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fluffypotatey · 1 year

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hey u know how mk only calls wukong by his title and never his name? and how wukong rarely if ever calls mk "mk," instead usually opting for "kid" or "bud?" and how both of those things are kind of representative of their relationship and how both of them care about each other a lot but they aren't honest with each other or with themselves about the other and how neither of them really wants to confront the fact that the other is a person with flaws and struggles? haha yeah <- normal <- lying about being normal

be glad i have been released from class now :) [narrator: she would later find herself late to her 2nd class while writing this]

so happy you have given me this excuse to talk about— i mean, yes! it is super normal to be thinking about this all the time and be comsumed by it and let me explain why:

i will start by going off on a tangent about names and labels and their narratove importance in stories because i love them and have a problem. (idk the word count here. viewer discretion is advized. i just wrote. it is long. beware)

In the Case of Names: a Sunburst Duo Essay

by Yours Truly <3

In the Case of Names in LMK: a Summary (please for the love of pete be a summary)

Ok, so, let me give y'all a quick overview (i failed. this is you're only warning. i failed, and this became a monster of an essay. run while you still have the chan—) of names in the literary sense. When studying novels and books and shit in your literature classes, you will notice that your professor might discuss the importance or ill-importance of characters' names in the story. For example: in the classic novel Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist's name is fucking Guy Montage to illustrate how he's just some fucking guy, a John Doe, a man stuck and complicit in the dystopian world.

You get me? No? Sorry, you want more examples? Fine then :3 let me introduce you to a story called Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It is an allegorical novel that criticized the utilitarian movement going on in dear old Great Britain in the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution. Some fun characters were Johannes Bounderby and Thomas Gradgrind. Tell me, what images did you imagine when I gave you those names? Did you think of a bouncing ball for Bounderby? Were you imagining something square or maybe a mechanical grinder for Mr. Gradgrind?

Remarkable isn't it. The way choosing a name has on a reader/audience's perception of the character. Names are not just placeholders for a character. Names are the identity of that character. Names can establish their starting arc or their ending. Names can be visual in the sense that they invoke a strong idea of what a character might resemble or what themes they will present the audience with. Removing a character's name also removes their identity.

Remember that.

Anyway, I have talked enough about names in the general literary sense. Let us move on to LMK.

Given that this show is based off of Journey to the West (JTTW), many of the names of the antagonist are already provided, and their English translation is pretty literal (Demon Bull King, Lady Bone Demon, Red Son) with some exceptions (Jing & Yin, the Gold and Silver Demons), but their names all provide a description of what they are and how they should be viewed. Spider Queen is a spider demon and views herself as queen. Pretty solid characterization there. Lady Bone Demon, she's a bone demon and has enough rank to be considered a lady (or that could just be to ID that she is a woman but eh). Princess Iron Fan: she's a celestial princess and wields an iron fan. Got it? Good. These examples are simply here to show that a majority of the JTTW antagonists are still fulfilling their roles as antagonistic characters. What I mean is this: since "A Hero is Born," MK has been fighting against the Monkey King's old enemies from the JTTW book. It's like the moment MK inserted himself into the role of successor, the antagonist themselves were inserted to redo their old role of fighting the "Monkey King." It's almost as if nothing has changed beside the fact that their new op enemy is a "human" wielding the legendary staff.

[hmmmm, wait i actually never put this into words until now and it's fitting very well with the whole "MK's fight against Fate/the Narrative" but we'll just put a pin in that.]

However, when it comes to MK's friends (Pigsy, Tang, Sandy, Mei), they all share different names from their reincarnated/ancestral counterparts (Zhu Bajie, Tang Sangzang (they just give Tripitaka a last name lol), Sha Wujing, and Ao Lie). Their identity is separate, distinctive from who they are meant to reflect to the audience. (But look at how Tang still shares the same 1st name to the blessed monk, see how he's the one whose powers are the most similar, see how he being pulled into the direction of emulating the monk, see how much Tang fights it, see—)

Fascinating huh? But let us move on before I forget myself.

In the Case of MK's Names: a Paragraph (DO NOT, i repeat, DO NOT GO OFF THE RAILS)

So, in the English version, there is a running gag about how MK's "real" name is long and complicated, and we don't actually know it. All we know is that MK switched it long before the pilot. And even before MK has that talk with Master Subodhi in s4ep7 (or 6? 8?), I would chuckle at how on the nose his name was. MK the Monkie Kid... how silly of the show writers....ahaha, what a funny little decision to make :)

Do we know why MK changed his name? Other than his original one being long, no. Do we know why MK specifically? We don't know. Maybe, in his fanboy brain for all things Monkey King, MK thought it would be cool to have a name that identified close to his idol. A name that identified with someone he wished to emulate and be as powerful as and felt so connected to. But what do I know? I am a mere local gal who feeds off of metas and theories and all things relating to my beloved sunburst duo.

Then, we have MK's many titles: Monkie Kid (IDs him as the new generations Monkey), Successor (IDs him as the one who will succeed Sun Wukong in both the title of Monkey King and power), Noodle Boy (pronounced "New-dle Boi and IDs as the boy who works in his surrogate/adopted dad's noodle shop), Delivery Boy (his actual job for the noodle shop), and last but not least, Harbinger of Chaos.

What makes a harbinger? What is chaos? What are their intentions? Are they good? Bad? Neutral?

So, I've already defined harbinger before and many others have as well, but to sum up: a harbinger is a being/person/thing that announced the coming of something be it good or bad but most of the time the focus is bad. A "Harbinger of Chaos" then, would be the one to announce the coming of Chaos™️ and the disruption of world order. Is this a bad thing? Well, the show presents it at the moment as so, but that doesn't mean it will be. Honestly, the show has shown order and fixed structures more in a bad light and promotes free will and choosing a destiny that fits you as the good thing 👀 (another thing to pin in the MK might to go war with Fate)

But now I have established MK's names and must shut up and move on before I no longer can.

In the Case of Sun Wukong's Names: some Paragraphs (STAY ON TARGET PLEASE)

I will admit that my knowledge of names in China is very low, and by low, I mean I know nothing (most of what I do know comes from asking friends and informational sites). So, let me begin this segment with an excerpt of Sun Wukong gaining his name from the book itself :) and break it down with my interpretation and how that is applied to LMK.

When the Patriarch heard this, he was secretly pleased, and said, “Well, evidently you have been created by Heaven and Earth. Get up and show me how you walk.” Snapping erect, the Monkey King scurried around a couple of times. The Patriarch laughed and said, “Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a pignolia-eating monkey (husun). This gives me the idea of taking a surname for you from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name Hu. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what’s left is a compound made up of the two characters, gu and yue. Gu means aged and yue means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of Sun. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what we have left is the compound of zi and xi. Zi means a boy and xi means a baby, and that name exactly accords with the fundamental Doctrine of the Baby Boy. So your surname will be ‘Sun.’” When the Monkey King heard this, he was filled with delight. “Splendid! Splendid!” he cried, kowtowing, “At last I know my surname. May the master be even more gracious! Since I have received the surname, let me be given also a personal name..." ..."You will hence be given the religious name ‘Wake-to-the-Void’ (wukong). All right?” “Splendid! Splendid!” said the Monkey King, laughing. “Henceforth I shall be called Sun Wukong.”

What a fucking cutie <3

So, what can we gather from this excerpt? Sun Wukong just gained his official name. No longer is he a monkey with descriptive titles, no longer is he a monkey without a surname to be referred to as and respected for. He now has both a surname and a personal name. And while I don't fully understand everything Master Subodi listed when naming Sun Wukong, it is important to note the importance of it and how happy Wukong is to receiving it.

Before this, the book would simply refer to Wukong as Shihou (stone monkey) or the Handsome Monkey King. Both of these are descriptive titles that just inform you what Wukong is rather than who, just like with the other demons met in JTTW. But now, we get to know him as Sun Wukong, someone more than his titles and such. There's even an explanation in the preface how Wukong's own personal name has significant meaning or relation to Buddhism, but I won't get too much into that since my knowledge is of that is 0 and I want to try and stick to LMK.

Now then, let us examine Wukong's name in the LMK sense. Literally everyone in the show call him either Monkey King or "simian" (and if he really pissed them off, Sun Wukong). The only people to refer to Wukong by his personal name is Nezha, Macaque, and Peng. It is literally just these three. And while we could argue all say it like "Wukong (derogatory)," I believe Peng's the only one who means it. Meaning, I think Macaque says Wukong because he was the closest friend of SWK, thus that's the only name Macaque would ever call him (sure, he said Monkey King and shit in s1 but that was when he was duping MK soooooooo). Nezha calls him Wukong because after the whole Havoc in Heaven and journey stuff, he is the new oldest member to befriend Wukong and not be enemies with him (yes, he will get annoyed and aggravated by him, and he will not always believe Wukong's intentions are great, but he still cares and is his 2nd closests living friend).

Peng, on the other hand, does not give a shit. I fully believe that guy never cared for Wukong. They only joined the brotherhood because of Azure (they even offered for Azure to be the brotherhood's leader). I do not think Peng cares for formalities when it comes to people they dislike. We could argue that maybe Peng cared for Wukong in the beginning, but I do, honestly, not believe it. The only reason Peng even felt betrayed was because it messed up Azure's plan. Not because the two were sworn brothers.

But yeah, very few characters actually call Sun Wukong by his name, and when they do, it establishes not just how close they are/were, but also how long they've known each other. It's the same thing with how Wukong refers to others. He barely calls Pigsy, Tang, and Sandy by their names. He will give people nicknames and shit just to place a safe distance from them because of his own very unhealthy attachment issues.

In the Case of MK and SWK's Names for Each Other: the Actual Sunburst Duo Essay (you are free now.....)

Speaking of attachment issues, let's talk about the Sunburst Duo and how much these two need to sit down and talk.

So, we have discussed how names are integral to identifying a character's purpose, thematic journey, description. We have discussed how a person's title can clue in on certain characterization, present or future, and how they demonstrate the way others view them. Now let us apply this to our beloved sunburst duo.

As mentioned in your ask, @gumy-shark, both MK and Sun Wukong barely call each other by name (MK never has as far as I am aware, and SWK has done so only a few). It's "Monkey King" from MK and "kid," "bud," "buddy" from SWK. Rarely do the two ever think to say each other's name.

In the beginning, I originally thought MK only calls Wukong "Monkey King" as a way to be respectful, and with Wukong, I assumed he called MK "kid" simply because MK was very young to him. However, as we get into s3, and especially s4, MK and Wukong have grown a lot closer. Neither of them see each other as just a mentor or student but as friends. And yet, they cannot seem to stop calling each other by their title or nickname.

Thus, the distance is still there. S3 ends with Wukong promising to do better as a mentor and be more honest with MK, and we do seem him attempt this. He gives out more praises, he's more open about his feelings and then gets sucked into the memory scroll. But here's the kicker: the two are doing a reverse in their dynamic.

When it starts out, it is Monkey King who establishes the line between the two. He will simply be MK's mentor and teach him all the kid has to know in order to succeed him. MK is ecstatic to even be near SWK. This is his idol, the guy he's had a special interest in for years probably. He now gets to train under the Monkey King. He wants to do good. He wants to kickass. He wants to be just like him.

But as the story goes on, we see SWK open up to MK more and care for him deeply and want to protect him, and we see MK uncover the skeletons in SWK's closet and feel so alone and learn that the power he used to wish for is not what he expected. And in the aftermath of s3, it is now SWK who is opening up and trying to help kindle and safely guide their friendship in a healthier path(ish). It is SWK who is placing his own protege on a pedestal because "loook at him! isn't he so great and powerful! he will help this world a lot more than i did". It is SWK who is disregarding th original rules he placed. But now ,it is MK who is keeping the distance more than SWK. It is MK is trying to force some kind of distance. He feels like he shouldn't burden SWK with his doubts and worries. He is terrified of his own powers and their capabilities and worries his actions will make the same mistake as his mentor.

With s3 and s4, SWK has called MK by name quite a few times. Especially in s4. It's not a lot, but it's definitely more than before. And yet, MK cannot call Wukong by name. Personally, I think he might still feel like he's under Wukong's shadow. As his successor, there is a legacy that he will carry when Wukong actually retires and gives his title to MK (which is what I assume Wukong will do??? It is still unclear what exactly MK's succeeding SWK of). And that legacy is quite the burden. I would not be surprised that MK is unable to place himself as being worthy of taking Wukong's place just yet (if ever).

This guy was his idol for a long time. And with that, you tend to place a high pedestal for those people. MK has given Wukong such a high pedestal, and Wukong is very aware of it. It's why the guy even keeps his distance in the first place, and why he's scared to disappoint him. But, MK has learned so much, has been told of the tales and pain his mentor inflicted on others in the past (a past SWK greatly regrets), and yet cannot find it in himself to lower that pedestal or even allow himself to think about it. Because if he does, then he will have to acknowledge his own pain and his own disappointment in someone he not only admires but has come to love like family. And it is very hard to reckon with the hurt and pain caused by someone you consider family.

So yeah, they are silly monkeys who cannot communicate to save their life and need to just sit down and talk or else this will continue to boil and explode and we'll have a SWK and MK showdown (fuck yeah! i will be crying so hard).

[end of essay]

#was late to my next class because of this #got lost in the sauce that my friend had to text me for me to remember i have CLASS #sigh #hope you enjoyed my scholarly account on names and how they pertain to the sunburst duo #also barely anyone even refers to Tripitaka by name #it's always 'the monk this' or 'the monk that' he only gets called by name if someone is being very formal about it #LITERALLY TRIPITAKA ISN'T EVEN CALLED TRIPITAKA AND IDK WHY #WHY ARE YOU HOLDING OUT LMK EXPLAIN #EXPLAIN YOURSELF #WHY IS TANG'S ANCESTOR BARELY REFERRED TO BY NAME #anyway #there you go #hope you're happy #i used all my brain energy for this #this took me 2 hours to write in total #and that was simply because i chose not to include screencaps from the show itself out of self restraint #lmk #lmk analysis #lmk sunburst duo #lmk sun wukong #lmk mk #lmk qi xiaotian #qi xiaotian #sunburst duo #asks #read more #long post

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quietwingsinthesky · 3 months

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Idk how easily you could fit this into 200 words so feel free not to fill this prompt but I think a samifer time loop would be fun

i have. a few hundred extra words about it. if that helps. (<- guy who is so so late)

Sam flinches from Jess’s hand as it ghosts across his face. “You’re not her,” he says, exhausted. There’s a part of Lucifer that mourns the moments they could have shared in blissful ignorance and another that’s so proud of his vessel for recognizing him through the face he wears

And then, Sam whispers, “Not again. I can’t do this again.” He rolls away from Lucifer to get his feet under him. His shoulders hang heavy as he sucks in a breath. Lucifer sheds one face for another as easily as breathing. Even in dreams, Nick is ill-fitting. Sam moves out of Lucifer’s reach again before his hand is even halfway to the small of his back.

“I won’t say yes,” Sam says, pacing his way across the room away from Lucifer. Lucifer nods, understanding. He expected to wait, as eager as he was to approach Sam.

“I-”

“You will lie to me,” Sam cuts him off. Lucifer frowns.

“I-” he tries again.

“And you can’t help me. I don’t- It doesn’t matter if you do, but it’s worse when you try.”

“I wasn’t about to offer to help you.” Lucifer is thoroughly confused by now. The way Sam stares at him makes him uneasy. Lucifer is used to being the monster, unknown and dangerous. Sam is watching his every movement like he knows them, waiting for the warning before Lucifer strikes. “But if you need my-” Sam flinches.

“I skipped a few steps. Sorry. Don’t.” He swallows. “Don’t.” He looks like he’s been backed into a corner and beaten. Lucifer knows the feeling too well. He’s only just thrown it off, and he wants Sam to have that freedom.

“Sam, I want to give you-”

“The only promise you can make right now that you’ll be able to keep is that you’ll hurt me.” Lucifer stands. Sam takes a step back, and there’s panic across his face that freezes Lucifer in his tracks.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says, very softly, like Sam will spook if he raises his voice a decibel and for all he knows, he will. “Even if I can’t help.” Sam hears the emphasis he places on the ‘if’, but he finds no comfort in it.

“Why are you always kind when it starts?” Sam asks. His voice is too worn for him, too old. “Was it- Was it always a trick? Why do you change?” He comes closer, and Lucifer tamps down on the instinctive reaction to mirror him, meet Sam’s steps with his own to bring them together.

“I don’t understand,” Lucifer says.

“I know.” And then there’s a sharp, horrible laugh that erupts from him. “You know what’s worse? You’re the only one who ever believes me. Dean doesn’t trust me enough right now to take my word for it, and, uh… Whatever keeps me here hides the memories from Cas, so he’s with Dean on me losing my mind.”

“Sam,” Lucifer interrupts. Sam words jump out of him, like he can’t stop himself.

“Sorry.” Lucifer wants to touch him. He’s so close, so temptingly within reach, and Lucifer could comfort him, he’s sure. If Sam would only let him, Lucifer could fix whatever’s wrong. He has no sense for how powerful an archangel is. He’s never known how much Lucifer will bend reality to please Sam. “You’re not going to like any of what I’m about to say,” Sam warns, “but you can’t change it and neither can I. If there was, I would have found it by now.” Lucifer is about to speak, but Sam, again, interrupts. “I do have to say that now, yeah. Trust me. I know you better than you know yourself.”

Lucifer does not stop the skeptical expression crossing his face, no matter how sure of himself Sam sounds.

“In the Cage, you used to relive Michael beating you down into Hell.” The words are shaped to hurt, but the way Sam says them isn’t. It’s become rote, fact alone as though he’s said this same thing to cut through Lucifer before.

“How do you know that?” Too loud. Sam flinches from him. Lucifer softens his voice immediately, steps away from Sam to encourage him to meet his gaze again rather than look at Lucifer’s hands.

“Because you told me.” Sam’s mouth twitches with a long-dead moment of humor. “Because we used to do this with a movie Nick had seen, but you kept getting caught on there being a way to escape.” Sam does, gingerly, meet his eyes again. “That’s what I’ve been doing. Reliving the last- the last decade”—Sam’s voice shakes over that word, and Lucifer knows instantly that he’s lying about something—“of my life, over and over again. Starting here. You always wake me up.”

#i can and will make fics for the prompts that have been starving in my inbox. i will.#maybe they wont be much but i cant let them stay in there forever.#anyway. time loop horror premise thats never explored enough To Me: what’s it like to be the other person in a time loop unaware of it.#ask #prompt fic #fanfiction #spn #samifer #sam winchester #lucifer spn

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moonlightperseus · 1 year

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SLEEP ITS ALL RIGHT ILL KEEP WATCH ,,,, FOR SOMEONE OF UR CHOICE ,,,,,,,,,

1.3k // set in a 911 post-apocalyptic au that i may or may not expand on in the future (hooooo boy, much like bastille's extended edition of the doom days album— this got out of hand )

“You should get some sleep,” Buck says as he uses some rope to secure the door shut.

“No offense, but I don’t think that rope tied to a hook on the wall is gonna be any good if we’re attacked in the night.”

Buck shoots the other man a look, “well no, but it’ll at least keep us out of sight—and keep out any scavenging animals.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow, arms crossed over his chest—sitting on the floor and looking petulant in a way that reminds Buck oh-so-much of a certain eight year old.

Buck looks away.

“It’s alright,” he ties another knot in the rope for good measure, “I’ll keep watch. You need to rest, your ankle—”

“It's not broken,” Eddie insists, “it’s just a sprain.”

“—is injured, in order to do any healing you have to get some rest.”

Eddie huffs out a sigh and Buck takes it as the closest thing to acceptance that he’s going to get.

“Here,” Buck moves to where he sat down his backpack, takes off the attached bedroll and tosses it to Eddie, “no reason for you to lie on the bare shitty ass concrete—and don’t give me the ‘I’ve slept on worse’ speech—healing has no room for macho tough guy shit.”

Eddie stares down at the bedroll in his lap for a moment and then looks up at Buck with an unreadable expression on his face, when he turns his attention back on the bedroll, he wordlessly begins undoing the straps keeping it rolled tight and spreads it out next to him.

Before Buck can offer to help him, Eddie unceremoniously shifts himself over onto it, hissing quietly when the movement jostles his ankle. Buck winces in sympathy.

Just as quickly as he had moved to the makeshift bed, Eddie removes his jacket and peels off the flannel underneath, leaving him in just a thin black tank top, Buck finds himself looking away for a reason he can’t quite explain.

When he looks back, a small part of him is relieved that the tank top remains on, while the jacket is folded somewhat neatly on the ground beside Eddie and the flannel shoved under his head as a makeshift pillow.

Eddie catches his eye and pats at the jacket, “no reason for you to sit on the bare shitty ass concrete.”

Buck laughs, shaking his head a little, but obediently moves towards Eddie, pausing only before sitting down, “won’t you get cold?”

“I run hot,” Eddie says simply, patting at the jacket with a little more insistence, “I’m saving your ass—literally—it’s the least I can do, so don’t go all macho tough guy on me here.”

Buck laughs again, softer this time, “alright, alright, as long as it means you’ll get some rest.”

Eddie settles back onto the bedroll once Buck sits down on the jacket—it provides little cushion but manages to prevent the cold of the cement from seeping through to his skin.

Buck flicks off the small lantern providing them with light and leans back against a wooden support beam, a hand reaching out to rest on the hilt of his axe.

There’s just enough moonlight coming in from the few narrow windows lined along the top of the shed for him to make out Eddie’s figure beside him, eyes closed, but Buck can tell he’s not asleep yet, his breathing not yet evened out and body a little too stiff.

Sleep isn’t something that comes easily to anyone these days.

Buck turns his attention back to the door of the shed, Eddie’s eyes being closed doesn’t make him feel any better about staring.

They remain like that for a while, bathed in soft moonlight and silence. It would almost be nice—were they not in an old musty shed tucked away at the edge of a ghost town, hiding out in an actual goddamn apocalypse.

Buck has no idea how much time has passed when Eddie breaks the silence, but he startles slightly when he does, hand instinctively clenching around the axe.

“Would you—” Eddie hesitates, and Buck resists the urge to look down at him, “would you—I know you said he’s doing as best as any kid could be doing right now, and that he’s remained uninjured—but would you tell me some more about how Chris has been doing? It’s been—it’s been so long and I—”

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Eddie,” Buck says softly, “of course, I’ll talk to you about Chris. What do you want me to tell you about?”

“Just—anything really.”

Buck nods, more to himself than anything. “Okay, hmm, well—a little while back, I found this wal-mart that by some small miracle still had some functioning electricity—most of the useful shit had already been raided, but I managed to find a few hidden gems. That bedroll you’re lying on, for example, and a whole—fully frozen and completely untouched quart tub of ice cream. I was able to keep it cold enough to get it back without it melting, but there was no way we were gonna be able to keep it from melting, and Chris was so excited—”

“Tell me you didn’t let him eat the whole tub of ice cream,” Eddie interrupts, the amusement laced in his voice undermining the tone of his words.

“He insisted on sharing with me and Maddie,” Buck says with a small laugh, his voice sounding so incredibly fond to even his own ears, “so more like half a tub.”

“Pretty dumb move there, Buckley, how was the sugar crash?”

“Not as bad as I thought it would be, honestly, he talked our ears off about dinosaurs and space, Maddie and I took him outside to stargaze when he wound down a little bit and he fell asleep out there. It was honestly—it was one of the best nights Maddie and I have had since before the world went to shit—maybe even since before then. You’ve—you’ve got a real great kid, Diaz.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says, his voice going soft, “not just for—saying that—but, thank you for looking after him, keeping him safe and for—giving him the chance to still be a kid despite—everything.”

Buck’s heart stutters a little in his chest and he finally gives in to the urge to look at Eddie, it’s hard to be certain in the dim light, but he’s pretty certain Eddie’s looking right back at him.

“I’m glad it was you,” Eddie continues, “I’m glad you were the one who found him.”

Buck has to look away again, blinking back the tears suddenly stinging the corners of his eyes, grateful for the bit of privacy provided by the dark. “You—uh, you hardly know me.”

“You saved my life—two times over basically—since you saved Christopher too, and I’m pretty damn certain—based on that and what I do know about you—getting to know you better will only affirm my feelings.”

“I’m also glad I found him,” the words feel like some kind of confession on Buck’s lips, “and I’m really glad I was able to find you, too.”

Buck swallows back whatever the feelings are building in his throat, “you should—you should really get some sleep, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover tomorrow.”

Eddie makes a quiet noise, something close to a hum, “would—would you keep talking—just until I drift off?”

Buck thinks—a little ridiculously—that he would do just about anything Eddie asks him.

It’s easy, lapsing into stories about Christopher and random facts he’s learned over the years and it doesn’t feel like long before Eddie’s breathing begins to even out.

He keeps talking even once Eddie’s fallen asleep—quieter murmurings of useless knowledge, more to keep himself from drifting off.

There’s a chill in the air, and Buck removes his jacket—grateful to be wearing a long sleeve shirt underneath—carefully draping it over Eddie before settling himself in for the remainder of the night.

#911 fic #911 au #buddie #911 #evan buckley #eddie diaz #my fic #fanfic #hooooooooo boyyyyyyyyyyyyy this fic turned into a bit of a monster for supposed to being a short lil drabble #doom days 118 #<- tentatively using that as my tag for this au #abby writes #i am listening to the doom days (this got out of hand edition) album now

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lavendershift-ofc · 2 years

Text

»»————-　⚜　————-««

Hello guys, here's another work I did recently! Here are some ragnanoids for you! Some of art might be creepy, so turn away if mild body horror is not okay. Long text will have themes of colonialism, experiments, and pushing beliefs on others, just to let you know.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

»»————-　⚜　————-«« So the first one (red/white/orange) is Aki, and he is a farmer. He lives in a village, does hard work to grow some plants, and he is a reserved type. Hates it, when people get into his field Second one (blue, no background) is Gregory, and he cannot speak, had a severe physical trauma to his throat. The thing is, he is a half-ragnanoid, half-siren. He lacks physical feature of having another pair of eyes that allow him to see in the dark. His father was afraid that him being a siren will give him a deadly power of using his siren voice (surprise, he didn't have one). So, in paranoia, he ripped his throat, and regrets his decision to do it. Whoops. Anyways, he is Aki's half-brother.

The third one (background, with creepy face) is Kasperi, Caspar. He is a scientist, wanting to create a powerful offspring for his species and spent a lot of time trying to find a cure for an illness. So, he had many children with many women. And Gregory was the only one who lived with him the longest. Father of Aki, Gregory and more people.

Fourth one is a rich city girl with a different mask type. As you can see, she appears to be futuristic, modern and she doesn't wear a suit, has only diodes on her skin. She has a different mask. Fifth one is a legendary figure in ragnanoid history - called "Tuhontuoja", which means "Bringer of destruction". She indeed, is responsible for the death of hundreds, if not thousands. Some people believe she is still alive, despite this legend being hundreds years old. The last one is a non-mask user. Masks are used for aesthetic (recognizing tribe members, showing off pride, money) and practical (to protect from strong blows during fight, from cold) reasons. Ragnanoids are half-robots, half-biological creatures resembling humans, and they are susceptible to cold. Some ragnanoids do not use masks, as they have their own belief to be more open, vulnerable to world. There is one religion, that forbids use of the mask. »»————-　⚜　————-««

So, as I mentioned they are more of a human, a mammal. They are procreated in a typical mammalian fashion, and born too. Afterwards, they are modified by age, as they already have a bit of metallic parts in their bones. Depending on what they want to become, they modify their bodies. Aki's body, for instance, was modified right after birth, as you can see he is quite muscular.

Originating from snowy, dark planet Eges, those creatures can adapt in cold, but not in heat. They use metallic plats to help control their temperature with circulating system in their body to make sure they won't overheat/freeze.

- They are taller than a human - 7 feet / over 210 centimeters in height, they are more muscular and stronger, and they are more agile. Their technology is advanced enough to make them live over a century, and to make them into strong killer machines (Tuhontuoja). As humans met them, humans named them "ragnaroids", because they looked, like otherworldly creatures. Themselves, ragnanoids called themselves "ragnins". Humans and ragnanoids lived peacefully with colonies and villages together, but there were wars. Later, some humans kidnapped ragnanoids, and raised them to be pet-like, which stunted their growth. This was another reason for wars. Humans later would called them "ragbars", which ragnanoids see it as a slur.

If you noticed, that they have two pairs of eyes. The lower pair allows them to see colours and movements. The upper one allows them to see in the dark. Lower pair can see in dark too, but they can see only a little, thus upper pair is like a night vision, infrared. Unfortunately, bright light can damage the upper pair, and thus, masks have shield to over their upper eyes. And also, lower pair is vulnerable to bright light too, and they will squint in a bright day. Their houses have lights, that gradually get brighter so their eyes will get used to it. And plus, they can be blinded with a sudden flash, especially in the dark, rendering them blind for a while. Fun fact - all four eyes glow in the dark.

Their skin is always grey, bluish, blood is often purprlish brown with blue tone. Their hair is often dark, varying from blue, purple, brown or grey. But, they sometimes dye their hair, like humans do. They have a set of sharp teeth and long canines that are typically cut off during childhood, after milk teeth have fallen. They have sharp, cat-like claws.

Due to humans imposing their beliefs, it lead to some families mutilate their children to make them fit in among humans, as to remove/file sharp teeth and remove claws. This of course, made them go through a lot of pain, as they lose senses at the tips of their fingers, and their hands. Unluckier people can no longer move their fingers, even their whole palms, sometimes if improperly done their hands need to be amputated (infections, nerve damage)

Another feature is a growl-like sound. Scientists, both ragnanoids and humans, believe it derives from the fact they used to it spook off other creatures during a fight with rivaling species. It can damage their throat severely, if used too often. They sometimes use to it to put their foot down or use it as a warning. Like a cat hissing. Growl can range from a bobcat howling, vixen shrieking, or a tiger growling.

They can live up to 100 years, but sometimes even longer. Due to battles, they can die young. They usually are peaceful people, and they refuse to hold a grudge, but they will defend themselves.

Psychologically, they are introverted, live in villages, communes. Big cities are rare in their homeplanet as well. They prefer to live in solitude. They are more of down-to-earth folk, preferring to forage, farm and hunt. Even in major cities, their rooftops and parks have a lot of spots to grow legumes and fruit to be harvested and to fulfill their satisfaction and stimulate their old tradition.

They have their own beliefs, such as whistling during snowstorm being deadly, having to stomp snow and/or dirt off shoes before entering home, or never speak to other person while they're eating.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

Now, for the main character Aki. He is a typical ragnin, who forages, grows a farm and hunts. He spends time gathering resources for survival. He is reclusive, had hard time getting along with humans. / Age - 25-30 / Gender - Male (He/him) / Hair - Dyed blonde, originally was silverish / Speaks - English, Ragn / Voice claim - Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor) / His father is Kasperi/Caspar. His birth father made him to try to have a normal child and to test on him to find a cure for his illness. But, "CPS"-like system got suspicious, and took Aki away from Kasperi. Aki, spent his childhood with some other ragnanoids in a small village. His life was okayish, until humans came. Aki befriended one of the human children called Zach. Othr human children were scared of Aki on how big and monstrous to them he was, but only Zach was brave enough to get close. Humans were at first a small colony, a small neighboring area. Humans and ragnanoids got along easily, having no fight, and grew plants together. But yet, humans became very intrusive. They projected their beliefs, beauty standards that lead to suffering of many ragnanoids, such as de-clawing. As the result, leader of village decided to keep humans away from their village. Humans soon began to spy, lure child ragnanoids to their village to impose their religion onto them. On top of that, during nights, they would break into farming areas and steal food. Turns out, Zach and other person broke in. Zach got wounded, other human killed out of self defense. Zach was son of a human colony leader, and this angered Zach's father, who lead an attack on ragnanoids. Zach was no longer human ambassador for ragnanoids. Few days later, there was a large battle at night.

Zach was wounded by his father even more, Aki came in time to hold him in his arms. Zach died, and Aki got really mad, chased down Zach's father, who ended up dying from getting ambushed by other ragnanoids, as the human leader killed ragnin leader.

After the battle, Aki was broken. He left the village and began to live in the woods, taking Zach's pet labrador Daisy with him, which was a puppy found by the boys. Nowadays, he lives by himself, not until Gregory, his half-brother comes by.

By personality, Aki is cheerful, talkative and sometimes loud guy. Often, he prefers quality over quantity, that overwhelms him, when he does handicrafts to be sold. He doesn't spend much time with other ragnanoids, but is considered quite talkative for a typical ragnanoid.

He is peaceful, but will chase down anyone who gets into his garden.

He is tall, about 210 centimeters tall, and weighs 124 kilograms without a suit, and 132 kilograms with one. He has bleached and dyed his hair bright blonde, before it was dark grey with blue tint. He has grey complexion, two sets of eyes, both green. His suit consists of red, light grey and orange colours, that are bright. He wears shorts and a grey vest to make himself look comfortable in front of humans.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

#art #digital art #alien species #alien #robot #species #lore #small artist

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riverdamien · 2 months

Text

Walking in the Wilderness of Compassion

"Standing in the Wilderness of Compassion!"

"There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion. It is the only desert that shall truly flourish like the lily (Thomas Merton).

==========================================

Matthew 18:12-14 NLT

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish."

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

Recently the San Francisco Chronicle entitled, "Mayor Plans to Clear Homeless Encampments in San Francisco": with these words,

"We have had to move froma compassionate city to a city of accountability. I have also been leading the efforts to ensure we are addressing this issue differently. The Supervisors are in support.

Sharon Rapport, an activist said in response: This order wants to reduce homelessness or deter encampments, but it will leave vulnerable people even farther away from home and health than they are today.

19-year-old Sean, a transgender young guy, is terrified, telling me how aggressive the police have been, and that he is going to lose all of his treasured belongings.

It is hard for many to understand that in their baskets, and carts they have their treasured belongings; just like housed people who lose their belongings in a fire they grieve.

There is an old Indian proverb that says, Walk a mile in my moccasins before you tell me to walk in yours, all of us are children of God, we all bleed, we all suffer, and when we die we are definitely equal; so let us simply walk with our brothers and sisters on the street.

One homeless gentleman said as well: The City does not give a damn for us as human beings, but we are treated like junk to push around."

The City expects people to be in the square box of being clean, drug-free, working, and housed when in reality there is not enough housing, food, and drug treatment. And secondly one can not force another human being in their choices when they fear being harmed.

I understand politicians are under pressure to "solve" the homeless problem, in that process, we are pushing them to harm individuals who are having difficulty, poor, homeless, mentally ill, and powerless. But that is no excuse they are elected to serve all, with equality.

Jesus was loud and clear he always sought out those for whom no one cared as he demonstrates in the above Gospel. Dorothy Solle in her message below says it loud and clear:

The Last Shall Be First

Theologian Dorothee Sölle (1929–2003) understood God’s kingdom as good news for women and all oppressed people.

The Jesus movement was a group of female and male friends who followed the little man from Nazareth. Many had no fixed dwelling and had abandoned their traditional family bonds.... We can best imagine these conditions if we think of the vast [barrios] of Latin America, for example, where the poorest of the poor are women. When the New Testament speaks on almost every page about the sick, we must think here of sick women, blind, paralyzed, and seared by misery. Many were psychically sick, or possessed by demons, as the New Testament says. The Jesus movement offered hope for these sufferers. They were healed and began to heal others. They heard the good news of liberation and passed it on. They were filled, and they shared the little they had.

The Jesus movement lived in conflict with its society. Jesus expected the reversal of all social oppositions through God’s intervention, and this expectation—“the kingdom of God is at hand”—characterized the movement. All those who were outsiders according to the norms of society and held to be “impure” according to the law—the poor, the landless, public sinners, tax collectors, and women—were accepted here. “The last will be first” [Matthew 20:16] is a keynote permeating the whole message of Jesus. [1]

Each Wednesday, at Noon on the

Polk side of City Hall at Noon

We will stand outside the gate, in the wilderness, in the Desert of Compassion with the above sign whose inscription reads:

"Homeless People Are Made In God's Image! Come and Serve in the Desert of Compassion!

COME JOIN US!

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

"Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. — Naomi Shihab Nye, “Kindness”

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

30th Anniversary Celebration

Victor’s Pizza

6 p.m.

November 9, 2024

WE ARE BEGGARS! WE REALLY NEED MONEY--Really Badly At the moment!

FOR FOOD, SOCKS, HARM REDUCTION AND OTHER SERVICES!

P.O. Box 642656

415-305-2124

[email protected]

pay pal

www.temenos.org

(Temenos and Dr. River seek to remain accessible to everyone. We do not endorse particular causes, political parties, or candidates, or take part in public controversies, whether religious, political or social--Our pastoral ministry is to everyone!

Temenos Catholic Worker

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

Dr. River Sims, D.Min, D.S.T.

#homeless #spirituality #povertyy #youth

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lizardbytheriver · 2 years

Text

Matt Walsh: "All right, everybody, let's jump right into it. Turn this fan off. Let's see. "Do you think the trans contagion would die out," Connor asks, "if social media were to be abolished somehow. It seems like it's the oxygen that allows these terrible ideas to keep breathing."

Well, it wouldn't die out because it existed before, you know, before social media existed. So this stuff predates, this stuff predates social media by several decades... you know that you know, this this goes back to John Money, Alfred Kinsey, it goes back to the mid-20th Century, and you could even do it back to earlier than that if you wanted to but certainly gender ideology, you could find, uh, it's the beginning of its kind of modern manifestation in the mid-20th century. So, you know, you don't need social media for it, but social media is a it's a delivery system for the trans social contagion and for every other sort of social contagion. I think it would be handicapped quite, quite, quite a bit if there wasn't any social media, or even if simply there weren't any kids on social media, like if there was a law that could actually be enforced that nobody under the age of 18 is allowed to use social media, then I think a lot of this stuff, it would it would it would be a hindrance, hindrance to the trans movement.

Uh, "Should trans surgery be banned for adults, too?" Um, yeah. I mean, I think it should be. Yes. Now is that ever actually going to happen? No, but, um, I don't think, and I'll tell you, and here's here's the reason. I don't think a doctor should be allowed to do that to anyone, okay? When someone comes in and then they have a mental condition, like they're they're confused about something, I don't think that a doctor should be allowed to mutilate their body or give them drugs to conform their body to the delusion rather than the other way around, and it says signed out, is that, am I still in? Signed out. You've been signed up.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: [talking in background]

WALSH: Yeah, the Google Doc just signed me out. Hang on guys.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Okay.

WALSH: Good. Little intermission there. So anyway, yeah, so trans surgery, [mumbling] yeah, that's that's what it comes down to is, is should doctors be, is it legitimate for doctors to do this to people? Um, I would say no. You know, treating a mental illness by physically changing the body is not a legitimate thing. But it, of course, is far worse with kids because a minor cannot actually consent to it. So, um, so that's know that's that's why there's a special focus there."

Matt Walsh refers to Trans People existing as a "Social Contagion". Matt Walsh dehumanizes every Trans Person. Trans People and Tranness is not a Contagion that needs to be contained, suppressed, or eradicated. Matt Walsh wants Trans Surgery and Gender Affirming Healthcare banned for everyone (including Adults). These attack on Trans People were never about "protecting kids". Matt Walsh and Folks like him hate Trans People. Matt Walsh and Folks like him want to enforce their bigotry on others. Matt Walsh and Folks like him want to control the bodies of thousands of individuals. Also receiving Gender Affirming Surgery and/or Hormones is not "mutliation". And Tranness is not a Mental Illness or Mental Disorder. And Matt Walsh has talked about how 16 Year Olds should be impregnated and how he literally does not respect his own kids' boundaries/consent. When he talks about "a minor cannot actually consent to it", Matt Walsh has never ever cared about a Minor's consent before.

#Rightwing Nonsense

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myafterlifeisbetterthenyours · 3 years

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How would I.M.P. respond to being contracted to kill a child? Not an awful brat like Eddie, an innocent child that harboured them no ill will. Would they be willing to go through with it?

I.M.P reaction to being hired to kill an Innocent child.

It had been a shady deal to begin with. Very few details and cash up front.

Blitzø never liked these jobs, but the guy he wasn't gonna look a gift horse I'm the mouth. Although he'd be happy to look at any horse in the mouth.

It was a simple job, almost too simple.

The client gave a name and location.

No description. No features. Nothing.

Normally they wouldn't take such a contract, but the fuckin guy dropped 10K for the job. Promising another 10 when the job was done.

So there they were.

In some tiny little town, in the middle of nowhere, finding themselves at some run-down little house.

There were no lights, no movement and it didn't look like anyone was home. So they just strolled inside. Though Moxxie insisted they did so, through the back door.

So, strolling through the back door, they went from room to room, searching each and every room, though there weren't many.

They eventually found there way to the basement.

Opening the door, they found a dank little room, a small collection of toys scattered across the floor.

In the room was a bed, was a pile of blankets, so the Imps moving in close.

Making sure Millie and Moxxie were ready, Blitzø tore the blanket away, to reveal... a child.

A human child, curled up in bed, hugging a raggedy teddy.

The kid stared up at them with big bright eyes. And surprisingly, he didn't look all that scared. Shocked maybe, but not scared.

Millie acted first, moving forwards and gently greeting him.

Millie spoke to the child, "Is your Daddy home, sweat pea?" She asked him, really using her sweet wrath accent.

The little kid shook his head, "Daddy hasn't been home in-" the kid stopped to count his fingers, but stopped looking up at them "A long time" He said simply.

The Imps all muttered between themselves.

Walking forwards Moxxie crouching down he asked "Any idea when he'll be back buddy?"

The little kid looked down, fiddling with his fingers, "Daddy tends to... go away for long times, but he does come back... Eventually."

The kid was clearly unsure of what he was saying. Blitzø released a heavy sigh, turning to the crew and asked, "What do we do now fam?"

Before anyone could answer the little kid spoke up, "Y-you could wait here. I haven't see anyone in... so long..." He trailed off, giving a hundred yard stare.

The gang looked at each other, before Blitzø sighed before he said "Why the hell not." With a shrug.

The kid was extatic, jumping to his feet, he grabbed Blitzø by the wrist, eagerly inviting them up stairs.

Each member of I.M.P couldn't help but smile at the kids infectious enthusiasm.

Giving a shrug, they followed him upstairs, to the kitchen. The kitchen was just as filthy and run down as the rest of the house.

The kid zipped about, climbing onto a counter and pulling down an odd cup for each of them.

Placing them down, he grabbed a large tin off the counter, popping it open, he revealed a small collection of bread rolls.

"I know it's not much, but it's really the only thing I have. So... um, help yourself." He told them, placing the tin on the table.

It was clear he was unsure of what to say, but he really seemed like he was trying to be welcoming. It was sweet.

Blitzø just shrugged, pulling up a rickety chair and grabbing a roll.

Even with his fangs, biting into the roll was a chore, the roll was clearly stale.

Tearing off a chunk, Blitzø spent a minute chewing away, before looking over at the kid. "You eat this uh, stuff?" He asked between chews, scowl across his lips.

The kid looked around, clearly a little embarrassed, before telling them "Well, um, the bakery only throws them out when they get old, so..." He trailed off, clearly unsure how to end.

"What about your father, he doesn't buy you food?" Moxxie asked. Though he immediately realised how stupid that sounded, given the slum the house was.

"W-well, Daddy doesn't buy much food, he preders to drink... a lot." He spoke meekly, fiddling with his fingers as he looked about.

Millie moved first, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and began talking in that sweet little tone, while Blitzø pulled Mox over, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

"Hey, ya think maybe we shouldnt keep reminding the kid about his asshole of a father were here to kill" He growled into his ear.

Moxxie gave a little nod, whining out "Yes sir, sorry."

"Speaking of Daddy" He chimed in, "When do you reckon he'll be coming around?" He asked trying to get some information.

"Well... he's never been away for so long, b-but he's gonna be here eventually" he spoke anxiously, looking around.

"He just gets here after dark." The kid told them, hands raised, clearly trying to assure them.

With a shrug, Blitzø leaned back, taking another bite of his roll.

Swallowing the harsh bread, he rubbed his throat, clearly uncomfortable.

Getting up, he went to the fridge, which was surprisingly still working. He found a bottle of mustard. A half eaten banana. An open can of tuna. And llllotssss of beer.

The entire bottom shelf was full of beer. Although a few seemed to already be drunk.

Reaching down he grabbed one, and just as he was going to pop the cap, he heard someone scream "NO!"

Blitzø freaked out, almost dropping the bottle.

Spinning around, he found a terrified kid practically jumping over the table.

Staring back at the kid he asked, "What? What's wrong?"

Taking several deep breaths the kid told him "Y-you can't drink that..." He sputtered.

"Why not?" He whispered back, the kid pulled back, fiddling with his fingers.

"I-if you do, D-dad will get mad, A-and dad likes to hit-... He punishes me if he can't find his drinks."

Blitzø just stood there, waiting for something... And that something was Millie coming forwards, "Don't worry bout it Hun, well make sure you don't get in any trouble, Kay?" She asked him.

The kid looked a little anxious but nodded, telling them "...Alright." before sitting on the chair.

Blitzø opened the bottle, taking a swig as he sat down, munching on his bread.

They spent a while just sitting around, waiting for the kids dead beat father.

The conversation eventually came to the kid, each Imp taking a turn to ask him a question.

They quickly found out the kids father was a special kinda fuckin asshole.

He disappeared all the time, he spent all his money on beer, forcing the kid to basically scavenge for himself.

But as shitty as the father was, the kid still defended him. It was sweet, but also sad to see him loyal to an asshole.

The kid was really fuckin nice, in a sweet, nieve kinda way you only found in kids.

As the night went along the Imps found themselves actually spending time with the kid. Millie and Blitzø had started playing with em.

They played tag, they built a fort out of cushions and old raggedy blankets, they even had tea time. Although Millie and Blitzø's were more bubbly and came from a beer bottle.

But as the two Imps had there fun, having some fun with the kid. Moxxie on the other hand decided to just stand around, staring out off windows or going over his gun.

Eventually Moxxie pulled Blitzø to the side. "Hey... uh, boss, Can I talk to you about the job."

Brow raised, and slightly buzzed Blitzø asked "What's up?"

Crossing his arms, "I'm just wondering about the job, because you said the client told you the target would absolutely be here." He began, sarcastically pointing around the room. "But the only person here is a child, a child you've spent almost your entire time playing with."

Blitzø scoffed, crossing his arms, "Goood Mox, what are you, the fun police." He sassed him, "were here to kill some asshole named Sebastian, not some ki-"

"That's my name." Someone said suddenly.

Both Moxxie and Blitzø turned, finding the kid looking up at them. "What was that buddy?" Blitzø asked, voice very unsteady.

"My name." He told him, "My Names Sebastian." He smiled.

Cold dread filled Blitzøs chest, kneeling down he placed a hand on the kids shoulder, telling him as clearly as possible, "Buddy... just so we're clear, is your dad also named Sebastian. Like your Sebastian Jr.?" He asked, really hoping the kid would confirm it.

But he didn't. Instead he just looked up at him and shook his head, "No." He said simply.

Blitzø froze up, his pupils shrinking as the implications sunk in.

Standing up he spoke robotically, "Millie, we need to talk."

Said Impet stood up from the tea table, walking over to him. "Is something wrong?" The kid asked anxiously.

Millie quickly calmed him down, "Don't worry 'bout it sweetie. We just need to have a lil' chat." She told warmly, ruffling his hair.

Seemingly accepting this, the kid just went back to playing, sipping imaginary tea. Now with the other Imps, Millie asked "What's wrong?"

Blitzø hesitated before saying quietly, "We've been hired to kill the kid."

Millie reached instantly, "What?!" She cried.

Quickly covering her mouth, Blitzø hissed "Shut the fuck up!"

Calming down, the Imp released her, telling her "I thought we were just hired to kill some asshole, but that asshole was probably the kids dad. And he hired us to send the kid to him." He told them, scowl crossing his lips.

"Well, what do we do now?" Moxxie asked, clearly unhappy. "I don't know!" Blitzø hissed back. "I don't know what to do..." He trailed off.

"I know what we can't do." Moxxie but in, "We can't kill a child." He said as assertive as the imp could get.

Blitzø sighed, "Mox, I-" Before he could continue Moxxie cut him off.

"You can't be considering this!" He snapped, voice pure Venom, "Killing the crazy children of a Satan worshipping physcopath would be one thing, i could maybe accept that, but I swear I'll quite on the spot if you even think about killing that-"

Blitzø launched at him, grabbing him by the collar with a scowl plastered across his lips.

Staring his employee for a minute, "I'm many thing Moxxie. I'm an ass, a jerk, a cunt. But under no circumstances, are you to ever, EVER, to act like I'd kill an innocent kid." he practically spat before pushing him away.

Stumbling back Moxxie was caught by his wife, the Imp checking him before asking "What do we do Boss?"

Blitzø ran a hand down his face, releasing a deep sigh, "I don't know... I just, let me think."

Standing there, the Imp thought for a minute. But he was pulled out of his thoughts by a gentle little tug on his sleeve.

Turning around, he found the kid fiddling with his fingers again, looking anxious.

Crouching down he asked "What's, uh, what's up buddy?" He tried to sound alright, but was still to caught up in his own head to respond clearly.

The kid fiddle with his sleeve before looking up and asking "Did I do something wrong?"

Blitzø froze for a minute, before he shook his head, a little smile crossed his lips.

Moving forwards, he wrapped the kid in a hug. Pulling back he ruffled his hair, "Nah. You didn't do anything wrong, We're just sorting some stuff out" He told him warmly.

The kid just stared up at him, seemingly satisfied with his answer.

Patting his cheek Blitzø told him, "You know what?" He asked, looking out the window. "I think it's about your bed time." He said mockingly stern.

The kids shoulders dropped, little hands balling, "But I'm not sleepy." He whined. Though it was very clear to all of them, He was indeed sleepy.

Blitzø chuckled, shaking his head, "Nope. No excuses, mister, It's bedtime." He said through a smile.

Turning to his employees, he asked Millie "Mind dealing with him."

Millie, smiled stepping forwards to pick up the kid, telling him "Come on buddy, bed time."

"Wait!" The kid wailed, Millie stopping in her tracks, looking over her shoulder. "Will I see you again?" He asked, clearly scared.

Blitzø smiled, nodding his head, "Sure will buddy, bright and early." Giving him a little wave.

The kid just leaned into Millie. Blitzø watching as Millie took him off to bed.

"Now what?" Moxxie asked behind him.

"Now?" He asked turning back to him "Now we finish the job." He said with a scowl.

The office was dark, it was almost night out.

The client wore the same shady outfit, a black coat and fedora. Like a a fucking cliche.

He sat across from him, the Imp leaning back in his chair as he stared down on his phone.

"So, I'm assuming you got the job done?" He asked in a cold, slimy voice that just infuriated the Imp.

Looking up from his phone the Imp replied just as coldly. "Yep, I did what needed to be done." He told the client.

A malicious smile crossed the clients mouth, a serpents tongue sliding out and licking his lips.

Pulling out a large yellow envelope, he placed it on the desk, before he released it, he said "Before I give you your payment, I'll need proof... The deed was done."

The way he said it only made Blitzø even more pissed as he held back a scowl.

Opening his draw he threw a cloth at him. "There's your proof." He told him coldly.

Straightening out the cloth, it revealed a small blue T-shirt, splattered in blood.

The client smirked, pulling in the shirt he took a deep sniff before releasing a sigh. "I wonder if the little whore landed down here?" He grumbled to himself, taking another deep sniff of the shirt. "Mmm, probably not. The little bitch was always to good."

Tucking the shirt away in his coat, the client spoke "You honoured your side of the deal, Imp, so I shall honour mine." With that he slid the envelope over.

Blitzø took the envelope, opening it to reveal several wads of cash. "Good." Blitzø sighed, "Now I can stop pretending."

The clients head tilted, "What do you-" but before he could finish, a gunshot rang out in the office.

The client hit the floor with a thud, desperately clutching his neck. But blood was already seeping past his fingers. "W-what the 'ell?" He choked out.

Blitzø walked around his desk, crouching down besides him and reached down and pulled the shirt from inside his coat.

"You know." He began, "I've taken a lot of unsavoury jobs, from lots'a unsavoury folks. But you, my friend. Are a real piece of shit." He said as mockingly as possible.

"Oh, and I thought you should know. He's not dead." He told him bluntly, looking over the bloody T-shirt.

"Wh- wat?" He choked out.

Blitzø just smiled, looking down at him. "I mean the kids not dead. In fact-" He stopped to pull out his phone, making a call.

It range a few times as Blitzø put it on speaker phone. It was Millie who answered "Hey Blitzø" She said in her usually cheerful tone.

"Hey Mills" He replied just as enthusiastic, "How's the kid doing?"

Millie chuckled, telling him "Oh he's doing great. We're havin a real tea party up here, even Loonas gettin'in on it." She told him cheerfully.

The client looked totally enraged, his now visible eyes filled with fury. But with a hole in his neck, he couldn't exactly do much about it.

"Though Bass is wondering where you are." She told him with a giggle. Blitzø laughed right back, a big grin crossing his lips.

"Let him know I'll be there soon enough, just gotta deal with some stuff first." He told her, the second part had a much more malicious tone to it.

There was a pause before Millie response, "Will do boss. And one more thing" She told him. There was another pause before she said, "Make it hurt."

Blitzø smirked at that, "Will do Mills, Will do." He told her with a sigh.

Hanging up the phone, he reached into his coat and pulled a knife, standing over the bleeding client.

"I didn't hit anything too important, so im guessing you've got about two minutes left." He told him before a sadistic little smile crossed his lips, "And unfortunately for you... That's all the time I'll need."

True to Millie's word, Loona was indeed at the tea party. The tea party being the four of them sitting around an old table, drinking actual Tea out of mismatched cups.

She was sat with Millie on her right, with a teddy bear on her right, as she chewed on some cake.

From what she could tell, the teddy bear was supposed to be "the Mayor", or something.

With the kid as the "Mayor's" assistant, all the while Moxxie was blabbering on about building permits or something.

Though she could say the kid seemed very happy, giggling at Moxxie babbling on like an idiot.

She felt like she was surrounded by children.

And speaking of children.

She could understand why Blitzø and the rest of them were so caught up about the kid.

He was a real cutie. With the big doe eyes and that goofy little laugh. He was kinda sweet and polite and really seemed happy to see her, which was... nice.

What?! It was nice to feel wanted.

The kid poured her tea and had given her, her slice of cake.

She played nice, knowing the others would be on her ass if she was mean to him. And it definitely wasn't because he was the cutest little child she'd ever seen and wanted to protect him.

But she couldnt help but notice the way the kid kept staring at her, in particular, her tail.

Waiting for him to look again, she looked down at him "Something wrong with my tail?" She asked gruffly.

The Kid squeaked, raising his hand in defence, "N-no, it's, um, I just..." He sputtered.

"What is it?" She asked bluntly.

The kid sputtered for another moment before telling her "I like your tail..."

Loona froze, straightening up and downing her tea before wiping her mouth, "Well... thank you." She said.

"Can I pet it?" The kid asked out of nowhere.

Loona froze again, looking down she found the kid giving the biggest puppy dog eyes she'd ever seen.

Shaking her head, she sighed flicked her tail and bopping him with it, "Knock yourself out kid." She told him bluntly, taking another bite of cake.

The kid seazed the opportunity in a heartbeat, jumping up and grabbing her tail.

The kid was surprisingly gentle, ending up sitting behind her on the floor, holding her tail, giving big strokes before planting his face in it, hugging it close.

After a minute of such attention, she began wagging her tail. Her tail batting him in the face, gently bopping the kid on the face each time.

The kid began laughing, trying to grab it as it kept bopping him across the face.

The kid spent a good minute trying, the kid having a giggling fit as he tried to grab the tail.

He eventually succeeded, holding her tail to his chest as he laid on his back, laughing his little head off.

In all the excitement, even Loona was laughing, the kids giggling was just to infectious.

After a few minutes of this, she looked up to find the married idiots staring at her, a smug little smile across her face.

Crossing her arms she pouted, "Hey I can have fun with the kid too." She huffed.

Before they could respond, Millies phone began to ring, vibrating against the table before she snatched it up, "Hello?" She answered.

She listened for a moment, before nodding her head, looking at Loona she told her, "Your up sweetie."

With a sigh, Loona reached into her bag, pulling out the damned spell book.

She was basically working on muscle memory at this point. Flip it open, read the spell, POOF! Instant portal to hell.

The portal opened and out walked her dork of a father. As soon as he was through the portal, he was practically tackled.

"Blitzø!!!" The kid yelled, wrapping him in a hug.

Blitzø smiled, giving him a big hug, "Hey there champ, you been havin fun with auntie Loona?" He asked, bringing a blush to the Hellhounds cheeks.

The kid gave a big nod, "Yep! We've been drinking real Tea, and eating cake and Loona let me pet her tail." He told him excitedly.

Blitzø placed him down, roughing up his hair, "oh did she now?" He asked with a smirk, looking gover at a now blushing Loona.

"Good to hear." He told him before the kid dragged him to the table, sitting him down.

He poured him his own tea before running off the his own seat.

Blitzø sat there, watching as his mismatch of a family talked and bickering.

Millie was playing with the kid while Loona and Moxxie were arguing about something.

A gentle smile crossed his lips as he watched his family act like a bunch of children.

He felt a hand on his own, looking up he found Millie. "Everythin' alright Boss?" She asked.

Looking up he saw everyone else turn to him, the Imp just silently looked over each one before a little smile crossed his lips, "Yeah... Everything's perfect." He told her, taking a drink of tea.

#helluva boss #headcanon #helluva boss headcanon #helluva boss blitzo #helluva boss moxxie #helluva boss millie #helluva boss loona #helluva boss I.M.P #blitzo #blitzø #millie #moxxie #loona #i hope you enjoyed it

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the-doctor-3000 · 2 years

Text

Dandelions. . . .

Warning: maybe a few threats and insults towards the reader, implied death, a bit ooc, long, some time skips

Fandom: ACOTAR

A/n: Hello beautiful folks! I just want you guys to know that in the past five days I started reading ACOTAR and I am absolutely in love! Anyway, please do forgive me for some errors I might make due to the fact I haven't finished the 1st book yet. I am well aware, though, that the majority of the books' readers have a dislike toward Tamlin. I believe that I'll discover the reason soon.... (Welp, good thing I didn't end up having a crush on him.😁😂)

2nd A/n: I've been working on this for almost a week and I'll probably do a part 2 of this.

Ship: Lucien x F!Reader, Tamlin x F!Reader (one sided; Tamlin's)

Inspired by: Dandelions by Gabbie Hanna

Type: A slight Castlevania AU!A Court of Thorns and Roses, Enemies to Friends to Lovers

Summary: When you, a human, travel all around the mortal realm, you finally decide to visit Prythian in order to seek knowledge to become a tutor.

°•°•°•°•°•°

She had been travelling from her early teens, seeking knowledge and adventure. Her family wasn't around anymore, so you didn't have to worry about them missing her.

At first, it was hard - living on her own but soon you grew used to her new life and she kinda preferred it and enjoyed the freedom it provided her. In her journeys, she heard people speaking ill about the fae.

It wasn't a big surprise for her - the people from your old home would also speak badly about them. Though she always found them fascinating. Her parents did too.

This was also one of the reasons she begun travelling. The people didn't like the fact that she and her family had this perspective about the fae. So, she ran but her family stayed behind. Denying to leave because of the people's foolishness and close mindedness. Of course, continuing to stay there without changing their opinions on the fae led them to death.

°•°•°•°•°•°

The nineteen year old made her way through the woods - or commonly known as the Wall - which was separating the two realms from one another. She knew the dangers she'd face, so she had a weapon with her. She used it against the creatures who wished her harm there.

It wasn't easy but she weren't going to give up so soon. The first court she reached was the Spring Court. She made your way to a beautiful huge manor. She looked up through the window and saw no sign of life.

But she had heard rumours that amongst the fae, the High Lord of the Court of Spring was the most merciful. And she most certainly didn't want to die the moment she set foot on the land. Then, without any hesitation, you know on the door with her knife's hilt.

The doors opened by themselves and you walked in, looking around in fascination and alarm.

"My name is y/n," she begun to say "I am from a village of the Mortal Realm and I want to become a tutor."

There was a long silence but you could feel that someone was lurking in the shadows. Watching your every movement.

"You bang on my door because you want to learn? From a fae?" the voice was the one of a male, he was taunting her "What will your people think?"

"Don't mistake me for one of these so called 'Children of the Blessed'." she replied boldly as she looked around to find the source of the voice "Everybody out there already does that. I do not worship you or your kind but I do hold respect for you. I believe in knowledge, but... I need to know more. I've exhausted my other options, and all the stories say the High Lord who lives here has a library with all the knowledge."

"I'm one of the High Fae, and I do not get many visitors." he said, his breath was hitting her neck - he was right behind her. "What have you to trade for you to taka look in my study, y/n from the Mortal Realm?"

Her eyes were now gleaming in fear but she took a deep breath, stepped away from him calmly and turned to face him. He was in the form of a beast. He was a horse-sized creature with a bear-like body that moved with a feline fluidity, a distinctively lupine head, and massive elk-like antlers. The most distinctive of his features though were his jade eyes.

She dared to look into his emerald eyes as she spoke bravely, "Perhaps I could help you relearn some manners. I've crossed the threshold of your home, and you haven't offered me a drink or serve me something to eat or even to take my coat."

"What if I took a feast on you?" he said "Or have you loaded yourself with ash wood or iron?"

She took out a necklace with a lapis in the middle, the rest was made out of iron, "It belonged to my mother. I'm sorry, I didn't realise that it was rude of me to bring it along. I-it was all I had left from my parents." he hummed and walked a bit away from her "I'm really not interested in superstition, or being some woman who tricks others. I want to help people. I want to learn. Will you help me?"

He stopped and looked down at her, "You are definitely different to most humans I have met in recent times."

"Maybe I can teach you to like them, or at least tolerate them."

"I... I don't have a problem with humans."

She nodded sarcastically, "I noticed."

"How far is your realm from the Spring Court?"

"Only a 'wall' separates them." she cocked her head to the side like an animal "You don't travel much outside Prythian, do you?"

"I can travel."

"But... you don't, do you? Maybe you should. The world is changing. Travel, like people do. You might like it."

"I've known you for two minutes, and you offer for me to walk your realm like a ignorant human while I give you the knowledge of immortals."

"They won't be ignorant anymore if you teach them. They won't live such scared lives if they have solutions to their problems or know the truth."

"Why should I do that?"

"To make the world better. Start with me, and I'll start with you."

He chuckled and as he made his way to her once again, his appearance changed. In the place where a beast stood was now a strikingly handsome young man, his skin was tanned and a warrior’s build. He was also wearing an exquisite golden mask embedded with emeralds shaped like whorls of leaves that covered his nose, cheeks, and brows. He had long golden blond hair and deep green eyes flecked with gold.

"I think I might like you." he told her with a small bow, she smiled kindly as he begun giving her a tour around the manor

°•°•°•°•°•°

The next day, y/n was on her way to find the library when she heard voices coming from a room.

Despite herself, she stopped to listen when an unknown voice of a male spoke the word 'human'. Curious of what they might be saying about her, she put her ear against the door.

"Tam, you can't be serious. You let a human girl live here? And, on top of that, you let her roam into your study?"

"She's alright, Lucien. I know she is."

"Please don't tell me that you like her already?"

"Lucien—"

"What if she tries to murder you in your sleep? She did have iron with her, didn't she?"

"Yes, but she admitted it. She gave it to me despite that it was her mother's."

He sighed in exasperation, "What if she is lying? She could have ash wood with her but hid it."

Feeling rather offended by this accusation, y/n gathered up the courage and entered, "You know, if you have a problem with me then it'd be best to say it right into my face instead of saying it behind my back. It's not very nice."

The man who spoke of her in such way was tall with red hair and golden-brown skin, but still light enough. His face was brutally scarred from his brow to his jaw. His right eye was whole and russet-colored; but his left eye was ripped out by someone and had been replaced with an artificial mechanical eye made of gold that allowed him to see all the same.

He too had a mask, but in contrast to Tamlin's, this one was different. . .

He turned to her with a scowl, "You're the one to talk." he smirked then in a taunting way "Didn't you know that eavesdropping is also rude?"

"I never said that, at first I was passing by until I heard you mentioning me. It wasn't hard not to listen to your. . . conversation, neither of you seemed to try to lower your voices and I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not."

He looked at her for a moment, "What's your name, human?"

"I'm y/n Nightingale." she crossed her arms over her chest "And you are?"

A smirk appeared on his lips, "Lucien Vanserra." he did a mock bow - which was right as day that he was mocking it - causing y/n to scoff and Tamlin to sigh in defeat "Pleasure to meet you, y/n the human."

The way he spat the word with such spite only angered her more. She clutched her hands into fists but calmed down as she took a deep breath.

She turned to Tamlin, "I believe I was wrong. In contrast to your friend here, you are the most well mannered person I've ever met." she then glared at Lucien "You are the one who needs to relearn some manners."

°•°•°•°•°•°

A week passed by, and Lucien and y/n would always argue whenever they crossed paths. Tamlin, on the other hand, found himself fascinated by the young human. He'd always give her flowers or any kind of gifts.

He couldn't bare, though, hearing the two bickering like cats and dogs every time they walked in the same place. So, he came up with the idea of Lucien inviting her to dinner. . .

"Absolutely not!" Lucien said

"Lucien," Tamlin said rather firmly "That can't go on forever."

"Yes because she will die from old age. Just like all other humans."

His heart sunk at his friend's words.

"Please, at least try. This isn't like you - being rude."

He scoffed, "Alright."

When they went to the study room, they spotted her with her nose stuck on a book. Next to her was a parchment and it seemed like she was keeping notes. Lucien cleared his throat. Y/n stopped what she was doing and once she saw that it was him - her face dropped.

"Oh. . . It's you. . ."

He tried to feign a smile, "Yes, me. I came here to ask you to join us to dinner."

She smirked, "Only if you ask politely."

His eye twitched a little as he tried his best to keep the smile, "Will you *please* join us for dinner?"

She smiled, "Well, since you said 'please'. . . Of course!"

°•°•°•°•°•°

A month passed, currently y/n was taking a break from her study and was sitting on the grass of the magnificent garden. A particular plant that captured her attention was. . .

"Dandelions?" a familiar voice questioned, she looked over her shoulder and saw Lucien. "Why dandelions? They have nothing special."

She chuckled genuinely, "I beg to differ. The leaves and roots of the plant can be medicinally used as a tonic for removing toxins from bloodstream, as they serve as a mild diuretic to improve the digestive system functioning."

He slowly sat beside her, "That's why you like this. . . plant so much? Are you a healer?"

"It's not my speciality, I'm still learning, but the reason for loving this kind of plant is the fact that when you blow it, its petals leave and it looks like they're floating away." she chuckled "When I was a little kid, I thought they were little fairies in ballerina costumes. Ever since then, I always wanted a house surrounded by dandelions. . . So I could see them ever morning I wake up."

"I was right." she looked at him with confused and innocent eyes "You are the weirdest woman I have ever met." she scoffed and stood up to leave but Lucien grabbed her wrist - stopping her "Weirdest and most. . . fascinating." her face flashed red and sat back down "Could you tell me more about dandelions and other plants?"

He looked truly intrigued. Y/n smiled and nodded her head.

°•°•°•°•°•°

Two years later, Lucien and y/n had grown very close. Much to Tamlin's unhappiness. He knew that as much as he - Lucien also bore feelings for the human girl.

Though he could see that she returned Lucien's feelings. He did not speak of how he felt to neither her or Lucien.

One day, the red headed fae came to him and told he would like to surprise her with a house in the woods which will be surrounded by dandelions. Tamlin's breath hitched but did as his friend requested.

When it was ready, Lucien took her there. The house was close away to the mansion in case something happened but not way too close. Inside the place everything was prepared, there was even a huge bookcase with lines of books.

And outside in the garden, the house was surrounded by a sea of dandelions. Both white and yellow. Seeing the grin on her face, Lucien finally found the opportunity to confess.

He expected her to scream, to kick him out and refuse the house but instead - he felt a pair of soft s/c lips touching his. Y/n felt butterflies in her stomach as her face heated up. For a second, she was worried that she crossed a line until he kissed her back and deepened the kiss.

°•°•°•°•°•°

Ten years passed by, Tamlin was still silently in love with her but wouldn't utter a word especially now that Lucien and y/n were married

Y/n tucked in the bed her three year old daughter and five year old son. Her daughter had her eyes but Lucien hair and personality. Her son had her hair and personality but Lucien's eyes.

On her finger was a golden ring with letters engraved on it. She extinguished the candles of the bedroom and went to the living room. There, she began reading a book as she waited for her husband's arrival.

A hour later, she heard a heavy knock on the door. She placed the book on the table and answered it.

It wasn't her husband's face that she encountered. It wasn't a fae but a group of human men - a mob. They all had pitchforks and torches.

"Are you y/n Vanserra?" a man with an intimidating look on his face questioned

"I am. What of it?"

He turned to the others, "Arrest this Fae Whore."

"I don't understand, what's wrong—?"

"Silence!" d/n and s/n heard the noise and peeked out from their window. The men grasped her tightly so she couldn't escape. "For sleeping with a fae and befriending one too, you shall be punished."

"They are not like the legends!" she said, sounding almost like she was pleading "Both of them are kind and sweet! My husband and my friend wouldn't do something to hurt you but if you kill me they'll be worse than your legends!"

"Your threats are fruitless, whore." he turned to the men who were holding her "Take her."

They all began leaving the forest to return to the Mortal Realm - dragging y/n with them.

"Please don't! You're making a terrible mistake! You have to listen!"

But her warnings only fell on deaf ears for they didn't even spare a look at her.

#lucien vanserra #tamlin #lucien vanserra x reader #tamlin x reader #x reader #a court of thorns and roses #acotar #acotar x reader #a court of thorns and roses x reader #i'm obsessed #acotar au

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no-droids · 4 years

Text

Beginner’s Luck

Part Twelve of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 14.6K

Warnings: 👀👀👀 SMUT. Oral sex (male receiving), cockwarming, sexual acts in public, the use of blasters and other canon-typical weaponry

A/N: Twas the night before Mando season 2, and all through the house—NO IM JUST KIDDING SDKSFKSVS anyways I am so sorry for not being here for basically all of last month but I could not miss this incredibly momentous occasion for anything. Merry season 2 my lovely baby yoditos

***

“Well,” a modulated voice gruffs expectantly from behind you, clearly tired of waiting. “Turn around, let me see.”

“No. I look ridiculous,” you sulk from the corner of the hull, refusing to do as he says. You thought this was stupid from the very beginning and openly told him so, but you’re also a complete pushover for him with just enough backbone to be frustrated when you inevitably give in. “And don’t you ‘sweet girl’ me, it’s not gonna work this time.”

“Sweet girl,” Din’s deep voice lulls through the helmet, raspy and soft.

Fucking fine, if he’s gonna twist your arm about it. You spin around with a deep frown and a chrome visor stares back at you as you waddle forwards, and you don’t even need to look at the kid cradled in his forearm to know he’s smiling toothily as you clunk and rattle. Once you’re standing directly in front of them both, you blow the stray hair out of your eyes and plant your hands on your hips, just waiting for the inevitable response.

Only, you don’t get practically any response at all from him. He stays perfectly still and says absolutely nothing, and though the baby’s mouth falls open with happiness and he reaches for you, he doesn’t make a sound either.

“I told you,” you grumble after a few moments of pained silence. “I look ridiculous.”

Still, nothing. You purse your lips, shifting from side to side uncomfortably, and eventually your suspicion grows and festers until it finally bursts forth. Oh for the love of Maker—

“I know you’re laughing under there,” you accuse with a growl. He doesn’t move a single muscle but you don’t buy it, not for a single fucking second.

Then suddenly the helmet glances away from you and stares purposefully at the wall of the hull as the kid starts giggling, and you knew it. You fucking knew he was laughing.

“You look great,” comes tightly through the modulator after a moment, and you pull your lip up into a snarl, vindicated in your findings but not happy about it.

“Is that how this is supposed to protect me?” You wave your arms, hearing them squeak and clank like you’re a droid that hasn’t been maintenanced in centuries. The rough metal jerks up and smacks your chin with the shoulder movement and you grimace. “Make the bad guys laugh themselves to death?”

“It's bad,” Din finally turns back to you and admits with zero shame, and your cheeks burn at how stupid you must look right now. “Way too big.”

“Too big?” You blink at him. “That’s your criticism?”

When he presented it to you, your first impression was some sort of brown paint—but no. It’s fucking… rust. It’s damaged and scraped up and it looks like it’s been through the ringer and back, and not in a way that gives it character. There’s almost a literal hole in the fucking chestpiece and it’s dented so much that it actually creates more than enough space for your breasts, what the fuck happened—?

“You’re telling me you went from this—” You ask pointedly, knocking your knuckles against the ill-fitting piece of metal and feeling it wobble against your chest, “—to that—” you tap the pristine, gleaming armor strapped to his body that easily costs more than probably quadruple your entire life, “—without any go-betweens? It’s missing one of the shoulders, Din.”

He ignores you, flipping the chestpiece over your head with his free hand and letting the metallic clatter of it meeting the floor behind you ring out through the hull. “I’d hoped at least something would fit,” comes his filtered sigh. “This planet isn’t nice.”

That sobers you up a bit, and you feel your heart thump painfully. “Are we on Corellia?” You ask without thinking.

“No,” he tells you immediately, quelling your panic while pulling off your one singular pauldron. “Tatooine.”

You’ve never heard of it, but from the grave undertone of his voice, you know the drill. Different setting, same kind of people. Smugglers, rogues, criminals—the type he’s used to being around and knows exactly what to expect out of them. You always feel safe when he’s with you, but when he leaves?

“Oh,” you say, because you don’t really have anything else. It’s quiet for a little bit, but then he continues on before you can come up with something to fill the sudden uncertainty on your end.

“I know someone here,” Din murmurs, bending his knees and sinking down to start undoing and pulling the shoddy thigh braces off your legs. “Someone… nice. It’ll be safe as long as nobody sees me leaving or coming back, and the kid would be happy to see her.”

Your eyebrows pull inwards, something… unfamiliar settling inside you. Din doesn’t have friends, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t really like anyone that he knows well enough to introduce you to. Even when he’s lowered himself in front of you and is technically undressing you, you feel a spark of… no, not jealousy, that’s crazy. But for real, who is he talking about?

“Why can’t me and the baby just lay low somewhere remote like normal?” You ask instead, but he shakes his head.

“No such thing,” he grunts, pulling off the other thigh brace. “Tuskans or Jawas will find you even in the middle of the Dune Sea.”

“I like Jawas,” you blurt, having had many positive experiences trading with the little creatures on Arvala-7, but his helmet immediately tilts up to pin you in place and you shut up, feeling the tangible unamusement radiating from the thin blade of the visor even when the kid starts giggling again. “I mean I… don’t like Jawas?”

Din sighs and rises back up to his full height, finally handing the baby over to you now that you’re not weighed down by that ridiculous getup anymore. “You can either stay with her while I get the quarry or run the risk of pirates finding you drifting above the atmosphere,” he reasons bluntly, not mincing words. “But it’s not a good idea to be stuck on the surface without protection, someone will find you.”

You bite your lip, hugging the kid closer to your chest for a second. “Okay, that’s fine,” you murmur quietly after a moment. “We can stay with your… friend.”

You clear your throat and move to let him pass by to get to the cockpit, except Din doesn’t take a single step. You blink up at him and after what feels like an eternity of no response, the helmet slowly tilts sideways at you and… oops.

Was that not subtle? You didn’t know what to call her, genuinely, that’s why you hesitated. You didn’t want to use the word acquaintance, it felt too detached for the fact that he said the kid would be happy to see her again. That’s what’s called a friend, right?

Maker, why are you being so weird about this?

Thankfully, you end up getting away with it. After a few painful seconds of looking at every single thing in the hull besides him and humming a song you make up on the spot, Din slowly walks past and disappears up into the cockpit. You take a deep breath and gently rub the baby’s ears between your fingers as the Crest powers up with a ferocious rumble beneath your feet.

***

It’s bright. Fuck, it’s so bright here. You hold the kid to your chest with one hand and shield your eyes with the other as the ramp slowly descends, dust immediately kicking up around it. Din’s palm is resting against your lower back and his thumb gently brushes back and forth, but your heart decides to drop the very moment his hand does, and as soon as the ramp clanks against the landing platform, he’s striding down into the blazing hot desert sun without you.

Something in your chest squeezes and whispers to you that he probably doesn’t want to touch you when he’s about to see an old friend again, so you wait a few seconds of space before descending down the ramp behind him, not really knowing how you feel right now. But you’ve barely taken a single step to follow when a woman’s voice screeches out from across a vast distance. “Oh no, no no no—don’t you even think about it!”

Din slows to a halt at the end of the ramp and gives whoever it is a small nod, nothing beyond it, and if you weren’t purposefully looking at him for cues right now, you’d probably miss the greeting entirely. You stand on your tippy-toes from behind his cape as a fiery little middle-aged lady in a mechanic’s jumpsuit marches up to him with an attitude that more than makes up for the height difference.

“You’re not allowed here anymore,” she pokes his chestplate brazenly with one hand and props the other on her hip, clearly not excited to see him. “Not after the ruckus you caused last time, no sir, not on my watch.”

“That won’t happen again,” he gruffs shortly, not providing a single thing beyond it, and you blink. What… what happened last time?

“It sure won’t!” The strange woman agrees shrilly, crossing her arms and widening her eyes until she looks a bit like she’s been out in the suns too long. “I’m still recovering, Mando!”

“I compensated you,” he reminds her, a quiet edge of frustration beginning to creep into his voice.

She suddenly narrows her expression at him, going from manic desert lady to sharp and discerning skeptic within a split second. “How much do you think my life is worth?”

Din takes forever to respond, seeming to either be choosing his words very carefully or grinding his teeth under the beskar in frustration. Probably both. “I brought my ki—”

“You bring trouble!” She bursts out, stomping her foot on the dusty landing platform and holding her ground. “I don’t care how cute your little one is, go park your ship on some other poor soul’s hangar bay!”

He doesn’t say anything back, staying completely silent while you stand there awkwardly and wait for his response, and it’s almost like you… forgot. How quiet Din can be, how unnervingly little he can choose to offer to conversations until he deems the information absolutely necessary to provide. He allows you to forget that reserved nature of his. He talks to you. He never used to at the beginning, but somewhere along the way it just became increasingly common to hear his voice, both with a high-pass filter and blissfully without. Now though, there’s just too long of a weirdly tense pause in the reunion for you to handle without doing something about it.

So you step out from behind him with the child in your arms, giving her an apologetic smile with as much friendliness as you can possibly put into an expression.

“Hello,” you greet her gently, musically, lifting the baby’s hand to give her a companionable three-fingered wave from the both of you while he coos. “I promise I’m not trouble, but he did bring me along this time.”

Din and the woman simultaneously turn to look at you; her like you’re just as strange and jarring of a sight to see on this planet as the tiny unnamed boy in your arms and him like your voice by itself is enough to loosen his shoulders. Though neither one of them ultimately respond to you, you can tell by the way his fists unclench that you’ve at least helped him relax, even if the frizzy-haired lazy otherwise ignores your introduction entirely.

“Now just what in Maker’s name are you doing with a poor little stowaway like that?” She faces him and pokes his armor again. “You runnin’ a charity out of that battered piece of junk you call a ship?”

“Three hundred credits to let them stay with you for a week,” he turns back to tell her, cutting directly to the chase. Alright, so you don’t really understand their relationship at all at this point. He said she was nice? And yet he’s already bribing her that handsomely?

“Five hundred,” she immediately shoots back, and your heart sinks. Fuck, there’s no way. There’s no way he would spend that much, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to stay.

But… he doesn’t respond. Which you now remember with a jolt of surprise, means confirmation. Not wasting words agreeing, he’d say something back to her if he had an issue. Maker, five hundred credits. You’re starting to wonder if he’s really able to make any money at all doing this, or if the job is just… fitting for him, so he continues to do it. He’s spending more and more credits on you every single time you turn around, and while you don’t feel great about it, you know Din well enough to know he’s stable and independent enough to make the decisions he wants to make.

So you just stand there and hold the baby to your chest, unsure of your place, while Din eventually turns around to face you.

Sometimes, if you’re being honest, you almost find yourself wanting to… do soft things with him that you know you shouldn’t while other people are around. Granted, he’s never told you not to, but the last thing you want to do is undermine his reputation by unintentionally revealing his gentler side. You want to give him a hug and maybe hand him the baby to say goodbye, but you don’t know if that’s how he wants to present himself to company right now. Unfortunately, that ends up translating into you just looking at him and awkwardly waiting to see what he does. Your feelings won’t be hurt if he just takes off without another word now that you know that that’s his intent—you promise, they weren’t hurt the first fifty or so times he’s done it. You understand him, it’s alright, he doesn’t need to—

But then he leans in and lowers his voice until only you can hear it.

“I’ll be back soon,” he tells you, and you feel warmth creep into your chest.

You understand him. Which is why you feel like you could almost burst with how much he didn’t have to say that but chose to do so anyway. You already have a solid time frame—a week—which is more information than you usually get, and it’s such a small thing. It’s insane; if you made a list, you’d have 1) talking to you, 2) knowing his first name, and 3) seeing a glimpse of his forehead as your top reasons why he might care just as much about you as you care for him. That’s insane.

He takes a second to reach a glove out and rub the baby’s ear as he makes his adorable little baby noises up at him, before the helmet tilts back up just slightly to look at you.

“Be safe,” he waits for you to whisper back.

And you think now is finally the time to go, right? Except he waits just a few precious seconds more, just holding there, silently. Maker, you don’t want to miss him, why is he doing this to you? You’re trying to play it cool, see-you-later’s have been commonplace between you for nearing a full year now, so why does it feel like now is the first time he truly doesn’t want to go?

You hold the kid with one hand and start to reach for him the split second he turns to walk away, and you quickly drop it as the dry wind snaps through his cape. He leaves and doesn’t look back.

Still, you watch him disappear, until eventually you’re reminded of your host’s presence with the tap of a wrench against your shoulder.

“Hope you know your way around a hyperdrive,” the woman says with a smirk. Maker, Din didn’t even give you her name, you’re going to have to ask. “Gotta repair at least two of ‘em by sundown.”

You catch the hefty tool with your free hand and turn to her. “Pre-Imperial or post? Never done a restoration, but I’m a quick learner.”

She blinks at you like that was probably the last thing she expected you to say, but you give her the same friendly smile from before and look towards the entrance of the hangar for the ships needing maintenance.

***

So Peli is… a character.

She’s quick and entertaining and whip-smart, but you worry that if she had a whip, she might actually use it. She’s nice—she is, but she damn near works you to the bone once you prove yourself capable. You don’t think she expected the extent of your practical knowledge of mechanics, she went into it assuming you were going to be useless and did a hard U-turn that very first night. You both worked together to fix two malfunctioning hyperdrives by sundown, just like she told you she needed, but then she looked vaguely surprised and nobody showed to pick up until two days later.

The second day is more hectic, and the third day is worse. You cradle the kid on your hip while you work one-handed, smudged grease all over your forehead and sweat sticking your hair to your neck. Using Peli’s sonic shower never leaves you feeling clean no matter how many times a day you find yourself wanting to wash the dust and grime from your body, the same way yours used to back on Arvala-7, and you immediately get why her dark hair seems so frizzy and dry whenever you step out of the stall and catch sight of the similar rat’s nest on your head in the small mirror. Hypersonic waves dry it out more than the blazing hot suns on this planet—you look the same exact way you’ve looked for decades and while you don’t mind hard work, you can’t stand the complete lack of water on this forsaken rock.

Din was right, though. She is nice, but in a way that she never wants anybody else to find out about. She cooks you food every night but expects you to clean the whole kitchen after, she lets you have free reign over the caf maker as long as you remember to make enough for her, and she allows you and the kid to pass out on the beat-up sofa in one of the secluded back rooms for the time being. On more than one occasion, when she assigns you chores that require two hands and a steady focus to complete, you overhear her babytalk behind the control panel as she bounces the kid in one arm and plays with his ears. It fills your chest with a quiet, subtle kind of warmth, and you understand why Din trusts her with him.

At least you stay busy—which, understatement. She works you so hard that eventually she starts handing you tasks that don’t really seem… pressing. Replacing the spherical joints on her three pit droids, hand-scrubbing the grime off the pots and pans she uses to cook the same two meals everyday, polishing the dusty windows overlooking the landing platform even though they’re caked over with dirt not even an hour later. You realize soon enough that she doesn’t have nearly the workload here as she claims, periodically catching her playing cards with the droids while you’re busting your ass doing chores once all the real work has clearly been accomplished, but you’re not upset. You like being busy, it’s how you’ve lived most of your life. However, at some point, you actually end up running out of things to do. After that, it’s like she has to actively look for tasks she still needs completed.

One morning you find her in the parked Crest, ripping open the guidance systems paneling and talking to herself. You sip your caf and watch silently from the landing bay, hair pulled up in a messy bun and the baby on your hip as the suns rise on your shoulders and she mutters, whole sheets of metal being tossed out from the insides of the Razor Crest.

You've also learned she responds incredibly well to the prospect of credits, so you don’t spend too much time wondering what her goal is—find something in the ship for you to fix and then charge Mando extra for the materials whenever he comes back.

Hilarious though, as if there’s anything in your ship that actually needs fixing.

You spin around with a sigh and walk back into the hangar, knowing today will probably be the first slow day in awhile.

***

A few hours later, you’re invited to play a game of Sabacc for the first time in your life.

There are so many rules—so many suits and names to keep track of, so many values to memorize, only to be forced to choose one card after every round to keep just in case the rest of them happen to shuffle at random, which occurs at least once or twice every game. There’s too much luck involved to figure out any sort of strategy; you feel like sometimes you’re hopelessly lost and end up winning anyways or you wager nearly your entire stack of bolts on a perfect hand and then you lose the entire thing regardless.

It’s an unpredictable nightmare. But it’s something to do, and you’ve learned that playing just as stupidly as you bet allows you to easily stay in the game. The baby sits in your lap and plays with one of your rusty metal gambling pieces while your leg bounces, and Peli grumbles under her breath once it appears you get ahead of her in winnings.

“Beginner’s luck,” she tells her favorite pit droid quietly, who focuses its singular eye at you in a way that somehow feels unfriendly and nods on a brand new swivel, courtesy of yours truly.

You don’t argue, because there’s no point. The whole fucking thing is luck, but there’s no point. You know enough about this game to know that you might give something away if you speak, so you keep your mouth shut and let her fill the void. You know how to stay silent, you’ve learned from the best. Wordlessly drawing a card from the deck and tucking it in between two others of the same value, you decide to trade one of your other cards at complete random and hope it all just works out.

“Ship looks like it’s brand spankin’ new on the inside,” Peli mutters into her mug out of nowhere, and you pause for a moment, before silently nodding at the offhanded comment and trying not to show how pleased you are by it. “Was falling apart the last time I saw it.”

You keep bouncing the kid on your knee and fan out the cards in front of you, hoping his big black eyes aren’t reflective enough to reveal your hand. “I have a lot of free time.”

“I can tell,” she acknowledges, crossing her legs and leaning back into her chair. Peli sets the mug down and sighs. “You’re a good mechanic. I’d offer you a job here, but something tells me you wouldn’t even consider it.”

Now, you do smile. But it’s a hidden one. A fond one. One you find impossible to fight when you’re reminded of him. You miss him and ache for him and all those collectively angsty things, yes—but mostly you’re just… able to find a bone-deep solace in even thinking about him. Your heart tightens, but it’s far less constricting than it is a comfort, a firm embrace. It surrounds you in its safety; Din’s mere existence is your protection, wrapping around you the same way the beskar protects him. Nothing can touch you. You’re safe, from all the things you used to fear and all the new things you’ve learned to fear.

No, you’d never consider it. This planet is too much like Arvala-7, just slightly more populated and dangerous. You love the baby. You love him. You’d never consider it.

“Don’t you get bored?” She asks you with a raised eyebrow, and your smile admittedly drops the slightest bit. “Just waiting around for him to come back?”

You don’t have to think about your answer. Of course you do. If you’re being honest, it does feel a bit like your life is split between worlds—one with him, and one without. Whenever he’s not here, you’re thinking about how much you want him to come back, and whenever he is here, you’re thinking about how much you don’t want him to go. You’ve never experienced anything like that before. There were a few local farmers scattered far across the arid landscape of the place you used to call home, and three of your neighbors all had kids around your age. So you experimented when you were younger, since you never had much else to do in your spare time, but you never loved any of them. You’d always go back home and continue to do chores, continue to look up at the sky and wonder what you were missing.

“Yes,” you admit quietly.

But what you don’t tell her is that in exchange, you get to see the galaxy. You get to have experiences you’ve only dreamed about, take care of the cutest little baby you’ve ever seen and become part of a family. You don’t know of anything you could want more. Adventure, companionship, pleasure, and fulfillment. Sure, you get restless, and sure, you don’t necessarily feel good about the fact that Din seems to be your driving force even when he’s away, but you know independence. You know what it means to live for yourself. You’ve done it long enough that you’ll never forget how to, you’ve experienced it more than enough to know you’re happy about throwing yourself off the cliff and falling into something different. As much as it’s new and terrifying, it’s better. Now you have other people to live for, too.

You marvel at the change—not just from a year ago, but from a handful of months ago. He used to terrify you. You used to keep your mouth purposefully shut around him because you were scared of overstaying your welcome and being dropped off somewhere equally as remote as the place you grew up. Never could you have imagined that the fiercest guardian the galaxy has ever seen would decide you’re also worth protecting.

No, you figure, you just need to… find something in addition. Something else to also commit to, give yourself something to do. You can practice the new self-defense maneuvers he taught you, that’s a good idea. But maybe you can also…

You eventually decide to prompt Peli in a change in conversation. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“What do you want now?” She takes another sip of her caf as if you’ve been bothering her about this all day long, and… well, it’s times like these that you wish you had a helmet, too, if only so you could roll your eyes.

“I’ve got a few pieces of rusted metal in the Crest,” you eventually tell her, careful with your phrasing and not sure how much you want to reveal. “They’re in bad shape, but I want to keep them. Could I use some of your tools here to hammer out some of the dents, dissolve whatever crud is on the surface? I saw you have a forge back there that’s barely been used, just need the metal hot enough to be pliable without sacrificing its integrity.”

She furrows her eyebrows at you. “But I still need your help with…”

You wait, but she’s got nothing and you both know it. Still, you keep a pointed silence and wait for it, wondering if this’ll actually work. This is what Din does, right? Just refuse to say anything and make the other person crumble under the crushing quiet? Miraculously, it proves to be successful—you watch her flounder for a response, her will wavering the longer you sit there and stare expectantly at her.

“Fine,” Peli finally acquiesces, and you grin. “But only if you win this round. What d’you got?”

You set down your cards to reveal your hand. A perfect twenty-three if you’ve been counting right, unbeatable unless she or any of the droids managed to get the same, and you know it didn’t happen as soon as she takes a few seconds for mental math and then scoffs.

“Beginner’s luck,” you tell her kindly, pushing all your winnings back over to her side of the table with one hand and scooping the kid up with the other, before turning around and heading towards the Crest in search of Din’s old armor.

***

It’s late afternoon on day five and you’re on your back on a creeper seat, sweat dripping down your neck as you reach up to fiddle with the engine of a T-16, a Skyhopper similar to one you built yourself on Arvala-7. They're not space-faring vehicles, they’re only capable of reaching the upper troposphere, but owning one allowed you to develop solid flight skills without ever truly being able to leave. Honestly, you don’t think you’ve ever despised a ship more.

You know you’ve got engine grease all over and you feel like you’re boiling in your own sweat, but you’re almost done. After this, you’ll be able to go back to working on your side project.

As soon as you’d been granted Peli’s direct permission to do so, you mixed the chemicals necessary to eat away at everything besides the basic structure underneath, and then spent all day yesterday manipulating the metal to better fit someone your size and shape. You slaved over the wickedly hot forge and developed a whole new muscle in your arm from hammering and reheating, hammering and reheating. You had to repair the way the chestpiece was tapered into a concave point by folding the thin metal back in on itself multiple times, strengthening it without flattening it back into its original shape too much, and then you ended up melting down some of the extra material from the needlessly large shoulder and thigh pieces to fill in the gaps.

Granted, you still have a ways to go on replacing the crushed magnetics box that was falling off the chestpiece and filing down the rough scrapes and sharp edges, but you’re now left with almost a full set of armor that’s a uniform dull silver in color and molds way better to your general figure than before. You’re not a blacksmith or armorer by any stretch of the imagination, but you’re good with your hands and did what you could in the time allotted. It looks better than you ever thought it would, and without access to Peli’s enormous collection of tools and machinery, you know it would’ve been better off in the trash.

Still, you have to finish this engine first before you can rip apart the control unit wiring on the armor to see how the whole set fits together and what else needs to be repaired. You’ve been working on it for a few hours before you hear the door to the hangar open. Yet, when you don’t immediately hear Peli’s voice calling out to you, or anyone else’s voice for that matter, your heart thuds in your chest with sudden excitement.

“You’re back early,” you tell the engine suspended over your head, knowing he must’ve already thrown the quarry into the Crest parked outside before coming to see you. Right on time, footsteps approach and then a boot carefully catches the flat platform between your legs, slowly rolling your seat out from under the ship until the rest of the sunlit hangar is revealed to you.

You know you must look a hot mess right now. Your hair is a disaster and there’s not a clean spot to be found on your body—sweat glistens and pools along every curve you have and you’re probably drenching the spare jumpsuit Peli let you borrow, but Maker, there he is. Every time you see him is like the first time all over again, except this time the Mandalorian is looming like a giant over you, the helmet tilted down and silently taking you in.

Instead of settling you, his daunting presence gets you hotter than dual suns in the sky ever could. Fuck, he hasn’t said a word to greet you, and yet you’re already wondering if you can entice him to shove you back under here and join you.

You slowly push yourself upright and he steps back just enough to allow it, but not an inch more than that. You have to crane your neck up to keep looking at him, and he stands close enough over you that you wouldn’t have to reach far at all if you wanted to touch him.

And it’s crazy to think that… you absolutely could touch him, if you wanted. He radiates danger, he hunts and tracks for his continued survival, he’s probably got fresh blood staining the dark fabric of his cape and he’s so fucking intimidating—and if you wanted to, you could touch him.

Maybe you can partially blame your sore muscles as to why you immediately drop your head back down, but mostly you just want to stare at a part of his body that happens to align perfectly at eye level. And fuck, nothing stops you from looking. He doesn’t help you up, but he also doesn’t move so you can haul yourself to your feet, either. He just holds perfectly still with his body standing tall over yours, content to stay exactly like this while your hand slowly reaches out to wrap around one of his ankles.

He’s so warm, his muscles flex strong under your palm as you let it drift upwards, biting your lip as you flick your gaze back up to the chrome visor and then down again to the apex of his thighs. Your other hand comes up to scale the beskar strapped to his leg and you roll yourself forward slightly, wondering if he’d let you…

The black fabric stretching over his crotch just barely touches your fingertips before his hand is suddenly whipping out and grabbing hold of your wrist.

You gasp and jerk your head up to look at him, somehow equally hoping that you’re both in trouble and not in it at the same time. Din’s abruptly chest raises with a large, labored inhale, as if he wasn’t breathing at all that entire time, as if he just now remembered the setting, the fact that he’s not alone on the Crest with you right now. Peli and the kid have to be somewhere in the hangar, you know that, but…

“We’re leaving tonight,” he breathes out through the modulator, and you have absolutely no fucking problem with that at all. “But… shit, but…”

“But…?” You prompt, wanting nothing more than to let your hands reach back up to his pants again, but you settle for slowly dragging one palm up his forearm as his grip on your wrist tightens.

“Fuck, I wanted to take you somewhere first,” he groans like your feather-soft touch is actually hurting him, his hands suddenly dropping yours and pushing you away to clench into fists at his sides. “Maker—why do you always f-fucking do this to me…”

You raise an eyebrow at him this time, the curiosity starting to mix with the heat simmering down low, the kind that you'd feel even on a frozen wasteland of a planet as long as you were with him. All at once, you decide to channel him and his trademarked silence, enthralled by the incredibly slim chance that it will work equally as well on its creator.

“…Distract me,” he finally growls out an answer to the question you never asked him, sounding frustrated with you for reasons you still haven’t figured out, and your mouth is drier than the desert outside. Oh stars, you feel… fucking powerful. “From everything,” he goes on, talking honestly and openly, more words given to you in thirty seconds than he’s probably offered to anyone all week long. “Fuck, I feel like I can barely do fucking anything anymore, I’m losing my fucking mind.”

Your heart slams in your chest, wondering if he possibly feels the exact same way about you as you feel about him. Missing you whenever he’s gone, dreading the moment he needs to leave again whenever he’s with you. The thought alone is enough to set off fireworks through your veins, pumping hope and excitement from your fingers to your toes.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe out, biting your lip in a way that doesn’t look or feel sorry at all.

“No, you’re not,” Din grunts, before reaching out and hauling you to your feet, and even if there wasn’t a flat seat under you with wheels, it’d still be awkward and uncoordinated as fuck. “Shit. I… I need to clean up. Grab your things, go tell…”

Din trails off after a second, suddenly sounding at a complete loss. You catch your footing and stare at him as he falters. “Uh. Go tell…” He gestures with a sense of finality to the control room, as if he’s actually successfully communicating with you by doing so. “Her. That we’re leaving tonight.”

“What?” You ask him, thoroughly fucking confused. “What are you saying right now?”

“The woman,” he clarifies, clearing his throat. “The mechanic, with the… droids. Tell her I’ll pay her before we leave, but we’re g—”

“Peli?” You blurt, completely flabbergasted at this point. “Did you forget her name, Mando?”

“I…” he shakes his head slightly at you, like you should already know him better than that. “Never asked.”

“But you—?” You blink at him. “But you said she was your friend?”

“You said she was my friend,” he immediately points out, with—oh Maker, just biting accuracy. It wasn’t necessarily a jab or anything, but you still feel dizzy with how fucking spot on he is about it. Yikes, you absolutely did say that. You forgot.

“Oh…” you mumble, at a stunning loss for a response. “Ha. Oh. Yeah, huh.”

There’s too many beats of awkward silence after that, probably because he’s just so blown away by your way with words that he’s just attempting to analyze the wisdom. Stars, you’re making a complete fool of yourself in front of him, aren’t you?

“Were you jealous?” He suddenly asks, and you jerk upright, your heart kicking up to a gallop in your chest at the question.

“I’ll go tell Peli we’re leaving soon,” you quickly agree and go to scurry away in abrupt panic, but he catches your wrist and hauls you back before you can get far. You run into him with a gasp and immediately start to repeat your explanation for why you very suddenly need to depart, but the tips of Din’s fingers catch your chin and force you to look up at him.

“Hey,” he cuts your rambling short with a hushed murmur and the pad of his thumb brushes down your jaw. “Tell me the truth.”

You don’t have an answer that won’t be incriminating, and you don’t think you can get the delivery right on a lie, not to him and especially not when he’s got you so cornered. So you just keep completely silent and look up at him like a scolded child would. Innocent, wide-eyed and scared shitless about the unknown consequences of your actions.

His helmet slowly tilts as he studies you, watching you look up at him for help. His fingers gradually spread out across your jaw, flattening under the curve of your throat but so gentle, so careful that you’re almost worried he actually is mad.

“I’m sorry,” you immediately offer before he can say anything, your eyebrows pulling up in the middle. “I’m so sorry, it’s just—I just…”

His thumb carefully stretches up to brush your bottom lip, and you… Mind blank, no thoughts. Stars, you’ve got fucking nothing.

“I’ve got nothing,” you admit, giving up before you can even try. “There’s no reason. I was jealous. It’s stupid and I wasn’t going to say anything because I know it’s stupid, and I shouldn’t feel possessive over you but I do, and it’s stupid. I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I know you, and I’m really sorry if that makes you feel weird, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t have—”

Your chin lifts slightly with the gentlest movement of his hand and the subtle pressure is enough to cut your mindless oversharing off. Din’s voice lowers until it’s throaty and quiet.

“See that wall?” He asks, keeping the visor pinned to you while carefully turning his hand to the right, and your whole head easily follows the movement as he guides it. You have to blink your eyes into focus a few times, but then you immediately see what he’s talking about. It’s a partition separating the welding room from the rest of the hangar. He waits until you nod in the cradle of his palm, before leaning in and murmuring to you. “If we were alone, I’d take you around behind it and show you exactly how that makes me feel.”

You pull back from him with a startled gasp just as a voice calls out from the entrance of the hangar. “Well, look who finally decided to come back!”

Din slowly drops his arms and stares at you for just long enough to make you seriously worry that he’s going to say fuck it all and do it anyways, before finally turning around and greeting Peli with another silent nod.

She plants one hand on her hip once she’s standing right in front of him, cradling the kid on with her other arm, and you have to take a second to collect yourself now that you’re not at the direct center of his attention anymore. “Sure did take you long enough, didn’t it?”

“I’m two days early,” he grunts in his immediate defense, but it’s like she doesn’t hear him.

“You’re leaving soon I hope,” she drawls while handing the baby over to him, who makes an adorable little happy squeak at seeing his dad again. “You owe me five hundred credits.”

“It was five hundred for the full week,” he reminds her, and… he has a point. Though it was never part of the agreement, you wonder if she’ll be willing to accept less compensation for having the burden of your company be lifted early.

“Five days count as a full week, far as I’m concerned,” she shoots back, and your heart suddenly sinks when Din’s shoulders tighten and he doesn’t respond.

“Peli…” you sigh from behind him before you even realize you’ve spoken aloud.

Your host quickly sidesteps your bodyguard to eye you dubiously, and at the same time, you also jolt and wonder what your goal is here exactly. You’re ultimately just attempting to diffuse any tension sparking between them, you figure, knowing you’re probably the best mediator here. She looks at you up and down for a long time, hard and judging, before the baby babbles something wordlessly and she sighs.

“I suppose we can just call it even,” she finally huffs, turning back to him. “You’re lucky your girlfriend earned her keep, Mando.”

And then your jaw drops. Holy shit, is she serious? You assumed Peli valued credits above almost anything else, you never expected her to just… turn down the entire offer like that, so willingly. Clearly Din didn’t either, because you both just stand there for a moment in front of her in a baffled silence.

Also… girlfriend?

Is that what you are to him? Admittedly you haven’t talked to him about what to call your relationship, but then again, you’re a practical person and you never really saw a specific need to do so. You care about him, he cares about you—what else is important? You don’t need a title to recognize your value to him, and for some odd reason, calling yourself his “girlfriend” just feels like you’re a teenager again. If you were actually looking for a different word to use instead, you wouldn’t be able to find it, but you know that one just feels… not enough. Not old enough, not encompassing enough, not complex enough. It’s an elementary school version of what this is. And to refer to someone like Din as your boyfriend? Maker, just saying it aloud would probably make his eye twitch.

“Uh.” He stands there awkwardly, and you’re so blown away by both the sentiment and specific verbiage she used that you’re practically useless at this point. Shit, what’s beyond girlfriend, you wonder? Lover? No, not good enough. Partner? No. No, not wife, definitely fucking not— “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peli waves him away and spins around to leave, but not before throwing one final thing over her shoulder. “That ain’t an open invitation to come back, by the way.”

All of a sudden, you just can’t stop yourself from breaking out into a wide grin, tucking your chin in hopes that she won’t see it with her back turned and decide to pounce on the display of weakness. The three of you watch her stride out of the room and immediately bark an order at one of her droids to get back to work, who starts looking around in desperate search of something to do, and Din’s palm finds its usual place on your lower back as she disappears.

“What a nice lady,” you offer to him, and he gives you a wordless grumble in response.

***

So it’s a couple hours later and you think the kid might actually have the right idea this time.

You find yourself wishing you had a little hover pod of your own that followed Din around, one you could close the lid on and hide in while blaster fire whistles through the air around you like the baby is currently doing. You’re trying to listen to instructions—you’re trying, but there’s a lot going on here. Voices chatting, guns firing, targets being pinged, a lively little band playing in the cantina next door.

When Din first led you through Mos Eisley and inside this specific adobe hut, if you’re being completely honest, you had hoped for food. A comparatively large restaurant, perhaps? Peli didn’t starve you by any stretch of the imagination, but her dinners were the exact same every single night, and you’ve learned to thrive on new things. While you didn’t necessarily think he was going to take you on a… a date, or anything, you certainly didn’t expect him to take you to a shooting range.

Well. Now that you think about it, this might actually be a date.

Luckily you’re hidden away in the furthest firing partition from the door, but even without the near-constant barrage of gunfire to your left, the distractions are still plentiful. The kid actually reached down and pressed the button to close his crib himself as soon as the bright beams of plasma started zooming past and reflecting in his large black eyes, and oh how you wish that were you. You don’t necessarily feel like you’re in danger or anything, but you’ve also never seen so many guns in one place before and you’re worried you’re accidentally going to hurt someone else.

So far Din has taught you the fundamentals for any firearm—always keep the safety on until you’re ready to fire, never point at anything unless you’re a hundred percent willing to shoot it, yada yada yada—and also the safety fundamentals for blasters specifically. So, making sure there’s no leaks in the gas cylinder when you first load it, never letting a strong magnet get near the power pack, checking the surface of your target for deflection curves if you want to prevent a ricochet, or maybe in his case, inspire one. He’s taught you your stance, he’s taught you how to read your sights, now all that’s left is just to… shoot.

Your arms raise up in front of you and the metal feels too heavy and awkward in your hands, and you have to hold the handle in your left and creep your right index finger all the up the side of the barrel until you feel the indented safety switch. It clicks and you reset your grip to slowly ease your finger onto the trigger, staring down the sight, right at the bullseye. Din is standing directly behind you next to the kid’s tightly closed hovering pod, arms crossed and just waiting for you to pull it.

Come on beginner’s luck, come on beginner’s luck—

You fire, and… well. You don’t think you’ve ever seen a shot miss its target that spectacularly in your entire life. You’re almost surprised the beam of plasma didn’t somehow ricochet back into the booth you’re both standing in, that’s how spectacularly you missed.

“Try again.”

There’s no amusement in his voice, nothing mocking about it. Pure monotone under the helmet, as if he was just naturally expecting that to happen.

No, you think in frustration. You want to surprise him again, impress him with how quickly you can pick things up, turn him on like last time. You just fucking know that would get to him—seeing you easily hit the target dead center with his own blaster, you know that would get to him.

You adjust your aim and fire a few more times. Miss, miss, wild miss, miss. Fuck, so many distractions, plasma flying in the corner of your vision and an increasingly heavy gaze from behind you. Another miss, a miss, yeesh that’s a miss—

Alright, so you're just embarrassing yourself at this point.

“I think it’s broken,” you shrug in defeat, taking a second to find the safety switch and toggle it before going to set the gun down on the raised adobe platform separating the line of booths from the targets—but then Din suddenly snatches the blaster from your grip and extends his arm over your shoulder, firing off six rounds in rapid succession so wickedly fast that you jump backwards into his rock solid chest in surprise. He doesn’t give an inch under the collision and even wraps his forearm tight around your tummy as he hits the bullseye with such deadly accurate precision that even the char marks and the line of smoke left wafting from the target’s center are razor-thin.

“Works just fine,” he grunts, setting the weapon back down again before urging you forward a bit. “Go ahead, give it another shot.”

But you’re on a remarkable delay, just trying to process his sheer speed, how fluid and seamless the entire fucking motion was. Fucking Maker, blink and you’d miss the whole thing. He waited to grab the gun from you until you turned the safety on, but then… then how did he fire it so insanely fucking fast? That’s like five different things he had to do with one single hand within a split second…?

“I turned the safety on,” you blink down at the blaster, clearly just trying to process.

“Yeah,” he agrees blankly, as if he’s unsure as to what specifically you’re so stuck on right now.

“So how did you toggle so fas—?”

He picks it from the shelf gracefully and lightning quick—as if he just can’t help but go that speed around his weapon—and then he twists it on its side, flexing his wrist back until the barrel is pointed upwards and you can clearly see his index finger extend all the way up to the safety switch, flipping it up and down while his middle finger rests over the trigger guard.

“How in the f…?” You mutter, lifting your hand up next to his and positioning your fingers in the exact same L shape, only the tip of your index finger barely stretches an inch shy of the switch. “Psh,” you huff, dropping your arm back down again. “Design flaw.”

“For you,” he acknowledges, using the trigger guard to flip it back to its proper position in his hand like fucking spinning it like that is just the easiest and most natural way to handle the deadly weapon. “This gun was made for me, it’s a feature. Yours would be smaller and lighter, have the safety towards the back of the chamber instead of along the barrel.”

The words and the casual display of ability cause a rush of stirring excitement to burst forth inside you, suddenly giddy at the very thought.

“Wait,” you draw the word out with a grin, leaning back into him and gently nudging him with your elbow to make sure he knows you’re only mostly joking. “You gonna buy me a blaster, Mando? I did earn my keep this week, didn’t I?”

“Have to find one that fits a big enough sight first,” he mutters while setting the gun down on the table, and you scoff at him as his hands come to rest on your hips. They squeeze and try to guide you forwards once again. “Prove that you can at least hit the target with mine and we’ll see.”

“You only get to make fun of me if you give me a real answer,” you rule, planting your feet and refusing to budge.

“Okay, but we both know I’ll make fun of you anyways,” he sighs, and you have to dig your heels in and push back into him to keep yourself rooted to the spot.

“You’re not being a very encouraging teacher,” you accuse without trying to hide your grin. “In fact I feel very discouraged right now and I think that y—”

But then Din suddenly tips his helmet closer to your ear and lowers his voice, cutting you off. “Did you know that gifting someone a weapon is considered a proposal of marriage on Mandalore?”

Your smile quickly drops and you gasp, wholly startled at the implication and immediately trying to spin around to look at him. “Holy shit, are you serious?”

“No,” comes his modulated grunt, tightening his hold and keeping you firmly facing forwards. “Of course not. Pick up the gun.”

Okay.

Okay, so that one gets you.

You immediately start giggling, painfully aware that this isn’t the time or place for it, but that one actually fucking got you. Din easily guides and parks your gullible ass in front of the window carved out of dried mud before picking up the blaster himself and forcing you to hold it with your loose hands, grumbling under his breath.

Shit, okay, focus. Focus, you can do this. You clear the laughter from your throat and suddenly get deadly serious, staring your target down like it’s personally gone out of its way to ruin your entire life. The blaster feels cold in your palms but not when Din’s hands wrap warm and tight around the back of yours, letting you hold the gun how it’s most comfortable for you before gently settling his fingers down over yours. His chestpiece presses tight against your shoulder blades when he guides the gun up and out, and his arms are long enough to extend yours fully even though he’s behind you and still has some bend to his elbows. He uses his feet to kick your ankles apart until they’re shoulder-width and then you both carefully find the trigger together.

He’s quiet and slow about it and the whole thing is one giant fucking turn-on. Maker, chill out. Chill out, he’s teaching you how to shoot. This is important stuff, there are people around, chill out…

Din takes a moment to aim the barrel and his hold is so fucking steady, so unwavering and strong. You wonder if it’d be too obvious if you pushed your hips back a little, you might be able to feel his—

“Fire,” Din murmurs next to your ear, and you pull the trigger without a second thought.

The bright red plasma beam launches from the end of the blaster and hits the target dead center. You gasp, pulling the trigger again, and unsurprisingly, it’s another perfect shot.

He suddenly lets go of your arms and takes a small step back, but the second he removes his body from yours, the rounds start bouncing wildly off the edges of the target. Your eyebrows furrow and you try to emulate how you think the angle felt before, but you can’t find it anymore and you’re just failing spectacularly.

When you decide to pause for a second, Din steps up close behind you and wraps his arms around you once more. You can feel the exact moment he’s locked in his aim, and you fire wordlessly as soon as you know it’s going to hit. Bullseye, right on the nose.

This time, he lifts just his hands away from yours, staying perfectly still otherwise and you swear you don’t move a single fucking muscle in your entire body before pulling the trigger, but it still hits the far corner of the target.

“It’s broken,” you shrug once again, and Din drops his helmet to your shoulder with a sigh. “This gun was made for you, which means there’s obviously some mod you have installed that reads biometrics and ruins the shot no matter how good it—”

“Not even close, but that’s not a bad idea,” he tells you, watching you click the safety on and set the uncooperative blaster down. “I can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong. Are you just distracted?”

Uh, fuck yeah you are. So much is going on and more than that, he’s here and he’s just… fuck, you know what he meant when he said he felt like he was losing his mind. He’s your biggest distraction, all the time. He’s still standing so close to you and the baby is still isolated and tucked away in his hovering sphere, and you take a moment to think about it.

Yes, it’s… it’s possible that you may learn better by example than anything else.

“Can I watch you do it?” You ask him, and Din shrugs before reaching around you and quickly grabbing the blaster from its mud shelf. “Wait—” you tell him while he raises and extends his arm over your shoulder, and then you wiggle sideways as much as possible in the small booth to squeeze around behind him. He doesn’t say anything as you swap places with him and scoot up behind him, but you can tell by his body language that he’s confused. You wonder if he liked that position and watching you shoot his gun, even if you’re complete shit at it.

He stands in front of you for a second and you give him an encouraging, “Okay,” to let him know you’re ready, but then the helmet turns back to look at the target like he’s still unsure as to what you want specifically. You keep your mouth shut and let him figure it out. You meant what you said—you want to watch him shoot. You want to watch him where he’s infamous, watch him do what he’s best at and let completely loose in front of you.

As if it finally clicks for him, Din turns to face the target and suddenly throws the blaster into his left hand while reaching down and pushing a button hidden under the hollow platform with his right. You have to lean around his broad shoulders to watch the target slide backwards on its track easily triple the distance before squeaking and slamming to a stop. Din stretches his non-dominant hand out and subtly tilts his helmet before firing six times, easily hitting the bullseye with just as much accuracy as before, and you frown when you notice the only shots that have actually hit the target so far have all been dead center.

He sets the gun down and stands there for a second, staring across the range like it’s nothing at all to him and it’s… remarkable. Not that he’s a wicked shot, you’ve known that the second you laid eyes on his armor all those months ago. No, it’s just… you would think this is where he’d thrive, if anywhere. The entire place is full of smugglers, raiders, scavengers, mercenaries—occupations that define themselves by their grit. They’re talking as much as they’re shooting, conversing in languages you’ve never heard but suspect Din easily understands. But instead of fitting in, he’s just… there. He doesn’t look comfortable, but he also doesn’t look uncomfortable, either. He doesn’t look like he’s having any fun at all.

None of this is considered a hobby to him, you suddenly realize. It’s not fun because he’s too good at it. This is life. This is going back to school for the most basic fundamentals of a job he’s excelled at for decades—it’s not interesting, he’s gaining absolutely nothing from practicing.

You try to think of the last time you’ve seen him truly in his element. You think back on all the different settings—he looked out of place on Canto Bight, got into fights on Corellia, hated Coruscant, seemed stressed on Nevarro, and even on Naboo, even in the middle of paradise, he looked unsure if he actually deserved to be there with you. Now here on Tatooine, where he has real people that he trusts, where he’s surrounded by like-minded individuals shooting his favorite things in the world, it’s like he’s still not able to fully let go.

Is it just you, you wonder? Does he stand out more just because you’re the one looking?

No, you think. No. You have seen him relax. You’ve seen him laugh before, you’ve seen him be himself with you.

But… only with you. A hardened bounty hunter that much prefers the company of a young woman and an infant to literally anyone else in the galaxy.

Fuck. Why does that turn you on so fucking much? It’s the display of prowess, the sheer skill he’s developed, how fucking deadly he is—and how you’ve felt him use that trigger finger to trace slow circles around your clit. The Mandalorian standing with his blaster raised has probably been the last thing too many people have ever seen in their lifetimes, and yet watching from this angle just makes you feel protected, guarded, and… so fucking horny for him.

“Do it again,” you eventually murmur, touching both your palms to his back this time just to feel it. You want to feel him shoot, you want to feel his muscles move with it. You want to touch how mechanically he’s able to aim, you want to know if he’s loose or tense when he fires, you just want to… feel it.

Din grabs the gun and as he extends his arms out, you slide your hands up his back to rest under his shoulders. He’s so broad, he feels so warm and strong, and his trigger releases are so steady that nothing above his wrists move.

Shit, before he’s even finished setting the blaster back down again, you’re already scooting up behind him as close as possible and carefully slithering your arms around his waist, hugging your body tight to his back. Din stays completely still while your mouth presses against the fabric of his cape and your hands begin to slowly slide down his stomach.

He doesn’t say a damn thing, which makes it even hotter for some reason. There’s no warning he gives you, no low growl of your name or sweet girl being dragged through the modulator. He stays completely silent and holds there while blasters continue to fire from stalls to your left, and it gives you the thrill of your lifetime. Big strong man holding perfectly still for you to touch in the middle of a crowded room.

Your hand slips under his waistband and sink down low until you can trail your fingertips along his cock, hidden from sight beneath the edge of the clay shelf. The small sound you make at feeling it already firm and at attention for you gets lost in the noise of the shooting range, but you wrap your palm around it and give it a good, slow pull upwards, feeling Din’s back expand with a breath from the sensation.

“Do it again,” you whisper into his shoulder blade, slowly playing with his cock in his pants with one hand while keeping the other wrapped tight around his abdomen.

Din immediately snatches the blaster off the platform and fires it the very moment he takes aim, and you can feel his cock pulse in your palm as he lets off the shots. Dead center, as always, but he clunks the metal back down with a bit more force this time and then lingers his fingertips at the sloped edge of it for a second, as if he’s considering whether or not he should hold onto it.

You’re already wet between your legs, but it gets worse the longer he allows you to keep doing this. His skin is furnace-hot and he throbs for you, and you trail your thumb up to check—oh, Maker, he’s leaking for you, too. You drag the pad of your thumb over the tip and gently rub the wetness along the curve of his head, before easing back down to give the shaft another slow pull.

A quiet puff of air comes through the vocal filter, but that’s all you audibly get out of him. Still, it’s more than enough to fill you with a wicked heat and a desperate desire for more. So you bite your lip and glance around just to double-check that nobody else has wandered over behind you and the kid is still tucked away in his crib, probably passed out in the secluded darkness at this point. And then you barely take a split-second to consider it before your knees are bending and you’re slowly sinking down the length of his body.

Din is a fucking statue. He doesn’t do anything to allow your wiggling underneath the raised platform anymore than he widens his stance to prevent it. Once you’re on your knees in front of him in the dim isolation of your hiding spot though, he takes a single step forward and pins his waist to the hardened clay above your head, and a thrill skitters through you at being completely walled in on all four sides.

You reach up to hook your fingertips in his hem of his trousers and begin pulling them down, so tight and achy between your legs that you want to shove your hand down between them already. You don’t though, not yet, because you need two hands to be extra careful in getting his cock out. You don’t even want the fabric of his pants to touch it, you want your mouth to be the only sensation he knows here.

At the very last second, you decide to pull the waistband down far enough to let his balls rest outside the confining clothing, getting increasingly hotter at the thought that this isn’t going to be sneaky and dirty, even if you’re in public. Din’s wide stance and the floor-length cape hide you perfectly from any prying eyes behind his back, so it’s going to be soft and it’s going to be slow and he’s going to be comfortable while you go down on him.

Your mouth is already watering, so you bend down just slightly and lift your chin to gently drag your tongue along the smooth skin of his balls before anything else. Honestly—you don’t think he’s expecting you to go there first, because his whole body suddenly jerks at the velvet soft sensation between his legs and you let out a low hum in response. He can’t reach you down here unless he tries to, so you scoot your knees up a little bit and just decide to go for it. This way he won’t be able to get it confused, he won’t pull you out from under here halfway through when you suck on his balls before anything else. This is what you want from him, what’s right here in your mouth.

You switch to the other one and Din twitches with a filtered breath, the skin already tightening up and responding gorgeously under your tongue. His hand hovers somewhere near the raised platform above your head, fingers curling in his leather gloves and caught right between stopping you and letting you continue. While he allows it, you ease your way up and make it just tantalizing enough to make him ache without providing any real stimulation, slowly trailing your tongue up the length of his cock and pressing plush lips to the flared head.

Din exhales a shakily while you take your time, tasting the precum as his body produces it, just kissing and licking and purposefully refusing to touch him with anything besides your mouth. Without being able to see the rest of him from this angle, you're left to your own devices—you’re so gentle and soft about the pleasure that you start to separate the man from the throbbing erection you’re currently playing with. You begin to enjoy yourself without thinking too much about the struggle he must be withstanding right now, you moan softly against his heated skin even though you know you’re being a tease at the worst possible moment, but no matter how you decide to take your time with it, Din continues to allow it. He endures. Silent, perfectly still, until you eventually decide to wrap your lips around the head of his cock and flutter your tongue up underneath it.

But then he jumps and your eyes open when a deep, unkind voice from the stall to your left calls out, “Hey, Mando! Gonna fuckin’ shoot or just stand there, huh?”

You can hear his immediate frustration in the blaster scraping against the shelf over your head, and you moan softly around his cock the second you feel him tense and start firing. The smooth skin pulses on your tongue and you slide your fingers around the backs of his knees, opening your throat and slowly taking him deeper.

And, for a man that has repeatedly fired six perfect shots every single time he picks up his gun, he falters after just three this time.

The heat of your mouth must be too overwhelming. Too fucking good, too detrimental to his focus and composure to even perform the most basic tasks he typically excels at. Like a seasoned mathematician that suddenly struggles to count to ten, a renowned author that can’t recite their ABC’s—Mando can’t even fire a weapon right now and it’s all because of you.

He has to keep trying though, he has to make an actual effort now that you both know someone nearby is paying at least some sort of attention to his performance. The sound of more plasma arcing through the air over your head slowly disappears into the background in a way that it never could while you were the one firing—you’re completely hidden and safe down here, you can moan low in your throat while keeping your hands around his knees and begin to bob your head without another thought or worry whatsoever. Handling it is all on him. He just needs to stay quiet, be still, and shoot his gun. It should be the simplest thing in the galaxy for him, right?

Wrong. So wrong. You hear the way the bolts are pinging off the sides of the target now, you listen to him grunt and let off a few more shots that also sound like they miss. Your soft palate lifts and you’re practically drenching yourself at how wide he stretches your throat while you take him down as far as you can, and there’s a moment where you’re holding there and you think about doing something about the dull ache throbbing between your legs. But once you pull off him for air and automatically touch your drooling tongue to your palm, you decide this is what you want more.

Your slick hand wraps around his cock and starts to slowly jerk him off while your mouth moves down to attach to his balls once more, your touch gliding strong and wet along his entire length. Din almost doubles over into the platform, his hips stuttering up for the first time at the hard stimulation you’re finally giving him. His skin swells and tightens in your mouth—you can feel the tension locking his thighs down, you can hear the shots above you start to decrease in frequency, and you know he’s already close.

So you move back up to suck on the head of his cock again and slowly swirl your tongue around it, continuing to use your hand to pull steady and firm on the rest of his shaft, and you just close your eyes and wait for him to give you what you want. His firing soon stops altogether and you squeeze your finger between your thighs and press hard against your clit, just needing to relieve some of the ache. You keep doing that, you keep drawing circles with your tongue while slowly jerking the rest of him off into your mouth, and at some point, it all just becomes too much for him.

“Shit,” Din gasps, along with the sudden sound of metal skittering against the clay above you, and your eyes pop open in surprise. “Ah, sh—shhhhh—”

Maker, did he just drop his fucking gun?

You start to pull back, but then suddenly a trembling hand shoots down and clutches tight under your throat, hooking hard behind your jaw to make sure you stay right there.

His cock starts throbbing and he shudders, slamming his other palm on the shelf and cumming hard in your mouth. You’re already swallowing before he even gives you anything but Maker, you’re fucking desperate for it that your hand moves to curl your fingers against the exposed skin at his hips as if that’ll somehow help you get it sooner. The first taste of him comes as soon as you dig in and drag your nails down his flesh, and Din is helpless to do anything else besides clutch your jaw tight and gasp raggedly while emptying himself down your throat.

He shakes and shudders and you don’t spill a single drop, clutching his hips and pulling him close to keep him in your mouth, and as he slowly comes down from that plateau, you lick every inch of him clean. His fingers gradually lose their rigidity around your jaw and eventually, his fingers drop down to press gently against your throat while his hips pull back.

He slips from your mouth and you wipe the wetness from your chin, staring up at his cock wistfully and almost wanting to keep going. Is that fucked up, you wonder? What would he think?

He hasn’t moved yet, why isn’t he moving? Your job is clearly finished here, no matter what kind of way you may feel about that. The coast must not be clear, you have to assume. Perhaps someone is wandering around behind him, maybe he’s still being cautious about the nosy person next door—all you know is that you can tell he wants to move but he isn’t, which likely means he can’t. You know his cock must be so unbelievably sensitive right now, but he’s not easing his body back far enough away from the shelf to tuck it into his pants. He’s keeping it right in front of your face and expecting you to stay there until he deems it appropriate for you to get up.

The longer you wait for him to step back and let you out from under here, the more your need sparks and grows. What would he think? That you’re so desperate for his cock that you still want it in your mouth even when it’s soft and spent? Maker, he’d be fucking right on the money.

At some point, you can’t stop yourself. You lean back up to slowly take his soft cock back in your mouth, and Din nearly spasms while you slip your hand under your waistband and widen your knees.

You don’t do anything spectacular to it—you’re not that cruel—but you do hold him on the heat of your tongue and keep him there, fluttering your eyes closed as your finger finally touches your clit. Air puffs shakily through your nostrils and you think Din is actually shaking harder than you are, his body fighting oversensitivity while yours starts the race towards bliss. He doesn’t stop you but it also feels like he’s purposefully trying not to, like everything in him is rebelling against the wet heat of your mouth but knowing you’re only doing this because you’re so painfully turned on. You’re doing this because you need it, in spite of the electric shocks of wicked sensation it seems to be inspiring in him.

Your finger speeds up and you start gently sucking on the warm, giving flesh, and his hand trembles as it grabs at your hair. Fuck, you don’t care if he thinks you’re desperate—you want him to recognize it, you want him to know exactly how much you love his cock—

That thought sends a dark thrill down your spine and pleasure burns bright and needy where you’re still rubbing your clit, dropping your hips and rolling them forwards against your hand. And oh, your only lament is that you wish he was the one doing this. You wish Din was building your pleasure instead of letting you use his body in search of your own, you wish it was his hand working between your legs and about to shove you over that ledge, but then again. Something about this whole fucking scene is just so… undignified. Debased. And you’re getting off on it, quicker than you ever thought possible.

When you cum, you’re good and you don’t make a single sound when you cum. You squeeze your eyes shut and your entire body jolts with every single shattering wave of ecstasy, and Din tugs a handful of your hair and slowly rocks his hips once, twice, fucking your mouth while you endure wildfire burning through your veins. By the time you finish convulsing on the fucking floor of a Tatooinian gun range, you know you can go for another and probably get it equally as quick as that one, but Din is already pulling his cock out of your mouth and shoving it back into his pants. You’re like jelly as your elbow is immediately caught in his arm and you’re hauled up from your hiding spot, dazed and disoriented.

The chrome visor stares you down and you want to shrink in on yourself, thinking he’s going to take your happy ass back to the Crest. You should be in trouble, you know you should be in trouble. Leaving the recesses of your dark cubby and coming face to face with your surroundings brings a brand new clarity to light—you totally should not have done any of that. He was trying to teach you, for Maker’s sake. He was taking the time to show you the valuable knowledge he’s gained regarding weaponry and self-defense. Fuck, you even told him on Naboo that you wanted to shoot a gun, and he brought you here to do just that.

Except then he just spins you around and picks up the blaster from the adobe ledge in front of you, placing it firmly in your hands.

“Okay,” he pants quietly next to your ear, breathing hard and shallow through the helmet. “Now you should be able to focus, right?”

Fuck… Fuck, is he serious? You can barely hold the damn thing, you’re shaking so hard. How does this work again? What does this do?

“Wh-What?” You croak—fuck, your voice is gone. “I… I can’t—”

“Try,” he encourages, helping your comparatively tiny hands flip off the safety but other than that, stepping back and leaving you to it. Completely and hopelessly lost, you weakly twist around to watch him stand next to the kid’s closed metallic shield. “Hit the target,” Din reiterates with a nod, trying to catch his breath. “You can do it.”

You look back out with unfocused eyes to see it still all the way on the far end of its track, and there’s just absolutely no fucking way. “I… can’t.”

“Hit the target and we can go home,” he tells you, and while you don’t exactly know what home is anymore, something tells you it’s somewhere in hyperspace. A resting baby, a metal floor, a pitch black hull, and your cheek pressed against a warm chest.

It sounds… wonderful.

Inspiring a newfound kind of desire in you, you lift your arms as best you can and work so, so hard to keep them steady. The target is in your sights and you do your absolute best—fuck, you really do, but you pull the trigger and the shot sadly bounces off the edge.

You drop your hands, already defeated and drained. “I can’t.”

“Hit the target and I’ll buy you a blaster,” he ups the ante, and you instantly lift your dead arms again. Fuck, come on, come on, you can do this.

You shoot. Nope. So you shoot again. And then you shoot again, and again, minutely adjusting your wrists purely based on where the bright red plasma is landing and ignoring the scope entirely.

“A nice one,” he continues over the pew pew pew of you just continuing to fucking miss, fucking miserably, over and over again. “Expensive. Hand-crafted, one of a kind…”

Miss, miss, miss, and—no. Just, no. There’s only so much glaring failure you can take before you snap. You finally stop shooting and growl in frustration, going to slam the metal down on its resting place. “Mando, I ca—”

“Hit the target and I’ll marry you,” he says quietly, and you freeze just before impact.

… What? N… No…

Miraculously, you somehow manage to calmly switch the safety on and set the blaster down before turning back to see the helmet staring at you, unmoving.

You… you know it must just be a joke, right? Just a stupid extension to the one he made earlier, it must be. You blink dumbly at him and flick your gaze between the visor and two large black eyes staring at you from the crib, wondering if you glitched or if you’re just hallucinating.

“Uh…” you hear yourself say, even though you’ve got absolutely nothing, but Din doesn’t offer anything else to fill in the gaps of your startled misunderstanding. If you didn’t have such a wild fucking reaction to the words, you'd probably wonder if he actually said them or not—that’s how much he gives away. Silent, so unbelievably silent when you’re begging him to give you at least something. Is he messing with you again? Is he just that confident that you’re going to fail?

It takes forever for you to turn back around and face the target, but you eventually do when he refuses to elaborate. Your heart slams in your chest and you wonder what you’re doing even attempting this.

The moment you lift your trembling arms is the moment you know your heart is pounding too fast—your finger twitches with the wild rush of blood flow and you end up pulling the trigger way before you’re ready. You fire before you’ve checked your sights, you fire before you’ve taken any sort of aim whatsoever, you fire spontaneously enough to surprise even yourself and it—

—it hits dead center.

Your stomach drops and a jolt of some rabid feeling punches through you, you have no idea what it is. You whip around so fast that you get dizzy, seeing him standing there, completely still.

“That was just beginner’s luck,” you quickly reassure him, suddenly feeling faint. Holy shit, holy shit, what the fuck just happened? “Listen—hey, no, listen, I can’t get it again,” you explain shrilly to the utterly dead silence from him. “Look, watch this, double or nothing.”

You spin back around, well aware that absolutely nothing about what you just said or what just happened made any fucking sense at all. Beginner’s luck when you’ve been consistently awful at this, telling him repeatedly to listen when you’re very, very fucking aware he hasn’t said anything, double or nothing on a literal proposal as if double marriage is something that actually exists?

No. Shut up. Don’t even think that word, don’t think about fucking anything. Fire, fire without thinking, just lift the gun and pull the trigger—

You do, and oh. Oh, no.

“Uh?!” Your voice comes out on a squeak, now in a complete fucking panic. What the fuck? No fucking way. Perfect, perfect, the odds are fucking astronomical—another deadly accurate shot. “Ah, um, okay, scratch everything I said—th-third time’s a charm?”

Wide-eyed and having absolutely no clue what you’re doing at this point, you fail to see Din slowly turn his helmet down and to the right as he stands behind you. You go to lift your arms and pull the trigger, but then he suddenly reaches out lightning-quick and bumps your elbow upwards at the very last second.

The abrupt push causes your shot to be angled off course spectacularly and you can’t do anything but look up and gasp in horror, worried it’s going to ricochet off the ceiling and land somewhere this building isn’t architecturally designed to absorb. There’s just enough time to wildly wonder why the fuck he did that—

—but then, like pure magic before your eyes… the beam of plasma adjusts itself in midair.

It fucking bends. Across the length of your entire firing lane, it curves in a downward trajectory and hits the target with absolutely impossible physics.

Your jaw fucking drops and you whip your body around in dumb shock to see Din staring hard at the closed shield next to him.

… that’s not closed.

The baby tilts his head at you and coos happily, one ear tipping up while the other tips down, and you’re completely blown away. Not only at the entirely unexpected demon-power display, but what specifically he was hoping to get out of it. You’re still stuck, blinking down at the adorable little goof with abilities you’ll never understand.

Only, a hand suddenly grabs yours and drags you back to yourself.

“We need to leave,” Din says quietly, switching the lid shut on the hovering crib and pushing it towards the booth’s exit while tugging you along behind him. “I don’t know how many people saw that, we need to leave.”

Sure enough, voices in the next partition over start picking up, likely the only ones in here who had a good enough angle to watch the physically unthinkable shot somehow meet its target, and your adrenaline quickly begins pumping while you keep your head down and power-walk your ass to the door. You don’t know the kind of consequences that could potentially arise from others witnessing the kid’s literal sorcery, but you know you’d rather not take the chance. The voices start growing louder as you three make your quick escape, beginning to ask others around them if they just saw that, but you’re already out of the rectangular adobe structure and long gone by the time anybody steps out of their panels to hear the uproarious accusations of cheating beginning to fly.

***

Stay tuned for the next part!

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

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mskimkaty · 4 years

Text

I AM THAT GIRL

angst, slight fluff, smut

WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF DEPRESSION, MENTAL ILLNESS, SUICIDE, SELFHARM, DRAMA, SMUT, VANILA SMUT, SWEARING, KIM JENNIE IS A BITCH HERE AND SO OTHER MENTION REAL LIFE PEOPLE BUT ITS PURELY FICTIONAL.

synopsis:Johnny Suh, the most popular boy in college, tried to take his life? what could possibly go wrong with his wealthy background, popularity, and basically having everything in the palm of his hands?

expected word count: 12,692

release date: 01/18/21 (somehow, got deleted. so Im reposting)

details: college!au, strangers to friends to lovers!au.

JohnnySuh x reader.

Johnny Suh walked the hallways in his college ground and not one passerby gives him the freedom to do his business. Students give him a look of pity, as acquaintances try to give him fake words of comfort that disgustingly crawls at the back of his skin.

They were just into the gossip, but they never really care. It was obvious from how they whisper behind his back for looking out of place and out of character, he could see their mocking gazes every time he walks past them.

he pulled his hood up and covered his old blonde hair now dyed into jet black, the usual smile plastered on his lips was now in a tight line and was placed the usually friendly demeanor with a scowl on his face.

people are staring, not in a good way, but because he looks ridiculous in their minds.

"Youngho, if you need anything, I'd gladly do it for you." Johnny heard his Korean name roll of someone's lips and now he feels disgusted with himself for the 9th time that day, he was back to zero and the acid rushes past his throat and he might vomit with the anxiety building up in the pit of his stomach upon hearing his birth name. He halts his movements and turns around to face Kim Jennie.

How does she have the nerve to say that when she cheated on him with Jongin? He treated him like a brother. Her hands travel on his biceps, the usual warmth he felt in the past now buried at the back of his memories, and now, he's just disgusted with her. He ignored her and continued walking past her, Jennie's peers were instantly beside her to console her with words of comfort because her ex-lover practically brushes her off like she was nothing.

You didn't expect a drama unfolding in front of you while standing in your locker area, Christmas break was finally over, and now students are back putting their noses in other people's business. Especially, Johnny Suh's business.

You shrugged your shoulders and walks back to your class, this is definitely a way to start your first day at this University.

Johnny sat at the far back of the room, sporting unusual dark clothing rather than the usual light colors of his wardrobe, the professor walks in, shaking his head upon seeing him at the back completely not understanding how Johnny's mind works.

Johnny knows, just by the look his professor is giving at him, he knew and have seen that twice already — he couldn't control the urge to stand up harshly making the chair he was using falls down to the ground as he walks to the door not bothering to look back, stunning everybody in the room.

When Johnny came back to school after his attempt, he felt more pulled down in the darkest pit inside him, he was unhappy more than he did when he was attempting. The funny part? when people knew about his attempt, people started flocking around him as they cared, but it was obvious. They just wanted to be with him because of his surname and money.

Even Jennie did not differ from the other students trying to impress him. The sad part about it is that he genuinely liked her, but she was just up for it because of the money and fame, and maybe the good fuck. His friends were no different, people might think that he's happy being the captain of the football team, but his life was toxic with every moment. He was in more pain than ever, his friends who were his teammates low-key discarded him thinking he's a freak saying he needed to seek attention.

Johnny knew that they weren't practically saying that to his face, but they were showing it.

They weren't wrong, he knew that, but it was different. They were all trying to impress him, worshiping the ground he walks on and now he's on the rocky side of the road, they drop him? because their parents told them to?

Johnny empties his locker, blindly shoving everything in his duffle bag when his best friend, Kim Jongin, walks inside. He hardly shoved everything inside his bag and harshly closed his locker's door, scowling at the older boy.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" he heard him. "This isn't you at all, why are you suddenly changing? Johnny, I already said I'm sorry." that's the ugly fact. People around him are blind enough not to notice the slight changes in him and the little signs that he wasn't mentally stable.

"This isn't an apology. You're asking me to suck it up. It's Different."

Lunch came and Johnny has nowhere to go, not with all the pity looks the student body is giving him, he had a take-out for his meal and had his lunch alone in an empty room. deciding he has no appetite to eat something, he walked out of the building and drove out to Nakamoto Yuta's basement. He's supposed to be dead two weeks before this day, but here he was, seeking for Yuta's dirty business.

"Johnny Suh." Nakamoto Yuta was known for his dirty business around campus, selling overpriced illegal transactions under the table, tattoos, and piercing. "Stop talking like I'm some god. No god would try to kill himself."

"figures."

"I don't understand, how are you still in the university and not behind bars?" Johnny asks after taking a long drag on his blunt.

"This is the only way to have food on the table, and I need to graduate. I rather do these than sell my body."

Sadly enough when Johnny checked his phone, no calls or messages from his parents. As cliche as it sounds, he wants his father to check on him but after seeing him in his room bathed in his blood on the ground, his father drifted more away from him.

When he got home that night, his family was having dinner without him, his younger sister, Yerim, ran up to him and hugged him. "Oppa, where have you been? I've been calling you." his sister was the only purest being for him, and he distances himself around her, he doesn't want him to expose her to things that only he knew.

"Yerim, go to your room." the impersonal voice of their father surrounds the dining area and Yerim flinch. looking up to his eyes before walking away.

Kim Ji hoon walks up to him and looks at him with disdain. "Stop being a disgrace, If you can't act like your invisible. I don't need a disgrace in this house." It wasn't new to Johnny anymore.

His father may not be vocal about it in the past but he knew that his father doesn't want him to breathe the same air he does, if God may allow it, he knows that his father wanted him dead, he wanted his father to acknowledged him, and he did everything, that was when Johnny was kissing up to his reputation of being the good son, ace-ing all his grades, being the captain of the football team, doing unnecessary extracurricular activities for extra points, being the good boyfriend, good friend, good son, and a good brother, but it was all too much for him, he felt that he was borrowing someone's life to the point that he doesn't recognize him anymore.

His father hated him so much that he didn't even give him his last name, and the ugly part about it is that Johnny understood his father because he was the reason his mother died. "You can't even do one thing properly, and now everyone living in this town knows about you killing yourself."

"Are you saying that I didn't properly kill myself?" he wanted to vomit. He chuckled as he ran his hands down his locks. "Go fuck yourself," he murmured and walk down to the guest room where he was temporarily sleeping, his step-mother hasn't asked the helpers to clean his room's carpet that is still bathed in his blood, he looked at his wrist that is covered in a bandage, the ugly reminder that he was unhappy and that there is no saving from this anymore. Finding the reason to wake up was hard enough and going to school was another thing, but he did anyway.

People still gossip behind his back, ugly as it sounds, people are disgustingly twisted. He smirked upon hearing he still looked hot as fuck with black hair, one student saying she would gladly do him, blonde or black.

"Jennie must have cheated knowing that he's a freak."

"hey, he might hear you, lower your voice."

"He needs to seek professional help."

"I don't understand him at all. His popular, his ex-girlfriend was fucking hot, he's rich, has great looks, and has a hella hot of a sister." something snapped inside him when he heard some asshole talked disgustingly about his sister.

Before he could even think properly, Johnny repulsively pushed the guy up to the wall. "The hell!" the stranger shouted as the other students stop to stare.

"Did you fucking talked about my sister like that?"

People are staring not because of an aggressive man pushing a full-grown body against the wall like it's nothing. it's not uncommon to see a fistfight for the entire student body to see, people are staring because, Johnny Suh, for once stunned everybody with his demeanor that is completely out of his character. Yes, he is a big guy, but he was kind, sweet, and friendly, so Johnny using force for the first time against someone was a sight to see, added to the fact that this is the first time people heard him cursing, and If eyes could kill already, the guy who talked shit about his sister is practically dead right now, he would brush it off in the past, blindly ignoring gossip about him but this is the first time that someone disrespects his sister right in front of his face and definitely, it is the first time that he gave less fuck about his reputation.

Johnny stared at the man that lacks the urge to answer him, him sending shivers down the stranger's spine. He manhandled the guy and throw him down the floor. "You had the nerve to run that filthy mouth against my sister but doesn't have the balls to answer when I'm confronting you?" he smirked and walked away.

Johnny spent the whole week going to the university but doesn't bother attending his classes, he doesn't want to be left alone at home but doesn't want to go to his classes. He just lost every motivation to do something productive.

Johnny walked his usual path these past few days, going to an empty room on the 4th floor of the Marketing's building to kill time, he gently pushed open the door and saw you changing your clothes. You were almost done, putting your white dress shirt over your shoulder without noticing that you're giving a stranger a free show.

Johnny freezes up, staring and lingering more than usual. He was mesmerized by how your skin glistens under the light slipping through the windows, but what made him stop on his track is the lack of hair you have in your body. It's just smooth skin all over your body.

When you felt someone behind you, you turn your body around to look at the intruder, you saw someone and instantly locked eyes with him. At first, you were scared of seeing Suh Johnny behind you, Johnny got a full view of your unbuttoned shirt and your chest clad in your undergarments. it's not like you saw a ghost, he didn't die per se, but then it has drawn to you, that Johnny, in the flesh, saw you changing clothes. Your reflex acts up and you turn yourself away from him, pulling your clothes to hug yourself, you fix your buttons as you run out to get out of the embarrassment.

The next day, you went to your usual spot in the library to eat your lunch when you saw somebody sitting on your chair. You shrug your shoulders and sit across the stranger who had his head tucked in his arms on the table. You were excited to eat your favorite sandwich because your mother specially made it for you, it was a rare moment given your mother raised you and your sibling alone, having to work two jobs at a time just to put food on the table and to send you to a good school. You appreciate her and love her with all your heart, she was the only one you had next to your older brother, you were good at being invisible, it was your last semester at the university. Trying to finish one subject and your practicum silently like you didn't exist at all. You laughed at the fact that you had no one in this damn hell, but you didn't care.

You started eating your sandwich in silence while opening a good book to read, you were happy in your bubble. Johnny must have heard you as you flip pages after pages. His stomach growling after registering the wonderful smell coming from his surroundings. When he lifts his head, his eyes flicked to your form, silently eating while reading a book, you were so happy in your little bubble, giggling while reading. He straightens his back and you notice the guy across you, putting a face in the stranger who sleeps across you.

A blush crept up on your face when you realize it was Johnny again, you remembered the recent events that happened between the both of you, and your embarrassed ass started coughing hard, you hold your neck rather than reaching for the bottled water in front of you as you choke none stop in front of him. He was left dumbfounded for a couple of seconds but reach for the bottle and unclasp it before handing it to you, you chugged half the contents down your throat and he watched you with fascination.

"Thank you." You said in a small voice.

You put the bottle back in its place as silence hangs in the air, it wasn't a bad kind of silence, but it was awkward. You offer him the other half of your sandwich as you watch him look at you questioningly. "Your hungry." It wasn't a question. You knew he was hungry given you kept hearing his stomach growling a while ago. "You know a little food won't hurt you right?"

Johnny laughs at your ironic statement but accepts your offer anyway, "Don't get your hopes up, I'm not up for a casual relationship." he says as you thought that he wouldn't accept your offer, given that he's rich and can buy a much better lunch than what you're currently having, but then again, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

"I was just offering you food."

"Thanks." When he finished your sandwich rather quickly, he went back to sleeping in front of you. He liked hearing the sound of you flipping pages after pages as you read your book silently in front of him and the occasional giggle you let out when read something funny. When he woke up to go home, you were gone, but you left your coat as you hung it around his shoulders to keep him warm.

When he came back the day after, in the library, you didn't come back.

The next morning, Johnny awoke earlier than usual, heading to his car without giving a glance at his family, Yerim saw him and was rather puzzled at the baby pink coat he was holding delicately in his arms. He drove fast to get to the university, walking inside the library to wait for you if ever you were going to be there again.

Lunch came, and your guess was right, you see the same blacked haired boy taking a nap in your usual spot with your coat right beside him. You sat across him again and started minding your business, but this time, you had another bag of sandwiches repaired for him. You weren't ignorant about Johnny's attempt, but you choose to respect his space, you knew that he wasn't mentally stable yet. He might look fine outside and you might not know what goes inside his head, but you knew that he isn't fine. No one's mentally stable, everybody has their hardships in their private lives going on right now, but the important thing is that people shouldn't use it against someone, and as long as they don't step on other people to feel better for themselves then it's good.

You might not understand what he's going through right now, you weren't friends, to begin with, but you feel for him. Sincerely.

Johnny felt peaceful for once after many years, it was an odd feeling, but it wasn't bad. You were browsing your phone, checking your emails and your mother's, clearing and archiving unimportant ones. You look at the time and it was already half past lunchtime. Wednesday is a pain in the ass for you, you have to wait for 5 hours until your next class in the afternoon. You didn't notice Johnny waking from his nap, seeing as you still haven't touched the sandwich bags in front of you, he's guessing you still haven't eaten.

"I'm Johnny."

You look at the man in front of you, his usual strawberry locks are now turned into black, sporting a gray hoodie over his black shirt and matching gray track pants. You study his expression, his not extending his hands for a handshake nor his face valid of any emotion, yet you smile and said "What happened to not being in a casual relationship?"

Johnny was taken back, you give him the sweetest smile you could offer and handed him the extra sandwich you had, "You know, some people would reply with their names." he said as he accepts the food that you offered, you look at him as if contemplating before speaking.

"Y/n"

"I'm not sure, but what department are you from?" he asked after taking a bite of his food. "This is good, by the way. Who made this?"

"What question do you want me to answer first?" you asked laughing. "My mom made it, and I'm from the same department as you, Though, I just transferred to this school after the Holidays,

If he was shocked he didn't show it, Johnny nods his head as if acknowledging you, "I just want time to pass by quickly and silently, that's why no one knows I exist here. I'm just trying to live another day until I graduate." You said making Johnny fall silent.

"Good for you," he replied after a good minute with the both of you munching on your foods. "Was it hard?" he asked.

"What is?"

"You don't seem to have anyone, do you even have friends?" you laughed at his statement because it was the truth. "Yeah, something like that. It wasn't that bad I might have no friends because I choose not to have any relationships with anybody in here."

"That sucks, I'm not going to ask the reason why you transferred in the middle of the semester because that's your business, not mine," he says, you study his face and you weren't sure whether to run your mouth over his business or not, deciding against it you stood up and take your things with you. "Let me show you something."

Walking down the stairs while both of you kept a little distance, you lead him to the visual room, pulling the keys in your backpack and unlocking it. "Why do you have a key to the AVR?" he asks bewildered.

"Perks of being the teacher's pet," you replied as you pulled him inside, turning the computer and projector on, you played a video about constellations and aimed the projector above.

Stars hover above the two of you and you urge him to lay down beside you, looking up and taking a moment of peace to embrace both of you.

"When things get hard and I tend to be alone; let's be honest, no one wants to feel lonely, especially at the hardest times of our lives. But then, you can't force someone to be there with you physically and emotionally and it sucks to have yourself suck it up for being alone. So, I do this, I take my time staring at these constellations. You see, they're really beautiful to me. I find them fascinating, they have this beautiful meaning behind them, it was always fun finding their patterns, connecting them until they're complete, you just have to look closely, in that way, you'll appreciate them more." you smile while pointing above you, he might not look at you but your presence beside him does him wonders, it was so powerful that even if he closes his eyes, he still feels you beside him. The warmth he was feeling coming from you, your steady breathing, and your sweet scent.

You spent your Mondays and Wednesdays with Johnny, eating lunch together, or spending time as you watch different constellations every week.

Friday morning, you made a quick detour to your department before clocking in for your practicum, before leaving the premises a professor asked you for a favor and you agreed to make a copy of the files she was asking for. When you came back from the printing room, you saw a commotion ahead. It wasn't you to pry on other people's business, but your legs must have their mind when you saw a familiar tall build that is clad in a black hoodie.

Johnny Suh stands in the middle with Kim Jongin and Kim Jennie on the other side. He was hyperventilating.

"Just leave, please." Kim Jongin shouted at him, you can see the obvious horror written on everyone's faces. Kim Jennie was stuck beside Jongin as she shed tears silently, disbelief written in Johnny's face.

"Do you know what went wrong? it's because you were never enough." Jennie drops the bomb for everyone to hear, Johnny was livid. If he could crush everything that he could see he would take the chance and do it. If he could take his life again, he wouldn't give a single fuck and he'll gladly do it.

"I can't believe you both. I wasn't the one who cheated with my best friend, why the fuck do you act like it's my fault?" you heard Johnny said and for the first time your heart broke for him.

You found him in your usual spot in the library, his head hanging low and his body shaking as he tries to catch his breath. You drop your coat over his head and give him the bottle of water you were holding, instead of sitting across him, you sat next to him without overstepping and respecting his space to cool down.

When he started to calm down, he handed your coat back to you, stood up, and left the library. Saying you were dumbfounded was an understatement but you choose to understand him.

Days passed by and Johnny was still a no show. When a week has already passed without seeing Johnny, you started to get worried. You wished you asked for his number, but then again, you weren't even that close, to begin with. You decide to spend your long-vacant in the visual room, playing random constellations as you think about a certain boy.

When that certain boy suddenly appeared right in front of you. "I'm sorry." He had his hands inside his grey sweatpants.

"What matters is that you came."

Johnny joined you on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, after a moment of silence, he spoke up. "Why did you help me? why do you even care about me at all? I'm a mess."

"Aren't we friends?" You asked even though it was clear that he turned your offer of friendship down a while ago.

"What you said about the constellations earlier made me realize how I took myself for granted and at the same time how ungrateful I am."

You look at him and give him the chance to speak up. "I didn't have the will to live, do you know that you are annoyingly optimistic about everything?" He jokingly asked, and you laughed with him.

"Is that a compliment or what?"

"I still don't have a reason to be here." He suddenly says. Johnny looks at your face as if reading you, he was prepared to see you pitying him but there was none.

"You don't have to look for it. You have yourself because, at the end of the day, you only got your own back," you turn to him as you give him a look. Johnny envied you, it was obvious, and you can read him like an open book. "Don't, don't look at me like that, Johnny Suh." the way his name rolled down your tongue felt flawless, as if you were born to say his name out loud.

"We all have our shortcomings, I'm not perfect nor are people around me, no one is, and we have to accept that fact, give less care about people who can't accept that."

"It's not as easy as it seems," Johnny says, your hand brushing back the stray hair that falls on his forehead as if your hand has a mind of its own. "Sorry-"

"It's fine. I like it." Both of you turn towards the ceiling as you continue to watch the stars, keeping the comfortable silence and just hang around each other.

For weeks, spending time in the library and the visual room to watch the stars has been your thing with Johnny Suh, you couldn't even imagine being friends with the likes of him, you view him as a constellation star, he's mysterious behind his disguise as he tends to fool everyone with, he was hard to reach and was always up above you, he brightens the surroundings like how the stars brighten the night sky, for you, he was more than the famous campus boy that everybody likes, even if he can't realize that.

Weeks passed by and you look forward to your Mondays and Wednesdays than the fact that you are graduating.

You were busy transferring your books to your backpack as you stand in front of your locker when Johnny came to you. "I didn't know we have the same classes."

You were stunned when you saw him talking to you in the open, students started looking in your way as if seeing a history. The most known guy in the University is with a nobody, but you shrugged it anyway as you closed your locker's door. You bite back at your tongue with all the attention you were getting, anxiety creeping out to you but you choose to ignore it.

"You weren't even attending your classes," you told him as you fix your backpack, the both of you started walking, keeping the same slow pace and taking your time.

"Well, I now have a reason, at least," he says as he grabs the strap of your bag and slings it in his shoulder. You ignore the bubbly feeling inside you and continued walking. Smiling at yourself as you forget about the stares around you.

"You're so cheesy, Suh Johnny." You giggled at him and for the first time, you saw a genuine smile creeping on his face.

When Lunch came, both of you sat outside to enjoy the sunny weather. "I'm going to start my Practicum next week," Johnny told you suddenly, and you stood up so fast to walk around the table to hug him.

"I'm so glad!" the sincere happiness is written on your face that even Johnny laughs with you.

"Thanks to you, I feel like, there's more to it than ending my life at the age of 21," he says and you shake your head at him.

"No, I didn't do anything. It's mostly you. I'm just here beside you to guide you, but it's your own will."

"I'll be honest with you, hurting myself still runs on my head but the difference this time is, I'm scared to do it." you didn't know what to reply to that so you just extend your hands towards his and hold it firmly in your grasp.

The rest of your day went ahead without you noticing, time flies by rather quickly when you are with Johnny. You stood waiting for your bus to arrive when a black Audi stops in front of you. Its windows rolling down and you see Johnny peeking through the window to smile at you.

"You want to wait for your bus or be logical and save time?" you laugh at his way of asking you for a ride but walk towards the passenger to join him in his car otherwise. The car ride was rather chaotic, you were debating about what to put first, milk or cereal, and you felt the horrors when Johnny says he puts milk in first. He was laughing like a child at how horrified you look.

"Anything's fine with me. I put whatever in first," he says after a long minute of arguing.

"I'm telling you, not to live like that!" you argue back. "Cereal comes first and then milk goes in, just imagine, do you pour the soap first before the water? it's water before the soap!" you explained and he laughs at how rilled up you get.

The argument was cut off when you arrived at your house. Johnny parked his car in front of your house and for some reason, your mother came in wearing an apron over her clothes. She raises an eyebrow at the unknown car blocking her driveway and you look at Johnny who looks back at you.

"Your mother is intimidating." He says.

"Want to come over for dinner?" you ask, and It took him a second before responding, " You think that's a good idea?"

"Come on, Mr. Suh, grow some balls, it's just my mom." Johnny looks offended at your statement.

"I have balls that girls flock around with," he retorted. You sigh and open the passenger seat greeting your mom with a smile as you ran to hug her.

"Can my friend stay for dinner?" you asked after hugging her. Johnny is behind you as he introduced himself as your friend and your mother shocked him by giving him a warm hug.

"There's still room for another boy in my house, I believe, it's no problem." Your mother stated as Johnny gives you a confused glance. Your mother invited him in and you welcomed him.

Inside, your older brother, Taeil is strumming his guitar with three other guys in the living room. "Oh, This is my Brother, Taeil." you casually said at him as you hung both of your jackets.

"You didn't tell me you have a brother." He whispered at you, standing awkwardly beside you. Taeil waved at him and you push him to sit beside Jaehyun.

"This is Jaehyun, Doyoung, and Ten. They're all bandmates during high school so they're always here for my brother," you explained. "And your mother's cooking." Ten added.

"Well, now you know," You said as you turn to him. "Let me just go to my room and freshen up real quick, just make yourself feel at home," you say as you back up on your track. "Cool."

Johnny didn't feel out of place for some reason, he was really happy that he got to meet your brother and his bandmates, they were cool to be around. They entertained him and ask what were his hobbies are and for the first time, he took his time to think about what he likes to do. He likes to draw.

When dinner was served, all the boys helped your mother to set up the table, Johnny was persistent in helping even after telling him to sit and wait because he was a guest. You let him help otherwise.

Dinner was well spent, he enjoyed talking with everyone and your mother even asks him to visit anytime he wants. Taeil takes a liking to him, asking him to hang out whenever he's free. Johnny presented to do the dishes and you helped him when he was done his shirt was a total mess because of the water splashing through the faucet, a good thing is that your brother has some clothes that are way oversized for him, and he lets Johnny use them.

You handed him the shirt, accidentally seeing a huge bruise on his chest and stomach, before you knew it, you stop him as he was about to put his shirt on. "What happened?"

His bruises must have slipped his mind and he mentally cursed himself at it. You were horrified. "Johnny, are you getting beat up?"

"I don't want to talk about this," he pulled his shirt down "Y/n, It's getting late. I should head home now. Thank you for dinner, I enjoyed it." and before you know it, Suh Johnny was gone.

Weeks passed by and Johnny was a complete no show. Faint rays of the sun trickled down through your curtains and fell on your room's marbled floor, you look up at your window and were blinded by the light, sitting up, you let your feet hovered on your marbled floors and mentally prepare yourself for the day.

In the office, your instructor asked you to copy some files and you gladly agreed to do it as you don't have much going on for the time being. You thought that it was hard doing your practicum, but all you did at the office was run errands evolving the x-ray machine. Your mind drifted back to Johnny, you'll have to talk to him. Being worried about him is already killing you and the last time you saw him was three weeks ago.

Wednesday came and you sat at your usual spot in the library, studying for the upcoming exams as you patiently wait for the tall black-haired guy. You forced yourself to do some actual studying but for some reason, all you can think about was Suh Johnny who didn't even show up.

The week passed by in a blur and on Thursday you went to your University to take the exam, you were scheduled for the second batch, and instead of your usual schedule of Wednesday, your professor divided your class into two batches.

You weren't even aware that your exams already finished as you were walking to your locker to put away some books.

You understood that Johnny had issues and you hated that you can't do anything to help him. You would do anything for him if that means for the comfort inside him and his peace of mind. You might not know the reason for his depression but everyone has a reason and you know that everybody around you has some issues going on in their private lives. You look around, seeing other students do their thing, minding their own business, some are even bored and waiting for their exams, You saw Jennie and Jongin together looking at you with disgusted faces that you shrugged off.

Johnny saw you as you mindlessly walk your way to the visual room, and he followed behind you silently, as he looks over his ex-girlfriend and ex-best friend. He realized he never really had a connection with Jennie before, they were both just into the sex, and then it gets awkward when they started to talk.

You were already done setting the projector up, walking in the center to lay down when you heard someone entered, and when you saw Johnny at the entrance of the room, his hands on his sweatpants pocket as he gives you a look, you stood up and ran to give him a big hug. You shed tears for him, as you give him a tight hug.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

"Aren't we friends?" You asked him as you hold him in your arms. "Friends share their pains. So, I'll be here. I just want you to know that I'll be here when you needed someone to be there with you." Johnny fought his tears but who was he kidding? He yearns for someone's affection and not because of who he was but because it was him. And this time, he finally had someone to share his pains with. People already viewed him as someone going on a phase, probably someone rebelling against his parents but Johnny was more than that. He didn't care about it, though. He learned to give less fuck about insignificant people around him.

"My father used to beat me up, Football was just an excuse to cover up these bruises." He admitted. He was disgusted and embarrassed about it. But it was you, and he knows that you're not one to judge someone based off on their appearances.

You shed more tears for him. "Johnny, You don't deserve that, no one deserves that," you say caressing his cheeks. You hated the cheesy statement but you ignore it anyway, what you were feeling at the moment isn't important. Johnny was opening up to you.

The two of you manage to have time off from the university and Practicum. (Johnny started his practicum last, last week, that's why he was MIA most of the time, that time.) Johnny was hanging out at your house, the problem was, your mother and brother are both at work, so you take it to yourself that being alone with him, at your house, is inappropriate. You drag him outside, leading the way to one of your favorite diners.

"I am telling you, you're going to regret that," you said.

"What's wrong with what I ordered?" Johnny did this little thing in his nose, and you take a moment to look at him as you smile at him. You ignore the stares around you, feeling like a sore thumb sticking and obviously, out of place. Johnny scowl at the man who was drunk out of his wits, shamelessly checking you out. This wasn't the first time, this always happened, but not to you though. You told him to ignore it, that man was probably in here to order a cup of coffee.

"Their chicken and waffles here are the best! I'm telling you, I'm not going to share with you."

One pout of his lips towards you and you were switching your plates towards Johnny. You told him, only because this was the first time that he got to try out your favorite dish, and there won't be a second chance in the future. Johnny was kind enough to share a piece of waffle with you. But not the chicken, though. He fell head over heels for it.

Bit by bit, Johnny's walls crumbled down around you, and before you knew it, both of you are inseparable. Johnny dating you spread like wildfire around campus, but there wasn't any truth behind that gossip, you were just a friend. Simple as that.

He was hanging more lately with your brother than you expected. Both of them have the same interest, so it wasn't a surprise when Johnny befriended most of your brother's friends.

Johnny was going on about how Jaehyun's a chill guy, Mark, and Donghyuck introducing him to play games, even Yuta, the University's drug dealer, as they brand him, was included in Taeil's group of friends.

"You didn't tell me that you knew Nakamoto Yuta," Johnny whispered behind you.

"Yeah, For some reason, I didn't want to get involved with most of them. Some girls are crazy about them and I just want peacefulness as I end my college years." You answered. Yuta was from the same department, Jaehyun was from the same university but was taking a different course, as well as Doyounga and Taeyong. Mark and Haechan still need a year before attending college. Ten was studying arts and your brother was a college dropout.

You were having pizza night at your house, your mother was kind enough to accommodate a bunch of men in her tiny house, seemingly impossible to fit 13 men inside, but it did. Instead of the usual party that frat houses and rich kids throw around, Taeil and the others like to keep it to themselves. Sharing one shot glass and downing a cheap rum as everybody waits for their turn. Most of them didn't think that Johnny would be fine with this kind of setup. Besides, he was branded as the campus king and a rich heir at that. He could spend Friday nights at some high-end bar and drink expensive alcohol. But no, instead, here he was, sitting on the cheap carpet your mother owns with a bunch of drunk men but you were glad that your brother is such a nice guy and so are his peers.

Johnny was glad, that he found true people, who accepts him for who he is and not because of who he was.

Doyoung placed you on the empty sofa, you have a low tolerance for alcohol, and you can't keep up with them anymore. The cheapest drink Taeyong bought isn't of cheap quality, you knew better than to judge a bottle chosen by him. You watch them with heavy eyelids, smiling at yourself, Mark and Donghyuck made fun of you by putting thick blankets around you and this was the first time Johnny saw you annoyed by the younger boys.

When Morning came, you were already on your bed as your head pounds. When you came downstairs to leave for school you look around and saw that last night's trace was gone as if 13 grown men didn't make a mess out of your mother's living room.

You wished you had gotten a coffee first when you entered your room way too early and saw that most of the students are yet to arrive, even water would be good, anything liquid down your throat would be good.

You saw Jaehyun and Johnny bidding farewells at the front of the room, students who were present to see the two interacting were shocked, for them, It was rare to see Johnny without his usual crew. But, who are they to decide that for Johnny? It was a rare sight to see, A popular music major and the famous ex-football captain, together?

When Johnny approached his spot beside you, he gives you the cold Iced latte he was holding fresh from Starbucks, completely ignoring unwanted stares behind his back.

"Good Morning," there was a warm aura surrounding him as he settled down beside you, and you look at him in awe. "What?" he asks.

You watched him for a moment, smiling at him as he looks at you questionably. "You're happy," you stated making Johnny pause for a second to think, he was sporting a baby pink hoodie and grey Nike pants, holding his Earpods and Macbook at the other hand. "I think I might be getting there."

Your heart swells up for him and as you fought back the tears that wanted to fall. Johnny reached out to you, wiping the strands of hair that keep falling on your face. "Sorry," you said. People might think that yesterday, Johnny was trying to end his life, and then suddenly, he was okay, because he never was, and you continuously walk on a thin thread around him, Johnny is like a ticking bomb and porcelain that needs to be handled with the utmost care. Five months ago, Johnny doesn't have the motivation to continue living his life, but here he was thriving to know what tomorrow can offer him.

For Johnny, meeting you was his saving grace, problems might fill up in his life, there is this constant reminder that society will always judge him the minute he does something wrong, there is his father, his stepmother who doesn't really pay attention to him, his old life and old self constantly reminding him the pain of the past.

"What happened to your eyes?" there were dark circles under his eyes and for a moment you thought that he has a lot in his mind to think about for the lack of sleep.

"I stayed up till dawn playing overwatch with Donghyuck and Mark last night." He says smiling.

"I'm glad your settling with the boys all right." Johnny watched you, how your long hair flow past your shoulders through your back, he loves the little freckles dancing all over your cheeks naturally and how a touch of pink creeps in your cheeks naturally because of the humid air.

You were really glad. "Do you want to go with me and Ten?" He asks you when your classes ended for the morning, both of you walked to the library to hide from prying and malicious eyes. "He wants to hang out in the nearest coffee shop." he continued and you agreed to go with him, making a turn for the exit.

Johnny ordered an Americano for him and a latte for you, eating the packed lunch your mother made for you and Johnny as you wait for Ten.

Ten arrived with Jaehyun in tow, placing their bags down Jaehyun took the seat beside you while Ten walked to the counter to order their drinks. Johnny looked at you and Jaehyun but ignore the malice running in his head.

"Kim Yerim!" the three of you looked at the entrance to see Johnny's sister entering the cafe, Yerim waved at someone across their table and saw his sister's friend Park Sooyoung waving frantically. Johnny turned to look at you and Jaehyun ignoring his sister who started walking inside, "What happened to you?" he asks Jaehyun,

"Why?"

"You're turning really red." Johnny pointed out and you snickered at Jaehyun who turns to look at Johnny's sister absentmindedly. "Man, That's my sister!" Johnny whispered-shout at him as he fought the urge to laugh at Jaehyun. Someone definitely has a crush on his little sister.

You and Johnny eyed each other, laughing as you both understood telepathically. "What's so funny?" Ten asks when he arrived and the both of you laughed loudly this time.

"Hyung!" Jaehyun shouted at him his ears turning red.

When Johnny got home, he locked himself up in his room that his step-mother finally asked to clean. He was busy waiting for Donghyuck and Mark to play when he heard a knock on his door.

"Can I come in?" His step-mother asked. Yerim's mother is a great person, but that doesn't really mean that she's a good mother to both him and Yerim, he can't really judge her though, she's still young and living her dreams but then his father got her pregnant with Yerim and then here she is stuck at this hell of a household, all three of them under the strings of his father.

"Yes." He says.

Kim Ah-Jong walked inside, placing a warm cup of milk beside him for the first time, "Johnny," She started as he settled at the edge of Johnny's bed facing him. Johnny turns his chair to face her too, holding the warm mug in his hand to seek comfort in this awkward setting.

"I don't know how to start, but I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry," she paused for a second, ignoring the lump in her throat, "I hope you forgive me for replacing your mother's position, and that I'm really grateful because you love your sister more than anything even though you didn't have the same mother."

"It's the least that I could do." He says.

"Yes, I know, and I'm sorry if I failed you as a mother, I was busy finding myself to the point you and Yerim grow up without the right amount of affection from us. We're such horrible parents and I wanted to say sorry on behalf of your father. You don't deserve this, no one else did."

That night, Johnny slept soundly in his own home for the first time in a while.

Yerim was shocked to see her mom attending to his brother, it's as if she suddenly had a change of heart and finally started to be a mother to his brother. Her father was another problem, he still hasn't moved on from his son's attempt. Spitting atrocious words early in the morning making Johnny regret even joining the breakfast.

Kim Ah-jong had enough of his husband's wrath, it was still morning and his husband is starting to get on her nerves. She stabs her bread knife on their table as she turns her head towards him, "Is still early in the morning for the love of God, Kim Ji Hoon. Must you really ruin our morning?" she says.

Both Yerim and Johnny were stunned at her, their father shutting up in instant at the fear her wife would stab her.

Johnny and Yerim drive to the University that day together, "Oh, do you mind if we stop by at my friend's house? I promise to pick him up." Johnny asks and Yerim nodded.

Johnny smirked, he was excited to see Jaehyun's reaction.

Johnny pulled up in front of Jaehyun's apartment, sending him a message the was up in front of his building, after a minute, Jaehyun emerges from the entrance of the building running to get to his car with a tumbler in his other hand.

Johnny pulled the window down and Jaehyun saw Yerim first, he stopped midway, flustered that a girl was with his young, and It was no other than his sister. he played it cool and sat at the back.

"Oh, Yerim-ah, this is Jaehyun. He's my friend."

Jaehyun didn't expect her to turn around and bow her head down. "Thank you so much for taking good care of my brother."

Johnny became flustered with Yerim but laughed it off instead. Jaehyun bowed his head towards her saying it was nothing. Yerim was unaware of the looks she was getting from the older boy sitting at the back seat of his brother's car as Johnny keeps throwing playful glances at the back while he drove them to the school.

Graduation was already nearing, both you and Johnny were already finished with your practicum, Johnny was moving boxes towards his car, for some reason, his father allowed him to have his own flat, his step-mother saying that it would be the best for him and his mental health to have some space between them and that they should give him some time and space. His father was adamant at first but has nothing to do in the end.

"Just let him do what he wants, He's already graduating, with honors! He already did everything you wanted it's the least you could do for him." he heard his step-mother argue a while ago with his father. Johnny still had to go home every Sunday at the main house, though.

You and Taeil volunteered to help him with his moving and he was glad, to say the least. Yerim contacted you to do his groceries for him and the two of you left the older boys as you went to the market with Yerim.

Yerim was a cool young woman, she was matured for her own age, you learned that she was very frank at what she wants and that she loves her brother so much.

"I'm really glad my brother meet you," she says as she links her right arms with you, you were both walking to the parking lot, and you smiled at her blushing.

"Honestly, I never really liked his old friends. Jongin? Nope. Chanyeol? He's an asshole. Everyone in that damn team is an ass except for Sehun," she says as both of you entered the market, pulling a big cart in the process, and continued walking ahead. "You and your brother are surrounded by good people. Do you know that? And I'm kind of jealous of you, not that I don't have good friends, I do."

"Well, consider me someone you can be with so those good people will surround you too," you said smiling, Yerim giggled at you.

It took Johnny a week before really settling down in his apartment, he invited the guys over to have a small welcoming party, drinking and playing till the sun rises.

Johnny was busy typing at his laptop as you were both doing your last requirement for college, papers, and documents were all scattered around his living room when he turns his head to look at you. "Are you comfortable with those jeans?" He asks.

You look at your pants, it is uncomfortable.

"I don't have extra clothes," Johnny poked at his cheeks with his tongue, he stood up and went inside his room, when he came back he was holding clean boxer shorts. "You can use this if you want," he says as he extends his arms to you. You gladly took it and went to his bathroom to change.

Johnny thinks this was more dangerous than when he had blood oozing out of his wrist, you had your toned legs on display for him, and only him. It wasn't helping at all. Without knowing, he stared at your legs for a good minute, the urge of having his hands run along the lines of your thighs was becoming unbearable. He was amazed by the lack of hair you had around your arms and legs, was it liked that too with the parts your clothes have covered? He can't help the wild imaginations running around his head with the things he wants to do to you.

Johnny focused his attention back on the screen of his laptop. What the fuck is he even thinking? It's you, his fucking angel. How dare he have dirty thoughts about you. He mentally slaps himself and went back to typing.

You noticed Johnny having a mental crisis because of you and you silently laugh at him, extending your legs further to have your skin touch his thighs.

after hours of being productive with your work, You and Johnny decided to call it a night.

After a week of preparations for the upcoming finals, you and Johnny decided to meet up, the waiter placed both of your orders in front of you and Johnny, who give the waiter a small smile while uttering a quick "Thank you." You eyed Jhonny's food who looks somewhat more delicious than your Pesto Pasta. You don't even know why you ordered it, you never even tasted it before, you just want to— maybe, impress the guy in front of your table who were giving you obvious looks about the taste pallet you had which is definitely of a 13 Years old.

Johnny gives you a look while shaking his head, knowing all too well that you wanted a bite of it. Looking at you who's eyeing his barbeque bacon burger with fries on the side— It's usually what the two of you order and he was shocked that you ordered something out of the ordinary. He knew that you weren't the type of girl to go out of your comfort zone. You like what you usually eat, what you usually drink, and what type of clothing you usually wear. You are a very simple, young woman. You don't usually try things out of the blue, especially, when the two of you are both hungry.

Instantly, Johnny switched both plates. Giving you his food whilst saying a silent goodbye to the famous BBQ burger that he craves so much after winning a football game, which, he deserves. "What are you doing?" you asked shocked. You already saw him digging in and wincing at the taste. "Why the fuck would you even order this thing?" he asked.

You looked at the guy at the other table. You both were giving silent glances, he's good-looking and obviously from another school but you don't do other schools, that is the thing, you'd rather date someone from the same school, same department or same village. You don't like the hassle. People can go ahead and say your such a basic bitch, which in fact, you are. You finally give your full attention to Johnny who looks at his back to find some guy obviously ogling your face. That was the scariest thing in the world for him, guys ogling your face rather than your body, honestly, it was obvious from guys falling for your body— they just want to get in your pants, but guys who fall for your beauty is different.

You start digging in with your food. "This is the reason why I love you so much." You stated giving your burger a bite.

"Why would you even want to eat this." He says. You give him a chuckle as you extend your right arm towards him, offering him a bite of your burger, which he gladly took. "I'm sorry, I'm such a pain in the ass." You said.

"I kidnapped you in your after party and I'm so sorry, I didn't know Jennie's going to be there, and now you're eating something you don't even like. Man, you don't deserve this." You continued. Sincerely saying sorry towards him— picking a fry and dipping it on the ketchup provided at the side of your plate.

For some reason, Things work out for him and the team, It was going to be his last year playing, and the higher-ups decided for him to lead the team again, making Jongin lose face around the campus. It wasn't like before, It was expected, Johnny was just professional around them, leading them at the court and out of sight, after.

"What? No way. This is what I deserve. A peaceful dinner and finally having time with you." He says after biting at the toasted bread the pasta has. It was true though, Johnny was talking with Jennie again, well, but not exactly dating her, as students would say around campus. They dated, but that was that, he can't even imagine being good friends with someone who cheated on him, he was just being civil with her, ending things with a good note and leaving the better past behind him, and you haven't really had the chance to hang out together since their coach intensified their training hours and days, and right after that Johnny would hang out with your brother and the other guys.

"What did my brother say, though? with you being with me tonight? You guys are basically dating each other by now," you joked.

"Yeah, he's cool with it. Don't worry, I told him about our meeting before you actually kidnapped me." He gives you a smirk and you give him a confused look. "I was actually going to ask you for a dinner with me after the game." You rolled your eyes at him.

"Wow." You commented. You were practically like a twin at this rate. "Can I ask you something, though?" Johnny didn't know whether to ask because he was curious or just wait for you to open up to him, for some reason, Johnny felt naked around you. You knew everything about him, you have him wrapped around your pretty little fingers "What if I don't want to?" You countered and he scoffed.

"What was the reason you transferred? you only had a year to finish before graduating," Your face fell and he instantly saw how your face contorted into a frown. "Why are you making that face?" he asked.

"I had a bad break up to the point that I was destroying myself." You finally said like it was nothing. Johnny stopped everything that he's doing, giving you a look as if asking why. He felt like an idiot. How can he? at your worst time? "I'm such a horrible friend." He says.

"It's not your fault, and I'm even sorry that I didn't tell you sooner." You said quietly. Suddenly your favorite dish from the dinner doesn't look appealing anymore. "And I wanted time for myself, you know, he cheated on me."

the clicking of utensils can be heard throughout the diner when he dropped them to the table. He was fuming mad.

"It wasn't anyone's fault, though. if anything. It was mine. I lost interest in our relationship, didn't have time for him, and just lost everything along the way." You said while moving your plate towards him which he gladly took, abandoning the pasta you ordered and eating the half of the burger you had. But the real reason was, you can't stop comparing your ex-boyfriend to him.

"Still isn't a reason to cheat on you." He says after taking a bite. You move your lemonade in front of you and lazily sip on it. He drops the topic knowing all too well that you don't want to talk about it. Still, he felt guilty for some reason, What could go wrong?

Right, Johnny Suh is starting to have feelings for you, and definitely not in a platonic way.

And you don't have any idea about it.

He opened your bag that was beside him and fetch the wet wipes that were inside. He opened it and out of habit cleaned your fingers with it. And you let him, smiling. "I wished I meet you sooner," He looked at you and smiled. "I'm really sorry I haven't been with you for the last 21 years." you joked as you let him dry your fingers with a dry napkin that the diner provides.

You were about to head out— fetching the car keys that you placed on the bowl beside the main door when you hear a familiar honk outside your house. Your hands slip past your keys and you walk the small distance to your door, opening it the cold air of December heats your face and Johnny greeted you with his usual beam on his face, his left hand stretched up outside his window, giving you a wave.

You smiled to yourself, biding your mom a quick goodbye and you were off to school with your best friend.

"Good Morning." He greeted you when you opened the door of his black Audi.

"Good Morning, indeed." You said facing him after securing yourself with the seat belt. There was a tint of pink in Johnny's checks that you choose to ignore.

Pulling up at the parking lot in front of the university's main building where a lot of students lingered chatting with their circle of friends— Johnny smoothly maneuvered and parked at his usual spot.

You both get out of his car and started to walk to the building.

"See you at lunch?" he asked when you neared your classroom— you were slightly shocked. "Won't you be eating with Yerim today?" you asked as you stopped in your tracks facing him. "Doesn't have to." He simply replied and you nod your head. "She'll be mad, John." You said as a matter of fact— facing him while slowly backing away as he marly give you a shrug. "She doesn't have the right, though." you rolled your eyes at him "Just ask her to eat with us!"

Graduation was nearing and you've been offered a job at one of the top companies in the city, you didn't have the reason to turn them down so you accept and were set to sign the contract right after having your diploma.

This calls for a celebration, though.

When Johnny heard that he was the first one to know about something significant in his life, he was delighted.

You found yourself getting tipsy with the cheap booze in front of you and Johnny. You were laughing at something he said about his sister, holding the cheap beer in your hand as you chug the contents down your through. "Okay, That's enough," Johnny said whilst grabbing the cans of beer and putting them back at his refrigerator. You pout back at him but don't argue, you still have to attend your classes tomorrow morning and you don't want to miss anything for the last weeks you have for being a college student.

Johnny tucked you in his bed and you bid the sweetest goodnight on him, he leaves a sweet kiss on your forehead before heading for the couch in the living room to sleep on, since he had no energy to actually drive you home.

You woke up that night, feeling rather hot, unconsciously stripping out of your pants and bra out of habit, you walked to the kitchen for some water.

Walking with blurred vision, you find your way into the kitchen. The lights were dim as you passed by the living room completely ignoring the fact that Johnny could definitely walk on you wearing only your white tee and undies.

You helped yourself around the kitchen, rummaging in the refrigerator for a jar of water, your hands felt the cold lid of the jar, popping it open and chugging the contents down. You giggled after realizing that you should probably use glass and act like a lady for once since you're not in your own place.

You hissed as you struggle, reaching for a glass in the cupboard. "Just why is it placed so fucking high?" you asked yourself. A hand reached for the glass and you turned around, shocked and ready to pounce the person behind you.

you came face to face with Johnny. His face, only inches away from you. His hands find their way to your waist as he looked at you and the glass in his hands, he purred his self some water in the glass and chugged the whole content down.

"I got thirsty," he said. You moved beside so you don't disturb him, stepping at least five steps away.

He looked you up and down, the smell of booze around, is strong, it almost made you gag. Feeling the cold air between your legs, you looked at yourself. "Fuck." realizing that you were only wearing your white t-shirt; that you probably owned since 7th grade— Your breast was obvious that even your nipples were prominent, your shirt just hanging before your hip bone and then your undies.

You mentally slap yourself. He put the glass down and you put your hair in front to at least cover your hardening nipples away from him. Chills run down your spine as he took another step forward, clearing the distance between you.

"Hey-" he cut you off.

"Johnny," he says.

"What?" you asked, barely whispering. Your eyes moved down on their own, from his eyes down to his upper body, he was shirtless, giving you free access to his perfectly sculpted body, his pelvis, so sharp even a God couldn't compare. Again, you felt the burning sensation coming back in your throat. You touched your neck instantly as you tried to swallow.

"My name, say it," he whispered, you looked up only to be met by his eyes, dark with unknown lust as if burning you within. He keeps staring at you, keeping you captive with his eyes that you somehow felt naked.

"Johnny," you whispered trying not to sound like your practically moaning his name. He took a step forward, leaving no space between you and him. "Again." He commands you. You sucked a deep breath as you avoid eye contact.

"Johnny."

He used his index finger to lift your head as his thumb drew circles just below your chin to the base of your neck. blood rushed to your face as you suddenly felt hot on your cheeks as he put his hands on your waist again. He tilts his head, the smell of alcohol mixed with his aftershave and mint filled your senses, suddenly it wasn't too dark anymore.

He brushes his lower lip against yours that you barely felt it. He licked his lower lip as you bite yours. He stares intently at you. "You know, I would appreciate it if you don't walk around the house in these." his hands hot on your skin.

all rationality seems to fly out of the window, both of you staring at each other gazes, Johnny pulling you in for a much deeper kiss. "Didn't know you were this naughty with alcohol in your system," he murmured, Johnny's soft languid kisses were driving you wild, he moves at the base of your neck and sucked at the soft skin before pressing light kisses.

"Do you have any idea how much I want you?" he says softly, your breath hitches without knowing and you deliciously clenched around nothing upon hearing his statement, you were hypnotized by his eyes. Leaning down, he kisses you again.

You put your hands around his chest to push him slightly, gazing up toward him, "I want this," you whispered. "No. Not in the morning when you're sober enough to regret this," Johnny says, you ignore him and pulled him down to kiss him again, and Johnny lost all his logic with how delicious you tasted, you guide his hands on the hem of your shirt and slowly he peels it off for you and lets it fall down the floor.

Johnny put his arms around you and hauls you against his body, squeezing you tightly, his hands traveled down your waist and down to your behind, he holds you against his hips, and you feel his erection, which he gladly pushes into you, easily lifting you from the floor after, you moan once more in his mouth, He eases you towards the bed and you feel your back against the soft cushion once more.

Tentatively, you move your hands up to his face and his hair, tugging at it lightly as if implying for him to take you fully. But Johnny has other plans in his mind. He grabs your hips with both his hands and runs his tongue around your navel, gently nipping his way to your hipbone and across your belly to the other. "Ah," You groan.

Seeing him on top of you, between your legs as you feel his hot breath against your skin, Is unexpected, but you wanted this as much as he wants it. Your hand on his hair, pulling gently as you try to quiet your loud breathing. He gazes up at you through impossibly long-lashed, and chocolate-colored eyes. His hand reaches the hem of your black underwear, leisurely pulling it down without taking his eyes off you, he stops and licks his lips, never breaking eye contact. Johnny leans forward, running his nose up the apex between your thighs, and you feel him.

"You smell so fucking good," he murmurs and closes his eyes. a look of pure pleasure on his face and you practically convulse.

You raise yourself on your elbows to see what he's doing, you were panting, you wanted him right there. shit

Moaning, you felt him run his tongue on the sleek of your heat, "Keep still," he murmurs and then leans down again to kiss down your clit. "How can I not move? you're making me feel this good." you felt him smirk against your skin. "Then, we'll have to work on keeping you still." there was a dangerous tone laced in his voice and you find it impossibly hot and twisted. You're flushed, skin burning, too hot, too cold, and you're craving more as you clawed at the sheets beneath you.

Johnny moves forward and you protested but the pleasure came back once more when he blows very gently on one of yours mound, his hands moving to the other breast, and his thumb slowly rolls the end of your nipple, elongating it. You moan, feeling the sweet sensation all the way to your groin.

"Johnny," you were wet, "Please," you beg silently as your fingers clasp the sheet tighter. His lips close around your nipple and he tugs, making you convulse. He doesn't stop.

Johnny moves his fingers around your clit, drawing circles as he laps on your mound, you let yourself go from his touch. His thumb and finger continue doing you deliciously and you fall apart on his hands.

"Oh," you won't lie, that felt extraordinary, and now, you know the fuss around him is about. He gazes down at you, a satisfied smirk on his face and you're still in owe from your high.

Johnny was amazed at how responsive you are, he laced his fingers around you, drawing slow and lazy circles around your clit again, bringing another set of heat in your core. He closes his eyes briefly, his breathing hitches. You're deliciously wet and Johnny doesn't want to fuck you with a condom on, and neither did you.

He reaches over the bedside table, anyway, grabbing a foil packet, and then moving out of the bed to discard the rest of his clothes. You saw him, and your mouth watered at how long and thick he is. He kneels on the bed and pulls the condom onto his length. "I really don't want to use one."

"Is that going to fit in?"

"Don't worry," He breathes, "You're wet enough, Angel. I know you can make me well," He murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of your sex and pushing hard.

"Aargh!" You cry as you felt him sliding in, there was a weird sensation pinching deep inside you as he rips through you without warning. Johnny stills, his eyes bright with ecstatic triumph. His mouth opened slightly, his breathing harsh. He groans wanting to move.

"Fuck, baby, so tight."

"Johnny, Wait."

He stills for a moment, "Why?" You held onto his forearms, fucking him with a condom doesn't feel right, you wanted every little part of him, you wanted to feel him. Raw. "I- Can we remove the condom?" Johnny asks as if reading your mind.

You nod at him, You felt him slide out of you, removing the condom and throwing it at the trash bin beside his bed. Johnny positions his self once more, easing on to you, groaning. He loved every bit of it, this was the first time that you had sex without using protection, and the same thing goes for Johnny. Moving your hips up to him, as a sign that you wanted him to move already. He groans. You felt so full, as he let you acclimatize at the overwhelming feeling of him inside you. Naked, and Raw.

He eases back with exquisite slowness. Closing his eyes, Johnny controlled himself not on to fuck you hard, He thrust into you again, and you cry out in pleasure. He shifts into his elbow, and you feel his weight on you, holding you down. He moves painfully slow at first, easing himself in and out of you. You grew impatient and you can't help but move your hips up tentatively to meet his. He speeds up. Pounding on you, picking up speed by the second, merciless and in a relentless rhythm.

you can't help yourself to meet his thrust, making Johnny lose his mind because of you. Your body quivers. a sheen of sweat gathers over you. Your thoughts are scattered. There's only the feeling of him, of you, and him, and you stiffen.

"Come for me, baby," he whispers breathlessly, and you unravel at his words, exploding around him as you climax and shard into pieces with every being you had underneath him. And as he comes inside you, calling your name, thrusting hard, the stalling as he empties himself into you.

Johnny's breathing was ragged as you try to slow your breathing, your heart thumping hard and your thoughts in a disarray, you opened your eyes. His eyes flickered open and gaze down at you, dark but soft. He's still inside you, leaning down, he gently presses a kiss against your forehead then slowly pulls out of you.

Johnny cleaned you up and spoon you to sleep, he hoped that in the morning you won't regret what happened. Because he loved every moment of it.

Part 2? I didn't put the taglist because this is already reposted. so, yeah, hope u guys enjoyed! let me know what you think, I feel like i sucked making this.