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#i was gonna say that i actually physically own everything that i used for this one and wow doesn't that make things easier?
marshmallowgoop · 1 year
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Don't fall in love
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kaijutegu · 3 months
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Alligator Body Language and You, or: How To Know When An Alligator On Social Media is Being Stressed for Views
Alligators are wild animals. Despite the idiotic claims of animal abusers like Jay Brewer, they cannot be domesticated, which means they are always going to react on the same natural instincts they've had for millions of years. Habituated, yes. Tamed, yes. Trained, definitely. Crocodilians can form bonds with people- they're social and quite intelligent. They can solve problems, use tools, and they're actually quite playful. Alligators are also really good at communicating how they're feeling, but to somebody who doesn't spend much time around them, their body language can be a bit mystifying. And it doesn't help when social media influencers are saying shit like this:
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That is not what a happy gator looks like.
That's a terrified, furious gator who isn't attacking because the ogre handling her has her in a chokehold. She's doing everything she can to express her displeasure, and he's lying about it because he knows his audience doesn't even know how to think critically about what he's doing. He knows that because his audience doesn't know anything about these animals, he can get away with it. This I think is why I hate him so much- he deliberately miseducates his audience. He knows what he's doing is factually inaccurate, he just doesn't care because attention means more to him than anything else in the world.
Let's change that! Here are two really important lessons for understanding alligator body language on social media.
Lesson 1: Alligators Don't Smile (in fact, most animals don't)
So what's going on in this video? Jay Brewer is aggressively choking his white alligator Coconut while scrubbing algae off of her with a toothbrush. And make no mistake, he is digging into the creature's throat while she is visibly distressed. He claims she's happy- but she's not. He is willfully misrepresenting what this animal is feeling. That's a problem, because people... well, we actually kind of suck at reading other species' body language. The reason for this is that we tend to overlay our own responses on their physical cues, and that's a problem. For example, let's look at an animal with a really similar face to ours, the chimpanzee. Check out Ama's toothy grin!
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Wait, no. That's not a happy smile. That's a threat display. When a chimpanzee "smiles," it's either terrified and doing a fear grimace, or it's showing you its teeth because it intends on using them in your face.
How about a dog? Look at my smiling, happy puppy!
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Oh wait no, this is a picture of Ryder when he was super overwhelmed by noise and people during a holiday party. He'd hopped up in my sister's lap to get away from stuff that was happening on the floor and was panting quite heavily. See the tension in the corners of his mouth and his eyes? A lot of the time when a dog "smiles," the smile isn't happy. It's stress! Why Animals Do The Thing has a nice writeup about that, but the point is, our body language is not the same as other species. And for reptiles, body language is wildly different.
For instance, look at these two alligators. Pretty cute, right? Look at 'em, they're posing for a Christmas card or something! How do you think they're feeling?
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Well, I'll tell you how the normal one is feeling. He's annoyed! Why is he annoyed? Because the albino just rolled up, pushed another gator off the platform, and is trying to push this guy, too. I know this because I actually saw it happen. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie. He's not gaping all the way, but he was hissing- you can actually see him getting annoyed in the sequence I took right before this shot. Look at him in this first shot here- he's just relaxing, and you can see he isn't gaping even a little bit.
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By the end, he's expressing displeasure, but not enough to actually do anything about it. He's annoyed, but he's comfy and that's where one of the best basking areas is, so he'll put up with it.
Reptiles open their mouths wide for a lot of reasons, but never because they are actively enjoying a sensation. Unless they're eating. No reptile smiles- they can't. They don't even have moveable lips. If a reptile is gaping, it's doing so because:
It is doing a threat display.
It is making certain vocalizations, all of which are threats. Alligators are one of the rare reptiles that do regularly vocalize, but most of their calls aren't made with a wide open mouth.
It is about to bite something delicious or somebody stupid. Check out this video- virtually all of the gaping here is anticipatory because these trained gators know darn well that the bowl is full of delicious snacks. (I have some issues with Florida's Wildest, but the man knows how to train a gator AND he is honest about explaining what they're doing and why, and all of his animals are healthy and well-cared for, and he doesn't put the public or his staff at risk- just himself.)
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It's too hot and it has opened its mouth to vent some of that heat and thermoregulate. This is the main reason why alligators will often have their mouths part of the way open, but sometimes they'll open all the way for thermoregulation. This is what a thermoregulatory gape looks like- usually it's not all the way open, kinda more like < rather than V, but you can't say that 100% of the time. Additionally, a thermoregulatory gape... typically happens when it's hot out. If they're inside, maybe they've been under their basking light for too long. Heat's the dominant factor, is what I'm getting at.
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There is another reason that a captive crocodilian might be gaping, and that's because it's doing so on command. Some places have their gators trained to gape on cue, like St. Augustine Alligator Farm and other good zoos. They have the animals do this in presentations that are genuinely educational. They ask the animals to open their mouths so that they can show off their teeth and demonstrate how their tongues seal off the back of their mouth. They'll also do it as part of routine healthcare, because looking at their teeth is important.
In this case, the animals aren't gaping because they're stressed, they're gaping because they know they're gonna get a piece of chicken or fish if they do it. And what's more, they're doing it on cue. They have a specific command or signal that tells them to open wide. It's not an instinctive response to a situation. It's trained. If the animal provides the behavior after a cue, the situation is much less likely to be negatively impactful.
It's also important to remember that there's a difference between a partially open mouth and a gape! As discussed above, alligators will often have their mouths a little bit open just to maintain temperature homeostasis. It helps them stay comfy, temperature-wise. These guys are all doing thermoregulatory open-mouthed behavior- that slight open and relaxed body posture is a dead giveaway. (That and it's the hottest spot in the enclosure.)
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Lesson 2: A Happy Gator Is A Chill Gator
So if alligators don't smile or have facial expressions other than the :V that typically signifies distress, how else can you tell how they're feeling? One way is stillness. See, alligators subscribe to the philosophy of if it sucks... hit da bricks.
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Basically, if they hate it, they'll leave. Unless, y'know, somebody has their meaty claws digging into their throat or is otherwise restraining them. (Restraint isn't always bad, btw. Sometimes the animal is going through a medical thing or needs to be restrained for their safety- which a responsible educator will explain.)
Let's look at a very similar scenario, in which a captive alligator is getting his back scrubbed.
As you can see, it's quite different. First, he's not being restrained at all. Second, look at how relaxed he is! He's just chilling there vibing! He could simply get up and leave if he wanted to, because he's not being held. Towards the end of the video, as he lifts his head, you can see that his respiratory rate is very even as his throat flutters a bit. I'm not sure what this facility is, so I can't comment on care/general ethics, but like. In this specific case, this is an alligator enjoying being scrubbed! And you can tell because he's not doing anything. A happy gator is content to be doing what they're doing.
Why Should I Listen To You?
Now, you should ask yourself, why should you listen to me? Why should you trust me, who does not own an alligator, versus Jay Brewer, who owns several?
Well, first off, there's no profit for me in telling you that what you're seeing on social media is in fact not what you're being told you're seeing. I'm not getting paid to do this. That's the thing with people who make social media content. The big names aren't doing it just for fun. They're doing it for money. Whether that's profit through partnerships or sponsorships, or getting more people to visit their facilities, or ad revenue, you can't ignore the factor of money. And this is NOT a bad thing, because it allows educators to do what they're passionate about! People deserve to be paid for the work that they do!
But the problem starts when you chase the algorithm instead of actually educating. A "smiling" alligator gets the views, and if people don't know enough to know better, it keeps getting the views. People love unconventional animal stories and they want those animals to be happy- but the inability to even know where to start with critically evaluating these posts really hinders the ability to spread real information. Like, this post will probably get a couple hundred notes, but that video of Coconut being scrubbed had almost 400,000 likes when I took that screenshot. Think about how many eyeballs that's reached by now. What I'm saying here is that it's just... really important to think critically about who you're getting your information from. What do dissenters say in the comments? What do other professionals say? You won't find a single herpetologist that has anything good to say about Prehistoric Pets, I can tell you that right now.
Another reason you can trust me is that my sources are not "just trust me bro," or "years of experience pretending my pet shop where animals come to die is a real zoo." Instead, here are my primary sources for my information on alligator behavior:
Dragon Songs: Love and Adventure among Crocodiles, Alligators, and Other Dinosaur Relations- Vladimir Dinets
The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles- J. Sean Doody, Vladimir Dinets, Gordon M. Burghardt
Social Behavior Deficiencies in Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Z Walsh, H Olson, M Clendening, A Rycyk
Social Displays of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)- Kent Vliet
Social Signals and Behaviors of Adult Alligators and Crocodiles- Leslie Garrick, Jeffery Lang
Never smile at a crocodile: Gaping behaviour in the Nile crocodile at Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa- Cormac Price, Mohamed Ezat, Céline Hanzen, Colleen Downs (this one's Nile crocs, not American alligators, but it's really useful for modeling an understanding of gape behaviors and proximity)
Thermoregulatory Behavior of Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Cheryl S. Asa, Gary D. London, Ronald R. Goellner, Norman Haskell, Glenn Roberts, Crispen Wilson
Unprovoked Mouth Gaping Behavior in Extant Crocodylia- Noah J. Carl, Heather A. Stewart, Jenny S. Paul
Thank you for reading! Here's a very happy wild alligator from Sanibel for your trouble.
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little-hermit-crab56 · 5 months
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I've been writing for a while so I thought I'd share some writing tips I've learned along the way.
1. Never sacrifice the flow for a quirky line.
That bit of dialogue or flowery paragraph you really like but it kinda disrupts the flow? Scrap it. I know it hurts, but you need to. If you really want to keep it, find somewhere else to put it where it actually fits in.
2. Dialogue is a dance.
Dialogue should go at the pace of an actual conversation, back and forth with little breaks and pauses. Add as little dialogue tags as possible while still making it clear who is speaking. You can also describe what is happening during a pause in the conversation rather than saying they paused, unless the pause is important.
3. Show don't tell is a guideline, not a rule.
Show don't tell is a very useful guideline, but if you're ALWAYS showing it can get exhausting to read. Skip the boring bits and just tell us what happened, then we can get to the good stuff.
4. If it's boring to write, it's probably boring to read.
If you can cut out a whole scene with little consequence to the story, you probably should. As I said before, you don't always have to show us, you can always tell us.
5. Everything needs to have a purpose.
I know there are probably lots of interesting or cute scenes where your characters are just fucking around, but if it doesn't develop character, relations, conflict, or plot, why should we care? Definitely still write them if they make you happy, but if you're gonna add it to your final draft, make sure it matters.
6. You don't need to explain everything all at once.
I know it feels tempting to put all the lore, and all the character's intentions, and reasonings into the first few chapters, but please refrain, you can reserve that for your character and worldbuilding sheets. Instead, take the time to let us get to know the characters, and the world, in the same way we'd get to know a real person. Make your exposition as seamless and natural as possible. It will take practice to know when to reveal information and when to let us wonder, but you'll get there.
7. Write in a way that comes naturally.
I know you probably have an author you wanna write just like, but that is unlikely to happen. Embrace your natural writing style and perfect it, rather than trying to be something you're not. Writing is an art, you need to find your own style and polish it as best you can.
8. Try to make us feel connected by cutting out certain words like "felt".
"Chad felt like a glass of water." Can be replaced with, "Chad was thirsty, so he reached for a glass of water." Both sentences tell us Chad wants a glass of water, but one makes us feel more connected to Chad than the other. Though both sentences have their time and place, you want to make your audience feel as close to their protagonist as possible. Make them feel like they're there, rather than just an onlooker.
9. We don't need to know every physical detail of your character.
I know you probably spent ages creating the perfect characters and you want to give us the perfect image of what they look like, but it can get monotonous and boring, why do we care that your character has brown eyes unless the colour has some sort of significance? Try to list off only the most notable features of your character and put focus only on the relevant details. Sometimes you can even not describe them at all and throw in little bits of information about their appearance for the audience to put together. We read to imagine, not to have a perfect image painted for us when we could be getting to the plot.
10. You're allowed to be vague.
Allow your audience to assume things, with some things you can just be lazy and let your audience's imagination do the work for you. Of course, don't do this with important things, but you can save so much time you might've spent researching an irrelevant topic when you can just be vague about it. You don't have to know everything you're writing about, so long as you know the bits that matter.
11. Writing is a skill that takes practice.
Don't be so hard on yourself if your writing is a bit cringe, we've all been there. The important part is that you research how to get better and keep writing those super cringe chapters. One day you'll reread something from a while ago and realize you're actually not as bad as you thought.
12. Leave your work to rest.
I know you wanna start editing right away, but once you've finished, leave it for at least a month. The longer you leave it the better, but that depends on your attention span. A month to six months is good if you're really impatient but want a good result. If you keep writing in that time your skills will continue to improve, then you'll be editing that draft with fresh eyes and fresh skills.
And if you're a fanfic author, I usually leave my chapters for a week before editing and posting.
Hope this helps anyone struggling, I thought this might be especially relevant now with nanowrimo.
I recently realized how much knowledge I've been accumulating over the years, I definitely have more but this is all I can think of for now.
I'm no writing guru, but if anyone has anything they're struggling with, I can do my best to help you out, so dont hesitate to ask questions.
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ii-zi · 1 year
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uknow it's bad when u even start slurring in ur brain
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talkbycolor · 3 months
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mushroom oasis headcanons . . . ↷
A/N; im very sensitive about mychael too, oops
Pairing; "Mychael" x GN!Reader
CW; idk alien sex (jk) / this is actually cute, dont worry
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Mychael as your boyfriend.
I just know that he likes to listen to ABBA with you and dance in the mornings when making breakfast or at night before going to sleep.
He purrs at bedtime, especially if you pet his hair.
You can caress his horns, they are softer than they look but also sensitive, be delicate
After a while of relationship, he could no longer avoid the growing guilt he felt and told you about the mushrooms in the forest and the brainwashing he did to you at the beginning.
Definitely identifies with Roar's "Christmas Kids" song.
Be thankful he doesn't have an internet connection or he'd make Deez Nuts cringe jokes.
He is the perfect person for fairycore, you have already begged him to do makeup together, even though he didn't need any of that.
He likes to feel safe, silly and childish with you, having learned to take care of himself since… well, always, it was a drain on the soul. what a relief to his heart to be able to be childish with you, like a break.
He still has certain self-esteem problems, his eyes always dilate when you say nice things about him (or when he's about to jump and attack ((kiss you)))
It's not like Mychael is an uncivilized being, but you've taken the time to teach him several things on dates you've had, things that perhaps he didn't know due to his isolation from society.
You're actually a little scared of what could happen if they discover Mychael's existence, so if you live together it will be in the forest.
Sometimes he is selfish and brainwashes you when he wants more kisses or just feels too needy to let you go out with your friends.
For him there is no such thing as breaking up, he will beg you for answers and ask countless times what the problem is or what you want him to change, as a last resort he would brainwash you so that you stay by his side, even if it's like a shell.
"They were 20 and decided to end their life just like this. They went up to the 21st floor and left without saying "goodbye." I wonder if when they were flying through the air they remembered… ..I once told him if you kill yourself I'm gonna kill myself too!" Basically Mychael not being able to continue with his life alone once he meets MC, if you leave, so does he.
The first time you had sex, bro, Mychael almost had to be chained up, he acted like a spoiled kid when he tried his new favorite candy.
Mychael composes songs for MC, he will even try to get new instruments, new talents, anything to entertain his firefly and have them stay in the forest with him.
Is the kind of old-fashioned sculpted lover, don't doubt that you will look like a 60-year-old couple with 3 chickens and a dog, your wish is his command. If you can't go out to eat at an elegant restaurant, he will get a recipe book to prepare the best dishes and put candles on the table. If you don't have new clothes, he will knit what you like. If you don't like the color of the cabin, he will paint everything as many times as necessary.
Physically? Mychael will never hurt you, using guilt as manipulation is not to his liking either, he loves you too much so he will only wash your brain to have a perfect life by your side, don't worry, you are safe from the world and you will have healing caresses every night , even if it is not today, if it is not tomorrow, you will learn to need it on your own and stay at will.
Mychael is terrified of people, the opinion of the masses made him think of himself as a monster and he can't help but blurt out little comments mocking his own appearance. Being with you makes him forget what he is. Why was he surprised? Because you didn't look away.
His saliva is a little salty and something tells me that he produces goo when he is excited, trust me (delulu)
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batfleshh · 21 days
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I am currently sucking and fucking bull hybrid ghost. i love you
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Bigger
BullHybrid!Ghost X M!Reader
Warnings: I just wanted to use this ask to get it out of my inbox w this fic so ignore that, FIRST TIME WRITING H!CHAR so ignore if it’s like bad, HE BIG, IM SO SORRY I HAVE LOST SO MUCH MOTIVATION GUYS pls don’t let this flop or i will SOB, anyway warnings for breeding, possessive Ghost, and rough sex :3, belly bulge yayayaya, back with the milk (it’s his cum), talks of getting u pregnant (he won’t the thought is just hot), this starts off quick, not proofread
★ Bull!Ghost who’s heavily set on keep your near him, always being two steps behind you when you’re around base. He can’t help it, his own instincts making him watch you like a hawk. That being said, this fucker is always seeking for an opportunity to be inside you. On a mission? Let him slide it in while you’re out hiding. On base? Go find a closet and let him bend you over a few boxes. He’ll find an opportunity eventually.
★ Bull!Ghost who will hold you down, force your face into a mattress and shove his cock into you, making you feel like you’re being split in half. You’ll hear him huff and grunt behind you, the stretch of his bigger than average cock making you lose your mind. He’ll probably never admit it, though he makes it kind of obvious, he loves watching you fall apart, your desperate noises making him just want to keep you that way forever, but he does have eventually end up being softer on you, taking care of you after treating you that way.
★ Bull!Ghost with larger EVERYTHING, his figure much more toned and built than what he would normally look like. He likes to hold you in his arms, the way you fit there making him want to keep you there. It doesn’t matter how tall or short you are really, he’ll make you fit in his arms any way, he could fit a lot of things actually. Sometimes you’ll be surprised at how large he is, forgetting what you had been through the last time. It always ends up with you asking him to slow his role, asking for him to ease up. But he doesn’t, why would he need to?
“Simon, God, p- please!”, you plead with him, the rough rocking of his hips making you see stars. You watch his tagged and scarred ears twitch on his head, his nose scrunched with how concentrated he seemed to be. He ends up trying to quiet you down, his hand moving to cover your mouth. Your back arches up off the bed, the feeling of his cock hitting that spot inside of you making you want to take him in way more than you physically can.
He watches as your hand moves to grab at his wrist, drool seeping out onto his palm. The feeling doesn’t make him pull away, despite how gross the action seemed to be. He just waits to pull him hand away, wiping it on the bed. He doesn’t say anything to you, grabbing one of your hands and moving it down, placing it on the spot where you can feel his dick inside of you. He chuckles at how you whimper at the feeling, almost mind blown.
He watches his dick go in and out of you, his tail swishing back and forth. He leans down as he picks up his speed, moving close to your ear.
“Gonna fuck a calf into you, handsome. Would love to breed such a pretty boy,” he groans, feeling himself reach closer to the edge with every thrust. You make more pathetic noises, the very thought in the moment making you push your hips back into his. Ghost groans as he releases inside of you, the whines coming from you making him push his hips firmly against yours, holding them in place as he hushes you gently. You get a few deep breaths in and out before you feel him start to move again, a whine being drawn out from you. You look up at him with glossy eyes, his hand traveling up to cradle the side of your head. You feel his previous orgasm leak out of you as his cock starts to plunge into you, each thrust faster than the last. So much for getting a break.
★ ~
I got bored and lazy. This is short MB YALL but like hey im back
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i-cant-sing · 6 months
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Yandere Royal Gay AU pt 8
Part 7 is here. Check out my MASTERLIST for more.
You didn't want to open your eyes.
You had woken up a while ago and realised you were back home when you heard your father's voice. He was singing to you, more humming than actually saying the words but... you recognised the lullaby. It was something he used to hum to you when you were sick or couldn't sleep as a child.
It was incredibly personal, one of the few memories that you cherished with him.
So why did he have to do it in front of Keigo?
It took every fibre in your being to not get up and strangle him while pulling his eyeballs out.
"You have a soothing voice." Keigo whispered from your side, brushing your hair with his hand, while you clawed the sheets from under the covers.
Dabi smiled, feeling perfectly content now that he had his most precious treasures in front of him, safe and sound. "How are you feeling now? Do your wings still hurt?"
"Not as much. Emperor Kai's healers did their magic. I'll be flying again in no time." Keigo sighed as he looked at you. "Its her I'm more worried about, Dabi."
"Why? Kai already healed any minor injuries she had-"
"Physically, yes, she's healed. But what about mentally?"
"What about it?" Dabi pushed, eyes narrowing. Keigo sat up straighter. "Dabi, regardless of what AFO did or that you saved her-" "we saved her, Keigo." "- right. Regardless, she... she will be affected by all of it. That was her mother's homeland, her people, and AFO was her grandfather. You and I both know Y/n isnt one to just- just hate anyone or hold grudges. She'll be crushed by AFO's death, or all those villagers deaths. I mean, you did see how she reacted to Tomura's death-"
"That's enough." Dabi snapped, voice barely containing the rage he felt. "You will never speak of those names again, Keigo. What happened to them, what I did to them- it was a kindness! A mercy compared to the punishment that they deserved and would've gotten if it weren't for Y/n being there."
"But Y/n-"
"We will take care of Y/n. You and me, together will help her forget about those traitorous bastards and everything will return to normal." Dabi closed his eyes, pausing before opening them again. "We are all that she needs, Keigo. Now more than ever."
The blonde smiled softly before moving off the bed and over to Dabi, the latter gently pulling the blonde into his lap, hands cautiously settling on the base of his wings.
"I never doubt you, Dabi." Keigo whispered as he kissed him. "I trust you with my life, and Y/n's." Dabi smiled against his lips. He adored how protective Keigo was over you, and he's the only one who is allowed to be possessive over you.
"I know, love." Dabi murmured, tightening his grip on the blonde's hips when he tried to move. "Where are you going?"
"Gonna make something for Y/n to eat."
"The kitchen staff-"
"-will mess it up,I just know it. Just let me handle this Dabi. I'll be back soon, hm?"
Dabi sighed. "Dont take too long." He watched him leave before turning back towards you, taking your hand in his as he resumed humming the lullaby.
He traced his thumb over your wrists, staring at it absentmindedly as his mind went back to the events of the battlefield, heart swelling up with joy at his victory over AFO and his entire kingdom. His lips quirked up slightly as he recalled the screams of the people burning.
They deserved it.
They deserved it and so much more for what they did to you, for taking away his one and only child and torturing you in god knows what horrendous way they came up with.
Isn't that why you looked so miserable and devastated at the battlefield?
Dabi's eyes flicked to your face, widening when they met your own.
You were awake.
"Y/n!" Dabi squeezed your hand before getting up to sit on your bed. Taking your face in his hands as he looked at you with concern. "I- are you okay? How are you feeling now?"
Hollow eyes stared at him, your mouth remained sealed shut as you looked at him. But just before it creeped Dabi, you blinked and then tears started to fall down your face.
Dabi immediately (but gently) pulled you to his chest, practically sitting you in his lap like a child, arms wrapping themselves around you like a warm cocoon to calm you down as he continued to look down at you with even more worry when great sobs racked your body.
"Y/n? Oh baby- its okay, its okay! You're fine." He pulled your face away from his chest, cradling your face in his hands as his thumbs wiped away the tears from your cheeks. "No one is mad at you. I am not mad at you, more concerned is all. When you went missing, I- I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead and it hurt, Y/n. It hurt me that you died hating your father, and I never want that. I just-" Dabi closes his eyes and sighs before opening them. "I dont blame you for your actions. You ran away because of me, and while that may not have been the wisest decision, I understand and... I forgive you. You were misled by people you trusted, and they paid for their actions. Now, I want us to start anew again. Put everything behind us and become a happy family again. You, me and Keigo, together against the world, hm? How does that sound?" You all but wailed louder at the mention of that whore's name, but Dabi just percieved it as you being overwhelmed and pulled you tighter against his chest.
With one hand rubbing circles in your back while the other was carded in your hair, Dabi kissed your temple, smiling softly as you cried hard into him.
"Its okay. Let it all out, Y/n. I've got you, baby. I've got you."
And I'm never letting go. Ever.
-
Dabi left once you'd calmed down, saying that he was going to inform Keigo that you were finally awake. You of course, would rather gouge out your eyes than meet that murderer, but that idea was thrown out the window when your nanny knocked on your door, Inko looking visibly surprised to see you awake.
She all but rushed over to hug you, tears falling from her eyes as she pulled away from you suddenly, bowing her head as she apologised for touching you. You smiled sadly before opening up your arms, and Inko hugged you again. She was allowed to drop royal protocol, the woman had practically raised you.
A few minutes later and you heard Keigo and Dabi walking in the hallway. You pulled away from Inko and told her to tell them that you were taking a bath.
"Please! Just tell them you drew me a bath, I- I-" Inko didn't need to be told twice as she ushered you towards the bathroom and quickly shut the door behind her, right in time for Dabi and Keigo to barge in.
"Where is she?! Where's Y/n?" Keigo asked, whipping his around for you, as if you'd be hiding somewhere. Inko bowed, greeting the two men, raising her head only to see Keigo looking at her impatiently and Dabi raising a brow at her.
"Well?"
"The princess is taking a bath, your Majesty. I had recommended it to help heal her wounds better-" She began lying, but Dabi cut her off.
"Let me know when she's ready. Dress her in soft clothes, I want her to be comfortable. You will take care of it, hm?" Dabi ordered, and Inko bowed her head in obedience.
"Of course, your Majesty."
"Come on, Keigo. She'll be back soon. Why don't you continue making her lunch? We'll all eat here." Dabi suggested, his hand on Keigo's back guiding him out of the room.
You sighed as you heard them leave, closing your eyes as it dawned that you had escaped facing Keigo but only momentarily.
Inko entered the bath, smiling apologetically as she knew that you didn't like Keigo.
"I'll draw you a bath, princess. Why don't you wait on the bed, hm?" You nodded, going to sit on your bed just as someone else knocked on the door.
You nodded at Inko and she opened the door to see who it was before harshly whispering at someone to leave.
"Who is it?" You asked, standing up. Inko looked back at you apologetically before pushing the door open and revealing-
"Izuku." You whispered. Your childhood best friend was wearing his Knight armour as he beamed brightly at you.
"Princess." He greeted. "May I come in?" He asked only to be whacked on his head by his mom. "Izuku! She's busy and besides, the Princess needs to rest-"
"Its alright, Inko. He can come in." You nodded, as the woman let out a sigh of relief before going back to drawing you the bath.
Izuku walked towards you and you motioned for him to sit down next to you on the bed. "Its been a while." He started. You hummed. "It has. And I'm sorry."
Izuku gave you a quizzical look. "What for?"
"For how I treated you before I left." You looked down at your hands, playing with your fingers. "For snapping at you. That was uncalled for-"
Izuku grabbed your hands, his large rough ones engulfing yours. "You don't have to explain anything to me, Y/n." You shook your head. "I want to." You whispered, as your voice turned wobbly. "I don't want to lose- I cant- T-Tomura-" Izuku pulled you into a hug before your tears could fall. He patted your back and hushed you. "Shh, you won't lose me. I promise, I won't go anywhere."
-
You sat on your bed uncomfortably with Keigo and Dabi in the room. The maids had brought up a small table and chairs with food to your room, since Dabi thought it'd be best to dine here while you rest. You however, can't rest as long as that murderer is in the room.
Sure, Dabi killed your grandfather and killed many of the villagers, but you could see where he was coming from. Your father's reaction was somewhat reasonable since his daughter, his only heir, was kidnapped and he didn't know whether you were being tortured or dead. And you can see it however you want, but deep down you blame Keigo for AFO's death.
You blame him for the villagers deaths.
You blame him for your mother's death.
You blame him for Tomura's death.
"How's your soup?" Dabi asked.
"Its good." You said without looking up from your plate, just like the past 20 minutes. You can't bare to bring yourself to look up at him, unsure if your heart will break more at the sight of him whoring to your dad or if you'll end up raging and kill him on the spot.
"Of course it is. Keigo made it himself for you." Dabi locked eyes with the blonde, who blushed. "Dont you wanna say thank you?"
Here we go again.
There was a audible shift in the energy of the room. The tension could be cut with a knife, as Dabi once again forced you to interact with Keigo.
Keigo leaned towards the king. "Dabi, I don't think that's necessary-"
"Thank you." You said, finally looking up and directly at Keigo, a small courteous smile on your lips. "It tastes delicious. Thank you for going out of your way for me."
Keigo's mouth parted in shock, this was- this was the first time you looked at him with genuine respect- talked to him nicely. Even Dabi was surprised at your change in behaviour, he didn't expect you to actually be grateful, maybe spat out a forced thanks with a grimace but not this, not you actually finishing the bowl of soup.
"I- oh, it's no trouble. I'm glad you liked it." Keigo managed to say, looking at Dabi with confusion, but the king only grinned.
He was glad you were coming around, beyond happy that you were going to turn over a new leaf with him.
It's about time.
Just then, a guard came in, apologising for interrupting but requesting the king's attention for an urgent matter.
Dabi left, promising to return soon with letters from Enji and grandma Rei, and his siblings.
Keigo cleared his throat as the two of you were left alone. "Oh, you finished your soup! I'll give you some more- oh, where are you going?" He asked, watching you peel the covers away and get off the bed. "To the bathroom? Let me help you-" He moved to grab your hand but you snatched it away, before continuing to move to the bathroom.
You didn't close the door behind you, perhaps you wanted him to follow you if you fell or something. But when you got on your knees in front of the toilet bowl and locked eyes with him, Keigo knew he wasn't going to like what he was about to see.
In the next second, you had shoved fingers down your throat and gagged until you induced vomiting, emptying your stomach out.
Keigo rushed towards you, eyes wide in horror as he asked why did you do that. But you didn't answer him. Instead, you called out to Inko (who intentionally pushed Keigo away from you when she saw you on the floor, looking faint and out of breath).
"Princess! Are you alright? Should I get the physician?" You shook your head.
"No, just- just had some disgusting soup that made me sick. Could you- could you do me favour and get rid of it? I swear, just the smell of it in my room is making me lurch again." You commented while looking at Keigo.
Inko only nodded as she helped you back in bed before taking out all the food in your room, but not before asking Keigo to leave.
"My apologies, sir, but I think it'd be best to let the princess rest for now." She said, not sounding sorry at all, practically blocking his view of you as she stood in front of him, eyes staring into him boldly.
Had Keigo not been shocked by your actions, he would've had smacked her across the face for such blatant disrespect.
But Keigo left silently. He needed to process what just happened.
-
Two more weeks passed by, and you had received many letters from your loved ones and friends. Your father was still far too paranoid or perhaps it was his possessiveness that didn't allow you to have any visitors. The option of you stepping out of the castle was out of the question, even you knew that. But he could've let your grandparents see you, or even your friends who were actually there with him on the battlefield.
At least uncle Shotou was here. He sat by your side on a chair, while you were in your bed, back propped up against the headboard.
"They're all worried about me." You mumbled as you opened another letter. "I feel bad making them worry over me. Don't you think I should meet them to let them know I'm well?"
Shotou nodded. "I agree with you but your father still hasn't budged from his decision. He says that it's just not safe yet for you to meet people, and that you should still rest until you're better."
"But I am better! Any minor injuries that I sustained have healed ages ago." You whined. "Its just- its frustrating being alone in this castle!"
He tilted his head slightly. "You're not alone, Y/n. You have me, your father, the servants, the knights-"
"You know what I mean." You sighed. "Its okay if he doesn't want me too meet anyone else, but can't I at least visit... mum? I can go with him, or you, or even the guards- I just- I just need to see her! It's been too long."
Shotou heaved a sigh. "I had brought it up to Dabi, but... he said no."
You remained quiet for a few moments, looking down at your lap as your brows furrowed.
"He's mad at me." You mumbled.
Shotou's head shot up. "Y/n?"
You nodded, sniffling a little. "He's mad at me. That's why he won't let me meet anyone. That's why he won't let go see mom. He- he thinks it's my fault that I was with AFO." You bit your lip. "And it is. I did run away from him. But only because I was mad at him. I thought that some time away from each other would heal our problems. But... nothing changed. If anything, we're more far apart than we were before. He- he's punishing me. And people are getting hurt because of that- because of me-"
Shotou cut you off by holding your face and turning you to him. "Y/n, this isn't your fault. None of it is. And your dad, he's not mad at you. He's not punishing you. He's just- its just taking him some time to cope with all of this. You have to see where he's coming from, hm? He lost you- he thought you were dead. And now that he got you back, he's just- he doesn't want anything to hurt you, anyone to take you away from him again." He said, which made you cry even more and Shotou pulled your head to his chest, patting your back as your tears wet his garments.
After Shotou left your room, he went upto Dabi's office, hoping to convince him to let you meet Rei and Enji at least. But before he could knock, he overheard Keigo's moans and he immeadiately turned on his heel and left, hands clenching into fists at the thought of that disgusting whore.
He reached his room and sat on his desk, thinking of what to do to help you. Even if Keigo wanst there, Shotou doubts Dabi would've listened to him. So... if he wasn't going to do something, then maybe Shotou could help you?
You are the princess after all, the next heir to the throne. It is his duty to help you in whatever way possible.
Pulling out a sheet of paper, Shotou grabbed his quill and began writing away.
-
Keigo and Dabi laid in each others arms, Keigo's hand resting on Dabi's bare chest while the latter played with the blonde's hair.
"What's on your mind?" Dabi asked.
Keigo raised his brows and shook his head. "Nothing much."
"You should know better than to lie to your king by now, hm?" Dabi commented before asking again. "Come on, tell me."
Truthfully, Keigo was concerned over his last interaction with you. Why were you so hostile towards him? But earlier, in front of Dabi, you were so nice to him.
Keigo sighed, nuzzling closer to Dabi. "I'm just concerned about Y/n."
Dabi softly smiled. He liked it when Keigo worried over you.
"She'll be fine, Kei. She just needs to adjust to everything. Time heals all wounds." Keigo didn't reply and Dabi could see that he was still thinking about you. When you were gone, Dabi felt like this was the end of the world. He could only imagine the heartbreak Keigo was going through. They both loved you, and now that they had you back, their anxiety didn't go away completely. They still couldn't believe it, that you were still alive and well with them. In fact, the first night after they brought you home, Dabi didn't sleep a wink. No, he kept on checking in on you. Keigo, despite his injuries and heavy medication, was in a similar state.
"Why don't you go and check in on her? It'll put your mind to ease." Dabi offered, sitting up to pour himself some wine. Keigo nodded happily as he pulled away, kissing Dabi's cheek before wrapping a robe around him and scurrying out of the room, the king chuckling at the sight.
Even when you were a kid, Keigo often found himself watching over your sleeping form, something about it made him feel at peace. To see you safe and sound, in arms reach to protect you from any harm that should befall you... perhaps that's exactly what Keigo needed at the moment.
He made his way to your room, the guards at your door knew not to stop him- it was Dabi's orders. Keigo softly knocked on your door, waiting to see if you're still awake. After a few moments of silence, he slowly opened the door and crept inside.
There you were, lying on your side, tucked under the floral covers that reached upto your nose. Your hair sprawled out over the pillow, a few wisps framing your face under the glow of the lantern in the room. Your lips were slightly parted and Keigo smiled at how you looked the same as you did when you were a baby.
He walked closer and brushed the hair out of your face, and leaned down to kiss your forehead as his hands pulled the covers closer to you. He turned to leave but halted when he heard a whimper.
He looked at your face, which was now scrunched up as if in pain. Before he could do anything, you started mumbling frantically, your head moving side to side, your voice turning loud as your words became audible.
"No! No! Stop, Im sorry- STOP! STOP! STOP! KEIGO STOP-!" Keigo rushed to wake you up from your nightmare, only for your eyes to snap open as you began thrashing in his arms, pushing away from him as you began screaming for help, tears streaming down your face as you backed away so far that you fell off the bed, still shrieking for him to get away, just in time for the Dabi to burst in your room with your guards.
"DAD!" You yelled, your body shaking as he made his way towards you. "HE'S GOING TO KILL ME! HE'S GOING TO KILL ME!" You cried out, pointing at Keigo.
"Y/n, honey, calm down. He's not going to hurt-" Dabi tried to console you, taking your shoulders in his hands but you were inconsolable. He looked at Keigo, and the blonde saw the slightest flicker of doubt- no, accusation; an incriminating look in those cerulean eyes.
"I didn't do anything, Dabi. She was having a nightmare and-" he tried to explain himself, something he didn't think he'd need to do with Dabi.
"HE'LL KILL ME! HE'LL KILL ME! HE'LL KILL ME LIKE HE HE KILLED TOMURA!" You continued rambling on, tears streaking your cheeks, not taking your eyes off Keigo for a moment, as if afraid that he'd strike you at a chance.
Dabi looked at your face, concern arising at the raw fear in your eyes. Its only when a trail of crimson left your nose and your chest began heaving heavily did Dabi finally say the words.
"Keigo, leave."
The blonde took a step closer towards you. "No Dabi, I can help-"
Dabi snapped his head back at him and with unbridled rage in his face, he yelled at him.
"I'M ORDERING YOU TO LEAVE! NOW!"
Keigo's heart shattered at the venomous tone, and his face showed it. But right now, Dabi was more concerned about his daughter not having a panic attack or passing out. He could worry about Keigo later, you were the priority now.
You're the priority.
As Keigo left, Dabi picked you up and placed you back in your bed, promising to spend the night by your side. With the way your eyes remained wide open, he was worried you wouldn't sleep. But sleep finally overcame you as you were held by Dabi, your head lying on his warm chest, barely hiding the coy smile as he told the guard to inform Keigo that he won't be returning to bed tonight.
-
The next morning, when you woke up, you were still curled up in Dabi's lap. True to his word, he stayed with you the entire time, and it didn't seem like he slept much.
"How are you feeling now?" He asked, eyes slightly tired from the lack of sleep.
"I'm better, thank you." You whispered, getting off his lap. You looked up at him, brows knitting together as you tried to think of what to say next, or about last night. "I- last night... I-"
He waved you off. "We'll talk after breakfast. I think you're well enough to join us in the dining hall, hm?" You nodded as he got up and walked closer to you, cupping your cheek with one hand as he leaned down to kiss your forehead.
"My precious." He smiled before leaving your room, right in time for Inko to come in to help you get ready for breakfast.
Dabi returned to his room where he wasn't surprised to see Keigo pacing around, worriedly. From the dark circles and red eyes, Dabi figured the blonde hadn't slept.
"Dabi, I am so sorry-" He started but was cut off by Dabi wrapping his arms around him.
"Its okay. Not your fault." He sighed, pulling away to kiss Keigo on the lips. But the blonde wanted to still clarify himself.
"I didn't do anything, Dabi- she just- she had a nightmare and I was just trying to he'll her-"
"I know, Keigo. I know." Dabi stared into his scared eyes and his gaze softened. "But you need to understand that when I tell you to do something, you do it without question. Without a second thought. Y/n is- she's still a child, as much as she pretends to be a grown up, deep down all of these events have scarred her in way or another. We have to give her time and we have to help her, hm?"
Keigo only nodded before resting his head on Dabi's chest, wanting to be comforted as well.
"Let's eat, hm?"
-
The three of you sat on the dining table, eating in awkward silence. You and Keigo didn't meet each other's eyes, Dabi kept looking between you two, hoping one of you would finally start talking.
He cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry-!" You and Keigo said together. You spoke again before he could (as you should, according to royal protocol. But everyone knows the King's favourite isn't one to follow rules.)
"I am sorry, for how I behaved last night, Keigo. I- I was having a nightmare and-" you sighed. "-Its not your fault. I reacted very poorly and I shouldn't have pushed you away or been afraid of you, I just- I just-" Dabi grabbed your hand and squeezed it affirmatively when he saw remorse in your eyes.
"Its okay, really. I didn't mind it, and I know it wasn't your fault either. But I have to ask... was the nightmare about me?" Keigo asked cautiously.
You looked up at him before looking away, eyes slowly welling up with tears. That was enough of an answer for him and Keigo could feel his heart drop at the thought of you being afraid of him.
"I am- I think I just need- I need some time to get used to you again..." you say.
Dabi hummed, giving a quick glance to Keigo who nodded begrudgingly as well.
"Well, now that this topic is over, I was thinking of sharing some good news." Dabi said, making the two look at him. "Since you seem to be in good health, I was thinking you could visit your mother. What do you think?"
"Really?" You whispered in disbelief.
Dabi nodded. "Of course, I'd be accompanying. Don't want you fainting or-" you cut him off by a big hug and loads of "thank you's".
He let you be excused so that you could get ready while Keigo watched him with a slightly hurt expression in his eyes.
"So... I shouldn't come with you two?" He asked in a low tone.
Dabi met his eyes and held his gaze before softening them. "I think some space between you both would benefit for her. After last night, I don't think she's strong mentally, Keigo. Her mother is a sensitive topic as it is... I can't risk her having another episode like last night."
Keigo stared at his plate before nodding, not meeting his eyes. "I understand. E-excuse me." He left the room.
Dabi knew being apart from you was the last thing Keigo ever wanted but... he could make him understand later. For now, Dabi needs to focus on you.
-
"Thank you." You said to your father who was behind you, holding the reins of his horse you rode on together. He insisted on sharing one ride, and you felt closer to him while he felt content now that you were in his arms, safe and secure.
"What for?" Dabi asked.
"Everything." You looked down at your hands and then ahead at the road. "For going with me to see mom. And for taking care of her grave. For last night, when you held me."
Dabi smiled and kissed the top of your head.
Soon you two had reached the castle and were getting off the horse when Shotou came out beaming.
"Someone is waiting for you-"
"Y/N!" Rei yelled as she dropped royal protocol and practically ran down the stairs of the entry door to hug you. "My child!" She began crying into your shoulder as her arms squeezed your form so hard that it almost began to hurt.
"Honey, you're going to break her." A familiar voice said, making you pull back from Rei.
"Grandpa!" You squealed as the older man caught you when you jumped, spinning you around as you buried your face into his neck, arms barely reaching around his broad shoulders.
"My doll, my little princess." He cooed as he kissed your forehead, his own eyes getting a little misty.
"Enji, stop hogging her." Rei smacked his arm.
He frowned. "Honey, I'm not hogging her-"
"Yes, you are!" Someone yelled as they yanked you out of his arms and into their own. "I've missed you so much, my baby!" She cried as she rubbed her cheek against yours.
"Hello, Aunt Fuyumi." You chuckled as you patted her arms to let go but she held you tighter. Fortunately, Dabi came to your rescue.
"You're hurting her, Fuyumi." He said as he pulled you away and behind him. Fuyumi gave him a quick bow and "Your Majesty." Before punching his shoulder. "I was worried about you! Would it have killed you to write back to me?!"
"I've been... busy." He replied. "Besides, I needed some alone time with my daughter before you came to hog her."
"I can't help it that she's my favorite neice!" Fuyumi defended.
"I'm your only neice..." you mumbled from behind Dabi. "Also, Where's uncle Natsuo-"
A loud crash was heard, making Dabi immeadiately turn and push you behind him. Of course, speak of the devil and the devil shall-
"I'm here!" Natsuo huffs as he gets off the horse he just crashed into some poor guards (their unconscious bodies are being dragged away).
He walks up the steps and quickly bows to his parents and Dabi before locking eyes with you and manically grinning as he lifts you up in his arms and spins around, making you chortle as you slap his arms to slow down.
"Oh youre a sight for sore eyes, you little brat!" He came to halt and you had to grab his arms to stabilise yourself. He pinched your nose, making you whine. "I'm never letting you go alone now! Gonna take you to battles with me, if I have to. Missed you too much."
You smiled sweetly at him. "I missed you too, uncle."
The Todoroki clan had decided to stay a week or two over at Dabi's castle, much to his dismay. Of course he doesn't like the fact that Enji and the rest of his family will be breathing down your neck, but Shotou convinced him to let them spend time with you here rather than whisking you away to Enji's kingdom where it'll be harder for Dabi to keep an eye on you (and not to mention the trauma he still hasn't recovered from since that was the place he lost you last time).
While you were being coddled and spending some quality time with the Todoroki clan, Keigo was finding ways to stay out of their way. He had initially greeted them when they arrived, but from their cold attitude and death stares, he'd much rather be ignored by them. And it's not like he or Dabi doesn't know how the royal family dislikes Keigo, so Dabi would often leave you with his family while he went to console his lover.
By the end of the week, as much Dabi wouldn't like to admit, you had looked much better and healthier since his family came. You looked happier, brighter. They were all having dinner together in the big dinning hall. Dabi sat at the head of the table, Rei to his right, then you and then Enji because of course your grandparents want you squished between them. Fuyumi, Natsuo and Shotou sat to Dabi's left.
"Baby you need to eat more! I could see your ribs from here." Rei said as she put another serving of food on your plate.
"But I'm full-"
"No, you're not. Now eat those veggies, I don't need your pretty hair falling out." Rei cooed as you begrudgingly followed her orders. She then narrows her eyes at Dabi. "You too Dabi, eat your veggies. Only drinking wine isn't healthy!"
Dabi hummed nonchalantly. "Yes, mom." He said, eyes trained towards the door. He sighed before beckoning a servant, whispering something to him. The servant nodded obediently and left.
"Aww, are you really going to eat veggies? What a good mama's boy you are." Natsuo teased, only to be whacked on the head by Fuyumi.
"Yeah, I'm having them bring more food." Dabi smiled.
A few minutes later, the hall doors opened and in walked-
Concubine Keigo.
The man who had been good at hiding himself for the better part of the week, was now walking towards Dabi. He bowed to him first, before bowing to the rest of the family. Even though his siblings masked their displeasure at seeing Keigo, his parents, especially Rei, made no such efforts.
She threw a nasty look when Dabi had someone bring a chair and seat Keigo next to him.
"You're going to eat with us?" Rei asked, not holding back the disgust in her tone.
"Mother." Dabi warned.
"What?" Rei shrugged, slicing her steak elegantly. "I'm just curious. I thought this was a family dinner."
Dabi's eyes darkened. "He is family." He looked at Keigo before bringing his hand to his lips, kissing it softly. "And if he wasn't before, he will be now."
The table had went dead silent as they all looked at Dabi, anticipating the bomb he was about to drop on them. Somehow, you already knew you were going to dread the news he was about to share.
"We're getting married."
And just like that, the curtain of happiness drops, your world shatters.
"I was going to wait a few more weeks before announcing, but since Y/n had been feeling better and you all came, I decided now would be the best time. I had proposed to Keigo long before Y/n was kidnapped-" you stopped hearing after that, you couldn't even if you tried. Your heart was beating too fast, too loudly for you to hear anything.
Is your father really going to marry Keigo? The man who killed your mother? The man who killed Tomura? Did Dabi even care about you anymore-
"Y/n?" Dabi called. Under the table, Enji held your hand and gave it a squeeze, pulling you out of your thoughts.
You looked at Dabi and Keigo, who were holding hands.
"Congratulations." You smiled. "When's the date?"
Everyone was surprised at your composure, Keigo who was holding his breath finally sighed in relief while Dabi looked proudly at you.
You've really matured.
"Well, we were thinking later this week, since everyone is still here. What do you say, Y/n?" Dabi asks, sipping his wine.
You hummed. "Very wise. Let me know if I could be of any help." The dinner soon ended, and you could feel everyone's eyes on you (except for Dabi and Keigo, they were looking at each other like they wanted to rip their clothes off).
Instead of joining the family in the garden for a walk, you excused yourself and left for your room. And only after you had closed your door did you finally let the tears fall.
How could he do this to you? How could your father marry that murderous skank? Was it to show you up? To teach you a lesson? It couldn't possibly be- because he loves Keigo, could it?
"No." You whispered harshly, as you sat on your bed. If this marriage happens, it'll put Keigo in a much powerful position, and it'll br far harder for you to take him down.
And not to mention, by law, you would have to bow down to him.
Concubines never get to be more superior than legitimate heirs, but since Keigo was already a favourite, and your lack of a quirk makes everyone question your legitimacy as a heir and a ruler, you have no doubt that Dabi will make you kneel to his slut.
Someone knocked on your door. "Come in." You said, fixing yourself.
It was Rei and Enji, concerned looks etched on their faces. Looking at them, you couldn't help the tears that welled up.in your eyes again.
"Oh honey~" Rei cooed with open arms as she hugged you, letting you sniffle into her gown.
"I- I'm sorry-" you tried to say, as you pulled away only for Rei to pull you closer to her. She sat on your bed and positioned herself in a way so that you could lay your head in her lap.
"You don't have to be brave anymore, Y/n." Rei said as she ran her finger through your hair. Your tears slipped down your face as you watched Enji sit on the foot end of your bed, taking your feet in his lap and rubbing your ankles.
"None of this is your fault, Y/n." Rei said. "I still want to go and yell at Dabi for even letting that whore sit with us, let alone marrying him-"
"Rei." Enji warned.
She huffed. "Your grandpa says that wouldn't be wise." She kissed your cheek. "How about you come with us? Hm? I can talk with Dabi and convince him to let you come with us until the wedding is over-"
"No!" You shook your head frantically. The last time you went away, your father proposed to Keigo. Who knows what that blonde will do this time when you leave. Take away all of your mother's belongings? Kick you out? Make Dabi question your legitimacy?
"I- I already told them I'd be here to help them. Besides, I shouldn't be away from my father on this joyous occasion. Really, I'm happy for him- for them." You wiped your tears away as Enji and Rei looked at you with pity. "I just- I just miss mom a little."
They stayed with you the rest of the night.
-
After the announcement to the family, Dabi had announced of his wedding to his kingdom. The news had gotten mixed reactions, they cheered and congratulated Dabi out of fear, while also throwing pitiful looks your way, hushed whispers about "poor princess Y/n". Good thing was that you spent most of your time in your room, so you didn't have to bear the embarrassment much.
You were standing in Dabi's office. He'd called you, and Keigo was there too. You didn't think it would be possible for them to be more closer and show more disgusting displays of affection, but here they are, shamelessly eating each others faces.
"Y/n! How have you been?" Dabi asked as Keigo got off his lap, giving a quick squeeze to his bum (you wanted to burn your eyes with acid).
"I'm well, thank you." You smiled, trying to contain the contents of your gut. "You asked for me?" Might as well come to the topic before they start doing more...stuff.
"Ah yes. Well, since the wedding is approaching, I wanted to ask if you'd like to be the maid of honour?" He said, shuffling through some papers- invites.
"You want me to be your maid of honor-?"
"Mine? No. I have Natsuo. I was asking if you'd like to be Keigo's, since he has no one to walk him down the aisle, Keigo suggested you. And you two are close, so it seems like a good idea, no?" He said in a tone that made it seem more like an order than a question.
How could he ask you that? Has your father lost his mind? Is he that horny to not give a shit about his own daughter?
You looked at Keigo, who was standing there with a chalice, his golden eyes piercing through you, a satisfied smile on his lips.
Of course, he'd convinced Dabi to suggest something as preposterous as this. Perhaps as a revenge for earlier.
"I think it'd be better if someone else stepped in. Perhaps one of the other concubines?" You offered. You'd much rather eat a bag of nails than let his filthy hands hold yours as you walk down the aisle.
"No, no. Keigo isn't close to any of the concubines. Besides, I think it'd show the rest of the world of our united front. Put all the rumours about conflict among you and Keigo to rest." Dabi said, deciding for you.
"Yes, your Majesty." You said, bowing as you left the room.
-
The next day was rehearsal day. The servants were working hard to decorate evey inch of the castle, making sure to prepare for guests from far and away, perhaps because Keigo told them that this was going to be "the biggest wedding of history."
You were standing in the church with Keigo holding your gloved hand. Just because Dabi said you have to walk him down the aisle, doesn't mean you need to touch him. The gloves were only the smallest barrier.
"Thank you for doing this for me." Keigo said as you both walked down the aisle towards Dabi. Every fiber of your being was screaming to rip yourself away from him.
"Anything for my father." Your lips formed into a tight lipped smile.
Ignoring your comment, Keigo asked you something even more cursed. "Have you thought of how you'd address me now that I'm marrying your father?"
Bitch. Skank. Whore. Pig. Murderer. Ostrich. Ass hat. Pile of shit. Slut-
"I have more important affairs to be concerned about." You said, dismissing the topic, but of course Keigo wouldn't let it go.
"Well, I have and I'd prefer if you'd call me dad or papa. Mama is also fine, but spare me the royal titles. I don't care for them and I don't want you to be formal with me. We're family now." Keigo said as you both reached Dabi who took Keigo's hand from yours, both leaning down to kiss your cheeks.
You wonder if his touch would still linger if you placed a hot iron poker.
You were walking towards your room, when you passed by your mother's. Opening the door, you saw Inko was there as well, going through your mother's closet.
"Princess!" She turned around, bowing to you with a gentle smile. "Look what I've found!" She showed you some dresses, your mother's beloved gowns, her tiaras, her jewellery.
"I was thinking that you could wear them on the wedding!" Inko said, as she pulled out a beautiful baby blue gown with jewels and sakura blossoms embroidered on it. "They should be of your size, bit I'm happy to make a few alterations to it if you'd like!"
You smiled as you tried on the gown, it fit you perfectly. "And if you pair it with this tiara and your mother's favourite ring!" She placed the white princess tiara on your head, along with the turquoise ring that had diamonds around it, with a gold band. "Your father gave it to your mother on their wedding night. Your mother adored this ring so much, she often said the turquoise stone reminded her of your father whenever he went away om wars." Of course it did remind her of Dabi, his eyes had the same colour as the stone.
"I'll wear this." You said as you admired yourself in the mirror, happy at how you resembled your mother. "Will you have them polished for me?" Inko nodded as she took the ring and tiara from you.
At least there's something you could look forward to at this awful wedding.
-
Guests had started arriving two days before the wedding. Few had been invited to stay at this castle, while others had rooms arranged for them at the other castles nearby.
You had insisted on at least letting your friends stay at the castle, but Dabi turned you down, saying something about security concerns. But he allowed them to visit you during the day.
"Katsuki!" You giggled as you hugged the barbarian king, who only lifted you up and twirled you around.
"Stop acting like a buffoon. Set her down, she's a princess, not a cat." Momo chided as she fanned herself. Katsuki only huffed as he set you down.
"Empress Yaoryuzu-" you started bowing but she hit the top of your head with her fan lightly.
"Forgetting how you're supposed to address me?" She asked, raising her brow at you. You sighed before giving a peck on her lips.
"Hey! What the heck that?!" Katsuki asked as he pulled you behind him. You placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. "Katsuki, it's just a traditional greeting in her land."
"Yes, but I don't expect uncultured barbarians to understand what traditions mean." Momo snickered.
"Alright, that's it-"
"Enough!" You yelled at them. "I have bigger matters to handle than to stop you two from fighting like children. So if you insist on bickering, please do it outside of this palace and on your own time. Do I make myself clear?" You glared at them as they finally nodded.
The "matters" that you need to handle are about you making sure that when Keigo marries Dabi, he doesnt get to sign a contract that states all about Keigo's new powers and "governing" opportunities. You need to make sure that Keigo doesn't get more power than needed, that he doesn't get a superior title to you, the legitimate heir, and that he doesn't get to add a clause or two that would benefit him and harm you.
A familiar servant passed by you, gave you a nod. Of course, you had initially thought of finding ways to stop the wedding altogether, so you had a servant bribe some concubines and knights to flirt with Keigo, if only to arouse rumours and better yet, catch him in a compromising position.
But you knew that with the wedding approaching, Keigo would be more cautious than ever, and it's not like Dabi would take off the veil of love off his eyes to even suspect that Keigo is cheating on him.
You sat in the garden after returning from the office, asking your uncle Shotou if the contract for marriage had been drawn up. He told you no, that its still in the works and should be coming in tomorrow evening, and when he asked why you wanted to know, you'd made some excuse about wanting to see whether your father was going to have new stamps made with Keigo's face in it.
He only chuckled, but both of you knew Dabi wouldn't be above doing such an abomination.
"What're you doing here alone, bub?" Dabi asked as he sat down next to you. "Everyone's inside, waiting for you."
You smiled softly. "Just... needed some air. Nothing to worry about."
Dabi hummed as he gazed ahead at the tree line. "I know everything is happening so fast and is hectic, so I haven't had the time to talk to you but-" He looked at you and smiled with soft eyes. "- I want to tell you how proud I am of you. For being so mature, for handling everything with such grace. I know this news wasn't easy for you, but I am grateful that you have accepted Keigo and have chosen to be a part of my happiness."
Chosen? There was never a choice.
You leaned your head on his shoulder. "Of course, dad. I will always love you."
He kissed your forehead. "And I, you."
-
The next day went by blur, mostly because of the guests and servants running rampant. Momo and Katsuki were in the backyard, away from the party, and you only spared a few glances when they began to duel. You couldn't deal with them right now, not when you had to go and read the marriage contract before Keigo could sign it.
You were on your way when you heard Inko arguing loudly with someone. For a sweet lady like her, it's not normal for her to yell at anyone. So, you went to check out the commotion first.
"THIS IS NOT THE JEWELLERY PIECES I SENT FOR YOU TO POLISH!" Inko said furiously, slamming her hands on the table. You peeked at the man she was yelling at, recognising him as the royal jeweller. "WHERE IS PRINCESS Y/N'S RING?!"
"I- um- they-" the man stumbled over his words as you finally let yourself in.
"Your Majesty!" They both bowed, as you waved them off. "What's the matter Inko? Where's my mother's ring?"
She shot a furious glare to the man, who cowered. "That's what I'm trying to find out."
You stepped forward and looked at the man with a calm smile. "Where's my ring? Did something happen to it? Did you lose it?" You asked and you could only imagine Inko's murderous intent if the man said that he did lose it.
"No, princess- I didn't lose it! The ring- the ring it's with- concubine Keigo!" You face never dropped as fast as it did in that moment.
"What? How is this possible?" You interrogated.
"After- after I took your jewellery from Inko, King Dabi had called me in to display all of the royal family's jewels, including yours! When he left the room, he told concubine Keigo to pick anything he'd like to wear in the wedding ceremony, and- well- he picked the late queen's ring, saying that it'd remind him of the King's eyes." He explained helplessly, but you had already left the room, storming up the stairs to take back your ring.
You didn't even have to go to Keigo's Chambers as you found the concubine standing in the hallway, a drunk blush on his cheeks, and wearing something glimmerd in the dim halls-
Your mother's ring.
"Y/n! I've been looking for you! Come, come to papa!"
All sense of logic and manners went out the window as you stormed towards him and slapped him so hard across the face, that he fell.
Keigo hadn't even begun to recover from the shock of being slapped when you began punching him.
"WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?" You screamed. "WAS IT NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU TO KILL MY MOTHER, TAKE HER THRONE, MARRY MY FATHER, THAT YOU HAD TO TAKE HER RING AWAY TOO?! THOSE ARE MY THINGS! THEY BELONG TO ME, YOU FUCKING SLUT!" You shrieked as Keigo tried to dodge your hits without hurting you.
His eyes went wide when you wrapped your hands around his throat and began choking him. "I'm going to fucking kill you! I'm going to end this for once and for all!"
"Y/N!" Someone yelled as they ripped you away from Keigo. "HAVE YOU FUCKING LOST IT!?" It was Dabi.
"YES!" You screamed. "I HAVE LOST IT, JUST LIKE YOU HAVE WHEN YOU DECIDED TO MARRY THAT FUCKING WHORE! IN FACT, I HAVE LOST A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN YOU! I HAVE LOST MY MOTHER BECAUSE YOU BROUGHT IN THAT FUCKING BITCH! I HAVE LOST MY GRANDFATHER BECAUSE YOU WERE BUSY SCREWING AROUND WITH THAT WHORE! I HAVE LOST MY ONLY FRIEND, BECAUSE YOUR MURDEROUS LITTLE SLUT DECIDED THAT I DO NOT DESERVE TO HAVE ANY HAPPINESS! AND I HAVE LOST MY MOTHER'S ONLY LEGACY BECAUSE YOUD MUCH RATHER GIVE IT TO YOUR NEW BED WARMER THAN TO ME!"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Dabi yelled, getting dangerously close to your face. "I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANYMORE INSULT AND DISOBEDIENCE FROM YOU! TOMORROW IS OUR WEDDING-"
"FUCK YOUR WEDDING! EVERYONE KNOWS YOURE GOING TO BE MARRYING A MURDERER AND ID MUCH RATHER KILL MYSELF THAN BE A PART OF THAT SHITSHOW!" Dabi went silent at your words, deathly silent. Then... he chuckled as he looked over his shoulder at Keigo who was already shaking his head, as if to stop him before he does something he regrets.
"Its about time she knows, eh?" Dabi said as he laughed.
"Dabi, dont-" Keigo started, but you cut him off. "Know what?" You spat.
Dabi looked at you, and his eyes held a cruel expression.
"Keigo didn't kill your mother. I did."
You couldn't- couldn't process the words that had left his mouth. So, you made him repeat himself.
"What?" You whispered. Dabi knelt down to your level, leaned closer to you so you could look into his eyes and see he wasn't lying.
"I. Killed. Your Mother." He said slowly, as if talking to a child. "I hated your mother, and the only reason I had been putting up with her for so long was because she was taking care of you. But one day, she thought she could threaten me by saying that she was going to leave me. I told her fine, signed the divorce papers and gave them to her. She wasn't expecting it, so she said she was going to take you with her. Now, that was something I couldn't allow. So, your mother decided to try to hurt me by poisoning you. When I found her plans, I confronted her and told her to either drink that same poison she bad for you or she was to leave tomorrow morning and never see any of us again. She instead chose to kill herself because she believed it'd be far more of a dishonour to return to her home as a divorcee and without child."
Tears slipped down your face. "N-No, you're lying. I saw Keigo-"
"Keigo tried to save her, but I told him no. I made him stop. The very thought of harming you was punishable. She deserved to die, and I had no sympathy for her when she dropped dead in front of me. I even had the antidote, but I chose to watch her die." Dabi said coldly. "All this time, Keigo had been covering up for me. He didn't say a word when rumors started, knly because he didn't want to have people see me as a murderer. He adored you, he's taken care of you, has quietly taken every insult you've ever thrown his way. And this is how you repay him?"
"Only Keigo and I have truly ever loved you. Your own mother wanted to kill you for her own selfish gains." Dabi said harshly as your world finally collapsed around you.
You couldn't say anything, do anything as you tried to make sense of his words, tried to find a way to that would tell you that he's lying. But you couldn't.
"GUARDS!" Dabi called. "Lock the princess in the hightower. Tie her to her bed, make sure she doesn't hurt herself or escape." He said before helping Keigo up. You couldn't protest as the guards dragged you to the hightower, didn't move a muscle as they tied you to your bed. All you could do was look up at the ceiling and cry mutely.
All these years, all this time, you'd been blaming Keigo, when everything that has ever happened to you was your beloved father's fault. The man you loved, the man you looked up to, the man you cherished... he had been the one who killed your mother?
The more you thought over his confession, the more you felt yourself age. By morning, you didn't have energy to even breathe.
The doors opened, you continued to look up at the wall, tears brimming your eyes.
Dabi walked in, and you didn't need to see his face to know he was still mad at you. No, the anger was practically radiating off him.
"You are to get ready and smile as you walk Keigo down the aisle. If you do something stupid, I will have your friends hunted down and killed. Do I make myself clear?" He didn't wait for an answer.
-
"Princess, please, at least eat something." Inko said pushing the slice of bread to your lips, but you didn't part them. Simply looking ahead in the mirror with a blank stare as the maids did your hair and makeup. "Izuku, she hasn't said a word since morning! I'm getting worried."
Izuku nodded and signalled the maids to leave. He turned your head towards to him and smiled warmly at you. "Y/n... princess, what's the matter? Tell me, so I can fix it, hm?"
Some things can never be fixed.
You didn't say anything, only looking at him with that hundred yard stare, and Izuku couldn't help but feel a little spooked.
He helped you walk towards the church where Keigo was already waiting for you. He was dressed in a white fitted gown that was sleeveless and backless, and had a fishtail. The dress itself had body chains made of gold and Ruby and sapphires sewed in an intricate pattern. And his veil? He didn't opt to wear one.
He looked at you and smiled kindly, although you couldn't really tell the difference at this point. "You look beautiful, Y/n." He held out his arm for you. "Ready to walk me down?"
You didn't have the energy or want to link your arm with his. Inko had to help you place your arm around his.
The doors to the church opened and the choir began singing hymns. The guests turned to look at you and Keigo, who was beaming as he looked at the end of the aisle where Dabi stood, a satisfied smile on his own face.
Your body felt weak, too weak and... different. You were dragging your steps, which fortunately no one could tell since they were hidden under your gown. At some point, it felt more like Keigo was walking you than you were walking him.
You weren't smiling at all. No, you still had the blank stare on your face, which luckily few people noticed since everyone was focused on Keigo.
"What's wrong with her?" Momo whispered to Katsuki as they saw your face. "Why does she look so... disturbed?"
"She must've seen your face." Katsuki remarked, although truth be told, he was also very concerned. Something felt off. Very off.
When you reached the end of the aisle, Dabi took Keigo's from you, and as rehearsed, they both kissed your cheek, but not before Dabi whispered-
"You forgot to smile. Behave."
Shotou guided you towards your seat in the front row, where you were sat next to your grandparents.
The officiant began the ceremony, but you couldn't pay attention to his words. All you could focus was on the turquoise ring on Keigo's hand.
"Y/n, are you alright?" Rei asked, a frown on her face. You didn't reply, opting to look at your father now.
Your father, your dad, the man you trusted more than anyone, the man who murdered your mother, who had murdered Tomura, who had murdered AFO, who had-
You couldn't breathe, you felt too warm, too hot, everything was burning inside you.
"You may now kiss the groom!" They locked lips, only breaking apart when someone screamed.
It took you a few seconds to realise that it was you who was screaming, only because-
Your hand was on fire.
By the time Dabi or anyone else reached you, your entire body had been engulfed in wild blue flames. Flames that were so hot and out of control, that neither Dabi or Enji or even Shotou could control them. Rei tried to use her ice, but it evaporated before it even came within 6 feet of you. The flames began spreading, making the guests panic and leave the church.
Shotou was the first one to piece it together. "Its her quirk!" Immeadiately, Enji and Dabi began giving you commands on how to control it, to calm yourself, to listen!
Dabi even tried to approach you, maybe if he were to touch you, you'd listen. But your fire was too hot, and you backed away anytime they tried to come closer, only screaming in agony as you burned yourself.
After 5 minutes, only when you fainted from pain and exhaustion did the flames stop. Your body... the aftermath made it beyond recognisable. Parts of your limbs were burned so badly, you could see the bone, while the rest of your skin had charred and burned well enough to know that no nerves will be working there.
Despite everything, you were still somehow miraculously breathing... barely. Dabi couldn't believe the nightmare he'd just witnessed, but his disbelief could wait as he gathered you in his arms and yelled at Shotou to get a doctor.
Everyone left the church, except for Keigo. He had dropped to his knees and was trying to wrap his around the horrible sight he'd seen. Be was trying to compose himself, trying to lie to himself that this... this was not his fault.
He knew he was wrong.
-
Dabi couldn't peel his eyes away from you, he needed to make sure that your chest rose and fell evenly. The moment it stopped- it wouldn't- but if it did, he needed to be there to resuscitate you.
Emperor Kai was fortunately right outside the church, waiting to be of assistance. It was a good thing he was from the land of healers, he was able to stabilise you.
While Dabi kept his eyes on your burned form, Kai opted to talk with Shotou. "It was her own quirk that brought out those flames, seemingly she got the dominant Todoroki quirk." He commented, glancing your way. "What she didn't inherit was the skin resistance to bare those very flames. She burned herself quite badly, and it doesn't help that the smoke from her own burning has damaged her lungs as well. She's still in a critical condition, I've done all I can. All we can do is wait and watch to see if her body can heal itself."
He also explained to Shotou that since its very rare to get a quirk at your age, that's why you couldn't control it. Kai reasoned that the reason your quirk did develop at that moment was probably because you were under some stress, maybe something had tipped you over emotionally, making your quirk appear so fiercely and harshly.
"Like an outlet, when we cry when we breakdown. She burned herself to release that stress." Kai explained.
Shotulou had walked him out of the room, only after ensuring that no one else was around did he ask that question.
"Her chances of survival... what are they?"
Kai's blank stare didn't give away the type of news he'd give. "Anything is possible, but it all depends on her body's ability to heal itself, her willpower to live. Medically speaking, I've done everything I can. Now, only she can save herself."
Can you save yourself, Y/n?
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So... THOUGHTS????
And yall better fucking comment because I did not waste my entire fucking day on this when I COULDVE BEEN STUDYING FOR MY TEST ON TUESDAY FOR YALL TO BE DRY ASS.
Istg if I don't get interactions and comments and likes, I will make yall regret and kill characters left and right, AND REMEMBER THAT DEATH IS NOT THE WORST THING I CAN DO
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alchemistc · 1 year
Text
Eddie's crush on Steve Harrington takes a strange turn when Harrington shows up at school two weeks before Thanksgiving of '84 and refuses to take off his sunglasses until his English teacher threatens to send him to the office - Eddie catches sight of the purple and yellow bruises and Steve spends twenty minutes feeling woozy and then ends up running to the bathroom to throw up because concussions are a bitch.
Eddie, like an idiot, chases after him. Spends half a minute listening to Steve retch and then crawls under the locked stall door to Steve's confused protest and leans against the stall with Steve's hair gathered in one hand until Steve is done puking.
"Hell of a hangover, Harrington," Eddie says to lighten the mood, knowing full well that's not it, and Steve thinks about pressing his face into the cool toilet, doesn't because this is a fucking boys high school bathroom.
"Billy Hargrove knocked my brain around," Steve says, wincing, and Eddie pushes the sunglasses he'd snaked off Steve's desk back on his face.
Eddie smokes him out behind the football fields at lunch and when Steve tries to pay him for the weed Eddie patently ignores the offer - uncaps a pen from his jacket pocket and scrawls his phone number across Steve's forearm and tells him to call if wants to hang out.
"What if I just want weed?"
"My business hours are ten to seven."
Steve calls him two nights later at half past seven and Eddie is Very Cool about it. (He's so not cool about it, he dances around the living room for a full five minutes and is thankful Wayne isn't around to see it.)
They spark up the strangest friendship either one of them have ever had but the moment Eddie realizes he actually genuinely likes Steve as a person he shoves that crush way down deep because Harrington is a genuinely cool dude and Eddie's fucked up friendships misreading the situation before.
----
Gareth fucking hates Steve Harrington.
He comes back from winter break to find Steve Harrington sitting next to Eddie at lunch, keeps his cool until Harrington leaves for gym class and then pitches a whole ass fit but it's too late because Eddie had introduced Steve to the band and a few of the Hellfire club during the break while Gareth was stuck in Mishawaka with his super religious bigot aunt and uncle and all of them grudgingly LIKE Harrington.
Jeff shrugs when Gareth tries to gather up some support. "He made us hot chocolate after band practice because the garage was cold. He charmed my mom into forgetting she hates Eddie."
Paul's zero help, because when Tommy Hagan ran into them at the diner a week into winter break and tried to start shit Harrington had threatened to rearrange Tommy's face and Tommy hasn't looked twice at them since.
The Hellfire club thinks he's adorable because he doesn't know what a kobold is and the thought of a twenty sided die makes him scrunch his nose up like he's in physical pain having the think about it and for some fucking reason they all find that sort of stupidity charming.
Eddie is a nonstarter - one bad word against him and he ices Gareth out for a week.
The third time Harrington almost freezes to death sitting in Gareth's garage while the band practices, he offers up his own garage (It's heated, because of fucking course it is, and he has the decency to pretend to be embarrassed at how fucking rich he is) and then cooks them dinner afterwards like some fifties housewife and actually, fuck everything, Harrington is an alright dude but Gareth doesn't have to LIKE him.
---
Jeff finally has someone to talk to about baseball - Harrington never played but he's a Cubs fan and when Jeff laughs about that for a full twenty minutes Steve has to explain The Curse, and if Eddie gets a gleam in his eye about the masochism of choosing a team destined to lose then Jeff isn't gonna say a word about it. Not his business, and he's not gonna step in shit just because Steve doesn't actually seem opposed to the outrageous fucking flirt Eddie is around him.
He loves his friends, would do pretty much anything for them, but they're all so enamored with the idea of being outcasts that all his mainstream interests get shoved aside and Steve is so goddamn mainstream he's actually not sure how Eddie befriended him but he's not gonna complain about it.
When it becomes clear, sometime around April, that Eddie is probably gonna fail (again) Steve gets a bug up his ass about it and suddenly Nancy fucking Wheeler is spending three nights a week at Eddie's. It'd be sweet, if it didn't cut into band practice, but the first time Jeff bangs on the trailer door to bitch about Eddie missing it again, Steve throws the door open and invites him in to watch the show - Eddie looks like he's about five minutes away from shaking little Nancy until her head pops off, and she looks like she'd like to strangle him right back, and they're arguing about concepts Jeff can't wrap his head around but the fact that Eddie knows his shit and just doesn't apply himself isn't new to Jeff but it clearly is to Wheeler.
When she finally leaves (only after watching Eddie painstakingly write out a scribbled mess of a paper for English class, checking on his progress every twenty minutes or so to his absolute mortification) Steve hands Eddie a beer and Eddie stares at a wall for ten minutes.
"Your ex is scary," Eddie finally mutters, and when he halfheartedly stuffs the finished essay into his bag Steve takes the time to reorganize it in a way that Jeff thinks might actually remind Eddie to turn the fucking thing in.
Jeff doesn't mention that he thinks it's kind of weird to be friends with your ex-girlfriend, especially when the rumor mill is pretty adamant that this particular ex cheated on Harrington.
"I'll make sure to write out a thank you note when you graduate because of her."
They're halfway through a movie when Gareth calls, Steve and Eddie arguing over some piece of trivia about the production team that Steve knows he's wrong about but refuses to give up the fight over, and Jeff feels a little shitty about forgetting the reason he came over in the first place.
They're interesting, is the thing. Jeff likes hanging out with them just to watch the juxtaposition of two guys so startlingly different from each other. And maybe he's a little invested in the will-they-won't-they of it all - because he'd been the first one Eddie had introduced to Steve in the nebulous time between whenever the fuck they'd started hanging out and when Eddie had decided not to keep him some dirty little secret - because he'd sort of just trusted Eddie not to be an idiot about it, and if he thought Harrington was important enough to bring into the fold than who the hell was Jeff to deny that - because Harrington is shockingly loyal and steadfast and Jeff thinks he's probably about a month off from a realization about himself he's probably not fully prepared for.
Jeff's gay uncle is the loneliest dude he's ever known and he'd always figured that was just how it was to be gay but there's shit brewing between Steve and Eddie that Eddie refuses to acknowledge and Steve hasn't noticed yet and there's probably gonna be some drama when it all comes to a head but Jeff knows Steve's gonna need someone other than Eddie to talk about it. So.
---
Steve invites himself into Gareth's the moment he opens the door. Just presses past him and lays himself out on the couch in the living room, and he knows Gareth isn't his biggest fan but that's sort of why he'd come here first. If anyone was gonna give him the absolute truth it's gonna be Gareth.
The thing is, he's been cruising along since November, barely passing his own classes, enjoying having friends who aren't pieces of shit, enjoying getting close to Eddie, ignoring that voice in the back of his head that still lingers in the feel of Eddie's fingers in his hair while he was puking his guts out on the cold bathroom floor, and the ignoring is getting harder and harder because Eddie's naturally a touchy feely person and Steve isn't used to that shit from anyone. The thing is he's pretty sure Eddie telling him he's gay, admitting it like some dark confession with wide eyes and a lick of fear crowding his features - Eddie telling him that shouldn't put him on edge like this, shouldn't make him so fucking angry, because he's trying, alright, he's trying to be, like, a better person and he's pretty sure he'd reacted okay because Eddie hadn't bolted but he's - he's upset about it and Gareth and Jeff are the only ones he's sure already know and he needs some fucking clarity.
Gareth will give it to him straight.
He's on a roll - pacing and gesturing and trying to work his way through all the shit in his head, the idea he's got of Eddie telling him because he's into someone and Steve's gonna end up in the back burner, or third wheeling, or fully fucking forgotten when he's had all of Eddie's attention for the last six months. "It's, like – I'm mad about it. Or. Like. Not mad, I just. The thought of having to see him happy with someone el–."
And. Huh.
"Dude," Gareth says, and Steve feels the laughter breaking loose - the ridiculousness of this moment, of choosing Gareth of all fucking people, the one person he hasn't won over despite his best attempts to not be a total dickhead. Steve fully fucking loses it, flopping onto Gareth's couch, laughing himself hoarse while Gareth stares at him like he's grown a second head, only sobering when Gareth sits himself down on the edge Steve isn't occupying.
"Shit, man," Steve says. "What do I do?" Because he can't lose Eddie, right? Other than Eddie he's got a gaggle of middle schoolers for friends and if things sour with Eddie it's not like Jeff or Paul or any of the others is going to choose Steve.
"Did you mean to come out to me right there, or was that an accident?"
"I literally didn't know until just then."
Gareth's been called some version of a homophobic slur enough times to know it sucks even if it's not true, and he's met Jeff's uncle a few times, seen the pain he carries, has always been terrified of Eddie losing his sparkle to a cruel world, and maybe he's never quite trusted Steve Harrington but clearly Harrington trusts him, which is.
"Eddie's had a crush on you for years, man, why do you think he wanted to be friends with you in the first place?"
"Fuck off," Steve says, and he looks a little miserable about it like he thinks this is some cosmic joke Gareth's cooked up.
"You should probably, like, take some time. Think about it. Make sure you're prepared for how much people fucking suck and decide if whatever you're feeling right now is worth the hassle."
"Eddie's not a hassle," Steve says, and Gareth decides right then and there that Harrington? Actually a good dude.
---
Steve throws a graduation party. It's a smaller affair than he would have had a year ago, more laid back, but a surprising amount of people actually show up - all of Hellfire, even the you freshman who Steve expressly forbids from the punch bowl that's mostly vodka (a few of them sneak a taste and Harrington berates them comically, hands on his hips and looking every inch a harried mother as they slink off towards his pool with the solo cups of water he replaces their punch with).
Nancy shows, even brings Jonathan, and Steve pretends it's not awkward, makes a joke about Nancy avoiding the punch that lands better than he expected and when Nancy slings both arms around Eddie and congratulates him, Jonathan and Steve take a moment to watch the pair.
They've had a few awkward moments in the halls, and a few more any time they happen to be bringing their respective heathens around to the Wheelers at the same time, but Steve had given NancyandJonathan the green light as best he could and he genuinely wants them to do well even if it had fucking sucked at the time to realize he'd felt way more for Nancy than she'd felt for him.
When Eddie and Nancy break the hug they start an argument that will last at least an hour if no one puts a stop to it, so Steve shows Jonathan to the liquor cabinet to make better drinks ("Wasn't kidding about the punch, man," Steve says and Jonathan's smile is almost warm.) and he beelines it out to the poolside where Nancy has her nose scrunched and Eddie is gesturing with both arms flailing in the air.
He has a fucking type.
When the younger kids finally leave and the group dwindles, Jeff and Gareth bemoan who the fuck is gonna run Hellfire now and Jonathan and Steve both throw a name into the hat - and Eddie's only met the kids that seem to hero worship Steve a few times but he tells Jeff to be in the lookout for them and proceeds to chug a full cup of punch. Grimaces once he's done, and Steve shoots Gareth a frown because - because they'd come up with a plan, sort of, and this party was mostly for Eddie even if Steve had graduated too but he hadn't planned on Eddie getting wasted.
"Don't see why you can't still go through with it," Gareth says under his breath while Jonathan and Eddie are getting high next to the pool, and Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to remind himself that Gareth, for all that he's the closest thing Steve has to a confidante outside of Eddie, has been on one date in his entire life.
"I'm not gonna tell him I'm in fucking love with him when he might be too drunk to goddamn remember it," he tells Gareth and Gareth's eyes go a bit wide because - whoops, Steve hasn't actually said that before.
"You -."
"New plan," Steve interrupts before Gareth can call him out on it. "I'm gonna drink the rest of that punch and forget we ever even made a plan."
Gareth recruits Jeff to talk him down from that.
---
Steve gets a card from his parents for graduation and a week later he gets a call from his father telling him it's time for him to man up and make his own way in the world.
At least, that's what Eddie had gleaned from the conversation they'd had on his front stoop two days before graduation.
He wakes up from a night of getting absolutely blitzed to his face plastered against one of the soft pillows from Steve's bed and spends a good thirty minutes staring at the plaid wallpaper before he finally manages to turn over to find the glass of water and the bottle of Tylenol on the bedside table. By the time he finally manages to make it down the stairs the rest of the overnighters were already stirring, and Steve is making waffles and talking to Nancy in a quiet voice.
"...didn't even get into Tech. He's just trying to prove a point, because he hates having a screwup for a son."
"Did you even apply to Tech?" Nancy asks, and Steve shoots her a look over his shoulder. The answer is no, and Eddie knows that because these are the kinds of conversations he has with Steve, the same soft voices and then same knowing looks and Eddie watches them for a moment with something burgeoning on understanding.
The moment is broken when Gareth rolls past Eddie into the kitchen and does a double take.
"Nice sweatshirt," he says, and he wiggles his eyebrows like that's supposed to mean something - but Eddie hadn't even realized he wasn't wearing the same thing he'd come in until Gareth pointed it out.
It's Steve's - and Eddie hadn't paid it much mind when he woke up because he'd woken up in Steve's fucking bed but it smells like him - some sort of sports related monstrosity with green and orange accents and when Jeff claps him on the back and says the same fucking thing Eddie watches Steve's face go pink.
He's annoyingly cute, and Eddie shoves that thought down because in a moment of weakness he'd allowed himself to compare his relationship with Steve to Nancy fucking Wheelers relationship with Steve and - and it's a fucking sweatshirt, and Eddie vaguely remembers spilling punch on his own shirt, and Steve bundling him up the stairs and tossing a change of clothes at him, remembers splaying himself out on Steve's bed once he'd changed, and then nothing. He'd had a fucking lot to drink.
Everyone trickles out after breakfast, Gareth the last to leave before Eddie, and Eddie watches the two of them have a whispered argument by the front door that ends in him gesturing in Eddies direction and then throwing up his hands before shoving past Steve out the door
He doesn't get what Gareth's problem with Steve is.
Steve is - Steve's great, actually, which is a problem for Eddie in particular but shouldn't be an issue for Gareth the same way, because Gareth is strictly a tits man. No, Gareth had had a bug up his ass about Steve Harrington since that first day and Eddie hates that he won't just give up whatever idea he's got in his head that Steve isn't a fucking dream.
He's bad at ignoring the crush, alright?
When Steve sidles back into the kitchen he's got a serious look on his face Eddie doesn't particularly like. And - he should probably go, too, like the rest of them, but he's still perched up on the counter, wearing Steve Harrington's clothes and drinking Steve Harrington's coffee and admiring Steve Harrington's stupid pretty face.
He's so fucked.
"What do you remember from last night?" Steve asks once he's got his own coffee cup back in his hand, and Eddie gives him a rundown of the first half without issue. It gets a little foggy after he'd downed a second cup of punch.
"Did I do something stupid?" He doesn't drink very often, is the thing - too many bad memories of the elder Munson getting shithoused - but he'd fucking graduated and flipped Higgins the bird with diploma in hand and he'd indulged, just the once.
Steve grimaces. "Not - stupid, no. Just. Before you fell asleep you uh..."
Eddie tries to pull up the memory, gets a throbbing pain in his temple for the trouble, and manages only a vague whisper of a memory - catching Steve's fingers in his own as Steve tucked a blanket over him.
Steve takes a sip of his coffee. Runs a hand through his hair - delightfully messy, which is the sort of thing Eddie should t let himself linger on too long because it's not like he's going to get to see him like this often, rumpled and sleepy even though he's been up for a while now.
"You. Said something "
Eddie says a lot of things, and mostly he says a lot of bullshit, but -
Steve's knuckles against Eddie's lips, minty fresh breath because Steve had told him he'd feel better in the morning if he brushed his teeth before he passed out, Steve standing over him and smiling as Eddie's eyes shuttered closed, a soft sigh escaping his lips as Steve's fingers drifted from his. "Love you," he'd muttered under his breath, when Steve's footsteps had retreated -
Fucking.
Drunk Eddie is a goddamn problem.
"What did I say?" Eddie asks, and he's thankful his voice doesn't waver because he's gotta play this off, some how, some way, because he's not ready to not have Steve in his life and -
"It - it doesn't." Steve sighs. "You really don't remember?"
And he sounds - upset, about it, like he'd expected they'd be able to talk about it later.
"Uh..."
Steve runs a hand over his face. Sighs. Turns his head up to stare at the ceiling and Eddie, like an idiot, stares at the long line of his neck and thinks about biting it.
"Screw it," Steve says, and before Eddie can so much as blink Steve's across the kitchen and crowding into Eddie's space. He's shorter, like this, with Eddie perched on the counter, has to tilt his head up to catch Eddie's gaze and he's - close. Closer than Eddie tends to let him be for extended periods of time. "I like you, Eddie."
"...but?"
Steve snorts, and his hand curls around Eddie's knee, which is - it's doing something to Eddie's head, and maybe he's still drunk from last night because everything feels a bit hazy. "No but, man. I - you -." He scrunches up his nose the same way Wheeler does, but Eddie doesn't find it half as endearing when Nancy does it. "You've had my name splashed across your back all morning and it's driving me crazy, man, I'm so into you it's not even funny."
Nice sweatshirt, both Jeff and Gareth had said, like they were all in on some sort of joke, and Steve had chosen this shit out of one of his drawers, and Steve hadn't seemed like he had much to drink at all last night, and Steve is -
"If this is a joke it's a fucked up one, Steve."
Steve curls a hand into Eddie's hair and kisses him.
---
Gareth doesn't comment on the sweatshirt when he strides into the Harrington garage two days later, but he takes one look at the purpling bruise on Steve's neck and spends a moment torn between wanting to high five the dude and bemoan how insufferable Eddie's going to be with a full ass boyfriend. He keeps his mouth shut instead.
Jeff doesn't have the same problem. "Nice hickey," he says, poking at it as Steve hands out drinks, and Steve goes red and ducks his head but later, in the quiet privacy of the closed garage he tugs at Eddie's belt loop and presses a kiss to his cheek in full view of the band. Eddie preens, so Gareth was 100% right about that.
On the plus side, Gareth thinks, even as Eddie tries to persuade them to warm up with a fucking love song, at least Eddie might have something to stick around in Hawkins for a little bit longer.
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ineffable-suffering · 7 months
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Aziraphale, I love you. But you lied. And here's why.
Okay. I’m not gonna beat around the bush for too long. It’s time now for me to also throw my try at a personal Good Omens Season 2 Magnum Opus into the mix of already existing magnum op..i? Opusses? (Smited? Smote?)
If I’m honest, it isn’t fully my own magnum opus, as I read this meta not too long ago that made me go: „Oh! My God! That’s it!“ And I’m pretty sure a lot of other people have clocked this too by now. Of course I’m not saying it’s the objective truth but after having mulled it over for many endless nights and days, wading through the onslaught of coffee theories, body swap theories, The Metatron re-writing the Book of Life theories and many, many more, this is the one I think is most plausible and, if you look closely, most obvious.
And it goes as such: Aziraphale lied.
To all of us. All of them. And most of all, to Crowley. He lied to him. Well, he sort of did and also sort of didn’t. He certainly didn’t tell the truth. At least not all of it. I hear you ask: “OP, what the fuck are you talking about”. I answer you: Let’s start from the top and under the cut.
(Small note: this meta ended up being way too large for Tumblr, which is why I will redirect you to an external doc at the end of the post, where I have written it all down nicely and accurately. It's about 35 digital A4-pages long, just in case you want to save it for later.)
(Word count: 12.831 | Approximate reading time: 50 minutes)
Let’s start with a short recap of what happens before the Metatron crashes the bookshop party and everything goes to shit. The proper visuals for this are in my Tumblr post but I am absolutely convinced that right up until when the Metatron comes to take Aziraphale away and talk to him, the angel is fully ready to get into Crowley’s Bentley-chariot and finally ride off into the sunset (or Alpha Centauri-set or whatever). You can see it in his face and body language. You can see when the penny drops for him that a) Crowley loves him b) he loves Crowley and c) they can finally start their happily ever after. Aziraphale realizes this all throughout said Brielzebub reveal in the bookshop. And he’s such a lost cause once he does. 
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I mean, look at that. Look at it. This (very shitty recording, sorry, I'm not tech-savvy enough to avoid the Amazon Prime screen recording blocker) is the very second Aziraphale realizes hat Crowley loves him. When he hears him suggest Alpha bloody Centauri as a getaway for Gabriel and Beelzebub, as Crowley has done to Aziraphale for so, so many times now. He finally understands what Crowley was trying to tell him with that all those times.
Aziraphale realizes this all throughout the Brielzebub reveal in the bookshop. And he’s such a lost cause once he does.
Right when Crowley suggest Alpha Centauri as a nice getaway spot to the two, Aziraphale looks at him and he gets it. That Crowley has loved him, has been loving him for millennia. Truthfully, they've both known that for a long while now. But there's a difference between knowing, wanting, craving and actually being able to finally have something. And that's exactly what we see on Aziraphale's face here. This is it. This is where it all starts working out for Crowley and him. This is were they can start their eternity together.
So from that second on, Aziraphale only has eyes for Crowley. He keeps physically pawing at Crowley with complete heart eyes, as if to say „Look, look, that’s gonna be us too! Finally!" He’s actually so smitten that he doesn’t even hear what Crowley is saying when he asks Shax if he can have back his apartment now because he’s sick of living in his car. (Also, what way to drop that bomb right in this moment Crowley, lmao). 
Once the Metatron comes in, the first thing Aziraphale says is that they don’t need to talk because „he’s made his position quite clear“. He doesn’t even want to talk to the Metatron, because in his mind, he’s already made the choice. Actually, he made the choice way before the bookshop showdown. For starters, I’m convinced that the Jane Austen Ball actually never was for Maggie and Nina but for Crowley and him (you can read more about that here). And apart from that, for this whole season we have seen Aziraphale trying to advance his relationship with Crowley romantically and domestically and move them to the literal next base (our car!). And after everything he just witnessed with Brielzebub, the final nail in the coffin of ethereal-infernal romance being possible, his choice is absolutely crystal clear: It’s Crowley. It’s always been Crowley and it always will be Crowley. And now it can be Crowley. They can be an us.
The whole of Season 2 is such a massive learning curve for Aziraphale’s character, with him remembering all those important pivotal points of his past,  and this very moment is the peak, with him not only understanding that Crowley loves him (because he certainly knew for quite some centuries now) but accepting that love, letting himself have that love, being allowed to want that love and taking that love and starting their new and final chapter with it. Nevertheless, the plot clock ticks for them. The Metatron saunters into the bookshop, evil and stinky as Metatrons do, and urges Aziraphale to come with him with his whole Take The Coffee schtick, which I will get into later. And Aziraphale, immediately sensing there’s Something Up, does. Can’t really turn down someone as high-ranking as the the voice of God, after all. Even if you were currently already planning how you were going to elope with a certain red-haired serpent of Eden. 
he next time we see Aziraphale on screen, it’s so painfully evident on his face that he is neither happy nor excited. Not even the slightest bit. We’d know if he was, thanks to Mr. Michael master-of-microexpressions Sheen. None of the usual “Aziraphale is happy”-signs are there. No blinding eye-smile, no giddy wriggling, not giggles and gasps. No, when the Metatron tells Aziraphale to „go tell your friend the good news“, his expression looks like this:
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I’m gonna go out on an entire limb here and say: That does not look like someone who’s absolutely tickety-boo hyped to tell his demon soulmate that he just got the juiciest promotion and that they can both be angels and live happily ever after in ethereal eternity now.
This, folks, looks like someone who knows exactly that the news he has to break right now, are going to be tickety-shit awful and very upsetting to said demon soulmate. And already, from that very short snippet of conversation, we can tell that Aziraphale isn’t really given a choice by the Metatron. Because while the Metatron does tell him that he doesn’t have to „answer right away“, he immediately follows it up by: „Go ahead and tell your friend the good news!“ Very distinct and definitive choice of words here. It’s “good news” because it’s already been decided. Because it’s already a done deal. There is no “yes, no, maybe”. This is the only choice he’s giving to Aziraphale. Because it’s ‘Coffee or death’. 
And he already gave him the coffee. 
***
Tumblr won't let me continue this over a certain character limit and I am not even remotely done yet – so, I feel like this is a good moment to redirect you to the continuation of this insane meta before we're in too deep. You can do so right here!
I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions about this once you've fought your way through it. Hope you have a good time with it!
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sanjisboyfie · 6 months
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yandere zoro headcanons
male reader of course <3 also this is actually a very soft yandere zoro, nothing super duper hardcore...i think
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yandere ! zoro . . . just expects you to know that he likes you. it's so annoying. he does the bare minimum and genuinely thinks that's enough for you to know. he's held the door open for you one time and equated that to a love confession. because he's not gonna ever blatantly confess to you, so he does these other minuscule things to get your attention and make it "known" that he likes you.
yandere ! zoro . . . will be at your beck and call. he will do whatever you ask of him. he'll act like its annoying, but he is more than happy to do whatever you ask him. it's undeniably a really sweet gesture that he does, but sometimes he gets really pushy and aggressive with it. the reason why is because he wants you to completely rely on him, even for your own basic needs. he wants to be doing everything for you for the power-trip and control it gives him.
"give it to me," zoro gruffly said, taking the bags from your arms. you were more than capable in carrying the groceries, but zoro took them off your hands. he knew you could handle them, but he felt the need to aid you.
"i am more than capabl-"
"shut up, i'm doing you a favor," zoro rejected your want to carry the bags, shaking his head.
"fine, thanks, zoro." a flash of your gentle smile was enough to send him into a flustered, crimson red blushing state.
yandere ! zoro . . . kind of going hand in hand with ^ that one, zoro would easily kill for you. the amount of dead bodies you'd be responsible for would be uncountable. every single man or woman thats hit on you has - unknowing to you - have been murdered by zoro. he doesn't take people trying to take you away from him lightly. to him its serious enough he needs to take their life. and he has and he will continue to.
yandere ! zoro . . . is very pushy on affections. it may sound out of character, but zoro never thought he'd get lucky enough to find someone like you. so now he's found you, he's gonna be selfish about, as far as he can go.
zoro had a nasty habit of physically taking you away from conversations. it would be out of nowhere - when you're just playing games with chopper and then you're suddenly being thrown over zoro's shoulder. you could try fighting against him all you want, but he easily overpowers you.
and when you're finally dropped onto the crow's nests floor, you berate him, "what's your issue?! chopper and i were talking you know!"
"i know," zoro says, not bothered one bit by your shouting.
"so?" you say expectingly, not enjoying how nonchalant he was being about the whole situation.
"if you're my boyfriend, don't i have the right to spend time with you?"
"i can still have friends though,"
zoro yawned, taking you into his lap and trapping you in hie arms, "come on, let's just sleep. we don't have to keep talking about stupid shit like this,"
"you can't just-"
a hand on the back of your head made you crash into his chest and effectively shut you up, his chest silencing you as you were smothered (suffocated) in it.
yandere ! zoro . . . has two sides of his personality - one he uses with you, and only with you, and then the side he shows everyone else. he never speaks as softly as he does with you as he does with other people. he's hyper aware that he looks intimidating to others, but he goes out of his way to be softer with you. it's sweet, honestly, but it's terrifying to see it happen in real time.
zoro had an arm drapped around your shoulder, simply following in whatever direction you took him to. whenever he saw something that he'd think you'd like, he pointed it out to you with a hidden smile.
"wait, look, do you like it?" zoro gently asked, picking up the ring and examining it in the natural light, "i can get it for you, if you want?"
"but it's pretty expensive-"
"don't worry about it, i can afford it," zoro shrugged, enjoying the way your eyes brightened. if only he could keep that for himself completely, hide you away from the rest of the world.
the two of them walked up to the vendor. zoro's soft smile was wiped away in an instant, looking gruff and annoyed at the man, "this one."
"what a lovely ring, you two are-"
"could you just hurry up? our crew might leave without us," zoro lied, already so annoyed with the innocent man who was just doing his job. you slapped him on the chest, shooting him a look.
seeing the disappointed expression on your face, he faltered in his glare a little bit. and an embarassed blush came onto his face, looking to the side and forcing himself to not glare at the vendor.
the man looked grateful for your intervention, quickly taking the exchange of beri and handing you the ring. a quick thank you left your lips before you walked out of there, zoro in tow.
"you're such an asshole," you murmured in annoyance, shrugging off his arm from your shoulder.
"babe, c'mon, don't-" but he shut up immediately when he saw the look you shot him, a warning look. it worked and he kept quiet the rest of the walk to sunny.
he practically grovelled for forgiveness the rest of the night, only gaining it back when he gently put the ring around your finger and peppered kisses on your face.
yandere ! zoro . . . is really only nice and doting to you - he doesn't give a shit about anyone else but you and makes it known. it earns him a scolding but he needs you to know that everyone that isn't you doesn't even cross his mind. you're the only person he thinks about and will continue to think about - everyone else isn't even worthy of being as important as you are in his head. you are the only thing he cares about, he devotes his entire strength in making it known he is at your disposal.
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tenelkadjowrites · 9 months
Text
Wallflower - Final Part - Seonghwa x Reader (NSFW)
PART ONE HERE. PART TWO HERE. PART THREE HERE.
🌻 Summary: A decision on Seonghwa’s part finally forces you to make choices in regards to your job and your feelings for him.
🌻 Word count: 7.6k
🌻 Genre & warnings: nerdy seonghwa with coworker reader. fem pronouns for reader. smut. oral sex, both reader giving and receiving. dirty talk. unprotected sex. creampie.
🌻Tags are now at the bottom of the fic.
this fic is not meant to represent seonghwa in any way, shape or form.
               “Oh, you didn’t want to take advantage of wearing jeans this Friday?” Sir Dipshit looms over your desk, peering down at you with a curious expression on his face.
               “I didn’t, I actually don’t really like wearing jeans,” You reply, pretending to be engrossed in reading an e-mail.
               “Don’t like wearing jeans?” He says incredulously, “Never heard of such a thing! You know, it’s a perk for the office to wear jeans on the occasional Friday. Seems to be a shame not to take advantage of it.”
               Your skin is starting to crawl from this conversation. Time to get out of it. You close out of the e-mail and push away from your desk, making a show of having forgotten something.
               “Completely forgot to get that TPS report cover that I made a copy of.” You are inching past Sir Dipshit. “Sorry, excuse me.”
               Before he can say anything, you are scurrying away from your cubicle, taking the long way to the copy machine by circling over to Seonghwa’s cubicle.
               He is typing away, oblivious to your presence since his back is towards you. You haven’t been with him physically since Tuesday when you devoured one another with such force that you still can’t really wrap your head around it. Ever since then, it isn’t that things have been awkward but…something has felt different. Off. Wrapped up and shoved in the back of the closet with the door tightly shut with all the other problems you’re ignoring.
               Not that Seonghwa is a problem. Which is a problem in its own special way because everything around him feels so damn good.
               “Wow,” You drawl, “No jeans? You know, it’s a company perk to wear jeans on the occasional Friday and you’re not taking advantage of it.”
               Seonghwa laughs, swiveling in his chair to face you. He’s wearing a baby blue button up today. The sleeves are a little too large for his wrists but it still somehow works, making him look delicate. He pushes his sandy blonde hair out of his face, slender fingers bringing back memories that you shouldn’t be thinking about right now. His pants are dress slacks in a crème colour which you are currently gesturing to.
               “You got the lecture too?” Seonghwa goes.
               “I sure did. Had to lie to get out of the conversation. Walk with me to the copier?”
               He nods, and the two of you set off across the office together. At one point, you hear a distinct giggle of your coworker and steadfastly ignore it. You aren’t going to be pretending that you’re not friends with Seonghwa anymore. You glance at him, taking note of a small hint of colour across his cheeks. He must hear them laughing at us, you think as a surge of annoyance at your coworkers and job strikes your chest.
               “You wanna grab lunch together?” You ask.
               “Yeah, sure,” He seems distracted now although you chalk it up to the laughter, “Sorry that I couldn’t yesterday but that meeting ran long.”
               “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
               At the copier, you pretend to press a few buttons, knowing damn well there is nothing here that you need to do. Seonghwa is looking out the window, lost in thought.
               “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”
               “I have to tell you something,” He says at the same time.
               Alarmed, you blink. “What?”
               “Maybe I should wait until lunch, actually…”
               “No, no, no, you absolutely cannot dangle a ‘I have to tell you something’ and then make me wait longer,” You say urgently, staring at him with wide eyes, “What is it?”
               “It’s – it’s nothing major. I just wanted to say uh…tomorrow night. I have a date.”
               The words land in a small pile at your feet. You are vaguely aware of the noises of people typing, the scent of cheap breakroom coffee, the low hum of conversation and phones ringing. The sun is bright and hot, pouring in from the windows and landing on your skin with a sizzle.
               “Oh, that’s…that’s great,” Some part of you replies, “Cool.”
               Seonghwa looks uncomfortable and awkward. The gap that has been growing since the last time you slept together, since the kisses afterward were a little too soft and a little too kind, seems to visible widen in front of you. Inwardly unmoored, you try to collect your features into the face of someone who is happy for a friend.
               “I just wanted to let you know,” Seonghwa says – is his voice stilted or are you projecting your own feelings onto him?
               “Well yeah, I mean, that’s what friends do, right? Keep each other up to date on stuff,” You reply and the remark feels so hollow that you want to shriek and take a bat to the copy machine.
               “Yeah,” He seems to linger on the word, swallowing hard and looking out the window. The sun reflects off his glasses and you can’t see his eyes.
               The conversation stalls. You scan the office, seeing Sir Dipshit is now safely tucked away. “I should get back to my desk. Thanks for walking with me.”
               Seonghwa nods and you turn around before he can say anything else, wrangling with the strange feelings fighting in your chest and the uncomfortable way your morning coffee sits in your stomach. It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, we’re just friends.
               Even though you want to stop yourself, you glance at Seonghwa over your shoulder. He is still by the copy machine, face tilted towards the window, lost in thought. Maybe you should have asked more about the date like who he is going with, what they’re like but you couldn’t muster the energy.
               You’re the one who told him that the two of you are just friends. What did you expect? The sex is just secondary to the friendship.
               The friendship. The words are sour in your heart. Sitting down at your desk, you stare at the computer screen, chafing at being here but knowing there isn’t anywhere else to be. This is your job. You asked for this. Just like you asked to be Seonghwa’s friend.
*
               Saturday morning is bright and beautiful, the complete opposite of your own disposition which is more like a hurricane growing stronger in the ocean. As the morning bleeds into the afternoon, your mind can only think about the dread of going back to work Monday morning…and Seonghwa going on his date tonight.
               The conversation at lunch yesterday had been stiff, the rift threatening to tear the entire friendship to shreds. You blame yourself – you are the one who told Seonghwa to date and now you’re the one acting weird about it. It’s unfair to send such confusing messages to him especially when you don’t even understand it yourself. But every time you tried to act ‘normal’, it only felt more artificial.
               Now, your unhappiness is a heavy weight on your chest and you lost the sledgehammer to break it apart. By the time you convince yourself to leave the apartment and do something to enjoy your day, it is the middle of the afternoon.
               While your money slips through your fingers to buy an assortment of shit you don’t need while traversing the city, your mind is restless. It circles between Seonghwa and work like a tennis match from hell. You are so swept up in your own thoughts that it isn’t until you come to a sudden stop and look upwards that you realize exactly where your feet have taken you, almost of their own accord.
               Pushing on the door, you step inside the quiet store. Small dust motes swirl in the light, landing on shelves filled with pendulums, tarot cards, spell jars and glittering crystals. The air smells heavy with incense, and a large crystal ball in the centre of the store shimmers gently. There is no one else in the shop and for the first time all day, you feel strangely at peace as if you’ve been here before.
               “Just a second!” comes a muffled voice from the back room which is separated by a gauzy purple curtain.
               You hadn’t meant to end up at the shop Seonghwa’s friend, Wooyoung, runs. But maybe your subconscious had. Maybe you’re just trying to find answers out of the labyrinth of your own making.
Your hands are filled with bags stuffed with various purchases of items you don’t need and you awkwardly navigate the small shop, careful not to knock anything off a table.
               You are looking at a collection of small necklaces when Wooyoung pops up from the back of the shop. He is wearing a black dress shirt with a few buttons undone, exposing the tanned skin of his chest. His hair is messy, swept up in a small ponytail, rings adorning every finger, catching the light. In the middle of his chest swings a small amethyst crystal. There is something mischievous about him, a sort of energy that just feels tied to him as a person instead of an act for running a store like this.
               “Admiring the necklaces?” He says by way of greeting, swooping from behind the counter to come to your side. He smells faintly of cinnamon.
               You nod, suddenly unsure if Seonghwa has even mentioned you to his group of friends. Do they know the two of you have been sleeping together? Maybe bringing him up will be awkward as hell. But now that you ended up here, you know exactly why and need to see it through.
               “Yes, I really like this one,” You reply, your fingers gently brushing against a small necklace that has a circular mark that looks like two pieces fitting together.
               Wooyoung looks pleased, “Made that one myself. Saw it in a dream.”
               “What does it mean?” The metal is cold against your fingertip.
               “Hm, I think the dream was about a binding spell. I don’t remember much, mostly just that design stuck out to me.” He looks at you slyly. “If you feel drawn to it, you should pick it up.”
               You laugh. “I know a sales pitch when I hear one.”
               “Half sales pitch, half just me being honest. If you feel drawn to anything in this shop, it’s usually for a reason.”
               I think I was drawn to the shop in general seeing as I just wandered over here, you think to yourself. You do slip the necklace off the display shelf, deciding that you might as well make a purchase since you showed up to mostly bother Wooyoung.
               “I actually came here for a reason. I’m…ah…friends. With Seonghwa.”
               Wooyoung’s brows come together for a brief second before he narrows his gaze a little. “Oh. Wait, you’re…”
               “His coworker,” You say hastily, “Has he mentioned me?”
               “He’s talked about you, yeah.” And by the way Wooyoung neatly avoids your gaze, you know that he is well aware of what your friendship with Seonghwa entails. “Did he mention my shop to you?”
               “He did. He said it was in the historic district and well, there’s not a lot of tarot shops in this area. I know it sounds strange but I wanted to talk to you. Seonghwa mentioned that you left a cushy job to start this shop. I’m feeling pretty lost with my own work. I want to leave it but I don’t know where to go. Were you scared when you left?”
               “Are you kidding me? I was terrified. Not only was I starting my own business but I was running a tarot shop which can be extremely niche depending on the area. Luckily, I landed this spot in the historic district which worked in my favor but I would say the first six months were touch and go. I wasn’t sure if the business was going to stay open or if I’d be successful. But I kept with it and eventually, I started getting a regular batch of clients and word of mouth spread. I was able to expand the shop outside of just tarot readings and more of a storefront,” Wooyoung pauses for a moment before adding, “Hwa has mentioned you’re pretty unhappy at work.”
               “I am. I just don’t know what to do next. I don’t know where to go or what I even want to do. I guess I feel sorta…stuck. I want to change but I don’t know what direction. And I…I worry that I’ve been placing too much of that anxiety on Seonghwa.”
               Wooyoung cocks his head to the side. “I know we just met and I know this is a personal question that I’m about to ask. But I have to ask it because Seonghwa is my friend.”
               “Fair enough.”
               “How do you feel about him?”
               “I…” You trail off, suddenly feeling incredibly shy. Wooyoung stares at you patiently although you get the sense he isn’t going to back down from the question. “I like him.”
               “How much do you like him? Is it just friendly? Or is it you like him enough just to get what you need from him?”
               Aghast, you shake your head. “I’m not – it’s not like that. I’m not using him. I really do like him.”
               “How much then?” He presses.
               “I…I mean does that matter?” You opt to deflect. “He has a date tonight.”
               “Does that bother you? How much does that bother you?”
               “Geez,” You say, feeling your face growing warm, “I didn’t think this would be an interrogation.”
               “It isn’t anything against you personally. I’m sure you’re nice. But, and I know Seonghwa will be annoyed with me for saying this, he’s quite smitten with you. He kept telling me that the two of you are just friends and now he’s going on this date. But I don’t think his heart is in it. His heart is with you. And now, not only is Seonghwa leading himself down a path that doesn’t follow what he wants, he’s potentially getting someone else involved that could end up liking or even loving him and they won’t get his full attention because of his feelings for you.”
               You’re floored by the brutal honesty. Must run in the group of friends, you think wryly, remembering the few times Seonghwa has been blunt in his own manner with you as well.
               But some part of you likes that Wooyoung is so open in protecting Seonghwa even if it means bringing things to the surface you keep running from. It meant you couldn’t avoid the topics any longer.
               “I want you to stand here and take a few seconds to really think about Seonghwa and think about how you feel about him.”
               Chewing on your bottom lip, you go, “Why are you trying to help me?”
               “I’m not helping you. I’m helping Seonghwa. I’ve seen him get cut up over you and this whole friends with benefits thing – which never works out, by the way – and he doesn’t deserve it. I can’t figure you out. Is it malicious? No, I don’t think so. Then, is it just friendship for you? I thought that at first but over time, I’m not so sure. So, what is it?”
               “I…” You trail off, thinking about Seonghwa.
               Your gaze slides away from Wooyoung over to the window showing the slightly busy street. Evening is approaching. Surely, Seonghwa���s date will start soon. He’s smitten with you, Wooyoung had said. Is that possible? If you stop pretending and running for five seconds, what do you feel?
               You think of Seonghwa helping you leave the work party before anyone could tell how drunk you were, the quiet way you felt safe with him from the very start, the shy way he kissed you the first time. You can picture him hunched over his desk at his apartment, putting a Lego kit together or reading a well worn Star Wars book for the millionth time, his fingers holding the book with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose. You can still hear his calm voice comforting you during your panic attack. His silent confidence in how he lives his life and pursues his interests no matter what others think or say about it had subtly changed your own approach to things as well, hadn’t it? That was why you cut ties with your coworkers when you accepted it no longer aligned with the sort of life you wanted. It had been so easy to deny Seonghwa’s impact on you because your life lately was nothing but running from change…but it wiggled in anyway, no matter how hard you tried to deny it.
               “Ah, there it is,” Wooyoung says quietly, “That’s all I needed to know.”
               You swallow hard, looking at him. “You said your business is gaining steady clients, right? It is only going to pick up from here. It’ll be too much for one person. Let me help.”
               “Are you offering yourself a job at my shop?” He asks, sounding amused.
               “I am. I’m good at my job. I’m sure Seonghwa can attest to that. I can help you.”
               “I mean, you’re right in that I can’t run the store by myself anymore. I’m already getting bogged down by the business side of things more than I’d like. And yeah, your story is similar to mine and makes me feel sympathetic. But I couldn’t pay you anything close to what you’re making now.”
               “I know that. I don’t care. I’ll take a pay cut. I hate my apartment. I’m surrounded by things and none of them make me happy. I’ll downsize. I don’t know what I want to do with my life but I know my job isn’t it. I’d be an asset to your business. And if I don’t work out, fire me. Give me ninety days. I’ll prove it.”
               Wooyoung raises an eyebrow, probably wondering what in the world is wrong with someone that can come into a place of business and sell themselves so openly. But it’s the best idea you have – freedom from the office while working for someone who understands what it’s like to make a drastic change.
               “Just think about it, okay? Let me give you my number. You can call or text me with whatever you decide. But I have somewhere I gotta be.”
               As you rattle off your number to Wooyoung, you pull out your wallet to pay for the necklace. But he gives a firm shake of his head when you try to hand him the money.
               “No, keep it,” When you protest, he cuts you off, “I mean it. You were pulled to that necklace. It’s meant for you to have. Here, I’ll help you with the clasp.”
               Wooyoung goes behind you, helping the necklace lay gently around your neck as he clasps it together. It rests against your skin, light as a feather. Your fingertips brush against the charm and you feel a little more settled.
               “Where is the date?” You ask Wooyoung as he circles back in front of you.
               At this Wooyoung lets out a small laugh. “Oh, you remind me of myself. Going to sort everything out in one day?” His gaze softens. “He’s only two blocks away. It’s a café near the fountain. The one in the city square. Has a mermaid logo. Not like the Starbucks one,” He adds hastily, “So, don’t get confused. She’s holding a green pendant in her hand.”
               “Great, thank you so much.” You want to say more but don’t know how to word anything – not your feelings about Seonghwa nor the fact you are grateful that a stranger has taken such time to help you.
               “It’s fine,” Wooyoung says, sensing your feelings, “You should probably get there before his date arrives. Or it’ll get awkward.”
               You nod, heading towards the exit. As your hand goes to the door, Wooyoung softly says your name. You hesitate, looking over your shoulder at him.
               “Whatever you’ve been too afraid to tell Hwa, say it to him now. You know he needs things stated as cleanly as possible.”
               You nod, taking a deep breath and open the door, stepping back outside into the world.
*
               It takes you a little longer than you would have liked to locate the café, mostly because you make an unplanned stop at a bookstore for something important. But finally, across the city square, where the large fountain gleans in the setting sun, you spot a mermaid clutching a green pendant in her hands on a small sign.
               You aren’t sure what you’re going to say to Seonghwa. The entire day is moving at the speed of light with you making choices that have been lingering in your mind for weeks. There is no speech planned, just like you hadn’t exactly planned asking Wooyoung to hire you at his shop.
               But what else is there to lose at this point? Not only have you been miserable in your job and life for so long that it’s hard to remember a time that you weren’t but now you were at risk of losing the one person who has made you happy. Every moment with Seonghwa has given you joy – and you kept running from it.
               You yank on the door to the café, stepping inside, wishing your hands weren’t full with so many shopping bags. Your eyes scan the interior, looking over the crowd of people by the counter, the small groups huddled at the few tables, and then there is Seonghwa, sitting in the back on one of the couches, idly looking at something on his phone. He’s alone.
               Spurned on by the sight of him, you cut a clean line through the café, pushing through so forcibly that a few people give you dirty looks. Seonghwa doesn’t notice you until you’re standing right in front of the couch and when he raises his head, his shock is evident.
               “H-hey,” He blinks, “I didn’t – what are you doing here? I mean, not that you can’t be here. It’s an open café. Anyone can be here. I just wasn’t expecting to see you,” He stammers out.
               Today, he’s wearing khaki slacks and a pastel yellow button up that is covered in tiny sunflowers. Your heart constricts at how comfortable he looks, how you’ve been tricking yourself for weeks that he is just a friend and nothing more.  
               “I know you have your date here. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to crash it. I just need to talk to you.”
               Seonghwa’s eyes widen slightly. “How do you know it’s here?”
               “Wooyoung told me.”
               Now he looks baffled. “Wooyoung told you?”
               You sit next to him, bringing one of the shopping bags forward. “I googled it but I got overwhelmed and I didn’t know what one to buy so I bought all of them.”
               “What?” Seonghwa asks, peering into the bag before laughing, “What is that? Is that every Thrawn book?”
               “I don’t understand the old canon and new canon thing and you said he’s in both canons so I just ended up buying all of them and now I have like…ten or more books about this dude but I thought about what you said. About reading again. So, I thought I could start here and then we could talk about them. Like…a book club.”
               Seonghwa’s smile is like staring at a diamond glittering underwater; it could blind you if looked at for too long but the beauty of it is rooting you to the spot. “Sure, that sounds good,” He looks a little confused, “Although, did you track me down here just to tell me that? Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you’re so excited about anything Star Wars related but you didn’t have to talk to Wooyoung to learn where I was…”
               I am not doing a good job with this, you think, worried that at any moment his date is going to show up and make things even more complicated.
               You put the bag of books next to your feet, take a deep breath and reach for his hands. He looks startled although to your relief he doesn’t pull away. Up this close, you have to fight the urge not to kiss him on the spot. Whatever you’ve been too afraid to tell Hwa, say it to him now.
               “Seonghwa, I need to tell you something and I am really sorry to dump this on you before your date. It’s selfish of me. And I feel as though I’ve been pretty selfish since we started hanging out. I only started talking to you because of the rumor, I gossiped about you before we started sleeping together and I was quiet when people made fun of you.”
               He still looks confused. “I thought we went over this already. I forgive you for that. It’s okay.”
               “I know, I know. You’re a much kinder person than I am. See, that’s the thing, you’re not…you’re not my type at all. Your interests, how you dress, the things you do with your friends for fun…none of that is ever something I have connected with previously. I think that’s why it made it so easy to fool myself that being around you was an escape from my problems and not something more.”
               He’s fallen silent now and has started looking a bit nervous. Your insides feel as if a bunch of tiny crickets are jumping around but you are determined to see this through.
               “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
               There. You said it. Immediately, a weight is lifted off your shoulders. For the first time since meeting Seonghwa, it is as if you can fully breath.
               You pull your hands away from him, grabbing your shopping bags. “I don’t need a reply. Not now. It’s unfair to have said this before your date and I know that. It’s my last selfish act, I’m sorry. But I couldn’t wait any longer.”
               Standing up, you look down at Seonghwa, who has an unreadable expression on his face. There is a smattering of colour on his cheeks and his hands are clasped gently together in his lap. With his lips softly parted and the thick frame of his glasses bright against his skin, he’s never looked more attractive to you then right now.
               “You’re really pretty,” You say without thinking, “It’s distracting. I have to go now. Oh, I think I’m gonna put in my two weeks notice on Monday. Wooyoung might hire me to work at his shop.”
               “What?” Seonghwa says, dazed.
               “Just…contact me when you’re ready to talk. Sorry again. Bye, Seonghwa.”
               You turn around, weaving your way through the crowd, barely noticing when someone almost spills their coffee all over your shirt. You can’t recall a time when you felt this light. You suppose Seonghwa feels like this all the time.
*
               You don’t hear from Seonghwa at all that night but are too emotionally exhausted to be swept up in it. You’re in bed early, and up by nine in the morning. After making coffee, you try to type up your resignation letter to make it sound as polite and respectful as possible – which is difficult, given that it is going to be handed to Sir Dipshit.
               Close to eleven, your mind begins to wander to Seonghwa. You wonder how the date went. Perhaps you misjudged the situation. Maybe your feelings are stronger than his are. Wooyoung had said he was smitten, after all, not in love.
               But even if Seonghwa doesn’t feel the same, you feel better having just said it to him. Seonghwa going on this date is what broke everything open, made you realize that to keep running and hiding from things would no longer help you, only make things worse.
               There is a knock at the door, jolting you out of your thoughts. You scamper off the couch, opening the door quickly to find Seonghwa at your doorstep.
               He’s wearing an oversized black shirt that says Han Shot First which you don’t understand and aren’t even going to ask about at the moment. He’s wearing jeans today which look good on him. Too good, really. You say a silent blessing that he didn’t wear them into the office because you wouldn’t have gotten anything accomplished. There is a frenzied energy radiating off him and his eyes are wide behind his glasses.
               “Seonghwa,” You say nervously.
               “I ran into that old lady in the lobby. From the other night. She gave me such a stink eye that it felt like she was cursing me,” He blurts out, “I don’t think she likes me very much for making out with you in the elevator. May I come in?”
               You move to let him in, closing the door behind you. He has his hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans, studying your living room for a few seconds.
               “What are you up to?” He asks, ignoring the giant elephant in the room.
               “I was working on my resignation.”
               “Oh, that’s good because I was looking into company policy and apparently you’re not allowed to have any sort of relationship with someone in the same office as you.”
               You walk around Seonghwa to face him. “So, fucking regional managers across the country is okay but not anyone in the local office?”
               “That’s right,” He replies as his cheeks turn a pretty pink, “We would’ve had to keep it a secret if you decided to stay.”
               “Keep what a secret?” You ask coyly, needing to hear him say it.
               Seonghwa takes a small breath before going, “Us being together.”
               “Is that what you want?”
               “Yes,” He says very strongly, “I’ve wanted that – I’ve wanted that for awhile.”
               “That’s why you brought us being friends up in the cafeteria that one day, isn’t it?”
               Seonghwa takes a step towards you, reaching for your hands. You can feel how nervous he is, as if for some reason you would reject him now. “Yes.”
               “I kinda messed that up, didn’t I?”
               “No, you didn’t mess it up. Things are just confusing. Between work and us and…”
               “You’re way too nice to me,” You reply.
               Being this close to him is dizzying. Without denying your feelings for Seonghwa, your body reacts to him even more intensely than before. His own breathing is uneven and he swallows hard.
               “I’m not. You’re just too mean to yourself,” He argues and then goes, “I love you too. I should have said it right away at the café. I was just completely shocked and then you left. Wooyoung told me about you coming into the shop and the conversation you had with him. I understand why you left, your fears about the date. But I’ve known I’ve loved you for a while now.”
               “I’m sorry I stuck my head in the sand,” You reply as your heart races at his confession.
               “Can you please stop apologizing for everything?” Seonghwa goes, bringing one hand to cup your cheek gently, “I’m going to kiss you now.”
               “O-oh, okay,” You mumble shyly and then his lips are on yours.
               The kiss wipes clean all your fears and anxieties, bringing you into the present moment where it is just you and him. Your arms circle around his neck, bringing his body against yours as he leans into the kiss. He is familiar and comfortable. Without the thin veneer of friendship blocking your emotions, the desire is sweeping over you with profound need to be sated.
               “Wait,” Your words are muffled against his lips but he pulls away, looking at you quizzically, “What about the date?”
               “What about it? I was distracted the entire time. I apologized and left early,” He studies your face and then laughs, “Were you worried I slept with them?”
               “Well, I didn’t want to assume…I mean, maybe if you just wanted to…I…” You fall silent, tongue tied, face warm.
               Seonghwa lowers his voice, his hands running down your sides, making you shiver. “I’m too hung up on you to sleep with someone else. I just thought maybe going on a date would help me move past how I felt about you. But it didn’t. I love you too much.”
               The words make your heart skip a beat. This time when he kisses you, you don’t pull away.
*
               It doesn’t take long to end up in your bedroom. As you pull Seonghwa’s shirt off, you click your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
               “I don’t understand your shirt, by the way.”
               “Unbelievable,” Seonghwa replies dryly, “Now that we’re dating, that means you’re going to get a crash course in all thing Star Wars.”
               That’s the last thing on your mind as you trail your fingers down his chest before grabbing the top of his jeans and yanking him against your body. He’s warm and familiar, having been with him enough times now that you’re starting to learn his body like a well worn map. That same desire as the day at the office is beginning to show itself. The only difference is this time you don’t have to question or run from it.
               The kiss breaks so Seonghwa can toss your shirt off, his hands immediately going to grope your tits while bringing his mouth against your neck. You fall back onto the bed, letting yourself enjoy the sensation of his hands on your tits and the way he nibbles your neck.
               “I want to be on top this time,” You declare.
               He pauses for a moment, probably thinking about how large he is and you trying to take his cock. “Are you sure?” When you nod, he continues, “Fine but go slow.”
               “What, afraid I’m gonna hurt myself on your giant dick?” You tease.
               Seonghwa pulls away from you, unzipping his jeans. His face is flush from your comment and you like seeing him flustered. He removes his jeans, leaving just his boxers on as he tugs off your sweatpants and underwear before pulling you towards the edge of the bed.
               “I wanna eat your cunt first,” He says in that hazy voice he only gets when he’s turned on.
               It isn’t like you’re going to say no to such a request given how good it felt the last time he went down on you. Seonghwa nudges your legs apart, his fingers gently spreading your lips open in front of him. You stay propped up, enjoying the sight of him on his knees in between your legs. You like the curve of his neck and his broad shoulders mixed with his slender fingers and slightly flushed cheeks. You like everything about him, really.
               Seonghwa leans forward and flicks the tip of his tongue against your clit without any preamble. Your body shivers in surprise. He brings his tongue downward, slipping past your folds into your hole to taste you. His hands grip your thighs to keep you spread open for him as his eyes close, losing himself in your pussy.
               His tongue swoops back up, across your clit before he starts to flick his tongue across it hard and fast. You realize you forgot to take his glasses off but Seonghwa doesn’t seem to notice nor care. You can feel him pressing a finger into your hole which it takes easily, already soaking wet from the touches he has given. As he finger fucks you, he wraps his lips around your clit and gives it a hard suck. Your hips jolt against his face as you let out a ragged gasp, falling back against the bed. Seonghwa doesn’t stop, slipping another finger inside. You can hear how wet you are, the lewd sounds of your cunt taking his fingers. He switches between sucking on your clit and flicking the tip of his tongue across it.
               As usual, Seonghwa brings your orgasm on hard and fast. Your hand goes to his hair, giving it a sharp tug as your climax begins. You grind your cunt against his face, unable to help yourself as you gush over his fingers, making a mess on his hand.
               He pulls away when your grip lessens, idly running his fingers down your slit. “Forgot to take my glasses off again,” He admits almost bashfully.
               “Did I make a mess on them?”
               “It’s okay,” Seonghwa assures you immediately as he removes them and tosses them onto the bedside table, getting onto the bed, “Open your mouth.”
               You do so and he places his two fingers on your tongue, watching as you wrap your lips around them. For the first time, you let yourself admire how sexy he looks and that he is all yours.
               He seems to be traveling along the same road because he quietly goes, “You look beautiful like this.”
               Gently pulling his fingers out of your mouth, you pull him downwards to kiss you. It’s messy, urgent, and you bite on his bottom lip a little just to hear him groan.
               “Come on, get out of your boxers,” You complain against his lips.
               He pulls away, shifting onto his back, pulling his boxers down to free his cock which smacks against his stomach. You swallow, having second thoughts about trying to sit on this thing. But you’ve taken him multiple times at this point so there’s no way you’re going to stop now.
               “Can I watch you touch yourself?” You ask suddenly.
               Seonghwa looks so shy that for a second you think he might melt into the mattress. “W-what, really?”
               “Yeah,” You shift in front of him, your hands going to his knees, “I want to see how you stroke your big cock.”
               He’s too shy to look at you when he wraps his hand around his dick. You watch quietly for a minute or so at how he plays with himself, taking note of how full his balls are. When Seonghwa seems to relax into the bed a little bit, and not be so shy, you bring your face forward and lick the tip of his cock.
               He grunts in surprise but doesn’t stop touching himself. You gather salvia in your mouth and spit onto his length before brushing his hand away and taking him in your mouth.
               Sucking his cock like you would any other is basically impossible. He fills your mouth up almost immediately, stretching your lips out around his girth. Even so, you still press your tongue against the underside of his shaft, fondling his balls while doing so. At one point, he can’t help himself and bucks his hips upwards which makes you spit up around his cock.
               “S-sorry,” He apologizes immediately as you pull away from him.
               “Don’t be. Actually, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m very good at blowing you.” Talk about a sentence I never thought I’d say.
               Seonghwa laughs at this which makes you feel warm all over. “Please tell me you’re not also apologizing for how you’re giving a blowjob.”
               “I am,” You say firmly, shifting your weight onto him, “But I’ll improve, promise. I’m just not used to sucking dicks as big as yours.”
               “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
               Seonghwa holds his dick as you position yourself to take it. Your hands go to his abdomen as you carefully sink down on his cock. From your earlier orgasm, combined with spitting up on his dick, it goes in a little more easily than you were expecting.
               “Maybe I’m getting used to it,” You tell him as the tip pushes in, exhaling as the sensation of his warm cock enters your cunt.
               Seonghwa seemingly can’t tear his eyes away from the sight of you sinking down on his length. His breathing has grown hard and his hands are resting gently on your hips to help guide you downward. Each little bit of him you take stretches you out slowly, filling you up with his big dick. It feels amazing – each position always feels different in the best way possible with Seonghwa.
               “Doesn’t hurt?” He asks in a strangled voice.
               “No,” You sigh out as more of him pushes into your cunt, “Feels good. Feels really good.”
               You lean back a little, resting your hands on his knees while you bring your hips down to take more of him. You’re dripping wet, so wet now that your pussy seems to engulf his cock faster than it has before. It doesn’t take nearly as long as the times prior to get him fully inside your cunt and when the base of his cock finally hits your pussy, your head rolls back from the pleasure of being so stuffed.
               “Fuck,” Seonghwa curses quietly, “You look good like this. You’re so fucking tight.”
               Tentatively, you move your hips and Seonghwa inhales sharply. You feel close to bursting, filled with his big cock. You start rocking your hips, bringing your hands forward to lay flat against his stomach. Beginning to bounce on his cock, you can’t even wrap your head around how good it feels to have Seonghwa inside you. One hand goes to your clit, playing with yourself as you slowly take his dick.
               “Can you cum like that?” Seonghwa asks, his voice a thin wire.
               Breathlessly, you reply, “I t-think so.”
               “Then cum like that, I want to watch.”
               Seonghwa doesn’t have to make such a request twice. With his dick buried all the way inside you, and your small bounces driving him against your sweet spot, your finger doesn’t leave your clit. It just feels too fucking good to have him like this. Your eyes flutter closed as your finger swirls around your clit, your hole crammed with Seonghwa’s cock. Whenever your pussy tightens around Seonghwa’s girth, he curses. You can feel him holding back from thrusting upwards, knowing that all he wants to do is fuck you silly with his cock.
               “I like how tight and crammed your cunt looks,” Seonghwa groans as he watches, “Keep playing with your pretty clit until you cum for me.”
               Your legs shake a little from the constant movement of your hips but you’re determined to see your orgasm through. You don’t stop, driving your hips downward to take as much as you can. The pleasure pushes you over the edge and you’re climaxing again.
               You can feel yourself gush across his cock, covering his length in your cum and juices. This makes it even easier to sink down on him and Seonghwa snaps, unable to hold back anymore. He pulls you forward, his hands gripping your ass, your face buried in his neck as he arches his hips.
               You take his cock easily now, the new angle already creating intense pleasure before your current orgasm even settles. He pumps his hips, his pace swift as his cock pulls all the way out of your wet cunt before thrusting back inside. The sounds are obscene – your wet cunt from multiple orgasms combined with his precum makes a lewd noise every time he pushes inside.
               His grip on your ass is hard, his moaning growing louder with each movement. You think about how full his balls were before and shiver at the idea of all that cum filling you.
               Seonghwa curses again, ramming his cock deep in your cunt as he begins to climax. You can feel his hot cum unloading in your cunt, squirting against your walls as your pussy milks his girth. Your cunt is so full with his cock that you know his cum is being shoved out with each movement of his hips. You hold onto Seonghwa as he climaxes, taking pleasure in how good he sounds and how he is entirely yours now.
               After he carefully pulls out, he nudges your legs apart so he can see your pussy leaking out his cum. You tentatively bring a finger down, probing your tender folds and feeling his sticky load.
               “Push it back inside you,” He pants and when you do so, he makes a small noise of approval, “I like it better with my load in your hole. Your pussy looks good when it’s all fucked out by me.”
               You love when nerdy Seonghwa turns into someone talking dirty like that. But you’re exhausted now, and your legs are sore from the position. Shifting carefully off him, you collapse onto the bed and snuggle up to him.
               “Nap time,” You mumble.
               Seonghwa kisses the top of your head, not mentioning it’s only a bit past noon. Your phone suddenly goes off. Normally, you’d ignore it but you’re still waiting to hear from Wooyoung.
               As you pull away from him, Seonghwa makes a small noise of protest. You reach over him to grab your phone off the bedside table and unlock it, reading the message.
               “Who is it?” He asks sleepily.
               “It’s Wooyoung,” You tell him, which makes him crack open an eye, “He said he’s gonna hire me.”
               “You two working together…that’s going to be interesting.”
               “In a bad way?”
               “No, in a…most likely powerful and probably scary way.”
               You playfully hit his shoulder, dropping the phone back onto the table and bringing your lips against Seonghwa’s for a kiss. You melt against him, not afraid of the cuddling, or the intensity of the kissing. Not anymore, not with him.
               “Tell me it again,” You say, your chest warm from happiness.
               “Well, I think the crash course in Star Wars will begin with –”
               “You know damn well that is not what I meant!” You exclaim although you’re laughing.
               And Seonghwa is laughing too as he pulls you in for another kiss. “I love you.”
               “I love you too.”
               You rest your head on his chest, marveling at the future of possibilities now that all the changes you were once so afraid of are finally taking place.
the end.
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onlyjaeyun · 6 months
Text
𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍  – 𝟒𝟖
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐘𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓: 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲
⤲ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐋𝐞𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫
⤲ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞!𝐀𝐔, 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝!𝐀𝐔, 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭, 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭
⤲ 𝐰𝐜: 𝟕𝐤 (not proofread)
⤲ 𝐜𝐰: 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐡𝐨𝐥, 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬, 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐦, 𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 (𝐦.𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠), 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥, 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
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"Lee Heeseung, your girlfriend is crying again."
With your lips pressed tightly together, furrowed brows and teary eyes you land a hard smack on the back of Jaeyun's neck, basically fed up with his constant teasing after a four hour flight and having to spend the whole morning listening to his random rambles about physics and the development of the roman empire.
Your boyfriend's ears almost instantly perk up at the mention of your tears and before the barista can even hand him his change he's already busy approaching you with concern grazing his features.
"What's wrong, Baby?" Heeseung whispers the words and leaves a good amount of physical distance between you as you both can feel your brother's gaze following your every movement, only for his girlfriend to push her finger into his strong chest and scold him for being so dramatic.
All you can do is thank her with your eyes as they join Jongseong in the very back of the coffee shop, while Jaeyun waits for your drinks and has finally decided to take a break.
"These are happy tears, my love, I promise", you quickly say and reach for his face, gently caressing his cheek and loving the way your boyfriend doesn't hesitate to move further into your touch, "I just know this is going to do wonders for Wonie's mental health, I've been so worried since our last call."
Heeseung nods in agreement, his own chest still feeling heavy as he remembers the sadness in his cousin's voice throughout the entirety of your phone conversation a few days ago.
Little did either one of you know that your boyfriend and brother had been trying their best to organise a paid internship for you in one of their companies, knowing you had sent in your applications yet again after your first ones had gotten rejected. Once Heeseung got the approval from his boss, him and Hoon had decided to book the tickets for your best friend's birthday weekend because they knew you wouldn't hesitate to quit your job at the coffee shop, therefore clearing your schedule.
Everything happened way too quickly and if it wasn't for the fact you're currently looking at the huge "Welcome to Daegu" banner in the middle of the city's biggest airport, processing it all would have been a lot more difficult.
The thought of working at the same company as your brother, his girlfriend as well as your own boyfriend seemed scary but after talking to each one of them, those worries quickly vanished and were replaced by excitement instead.
And the fact a great opportunity such as this one came with the amazing clearance of your schedule and actually allowed you to be with your best friend for his birthday has been the reason for your overly emotional state these past four days.
Life finally feels good and for the first time in your life you don't have to constantly fight to survive but actually feel yourself living in the moment, mostly thanks to your loved ones.
With pouted lips and tired eyes you look up at your boyfriend and quickly bury your face in his strong, warm chest, the exhaustion from your travel journey finally catching up on you.
"I'm gonna make sure you two will have the best time ever", Heeseung sighs and wraps his arms around your shoulders, "these past few weeks have been exhausting for all of us, this is just a way for everyone to live and breathe a little."
You nod softly and kiss your way from his warm neck up to his chin before pressing your lips against his and the way your boyfriend barely hesitates to push his tongue into your mouth makes you chuckle intot he kiss.
"Calm down, big guy", you sigh and pull away once Jaeyun calls for the two of you, "Ning can only hold back my brother so much, we shouldn't test his patience."
"Yeah, you're right. I'm just glad we're not on the same floor in the hotel because I'd rather punch myself in the face for hours before I go five whole days without fucking the sweetest pussy on earth."
Seung's voice is a mere whisper, yet his unhinged words leave you completely flustered and with a roll of your eyes you bury your face in his neck again and pinch his arm to let him know how little you appreciate his teasing in public. Especially with your brother and their best friends so close to you.
Once the six of you make it to your hotel rooms, the boys decide to take a walk around the city, grab some late lunch and play some basketball in the little court in the kids area of your accommodations to pass some time but also get rid of their exhaustion. You and Ning on the other hand have decided to actually take a nap after a flight this tiring, as you wait for Sunoo, Jungwon's roommate, to finally call and let you know where the three of them had decided to spend the evening.
You didn't want to just show up at his door but rather join in on his plans and once his friend had told you about your best friend's wish to go to a night club, you got even more excited. It's been way too long since the two of you had partied together, however you'd lie if you said you actually went out to a club since moving to seoul exactly six months ago.
Too much had constantly happened, adjusting to work and university, living by yourself and of course the whole situation with your now boyfriend had basically not left any room to party.
You and the girls still occasionally went to bars yet these past few weeks life just felt too exhausting, so you usually stayed at home and kept things easy and calm.
However, now the thought of going to a club with your boyfriend and best friend excites you in the best way possible and you actually can't wait to join the boys.
By the time Heeseung comes out of the shower you've already gotten dressed, and are currently doing your best for the make uo look in your head to become reality, yet as soon as you catch a glimpse of Lee Heeseung wearing nothing but a towel around his hips, you physically can't stop yourself from eyeing him up and down.
"Don't you dare look at me like that right now, princess", he suddenly chuckles and comes to stand right behind you, his body too tall to fit into the frame of the mirror in front of you and at the sight of his pierced nipples you nervously start nibbling on your bottom lip.
"Can't help it", you sigh and take a deep breath as soon as his big hand gently wraps around your throat, his eyes fixated on your face as he remains composed, "you just look so good like this."
Unfortunately, neither one of you gets the opportunity to indulge in a short moment of intimacy, as the vibration of your boyfriend's phone right next to you pulls you both back into the reality and with a soft sigh of annoyance.
"It's Jaeyun, isn't it?"
Heeseung just nods and picks up the call with another sigh before he gives you a quick kiss and goes to get himself dressed.
Once the two of you are ready, it's taking you a lot of patience and self control not to rip your boyfriend's clothes off of him right away, the sight too tempting for your weak self.
But who in their right mind could blame you when it's Lee Heeseung in a black dress shirt, which he hasn't even bothered to button up completely, showing just the right amount of chest, combined with his casual slacks and a leather jacket.
You can't help but stare at him with big, hungry eyes, enjoying the way he seems confident and comfortable in his skin to the point where he shoots you one of his charming smirks and winks every time your gaze meets his.
However, you're pretty sure you've managed to cause the same reaction from your boyfriend, as he seems to struggle keeping his hands off of you.
Your little black dress fits your body like a glove, tight and charming in all the right places and in combination with your little jacket and your knee high boots you know you've got people's heads turning, yet all you care about is the way your boyfriend looks at you.
After about fifteen minutes of arguing how many ubers to order, you find yourself in a car with your boyfriend and his two best friend's, both of them slightly tipsy as they had decided to drink a little before leaving to avoid spending too much money on overpriced drinks and the closer you get to the club, the faster your heart starts beating.
Heeseung's hand remains on your thigh throughout the whole drive and you hate just how a touch as simple as that has already pushed you to the edge of your arousal to the point where you genuinely consider pulling him into the next alley just to get some relief.
But as soon as your phone starts vibrating in your hand and Kim Sunoo's contact name appears on your screen, you feel excitement and anticipation take over.
The second you guys arrive in front of the club, Heeseung's instinct kicks in and despite his best friend's expression of distaste, he doesn't let go of your hand and keeps you as close to himself as possible. He can't risk getting into a fight when his best friends are already as tipsy as they currently are because even if his skills are good, there's no way he stands a chance against a group without his boys having his back.
You calmly lean against the chest of your boyfriend as you wait for your best friend to finally arrive as well and as soon as you spot Nishimura Riki's tall frame get out of the nth uber passing by, a wave of relief washes over you.
Tonight is going to be a good night.
"No. Fucking. Way."
The sound of your best friend's voice sends chills over your body and with a loud squeak you pull away from Heeseung to run into Jungwon's arms, wishing him a happy birthday and taking in the warmth of his body and the comfort his hug comes with.
"You guys are fucking with me right now", he says and looks at you with his pretty eyes slightly glossier than usual, his lips stretched into a big smile until his dimples make an appearance and with a loud chuckle you just shake your head.
"This is literally the best birthday present ever." Jungwon chuckles and you love the way you can actually watch some of the heaviness on his shoulder slowly vanish as he pulls you into another tight hug.
"Then wait until Seungie tells you he's gonna pay for all the drinks tonight", you say and turn around to face said boyfriend with a big smile, not aware just how much he loves the sight of your happiness.
He casually approaches the four of you, dabbing up the two boys really quick before he pulls his cousin into a tight hug.
For some reason you can't help but let your eyes roam his tall figure for the nth time tonight, yet quickly getting it together when Sunoo elbows you in the ribs and starts giggling.
Once everyone hugged each other and Sunghoon proudly introduced the boys to Ning, you finally make your way into the club, your boyfriend's arm firmly wrapped around your waist and you can barely stop yourself from jumping his bones right then and there.
Especially once you guys find a little table to take over in the very back of the club, yet only half of you having space to sit doen and you notice all the girls shamelessly eyeing your boyfriend up and down. You know he's not paying attention to them, yet sudden waves of jealousy and possessivness overwhelm you and as soon as your brother and Jaeyun leave to get everyone the first round of drinks, you jump up from your seat and wrap your arms around your boyfriend's neck.
"They're staring at you", you whisper into his ear and place a soft kiss on his exposed neck, loving the way Heeseung seems to struggle holding himself back as you push your body against his. His grip on your hips tightens and you love how your usually so composed lover turns into absolute putty in your hands within just a few seconds.
"So what? It's you I'm staring at", Heeseung grunts and buries his face in your neck, suppressing the urge to kiss his way down to your exposed cleavage and actually litter your pretty chest in his kisses.
The loud music as well as the lack of oxygen in the club sends you into the sweetest haze of adrenaline and in combination with your boyfriend's addictive touches, you feel yourself letting go of all your worries and doubts that have been keeping you up at night these last few weeks.
"And it's me you're going to fuck tonight, right?" You tease and push your hands into his dark hair, pulling away just enough to look into his eyes, yet having to bite back a whimper at the darkness of his gaze.
"Tonight, tomorrow and for the rest of my life, princess."
His words send your brain into overdrive and with a soft whimper you hide your face in his chest and actually feel relieved when your friend starts cheering in response to their drinks' arrival and with a soft sigh you give your boyfriend one last kiss and pull away, knowing Jungwon's going to pull you to the dance floor as soon as he downs his shot.
You quickly lose track of time as soon as you find yourself dancing to the music alongside your brother's girlfriend and the boys, all of them cheering you on as you give it your all and for some reason you're not as shy as you usually are and you're quite convinced Lee Heeseung's strong gaze lingering on the whole time is the reason behind your confidence.
But it's also seeing just how happy Jungwon is, your worries and thoughts about him finally vanishing from your brain as you wrap as you watch his dance battle with the youngest of the group.
It doesn't take much more for your boyfriend to finally having had enough as he pushes his way through the crowd, completely ignoring all the girls trying their best to catch his attention, only to fail miserably. You welcome the warmth of his strong body in your back with a soft smile, pushing yourself even harder against him, knowing exactly what you're doing to him with every sway of your hips against his crotch, the bulge in his pants essily giving away your effect on him.
Heeseung's hands find home on your waist, his grip as tight as ever as he moves his body along to yours and you can't help but throw your head back against his shoulder when he suddenly starts singing the lyrics of the song into your ear, the experience feeling absolutely surreal and just when you thought he couldn't get any more perfect, you find yourself living yet another one of your daydreams.
The rest of the night is filled with belly hurting laughter, way too much screaming of wrong lyrics to the songs blasting in the club, quite a bit of bickering and stolen touches from your boyfriend. You have absolutely no idea how three whole hours pass by so quickly, only realising how much you've been dancing when Ning finally pulls you to the women's room, her drunk giggles and her attemots of a conversation all while being barely coherent pushing you into another fit of laughter and after about ten minutes of you trying to gatch your breath in front of the mirror, you hear the deep voice of your brother making its way through the door.
"We're heading out, the guys wanna eat some beef and play basketball", Sunghoon screams and can't help but smile when all he gets in response is the sound of your combined giggles, "hurry the fuck up. Seung's about to shut down the club if you two take any longer."
At the mention of your boyfriend, you feel your whole body heating up and with a soft sigh and a nibble on your freshly glossed up lips, you take one last picture with your sister in law and finally swing the door open.
This time it's Jungwon who seems to be a lot more protective over you as he takes your hand in his and guides you through the crowd to the exit of the club, feeling responsible of you while your boyfriend is busy paying for everyone's drinks.
And just as your brother had announced to you, the group makes its way to a barbecue place nearby, hungry and excited after all the dancing, only for your night to end at the basketball court you and Heeseung had found during your last stay in Daegu.
You don't even question where the hell the baskteball suddenly gomes from as you watch your boyfriend and his friends play a few food rounds, the cold february air feeling like an actual breath of fresh air after the lack of oxygen in the crowded nightclub.
By the time your body has finally calmed down from the high of adrenaline, you start processing just how cold it actually is and kind of regret not leaving with your brother and his girlfriend about half an hour prior.
To your luck, Heeseung quickly notices the way your legs seem a little shakirr than just a few minutes ago and with one last pass to the youngest of the group, you finally call it a night.
Different than you expected, neither your or his own best friends insist on leaving with the two of you and as soon as Jungwoon wraps his arms around your shoulders, you know exactly why your usually so persistent, self proclaimed favorite boy has decided to stay behind.
"Don't fuck too much, we've got an early morning tomorrow", he says and starts laughing as soon as your face changes into an expression of horror and without giving him a verbal response you opt for a slap against his chest.
Heeseung pulls you as close to his body as possible as soon as the two of you get comfortable in the back of your uber, his body still slightly cold and for a moment you're worried about his health and feel bad for taking his jacket.
"Are you co-", "I can't wait to fuck you", he suddenly whispers into your ear, casually making you choke on your words.
You instinctively press your thighs together and curse him as well ss yourself for the reactions of your body, yet genuinely enjoying the warmth his words spreads through your veins at the same time.
"Good girl", he whispers and finally starts littering your negk in open mouthed kisses the way he's wanted to do all night.
Watching you enjoy yourself and noticing all the guys devouring you with their eyes has been one of the biggest challenges Heessung has ever had to endure. Every time you denied one of those fuckers the privilege of dancing with you, he felt proud and possessive, the urge to claim you in front of them all taking over every fiber of his being within seconds.
At first he definitely felt a little worried because he's never felt as jealous and possessive over someone the way he does with you, the lack of knowledge regarding his possible reactions worrying him to the point where all he could focus on was to stay as calm as possible. Yet as soon as he saw the way you never once looked at anyone but him, Heeseung knew there's absolutely no need for him to worry. You want him and him only, and you're not shy about showing him off because you're his girl.
Only his.
"Isn't it funny that all of these people think you're this sweet, polite girl who's here to have a good time with her friends when you've been ruining your pretty panties all night thinking about my cock."
His words and their timing are well chosen, leaving you gompletely speechless and overwhelming you to the point where your ploute smile suddenly drops and you shamefully lower your head to hide yourself from the people around you.
Only when the doors of the elevator finally close and leave the two of you to yourselves do you look up at him with big, glossy eyes. A sight Heeseung would sell his soul for.
"What's wrong, princess? Use those big girl words for me, hm? I know you want to", Heeseung's lips graze yours with every single one of his words, his hot breath fanning against your heated skin and sending shivers down your spine.
A jolt of hot arousal shoots right in between your legs and with a soft whimper you grab a fistful of his hair to stop yourself from actually falling to your knees.
"I really, really want to suck your cock", you whisper against his lips and press your body further into his, "please, Heeseung. It's all I've been thinking about."
"You're so fucking cruel", he suddenly grunts and throws his head back in defeat, one of his hands finding home around your throat as he gently pushes you against rhe wall of the elevator, "stop playing with me, pretty girl. You know which one of us wins these games."
All you can do is chuckle because you both know it's not actually him, because as soon as your boyfriend gets a single taste of you, he's a complete goner and at your absolute mercy.
You can't explain what your effect on him does to your ego. You've never felt as loved, wanted and desired as Heeseung's been making you feel and despite being overwhelmed at times you've become absolutely addicted to it.
"I'll remind you of these words when I make you cum down my throat", you giggle against his lips, quickly pull away and decide to run away when the elevator doors open.
It takes Heeseung a whole moment to follow you, your words constantly repeating in his head and sending him into the depths of his arousal, something he's got yet to get used to when it comes to you. Every time you say or do something such as actually using your pretty girl words for him, teasing and playing with him, he has absolutely no idea what to do with himself. Nobody in his life has ever put him in this particular state of arousal; with you every single time feels like a whole new experience and usually ends with the urge to lay the world to your feet.
By the time he actually catches up to you, you've already pulled out your hotel room card, quickly slipping inside the comfort of your privacy and just when he thought you couldn't surprise him any further, Heeseung actually finds himself watching the way you're casually pulling your little black dress over your headc exposing your perfect body to his hungry eyes.
"F-Fuck", this time there's absolutely no way he can hide the intense reaction of his own body to your teasing and you feel your sensitive cunt clench in response to his deep grunt.
"Come here", you try your best to stay calm and composed as you wait for your boyfriend to finally approach you.
Mental images of his pretty cock in your mouth, the angry tip grazing your tits, his cum coating the muscle of your tongue and finally allowing you to indulge in one of your biggest fantasies overwhelm you, yet to your surprise, Heeseung seems to have slightly different plans.
You carefully watch the way your boyfriend basically rips open his dress shirt, exposing his tattooed chest to your greedy eyes, right before he comes to stand in front of you and actually drops to his knees without hesitation.
His big hands find home on your thighs, harshly kneading and groping the soft flesh all the way up to your ass and one of them casually reaching for one of your tits, his touch sending hot jolts of pleasure through your body.
"My face", Heeseung suddenly grunts and pushes your legs slightly apart, his nose deeply buried in your sensitive cunt and if it wasn't for his tight grip you would have lost every bit of balance you've had left, "please, Baby. I need you to sit on my face and cum all ove my tongue. I need it so bad."
Seung's gentle pleading sends shivers down your spine and for a short moment, mostly because of the way his pretty lips had found their way to your needy clit, you actually consider giving in to his request. But after weeks of begging your boyfriend for one thing and that thing only, you're determined to finally make that fantasy come true.
"No", you say and reach for his hair, grabbing a fistful of it and pulling his head away from your body with every bit of self control you've got left and as soon as your gaze drops to his flushed face, you let out a soft whimper.
There's absolutely no reason for Heeseung to look drunk every time he gets the tiniest taste of your pussy. You can't help but admire the sighg of his hooded eyes and parted lips, his whole face tainted in the sweetests hades of pink.
"But–", "I promise I'm gonna let you tongue fuck me to sleep later but I really, really want to suck you off now, Seungie."
Your tone doesn't give it away, yet Heeseung knows it's not really a request but actually a demand; your eyes widened and your hrip in his tight to the point it actually hurts his scalp, so without missing another beat, he kisses his way back up to your neck and turns you both to move himself closer to the bed until the back of his thighs hit the mattress and he has no choice but to sit down.
"Get to it then, princess", Heeseung grunts against your neck and his voice fades into a whimper once your knee gently nudges against the bulge in his pants.
After waiting for so long, you definitely don't need to be told twice and without hesitation you pull the fabric of his slavks down his thick thighs, your hand instantly finding uts way to his rock hard cock and calmly massaging him through his boxer briefs.
"Fuck, Baby", he suddenly whispers and reaches for your wrist to stop the movements of your hand, "I've been dying to fuck you all day, I don't have the patience and stamina for so much teasing."
His confession fuels the fire in your lower tummy, your heartbeat hammering in between your legs and once you meet his heavy gaze, you feel an actual urge to take him into your mouth overwhelm you.
"Is it because of me or because you didn't let any of your pretty little flings suck you off, hm?" Your question surprises him, yet you don't give him enough time to actually reflect on what you just threw in his direction as the sudden feeling of your hand reaching into the slit of his boxers to pull his rock hard cock free from its coffins and with a loud whimper of your name he can't do anything but throw his head back and buck his hips up.
"You're so hard", you sigh and feel your mouth watering at the heaviness of his length in your grip, "that's all for me, right, Seungie? Come on, how about you use your words for me now?"
"You're fucking evil", Heeseung presses through gritted teeth, his eyes rolling intot he back of his head as soon ss the sensation of your pretty lips grazing the wet tip of his cock overwhelms every single one of his senses, "only for and because of y-you, princess. Always and forever."
"Take your phone and call Sumin."
In absolutely no life time would Heeseung have expected you to ask something like that from him, especially not with your lips coated in his precum as you look up at him with those big, hungry eyes he's grown addicted to.
For a moment your boyfriend seems absolutely overwhelmed. Your request, your actual intention behind it, the feeling of your mouth on his cock, the way you're looking up at him and the fact he hasn't had anyone suck him off in actual years too much for his brain to process, whereas his body seems to have a mind of its own as he does as he's been told.
"That's my boy", you chuckle and pull his boxer brief down his thick thighs, littering the soft skin in open mouthed kisses as you use both of your hands to stroke the impressive length of his cock.
"Remember how I asked to never say my name?"
Your hot breath fans against the sensitive tip of his cock and just when you're about to pull away, Heeseung starts nodding frantically, despair and need bubbling up his throat in the form of high pitched whimpers and moans.
"Once she picks up I want you to moan nothibg but my name, okay?"
"F-Fuck", at this point Heeseung's convinced he's going to pass out from hos good you're already making him feel, despite not even getting to the actual event yet, "yes, Baby. Want you to claim me. Show her who owns me, make me proud."
Just as usual his words don't fail to send jolts of hot arousal straight into your cunt and with a soft whine you curse at him for being so casual about things like this when you've been trying so hard to stay composed.
You carefully watch the way your boyfriend dial her number, putting her on speaker and casually throwing his head back with a loud moan of your name as soon as her voice makes its way through the speaker.
With a big smile you finally wrap your lips around his cock and don't even waste too much time, taking as much of his length down your throat as possible.
"Fuck, that's my girl", Heeseung grunts and pushes his hand into your hair, his hips bucking up and theusting his cock a little further into your mouth and the lore his precum coats the muscle of your tongue, the harder your eyes roll intot he back of your head, "there you go, that's it, Y/N."
For some reason it sounds weird to hear your boyfriend use your name but you canmt help but press your thighs together at the raspiness in his voice and with each movement of your head, you can feel the way Heeseung's whole body tenses up just a little bit more.
"What the fuck?"
You don't know if that Sumin's first verbal reaction since your whole focus remains on your task at hand, the feeling of Seung's cock laying so perfectly on your tongue and the tip hitting the back of your throat with each of his thrusts taking over your senses but you donmt even try to hide just how much you love it.
After having to deal with her stupid messages and random calls you've finally had enough. You didn't want to give her the memory of a voicemail, a video or a picture and as you imagine her face of shock and envy, you can help but let out a soft hum with your lips still firmly wrapped around your boyfriend's cock.
"I love you so much", Heeseung suddenly grunts, his lids pressed shut, neck and face completely flushed and from the way his knuckles have started turning white you can tell just how much he's trying to hold himself back.
"My pretty little princess, my everything."
Maybe it's the thought of him being just as into your attempt of claiming him or maybe it's just how honest and genuine his words sound despite his current state of pleasure, yet either way you can't help but pull away with a loud gasp to look up at him.
You never once stop stroking him, the mixture of your spit and his precum enough to make you feel sloppy and as if he could feel your eyes on him, Heeseung slowly opens his own to meet your gaze with a lazy smile.
"Did you hear that?"
Thise words aren't directed at you, but Heeseung confidently refuses to shift his gaze away from your face, gently caressing your heated cheek with his hand before he wipes away your saliva from your chin.
"You're fucking disgusting."
It'd be a lie if you said her response didn't surprise you a little. You kind of expected her to either cry or having hung up by now, knowing she's still listening just boosts your ego even further.
"Thanks", Heeseung grunts and takes your face into his big hands, wordlessly telling you to take a deep breath right before he slowly pushes his cock into your mouth and all the way down your throat.
"F-Fuck, that's my perfect girl. Nobody does it like you, Y/N. You're so fucking good."
You can tell just how much your boyfriend enjoys claiming you in such a lewd and intimate manner, the thought of him being into your possessiveness like this making the whole process of deepthroating him even easier for you and with tears streaming down your cheeks you casually start swallowing around him.
"Oh, sh-shit", his voice is hoarse and raspy from his constant whimpers and moans, a sound so beautiful you never want to hear anything else in your life, "you're all I ever wanted, angel girl. My biggest dream come true, fuck."
As your head slowly starts spinning from the lack of oxygen, your can't help but whimper in response to his sweet confession and just as you pull away to gasp for air, Heeseung's whole body tenses up in a way too familiar manner.
"Look at me, princess. Wanna cum all over that pretty face and then do the same in that perfect little cunt."
Heeseung's words are lewd and unhinged, slmething you've grown way too used to in these past few weeks but for some reason yiu seem to find comfort and confidence in them.
With a soft smile you pull away just enough to look up at him, your lips parted, tongue sticking out and your eyes never once shifting away from his face to make sure you get the best view of his perfect features contorting in pleasure when he finally reaches his much needed relief.
"Fuck you both."
That's the last thing Sumin basically screams into the phone and as if he had waited for her to end the call, Heeseung stumbles head first into the waves of his climax and finishes all over your face without a single touch and your name the only thing to fall past his swollen lips; three thick spurts of his creamy cum covering most of your cheeks as well as your top lip.
"You're fucking perfect", Heeseung sighs once he manages to catch his breath, instinctively collecting his cum from your face and casually pushing it into your mouth, just to lose his mind at the way you seem to genuinely enjoy the taste of his relief.
"But now it's my turn, right, princess?"
You don't know what exactly you've expected when hearing those words, yet your boyfriend pushing your face intk the mattress and eating you out for exactly an hour definitely wasn't it. After your fourth orgasm you genuinely can't hold back the tears any longer; the overstimulation leaving your whole body in a constant state of high pressure and with soft sobs you basically beg Heeseung to finally fuck you.
But he wouldn't be true to himself if he didn't get back at you for your little remarks and comments, which is why your boyfriend is more than just determined to push you into the absolute depth of your pleasure with every single one of his thrusts. By the time you feel like you're actually about to pass out, you've long lost count on your orgasms, whereas Heeseung just gives you enough time to breathe so he can make sure you reach your seventh high of the night together.
And as he realises that you've actually blacked out from the overstimulation, Seungie can't help but smile cheekily, no matter how worried he is. And just as expected it doesn't take you longer than a minute to wake up, drool running down your chin, tears finding their way down your cheeks as you physically struggle to keep your eyes open.
"Petty bitch", you hiss and try your best not to move, yet your whole body cringing at the feeling of his thick cum soilling out if your overly sensitive cunt, "all I did was tease you a little. You did not have to do all of this."
Heeseung throws his head back and lets out a row of chuckles, his whole body flushed and coated in the thinnest layer of sweat, a sight so perfect you actually feel like you're dreaming.
"I love you so fucking much", you whisper against his lips and pull him closer to your body, actually craving the feeling of his skin against yours despite the oast three hours of physical intimacy.
And as Heeseung allows himself to take in the way you're looking at him, he actually feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes; gratitude and disbelief meeting in the midst of his chest when he realises that his dreams have actually become reality.
"I'm so in love with you", he whispers and casually ignores how his voice breaks at the end of his sentence, "my first and only love."
After almost a decade of denying, suppressing and ignoring his feelings, Heeseung has finally found his way home and life has never, ever felt as good as this.
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(A/N: and this marks the last written chapter for poison, i'm absolutely NOT crying (been tearing up throughout the whole writing process) and i honestly dont even know what to say except i hope you guys liked it and know how much i love and appreciate you all. aending everyone the fattest kiss. feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!!!🥺🩷🧸)
TAGLIST CLOSED: @soonigiri @thvhannie @enhaz1 @kpoprhia @abrazosolorcereza @deobitifull @mixtape-racha @certifiedmoa @jungwon-xo @hoonieluv @enhamysunshines @jaehoonii @pussyslayerhd @ineedsomezzz @neocockthotology @heerinnie @onionzzzs @hee-pster @3amstarlight @xxxxrvexxxx @primroselover @mimikittysblog @iea-tsand @lhspeachie @xiaoderrrr @viagumi @smg-valeria @kells5595 @heeseunghee7 @xrvrqs @ddazed-lhs @heebrry @fakeuwus @dammit-jjk @ivyannemarie @thekinkpopstandsforkrackheads @s00buwu
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no-droids · 1 year
Text
Another Rough Day
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gif credit @chrishemsworht
Part Twenty of the Rough Day Series
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 13.7K
Warnings: Angst, violence, canon-typical blood and gore, language, hurt/comfort
A/N: i wanna thank yall for sticking around during my hermit era, in the time ive been gone i am now officially a junior at a university majoring in aerospace and it’s a fuckin nightmare and i hate everything and god help us all literally kill me and I will be posting INCREDIBLY slowly because of that (I’m talkin weeks or months in between updates yall, im sorry I can’t dedicate more time to this but I am going to finish this fic within the next handful of chapters idk maybe 5 or 6 so you shouldn’t have to wait too too long).  As a heads up there will be hard angst as we enter the final arc, there will be hurt and it’ll get dark but everything is gonna turn out alright so thanks for sticking with me and continuing to stick with me. im sorry if you dont like it or your expectations were subverted or if this isn’t what you’d hoped it would be after following and waiting around for so long but this was planned a long time ago and it took me a good year or two to recognize that I started writing this fic for me and now I’m going to end it writing for me and I hope yall can respect that
ALSO I asked my best BEST FRIEND in the entire world @cptnbvcks to collaborate with me for this after we both took a very long break from creating and she drew some GORGEOUS artwork for this chapter so it will be posted at the end, everyone please go follow her and say hello
ps brittany girl you’re a fuckin menace i had to use my own two ears and listen to ethan literally say the words “the mandalorian cums, hard” what the fuck was that im actually suing
anyways chapter below the cut lets get serious yall
---
You take two of them down before they even realize they’re being attacked.
Your aim is as swift and steady as if Din were behind your shoulder right now, calmly pointing out which stationary tree to hit next in rapid succession.  You’re positioned perfectly at the bottom of the ramp to take full advantage of the ambush, the only thing running through your mind is strategy and the constant calculating of angles and ricochets.  The other three troopers are trapped inside the open Crest and you’re right next to a large boulder that you can step behind for cover, but it proves unnecessary as the rumors were apparently true.
They’re… awful.
Not a single blaster is even fired in your direction—you think you see maybe one panicked red shot bounce around in the hull, but that’s it.  The troopers fumble for their guns and trip over each other at the unexpected attack—a few scream like children through the modulators, but you’re temporarily deaf to anything besides the screech of your weapon hitting its target and the crumpling of armored bodies.
Later on, if someone were to ask you to describe exactly what happened—who died first, who ran for cover, who cried out for help—you don’t think you’d be able to.  You don’t even really feel like a person right now.  The entire thing is cold, robotic survival instinct, pure ruthlessness rising in your soul for the first time in your life.  It feels sick.  Wrong in your bones.  Born from preemptive defense in fear of your life, but that doesn’t mean you stop.  Not until all of them stop moving.
You empty the entire fucking canister for a handful of stormtroopers, firing plasma and char marks across every square inch of the pristine hull even after the last one drops.  Your heart is beating too fast, your finger keeps pulling the trigger multiple times even after the blaster clicks uselessly, completely empty and beeping a warning that it must’ve begun emitting ages ago.  Being out of ammo scares you—you suddenly feel vulnerable, even though the very far away logical part of your mind reminds you that they have to all be dead at this point and no physical threat was ever able to graze you.
Regardless, you quickly spin behind the boulder and grab another canister from your belt, giving it a spare check for leaks while the empty one slides and drops to the rocky ground.  It’s the first time you’ve ever had to reload this weapon instead of just pointing and shooting, but the mechanics are relatively simple and your brain makes up for your lack of coherent thoughts with lightning fast perception.  What's difficult is that your hands are starting to shake now that you’re not aiming, you’re not breathing correctly because you’re not really breathing at all.  You can’t tell the difference between the adrenaline-fueled dissociative silence that muffles everything around you or if it really is just that quiet now.  No more clatter of armor, no modulated voices or terrified screams.  No blasters, no footsteps along the ramp, no birds singing.
You quickly pause to lift your elbow and check the enormous eyes blinking up at you, tiny claws still holding tight to the fabric of your tunic and completely unharmed, and then you force yourself to move.  The blaster is held out in front of you while you walk forward and your finger rests on the trigger, begging to be pulled again.  It’s suspenseful and terrifying in a different way than before—now it’s less about psyching yourself up for confrontation and more about the fact that any sudden movement could mean your very swift end.
Silence.  Silence.  You’re numb and raw at the same time, walking up the ramp as your eyes fly everywhere, not even registering the blood or gore, just searching for movement.  You don’t know if you feel like a predator or prey, you’re that much more brutal and inhuman because of how fucking terrified you are.  You count four stormtroopers in the hull laying crumpled and still on the metal floor, but the one in the far corner only has blood on his shoulder.  You quickly swing the blaster around to remedy that, but then—
“P-Please don’t kill me!”
His words remind you of something.  Reality, maybe.  A world outside yourself and the kid’s survival, the living beings behind the bloody armor your enemies wear.
It’s a miracle your finger stays hovering over the trigger, and you watch him throw the blaster at your feet with a clang and scramble to show you his empty hands.  “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me—I’m not loyal to the Empire, I don’t want to be here, please, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die—”
Behind the mask, your expression furrows.  Stormtroopers are loyal to the bitter end, what is he saying?  They embrace their expendiality, it’s the only thing that makes them any sort of a real threat.  Kuiil told you horror stories about them during your childhood, the cloning facilities and the propaganda they’re force fed since infancy.  It’s nearly impossible to find one who hasn’t been raised from birth to serve the Empire, no matter how crumbled and trace its remaining authority may be.
No, this is a trap, it has to be.  Your expression twists with dread after hearing him speak, readjusting your aim with the blaster and preparing yourself for the years of nightmares that’ll follow—but then he cries out, “Wait!” and then removes his helmet with trembling hands.
You pause, staring down at him in shock.
It’s him, you recognize him immediately.  It’s the same face from a hologram puck you bore into your memory, spent multiple days staring at so you’d be able to spot him under any disguise or circumstances.  Oshua Ryler.  Your quarry, the fifth puck, the one Din was out Maker knows where searching for before this entire mess happened.  A stormtrooper?  His puck said nothing about the Empire, this doesn’t make any sense.  What is he doing here?  Stormtroopers don’t have pucks, they don’t have bounties or relatives or loved ones searching for them.  They’re brainwashed, replaceable, faceless soldiers in suits of armor and they don’t even have names.
“Please don’t kill me,” he begs again, staring at you with wide eyes even as he cowers.  “I have a family, I-I just want to go home, please—”
“Shut up.”  You can’t think straight with him crying like that and you’re wasting so much time just standing here trying to process when your brain had to literally shut itself down to even do the things you’ve already done.  You have to kill him and escape, you have to—you can’t trust this complication, not with the tiny claws currently digging into your back and reminding you of your purpose, but it was so much easier when he had on a helmet.  You hate looking at his face.  It’s going to haunt your dreams now, just like the man you stabbed on Corellia.
“Please don’t kill me—please don’t kill me,” he screws his eyes up and breathes over and over instead, and your stomach wrenches with disgust.  His posture and expression are so fucking pitiful, you can barely keep your eyes on him through the overwhelming nausea and aversion that climbs up your throat.  He’s with the Empire, and they’re looking for the baby.  You know what needs to be done.  Pull the trigger, just one small movement from you and it’ll be all over.  It would be the easiest thing in the world, it would be so easy.
But then instead, you ask, “Why are you a stormtrooper?”
“I’m n-not—I hate the Empire—”
“The Empire is ashes.”  You don’t know if you’re yelling or whispering with how much blood is roaring through your ears.  “They hold no power anymore.  Why are you with them?”
“Because the one thing they have left is money!”  The quarry shrills the words at you, ghostly pale to the point of turning green.  “Th-They buy troopers now—they opened up a whole new market for the smugglers, there’s a base nearby that’s used for training and…”  He stares wide eyed at you and gulps.  “C-Conditioning.”
Your brain is already going a trillion lightyears an hour and it doesn’t have the capacity to empathize or understand anything beyond the child’s survival and the relevant details right now.  “Were they expecting the baby?”
“W-What?”  He squeaks up at you.
“Was the bounty put out on you a trap set by the Empire?”  You ask him, lifting your free arm just enough to flash him the tiny child clinging to your side.  “He said they’re coming after the baby, so tell me if this was planned from the beginning.”
“Who is ‘he’?”  The stormtrooper asks, furrowing his eyebrows and looking around.  “What are you talki—”
“Tell me if the bounty on you was a trap to take this baby!”  You roar, your blaster shaking as you aim it down at him.  Your mind is acutely focused on the tiny claws hanging onto your tunic, the continued safety of the kid and the life or death situation facing him that you were given absolutely no information about.  “Now—”
“If it was I didn’t know!”  He quickly cries out, pleading with you and clamping his eyes shut in terror under the barrel sight.  “I don’t know anything about a b-baby, or a bounty!  They just put blasters in our hands and told us to search for a ship and to bring back anyone we find alive, I swear!”
You’re silent for a moment, biting your lip under the mask and caught halfway between discerning and stalling.  You could still kill him.  You should still kill him, time is ticking down and more troopers could be heading this way any second.
Shit.  “Who put the bounty out on you?”  You ask sharply.  It might not be a completely fair question, but he can’t exactly blame you for not feeling completely fair right now.
“I—I don’t know,” he gasps, clutching his bleeding shoulder.  “Could’ve been anyone—my mother, Cyra, o-or my dad, Obediah, or Thia, or Benja, or S—”
“Thia,” you interrupt his rambling, catching the slurred word and repeating it back to him.
“Yes!”  Oshua jerks his head up, tears and hope immediately filling his eyes at the sound of her name, “Yes, Thiadura Celi Ryler, that’s my sister!”
Maker, if he’s lying, then he’s fucking brilliant at it.  You look towards the cockpit of the ship, biting your lip under the mask.  Get to Nevarro, tell Karga and he’ll… something.  Din was cut off before he finished.  Help?  Know what to do?  You’re lost, but you have a clear directive and the precious seconds are sliding by.  The controls are right up there, two steps to the ladder and less than a minute until you’re rising into the atmosphere.
But then you think back to the terror in Din’s voice.  The blistering panic that made him speak faster and with more urgency than you’ve ever heard from him.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.
You look back at the quarry.  “How many of you are there?”
“At the base?  Around three hundred,” he immediately spills.  “Half of us are in the hole right now getting brainwashed, they do it in shifts, but they can be mobilized in a few hours.  There were a lot of bodies outside when we were ordered to split off, maybe a third of our squadron, but the rest were still shooting at whatever was—”
“So around a hundred left,”  You finish breathlessly, almost wanting him to speak faster and cut to the chase so you can calculate quicker.  “How many were dispatched on the search?”
“Uh, there were eight groups of five sent in each major direction,” he informs you, still trembling on the ground.  “Told us not to come back until we covered the entire sector.”
Of which, four you’ve already taken care of.  In other circumstances, you’d be nauseated at the thought, but right now, it’s just another number to subtract, just more panicked math in Din’s frightening absence.  That leaves at least sixty troopers left wherever the base is, minimum, and likely a couple more hours before they’ve combed the sector.  If this wasn’t a preconceived trap purposefully set for the kid, then that means reinforcements haven’t arrived yet but likely will soon.  And if this is a base meant for training and conditioning, then that also means there’s a chance not all of them will be loyal yet.
You make the decision immediately.
“Okay,” you announce, clicking the blaster’s safety switch and holstering it, sounding lightyears more certain than you feel.  “Then you’re going to help me carry out a rescue mission, and I’ll take you back to your sister.”
“You…”  He looks uncertain, blinking at your blaster and slowly lowering his hands.  “You want to rescue the men?”
Ideally?  Sure.  Realistically?  You don’t say anything in response.  Instead, you kick his regulation firearm at your feet further away from the quarry just in case your judgment is flawed, and then turn around and grab one of the bodies behind you.
Your adrenaline is still blaring so fast that you only just barely note the severity of what you’ve just done and what you’re continuing to do.  The corpses aren’t real to you right now, they’re inanimate things that you need out of your ship before you can close the doors to it.  They are, however, heavy as fuck, but the only other adult here has a wound in his arm from the gun on your hip.  Regardless, you have experience with lifting dead weight without a big, strong, capable man to do it for you.
“Help me out here, kid,” you mutter over your shoulder, and in response, you feel his claws dig in and climb up just a little bit until he can peek out in front of you.  Thankfully, the burden is suddenly lifted and you can quickly slide the dead troopers down the ramp with ease.  It takes hardly any time at all—you just yank and haul and release and all four of them tumble the rest of the way all by themselves.
When you stand back up, Oshua hasn’t moved and he’s looking at you with a pale, queasy expression.  Glancing down, you see that your white robe is now stained with streaks and patches of rusty blood.  Instead of swallowing back bile at the sight and bolting to the shower to scrub off every last remaining trace, you breeze past it, noting nothing more than a change of color.  Dirtying your white, pristine clothing with the consequences of protecting this baby—you’d rather have blood-soaked fabric with an unharmed kid clinging to you than any other combination of those things.
“Can you make it up to the cockpit?”  You ask the quarry, kicking his rifle off the ship before closing the ramp and then gesturing up the ladder.  Your voice is calm and steady but your hands are beginning to shake again.  “I need as much information as possible about the base.”  You know that’s where Din is, judging from the wall of blaster screeches that drowned him out through the comm.  Logically, you know you could be headed right into a trap, and every instinct inside you wants to find safety, but… you just cannot imagine flying the ship away from this planet without Din onboard.  It isn’t fucking happening, you’ve made your choice.
Without waiting for a response, you climb the ladder and plop down in the pilot’s seat of the Crest.  While Oshua finds some way to clamber up the steps behind you in bulky stormtrooper armor with one good arm, you hold the kid closer on your lap and begin flight checking.  Din will be fucking furious, but the scolding you’ll be sure to get is the least of your worries right now.  Following his instructions and going back to Nevarro is just making shit infinitely more dangerous for him, turning what could be a potential rescue mission into an undeniable suicide mission.  Even if Karga somehow decides to send a few guild members along to infiltrate the base, it’ll be a war you want to avoid.
Besides.  What did you always tell him about running away from him, even when he instructs you to?
It’s just… not really your thing.
---
They’re everywhere.
They crawl like flies out of the base, and for every single body that falls, three more spill from the open doors.  Rapid fire plasma beams launch from the end of Din’s blaster, melting white armor with every twitch of his gloved finger.  Their aim is terrible, as is to be expected, but the sheer number of them more than makes up for it, as is by design.
Din’s heart pounds with exertion, his breath comes in ragged huffs through the modulator as his helmet identifies and isolates which body is closest to him, which body he needs to bring down next.  His blaster is so hot it nearly burns his hand, even through the thick gloves he wears.  When he runs out of ammo, he holsters the pistol and swings his rifle from around his shoulder, spinning to catch a handful of troopers behind him in the obliterating blast.
He’s not thinking much.  He can’t think, even though your safety and that of his son is currently dangling by a thread.  If he focuses on that, he’ll be dead before he can even picture your faces.  He just reacts, he maims and kills without a single thought in his mind.  Blood splatters, screams and sirens blare as he becomes surrounded by more and more troopers.  Din can hear the sound of plasma colliding and ricocheting off his armor; every single one of them is a potential injury he could currently have but might not even be able to feel right now.
His helmet starts beeping rapidly and he turns just enough to see, highlighted in bright red on the screen, two enormous artillery turrets slowly rising up out of the roof of the imperial base.  He feels a fierce flash of anger burn in his chest, it’s like a lightning strike to his veins.
Din needs to go.
And yet… if he was another man.  If he wasn’t a father, or a husband, if he had no family and no attachments like the creed declared he should, he would go.  With just a twitch of his fingers, he could be launching into the sky and retreating as far away from this battlefield as he could reasonably get.  He’s never been the type to run from a threat, but this isn’t just a threat.  Dozens of troopers are gaining on him, they’re trampling their own dead to get within range.  Plasma pings off his shoulder, another one hits his back as they flank from behind.  He can feel the heat through the sizzling beskar, he can see them surrounding him on all sides, and the propulsion trigger for his jetpack is right there under his wrist.
Din holds his ground and continues firing, he plants his feet firmly to the dirt with only one thought in his mind.
Run, sweet girl.  Run.
---
You type in commands to scan for Din’s signal, quickly locating it through the Crest’s computer onboard.  Not far from here, three minutes or less.  The ship rumbles to life beneath you, slowly lifting off the rocky ground and rotating in place as it hovers.  It’s not on autopilot but you feel like you are, you can barely feel your hands as they move the yoke forward and the Crest takes off in the direction of Din’s blinking frequency.
“Tell me about defenses,” you instruct Oshua, restlessly bouncing your leg while the baby coos.
“Two plasma turrets on top of the base,” the quarry quickly answers.  “There’s usually guards stationed around the perimeter, but everyone who’s capable will be outside right now.”
Your mouth twists downwards under the mask.  Blasters don’t scare you much from this high up, but Din’s armor doesn’t cover every inch of his body, he’s not completely invincible.  Doubt churns in your stomach, but you have to stay focused on one task at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed.  The turrets, then.  “Are they automatic?”
“Manual,” he corrects with a shake of his head.
“Radar?”
“Old.  Only engages above fifty meters.”
You eye your altitude and dip the Crest considerably, beginning to weave through the rocky canyons and dodging crumbling cliffs while you travel.  “What about ships?”
“None,” Oshua says, “except for a passenger shuttle used for transport.  TIEs are flown in the Vesta sector, this base is remote and used for basic training only.”
“Anything else?”  You ask, stomach twisting with the knowledge that barely four questions is all you’ve got.  You’re planning to drop into an imperial base to save the man you love and you can’t think of a single other question?  
The quarry shrugs, and your heart slams, does somersaults in your chest at the mere notion that you could fucking die here.  Today, in two minutes or less, you could die here.  The child in your lap looking over the ship’s front panel with a quiet determination in his eyes could die here.  Din could already be dead—that signal broadcasts his location to this computer regardless of whether he’s still breathing or not.  He could already be gone and you’d be flying the baby right into a trap without knowing any differently.
Whelp, you think while taking a deep breath, some strangely calm existential acceptance beginning to flood your soul.  If he isn’t dead, he will be soon if you don’t make it to him on time.
You immediately lift your wrist and speak into the communicator.  “Mando?”  You have no idea if he can hear you, but you need to try anyway.  Your voice is still firm, there’s a strength to it you don’t feel in your chest, but it certainly sounds convincing.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Try to figure something else out.”
That’s it.  That’s it, improvise until you don’t have to.  Even if you’re lacking confidence, you can at least scrounge up some conviction.  Your arms gain feeling again while you veer the Crest through the stony terrain, the familiar reverberations under your feet begin to fill your body with a powerful sense of purpose.  Your breaths begin to come steady, every falling rock you see through the transparisteel feels like it drops in slow motion, allowing you to evade them easily.  It would normally be stupidly dangerous to fly this low with so many unexpected obstacles and hazards narrowly missing the ship, but considering what you’re flying into, a few boulders seems comical.
“Where’s your helmet?”  Oshua asks out of nowhere, and for a second, you don’t think you heard him correctly.
But then it strikes you all at once what he’s attempting to imply, and the sheer lunacy of the thought is enough to make you laugh while you clutch the controls.  “I’m not a Mandalorian.”
“You wear the armor of one,” he points out… rather fairly, you have to admit.  “You cover your face like one.  You have a blaster that fires Philithiorium, a rare and expensive gas native to Mandalore’s stratosphere, and you’re a bounty hunter—”
“I’m not a Mandalorian.”  Your words are short and cutting, you have a daunting task to focus on and don’t feel like having small talk right now.  “I’m not a bounty hunter, either.”
But then again, Karga made you a member of the Guild, didn’t he?  He handed you Oshua’s puck and said this one is for you to find, and you are technically part of a Mandalorian clan.  All of this seems like it happened without your knowledge.  You may be marrying a Mandalorian, you may wear his armor and mother his child and shoot a blaster with his signet branded into it, but war isn’t in your blood.  This robe was a costume when you first made it, this armor was a relic that was restored as a hobby.  In a sense, it still feels that way.  The mask covering your face lended itself to a temporary surge of bravery earlier, but beyond that, the only thing that’s keeping you moving forward now is your family.  The man you love that may or may not be alive right now, the baby holding tight to your leg while the ship sways and weaves through the stony landscape.
Your eyes quickly flick down to the child in your lap, both of his three fingered hands clutching onto the stained fabric of your knee without moving a single inch.  He’d know, you tell yourself.  If his father is gone, he’d already know somehow.  Din is still alive, and he’s counting on you.
---
There’s too many for Din to handle.
They swarmed him, overpowered his endless artillery with massive numbers and there’s nothing he can do anymore.  The backs of his knees are kicked from behind and he slams down to the ground with a clatter, his sizzling hot blasters are ripped from him, and Din folds his hands calmly behind his back even as one of the stormtroopers barks out, “Binders,” to another one, who disappears quickly in response.  In the meantime, a few of them apparently decide to just attempt holding his arms in place, and their measly combined grip is almost enough to make him roll his eyes under the helmet.  These imperial soldiers are even more pitiful than they usually are, but his silent resolve to stall to ensure your escape is enough to keep him stationary and compliant for the time being.
Eventually, a few voices call out from beyond the crowd and there’s some movement from the back.  Dozens of troopers with their blasters all pointed at him begin to shuffle to make way, careful to keep their barrels aimed at him while a path slowly forms.  The crowd of white parts and a stormtrooper with a singular red pauldron on his right shoulder saunters confidently towards Din as he kneels on the ground.
An officer, he assumes.  Conveniently missing from the firefight, the scanner inside his helmet would’ve caught the change in color and Din would’ve made sure to kill him first.
“Well now, what do we have here?”  Comes his thin metallic voice through the tinny filter.  The officer studies him curiously for a few moments, before slowly looking down by his feet, reaching out one cheap, plastic covered foot to gently nudge the body of a dead trooper on the ground with a sigh.  “What a shame.”
Coward, he thinks, his lip curling with disgust under the helmet.
“This is an imperial training base,” he turns his attention back to Din to inform him when he doesn’t immediately respond, rather stupidly he might add.  “How were you able to find us?”
Silence.  The grip on hands held behind his back is even looser now.  He just tilts his chin up slightly in defiance, the scanner inside his helmet locating each weapon strapped to the man’s body and highlighting it red.  Small text boxes blink into existence under each one with a manufacturer and classification—a BlasTech E-11 rifle, a Merr-Sonn thermal detonator, a Kolvo vibroblade—and Din is severely unimpressed with the quality.  The detonator is the only weapon that even catches his eye, and that’s only because the chamber inside that houses the explosive baradium has a release mechanism that’s completely dead.  Useless, then.  Good to know.
After a long moment of quiet tension where Din refuses to speak and the officer continues to confidently scrutinize him, in some strange sort of silent battle of egos that only one seems to have a genuine interest in, another stormtrooper makes his way to the front, shoving past his fellow soldiers to address the superior in charge.
“Commander, we’ve sent out an alert for an intruder,” he tells him, slightly out of breath from running through the crowd in the lightweight armor.  Din wants to roll his eyes, but what he says next makes him snap to immediate attention.  “The fleet informed us that Moff Gideon is currently on route.”
Gideon.  The last time someone spoke that name, it was a quarry on Coruscant and you just barely managed to stop Din from suffocating the bastard for even saying it aloud before freezing him in carbonite.  It would’ve meant half the return on a hunt that lasted nearly a month but he saw red and his hand was crushing his windpipe before he realized what happened.  But he’s dead, Din thinks with a clenched jaw and fists tightening behind his back, he watched that TIE fighter explode and slam into the ground, crushing the man inside it.  The wreck was unsurvivable, he can’t be alive.
“For what?  This Mandalorian?”  The trooper in charge scoffs in response, and Din remains completely mute.
“Yes, sir,” the other one confirms.  “Orders were to capture him, alive.”
“Hm.”  The officer turns his attention back to him, less analyzing and more musing while he tilts his head.  “I see,” he eventually says, and he sounds like he’s grinning, before strolling slightly closer as Din stays completely still on his knees.  “He must want the beskar.  I’m sure it’s worth more than this entire battalion combined.”
All of a sudden, a gloved hand carelessly catches the rim of his helmet and tugs, and Din’s movement is explosive.  He launches off the ground, arms easily slipping from the pathetic grip they were being held in and his fist colliding with the side of the officer’s flimsy white helmet, the plastic making a deafening crack against his face.
Multiple hands immediately rush forward to grab him and yank him back down again while the commanding trooper stumbles backwards in shock, and Din amicably drops to his knees and folds his hands behind his back once more like nothing happened at all.
“Binders!”  A trooper behind him roars loudly once more, and a few men surrounding him begin trotting away this time.
The officer in red stands a few feet away from him now, grabbing his helmet and twisting it back to its proper position on his head where it was skewed.  There’s a shattered hole near his jaw where the material splintered and busted like the cheap piece of banthashit it is, and while he might normally feel pleased with himself for being able to see his skin peeking through, it just fills him with more righteous fury.  It’s such a punchable jaw.
After a few awkward moments of silence, the other one clears his throat and continues.  “He… has inquired about the location and status of a child that should be accompanying him.”
Din inhales deeply through his nose and grinds his teeth.  He wants to snap their necks one by one for even just mentioning his son, but there are just too many, more than even his whistling birds can neutralize.  Still, he gave you as much of a head start as physically possible.  You should be rising into the atmosphere right now, making the jump into hyperspace towards safety.  Karga will know what to do—he’ll protect his family, separate you and the boy so the threat is evenly dispersed instead of collected all in one place, and arm dozens of trained hunters to keep watch over you both individually.  It’s the best Din can do, and it’s the only thing keeping his knees planted on the ground and his body completely motionless while they continue speaking.
“We are combing the sector for a ship with as many men as we can afford to lose,” the trooper in red says, but his voice filter is shattered and now sounds like a puny little droid with a broken voice box, “but our numbers are unimpressive.  Assistance may be required.”
It’s too late, Din thinks, mouth twitching under the beskar with a satisfied smirk.  They’re wasting their time, looking for a ghost.  You’re both long gone by now.  They’ve got no idea you even exist—
“He also spoke of a girl.”
And then he feels his heart stop in his chest.  Every single cell in his body turns to fire, it’s a fucking miracle he doesn’t move a muscle in response.  His sweet girl, the one so far removed from the nightmare of the Empire that she made best friends with the orphans of it.  How the fuck did he know?  He shouldn’t even be breathing, let alone gathering information about you, how did he know?
But then Din thinks back, remembering your makeshift bed on the floor, your panicked eyes and heaving chest as the quarry taunted him with a sick little smile.  Who’s this, Mando?  She’s just darling, isn’t she?  Does Gideon know your crew has a lovely new addition?
“A girl?”
The trooper nods.  “Moff Gideon insisted that if the Mandalorian did not have a child with him, then a girl would likely be protecting him instead.”
He’s going to kill them, Din decides.  Every single one of these imperial pigs, every single soldier standing right now is a dead fucking man.  The blood pumping through his body suddenly turns to acid, deadly black hate poisoning his soul.  His heartbeat morphs into a war drum, the armor strapped to his limbs is the barrel of a gun.  He’s going to fucking kill them and leave an imperial base full of bodies to greet his old nemesis upon his return, and he’s going to enjoy every single second of it.
Except, then—
“Mando?”  The sweetest voice in existence suddenly crackles through the earpiece under his helmet.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Figure something else out.”
And, as Din kneels there in surrender, surrounded by a crowd of enemies he thought he destroyed long ago, all the anger—all the fury and defiance and murder surging through his veins—suddenly morphs to fear.
The emotion is so foreign and old to him, it feels like a face he barely recognizes and a name he can’t remember.  He’s panicked before.  He’s been in situations where a threat has made him blind with rage, he knows what it’s like to look death straight in the eyes and say that he’s busy and to come back another time.  This is different.  This is ice cold that freezes over beskar.
He can’t speak out loud to warn you—he can’t move his hands to press the button on the back of his helmet and allow him to talk without detection.  There’s plasma turrets on the roof of the base, he can see them right now.  The helmet’s scanners say they’re manned and engaged, and though he is outside and this is how you retrieved him before whenever he needed a quick escape, he has fifty fucking imperial blasters trained on him and you know absolutely nothing about this threat.  You’re flying right into a war zone and if either you or his son dies, he won’t ever be able to forgive himself.
Behind the helmet, his eyes fly to each and every trooper, wondering which blaster will be the one to do it.  Which weapon is going to be the one he can’t block in time when you descend, the one that’ll kill him right in front of you.  Which turret will be the one to obliterate the Crest with you and his son inside of it.
“Maker, where are those fucking binders—” he hears someone behind him snarl, but the white noise of pure terror roaring through his ears drowns them out.  His chest starts heaving against his will, sheer panic begins to blur his vision.  For the first time in his life, his armor feels too heavy, his lungs feel like one of these boulders are sitting on them instead of beskar.
All too soon, his helmet starts making a familiar sound that signals quietly in his ear, alerting him of an incoming ship, and the only thing he can physically do is count down the seconds to prepare himself for what is to come.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…
Like lightning, Din breaks the grip of multiple troopers and surges up, tackling the officer in red to the ground.  There’s a clatter as they both slam into the rocky floor, but in the ensuing scuffle, he easily snatches the thermal detonator from his side holster and holds it up for everyone to see, before pressing the red button on the front and hearing it begin to beep rapidly.
---
You’re right on time.
The Crest rises up through the rocky cliffs surrounding the base and you spot the turrets you were warned about.  Weapons controls are already engaged and you’re too low to be detected by radar—you fire once, twice, and blast both of them to smithereens from behind before they can even rotate around to target you.
Alarms start wailing but the guns are destroyed.  It’s not comforting, though; blasters won’t touch you up here, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fire at Din on the ground.  Your eyes dart across the sea of white, looking for a flash of silver anywhere, and then you spot him instantly in the chaos.
For some reason, the troopers in his vicinity all seem to be bolting away from him.  Their rifles are down, clutched in their hands while they nearly fall over each other to run away as fast as possible, and your heart soars when you spot his jetpack firing up.  Din launches into the sky while another trooper is revealed underneath him, seeming to juggle something in his hands and then throw it into the crowd of retreating soldiers, but the sight of the man you love rising into the air while a flurry of blaster shots from the far edges of the imperial structure follow him gives you the confidence to immediately turn the guns down towards the horde of troopers.
“Which ones are in charge?”  You ask Oshua breathlessly, who leans forward and points out the transparisteel.
“Red pauldrons—” he barely has time to say it before you aim and fire at one of the troopers wearing red that was closest to Din, the plasma beam launching from the Crest so powerful and devastating that it outright obliterates the surface he’s laying on.  Pieces of shattered armor fly and a smoking crater of rubble is all that’s left behind, but your mind is whirling and you’re already onto someone else wearing red at the edges of the complex, and then two more near the doors, and then another—
To their credit, you think the sixty or so soldiers in training seem to figure out that you’re not aiming into the enormous collection of them.  If you were, the damage would be catastrophic and spraying everywhere, but you’re precise and meticulous with your shots, and the only ones who are loyal enough to the cause to hold still and raise their blasters at the incoming threat tend to be the ones you need to mow down anyways.  The rest of them scatter in all directions, scrambling over each other to escape and then disappearing into the distant boulders surrounding the base—but you notice that not a single one of them runs back inside the safety of its open doors.
The hull dips with the weight of Din dropping in, and relief floods your soul even as you continue raining hell down on the superiors in charge.  Any flash of color you see is a target, your eyes lose focus of everything, your vision blurs and turns monochrome as you just search for red.
“Lift up!”  You hear Din’s voice roar from the hull.  You can hear his rifle unloading through the open door.  “Now!  We have to go now!”
You press the button to shut the hull door with Din inside and punch it, rising so fast that the shove of gravity makes it difficult to keep your head up.  Through the sudden surge of downward force, you just barely manage to raise your incredibly heavy arm to push the button that pressurizes the Crest and ignites the launch boosters, preparing the vessel for space travel.  Outside the transparisteel, the gray sky begins darkening as the atmosphere eventually disappears.  The ship’s engines roar, burning so much fuel at once that you’re actually accelerating through the climb, you’re boosting through the gradual ease of gravity as the planet’s curvature and glow becomes softer and softer below you.
As soon as the blackness of space begins to fill the windows, the slight subsiding of force allows you to plug in the coordinates for Nevarro with less difficulty, but you’re still moving, still rising, still escaping.  You can’t find it within yourself to slow down, but then something catches your attention.
Claws suddenly dig sharp into your thigh, sharp enough to sting and cause you to wince, and you look down to see that the kid has gone incredibly tense.  Deadly tense.  Your heart is still pounding even though you’re away from danger, you’ve got Din in the hull, everyone is safe, and yet—
It flickers into existence all at once.  One second it’s just space, just the endless depths of nothingness spread out for light years in front of you, and within the blink of an eye it’s suddenly there.
A star destroyer.
Your body freezes in horrified awe, having never seen a ship so fucking big in your entire life.  It looks like a massive satellite, the size of an enormous asteroid instantly appearing in your vision and dwarfing the vastness of space around it.  All the stars you used to dream about are suddenly blotted out within a fraction of a second, terror so immense seizes your soul that you stop thinking.  You stop calculating, you stop being yourself for a split second that lasts an entire lifetime.
Before you can move a single muscle, the computer beeps quickly and lurches the Crest into hyperspace.
---
The stars streak across the transparisteel like so many times before.  Utter silence nearly deafens you with how abrupt it is after so much noise, but the peace it used to bring does nothing to quell your fear.  Everything is the same as it always was, same bursts of light as you hurdle faster than it towards Nevarro, same quiet, same rumbling hum of the ship.  But now, everything has changed.
You hear the quarry next to you suddenly inhale and exhale loudly, and it shocks you a little bit, reminds you that there’s a person next to you and another is on your lap.  Other people exist outside of the vision of death that just flickered out of existence just as quickly as it appeared.  They’re breathing, Oshua is shakily unbuckling his seatbelt, life is continuing on in the quiet cockpit but you can’t seem to move like he is.  You can’t seem to breathe like he is.  It’s only when the baby slowly maneuvers himself around on your thigh and blinks up at you, placing a tiny hand on your stomach that you finally feel air enter your lungs.
After a moment, you reach down and click open your seatbelt with trembling fingers, scooping the kid up in your arms and slowly attempting to stand.  Everything feels wobbly and dreamlike, you have to brace yourself on the headrest to prevent yourself from falling back into the chair again.
“That was…” Ryler mutters, his voice sounding foggy and distant, “uh.  A close one.”
You look over at him, recognizing that he’s speaking but not quite able to understand the words right now.  Red catches in your vision, and you blink down at the way he’s clutching his left shoulder, the smear of blood darkening the white armor he’s wearing.  You blink a few more times at the sight of it, and though it feels like you normally would be sickened at the wound, somehow shocked out of your state of shock, it does nothing to you.  When you look back up at his face, his expression seems strangely grateful, even when it’s screwed up in what you know must be excruciating pain.    You did that, a quiet voice whispers in your mind, even though the rest of it seems incredibly blank.
Instead of responding, you stumble a few steps over to the ladder, spinning around and hesitating for a moment.  You’re severely lacking in coherent thought, but one thing seems to break through.  You’re not sure if you have enough coordination to do this safely right now.  However, when there’s movement in your peripheral and you look to see Oshua gently offering his right arm to you, seeming to understand you’d like to use both hands for this, you snap back to your senses just the slightest bit and hug the baby tighter to your chest.  Carefully, you begin making the slow climb down the ladder with the kid, still trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline.  Your limbs feel extra heavy, but eventually the floor meets your feet.
Din is standing there when you slowly turn around, armor gleaming and still as a statue, but he has his back to you.  His helmet is tilted down at the ground, and when you follow his gaze, you’re met with the sight of the bloodstains of dragged bodies that leave dark red streaks all the way up the ramp.
You feel something this time.  It’s… cold.  A burning, searing cold that creeps into your skin.  Like your heart decides to pump nitrogen through your chest instead of warm blood.  You did that.
There’s a sudden urge inside of you to speak, to address him and inform him of your presence, tell him everything is okay, everything worked out, but you can’t find it in yourself to say a single word.  You can’t find a single word to say.  The kid twists as best he can in your clutch, his ears drag against your chest to greet his father, but for some reason, there’s still a strange sense of fear in your bones.  It’s enough to wake you up slightly, it’s enough to tell you it’s not over yet.  There’s a terror in your heart that hasn’t left since he first called over the comm and begged you to run, a crippling dread that you thought climaxed after seeing that star destroyer appear, but it’s somehow only increased after laying eyes on him like this.
You watch as his helmet turns, slowly meeting the pauldron on his shoulder, and for some reason, you feel yourself harden.  Your feet brace against the metal floor like this is another threat you have to face, you let its unyielding metallic strength transfer up through the souls of your boots to your heart in your chest.
But the second you hear cheap white armor clatter as the quarry steps down the ladder behind you, Din bursts into movement.  He suddenly spins and storms up to you in one single step while catching your holstered blaster on your hip.  It’s out and aimed in the blink of an eye, and it’s a miracle you remember how to speak before he remembers how to kill.
“Mando—” you warn, just in time for the quarry to land on the floor of the hull and turn around to reveal his face.
Din holds there for a second, his helmet locked on Oshua’s features.  His gloved fingers twitch wildly on the trigger of your gun held over your shoulder, like he has to remind himself multiple times not to.  You hear Oshua’s armor clack while he likely raises one good arm in surrender, but then Din’s helmet moves a fraction of a millimeter to your face and holds there.  He just stares down at you, and the air feels heavy, your body feels heavy, the feather light child in your arms feels heavy.
Slowly, he lowers his arm, lets it fall while he continues looking at you from behind the visor.  You look back at him, unblinking, unfeeling, and there’s a few seconds that last an utter eternity where nobody moves.  Nobody speaks, nothing happens, but then a soft coo comes from your arms before you can finally break eye contact, knowing there are still some things that need to be done.
You eventually turn around and lift your chin to address Oshua.
“You have to go into carbonite,” you inform him quietly.  Your voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from outside of yourself.  “We’re taking you to Nevarro, and then you’ll be transported to your home planet. When they unfreeze you, your sister will be there to collect you.”
He looks uncertain, one hand still raised while the other hangs uselessly at his side, and you don’t blame him.
But you also don’t feel like saying anymore, not unless he decides he doesn’t want to go in willingly.  Normally you might’ve tried to empathize, offer him further reassurance beyond just a couple short sentences, but you don’t.  Speaking feels difficult, thinking feels difficult.  You’re still in survival mode, not active but reactive.  There’s also no reason for you to lie to him about this, and you can see him glance at Din standing silently behind you, who hasn’t moved a muscle.
He eventually nods and you walk him over to the chamber without another word, watch him turn to face you as he backs into the opening while you reach up towards the control panel.
But then there’s a moment.  One where you hesitate slightly, one where your vision flashes back to the sight of those bloodstains on the floor, and that burning cold fills you again, so cold it feels completely numb.
“I’m… sorry,” you whisper quietly to him, though your voice sounds so empty.  There’s so much emotion that should be there but isn’t, so much regret and pain that should break through but can’t.  “I’m sorry I… killed your friends.”
Later, you’ll think about how you felt absolutely nothing saying it.  Your heart doesn’t constrict with remorse at the mere words leaving your mouth, guilt doesn’t flood into your soul, pain doesn’t wrack through your bones.  You could’ve been saying anything at all and nobody would be able to tell the difference.
He blinks at you, flicking his eyes between yours for a second or two, but then you press the proper button and watch the gas quickly freeze him where he stands.  He’ll be conscious the entire time, but Karga will send him to the correct location and you have no doubt that this elemental purgatory is leagues better than where he just escaped from.  It’s a benefit being the last quarry to be retrieved—he’ll only have to spend a few days trapped in here before being reunited with his family.
When that’s done and Oshua is a complete statue in front of you, bulky white armor now colored a dull metallic gray and frozen in time, you will yourself to finally turn around to face the enormous mountain of a presence behind you.  The baby gently reaches out for him, but Din doesn’t move from where he’s stood.  Your blaster is still clutched tightly in his hand, and he isn’t looking at you.
Slowly, you walk over and stop directly in front of him in the middle of the hull, blinking at him while the helmet subtly moves to lock onto your face.  The kid begins wiggling in your arms, making soft impatient noises while you both stand in complete silence across from each other.
After a few moments, you hear him flick your blaster’s safety on by his side and then toss it carelessly to the ground.  It skids along the floor, light enough to be mostly quiet.  Gloves reach out as he carefully takes the kid from you and settles him in the crook of one arm, and then he looks you up and down, still not saying anything.
Your eyes follow his movement, watching his arm slowly reaching out to you, and you think he’s going to cup your jaw, or brush your hair back.  Give you some sort of physical reassurance since he hasn’t spoken a single word of it.
Instead, Din suddenly grabs the armor clinging to your chest and starts ripping it off you with one hand.  It clangs to the floor so loudly in the silence of hyperspace, the kid’s ears twitch and flutter with each shattering bang.  You hold still while he does it, you barely respond except the unavoidable movement your body experiences as the pauldron is yanked from your shoulder and thrown against the ground.  The ammo belt is tugged over your head and hurled away, the thigh braces are snatched from your legs and they clang to the floor, and the pearly, opalescent fabric revealed underneath is stained in dead man’s blood, rusty and in such great quantities that it shows up as brown instead of red.
“Are you hurt?”
He sounds… dead.  So monotonic that you can’t possibly gauge his emotional state.  He doesn’t move.   His fists don’t clench, he says every single word like it means the same exact thing as the last.  If nothing at all was a person who could speak, they’d use his tone of voice.
“No,” you eventually whisper.
The helmet nods once, and then he spins around and walks away without anything else.  Without saying anything, without touching you, or double checking you for injuries in case you were lying.  You stand utterly still while Din climbs the ladder with the kid cradled in one arm, and you don’t even flinch when the door to the cockpit slides shut behind him.  You have no idea how long you stand there in the splitting silence afterwards, numb and unmoving.
You feel… nothing.  Absolutely nothing.
The hard defenses you strapped to yourself today to reconcile the things you had to do are still high and strong, guarding your soul even if he stripped away your physical armor.  Self preservation is still animating your body, and your facial expression barely changes.  Your first thought, as soon as you remember that you can have one, is that there are things that still need to be done.  Tasks to complete.
Alone, you shower the lingering traces of blood off your body, the normally clear and refreshing water running a sickly, toxic brown.  Alone, your stomach rolls and suddenly decides to empty itself of the very little that was in it as the scalding drops rain down over you—mostly liquid and bile that easily rinses down the drain.  The water is too warm, it beats down on you like blazing hot sand pelting your skin in the desert.  You feel like you did those first few months with Din, where the silence was suffocating, where you’d only interact with the baby if he was on a hunt or if you could tell he didn’t know how to calm him when he was fussy.  If you were in hyperspace, you usually spent time by yourself in the hull while he lived in the cockpit, and if he decided he needed to be in the hull for whatever reason, then you’d trade places with him.  It was… isolating.  Lonely by yourself.  The quiet used to haunt you before it became your cherished friend, but now it’s a betrayer, a ghost that whispers memories and nightmares in your ears.
When you finally finish rinsing the blood from your skin and get dressed, you see the sheets that used to make up your bed now have fried holes in them from your charred plasma marks, the inside of the hull is covered in them and the trails of dried blood where you dragged the bodies down the ramp.  Your armor is still strewn about the hull, the kid’s hovering shield lays dead in the corner.  Everything you meticulously cleaned and organized and collected and created, now the scene of a bloodbath.  One committed by your hand, your blaster still laying uselessly on the floor forever linked to this atrocity.
You spare a glance towards the ladder, but you don’t want to come face to face with Din yet.  You already knew he’d be furious, but… you had hoped that he’d at least…
What?  At least what?  Comfort you?  Coddle you after you deliberately ignored his instructions?  What exactly, in the past year or so of learning Din’s inner workings and intricacies, would ever give you the impression that he’d come give you a big hug after you purposefully defied him?  You flew the kid directly into an imperial base after being told to protect him, you ignored every order he gave to you in the moments he thought would be his last, and though you did it to save his life, you have a feeling that Din has never valued his life even a fraction of what you do.
The misery stabs at your soul, but your mind is finally beginning to process things logically.  He’s alive, the kid is alive, the quarry is secure, and you’re all onboard the safety of this ship hurtling through hyperspace where nobody, not even the Empire, can touch you.  You weighed the consequences before making your decision, you did what you had to do.  If he wants to be mad, then he can fucking well be mad and you’ll find some way to comfort yourself.  At least he’s here being mad, at least he’s alive and safe and breathing and mad, and your rare act of disobedience is to thank for that.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize it’s probably easier than it should be to reconcile the punishment.  Right now, you welcome the exclusion, the negativity and sorrow beating itself into your soul.  Four innocent people died today on this ship, gunned down under your blaster while they panicked and ran for cover.  You keep hearing their screams.
So you start to clean up the hull, needing another task to focus your thoughts on.  You work to erase every inch of the evidence of your deeds, make it disappear like the pool of blood Din once cleaned up while you were sleeping and never acknowledged again.  You only allow the bloodstains to fuck with your head for a single moment, and then you swallow back the nausea until you’re a blank slate again and sink to your knees with a rag in your hand.  After that, your vision stops focusing and it just becomes red contrasting against gunmetal gray, and you work tirelessly to get rid of all remaining traces of it.
Then you start on the blaster marks, you need them gone.  After a few informed attempts at mixing cleaning chemicals, you find one concoction that allows you to wipe them away like they’re nothing more than dirt that got tracked in.  The Crest’s oxygen recycling system works overdrive to constantly purify the air so you don’t get high or pass out, but your nose still stings.  It’s fine, it’s sterile, it burns a bit but it smells sharp and metallic and keeps you hyper focused on the task at hand.
After that’s done, you pick up the charred blankets and ball them up to throw into the trash vent.  You don’t feel anything as you do it.  You don’t think about how long it took you to collect these over months and months of being stuck on this ship, how comfortable they were when everything else was industrial and rigid, how many nights you spent with Din curled up in their softness while he breathed easy and warm.  Sheets are just luxuries, they can afford to be lost.
Next, you gather your armor and wipe it down with the rag, put it away along with your blaster.  The stained robe goes in the trash, along with the sheets and the blood soaked cloth you used to clean everything.  They’re all ruined, you’ll never be able to make them right again.
The hull is sparkling clean when you decide to take another shower.  Nothing on you is dirty except your hands, but you feel filthy.  Wrong, cold, numb, cold, stained, cold.
After scrubbing your skin raw under the water and changing clothes again, since you don’t really know what to do with yourself anymore, you slowly climb the ladder to the cockpit, keeping perfectly silent.  When you reach the upper platform and come face to face with the closed door, you can just barely hear Din’s whispered voice speaking quietly to the baby beyond it.
You raise your hand for a moment, hovering your knuckles over the metal, but then it eventually falls.  Instead, you look over and spot the corner, the same corner Din bunched himself into when he snapped at you for even suggesting going on a hunt with him, blew up at you for the mere notion of something happening like what happened today.  You back yourself into it in defeat and slowly sink down on the floor, resting your head against the metal and hugging your knees to your chest since you don’t have a tiny baby to take their place.
You can’t sleep.  You don’t even try, it’s pointless.  The concept feels foreign the longer you sit here by yourself.  You don’t hear Din or the baby anymore, but you feel… so fucking awful that it’s fitting that you don’t knock or go looking.  You don’t want to hold that sweet child with hands that were covered in blood just a few hours ago.  You killed more people than you can count on your fingers today, and of the ones who had done nothing wrong…  They screamed like younglings, ducked for cover and were able to fire off one single useless shot in the mayhem before you closed their eyes forever and left their bodies to rot in armor that wasn’t ever their choice to wear.
You didn’t know they were kidnapped and smuggled and forced into that situation.  You couldn’t have known, but that isn’t the point.  In this case, knowing doesn’t make one bit of difference.
You also can’t face Din yet, not like this.  You don’t want him to see you cowering, shattered with guilt over the decisions you made under pressure.  How will you ever get him to forgive you for not listening to him when you can’t even forgive yourself for the result of your choices?  Din is a hardened man who grew up in blasterfire and bloodshed, just because you love him doesn’t mean he’s going to magically become someone he isn’t.  You’re here letting guilt sink sharp claws into your chest over four dead men when he had a good fifty or more corpses scattered on the battlefield around him.  You decided to wear that armor, you decided to fly into an imperial base with the kid on your lap, and this is now your penance.  You’ll accept it with your back straight and your chin held high.
Figuratively, of course.  Physically, you’re smaller than you’ve ever been.  Crumpled up into a ball, taking up as little space as possible, curling up as tight as you can like an animal protecting all your vulnerable parts during a brutal attack.
So, since he isn’t here to comfort you himself, you just try to think about what he would tell you.  A long time ago, what would he tell you?
Din would tell you… that you killed someone.  Multiple people, this time.  He’d also tell you that it doesn’t matter what he tells you, what you could have reasonably foreseen or what you should have done.  The end result won’t change.  You own this now.  You’ll carry their deaths with you.
You take a few deep breaths, self-soothing with the undeniable truth that would be murmured matter of factly from his quiet voice.  He wouldn’t argue with you.  He wouldn’t deny the decisions you made or the consequences of them.  It happened, and at the end of the day, you either learn how to handle that, or you don’t.
And, for the four you did shoot, you were responsible for freeing ten times that amount.  You’re responsible for reuniting Oshua Ryler with his family, even if your place in yours is momentarily shunned.  You’d rather be out here alone than in there with the kid, wondering where his dad is or if he’s even still alive.  You rescued Din and now he gets to be here to shut this door on you, hold his son, and whisper calm reassurances to him.  If you listen really hard and imagine, you can pretend they’re for you, too.
That’s it.  Focus on them both, alive and well together.  Focus on the bodies wearing white armor that were moving, the ones that were bolting away from the imperial training base as fast as they could, free from the torture of imprisonment and conditioning.
Finally, you close your eyes and slip into unconsciousness.  It’s not a testament to your exhaustion, but rather just how long you’ve been left to sit here by yourself.  Hours, maybe.  Time is strange in hyperspace.
You dream of a faceless man ringing bells.
---
When you wake up, a small baby has been placed in your arms, and you’re being dragged into a strong, secure beskar hold on the floor.
“Din,” you suddenly lift your head as soon as you’re conscious and nearly bonk it into solid metal, apologies rising in your throat before you even remember where you are.  You did what needed to be done to keep your family alive and together and you’d do it a thousand times again if necessary, but that doesn’t mean you won’t apologize anyways.  After the deeds you’ve committed today, regret feels as natural on your lips as speaking your own name.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know you’re mad at me but I—”
“Shh,” he whispers, running his gloves through your hair.  He’s still wearing his helmet, he hasn’t taken anything off yet.  “Don’t say anything.  Just… stay here, stay right here with me.”
“I tried to save you,” you croak, tears instantly flooding your eyes.  You did save him.  You saved him and the baby and yourself but you’re so physically and emotionally exhausted that all you can recall is your intent.  “I tried.  Wasn’t gonna leave you there by yourself.  I tried to be brave, like you—y-you wouldn’t have left without me.”
His arms tighten around you, cradling you in such a strong embrace that you burrow into him, you find a place for your head on the hard metal strapped to him and bury yourself there, wishing that you had shovels of dirt being piled on you to justify the death you still feel staining your soul.  Your heart is starting to pound now that you’re remembering, your body is starting to shake with tremors of shock now that you’re aware of your own skin again.
“I was so sc-scared, Din, I didn’t—didn’t know what was happening,” you lament through watery eyes, gasping it out in hopes that it’ll relieve the slightest bit of the gut wrenching guilt just mercilessly crushing you.  It caught you before you could protect yourself against it, that armor you built around yourself isn’t on when you first wake up.  “I-I didn’t want to kill them, but they were already on the ship and y-you said—you said they were coming after the kid s-so I had to, I had to—”
“Stop,” Din whispers, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him.
“I-I cleaned up the blood,” you turn your face against the cold beskar to let all the positives you listed for yourself before scrape across your throat.  They don’t sound comforting anymore, they just sound like excuses.  “It’s gone, it’s like it never happened, everything is okay now, I got the quarry, I protected the baby, I saved a bunch of people, you’re both safe—”
“Stop,” he chokes out.  The modulator cuts off before you can hear his next breath, but you feel it shudder under your body.  “St-Stop it, please.”
Your eyes clench shut so tightly you feel like the streaking stars outside are behind them, tears drop down against his pauldron and you press your face tighter to it like it’s a wound, like the pressure will somehow ease the bleeding.
“Listen to me,” he says very quietly, and you instantly brace yourself.  The walls you just let down shoot right back up, your body physically tightens in preparation for another pain, another trauma, another scar you’ll carry, and you stop shaking.  You stop breathing, even when his hand comes up to ease your face away from his armor.
“You,” he whispers, holding your chin so you’re staring right at him, and your eyes flick fearfully in between his behind the visor, “are a sweet girl.”  Din’s leather thumb brushes along your skin, dragging over the tears below your puffy eyes.  “Not,” his voice catches, “a Mandalorian.”
Your heart goes cold.  Again, everything turns numb.  It doesn’t matter that you already said this yourself out loud earlier today.  It doesn’t matter that you acknowledged this fact, verbally insisted it more than once to hammer home the truth and felt some sense of comfort in it.  For some reason, hearing the words from his mouth is a fucking knife to your chest.
“I taught you how to fight, how to shoot a blaster,” he murmurs, thumb catching every single tear that continues to fall as he speaks.  “I taught you everything I know, everything that’s been taught to me.  I taught you how to defend yourself, how to protect yourself when you’re in danger.  I gave you your blaster, I gave you my armor, I gave you everything I could give you to keep you safe.  And when I thought you were ready, I let you loose on Sanctuary II.  Do you know why I did that?”  The helmet tips forward the slightest bit at the question, probing deep into the most shattered part of your heart.  “After all those months of fighting, and shooting, and training, do you know why I told you to run?”
You blink silently at him, a shaky breath quaking through you, and your expression wants to crumple under the reprimand.  You’re so fragile right now, taking hit after hit after hit to the softest parts inside you, and you want to just give up.  Let the guilt and remorse take you, let it wash you away.  But then, instead…
There’s a flicker of something inside you.  Something strong, endlessly strong, and it makes you want to revolt against what he’s saying.  It replaces the hurt and fear and desperation for comfort with a strange sense of insurgence, like it did earlier when you were hiding behind a boulder, cowering and trembling and not wanting to die.  You’re filled with a quiet urge to defend yourself in the face of this, stand up for yourself and refuse to be beaten down any longer.
“Because you needed to know how to escape danger,” he answers himself when you don’t.  “You needed to know how to disappear, how to outsmart any pursuer and find safety, even the trained ones.  Especially the trained ones.  Anything else was meant to be your last resort.  Not your choice.  Not something you chose.”
“I couldn’t leave you,” you admit to him quietly, voice shaky and tears still coming even as you try to speak up for yourself.  The regret you carry has nothing to do with this, and you decide right now that you won’t feel bad for saving him.  Your hurt comes from the meaningless things, the ones without any need whatsoever, not the necessary ones, and you tried.  You repeated his words to yourself over and over again, told yourself to run, told yourself to get to Nevarro, and it wasn’t going to happen.  “I couldn’t do it.  It wasn’t a choice.”
“It was,” he tells you.  He says it softly, whispers it like it’s the gentlest thing in the world, but the power and inherent distance of the armor strapped to his body finds its way into the words.  “And it was the wrong one.”
“What was I supposed to do?”  You ask, just a hint of that rebellion swimming to the surface now, rising out of the waves of self doubt, the one that feels like a spine growing in your back, an energy coursing through your veins that makes your heart start to beat faster.  Din’s hand slowly drops from your cheek but you don’t care.  “Was I supposed to run away and just let you die?”
“Yes.”  It’s quick and blunt and completely emotionless.  Delivered like a punch to the vulnerable parts of yourself he taught you how to protect, and the utter silence following this single word is comparable to the physical pain you learned to defend against.  It jabs hard against everything good and sweet and tender inside of you, and you’re left speechless even as he continues impassively.  “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”
It takes a second, but then that unfamiliar feeling suddenly surges up, breaches with the power of an entire ocean.  Your voices may be nothing more than whispers in the dark, you may be clinging to each other, holding each other with the softest, gentlest love in your hearts, but the strength of your conviction on this would rip metal apart.
“No.”  The word holds the might of your entire being, and it stands alone and defiant in the face of everything you fear, everything that threatens you, him, and this child.  Never.  You’ll die before that happens.  “I love you, and there’s nothing in this galaxy that would ever make me do that.  Not fear, not danger, not the Empire, nothing.  Not even you.”
Din stares at you.  His visor reflects your hardened expression back to you, the force in your soul and the purpose in your eyes, and you don’t even realize the gravity of what you just said because like your love for him, gravity is a constant.  It’s a fundamental truth cemented into the rules that govern your actions and it stays true no matter where you are, no matter what terror you face, or how scared you become.  You have him, you have this little boy in your arms, and if that’s all you have, then you have everything.
After an eternity of this, of feeling his eyes pierce deep into you from behind the helmet while you refuse to wither under his stare, you watch him slowly turn and look down, landing on the sleepy child tucked between you both.  He holds there for a long time, before finally whispering, so quiet that the modulator barely picks it up, “It was the wrong choice.”
You stay quiet.  It happened.  What’s done is done, you can’t change the past.  He can scold and reprimand you about this as much as he wants, but you did the right thing and that decision is the only reason he’s even here to be able to do so.  This exhausted child was reunited with his father because of your choices, and this exhausted father was reunited with his child.  You won’t argue anymore, but it’s a certitude that lives deep in your heart now, builds a home there right alongside the both of them.  Din eventually looks up, his eyes find yours again behind the visor, and his hand rises once more to gently cup your jaw.
“I… thought I’d enjoy seeing you in my armor,” Din finally whispers.  It’s not what you expected, but his voice sounds… weak.  Broken.  “You wore mine once before, and it was…”  He brushes his thumb along your cheek, and then his head shakes slightly, pushing the thought away.  “It wasn’t real.  It didn’t fit.  It dwarfed you, it made you look out of place, it made everything soft and innocent about you stand out.  I liked it because it wasn’t real.”
“Was it… really that bad?”  You whisper back, partially to ease the tension just slightly but quickly breaking eye contact with him when you realize it doesn’t land correctly, it just sounds self conscious and sad.  You try to find that conviction again, that strength and assurance that propped you up so sturdily before, but…  Not a Mandalorian, he’d said.  Of course not.  Of course not.
“It wasn’t the armor.”  Din gently tugs up on your face so that you look at him again.  “It was you covered in blood.  It was you purposefully putting yourself in danger.  You killed multiple armed soldiers of the Empire, you dragged their bodies off the ship.  And then you flew into an imperial base, where you killed the officers, too.  You…”  He shakes his head slowly at you while speaking, and although you can’t see his face, you don’t need to in order to hear the horror in his voice.   “You… collected a quarry… in the middle of a massacre, sweet girl.”
Not a Mandalorian.
“You don’t chase down bounties,” he tells you.  “You don’t fly into war zones.  You don’t kill imperials, you don’t collect quarries, you don’t sacrifice yourself, or our son, to save me.  You said you tried to be brave… like me.”  His fingers tighten against your cheek, he dips his helmet to make sure you understand.  “I’ll never ask you to be brave.  I’ll ask you to survive.”
“I’m… sorry,” you finally whisper, and his arm drops from your cheek to join the other in wrapping around you and holding tight.  They hug you and squeeze, encasing you and the baby in a beskar shield and staying there for a long time.  Long enough for you to tuck your head back into its proper place under his helmet, long enough to start to feel okay with the silence again.  It brutalized you the last time you were surrounded by it, it made you feel alone and desolate and barren inside.  You greet it warily now, settling into it for an unknown amount of time until it’s forgiven once more.
After a while, Din quietly breaks it.
“How many?”  He murmurs to you.  You already know exactly what he’s asking, there's no more clarification necessary on his behalf.
You slowly close your eyes and think back to the smoldering craters, the blood soaked ramp, the fear in Oshua Ryler’s eyes as he begged you not to kill him.
“That didn’t deserve it?”  You ask, clenching your eyes tighter at the memory.  “Four.”
And maybe, maybe six or eight months ago, you would’ve begged for some guidance on how to reconcile that.  Hell, maybe a few hours ago, you could’ve used his arms around you exactly like this, his low voice repeating the same things he’s already told you before, over and over again, if only for some semblance of stability when everything feels turbulent and uncertain.  You’ll never be able to change it, though.  This belongs to you now.
This time, all Din says is, “I’m sorry, too.”
And that covers everything.
The silence envelops you both again, but… there’s something else.  Something that still sits deep in your worries, an image that isn’t a scar of what’s happened but a dread of what’s to come.  You need to tell him.  You don’t feel like saying it, you don’t want to speak it aloud for fear of bringing it into existence, but you need to tell him.
“Din?”  You breathe out, and he makes a soft noise in his throat while cuddling you on the floor.  “I saw…,” you whisper, every word sitting tight and reluctant in your throat.  “Right when we made the jump, I was looking through the window and I-I saw…”
“A star destroyer.”  He says it like… like it’s the worst thing in the world and also completely expected at the same time.  He says it like he already knew, yet can’t even imagine.  You lean every bit of your weight against him since you can’t hold him in return, squish him as best you can against the small corner and curl up even tighter in his arms for comfort.
He takes a deep breath, a shuddery sound you don’t think you’ve ever heard him make before.  It holds untold anxiety, unsaid conflict, uncertain action, an unknown path forward.
“I don’t know what to do,” Din eventually whispers to himself, to you, to the baby in your arms.  His voice is barely a breath through the modulator, his fingers digging into your skin with how many emotions he’s repressing.  “What do I do?”
He sounds so distressed that you automatically feel your soul find the floor—instantly, you become steady and calm and you locate all that rationality that kept you going today.  All your worries still twist deep down, all the guilt and the turmoil wrestles with your soft, easy nature until you can only find bits and pieces of it in the most vulnerable places inside you, but if he’s struggling this terribly, then the least you can do is offer some good, true, unwavering faith in times of uncertainty.  You’re in hyperspace, everything worked out, and it’s going to stay that way for right now.  If he doesn’t know how to talk about it yet, then you trust him enough to wait for him.
“It’ll be okay,” you tell him with a newfound confidence and purpose, carefully easing the baby into one arm so that the other can find its way to the other side of his helmet and pull him closer.  Din tucks his head and allows you to brush your lips against the metal, whisper the words soft and steady to him.  “We’ll figure it out together.”
---
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@cptnbvcks thank you so much for the incredible art!
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kiaxet · 11 months
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So it turns out the latest update in @somerandomdudelmao‘s apocalypse comic has been living in my head, and when that happens I need to get it out, so ~900 words of sad it is!
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Donnie is good at birthdays. He has been once he was old enough to understand the concept. It's a point of pride.
Specifically, he's good at presents. According to his data, most people who fail at presents do so because of the guesswork they seem to think needs to be involved. He's never understood the point of that. Data and hypotheses, certainly, but why guess when a definitive answer is available after a simple direct inquiry?
"What do you want for your birthday?"
Early on, the presents are easy. Art supplies. Comics. Stuffed animals. Things he could hand to Papa in an easily followed list format, or obtain for himself once they all got old enough to start safely leaving the lair and venturing into the city above. It's simple and straightforward and so, so easy to get right.
(Of course, he always has an annotated list of his own desired gifts to provide to his brothers; if he's solved the guesswork issue, he may as well make things easy for them too. Plus, that method ensures he gets what he wants.)
Things start getting a little more complicated as he and his brothers get older. Art supplies and comics and stuffed animals are still very much appreciated, and he's documented his brothers' tastes well enough to know exactly what they like, but the answers to his simple direct inquiry are different.
"Dee, can you help me plan this mural out? I think I have enough space, but I could use a hand with the measurements."
"Donton, my half of the day is gonna be a Jupiter Jim marathon, and I need you there. Without your laptop." A beat. "But you can pick one of the movies if you want."
"Hey Donnie, you think you can help me out fixing up the gym? Things just stay put longer if you weld 'em."
After a few years of documentation, Donnie spots the pattern. His brothers appreciate physical gifts from him, certainly, but that's not what they want anymore. What Donnie's family wants from him is time - time outside the lab where he spends a good amount of his days, time spent in conversation or shared activity or simply in the same room. It's not as easy as finding the right physical gift, but if that's what they want, then he's more than happy to provide. Now that he's discerned the pattern, it's just as easy to give his brothers what they want, and Donnie can continue to maintain that he is Good At Birthdays as a point of pride.
~~~~~~~~
The Hamatos don't do birthdays anymore. There's no time in the apocalypse, no supplies, and Donnie is one of the few who actually keeps track of the calendar date. The apocalypse certainly has its share of anniversaries, a list that only grows the more people they lose, but birthdays are no longer celebrated.
With one exception.
Casey Jones Junior, their collective adopted kid, is young enough that birthdays still matter - should still matter. They do their best to keep him safe and keep those days calm and happy for him, despite everything happening around them, and while they don't always succeed, they at least try.
And damn it all, Donatello is still good at birthdays.
"Casey Junior!" He greets the kid with a grin, leaning on his bo like it's not both an inconvenience and a humiliation to need to rely on it in order to stay upright.
"Uncle Tello?"
"Since I'm not very good at guessing, I'll ask straight out." This is not entirely true - he has a list of potential gifts for Casey drafted, with 98% certainty that whatever Casey asks for will align with one of them - but he requires that confirmation to move forward. A certainty in a world where certainty is in short supply. "What do you want for your birthday?"
"My...ah." Casey's expression falls and he looks away, gaze fixed on the paperwork in his hands. Donatello says nothing, pointedly ignoring the elephant in the room in order to give Casey space. "You...can do anything," Casey starts.
"Pretty much, yes." Material issues aside - spirits know he'd have a cure for whatever the Krang had infected him with if those weren't a concern.
"I want you to stay alive," Casey says, and Donnie's smile freezes in place as Casey looks back up at him. "Can you do that?"
Damn that two percent uncertainty.
"Ah. Of course." He shrugs, as though he doesn't know exactly what Casey is asking for, and pulls up a holographic display of a calendar. "According to my calculations, I will be alive next month, which means I'll be here for your birthday." Not talking about it won't solve the problem, but it may salvage this conversation. "So! What's an actual gift you want?"
"I want you to be here." Casey's gaze finds a point on the floor, and Donnie falls silent. "Not just for a month."
No. No, he needs something concrete - something he can act on - he knows how long his list of responsibilities is, but he still feels stymied, rushing up on the end, and he needs something he can do- "But it's not a gift," he replies, a last-ditch effort he's fairly certain is bound for failure-
"No. No, it is."
As always, all Donnie's family wants from him is time.
And now, at the end of his rapidly-shortening life, it's the one thing he can no longer give them.
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aimasup · 13 days
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Spoilers for The March 2024 Welcome Home Update, LONG post warning:
The Eddie Scene
Let's establish two realities: The Neighbourhood (theirs) and The Show (the humans').
(The third is ours, here, actually real, no black gunk and Welcome Home is just a really cool fictional horror project. Irrelevant, just wanted to bring us down to earth)
I like to believe it's an unaware Wreck-It-Ralph situation: The Neighbourhood exists as The Show because that's how they live and what they were created for.
They have a happy home in the commercials and episodes, interviews with humans and playfully leaning on the fourth wall (via Narrator). And when Playfellow Workshop had a really good influential show, they quite literally brought these puppets to life, perhaps too much.
That's where the trouble comes in; we don't know if the puppets being sentient was ever revealed to the public, or what the black rot even is yet. Personally I can't really even guess how much the other puppets know at the moment, not even Home. All we know is that Wally was the first to 'wake up', likely.
So I'm just gonna say what I think about the Eddie segment at the end of the commercial compilation from his perspective alone (bravo to the voice actors and artists my god).
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The Neighbourhood...
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The Show.
Here's what I assume: both in the Neighbourhood and The Show, Eddie is being given a break from working so hard. Because I believe the script/special was supposed to end here:
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Eddie Dear was happy.
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[calm jazz music as the title card fades in] And a Happy Homewarming to one and all! Ho Ho Ho!!
End.
Because it makes no sense why The Show staff would spend extra resources to give the puppet Not Quirky Anxiety and end their Christmas special on a worrying note for general audiences.
I think The Show staff wrapped up that scene and left to go check on the rest of the set or something, and the Eddie puppet was left there, alone in Wally's room set because its job is done. Except it isn't, and Eddie became aware somehow.
He sees Home, his friend, and something isn't right
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I don't know what this is: my first thought was that it was Home's hand crank, and Eddie was seeing but not understanding the puppets behind the scenes
"Sources say, however, that this puppet’s (Home's) eyes could move through a hand crank on the other side of the prop facing away from the camera."
-(welcomehomerestorationproject.net)
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His friend's eyes look dead but they're moving, I thought. But looking at it again, it looks more like a microphone stand a Show staff is holding? Some sort of set equipment. Speaking of the set
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Wally's room is too big and leads to nowhere. Is this a visual representation for Eddie's mental state? Did they literally turn the lights off on set? Or can he not see everything right now because his poor fictional brain can't handle our reality just yet?
His hands are fuzzy but there's something in them. Something was under his skin just now. They don't feel like his hands.
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"Eddie was a live-hand puppet who required two puppeteers to operate."
-(welcomehomerestorationproject.net)
I imagine he's in a limbo of awareness, he's seeing so many things and not quite understanding what they are, and he's getting more lost and panicked
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Can you imagine how overstimulating it must be to go from a clean, happy children's fantasy reality to a world with the laws of physics?
The clock's ticking doesn't quiet down and it's constant. He's sweating when nothing is wrong (?). Gravy was poured on the tree ornament, he's always helped do that, but now it's dripping onto the floor and it's making a gross mess. Little things like that don't have consequences unless the script calls for it. Eddie doesn't know that, and especially he's freaked out by the breathing and the heartbeat.
Maybe it's Home's, or his own, or both, idk.
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What's curious is that Frank and Sally are fine and talking about the day's events. This means that Eddie should've been fine after the episode too, relaxed like normal, but he didn't get to. He probably didn't even know when they got there or when Sally left.
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This image right here? I think it symbolises the scary clash between both realities by now.
2 (Eddie and Wally) or 4 (counting Sally and Home) out of 9 neighbours being aware is too many. Frank wasn't supposed to have to comfort Eddie. The episode was supposed to end and Eddie can see all of it.
(and yeah maybe romance is an additional factor here)
We don't know if people remember seeing this scene on their televisions. Maybe the episode ended as normal for them. The cameras weren't rolling, so currently, we only get to witness the puppets' descent into decay because someone behind the television is Letting The Neighbourhood In, bit by bit.
Maybe we'll get to see all the other puppets go through the same awareness crisis as the website keeps updating. Personally, I don't think there's an ulterior motive for Home, nor do I think any of the puppets are under strict supervision to behave a certain way for filming episodes, like celebrities.
What freaks me out is that they banter with the narrator and do commercials for real products. They're aware of the fourth wall but only because the fourth wall let them be aware. And it even got me thinking about the nature of existing as a concept (they're fictional characters. they don't really exist? Not in the same way individual humans do anyway. They aren't really supposed to belong to themselves.)
Sorry this turned into ramble rubbish, these are just my thoughts, could be entirely wrong about everything. Welcome Home is just super neat and the amount of effort gone into it shows. Lemme know what yall think, kudos if you read this far
For your troubles 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍯🥛🍵☕🍶
Extra note: I don't think they require the puppeteers to function outside of episodes either. They just live their lives chilling, don't even know there's a Show. Maybe there's an explanation but for now I'm content with 'it's magic'.
That being said I've seen other theories about the peas and the isolation of Eddie specifically those are real neat
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piratefishmama · 2 months
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I keep seeing that lunch table scene in my head where Eddie jumps up on the table, only now it's with his wings stretched out magnificently and when Steve walks in and sees it he just drops his jaw and his lunch tray, standing there dumbfounded at his beauty.
The first time Steve sees Eddie’s wings spread to their full size, was in the parking lot after school. Usually, he kept them tucked in at school, it’s a thing, a rule made just for him, because he’s the only one there with wings, a few adults around town have them, but he’s the only one in Hawkins High with wings.
So the rule is for him, no spread wings on school property. And he’s usually pretty good about sticking to that, mainly because there arent many places he can actually stretch his wings out within school grounds. Basically he just about manages in the gym, the cafeteria, out on the football field, and in the parking lot.
It’s Hargrove that causes the first flare out Steve witnesses. Picking on Jeff, the other guitarist in Eddie’s little band, and Eddie’s just there, between them both, wings spread out in clear threat, the gust of wind that rapid unfurl of feathers kicked up knocking stray leaves and dirt all over the place, making himself as big as physically possible because Hargrove is a psychopath and he’d rather intimidate than actually fight.
It works. Kind of. Billy decides it’s not worth the hassle of getting feathers in his hair, and takes off, but not without yelling that it's not over.
Steve can't get it out of his mind no matter how hard he tries. He’s not the only one of course, many are a little in awe of him, but… they aren’t important.
The second time was in the lunch room. Not intentional he almost slips, during one of his little rants, feathers knocking trays all over the place, trailing through food much to the disgusted complaints of his friends and he slips on something and wings are out, a solid beat of them knocking everything flying.
He does right himself using it, staying upright on the table, but it really fucked up everything on the other side of the room.
Steve walked in just to see the chaos happen, watched it all unfold with wide eyes, Eddie stumbling, the wings unfurling and flapping, the tables are strewn about, some of the kids are on the floor, the trays of food are everywhere and oop. It’s a big mess. But Steve cant take his eyes off of those wings, they’re stunning. It’s hard not to be awestruck by it, even with the carnage they’ve just caused.
And the third time, that really seals the deal, is a drama production.
Something Robin convinces him to go to, not very hard to do when all she had to say was Eddie’s gonna be in it, because lmao of course she knows he’s a little obsessed. But Eddie has a scene, one scene where he’s on that stage, wings spread out wide, the lighting shining down on him, he owns the stage, he’s beautiful, and Steve is very much a goner.
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