warm mouth breathed the next words against my ear, “I already did.” He turned my face towards his with his fingers tangled in my hair, engulfing my mouth with his.

“Alright.” A familiar voice spoke from not too far, startling me for a second as I once again was reminded that we were still very much surrounded by our team. “You two might just be the sexiest mates I’ve ever seen fuck.”

A growl escaped Bucky’s chest at hearing someone refer to us as mates for the first time, and I panted in need, desperate to cum, desperate for him. “Seen a lot of mates fuck, Romanoff?” He nibbled at my ear, hands roaming over my body as if to make it very clear to every person watching that they could look all they wanted, I was still his.

“You have no idea.” Looking over a bit to the side from where she was seated, there rested Sam’s almost limp body, a hand curled over his boner as his eyes never wavered from the place I was connected to the man behind me.

“Well, I know what I’m gonna think about tonight.” Something between a laugh and a moan escaped me, making Bucky growl again, hands pushing me back down onto the couch as his hips picked up the pace with which they’d ruin me.

To say I was soaked was the understatement of the century. I could feel it, running down my thighs, drenching the couch underneath me. I don’t know how we’d be able to use it again, but that was the least of my concerns in the moment.

“I am begging you to let me lick her pussy after you guys are done,” came Tony’s voice, and I knew Bucky would growl in his direction just from the way his fingers pressed tightly on the flesh of my hips. “Not that type of Alpha, sorry, I got it.”

I heard his footsteps retreating quickly, probably scared of what Bucky would do to him once we were done, but in the Alpha’s defense, Tony seemed to disappear from his mind the second he left the room, all of his senses directed to me and his goal of making me cum around his cock.

“C’mon, kitten,” he whispered, fingers easily locating my clit to play with me as he pulled me up to rest against his chest one more. “Come for me, milk me dry.” That was all I needed to give him what he wanted, and although I was anticipating to moan loudly as I creamed his knot, his mouth covered mine to swallow all of my sounds in a deep kiss, hands protectively covering me while pawing at my breasts at the same time.

“Steve,” Bucky called after he managed to catch his breath, having fallen on top of me on the couch once his knot popped open. “I won’t be able to work out with you today.”

I looked up as best as I could to find Steve already staring at us, although red from head to toe. “That’s understandable,” he spoke in a thick, rough voice that I barely recognized as his. “You seem to have worked out enough already.”

Bucky stopped running his nose against my cheek at his friend’s attempt at teasing, a slow smirk taking over his face as he joined me and stared at his friend. “Oh, I’m not nearly done,” he warned. “You’re more than welcome to join us for some cardio, if you want to.”

The soft smile Steve sent our way told us everything we needed to know about his plans for the evening.

[no-droids]

Out of a Trillion

gif credit: @bestintheparsec​

Part Fifteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.6K

Warnings: uhhhh so there is a bit of SMUT in this one, not too much and I imagine if you’ve made it this far then that won’t be too big of a deal LMFAOOO uh some ANGST and my attempt at HURT/COMFORT and also violence/blood/injury description, so look out for that!

A/N: I started writing this before the season finale aired and I know we all want a bit of goodness and softness after it, but hopefully this will be okay!  I’ll start working on the next part tonight

***

Everything changes and yet somehow nothing does.  

From that point on, it’s like… like you’re both just suspended in this perpetual state of wondering, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  You know he said it’s up to you, but what the fuck?  Look whenever you want?  That’s way too much fucking pressure, he’s out of his mind.  You’re not equipped to handle that, who does he think you are?  Someone that can just… decide things?

And it’s not like you’re afraid of the commitment, or that you don’t want to look.  You do, but every single time a moment comes, it just never… feels right.  You don’t know what you’re waiting for, what feeling or meaning you’re expecting to magically present itself to you, but you can’t shake the idea that there should be more to it than just randomly deciding to open your eyes at some point, shouldn’t there?  Din said there was no ceremony, nothing fancy, and he gave you permission to look because he said he’s not allowed to ask outright, whatever that means.  It’s a standing offer because you guess he isn’t allowed to prompt it for some reason, but unfortunately, that leaves you in just about the shittiest position possible.  Now everything falls to you—initiation, execution, and consequence—and Maker knows you’ve never been that great making decisions under pressure.

But you do want to look.  Sort of.

Sort of.  Because… well, this probably won’t make that much sense, but you’re afraid.  Mostly for him.  What if he’s making a mistake?  It sounds stupid, but you’re afraid of what this means for him, the sheer perpetuity of this decision he’s now expecting you to make for the both of you.  This isn’t your creed, not yet, and you feel like there’s still so much to learn.  Not only about the Mandalorians and his culture, but about him.  To know is to love, and so you’ve taken to asking any nonsensical question you can think of whenever he’s around.  Though you weren’t expecting it at first, you’ve learned that he’ll always give you some sort of an answer.  Some of the highlights include:

“How old are you?”  (“I don’t know.  Probably mid-forties, but there’s no way to tell anymore.”)

“You don’t know your birthday?”  (No, I… think it was in the winter.”)

“What’s your last name?”  (“Djarin.”)

“Do you have any freckles?  Or moles, or birthmarks?”  (“No, none that I’ve ever noticed.”)

“Do you cut your own hair?”  (“Yes, but it’s been awhile.”)

“Do you have dimples?”  (“I don’t smile in mirrors.”)

“Are your earlobes attached or detached?”  (“What kind of question is that?”)

And so forth.

He also gives you so many fucking opportunities to look.  One right after the other.  You used to think Din was incredibly trusting with how often and voluntarily he decided to take his helmet off around you—he didn’t wait a single day once he first felt your hands on his skin to take it off in your presence.  You remember being blown away by his unexpected willingness to part with it after hearing so many tales of the Mandalorians from Kuill; stunned by the ever-present ability to just open your eyes at any moment and that’s all it would ever take.  One simple movement—life-altering, and so easy.

Now you find it nearly impossible, muscle memory just won’t allow it to happen naturally.  And yet somehow, avoiding it is like stepping around land mines.  He doesn’t trick you—he doesn’t set it up, he doesn’t surprise you or anything, but he’s… less careful.  When the kid is awake, Din acts normal—he walks around fully armored, he goes on hunts and returns a few days later with a quarry, teaches you more self-defense techniques in the cleared out hull while the kid watches and giggles at your pain from the safety of his floating crib.  But when the baby goes to sleep, he’s taken to lounging with the helmet off.  He only used to remove it to eat, sleep, or… do other things with you, but he never used to take it off just… because.  Now he does.  Now he’s less careful about darkness, less strict about how much light he allows to touch him.

Now he shares every single meal he can with you, sitting just off to the side so you’ll never see him on accident but providing the free exercise thereof should you ever decide to seek it out purposefully.  Now he interrupts you in the middle of your complaining about the bruises on your knuckles just to lift the rim of his helmet the slightest bit, lean down and give you a quick kiss, and then lower it back into position again before you can even catch a glimpse of the lips you only recognize by touch.  Now he keeps the light on when he goes to take a shower, he leaves the door cracked.

It’s starting to give you heart palpitations, you swear.  At one point, he lets you to see the entire back of his head and it nearly launches you into a fucking crisis.

It’s the middle of the night and he just got up from bed to use the restroom.  He’s quiet enough not to wake you on the way over, but then across the hull and with his back to you, Din flicks the light on in the small bathroom without closing the door.  Immediately rousing you after being so accustomed to the pitch blackness, you lift your head from the warmth of your shared pillow just enough to blearily make out the sight of him leaning a hand up against the wall and dropping his head down, and it takes you a second to realize that it’s actually him.

Soft, dark brown locks ending at his collar but somehow looking longer than you ever imagined when you’ve run your fingers through them.  Cascading in shaggy, natural curls—tall, broad shouldered and trim waisted, naked as the day he was born.  Your heart starts to squeeze in your chest and it just never stops, and for the second time in your life, you feel like he woke you up in the middle of the night just to show you one of the most beautiful things the universe ever decided to hide.  There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have ever seen a sight that would compare?  He’s just a man, you don’t think a single person would bat an eye.  But to you, he’s… his own monument.  Constructed in honor of everything dazzling that happens to lie just underneath something else.  A breathtaking view, even from this angle, that could only ever mean something to you.

Would you ever be able to know him?  No, that’s not phrased right.  What you mean is that… over the course of all your time together, you remember thinking that if he ever took his helmet off, he could walk right by you and you’d never be able to tell the difference.  He could be anybody.  There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have the same features?  Brown hair, brown eyes, sunkissed skin that only one person is allowed to kiss, not even the sun.  Would you ever be able to know him?

Staring at his back in the blissful silence of hyperspace and feeling like the Maker himself is letting you in on one of his proudest secrets, some wild thought suddenly occurs to you that… you think you would.  Somehow.

You can’t explain it and you’d never be able to prove it, but you feel like if you lined up every single person in this galaxy shoulder to shoulder, all however many trillions of them there are, then you could walk the entire length of it and somehow come to a stop right where he’s standing.  Every single time.  You feel like you could do it in the pitch black.  You could do it with your eyes closed.

And, he must just be so gorgeous.  Maybe not in a traditional sense (or maybe in one, you’d have no way of knowing), but mostly in just… the rawest sense imaginable.  Not like how symmetry and straight lines are gorgeous, but how a mountain is gorgeous.  Rocky, dangerous, steep, the product of constant conflict between two immovable sides.  He’s got scars littering his body, one of which you remember giving him yourself with a cauterizer on his lower back.  He holds himself like his shoulders could tell their own story if anyone ever asked them; built to endure, weighed down and made strong with a collection of burdens he chooses to strap to them, steel or otherwise.

You don’t want to close your eyes once Din slowly turns around to look at you, but it happens anyways and you’ve never been so disappointed in your own cowardice.

But then, in a way, it could just be your own self-preservation instincts taking over.  No matter how stunning and life changing the spectacle would be, why would anyone ever stare directly at a supernova?  For so long, you’ve told yourself that his face is something you shouldn’t ever see on principle, but in a way, you suppose it’s fair he put this decision on you because he always has, even from the very beginning.  He trusted you to keep your eyes closed for months on end and you never had a problem with it, so why is it so hard to open them now that he’s given you permission?

A couple weeks of that, and you start to worry that you’re unintentionally rejecting him.

It’s the last fucking thing you want, but how can you avoid it?  Din is… different, he notices.  He’s made a living off of finding things that inherently don’t want to be found—he knows all too well what secrecy looks and sounds like, he’s quick and observant and you don’t stand a single fucking chance against him in all the years of his practice.

But strangely, for as often as you feel like you can figure out what he’s thinking without ever seeing his face—realizing what his intentions are ahead of time and not feeling slighted when he phrases things a certain way or just chooses not to speak at all—you never truly realized how much that extended back to you.

He knows you, too.  He told you so.

For some reason, you didn’t even consider the possibility of it working just as well the other way around.  That you could choose to stay silent, and he’d know why.  You feel like the mystery of him just eclipses you in every single way that you don’t consider even yourself much of anything, much less something else to be contemplated and understood.  While you wouldn’t necessarily qualify the conflict as not being ready to commit, he seems more than willing to respect it regardless and nothing about the way he treats you or interacts with you changes.  Normally you’d say it’s like he forgot the whole thing ever happened, but it’s almost the exact opposite.  Like he was just naturally expecting it from you.

Are you truly so predictable, you wonder?  He said you’d say no.  Was he right?  You’re not saying no, you just… can’t remember the word for yes right now.  It’s right there on the tip of your tongue and the harder you work for it, the more frustrated you become with your own inability to find it.

But, instead of waiting, you think Din just decides to continue the conversation with the promise to come back to you when you finally figure it out.

Sometimes, especially when he’s gone, you find yourself thinking about what moment you’d choose, if you could.  Since you can never seem to find the right one naturally, how would it all go if you could construct everything yourself?  Where would it be?  Naboo?  No, that’s too cheesy.  One thing you and Din both have in common is your practicality, your respective propensities for wanting to tackle one thing at a time and not needing frills attached to something in order to find a deep connection to it, a personal value to it.  You weren’t even bothered when he didn’t claim you as a girlfriend to Peli, that’s how reasonable you used to be about labels.  Now you’re your own antithesis, trying to conjure meaning where there isn’t any just so you don’t feel like you’re the one who’s ripping it away.  You want this decision to feel as permanent as it is.  You want it to be a happy thing, something that happens when you’re both so in love that you can’t bear to have metal separating you any longer.

You think… you’ll just know it when the time comes.

***

“I have to leave,” comes Din’s hushed voice through the darkness, and even though it’s the first thing either of you have said in hours, it sounds frustrated.  Like it’s been bothering him for awhile and he’s just now finally telling you.  “I… fuck, I can’t stay here, I should’ve left a long time ago.”

You whine softly into the pitch black, turning your head into the pillow and curling your fingers into his hair.  “But it’s still so early…”

“It’s mid-afternoon,” he groans back, dropping his forehead down against your skin and breathing hot air along it.  “We’ve been parked here for hours, I don’t know how you can sleep so long.”

“I’m not sleeping,” you pout, before gently dragging your nails down his scalp and feeling his whole body shudder with it.  “Earlier I was.”

“Mhm,” he murmurs, leaning down to give you one last long, slow kiss.  You sigh when his tongue comes out and glides soft and hot against your lips, tightening your grip on his hair.

But soon he pulls away, lifting the covers from over his head and pushing up from between your spread legs.  “This one shouldn’t take long,” he gruffs, planting both palms next to your head and kissing you once more in the darkness, dipping his tongue into your mouth this time.  You moan softly and taste yourself on him, moving to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, but he breaks the kiss and leans back before you can, preemptively avoiding the possibility of getting lost in it.  “I’ll be back around dawn.”

You’ve known it was coming for hours now, so you’re able to play it off way better this time around.  “Okay,” you breathe softly, dragging your palms up his bare chest as he lifts himself tall over your body.  The slight disappointment underneath is so masterfully hidden, you’re almost positive you’re going to get away with it.  “Be safe.  Please.”

But then… well.  Bounty hunter.

Din pauses for a moment like that in between your open legs, letting you slowly slide your hands down his ribs and over the lines of his stomach.  You wait for him to move, find his clothes so you can get around and make some food, wake the kid up from his nap in an hour or so.  Can’t stay in bed all day, no matter how much you wish you could.

Only, he still hasn’t moved and you start to become concerned.  “Din?”

But then he suddenly groans like he just can’t help it, grabbing both of your spread legs and easily lifting them up.  You make a sound of confusion as he maneuvers them until they’re pressed together and draped over one of his shoulders, and then his hips drop and push forward to slide himself thick and perfect into your blazing hot cunt.

Still drenched and swollen from cumming in his mouth so many times earlier, you gasp and he just groans louder, a ragged thing scraping out of his throat while you struggle through blind and unexpected euphoria to reach him.  But you can’t—Din hugs your legs tight to his chest and settles in just like this, turning his head to drag soft lips and a hot tongue over your ankle before he starts fucking you.  Right up against your g-spot, with your whole lower body in the way and preventing you from slowing him down.

You just have to clap both hands over your mouth just to keep quiet since you can’t reach him.  You feel his teeth sink into the meat of your calf, hips pistoning far beyond your reach and it feels so fucking good that you almost don’t hear his gritted words against your skin.

“I have to go,” he groans, repeating it over and over until his voice begins to pull tight and it just sounds like a plea.  “I have to go, I have to go, I h—have to… h-have to go, I have to, I have to, I have…”

*** 

When Din finally steps foot out of the ship, fumbling with his rifle and cursing quietly through the modulator, it’s the middle of the night some twelve hours later.

***

Steady…

Steady………

Fire.

—and… you blink as bark splinters.

Did you…?  You look down at the blaster in your hand and then back to the ginormous charred tree trunk for a few seconds, wondering if you’re just seeing shit.

No, it’s real.  You actually fucking did it.  You…

… hit the target.

All of a sudden, your ecstatic giggle echoes loudly throughout the foresty autumn wonderland around you, reds and oranges and yellows crunching under your feet while you start to dance.

“Hey!  See that, bug!?”  You call out, shoving the blaster into your waistband and shimmying up to your enthralled audience of one, who just so happens to be smiling as wide as you are as he’s scooped up into your arms.  “I hit the target, I hit the target,” you sing, beginning to sway the baby back and forth as he squeals, laughing while you bounce him.  “No demon powers necessary, little man!  I figured it out, I just have to use one hand instead of two.  You can retire now, you’re the right age for—”

A twig snaps in the distance somewhere to your left, and you quickly spin around while reaching for the blaster behind your back.

Except all you see is a blue Twi’lek standing out amongst all the fall foliage, his hands cuffed behind his back and stumbling a few steps at a time while a considerably taller suit of beskar shoves him forward.  You relax and immediately turn to look down at the ground, trying to bite your lip so you don’t smile too hard while they both approach.  You did it—finally, you did it, you’re on top of the fucking universe right now.

You wait for them to pass by and move up the open metal ramp to the carbonite chamber, but then Din apparently decides to pause when he’s directly behind you, yanking the quarry to a sudden halt.  

You know you should probably turn around to address them, but you can’t hide the happiness from your expression, it’s way too obvious.  Though, after a moment, you decide to shyly turn to face the two men while continuing to bounce the baby in your arms, hoping that his and your matching expressions of excitement aren’t too terribly inappropriate right now.

Din looks from you to the splintered bark on the tree, and then back to you again, before slowly tilting the helmet up in a way that feels… proud of you.

“Congratulations,” he finally says, and you can hear the genuine smile hidden in the modulated drawl.

“Thank you,” you beam up at him, feeling the blood rush to your cheeks.  “Was pretty awesome.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” he tells you, and you don’t know why, but the tone of his voice makes you go so warm.  It’s not like he’s openly flirting with you, but coupled with your giddiness and sounding like that in front of a bounty he caught in record time, it just makes your heart fucking throb for him.

“It’s alright,” you murmur, shuffling your feet through the crunchy leaves below and trying to play it as cool as possible.  You have company.  “I’ll be able to do it again.”

“Let’s see it, then.”  He tips the helmet over at the tree, and you look between him and the unfamiliar quarry for a second, not used to Din just… ignoring their existence entirely for you.  It’s not like the Twi’lek has said anything or inserted himself into the situation at all, but still.  Din has one hand latched onto the cuffs behind his back to prevent him from booking it, but other than that, it’s like he’s pretending he’s not even there.

“Uh…”  You immediately feel yourself get nervous.  “I can… try.”

He nods one single time in silent encouragement, and you slowly turn to face the tree once more.  The kid stays cradled in your arm while you reach for the blaster in your waistband, removing it and using your longest finger to flick the safety off with a practiced fluidity.  Then, extending it out in front of you and taking advantage of your newfound strategy of only firing with one hand, you line up the sight and pull the trigger.

You wish you could say it hits.  It would be so fucking cool and impressive if you hit the target like that, wouldn’t it?  But it doesn’t hit.  It misses, like usual.  Miserably.  And then an amused snort comes from behind you.

“Right stormtrooper, you are—” you hear an unfamiliar accent begin to snark, but the rest of it turns into a garbled howl the second Din jerks his elbow back to slam it in his face.

You whip around just in time to see a cascade of blood pouring down blue lips and sharp teeth—holy fuck.  You gasp and take a step backwards with the kid, not horrified by the sudden display of violence (not after Din spent an hour teaching you how to do that, too) but not quite expecting it at that moment, either.  But then, well… that’s the second time he broke a quarry’s nose for addressing you with disrespect.  There was that other one he choked, you’re pretty sure—though you can’t remember exactly what initiated that.

Din yanks the bounty up the ramp without another word, leaving both you and the kid there to process while he shoves him through the hull and towards the carbonite chamber none too kindly.  However, by the time he seals the quarry to his fate and eventually makes his way back to you, you just… 

Fuck, you feel so stupid.

You shouldn’t even bother, what’s the point?  All that practice and nothing to show for it.  If you can’t even hit a stationary target with the pressure of others watching, what makes you think you’ll have any hope at all in a situation where you actually need to shoot?  Are they gonna stand still for you?  Are they gonna be as wide as a fucking treetrunk?  You’re horribly embarrassed, so downtrodden in the face of a cruel taunt that you don’t even want to look at Din when he steps in front of you.

“Hey, just try it again,” he says without delay, but the damage has already been done.  It’s not his fault, you’re just… not the kind of person who is meant to shoot a blaster, maybe.  

“Ah… it’s alright,” you look out and smile sadly at the line of trees surrounding you, wondering how it’s possible that you only managed to hit one of them this whole time.  You don’t see it, but Din quickly touches the tips of his fingers to the side of his helmet twice before you look back at him.  “I hit it earlier.  I did, I promise.  You can see the mark if you look.”

His glove reaches out to brush your hair back, so unbelievably gentle after using the same arm to shatter bone just a few minutes ago.  “I know you did.  It was a perfect shot, you hit dead center.  I see it.”

“I did it with one hand, that’s why I tried the thing,” you mumble stupidly, looking down at your feet.  Dumb.  Dumb.

A strand of your hair is tucked behind your ear.  “Wish I was here.”

You glance over at him, feeling your expression suddenly go soft with a wave of affection.  It stops all the harsh criticisms, halting your negativity in its tracks and replacing it with just… soft, abstract things.  Mostly just warm, nonsensical fluff, but one clear and resounding thought breaking through.  You wish he was here, too.

“Maybe I’ll get good at it eventually,” you sigh, slowly handing him the blaster with the barrel pointed down and away from both of you.  Din carefully takes it from you, tucking it away somewhere on his utility belt while you gaze out at the designated target and victorious char mark decorating it.  “Or hopefully just okay at it at some point.  I guess I just need to practice more, right?”

“That’s right,” he tells you warmly, catching your free wrist.  “Try using this one when you do.”  And then a lightweight piece of metal is gently pushed into your empty hand.

Your expression furrows while you quickly look down at it, and—

You go utterly still at the gift, not even knowing what to think.

The first thing that you notice is the craftsmanship.  Brilliant, structurally flawless, the perfect size to fit your hand.  You don’t recognize the specific kind of metal that was used—definitely not beskar—but you think it might be constructed from the same material as Din’s old armor.  Dull silver, but with reflective chrome filigree accents around the handle, trigger, and safety.  It’s uniquely constructed and unlike any weapon you’ve ever seen before—no hard lines or edges, just a soft fluidity to the design that’s so aesthetically pleasing, it doesn’t really even resemble a blaster at all.

You can feel the visor silently studying your reaction while you continue marveling, noticing something new every time you look.  The safety is towards the back of the chamber, just like he said it’d be.  The sight is electronic, and you examine the way it’s built directly into the barrel.

Are those extra magnets on the inside?  Is this able to micro-adjust the plasma release for the best shot?  Holy stars, it must have cost a fortune.

“Din, this is…” you can’t decide where you want to look—the gorgeous crafting, the custom design, or him.  Standing so close to you, not saying a word while you search for the right ones.  “It’s so beautiful, I…”

“Was made for you,” he murmurs.  “Had to be.”

You look back down at the blaster to stop your eyes from tearing up.  He didn’t have to do this.  This is so… sweet, such a lovely thing to do.  Don’t cry, don’t cry—

“What is this?” You ask breathlessly instead, rotating the gun until he can see the symbol branded on the handle.  You recognize that it’s his signet, but you never bothered to ask him what it’s called, you never saw it as your place.  It’s an animal of some sort, one with a giant spike attached to its skull, and you’re glad you’ve never come face to face with one.

“It’s a mudhorn,” he answers quietly.  “They’re… dangerous animals.  Fiercely protective, preferring solitude.  The kid saved me from one a few days after I met him.  It’s… the mark of my clan.”

How fitting, you think, and an honor.  Perfect for him, and a bone-deep reminder of your two favorite people in the galaxy on your hip wherever you go.

“Thank you,” you tell him, hoping the sincerity in your voice sounds anywhere close to how you feel.  You haven’t even had it in your hand for longer than a minute and it’s already your prized position, the most important thing you’ve ever called yours.

Din nods and takes a small step back.  “Now hit the target.”

Feeling invigorated and renewed in every single way, you keep the kid tucked firmly in one arm while raising your blaster with the other.  The safety clicks off and your back straightens, chin lifting until something about the angle feels… right.  The trigger moves easily under your fingertip, and there’s almost no kickback considering how light the weapon is.  What you’re not expecting is the pure white beam of plasma shooting out of the barrel—unlike any blaster you’ve ever seen before—but then the immediate sight of it hitting the tree dead center sends a roar of triumph through your ears.  Fuck yes.

“Look at that!”  Din calls out over the kid’s happy squeal, and there’s nothing you can do to stop your loud whoop of victory.  Even though you know it only hit with the addition of those extra magnets to correct your terrible aim, that still feels so good—you feel so fucking powerful and dangerous.  You glance over to Din with a wide smile, but then his arm extends out towards the trunk directly next to the one with charred bark.  “Hit that one.”

You automatically swing the blaster in that direction and shoot.  A few pieces of wood split on impact and send sharp bits flying as soon as the bright white beam collides with it.

“That one,” Din tells you, and then bark splinters a half second later.  “That one.”  Bark splinters.  “That one, that one, that one—” hit, hit, hit, white plasma flying through the air and bark splintering in rapid succession.

He stops and spins around, pointing to a tree at the very edge of the clearing.  “That one?”

It’s furthest away but the trunk’s diameter is enormous.  As you lift the blaster, you know you’re likely to get it easily with this sophisticated weapon, even across the considerable distance.  So instead, feeling like nothing at all can touch you right now and wanting to see how smart the aim mechanism is, you raise up a few degrees higher before pulling the trigger.  Pale plasma launches from the barrel, and then one of the tree’s most prominent branches comes creaking and crashing to the ground right where you split it.

You’re beaming by the time Din turns back to you, the most excited you’ve ever been with your own progress.  He holds there for a moment while you lower your blaster and wait for him to speak, both of you looking at each other and not moving, until suddenly you hear his voice coming back to you.

Hit the target and I’ll marry you.

One of Din’s hands slowly comes up to the edge of his helmet, but before you can even process the implication behind the gesture, you’re immediately looking down at the crunchy leaves under your feet and clearing your throat.

There’s a beat of silence where you stare down at the dead foliage and wonder why the fuck you just did that.  Right in front of him, right to his face, too startled at how quickly you were being confronted with the possibility that you responded in an equally startled way.  It was instinctual, automatic and entirely out of your control, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to take it back.

But… you can’t take it back.  That’s the way things are, and after a few moments, you hear his boots begin to cross the distance to you.

“Come on,” Din murmurs gently through the modulator, carefully taking the blaster from your hand and clicking the safety back on again.  “We have to get going.  The fifth quarry is far.  Three day trip through hyperspace.”

He doesn’t sound upset or disappointed by your unintentional rejection, thank the Maker.  You want to explain yourself somehow, but it appears it isn’t necessary in the slightest.  His arm wraps around your lower back and he leads both you and the baby back up the open ramp of the Crest, squeezing you close enough to his side that you have to learn how to walk in a different way to stop yourself from tripping over his boots.

The helmet turns and presses to the top of your head while you focus on moving straight.  “Proud of you,” Din murmurs quietly, and your chest fills with enough air that you’d be worried about floating away if he wasn’t latched onto you so tightly.

He eventually releases you and walks over to the armory, pressing a button to unlock the doors while you hold the kid and watch him start to remove the multitude of weapons strapped to his body.

Maybe… maybe this isn’t the right time, but something brave surges up inside you.  After receiving the most precious gift imaginable from him, hitting all those targets and hearing him say that he’s proud of you, you’re buzzing with just enough energy that for better or worse, it makes you open your mouth and ask.

“Could I… come with you this time?”

Din nearly jerks upright and looks over at you immediately, but he takes a while in responding.  You hope he sees it in your eyes.  You hope he sees just how much you don’t want to be stuck here again when this is possibly the one time you’d be able to tag along.  It’s a bullshit quarry, one he could do in his sleep, and you’ve been getting increasingly restless while stuck on this ship.

When Din eventually does respond… well, judging from his shift in tone, you’re assuming he was just shocked at the question and didn’t take any of that time to actually consider his answer.

“No.”  Short.  Unfeeling, and not sorry about it in the slightest, before turning back to return the blasters you were using previously to the armory as if you said nothing at all.

Okay…  Um.  Not great, not what you wanted to hear, but maybe if you explain yourself better, he’ll listen.

“I just… I’m the only reason you have to get this quarry in the first place.”  Your voice is quiet, trying to let go of some of the concerns you’ve kept to yourself over the past two weeks.  Your fingers fiddle idly with the kid’s little woolen sack as he hangs out in your arms, wanting to plead your case but feeling slightly nervous now.  “You were out having a crazy expensive blaster made for me while I shook hands with Karga and agreed that you’d take more work for less pay.  I hate that I did that.”

“You had no choice,” Din mutters, turning around and striding past you while pressing a button on his vambrace to close the Crest’s ramp.  “My fault for being late.”  And… for as warm and comforting as his voice sounded earlier, it now just sounds… dismissive.  Aloof.  Half-listening, not really wanting to talk but forcing himself to.

“Well this time, I thought maybe… I might be able to help?  Maybe?”  Maker, you feel yourself going quieter the more he walks around the hull and ignores you.  “Karga said it was just a missing person, not even a criminal…”

“Karga says a lot of things,” he grunts with his back to you, voice completely monotone through the modulator.

Come on, speak up.  You’ve lacked a backbone for so long, you’ll never get what you want unless you say it out loud and let it be known.  You take a deep breath and straighten your shoulders, trying to put a little bit of spine into it.  “I can be useful.  I can fight now, I’ve been working on my—” 

“You think I’m telling you no because I don’t think you’re capable?”  He suddenly whips around, voice ringing sharp and challenging throughout the hull while you freeze.  You don’t move but everything about you suddenly feels like it shrinks.

“I-I didn’t—” But he cuts you off, taking a step forward.

“I know you can fight, a Mandalorian taught you how.  I know you’re useful, I know it’s just a missing person, and I know you hate it when I leave.”  He pins you with his eyes through the visor, his tone harder than you think you’ve ever heard it before.  “No.  Your job is to stay here, on this ship, with my son, where it is safe, and my job is to go get the quarry.  Quit asking.  I’m not telling you again.”

The baby makes a tiny little distressed sound in your arms and you blink a few times up at the cold metal, feeling all the good feelings from before just… drain out of you.

Okay, that’s fine.  Uh.  You… the cockpit is behind you, you’ll go up there and fly then.  No reason, just… he should get going.

“Okay, yeah,” you nod and tell the wall over his shoulder brace in immediate agreement, before abruptly spinning around and grabbing the ladder.  Din doesn’t move a single fucking muscle while you try to find your way up to the cockpit with the baby held to your chest and a dead stone sitting heavy inside of it, hoping your face doesn’t show the vulnerability you feel wanting to take over as you retreat.  Get to the cockpit first, get to the cockpit first, get to the—

“Sweet girl, I…” you barely hear murmured through the helmet from the floor, soft enough to sound slightly shocked, but you scramble into the cockpit and shut the door behind you before he can say anything else.

***

Silence didn't used to feel like this.

At first it was eerie, unnatural and stifling when you spent years in a wide open desert, wind swirling and dust pelting.  It suffocated you the first few times you jumped into hyperspace, a phenomena you read all about and considered mathematically fascinating before ever experiencing for yourself.  It was… foreign and strange, but you began to value it more and more as time passed.

Then, you started to get to know him and silence just became comforting.  Something you could bask in, knowing it was a comfort to him.  A choice he made because it just fit him best.  You felt safe in it, you felt like you didn’t have to be anything else but you.  You never had to break it just to avoid awkwardness, you became… closer to it, until you learned to fall in love with it.

But only when he was with you and it was his silence.  Not… everything else’s.  Now it’s haunting again.  Now the sheer lack of sound through hyperspace is a stranger to you, and the distortion of light surrounding the cockpit feels less about the sheer magnificence of manipulating space time and more about the fundamental disconnect it causes.  Gorgeous, but at its core, a severance.  Ripping the fabric of the universe apart, tearing a wound in it.

It’s been a few hours and nothing exceptional has happened since your conversation in the hull.  

You’ll admit that you’re a sensitive person, and because of that, you’ve always had a problem knowing if you were right or wrong when someone comes at you with a hard enough will.  You second-guess yourself, it’s one of your worst traits, and you feel like trying to squash that tendency without knowing the limit is partially to blame for why you’re holed up in this cockpit with the kid.  You’re quiet but in a different way from Din.  When he doesn’t speak, it’s because most of the time, he’s sure of himself and doesn’t need to.  When you don’t speak, it’s because most of the time, you’re insecure and don’t want to.

After being left alone with your thoughts for this long, you’re starting to realize that… he was right.  What were you thinking, wanting to tag along?  Wanting to hang out while he risks his life for this occupation, you probably sounded so fucking ignorant.  Maybe… maybe he didn’t have to say it like that, but his point is still very valid and you’re not sure if you’re really justified in hiding like this anymore.

The way he said… your job, though.  That still stings a bit.  This hasn’t felt like an actual job in a very long time.  Was that just an expression, or did he mean it literally?  You’re stuck on it, you’ve just been going over this for hours in your head, trying to figure out if you should be the one to apologize or not—or if this is just you overreacting from the start and no apologies will be necessary at all.

“Sorry you got stuck with me, kid,” you mutter sadly to the baby, watching him fiddle with his favorite metal ball in your lap.  He makes a little gurgle, purring in that weirdly adorable little way of his and it somehow feels like a reassurance directed to you that he’s just fine the way he is.

Maker, you haven’t heard anything from the hull in a fucking eternity; it’s like Din turned into a ghost, hasn’t even made a single footstep that you could hear since you last left him standing there.  You remember performing a quick flight check as soon as you got up here, lifting off as fast as you could and hoping the thrusters would rumble loud enough to cover your series of pitifully shallow sniffles at being yelled at unexpectedly by a very large and intimidating man, not really crying but not really able to breathe normal either.  The little monster was able to wiggle himself around in your lap as you were trying to punch in the correct coordinates for the fifth quarry with rapidly blinking, watery eyes, and then proceeded to give your belly the smallest hug you think you’ve ever been given and pretty much break your heart with it.

Lovely little boy, so sweet when he wants to be.  He’s sat with you this whole time, he even tried giving you his metal ball to play with but ultimately decided to keep it to himself when he realized you aren’t nearly as fascinated by it as he is.  You know it’s probably getting late for him, and you’ve been weighing the idea of handing him over to his father so he can at least get a good night’s sleep somewhere that isn’t your arms.  There’s no blankets in here, just your lap.

“I think I gotta go take you to your dad soon, tiny.  He’s probably missing you,” you tell him, trying to keep quiet enough that you won’t disturb Din in the hull.  There’s a good chance he’s already asleep.  “I think… he might still be mad at me.  Maybe you can give him the big eyes, soften him up a little?”

Right on cue, his enormous eyes start to droop closed, and you let out a tired sigh of exasperation.  That’s not gonna work, come on.  They gotta be open, booger.

You watch him slowly drift to sleep, his ears relaxing until they too start to droop, but when you try to take the ball from him and set it down on the console, his eyes immediately pop back open and the toy slips from your fingertips.  It levitates right back into his tiny hands as you watch, and then he closes his eyes once more while tightly cuddling the thing he loves most to his body.

Unbelievable.

He’s a child, and yet he’s…

“How are you so strong?”  You ask him, unable to even fathom.  “You’re the smallest, most helpless little thing I’ve ever seen and you’ve got such… strength.  You defy the universe for a piece of metal.”

He doesn’t hear you, you think he’s asleep again.  It’s just as well, you figure.  He needs to go sleep in his crib, it’s time.  You scoop him up and make sure the little ball stays tucked snugly in his arms, before finally standing up and stumbling over to the door on numb legs.

Only, when it slides open, you quickly stop short.

Because there, sitting on the floor and resting his helmet against the corner of this small little platform leading to the ladder, is the Mandalorian.

So much closer than you expected him to be.  So big, crammed into such a tiny place.  You didn’t hear his footsteps climbing the ladder, and you would’ve noticed it during the hours you’ve spent in the suffocatingly muted quiet of hyperspace.  He can be silent but not when absolutely nothing else exists and he’s got a thousand fucking pounds of steel weighing him down at any moment in time.  You took off almost immediately once you barricaded yourself inside the cockpit, so has he… did he follow you up in those last few seconds, right after you shut the door?  The ones when you were sniffling like a child and trying desperately to turn the thrusters on before you let the tears come?

His head lifts and his back straightens as you’re looking down at him with his sleeping son cradled in your arms, your eyes slightly redder than they should be.  You’re a mess and… he’s been here this whole time?

“Could you hear me in there?”  You whisper in sudden mortification, but Din just keeps gazing up at you through the impenetrable metal visor.  A complete mystery again.  Unreadable—he could be anyone.

When he doesn’t answer you, your heart twists with the possibility that he’s still upset with you, and you quickly turn to the ladder to figure out the best way to get down without jostling the baby.

“I’m sorry.”  His voice stops you dead in your tracks.  It’s so soft, nearly flipping in and out of the modulator from the lack of volume, the most cautious sounding thing you’ve ever heard coming through the filter.  “I… hurt your feelings.  I’m sorry.”

And…  Maker, if anybody else had said it.  If literally anybody else had said it, you know it would’ve sounded like the most sarcastic, dickish remark in such a delicate moment.  But, you also remember him telling you once that you were tenderhearted.  That the galaxy would never be as kind to you as you are to it.  This… comes out sounding like he’s trying to change that.

It comes out sounding like he’s trying to use his voice to hold you because he doesn’t think you want to be touched right now.  Like… like he’s doing everything he can to be as careful as possible here because you think he might be attempting to do something he’s never done before.  Apologize for saying something he didn’t mean.

“You don’t have to,” you quickly tell him.  He’s not good with words and apologies are difficult enough to phrase for normal people, you don’t want him to fret over it if that’s what this is.  “It’s okay, I know you’re not… you don’t have to.  It was stupid of me to ask.”

“It wasn’t,” he instantly counters, his voice finally seeming to find the floor when it was just hovering before.  Not loud—still gentle, still making sure the kid doesn’t wake up and you’re not frightened away, but a bit more grounded this time.  “It wasn’t… what I wanted to hear, and I didn’t take it well.  Not stupid.”

“It was stupid,” you return amicably, looking down at your feet.  “That’s not my… job, like you said.”

Din suddenly hangs his helmet down to his chest, pressing his gloves to the part that curves over his forehead and rubbing it.  “Shit.  I didn’t mean—”

“You were right,” you acknowledge, having spent the past few hours coming to the understanding that it’s the hard truth and he just phrased it poorly.  “I’m not… built for it, I’d only get in your way.  I barely just managed to shoot stationary targets with a blaster today, and that’s only with that aim corrector built into the barrel.  I’m here to be helpful, not—”

“What are you saying?”  He suddenly lifts the beskar to study you, sounding genuinely confused.  “What aim corrector?”

That… makes you pause.

“The, uh…”  Now you’re confused.  “The one that adjusts the plasma release on the gun you gave me.”

He doesn’t move an inch or say a single thing to you in response and you awkwardly shuffle your feet for a second, everything so quiet that you can hear every little snore that goes in and out of the kid’s tiny button nose.

You blink at him after way too long of that, not knowing why he still hasn’t said anything.  “There’s an electronic sight and like a bazillion extra magnets packed into the barrel, Din, what else could—”

“Sweet girl, that’s… that’s for the Philithiorium,” Din breathes out, like he’s absolutely blown away by you right now.  “That gas is less stable than normal canisters, it takes more magnets to focus the white beam without overheating the metal.”

You stare at him, not truly processing.  He’s saying that… you made all those shots today without any help at all?  By yourself?

Your eyebrows furrow and you blink a few times, but then his slow, heavy sigh echoes throughout the metal walls with disappointment… and you don’t think it’s directed towards you.

“You’re just… always so unsure of yourself.”  He sounds genuinely distraught as his helmet tips down to look at the ground.  “I made that worse today.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you quickly shake your head, your chest already beginning to loosen slightly by just being around him, hearing his voice, seeing the metal glint under the fluorescent light overhead when he’s in such a vulnerable position on the floor.  “It’s okay, let’s just… pretend neither of us said anything at all, okay?”

“Is that what you really want?”  He asks you after a moment of quiet, and for some reason, you hear something in your mind tell you that his arms look so nice right now, don’t they?  You could fit right there, perfect and safe again.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” you smile at him, feeling a bit of the ache trapped inside you continue to work itself out little by little.  You’ll be back to normal soon, it’s fine.

“No, I mean… do you really want to come with me?”  Din asks you, the words sounding cautious.  Confused, like he truly never expected the proposition from you at all.  “Or… do you just not want me to go?”

Oof, what a fucking question.

Why would he ask this?  It’s not pointed; it’s the softest, gentlest inquiry you’ve ever been posed.  Maybe in other circumstances, you’d say that him leaving doesn’t have anything to do with it, but… you’re certain that internally, it absolutely does have at least something to do with it and he was just able to know it before you did.  Which is probably why his sharp words seemed all the more cutting earlier.  It hurt because he said the truth first, verbalized a very deep insecurity you’ve been trying to hide from him and threw it right in your face when shutting you down.

Though, if it worked differently and you were the one who had to be away while he stayed here, you’d like to think you’d handle it way better than how it is now.  At least you’d have a real mission to focus on, new things to see and experiences to have.  You just feel… confined sometimes.

You take a deep breath and figure you’ll use sitting down as an excuse to think for a second.  There’s practically no room but you find it in the back of the cockpit near the doorframe anyways, doing your best to keep the kid level while you slowly lower yourself to the ground near him.  Not touching him, but close.

“I just… I lived my whole life stuck in one spot, wanting to see the galaxy,” you finally admit to him, staring at his chestplate but seeing the helmet tilt slightly in your peripheral.  “Sometimes it’s just… hard to see the galaxy and still be stuck in one spot, I guess.”

“…You want an adventure,” Din proposes quietly, and though there’s not a single hint of mockery in his voice, you suddenly feel like it’s really fucking dumb when he phrases it like that.  What are you, an eight year old?  Wanting to go on an adventure, see things you’ve never seen without any concept for real life?  Credits?  Time?  Resources?

You shrug a shoulder to make it seem like it’s no big deal.  Why is he even entertaining this right now?  “It’s stupid, I kn—”

“Like on Naboo,” he goes on, ignoring your harsh self-criticism, not allowing you the ability to even get it out once he heard the first couple words.  “Going through the forest, seeing that waterfall.  Someplace to find for yourself.  Explore.  Experience.”

You… you want it so badly that you think your eyes might tear up just hearing the words coming out of his mouth when he says them like that.  Like he… just inherently understands.  He knows.

He knows you.  He’s not good with words and yet he found the single most succinct way to put what you thought was a complex yearning without even trying.  You can’t even answer him, he hit the target dead on and you’re left with nothing to say that wouldn’t just be a miserable lie.

“Okay,” Din says after a moment, giving you a small nod.

You’re lost now.  “…Okay?”

“You’re never going on a hunt with me,” he tells you very seriously, no room for arguing.  “Ever.  And not because you can’t handle it, understand?”  He inhales, quickly adding on to his response before you’re able to analyze it the way you want to.  “But if you want an adventure, then… I can try and find a way to give you one.”

Stars.  He’s… too kind.  You somehow feel like it’s more than you deserve.  You were honestly hoping to just shadow him on a hunt, watch him work and stay well out of the way when he needs you to.  Helping if you think you’d be of any help; an extra set of eyes and hands.  You would’ve been fine even if he didn’t apologize for raising his voice at you, he doesn’t have to do this for you.

“Thank you,” you say for the third time today, feeling like each one has somehow multiplied in sincerity.

“It can’t be right now,” he quickly tells you, apologetic but earnest about it.  “I have to find the quarry, and I’m supposed to meet with Karga again in a week.”

You never did let him know about the other part of the deal you made with Karga, you admit.  Four pucks, no hassling, no hard time constraints.  That’s what you shook on, but you just never found a way to bring it up to Din.  Especially since you’ve been so preoccupied with hiding your growing disappointment from him whenever he has to go.

“If…” you pause, wondering the best way to phrase this.  Yikes, this is a toughie.  “Um.  If Karga… I don’t know, hypothetically, if Karga decided to loosen the time constraints back to the way they were before the Corellian bounty, would you… still need to meet with him again in a week?”

You don’t think he even bothers shuffling through all those words.  “Say what you mean.  Please.”

“That was part of the deal I struck with him,” you quickly explain.  “You can hunt on your own timetable again and he’ll keep giving you four pucks like before, no more or less after this one extra quarry.  It’s like a… replacement of sorts, for the one I kept you from getting the time before.  If credits aren’t an issue, you can take more than a week.  But only if you want to, you don’t have to.  It’s just there and you should know, that’s all.”

He takes his time responding, lifting his helmet just the slightest bit in… surprise?  Maybe?

“You never told me you did that,” Din finally murmurs.

“Ah.  Well.”  You look down at the sleeping kid in your arms.  “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to… keep you here.”

It genuinely is a struggle for you, and you think he’s just now realizing that.  As much as you know he gets frustrated with you for always wanting him to be here when he physically can’t be, you think it’s only now that he’s truly realizing the lengths you go to in order to stomp that part of you down whenever you feel it threatening to come up.  You allowed him to leave every single time without telling him he could stay, knowing that all that was left for you was babysitting and target practice for days on end.

“Will you come over here?”  Din finally asks, and the tone of his voice just punches you in the chest.  So soft, so distressed from having you so close yet so far from him and just… full of a quiet hope, like he’s fully expecting you to say no.

“Will we fit?”  You whisper after a moment, even quieter.

He doesn’t answer, he just reaches for you.  You do your best to scoot over to him without waking the kid, and then Din pulls you the rest of the way once he has a grip.  You go right into his arms, laying sideways across his lap and supported by his steel embrace.

Oh, it’s not comfortable but you’ve also never been more fucking comfortable.  One of his knees lifts and allows you to rest your back against it without worrying about falling over sideways and down the ladder to the hull, thank the Maker.  The beskar pauldron over his shoulder digs into your cheek, but Din immediately pushes an arm up to nudge his helmet off and make it better for both of you.  Your face automatically fits into the crook of his neck while he sets the beskar on the bend of his knee, and then he silently cradles you while you do the same to his little boy… who does the same to his favorite metal ball.

“Ni tar’tayl su,” he murmurs into your hair, the one phrase in Mando’a you do recognize, especially with how beautiful and elegant it sounds rolling off his tongue.  “Forgive me.  Ni ceta.”

You sigh your contentment and melt into him, well aware that you’d still be more comfortable in bed.  But when you’re pressed hard against his chest like this and the baby is fast asleep in your arms, you get to feel both of them breathing.  Din’s right lung is probably bigger than the kid’s whole entire body, but you like the radically different cycles they go through.  You think you count six full breaths coming from the brown sack in your palms for every one of Din’s and two of yours.  It creates the most beautiful little symphony that sometimes gets a little off track, but always finds its way back around again.

“How do you say…”  You ask, feeling his hand slowly move down the curve of your spine, mindless and hypnotic.  It catches the edge of your shirt and goes underneath, and even though it’s not his bare hand and there’s no skin to skin, it still feels so good.  Not sexual or sensual even, just… a comfort to you.  “In Mando’a, how do you say… out of a trillion?”

Din’s breaths pause for just a second, his portion of the synchronized rhythm faltering.  Soon it starts back up, and his head turns to press his lips against your hair.

“I don’t think there’s a word for it,” he admits, gently brushing a thumb across the baby’s forehead while he snoozes.  “There could be, but I don’t know it.  I’d use… out of a million million millions.  Dayn alanyc bal alanyc bal alanyci.”

Your eyes begin to drift closed, exhausted from keeping them open after shedding a few tears earlier.  Your first fight and you’re already completely in love with him again after a handful of hours of sulking and one conversation.  How is that possible?  You’re normally a very forgiving person and it wouldn’t have taken much to make you feel better, you just never expected him to… actually want it from you that badly, care enough about it to get on the floor and ask.

Din doesn’t move the entire night through.  You assumed he’d make everyone get up at some point and move to the hull, but he doesn’t.  You fall asleep against his chest, comforted by the silence once again.

***

The next morning, Din quietly climbs into the cockpit while you’re humming in the shower.  You’re too busy basking in the indoor rainfall to feel the ship pull out of hyperspace, and then jump back into it a few moments after.

***

“How long do you think you’ll be this time?”  You ask two days later, sitting on the extended flattop of Din’s old cot and swinging your legs back and forth.  The baby is currently sitting on your lap and trying to roll the metal ball down your knee so you’ll kick it in the air, you think, because he keeps dropping it at different moments and forcing you to stop moving your legs to prevent accidentally denting a wall.  Every time the ball clatters to the floor, he makes a sad sound and it immediately lifts back up into his tiny hands for another try.

Heavy boots clang against the metal floor as Din drops down from the ladder, having just landed the Crest on the surface of whatever planet you’re on.  “I’m not leaving yet.”

“Oh…”  You blink, surprised.  “Okay.”

“I wanted to do some more training with you first, if that’s okay.  You can say no if you want, but maybe not,” Din drawls, striding over to the armory and opening it.  He carefully removes your blaster from the front shelf, speaking with his back to you.  “You’re going to run.”

“Um.”  You take a moment to glance around the enclosed hull, before turning to look back at him with your eyebrows raised.  “What, like… in place?”

Din sighs and closes the armory before leaning back against the doors, rubbing the face of the helmet in exasperation.  “From me, sweet girl.”

Your legs stop swinging, and the baby grumbles and slaps three fingers against your knee.  “What?”

“We’re on Sanctuary II,” he explains, turning to grab his black bag from one of the storage shelves.  He unzips it and reaches back into one of the larger pockets on his utility belt, before grabbing a handful of credits and stuffing them inside.  “It’s a moon, the New Republic occupied it years ago and made it a safe world for refugees and orphans of the Empire.  You’ll have your blaster, some credits, a communicator, and a day head start.  You’re going to run from me.  Show me how much you’ve learned.”

Is… he for real?

Right now?  You don’t even know how to respond, you’re too surprised.  Even when Din approaches and carefully trades the kid for your blaster, setting the bag down next to you on the metal bed, you still haven’t answered him.

“If you want?”  He asks after a moment, and you quickly jerk your head into a nod and jump off the raised platform, almost knocking into him with your sudden excitement.

“Okay!  Fuck yeah,” you grin, but Din shakes his head.

“Rules,” he says seriously, and you quickly do your best to frown, trying to compose your thrilled expression to match his tone.  “One.  This is a safe world, but things can always happen.  You have a blaster now, but it’s for emergencies only.  Do not shoot me with it.  Do you understand?”  You nod, but Din reaches forward to grab your elbow.  “Out loud, please.  For me.”

“I will not shoot you with this blaster,” you vow obediently, carefully cradling the precious firearm in your hands.

“Do not shoot me,” he repeats while pointing a leather finger at you.  “Do not… shoot at me.  Near me.  Around me.  No, just—don’t shoot.  Unless I am… very far away.  Okay?”

Well, he didn’t have to phrase it like that.  You frown, but acquiesce regardless.  “I will only resort to blastering if it’s an emergency and you are not around.”

He nods a thank you for putting it into better words.  “Second rule.  Since you don’t have a ship, I won’t either.  We’re on foot.  I don’t doubt you can hotwire a piece of junk to do what you need it to do, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t.  Good?”

Entirely accurate and entirely fair.  “Good.”

“Three,” he says.  “I’ll have the kid with me, which is both good and bad news for you.  Good news is he’ll slow me down, bad news is I can’t promise he won’t also try to intervene at some point if you’re serious about putting up a decent fight.  What I can promise is that I won’t encourage it.”

“Reassuring,” you nod.  “Also not really a rule.  Please continue.”

“Four.”  He pauses for a second.  “I think I’m wanted by the New Republic.”

You nearly jerk back.  “What?”

“I can’t confirm it and I’m not proud of it,” Din quickly tells you, probably the vaguest possible explanation he could provide.  “I’m only telling you so that you’ll know your advantage and find a way to exploit it.  I can’t be seen by any officers, or they might arrest me.”

Is he fucking serious?  “I don’t want you to be arrested, Din, I—”

“I won’t be,” he assures you.  “They owe me one, I just don’t want to cash in yet.  Trust me.”

You… do.  Insanely, and against every logical thought flittering through your head, you do.  If you were ever going to bet money that someone would be able to navigate a safe world on foot without being caught by the numerous officers scattered across the surface, then you’d put all your credits on Din Djarin.  It… also shouldn’t really surprise you at all that the people seeking his incarceration also owe him a favor, should it?  It actually sounds right on par for him.  “Okay.”

“Fifth, and this one is important, so listen up,” he continues gruffly.  “You check in with me tonight over the e-comm, alright?  I don’t care where you are or how safe this planet is, if you don’t check in, I’ll come find you before the sun rises.  Say you understand me.”

“I understand you,” you tell him, your heart beginning to pound in your chest at the reality of this actually happening.  “I’ll check in tonight.”

“And if,” he goes on, “by some miracle, you manage to make it more than a full day, you check in with me tomorrow night, too.  Say it.”

“I will check in with you every single night for the full five days it’ll take you to find me,” you assert, the adrenaline starting to make you brash and giddy.  

Din tilts his helmet at you sternly.  It is a very, very stern tilt.  “Okay.  New plan, forget everything I just said.”

Your expression furrows.  “What’s the new plan?”

“That is the new plan,” he says, dead serious.  “Us.  Not doing this.”

“Oh, come on,” you grin cheekily up at him, poking his chestplate.  “I’m just giving you some motivation to find me quicker, that’s all.”

Din stares down at you, and… yeesh.  Tough crowd.

“Tell you what,” he finally grunts, sounding incredibly unamused with your jesting.  “If you can last that long with only a day head start, I’ll let you come with me to collect the fifth quarry.  You can even cuff the bastard yourself.”

You know it’s just because he’s rightly confident in his own deadly skill, but hearing him propose the possibility still shoots a thrill down your spine.  “Oh ho, you are gonna regret saying that, shiny,” you beam up at him, starting to hop back and forth on each foot with excitement.

“But if I’m able to find you, you can’t ask me ever again,” he finishes shortly, and you immediately go still in front of him.

“What?”

“If I’m able to find you in five days, I don’t want to hear about you coming with me on a hunt and you can’t ever ask me not to go on one,” Din tells you, his voice rough and gravelly through the modulator.  Not mean or harsh, but firm.  “From now on, it’ll be off-limits.”

You… take a moment, not knowing if you should feel scolded or not.  When you don’t immediately say anything in response, he sighs and turns the helmet away from you.

“Leaving is hard enough as it is,” he mutters, looking at the ground.  “Hearing you ask… makes it impossible.”

You slowly lower your gaze to the floor as well, feeling your heart constrict tight in your chest.  There’s a real pull under his voice, telling you that information even though it sounds like he doesn’t really want to admit it out loud.  It… really is a struggle for him too, then.  You understand.

“Okay,” you nod.  There’s not a single part of you that actually thinks you’ll be able to stay hidden from him for five days while stuck on foot, so this is essentially a given.  You’re not thrilled about the idea, but you’re going to do your best to respect it nonetheless, especially if he cares enough to put off hunting and allow you this experience for yourself.  It’s a better compromise than you ever imagined, and you’ll do everything you can to hold up your side of the bargain.

Din clears his throat and straightens his spine, turning the visor until it faces you head on once more.  “Final rule.  I reserve the right to break any rule we just agreed to, or any fucking rule in this galaxy to keep you safe.  Good?”

Your cheeks flush with heat, your stomach suddenly filling with butterflies.  He doesn’t do that.  Din says what he says or he doesn’t say anything at all, there’s no… taking things back, he’s already breaking his own code.

“What happened to The Way says no take-backs?”  You ask quietly.

“This is my way,” he answers you.  Quick, not even taking a moment to think about it, before pulling out a fancy looking wristwatch thing and clipping it on you himself.  “This is your communicator.  It takes more power than the one you have now but it’ll reach a further distance.  I have one just like it, they’re locked into the same frequency and timesynced together, and the batteries need to be charged every three days.  If you make it that long, I’ll remind you.”  Din grabs the bag while you slide your arm into it, helping you hook it around your shoulder with one hand while he cradles the kid in his other.  Your heart is pounding now, pumping with adrenaline as he pulls you towards the middle of the hull and then wraps an arm around you.

“Hey,” he murmurs, pulling you tight to him and pressing the helmet to the crown of your head.  His voice is barely a whisper through the modulator.  “Gar darasuum.”  For an eternity.

You find some way to wrap your arms around him, even with your blaster in your hand and the kid hanging out in his dad’s other arm.

“Dayn alanyc, bal alanyc, bal alanyci,” you murmur dutifully against the beskar chestplate, knowing your accent is probably butchering the words but hoping they still carry the same sentiment.

And then you’re squeeeeeezed hard enough to get a little air out of you, before you’re let go and he turns around, pressing a button on his vambrace so the ramp begins to lower.

It’s bright outside but not too bright, and everything is warm and gentle and breezy, right in the middle of a lush plain.  You inhale the fresh air into your lungs, looking out across the wide open field, having no fucking clue this is where your day would be leading when you woke up this morning.  Oh Maker, it’s gorgeous here.  Not like Naboo, where every single thing is picturesque and fit for an e-card, but in a soft, understated kind of way.  The sky is a canvas of swirling pastel clouds, pale pinks and yellows and blues, and the communicator on your wrist lets you know that it’s just after noon here.

You take one single step down the ramp, before immediately stopping and turning around to bite your lip at him.

“How am I… how am I supposed to outrun you?”  You ask, already clueless.  “You’re too good, better than me at everything.”

“That’s not true,” Din reminds you sternly, grabbing your hand at your side.  “You already know who’s after you, that’s an advantage nobody else has ever had against me.  You know how I think.  I don’t know how, but sometimes it’s like you can…”  He slowly shakes his head.  “See me.  Through the metal.”

“But… but that works both ways,” you point out, breathless at hearing him say that but needing to focus right now.  “You know me, too—you’ll know exactly where I—”

He shakes his head again, but quickly this time.  “Remember what I told you a long time ago?  What your best weapon is?”

You… do not.  He told you so many things, and you’re assuming every single one of them is going to come into play during this endeavor if you want to outlast.  You’re going to have to think back and remember all of them individually, find the time to figure out your best plan of action based on the remarkably little you know about how he hunts.

“You’re smart, remember?”  Din murmurs, squeezing your fingers.  “Your mind works differently, it sees things in ways I’ll never be able to, not even with this helmet.  So…”  He shrugs a shoulder like it’s the simplest thing in the galaxy.  “Don’t try to outrun, okay?  Just try to outsmart.”

You give him a nod after a moment, still not really sure about it, before giving his hand one last squeeze in return and eventually letting go.  

Outsmart.  Outsmart him, use what you know about him to be the most elusive quarry he’s ever hunted down.

As you make your way down the ramp, you’re already thinking.  His helmet tracks footprints, that’s a thing you know.  You’ll have to find someone to trade shoes with, then—yours aren’t too beat up, maybe you can find a local who’d appreciate a better pair.  Are you going to a city?  Would there be one in walking distance?  The wilderness won’t work, you’ll be too exposed and it would make you an easy target for either him or wild animals.  The weather seems clear here though, and you don’t think you’ll need to worry about rain or snow, but if—

“Oh—but when you do see me,” Din decides to add when your feet finally touch the grass, and you pause once more to turn around and look at him.  He stays quiet for a second, studying you through the helmet for too long.  Like the anticipation is getting to him already.

You bite your lip back at him and adjust the bag on your shoulder, tummy swirling with nerves and excitement.  He tilts the visor up, gazing down at you from the hull with the kid tucked in his arms.

“Try to outrun,” he says gruffly, before turning back into the ship and letting the ramp slowly close behind him.

[critrolesideblog]

"Do you enjoy card games?" At this query, Caleb looked up slowly, finally, from the Aeorian tome he had been frowning at all day.

It was the third day of a forced respite from their Aeorian expedition. They had been beset on their last outing by a three-headed abomination that, though quickly vanquished, had left Caleb with a series of nasty bites that bled with alarming profusion. A couple of healing potions had stopped the bleeding and partly healed the wounds, but they stubbornly refused to heal up entirely. So, at Essek's insistence and Caleb's reluctant acceptance, they were taking a break.

Caleb had spent their "break" thus far puzzling over an incomplete Aeorian formula with increasing frustration and, despite Essek's efforts at reassurance, guilt at delaying their explorations. Caleb had stubbornly refused both Essek's help and his suggestions that he work on something else for a while. So, Essek moved to Plan C.

"I, ah, ja, I suppose so," Caleb replied, azure eyes glancing down to Essek's hands, deftly shuffling the deck he had procured from the second floor of the tower. "Although, it has been some time since I've played one."

"It has for me as well." Essek glided around the desk Caleb was seated at to place himself on the opposite side, as Caleb considered him thoughtfully, and as he seated himself, the Zemnian wizard gently closed the tome with a small sigh and made space on the desk by unceremoniously shoving a small mountain of wadded-up, discarded parchment onto the floor, to the annoyed meows, chitters, and huffs of a number of the tower cats. "It's been at least," Essek took a large breath and let it out in a slow sigh, making a production of thinking over the many decades it had been since his last game with Verin. "Oh, at least 70 years, maybe 80." Caleb leveled a deadpan gaze at him for his efforts, though he was unable to completely school the muscles at the corners of his lips that wanted to form a smirk at his little one-upmanship. Essek allowed himself a satisfied grin in return. "Still, I thought it might be a pleasant diversion."

"Do you have a particular game in mind, old man?" Ha. Essek considered the possibilities, unsure of which, if any, games spanned their two cultures.

"Hm, there was one Verin was particularly fond of when we were children. The cards are dealt evenly between the players," he explained and began dispensing the cards. "And the goal is to obtain the entire deck. Without looking, we each take turns flipping cards over into a pile in the center, until someone plays a face card. When that happens, the next player tries to beat the value of the previous card, Aces being of greatest value, and whomever has the highest card claims the pile."

"Simple enough."

"Indeed, but when Verin played, he was fond of what he called..." He paused to consider how best to convey it in Common. It was odd the random words that came up as blank spots in his vocabulary. Punch...? No, not punch. "How do you say it ... There is a word, I think, for when you hit something with your palm?" He mimed the motion of doing it to someone's face.

Caleb raised an eyebrow, a bemused expression settling on his features. "A slap?"

"Yes!” Now that Caleb said it he was certain he had heard it before. “He liked to play with...” He paused to consider the translation again. “Slap rules."

"Slap rules?"

"When two cards of the same value are played in a row, or on either side of a single card, any player may slap their hand down and claim the pile, whomever is quickest."

"Alright, I think I've got it." They each scooped up their respective piles of cards and formed them into neat stacks in their hands. "Shall we?" There was a glimmer of friendly competitiveness in Caleb's eyes that made Essek's heart-rate tick up a little.

"After you."

They took turns flipping over cards, slowly at first, random numbers of varying colors stacking one on top of the other until Caleb, at last, turned over a Jack. "Ah, let's see if you can beat that, Her Thelyss." Essek dealt his next card. Six. He let out a little huff of disappointment as Caleb slid the pile towards himself with the ghost of a grin hovering around his mouth.

"Danke." He said, adding the pile to his hand.

"Ole hyvä." Essek deadpanned. Amusement crinkled the edges of Caleb's eyes, and an increasingly familiar warm affection took up residence in Essek's chest. They began again, flipping the cards a little faster this time.

Thump. Caleb blinked with surprise as Essek claimed the pile. He moved his hand back slightly to reveal the most recent cards - two threes in a row. "Aaah, right, slap rules."

"Indeed."

They began again, flipping the cards over a little faster still. Essek glanced up at Caleb's face. The guilt and frustration that had tugged on his features the past two days seemed to have released their grip, in favor of intent observation. He looked back down -- two eights! Their hands collided as they both reached for the pile at the same time, but Caleb eked out a victory, his fingers managing to slip just under Essek's. Caleb gave a soft "ha!" as he claimed the pile, and Essek found himself grinning as well, despite the loss. He had not considered that their hands would inevitably touch over the course of this game, but he couldn't say he minded.

"You can imagine, perhaps," he said slowly as they began turning over cards again, resolutely watching the cards this time, "two little Drow boys slapping the cards, and each other, with increasing enthusiasm as the game goes on." Caleb chuckled.

"I can indeed. In Blumenthal, we had a game where we just slapped each other's hands to see who was fastest, no cards needed." Both of their hands shot out - a nine flanked by a pair of fives this time. Again, there was Caleb's warm hand under Essek's instead of cardstock. He made a show of hissing with frustration, baring his fangs a little, but he was sure it was belied by the grin still tugging at his mouth. Caleb didn't seem the least bit intimidated as he added the cards to his hand, amusement crinkling the eyes again. The warm affection steadily blooming in Essek's chest grew warmer still. They began again, and after a moment of dealing cards in companionable silence, Caleb asked, "What is he like? Your brother?"

A memory filled Essek's senses. He and his brother were in a ballroom on the Thelyss estate. Members of various Dens and the upper echelon of the military were milling about them to the strains of soft music and polite conversation. Verin was grinning with a brash pride at being appointed Taskhand, chin held high, chest puffed out. A gleeful victory polished his silver eyes to shining. Earlier that evening, Essek had retied the bun neatly collecting his little brother's many braids to make sure he was presentable for the ceremony. Verin had ruffled Essek's hair to make sure he wasn't. "Tall," he replied, finally, and then muttered, "the bastard." That shocked a laugh out of Caleb, as Essek hoped it would, and he tried to suppress his own victorious grin.

"How rude of him growing past his elder brother!" Caleb laughed.

"The disrespect," Essek opined, shaking his head. "When we were teenagers, I once escorted him to a shop - he wanted to buy a trinket for some girl, and I needed spell components."

"Naturally."

"And the shopkeeper complimented him on how kind he was to take his little brother out shopping." Caleb's laugh was lovelier than any sound Essek could think to compare it to. "I could have strangled that shopkeep. I knew I would never hear the end of it. All I heard for months after that was little brother this, and little brother that."

"How did you get him to stop?"

"Violence." Essek claimed the card pile with a Jack of Spades. "I mastered Telekinesis and tossed him into a snowbank."

"Ja, naturally, as one does." Caleb's voice was warm with amusement.

Essek felt no need to mention that Verin had enjoyed the experience and asked to be tossed into the snowbank three more times. "He's naturally charming," Essek continued. "Too much for his own good, sometimes. He has forgotten on more than one occasion to check whether the targets of his charms were married first."

"Uh-oh," Caleb chuckled.

"Indeed." Essek rolled his eyes with old exasperation and then claimed the pile of cards again with a Queen of Hearts. "He's smart, but he always preferred fighting and flirting to academics. Still, he has a keen mind for battle strategy, tactics, problem-solving. Much too honest for politics, but he is the sort of person people turn to naturally for leadership, and he takes that responsibility seriously." Caleb claimed the pile this time, King of Clubs.

"He sounds like a good person," Caleb ventured quietly.

Another memory rose up, unbidden. Verin when he was a long way yet from being Verin. They had called him Rei then, and Essek had been called Kai. Rei was a baby, barely old enough to walk, but his tiny hand patted Kai's shoulder gently as his elder brother tried not to cry over a skinned knee. His silver eyes, large in his small, round face, clearly full of a sympathy he did not have words yet to express. Essek nodded. "Even when he was a child. As a toddler, any time he received a treat, his first instinct was always to share it, with me or Nanny, or the housekeepers, even, whomever was nearby." Haluatko vähän? Do you want some? The little boy had always asked. Haluatko vähän? He had asked the less popular children in school, as he went out of his way to share his snacks and his shine. Haluatko vähän? He had asked with an excited smile, on the eve of his deployment to Bazzoxan, before running out into the rain to get fried insects from his favorite street vendor, like a child and not the 105-year-old man that he was, and again after purchasing it and exclaiming how delicious they were, Haluatko vähän? "He has always had a good heart." Icy tendrils began to snake their way through Essek's chest, like the mold of Aeor, feeding on the heat there and turning it into cold, cold shame and guilt. How had Verin remained so good and Essek turned so wrong?

He didn't ask the question aloud, but Caleb seemed to guess where his mind had turned and countered it with a question of his own. "Perhaps some credit goes to his elder brother for shielding his good heart?" Essek made himself look into Caleb's eyes, and their hands paused in their game for a moment. There was no pity in the Lucidian blue, just a gentle curiosity. It was a genuine question.

Essek considered the hypothesis. He had tried his best to keep Verin on the right side of the Umavi's scrutiny and their father's temper and out of any problems he couldn't punch his way out of. But was it as simple as being the younger of the two? Essek had felt as much affection for Nanny as Verin had, but he wasn't sure he had ever offered to share a treat with her before Verin came along. If he had, he certainly hadn't continued to offer after repeated declinations out of an immovable sense of fairness. As far as Essek could recall, they had always been of wildly different dispositions. Verin was boisterous where Essek was quiet, outgoing where he was introverted, gregarious where he was selfish, courageous where he was cowardly. Try as he might, Essek could not imagine Verin doing the things he had done, for the Dynasty or against it, for mere power.

"Very little," he concluded. "I did try to look out for him, but for all that we share in origin, we are very different people. There is no discarded timeline with a Shadowhand Verin."

Caleb considered this thoughtfully for a moment and then tossed a card down with his verdict: "That last assertion is unfalsifiable." Essek raised an eyebrow and tossed a card down. Yes, he supposed it was... for now...

Thump. Caleb slid the pile crowned by two Kings toward himself with a satisfied grin. "You know this game is very unfair to you, Herr Thelyss." There was a spark of mischief in his eyes, and Essek felt the chill in his chest begin to ease. "What with my being so much younger than you, better reflexes and all of that."

Essek scoffed and shook his head, a grin returning to his face. The nerve. "Oh, we'll see about that."

[lonslibrary]

3 moments between the crow couples during their time at hogwarts

1. an unknown part of wylan and jesper’s somewhat disastrous amortentia story comes moments after jesper pulled wylan in for a kiss by his tie, causing the rest of their classmates to erupt in cheers and applause so loud that professor snape’s “boys! in the hall, now!” went unheard. minutes later, when they had actually been led out of the classroom to wait for their punishment, wylan finally worked up the courage to meet jesper’s eyes, his face almost as red as his hair. jesper’s grin was radiant. “so. butterbeer and my cologne, huh?”

it took all of wylan’s nerve to not sink into the ground where he stood. “i didn’t know today’s lesson was on amortentia,” he muttered, feeling himself flush again.

it took all of jesper’s will not to kiss the younger again right there where he stood with the way the redhead was looking up at him from beneath his long lashes.

“well, what about you?” wylan demanded, rolling his eyes. “let me guess. cards, pumpkin juice, and galleons?”

“no, actually.” jesper replied, spinning his wand in his hand. “i smell grass. gunpowder. and...”

he took a step closer to wylan who stood still, holding his breath. “...and?” the third year asked quietly.

“exploding elixir.”

wylan’s mind shut down.

“the entire room was filled with the same smell from that day we singed snape’s hair,” jesper snorted. “of all things, we had to mess up the potion that smelled like burnt-”

it was wylan who pulled jesper down this time, reaching up on his tippy toes to meet jesper’s soft lips, the ones that had captivated him from the moment he had walked into the potions classroom and saw his new lab partner for the first time.

“fahey, van eck!” snape burst into the hallway. “does it seem possible to keep your hands off of each other?”

“sorry, prof.” jesper winked, eyes still trained on wylan’s mouth. “guess you can say we’ve got...chemistry.”

wylan couldn’t even bring himself to care about detention.

2. nina stifled a laugh, trying to keep a straight face as she watched matthias scan the inside of zonko’s joke shop. she had just gotten matthias to admit that he enjoyed a drink as sweet as butterbeer, hours earlier at the three broomsticks. “you look like you’re inside the shrieking shack, not a joke shop.” nina snickered at the way matthias perked up.

“whatever the shrieking shack is, i think that there’d be more dignity in such a place than...this.” matthias dropped a dungbomb he had picked up like it had personally offended his grandmother.  

“why?” nina giggled. she shook the box in her hand. “not a fan of ton-tongue toffees?”

matthias made a face that looked like he was more than just not a fan. “if it’s anything like those jelly beans you fed me on the train, then no.”

that only made nina laugh harder. “i swear you picked the worst ones! you should’ve seen your face when you tried the rotten egg flavor.”

matthias cracked a smile, relaxing a little amongst the colorful store and his girlfriend’s laughter. he picked up another product, a pink bottle corked at the top. “what does this one do?”

nina lowered her voice, gesturing for matthias to come closer, as if letting him in on a secret. “that one’s a love potion. one drop of it in someone’s drink and they’re yours,” she whispered. “they’ll think about you all day.”

matthias jerked away, putting the bottle back on the shelf. “you can’t be serious. love can’t be made like that!” he sputtered.

“i don’t know, durmstrang,” nina teased. “what if i bought one and slipped some in your pumpkin juice tomorrow at breakfast?”

matthias only crossed his arms, continuing to grimace. “well, that wouldn’t work at all.”

“why not? zonko’s is pretty reliable when it comes to their products.” she said pointedly, looking at the extendable ears on sale.

“because i’m already in love with you.” matthias stated simply.

nina froze, turning to her boyfriend. during her time dating matthias, the hufflepuff had proven to be narrow minded and straightforward as a broom doing any and every thing. it was moments like these she was reminded that this included during his expressions of affection, and nina couldn’t love him more for it.

“i’m in love with you, too.” she declared, slipping her hand into her boyfriend’s. she had always liked...brooms. “now, come on. i want to see if we can get kaz to fall for a trick wand.”

3. all inej had wanted was a quiet place to study that wasn’t the library. she liked to practice with her wand for transfiguration, and magic wasn’t allowed in the library. she had been wandering the school for an empty classroom or quiet corner when the room of requirement had appeared at the end of a hallway, exactly moments before she was about to give up and return to the gryffindor common room. she was only half surprised when she opened the door and saw kaz, but like always, kaz hadn’t seemed surprised at all when she entered. he sat on top of a desk with his cane leaned against it, wand out, in the middle of a silent spell. inej let her eyes trail over his robe perched on a chair, his gloves off and set aside in a rare moment, and his uniform sleeves pulled up to his elbows.

“first time here?” kaz asked, not looking up from the book in his lap. his rough voice echoed slightly in the large room as inej scanned her surroundings. the room was empty besides a couple of desks and chairs in one corner, a cluttered pile of objects in another, and a big wardrobe that looked ages old. a fireplace on the wall kept the room warm, and a small chandelier hung above inej’s head.

“guess i didn’t require much until now.” inej shrugged, pulling a desk and chair of her own towards the center of the room. “you?”

kaz closed his book, finally looking up at inej. “i come and go when i want.”

inej wanted to know more about what had revealed the room to kaz in the first place, but she redirected the question away from kaz himself, knowing it was unlikely he would answer. “get anything out of it?” with kaz, it was all about gain.

kaz drummed his fingers on his desk. inej tried not to stare. “some crying first years with who miss their mums. i think i’ve witnessed a bit of every couple in the school’s snogging.” he pulled out a handful of extendable ears from his robe pocket. “snape’s planning something. don’t know the details yet, but something big.”

inej nodded. part of her expected kaz to leave, speak with his silence as he tended to do, but he continued to sit and look at inej, book in lap. inej knew him well enough to recognize that while it wasn’t exactly an invitation, kaz wasn’t saying no to a conversation. she could’ve started with a less risky question about snape’s plans, or asked for the names of the couples in their year, just to know, but inej was curious about other things.

“and how did you find this place, kaz?”

“the de kappel painting.” he said casually. “i needed a place to hide it.”

inej froze, taken aback by kaz’s answer. or more accurately, his willingness to answer. “so it’s true?” she questioned, hoping her voice didn’t give away her surprise. “the gringotts vault rumor.” she had half believed them to begin with, knowing kaz’s abilities but never his motives. still, kaz had never confirmed it with anyone as far as she had known.

“true enough.” kaz reopened his book, attention back on the page. inej inwardly sighed. the satisfaction of knowing kaz trusted her enough to confirm the gringotts rumor didn’t last long. figures kaz wouldn’t want to talk much about himself.

“but that’s a story for next time.” kaz flipped a page, the slightest start of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

next time, inej turned over in her head. she tried not to smile as she opened her own book. she could work with next time.

author’s note (pls read!) this is my first time on tumblr so idk how to use it too well but i’m overwhelmed by all the nice responses so thank you all so, so much. i see everything!! idk if there’s like poll mechanisms and stuff on tumblr (argh help) but i wanted to gauge what everyone would like next—im deciding between six of crows x pjo or shadow and bone x harry potter, so comment below what you’d like to see first (: i’d also love to hear abt any personal requests so my dms (is that what they’re called here?) are open for suggestions. no promises, but lmk if there’s something you want to read. feel free to get as niche as you want, respectfully! ok ik this is super long god bless your soul if u actually read the entire thing but finally, i just wanted to introduce myself—i’m lynn, this is my library and i dabble in most fandoms! my goal is to get at least one piece of writing out every month, so if you’d like to read what i write, follow along! OK im finally done, i swear. thank you again for the tremendous support. unbelievable. happy reading!

[dameronology]

that’s all {din djarin x reader}

(i’m reposting this bc it wasn’t showing up in the tags and it was stressing me out) 

summary: you’d saved din djarin from himself before. now, with the pain of losing his kid, you’re about to do it all over again. (kinda based on find me here by hayley williams)

warnings: this is...flangst. fluff and angst. swearing. mentions of depression but it’s also a bit ✨positive✨

this is just me trying to be the emotional janitor to...that. i’ve tried to keep it as gender neutral as possible but some of the conversation might imply an afab reader but hopefully it’s vague to be completely objective!!

- jazz

anyways i know i already said it but !! spoilers !! spoilers !! spoilers !!

p.s spot the titanic reference 

Grogu was tiny but the whole he left in your lives was massive.

You always knew you were going to have to give him up - hell, that had been the job in the first place - but you hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. He wasn’t your kid but at the same he completely and entirely was. You’d never expected your first parenting experience to be with a tiny green Jedi but at the same time, you wouldn’t have had it any other way. The next few months were going to be hard; accepting that he wasn’t yours to keep and that he was in a better place was guaranteed to be a long process. It would be worth it in the end but the initial pain was bordering on unbearable.

Din was better at hiding it than you. Admittedly, he did have a thick beskar layer to shield his emotions and pain from the outside world but he couldn’t hide it from you; never from you. Even behind the metal, you could read him like a book. It was a product of spending every waking minute together (his overprotective doing, not yours) and in return, he had learnt every habit and every quirk of yours. He sometimes cursed your ability to read him, especially when it lead to you saying things like you did not just tilt your helmet at me like that, Din Djarin.

He’d been quieter in the days since Luke Skywalker had taken the kid - quieter than usual, at least. Din was already a pretty taciturn person; compared to how he was with other people, he practically spoke your ear off but since you’d landed back on Nevarro, he’d completely kept to himself. It was painful to watch, seeing him rise at the crack of dawn to take a bounty, only to return in the evening with a few more bruises than he’d had that morning. You wanted to say something to do something that would make him snap back to reality, but this was probably his grieving process and you had to respect that. Or, you had to at least try to.

That was, until, it felt like Din was killing both you and him; working himself to the point of exhaustion, barely sleeping and refusing to even acknowledge Greef or Cara. You could deal with him being angsty. You could deal with him grieving. You couldn’t, however, deal with him ignoring you. You had literally vowed to go through all your bad times together and Din Djarin was nothing if not a man of his word. He knew it. You knew it too - and you’d be damned if you’d let him forget it.

It was on a cold - at least by Nevarro standards - morning that you decided it was time to show him some tough love. The Mandalorian had decided to hole out on one of Karga’s old ships that morning, claiming that he wanted to fix it. You were no engineering genius, but given that the old jet’s wings had fallen off, you could see it was past the point of no return and that Din had just been looking for an excuse. He was good at that these days.

‘Din!’ You called. The bay doors were open, but the ship itself was dark and dusty. Tinkering, my ass. As expected, there was no reply. ‘Din! Don’t ignore me.’

Silence.

‘Please?’

You grumbled to yourself, walking further inside the dimly lit ship. Tiny specs of dust were floating in the streams of thin light, leading your path further and further towards the cockpit. Who ever it had belonged it, it pre-dated the Republic, let alone the Empire or new order. You tried to resist the urge to cough, instead choosing to focus on your mission: hunting down the Mandalorian. The tables really had turned, considering he was very rarely the prey.

‘I was talking to Karga.’ You continued - as far as you knew, you were talking to thin air, but you liked your chances. ‘He offered me a bounty puck for...Corellia, is it? For that big, bad guy we didn’t catch last year. You know the one that nearly killed me?’

There was a crash from the cockpit, and you grinned to yourself. It was a little unethical to scare the man out of hiding with your bullshit, but you were getting desperate.

‘I figured it would be good to get out a bit, try and distract myself, you know?’ You continued. ‘So I was gonna borrow a ship and head out there tomorrow-’

‘- like hell you’re doing that on your own.’  

A six foot mountain of beskar suddenly stepped out from the darkness. Normally, that would have been enough to scare anyone, but not you. You’d married that six foot mountain of beskar. That probably gave you more guts than anyone in the damn galaxy -- until they found out he wasn’t actually that terrifying. Not many people would have taken the Mandalorian seriously if they knew he enjoyed having his hair played with.

You held your hands up in the air, stretching out your fingers to show that there was no puck in sight.

‘You lied.’ Din grunted.

‘And you were ignoring me.’ You shot back. ‘’S going on?’

‘I told you. I was working on the ship-’

‘- nope.’ You cut him off. ‘Try again.’

‘Karga asked me to fix it-’

‘- Still no!’ You snapped. ‘We gonna go three for three or are you gonna finally pull your head out your ass and stop lying to me, Din?’

There wasn’t a single person in the galaxy who dared speak back to the Mandalorian - except you. That was what had made him fall for you in the first place. It was like you couldn’t even see the beskar. You’d always seen him as Din, and never as the Mandalorian, or a warrior. You’d made it clear from the day you met that you wouldn’t take any bullshit from anyone, him included, and he’d always respected that.

‘You have been holing yourself away for weeks.’ You continued. ‘I know it’s hard but you have to accept it. Grogu wasn’t ours to keep - he never was.’

Din didn’t response, instead dropping his gaze down to the floor.’

‘Hey.’ You put a finger at the base of the helmet, tilting his head back up to look at you. ‘Look at me. Talk to me.’

‘I miss him.’ He stated; short and blunt. Fitting, really. ‘And it hurts.’

‘I get that.’ You gently placed your hands on either side of his helmet, fingers splaying out over the cold metal. ‘But it’s better to hurt together. Can I?’

Din nodded, signalling that it was okay for you to take it off. You gently tugged at the helmet, momentarily breaking away from him to place it beside you. It was a relief to see his face after so many weeks of having the beskar between you; the soft brown eyes and slightly crooked smile that met you on the other side felt like home. You could have stared at him forever if the galaxy wasn’t so fucking demanding of your presence.

You’d spent far too long on the other side of the beskar, waiting for him to let you in. And now that you’d got him, now that you’d promised yourselves to one another forever? You weren’t going to let it happen again.

You gently pushed back a few tufts of brown hair, offering him a sad smile. ‘You know we made the right decision, yeah?’

He nodded, leaning into your touch as your hands carded through his hair. ‘I know.’

‘So you gotta stop beating yourself up, baby.’ You stressed. ‘Stop shutting people out - stop shutting me out. I know we don’t have the kid anymore but we are still a family.’

‘I lost the ship. I lost the kid.’ Din quietly spoke. ‘I’m just worried that-’

‘- I’m not going anywhere.’ You shook your head, knowing what he was going to say before the words even left his mouth. ‘Even if you paid me. You are stuck with me, okay? Cursed with me till the day I keel over and die.’

Finally, Din smiled. He looked you dead in the eye and he smiled, eyes creasing at the side as he peered down at you, eventually tightening his arms around your waist. He held your head to his chest, ungloved hand gently clutching you as he rested his chin on your hair. The first time he’d clung onto you like this had been after a rough mission; neither of you had been sure if he was going to make it back and when he did, the first thing he did was pull you into his arms and you stayed there for what felt like hours. That was when Din realised for the first time that he loved you - and now, after weeks of isolating himself and shutting you out, this didn’t feel completely different from that. It was just that this time, it was less of a realisation of more of a reminder.

‘I didn’t expect it to be this bad.’ Din quietly admitted.

‘I know.’ You whispered back, voice slightly muffled by his chest. ‘But pain is only temporary. Dark times pass and we’ll learn to look back on this and enjoy the memories. They won’t always be tainted.’

He’d been in a dark place when he’d met you. It was like he’d been treading water, waiting for the riptides to take him, to stake their claim and remind him of his mortality, to remind him that not even the bravest people can forfeit their ability to hurt. He tried. Maker, he had tried. The icy and emotionless impression he gave to strangers wasn’t an accident. It was a survival mechanism; a defense mechanism. One that you’d chosen to ignore. You’d saved him in every way a person could be saved.

Just as the waves were pulling him under, you’d dragged him out; dragged him to the shore and reminded him that pain was merely part of being human. Most importantly, you’d called his attention to the fact that no matter how much beskar he wore or how impenetrable he acted, that he couldn’t avoid being one. He could run away from bounty hunters and Imperials and the thousands of enemies he’d made but the fact of mortality was always hot on his tail.

Now, you were pulling him up for air all over again.

Eventually, pain stopped being a reminder of his humanity and instead, it was replaced by his love for you. His ability to feel things for you. You’d saved him then and now, you were helping him come up for air all over again. Being human didn’t always mean to hurt - it could just as much mean to love.

‘I’ve got you, okay?’ You tightened your grip on him, eyes meeting his. ‘Whatever you need.’

‘You.’ Din replied. ‘I need you. That’s all.’

a/n: ok i realised i published an identical but slightly different imagine to this in october but...clearly i have a type and that type is imagines where the mandalorian confesses that you’re the only thing he needs because i eat that shit up. consume it whole. i am telling you. i have no regrets. my content might is predictable but HELL at least u can rely on something in these wild times❤️

[bixbythemartian]

Hey everybody!

I first off want to thank everybody who donated- you really helped me out and helped reduce my stress by, like, a ton. Things are a bit tight right now, but I think I got my bills for the month covered. I did my income tax return, so I should be getting some money from that in the coming days, and even though most of that it more or less spent, between that and everybody’s donations I should be able to get through the next few weeks, bills wise, and into March.

Everyone has been very generous and I cannot thank you all enough. I’m honestly overwhelmed. It’s such a vulnerable thing to do, to ask for help, and to ask for help and have it so swiftly replied to is... overwhelming. You are great people and, from the bottom of my heart, I love you and am so grateful. I don’t know what else to say.

I meant to do this post earlier this week, but unfortunately I’ve been in enough pain that my brain has not been super functional.

So, as far as updating goes- I haven’t been able to get in to see a doctor yet. I have got an appointment but just due to the- the everything all at once, it’s going to be April before I can get in to see someone. Given some of the wait times I’ve heard about from some people, a month and a half isn’t the worst thing in the world.

The worst of the pain has eased off. I’m still needing a cane, and I have realized that I’ve probably been needing a cane for a little while. One of those hindsight things, I think. I have known for a few years now that the day may come where I need a cane, but I couldn’t use a cane and still function at my job properly, and so I was trying to hold out as long as possible.

And I did, and I can’t anymore. And, like, in a world where there is something to objectively be fixed- like, I need a surgery to repair a thing and thereafter I will be better- I still don’t think I’ll be able to go back to a job that physical. Maybe I’m wrong, I’d love to be.

I’m really struggling to write right now. I wanted to put out a story as a sort of thank you but I just don’t have the creative gas right now for that. I’ve got like a million projects I want to write, and I have had the ability to work on zero on them, which is really frustrating.

However, I can still play vidya games, and usually I have enough focus to do vidya games and conversate, so I was considering doing some streaming. Maybe some Satisfactory, which is relatively chill- though I got plenty of options as far as ‘relatively chill crafting game’. It’s just been a while since I played Satisfactory. I’d also be down for some Valheim, maybe Minecraft- I got some options. I may or may not be able to unearth a webcam, but I definitely have got a headset with a reasonable mic (nothing fancy) and I think my computer can handle it.

Let me know if that’s something that’d be interesting to you! I’ve pretty much got nothin but free time right now, and I’d like to do something at least somewhat productive.

Also I have a friend who has written a ttrpg he’s wanting to turn into a published thing, and he says he’ll pay me to help with that because he doesn’t have the free time, so keep your eyes peeled. I’ve been helping with this for a while (I helped transcribe it from hand-written) and I think it’s a real neat system with a great concept that I absolutely adore, so keep your eyes peeled for that, too.

[anabsolutetrainwreck]

through the warning signs || h. styles

warnings: a couple of swears, mentions of covid

word count: 3.1k

summary: you first met harry on the set of dunkirk, but now you’re reunited on the set of his new film...

Films had always fascinated you. The endless possibilities of art you could create, from the cinematography to the mise en scène, even to the sound, had always blown your mind. So, even from an early age, you always knew you wanted to get into filmmaking somehow. You were perhaps the worst actor to ever grace the planet, so acting was never an option for you. But alas, you studied film studies in school and went to university for the very same thing. At first, you’d considered becoming a cinematographer, but you realised you could entwine your love of film production and fashion. So, you found yourself as a costume designer.

In 2014, your dearest friend, Louisa, had dragged you to see Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. She had an unhealthy obsession with Timothée Chalamet at the time, and had made you watch every single film he’d been in - big role or small. So, while Louisa was busy being in love with Timothée Chalamet, you were busy nursing an adoration for Christopher Nolan films. And then, in 2016, you found yourself in Dunkerque, France, working alongside Mr Nolan himself.

As well as being incredibly interested in films, you were also somewhat of a history buff in school. So, working on a film like Dunkirk alongside names like Kenneth Branagh and Cillian Murphy, was one of the most surreal first days on the job. Or, more notably, Harry Styles. Though Louisa was then going through her Tom Hardy phase, she was once a massive One Direction fan. And, though you never bothered to learn every last fact that was public knowledge about them, you could certainly appreciate their music.

As the weeks went on, you began to slip into place more. The more time that passed, the more you knew this was the career for you. And, you knew it wasn’t very professional, but you developed somewhat of a liking towards the singer. He was nice to you. But, then again, he was nice to everybody. It was just in his nature. You weren’t even sure he knew your name...

And then filming wrapped and you never saw him again. The pair of you had never exchanged numbers or followed each other on social media. And that was the end of that. And, after a month or so, your little crush on Harry died away. And, even when you went to the premiere, you only got a couple of glances at him.

In the three years since you last saw him, you’d never forgotten about him. It wasn’t exactly an easy feat forgetting about Harry Styles. But he had definitely been pushed to the back of your mind. Plenty of things had managed to take the front seat since then. You’d won an Oscar for Best Costume Design for your work on Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women at the beginning of 2020, which was completely insane (Louisa was still more amazed by the fact that you got to work with Timothée Chalamet). The award sat on your mantelpiece in your London flat beside a picture of Louisa and yourself.

However, more recently, you’d taken a place on the crew of Olivia Wilde’s new film: Don’t Worry, Darling. You’d worked on Booksmart with her and she simply adored you. Before production had even begun, you could already tell you were going to love working on this film. It was a psychological thriller set in the 50s - you were in love already. Not only that, but it was starring one of your good friends you’d made in the industry: Florence Pugh.

This all seemed great, until you were notified that Harry Styles would be taking the place of Shia LaBeouf to play ‘Jack’. You promised yourself that you wouldn’t let yourself be caught up by his unintentional charm once again. So, on the first day of filming, you turned up in your puffer jacket (despite it being filmed in California).

You had already worked with Olivia before filming on the costumes, or at least a large bulk of them. It was an odd sort of dynamic; she wanted you to take control simply due to your brilliant eye for fashion, especially vintage fashion, and you wanted her to take control as it was her film. In the end, you managed to create a cooperative working environment.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t stalling as you were fixing up Florence’s costume. Harry’s needed doing next and you didn’t exactly want to face him. You’d tried desperately to stay out of Harry’s sight. And, so far, you’d been successful. When it came to measuring, you’d kindly asked one of your assistants to measure him (and she was more than happy to do so). But all your clever sneaking around was about to go down the drain. “You all right, Y/N?” Flo asked, noticing your shaky hands and your incessant fiddling.

You nodded quickly, “Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I think you’re good to go.”

She smiled, “Thanks. Love you.”

“Love you too!” you grinned as you watched her jog away. She disappeared behind a couple of trailers. As you approached Harry, who was busy talking to a couple of other crew members, you tried to convince yourself that, if you kept your head down, there was no way Harry would attempt to make small talk as you fixed his costume. You’d have your mask on, so there was absolutely no way he’d recognise you. Besides, it had been four years since you filmed Dunkirk, he wouldn’t even remember you. As you neared Harry and one of the gaffers, you cleared your throat, “Do you mind if I steal Harry for a second?”

“Sure,” the gaffer nodded, turning to work on some of the lighting. Keeping your head down and your hands quick, you got to work on adjusting his tuxedo. Awkward was definitely an understatement. Or, it was for you, at least. In an odd sort of way, you were begging for him to make some sort of conversation to ease the sheer awkwardness, but you prayed he stayed silent at the same time. Alas, your prayers weren’t enough. “It’s Y/N, right?” his voice came, though slightly muffled by his mask, you made it out clearly.

“Uh, yeah,” you nodded, adjusting his cuffs and trying your very hardest not to make eye contact with him.

“Congratulations on your Oscar,” was what he said next. “It was for Little Women, right?”

That got you to look up at him. Had he actually remembered your name all of four years or had he just recognised you when you made your acceptance speech at the Oscars? Maybe Florence had just mentioned your Oscar win earlier in the year, and that was how he knew. “Yeah, it was,” you replied. “Congratulations on your album.”

“Cheers,” he said. It was a good album - both of his were. Louisa had forced you to listen to his entire discography whenever you drove her around. Not that you were exactly complaining, you enjoyed Harry’s music. And, just as the awkwardness was beginning to pour back into the atmosphere, he added, “It’s no Oscar, though.”

“It was a bloody good album, though. It was nominated for a Brit too, wasn’t it?” you asked, vaguely remembering Louisa scream in your ear that Fine Line had been nominated for Best Album, or something along those lines.

He nodded, “Well, yeah.”

And, just like that, the conversation fizzled out into uneasy silence. You wanted to kick yourself for being such a shit conversationalist; there’s people who would kill to have a chat with Harry Styles. Yet, here you were, complimenting an album you weren’t even sure you could name all the songs on. Thankfully, the sound of Olivia’s voice caught your attention, “Y/N!”

The two of you turned to see her approaching quickly. She was waving two samples of fabric in front of you, “Oh, hi, Harry. Good thing you’re here, actually. Which of these were you thinking of for his other suit?”

You took both from her, inspecting them closely. One was a brown and the other was a blue, slightly lighter than a navy. “Well, I thought both would work. I mean, it’s up to you, but I think the brown contrasts with Florence’s costume better,” you replied. “But then I’ve got this lovely tie set aside for the blue. So, really it’s your decision.”

She hummed, agreeing with what you said, “I see what you mean. We could always use the blue for a different scene?”

You shrugged, nodding, “Yeah, I mean, the brown will definitely work better with Florence’s costume for those couple of scenes we’re shooting in Palm Springs. But, like I said, the blue is very fifties.”

She smiled, “Brilliant. I’ll sort out the brown, then.”

Quickly, you said, “No, it’s okay. I’ll sort it out when I’m finished with Harry.”

She thanked you as she left. Harry couldn’t take his eyes off you as you worked away, your eyebrows furrowed slightly as you sorted the hem of his trousers. And, thank God for the mandatory masks, as he couldn’t help the smile that danced across his lips. Then, in no time at all, Harry was snapped out of his small trance at the sound of your voice, “Right, you’re good to go.”

“Cheers, Y/N,” he smiled slightly, watching as you walked off towards one of your assistants. Sighing softly to himself, he left to find Florence.

The two weeks the entire cast and crew had off due to somebody testing positive for covid was a lovely break for you. As well as constant fear that they’d just call Don’t Worry, Darling off completely and you’d be out of work again. And the relentless guilt you felt for having to stay at Florence’s for the two weeks with her boyfriend because you didn’t have your own house in America, and you couldn’t fly back and forth between England and America. And the nights where you cried into Florence’s arms as you missed your family from back home. And the nights where you couldn’t sleep because you began to overthink things like if you’d locked your front door or turned the oven off. But, other than that, it’d been a smooth run.

But now you were back and in Palm Springs. And the sun was out and you were longing for a cold shower. You found yourself stood in front of Harry once more, trying to decide which tie would work best with his brown suit. He’d followed you on Instagram since your first interaction since Dunkirk, which received an onslaught of ecstatic texts from Louisa. But that was as far as it had ever gone. None of your conversations progressed past his costumes or anything work-related. And, when you first turned up on set on the very first day of production, that was what you’d wanted. But now you had to surround yourself with him everyday, you longed for him to ask about something other than the job. You wanted to discuss favourite novels and guilty pleasures and pet peeves and bad habits and embarrassing childhood stories with him. All these little things you wanted him to know about you.

Your mind was wandering and it took you a moment to realise that you weren’t even thinking about which tie worked best anymore. Your head was full of swirling fantasies that you knew would never come to be.

Harry, however, didn’t notice your zoned out expression either. He was too busy trying to figure out whether you were single due to the shirt you were wearing, which hung much too large on your frame. And the feeling of knowing there was a possibility that you were living a happy life with somebody else was beginning to rip him up inside. He was trying to remember if you’d thanked a boyfriend in your acceptance speech at the Oscars, but that all seemed so long ago now - he couldn’t possibly remember. So, in spite of himself, he asked, “Missing your boyfriend, then?”

You looked up at him, your hands dropping down to your sides. “What?”

“Your boyfriend - are you missing him?” Harry repeated, a small smile on his face to make his tone sound slightly less bitter.

“Oh, I don’t have a boyfriend,” you replied, finally settling on a tie.

“You don’t? I just figured, you know, with the shirt...” he trailed off, prompting you to elaborate.

You chuckled awkwardly, “Right, of course. I only do it to make myself appear less single.”

He laughed, but it was mainly out of relief. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten about you from the set of his first movie, you just hadn’t been on his mind for the four years following. But then he’d turned up on the first day of filming, seen you laughing with Florence and Olivia, and everything just came rushing back to him. All of the pent up feelings and the nights pondering all of the what ifs and the maybes. “Well, you fooled me,” he smiled.

“Just my ingenious plans working, as usual,” you joked, earning a small laugh from Harry.

As you finished wrapping the tie around Harry’s shirt collar, you informed him you were finished. He thanked you and left to get his hair and makeup done. You practically jumped out of your skin at the sound of Florence’s voice behind you, “I’m pretty sure if he asks you about your love life, it means he likes you.”

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” you exclaimed, hitting Flo’s shoulder with the tie you opted not to use.

She laughed loudly, “You know I’m right!”

“He’s just making small talk.”

“No, Y/N, small talk is how nice the weather is, not ‘oh, are you single?’”

“Okay, firstly, he didn’t say that. Secondly, it’s California - it’s always nice weather,” you retorted. As much as you fought back, you quite liked the idea that Florence thought Harry liked you.

“You know what I mean!” she replied, grinning her infamous broad, cheeky smile. “Don’t even try and act like you wouldn’t mind if he liked you!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you said sheepishly, a small smile gracing your features. As aforementioned - you were perhaps the worst actor to grace the planet.

“I knew it!” she grinned excitedly.

“Don’t you have hair to be done?” you chuckled, pushing her towards where she needed to go to get her hair styled for the shoot.

“This isn’t over, Y/N!” she called back as she slowly disappeared.

The following day, as you were patching up one of Chris Pine’s suits, Florence came and sat down opposite you. She had one of those devious smirks on her face and you knew that couldn’t mean anything good. You placed your needle down, staring expectantly at her. “How can I be of assistance?” you asked skeptically.

“Well, as your dear friend, I thought it was my duty to report back to you. So, I’d like to tell you that our good pal Harry was asking about you,” she grinned.

You sighed, “Was he? And what was he asking?”

“Something about if you have any allergies,” she replied.

“Wow,” you laughed, “must be hopelessly in love with me then.”

“No, listen. He asked about your allergies and then he asked what kind of food you liked. So, my guess is he’s going to ask you to dinner.”

“We’ll see,” you said, offering her a smile in the hopes that she’d just drop it.

“Indeed we will. I’ll see you in a bit, Y/N,” she grinned, pinching your cheeks as she got up. “Love you!”

You chuckled, “Love you too!”

And, just like that, you were left to your own devices. Though your flow had been disrupted, you got back to stitching up Chris’ suit, which had a minor tear in the lapel. Working on a film set, you were used to being interrupted; people would come and go, asking you all sorts of questions. You always found it pretty easy to get back into your rhythm. However, when Harry came and took the place of Florence, you were sure you wouldn’t be able to get back into your desired flow easily. “Oh, hey, Harry,” you greeted. “Are you okay?”

He nodded quickly. He wasn’t hiding his nervous shifting very well - despite how good of an actor he may be. He fiddled with his fingers, which lay in his lap. They were lacking the many, expensive-looking rings they usually adorned. He was out of costume, instead dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. His hair wasn’t slicked back and full of gel like it usually was on set. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay,” he said, rather unconvincingly.

His eyes followed your fingers as they gripped the little needle, weaving it in and out of one of suit’s lapels. Another wave of awkwardness washed over the pair. But, for once, you didn’t feel uncomfortable. You weren’t the one who came over to start the conversation. “Are you busy tonight?” he suddenly asked, his voice almost shaky.

“Uh, no. Not if I can get this lapel finished,” you replied, your tone joking. Your eyes were still trained on your needle, but your mind was most definitely concentrating on every last syllable that fell from Harry’s lips.

He let out an awkward, breathy chuckle, “Right. Um, well, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to grab something to eat?”

You couldn’t help the tiny grin that pulled at the corner of your lips, “I’d love to.”

This was what you felt you’d been waiting for for a good four years. And, thank God, Florence had warned you that she suspected Harry was thinking of asking you out, otherwise you weren’t sure you’d be able to get out any comprehensible words. “Great,” he grinned, whatever nervousness that had been racing through his veins seemed to slowly drown away. “I’ll see you tonight, then. At 6?”

You nodded, overwhelmed with serotonin, trying to suppress the urge to let out a loud squeal. You knew you’d get back to Florence’s, share a glass of predate wine with her and dance about happily in her kitchen. All of these marvellous emotions swept through your body, which was abuzz with electric euphoria. And yet, all you replied was, with a small smile, “At 6.”

part two.

[things-we-cant-say]

pretty little liar

Pairing: Ten x Female!Reader

Summary: In order to get your annoying ex off your back, you tell a little white lie that takes an unexpected turn.

Genre: College!AU

Warnings: Smutty smut, dirty dancing

Word Count: 4,867

A/N: Unable to withstand Ten’s power any longer, I had to start writing about him…or a version of him anyway. Hope someone out there enjoys my first dip into the ~imagines~ pond. ☺️

The party was in full swing by the time you and your best friend Amy arrived, the music so loud it could be heard down the street. It was a wonder the cops hadn’t broken it up yet but hey, the night was still young. Ducking through the arched doorway with Amy hot on your heels, you let her guide you into the foyer where you both stopped to take in the scene. The place was packed with people dancing, drinking and laughing—everyone apparently having a great time. Which was perfect for you because all you wanted to do was blow off a little steam and pretend you hadn’t spent the day fantasizing about committing the perfect murder.

You enjoyed school for the most part and you enjoyed your classes, but really you couldn’t wait for it all to just be over. Two extra years and your master’s degree in linguistics was almost within your grasp. You still weren’t one hundred percent what you planned to do with it (teaching was definitely out) but either way you were ready to dive into the real world. To no longer be stressed out about exams and papers and boring ass professors that constantly seemed to have a stain on their tie.

And to get far, far away from your stupid ex, Adam.

“Uh oh you have murder face,” Amy said as she peeped around to look at you. “What’s wrong?”

You shrugged. “Just in my head I guess.”

Amy hummed. “I get it. That’s why we are here though! To get fucked up and do something we regret in the morning.”

You laughed. “Guess we’re Uber-ing home.”

She grinned and grabbed your wrist, pulling you over to a table loaded with different types of alcohol. The guy ‘tending bar’ as it were winked as you two approached. “What can I get you for?”

“Something with alcohol but where we can’t taste the alcohol!” Amy exclaimed happily. “Oh! And if you’ve got any little umbrellas I’d like one of those too.”

He did finger guns and proceeded to cook something up in two red cups, sticking in two pink umbrellas when he was done. You and Amy took your drinks and after a cursory sniff, took a sip. The tequila wasn’t as strong as with a single shot but you could still detect it just not enough to make you stop drinking. Unlike Amy you didn’t plan to get completely fucked up but you weren’t going to say no to a nice buzz.

Cups in hand you migrated onto the dance floor and fell in with everyone else, bopping to the beat and scream chatting over the loud music.

“I really needed this!” Amy yelled. “Statistics is kicking my cute little ass!”

“I know what you mean!” You shouted. “But hey! Soon we’ll be done and actual jobs will be kicking our cute little asses!”

Laughing, Amy bounced up and down, sending her blonde hair flying. “Is that why you’ve been so grumpy lately? Or is it…he who shall not be named?”

With a sigh you took a big sip of your strawberry margarita. “Yeah. He keeps fucking calling me and leaving me these stupid ass messages, apologizing and shit. I’ve blocked him but he just uses someone else’s phone.”

Amy’s eyes stretched wide. “That’s like stalker behavior! Or maybe he really is sorry for what he did.”

You snorted. “Sorry for having sex with his ex in the backseat of my car? As far as I am concerned he can take his ‘sorrys’ and shove them so far up his ass they come out his mouth as safaris!”

Amy choked a little on her drink, hitting you hard on the arm in admonishment after she stopped coughing. “I hate you! I could have died!”

Her words made you smirk. “But did you? No but for real, fuck Adam. Fuck Adam and anyone who even looks like Adam!”

“Woo!” Amy threw both hands up into the air, yelping as liquid sloshed down onto her head. “Oh shit! Drink emergency I’ll be right back!”

Before you could say anything, she turned and hurried back towards the drink table. Alone in the middle of a dancing crowd, you didn’t know whether you should slink over to a corner or just keep dancing. That last thing you wanted was some random dude trying to groove with you. Of course if you decided to hold up the wall nothing would stop some random dude from trying to hit on you either. At a bit of a loss you drained the rest of your drink and did a I don’t really know anyone two step, hoping Amy would return soon.

The tequila settled nice and warm in your stomach, making you feel more at ease. Most of the people at the party were from your school but not ones you associated with on like, a daily basis. Sure you recognized a few faces from the library or cafeteria but there was no one you’d had more than a surface conversation with.

And then your eyes landed on him. Ten.

Ten was a…different sort of person altogether. He was the kinda guy CW shows thought actually existed in college, except he was very real. And very much fucking gorgeous in that unattainable way CW shows also loved. However, that sort of did him a disservice because as far as you knew, he was just a decent guy who happened to be able to do some pretty awesome things.

For example, he was an amazing dancer. The kinda dancer that just freaking mesmerized you when he moved. Had you wondering how in the hell had he taught his body to do that shit? One minute he was in total sync with everyone else and the next he was performing his solo and blowing your mind. He’d done some show a few months ago with a friend and you’d nearly flipped out of your chair watching him work. The body rolls, the attitude, the way he’d just commanded the stage…whew. Was it possible to be a fan of someone who wasn’t famous?

Then there was his art; things he designed himself or drew from memory. Art class was essentially where you’d sorta came to be acquaintances with him. You weren’t exactly good at drawing but you liked it enough that you wanted to improve, plus it helped you de-stress after particularly hard days. Ten on the other hand excelled and just like with dancing, it was interesting to watch his process. He’d described himself as a sensory artist so he wasn’t always as concerned with the end product as the professor sometimes wanted him to be. From your eye though he’d yet to create anything that wasn’t remarkable. In fact, more than once you’d wanted to ask him to design a tattoo for you, but felt it would be kinda weird. He had no idea what you were into after all. So far your conversations with him had consisted of colors and that one time he’d asked to borrow one of your brushes.

You were pretty sure he’d sold something to an art gallery.

Anyway so Ten could dance and he could draw and he could sing and he was fluent in several languages; as far as you knew the only thing he was kind of shit at was cooking. But who hadn’t set a class kitchen on fire once or twice? Or three times…

If he were an asshole—well people would probably still crush on him—you’d count that as a major flaw and want to keep your distance. But the kicker was that he could do cool things and he was nice. Dorky even especially when it came to cute animals. Was always posting pictures of himself at the animal shelter playing with the kittens and the puppies, or just acting like an idiot with friends. Yet it was that confidence that made him seem untouchable, and also made him sexy as fuck. More than once you’d fantasized about biting his Adam’s apple.

Heh.

Shaking your head, you fanned lightly at your face with both hands. Maybe stepping outside for some fresh air would be a good idea.

“Y/N!” Amy nearly tripped over her pretty sandals in her hurry to get back to you. “Weewoo weewoo weewoo!”

“Um…”

She grabbed your shoulder. “It’s a police siren! We have a code red situation here, I repeat a code red! Adam just walked in!”

“What?” You blinked and immediately looked towards the doorway, brows narrowing when you saw she was right.

Standing there in a white t-shirt in his formerly handsome glory was your ex-boyfriend, Adam. Once upon a time you’d thought the world of him; thought he was the kinda guy you could probably marry someday. The kinda guy you’d introduced your family to. Turns out he was the kind of guy that hooked up with his ex in your car repeatedly until finally being caught in the act. Sure it had been gratifying to make him and her walk home half naked but it had done nothing to quell the pain left behind. Thankfully though your pain quickly turned to anger and now you usually focused on not murdering him when he popped up. There was a lot you could forgive but cheating was firmly in the do not cross zone. Everything you’d felt for him evaporated the moment you saw him with her.

And he’d promised he was over her. Lying piece of shit, you thought to yourself.

“What the hell is he doing here?! Does he even know anyone here?” you asked with a frown.

“I dunno!” your friend said slowly. “It’s possible, big campus and all. Do you want me to help you climb out of the bathroom window?”

“Yeah my boobs aren’t fitting through one of those skinny ass windows,” you replied wryly. “Though to be honest I’m almost willing to risk it. C’mon let’s—”

It was too late. Adam spotted you like an arrow searching for its target, eyes registering shock and then elation. He reached you in three quick strides, opening his arms for a hug that he was damned crazy to expect. “Y/N. Wow you—you look amazing. I’m so glad we ran into each other.”

You huffed. “I’m not. I told you we’re over Adam. Or does me blocking your calls not get the message across?”

He exhaled deeply. “Look I know I messed up but I’m sorry. Classes were just really tough and—and Lucy and I would reminisce about old times…”

“Do I look like I give a shit? You cheated on me and we’re over.” The lie came so easily. “Besides, I’ve moved on.”

“Yeah!” Amy poked him in the chest. “She’s moved on so suck it!”

Adam arched a brow. “You’ve moved on?” He sounded skeptical and that made your blood boil. “Since when? And with who?”

You’d once heard that Hippocrates came up with the saying drastic times call for drastic measures though it wasn’t something you’d be willing to bet money on. However, standing there with your ex eying you like he just knew you were lying brought a whole new meaning to the idiom. You would one hundred percent be damned before giving him the satisfaction of gloating.

Tequila’s kicking in…

Without missing a beat, you put a hand on your hip and motioned to Ten. “Him. I’m seeing him.”

Amy made a sound like a cat having its tail stepped on while Adam gaped at you. “What? I—no. No way. You’re totally lying. I’ve seen the people he’s dated and you’re not his type at all.”

This bitch.

Twirling on your black heels, you strolled across the room to where Ten sat in an arm chair, chatting with a few of his friends. Before you could talk yourself out of it, you straddled his lap and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I know this is awkward as fuck—I’m so sorry—but if you just play along I will owe you big time. I’ll give you anything. You need a kidney? You can have a kidney.”

Ten’s friends had gone mute and as you sat back to gauge his reaction—or to possibly be thrown off of him—you bit your full bottom lip. His dark eyes were watching you calculatingly, his own lips pursed together like you were a riddle he needed to solve. Up close he was utterly breathtaking, all smooth skin and silky black hair that fell artfully across his forehead. He smelled incredible.

And then he spoke.

“There you are baby,” he said wrapping an arm around your waist. “I’ve been looking for you.”

That was when you figured you owed him your first born but it was fine. “Well, you found me. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

He chuckled. “You’re worth waiting for.”

His friends still looked confused though they didn’t have time to voice their opinions. Adam stalked over seconds later like a man on a mission. “So it’s true? You and Y/N are together?”

Ten tilted his head to the side and you saw the moment the lightbulb went off for him. “Yeah we’re together.”

Adam huffed. “Since when? For how long? Where did you two meet?”

Ten smirked. “Are you taking a survey or something?” He brushed his lips across your jaw, making you shiver. “The only thing that matters is that she’s mine. Let’s dance, Y/N.”

“I would love to,” you replied with a smile. You were also grateful he’d remembered your name.

You climbed off of his lap and took his hand, sending Adam a you thought look before pulling Ten out into the thick of the crowd. Your heart was beating a mile a minute but you felt too giddy to pay much attention to it. Plus, you knew Adam was watching you like a hawk and you didn’t want to let on how nervous you actually were. If he found out you were lying he’d never leave you alone and consider you pathetic to boot. Besides the nice buzz that was finally creeping down your spine told you everything would be fine. How could it not be?

Ten’s hands settled low on your hips and he gave you a little tug, pulling your back to his chest. You fit rather perfectly with him, his chin brushing the top of your head. Picking a rhythm in the song that thumped with bass, you began to move together. You rolled your ass against him and leaned your head back to rest on his shoulder, focusing on his breath as it ghosted across your neck. A silver of light wouldn’t have been able to get between you.

Normally you wouldn’t have dared to do something like this with a near stranger but your desire to make your ex suffer was bigger than your nerves. Besides Ten appeared to be all in on the ruse; his body twisting and curving in sync with yours, fingers on his right hand sliding up between your breasts to wrap lightly on your throat. His teeth nipped at your earlobe and you gasped. Reached around to his side to clasp his shirt for an anchor. You heard him chuckle and suddenly you were spun away from him only to be reeled back in, this time face to face.

The room felt like it was two hundred degrees. You weren’t exactly wearing much—a slinky black dress with tiny ties at the hem—but even that seemed too much. Without missing a beat though you and Ten continued to grind with one another, his thigh just barely pushed between your own. Every time you swayed forward to meet him the denim of his jeans rubbed deliciously against you, sending sparks sprinting through your veins. Both of his hands were on your ass as if helping to guide you, and as you met his gaze you couldn’t help but bite your lip at what you saw there. Desire, lust, hunger—no one had ever looked at you like that before. Like they could just devour you and still not have enough of you.

It made you feel powerful.

You grinned and wrapped an arm around his neck, fingers giving his hair a little tug. He hissed and lowered his head so that he could mouth at your bare shoulder, hands squeezing your ass so hard it nearly hurt. You weren’t sure when you started to get wet—maybe it was the moment you sat on his lap or he decided to play along with your dumb stunt—but you could tell it now. Your panties were sticking to you, your skin was on fire and it was becoming difficult to think straight. Honestly however you didn’t want to think at all, especially not if it meant not being in Ten’s orbit.

“Ten,” you whispered into the skin under his jaw.

He hummed, the sound vibrating through your body. You plastered your hand to his chest and pulled it down, nails catching on the thin material of his shirt until they were brushing along the zipper on his jeans. You gave him a quick squeeze—he was hard and straining—and he cursed loudly. Between one second and the next he was dragging you down a dimly light hallway, past kissing couples and one guy passed out drunk in the doorway of someone’s room. He swung you both into the first vacant room he came to; a lavish bathroom at the very back of the house. The door was closed with a swift thump and the lock clicked shut.

You licked your lips as he crowded you back into the counter, looking down at you with a tiny smirk. That part of your brain that yammered on about bad decisions was surprisingly quiet, so you figured it was beyond okay to pull him down for a kiss. As with most of the stuff he did, Ten was a damn good kisser. His mouth was soft and warm, his tongue playful and coaxing. He kissed you like he’d been waiting to kiss you for a long time. Until it grew deep and sensual. Until you were both panting with the need for air but neither wanting to let go of the moment.

With a gasp you tilted backwards a bit, your knees suddenly weak. “Fuck me,” you said absently.

“Can I?” Ten asked, chest heaving. “Can I fuck you?”

“God yes,” you replied, already pulling your dress up until it hitched around your waist.

Ten hooked his thumbs onto the band of your pink panties and slid them down your legs, laying them next to the sink. He looked you over with that same eye he used for his art but you could tell he liked what he saw. You grabbed his hand and brought it between your legs, spreading them wider for him. Two of his fingers slipped inside of you without any resistance to find you damp and aching, already so hot for him. He started a lazy rhythm—in and out, in and out—like he was in no hurry at all. Like he wasn’t driving you crazy all the way down to the tips of your toes.

He kept his eyes locked onto yours as he touched you, lips slightly parted like he couldn’t believe this was happening. That rang true for both of you. Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d ever really be friends with Ten, let alone about to hook up with him. It was like you’d stumbled into some alternate universe.

Bringing his free hand up to your cheek, he smoothed his thumb across your lips, pressing lightly until you let him in. You sucked his thumb into your mouth and gave it a little nip, smiling when he smirked. When he deemed it wet enough, he pressed it to your clit and you moaned, your hips stuttering upward with a will of their own. He began a firm massage, working your clit this way and that, fingers still thrusting in their maddening motion. Of course he’d be great with his hands. Of course he’d be able to play your body like a finely tuned instrument.

Pressure started to build low in your stomach. “I—I’m…”

“Turn around.” Ten took a step back and made a show of sucking his fingers into his mouth, tongue darting out to lick between them like he wanted to savor every drop.

You whimpered but did as he requested, your eyes finding his in the wide silver mirror. You watched as he unzipped his pants and pushed them along with his dark colored briefs down to the floor. You hadn’t seen him pull out a condom but he had one; ripping open the packaging with his perfectly straight teeth before rolling it onto his hard cock. It was a delicious looking thing you had to admit, long and thick with a slight curve. If you’d had the time you would have gladly went to your knees for him.

A low breath shuddered out of Ten’s lungs as he pushed inside of you, his hands gripping your waist so strongly you were bound to have a few bruises later. “Fuck, you’re tight.”

It had been a while since Adam and nobody after him until now.

When he assumed you’d adjusted to the size of him, he pulled nearly out before driving back inside of you. You moaned and pushed back to meet his thrusts, feeling the pleasure shattering through you. Your breasts bounced as he moved and he reached a hand forward, tugging down the top of your dress so that he could cup one. He rolled your nipple between his fingers and pinched, bending over you so that he could bite down onto the tender skin of your shoulder. The motion sent him even deeper and you both groaned at the feeling.

“Te—Ten,” you stammered, losing your train of thought when he rolled his hips liked he did on the dance floor. “Oh fuck! Fuck!”

The picture you made in the mirror was a very erotic one; you could see every single expression on Ten’s handsome face. The utter enjoyment he was obviously finding in fucking you was written all over it; there was nowhere for it to hide. His head was tipped back, eyes fluttering closed only to pop back open so that he could watch himself shove into you over and over again. He had you up on your tip toes, nose just an inch from the mirror itself. He was always sexy but tonight that word took on a whole new meaning.

All you could do was try to give as good as you got.

You slapped a hand onto the sink to steady yourself and clenched around him, reveling in the low whine that escaped his throat. It kinda sounded like your name.

And then he was pulling all the way out, dick bouncing as he stumbled backwards. You blinked in confusion. “Wh--what’s wrong?”

Ten ran his fingers through his hair. “C’mon. I want you to ride me.”

He sat down on the closed toilet seat lid and you straddled him without a second thought, sinking down onto his dick with a full body shudder. With your dress around your waist and your breasts jiggling in his face as you bounced up and down on his cock, he traced his tongue around your nipple before lightly biting down. You tangled your fingers in his hair and panted out his name, letting out a squeak when his palm connected with your ass for a hard slap. Planting his feet on the floor, he leaned you backwards a bit as he drove into you repeatedly, eyes watching how well your pussy took him.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured against your collarbone. “Gorgeous—you feel so good.” He bit you again, this time on the side of your neck. “So good.”

With one hand on his shoulder to brace yourself, you rose up and let yourself come down hard over and over again, feeling him pound so deep it was almost criminal. Had the music not been so loud you knew exactly what you would have heard; the sound of skin hitting skin as Ten fucked you like he owned you. Just for tonight, maybe he did.

You weren’t sure how long it went on but when you came it still managed to take you by surprise. Your body lit up like a Christmas tree from the inside out and you cried out Ten’s name, clenching around him, your nails digging into his shoulder blades. He muttered a drawn out fuuuuck and pinched your clit with this thumb and forefinger, making you jerk so hard you nearly tumbled off his lap.

“Ah! Ten!” You shouted as he kept it up. “I—no—oh god—”

Your pussy tightened around him again and he shivered, thrusts growing erratic as he came with a grunt. You trembled through a second orgasm almost in disbelief—usually the only thing that could get you off twice in a row was hidden under your bed in a shoe box.

Seconds later you flopped against him, attempting to catch your breath. He was still rolling his hips just a tiny bit, making all the too sensitive areas ping.

“Whoa,” he said breathlessly, wrapping both arms around your waist. “That was…”

You chuckled softly. “Yeah…” Chancing a look at him, you admired the way strands of his dark hair stuck to his sweaty forehead. He was glistening, shirt sticking to his chest. He smelled like hints of your perfume and you smelled like hints of his cologne. It was all so intimate.

Reluctantly you sat back and gazed at him, wondering if things were about to get awkward. But Ten just smiled and ducked his head a little, a barely there blush creeping up into his already flushed cheeks. It was so adorable you couldn’t have resisted kissing him if you tried. From the way he melted into you, he’d had the same idea.

After a few minutes of just enjoying the feel of his lips against yours, you forced yourself up off of him. Your legs shook; you had to grab the counter to keep from tripping in your heels. You could already tell you’d still feel him tomorrow and the thought made you kinda dizzy, but in a good way. Blinking at your reflection—your hair was a dark mess—you knew there was no way you’d be able to hide the love bites that adorned your skin. They stood out stark red and purple like a bruise.

Ten remained slouched on the toilet for a couple of moments before removing the condom and tossing it into the trash. He dabbed at his dick with a handful of toilet paper, and then pulled up his underwear and jeans. “So…can I ask you something?”

You fixed your dress. “Sure.”

“Who was that guy?” he inquired with a grin. “The one you obviously wanted to get away from.”

Oh shit you’d forgotten all about Adam! “Oh he—he’s my dumb ex. He jumped stupid at me and I—I wanted to show him that he’s an idiot. That I’m totally over him. I—I’m sorry for getting you involved.”

He laughed as he patted down his hair. “No complaints from my end. I think he got the message though.” Reaching behind you he handed you your panties. “Don’t wanna forget these.”

It was ridiculous to be embarrassed considering what you’d both just done, but you couldn’t help it. You took them from him and pulled them on, keeping your eyes on the ground. “Thanks… Look Ten—”

“I’m hungry,” he said interrupting you. “Have you ever had grilled dried pollack?”

“Um yeah once I think,” you replied uncertainly. “It was pretty tasty.”

Ten motioned behind him. “I know a place that makes it if you wanted to go. And…maybe afterwards we could just hang out. Talk.”

That sounded amazing. “I’d love to. But…”

He picked up on your meaning. “Y/N I sit next to you in all of our art classes. I make conversation with you for no reason. Do you really think I of all people forget my brushes? Honestly I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while but you’ve always seemed…disinterested.”

You were dumbstruck by his admission. “Me?! That’s just my face! You’re the unattainable ingénue or whatever!”

Ten chuckled, folding his arms across his chest. “Oh please the only thing standing between me and being a serious cat dad is having an apartment that allows animals. However, this conversation is pointless. You owe me and I’m collecting…if that’s okay?”

You huffed but couldn’t stop grinning. “It’s perfect.”

The walk from the bathroom to the living room had everyone staring with a few people letting out loud whistles. Adam had disappeared but Amy was there to give you a big thumbs up. You promised to call her later and then let Ten pull you outside into the warm night air, your fingers happily entwined with his.