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rosaren2498 · 7 months

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Forgotten and Discarded - Part 4

WARNINGS: SMUT MINORS DNI 18+ More Semi Self-cest, Oral Sex, Cum Swallowing, Anal Rimming, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Multiple Orgasms, Dirty Talk, Creampie

I almost forgot to post this. I had a rather long day at work, so it is later than I intended. Hope you enjoy! @seiya-starsniper

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It only takes 3 days for Morpheus to come up with a plan to show Nightmare that he appreciates everything he’s done. It takes even less time to implement his plan. It is almost too easy to suggest that Lucienne searches the borders of the Dreaming and to send Matthew on an errand that will make him feel useful while also keeping him busy for more than a few hours. When they both are gone, he relaxes into his throne and focuses on his connection to Nightmare, reaching out along the bond before plucking at it like a taut string; he feels the call ring all the way down the bond and shudders with it.

Within seconds, Nightmare is standing near the top of the stairs leading to his throne, looking up at him. With his eyes wide and his mouth slightly parted, it is difficult for Morpheus to resist closing the meager distance and devouring his mouth. Instead, he gestures for Nightmare to come closer and when he stands directly before his throne, Morpheus reaches out to take his hand. He brushes his lips over the inside of Nightmare’s wrist, briefly smirking at the gasp that leaves Nightmare’s mouth.

“You have done much for me. Since I returned. You have shown me. Pleasure that I’ve never known. But it is. So much more than that. You have provided a. Safe space. Somewhere I can. Go, when I need to relax, when I need to let go. You have. Cared for me, and you have loved me. You have given. All that you have to give. I am. Aware enough, to know that it is a gift to be cherished. And cherish it I do. Though I know it to be. Unnecessary, I would ask for permission. To give in return.”

Nightmare stares, blinking slowly at him. He holds still, lips still pressed to the inside of Nightmare’s wrist; he must resist the urge to let his tongue slip out. Nightmare swallows - and isn’t it interesting to see so many human gestures – before speaking.

“You are correct, it is unnecessary. But if you would give something, I would be a fool to turn you away. What do you seek to give, my King?”

Morpheus flashes a grin and surges to his feet, Nightmare’s wrist falling from his lips so he can instead devour his mouth in a possessive kiss. He swallows the moan Nightmare lets slip, sliding his tongue along his bottom lip and pushing inside the moment Nightmare opens to him. One hand tangles in Nightmare’s wild locks, the other gripping his hip and pulling him flush against him; Morpheus growls at how hard Nightmare already is.

He trails nips and kisses along Nightmare’s jaw, slowly turning them around as he goes. When he reaches Nightmare’s throat, he bites, grinning sharply when Nightmare’s hips jerk in response. He lathes his tongue over the bite, placing a gentle kiss over it before pulling back to look at Nightmare’s dazed expression.

“Everything.”

Morpheus gently pushes Nightmare onto his throne, dropping to his knees in front of him before he can respond; he smirks at the audible hitch in Nightmare’s breath. He slowly trails his hands up Nightmare’s legs, parting his sheer robe as he goes until Nightmare is bare before him, cock standing at attention.

“Beautiful.”

He grins at the shiver that travels down Nightmare’s back at the praise before licking a stripe up the underside of his cock, enjoying the choked groan Nightmare releases. He goes slow, wanting to savor every kiss, every lick, and flavor of his breathtaking Nightmare. He takes the head of Nightmare’s cock in his mouth, sucking at the pre spilling from his slit. Eventually, he can no longer resist, taking half of Nightmare’s cock in his mouth at once; he preens at the shout Nightmare makes at the sudden wet heat. He slowly swirls his tongue around the cock in his mouth, his eyes fluttering shut at the taste on his tongue; it is exquisite, pure ambrosia. A hand in his hair causes his eyes to open and he looks up at Nightmare through his lashes as he relaxes his throat, allowing more of the delicious cock to slip in.

Nightmare moans his name when their eyes meet, a full-body shiver wracking his frame. By the tension Morpheus can feel in Nightmare’s legs, it’s taking him a lot of control not to buck into his mouth. A part of Morpheus wants Nightmare to do it, wants him to fuck his mouth; another time, perhaps. Instead, he lets the cock in his mouth slip further, straight to the root, until his nose is pressed firmly against skin, throat tight around Nightmare’s cock; it feels amazing. He’s never been more thankful that his form is only ever what he wants it to be; he doesn’t have to have a gag reflex. He lets the cock rest in his throat for a moment, until Nightmare’s legs are shaking slightly, and then he begins bobbing his head, letting Nightmare’s cock bully his throat with no remorse. Every time he goes down, when Nightmare’s cock is buried in his throat, he makes sure to swallow, enjoying the way Nightmare seems to choke every time.

He feels a light tug on his hair, a clear sign that Nightmare is close; if he could smirk, he would. Instead of pulling off, he doubles down and takes every inch of Nightmare’s cock, swallowing around it; he needs to taste his spend. He hears Nightmare keen, high in his throat, as his cock twitches in Morpheus’ throat before he gets what he really wants. As Nightmare spends down his throat, Morpheus shudders, his own cock twitching. It takes all his control not to spend himself when he pulls back just enough for the last of Nightmare’s spend to coat his tongue, moaning at the taste. When he allows Nightmare’s cock to slip from his mouth, he makes a show of swallowing what’s left on his tongue, knowing Nightmare is watching him. He meets Nightmare’s gaze shamelessly.

“Your taste is ambrosial.”

Nightmare shudders and pulls him up into a filthy kiss, his tongue exploring Morpheus’ mouth like he’s chasing the taste of his own spend; maybe he is.

“You’re insane, my King.” Nightmare brushes a thumb under his eye, and smiles, like Morpheus’ insanity is a gift.

“So I have been told. But we are not yet done.”

Morpheus grins at him before pulling Nightmare more towards him and then flipping him, so his chest is pressed to the seat of the throne.

“Wait, what are you-“

Nightmare’s words are cut off when Morpheus spreads his cheeks and buries his tongue in his hole. Another full-body shiver wracks Nightmare’s frame as he lets out a long whine. Morpheus smirks against his hole and eagerly begins rimming him, loosening his tight, pretty hole with his lips and tongue. When he loosens enough, Morpheus really begins eating him out, pushing his tongue as deep as possible and thoroughly enjoying the taste of him. Nightmare squirms, moans, and whimpers with every flick of his tongue, and Morpheus makes sure to hold him tight so he doesn’t squirm away; not that there’s anywhere for him to go. When his hole is loose enough, Morpheus removes his tongue and slowly pushes one finger in; Nightmare whimpers at the breach.

“You look. So beautiful like this, my Nightmare. Spread open for my fingers. I can’t help but wonder what you’ll look like later, spread open on my cock.”

Nightmare whines, high and needy as Morpheus begins fucking him with his finger, stretching him a little before adding a second finger. Morpheus resists the urge to nip at him; he wants to suck marks into his skin, but he’ll wait. There is. So much more he has planned. He spreads his fingers, gently stretching Nightmare before leaning forward and flicking his tongue against Nightmare’s hole; Nightmare cries out in surprised pleasure.

Morpheus alternates between fucking Nightmare with his fingers - slowly adding a third - and slipping his tongue in alongside his fingers, adding just a little bit of extra stretch. Nightmare begins to shove his hips back to take Morpheus’ fingers and tongue deeper inside him, whimpering and moaning in pleasure. He makes sure to thrust his hips forward afterwards, dragging his cock along the seat of the Throne, nearly crying out in pleasure; it is clear he is thoroughly enjoying himself.

“So good for me.” Morpheus is dimly aware of the way his voice sounds, how it is barely more than a purr. “You are mine. Mine to do whatever I please. Mine to have, mine to touch, to kiss, to bite, and mine to fuck.” He gives his fingers a vicious twist, relishing the choked noise Nightmare makes.

“Yes! Yes, I am yours. Only yours, my King. Please.”

Morpheus smirks wickedly, fingers surging inside Nightmare to press against his prostate. Nightmare cries out as a second orgasm wracks his body, hole clenching and fluttering erratically around Morpheus’ glorious fingers, seed painting the seat of Morpheus’ throne. Morpheus keeps a steady pressure on Nightmare’s prostate, dragging out his orgasm without mercy until tears fall from Nightmare’s eyes; only then does he remove his fingers.

Morpheus pulls back only far enough to slip a hand between their bodies, taking his own cock in hand; he can’t help but shudder at the sudden sharp pleasure, but it is fairly easy to ignore. He slicks his cock and then rubs the head against Nightmare’s pretty hole. Nightmare keens and - even with the aftershocks of his previous orgasm still flowing through his body and tears dripping slowly from his eyes - shoves his hips back needily.

“Yes! Yes, please, my King. Fuck me! I am yours, only yours, please.”

Nightmare’s pleading is barely intelligible, and he doesn’t really care; not if it’ll get him his King’s beautiful cock inside him.

Morpheus pulls his hips back just in time, so only the head of his cock rubs against Nightmare’s hole when he shoves his hips back.

“Such a desperate thing, aren’t you?” While his voice is definitely amused, it's not mocking; more surprised.

Nightmare chokes on a cry, pressing his overheated forehead against the cool stone of the Throne. “Please, my King. I… I need to feel you inside me.”

Morpheus shudders at the pure desperate need dripping from Nightmare’s voice. He drags a soothing hand down Nightmare’s spine before gripping his hips and lining his cock up, slowly pushing in. Nightmare chokes on his next unneeded breath, nearly biting his tongue at the slowly growing full feeling. He lets out a low, long, ragged moan, hands scrambling for purchase on the smooth stone of the seat of the Throne he’s still bent over. Morpheus doesn’t stop until his cock is buried all the way inside Nightmare. They take a few breaths, allowing Nightmare to adjust to the new stretch.

“You’re so much thicker than the tendrils I’ve used before.” Nightmare’s voice is practically a whine.

Morpheus chuckles softly. “Good. I want to stretch you out the way you stretched me. Make you feel the way you’ve made me feel. You’ve been so good to me since I came home. I want to show you that I can be just as good to you.”

Morpheus slowly pulls out until only the head of his cock remains inside Nightmare, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “Breathe.” He hears more than feels Nightmare obey and then he thrusts forward, burying his cock as deep inside Nightmare as possible, reveling in the choked cry that Nightmare lets out. He starts a slow, but steady rhythm, pulling almost completely out every time, only to bury his cock as deep as possible.

Nightmare chokes, moans, and cries at the perfectly deep thrusts, so deep he can feel them in his throat. He writhes and starts trying to push back, whimpering when he can’t. Morpheus smirks and leans forward, dragging his hands up from Nightmare’s hips, up his spine to his shoulders, then down his arms, all the way to his wrists. He wraps his hands around Nightmare’s wrists, pinning him completely in place, ignoring his answering whine.

“My sweet, precious Nightmare. Tell me what you need.”

Nightmare takes in a ragged breath, though it sounds more like yet another whine. “Please, my King. Please, fuck me. Harder, faster, let me feel you.”

Morpheus growls and uses his grip on Nightmare’s wrists as leverage, fucking hard into Nightmare and delighting in the warbling, encouraging shout he lets out. Morpheus tries to keep a grip on his control but it’s rapidly slipping through his fingers like sand. Soon, he’s using quick thrusts to fuck deep and hard into Nightmare; he adjusts his angle just enough that on the next thrust, Nightmare practically screams.

“There! Please, my King!”

Morpheus purrs and fucks into Nightmare’s prostate with perfect accuracy on every thrust even as tears begin cascading down his beautiful face. Morpheus presses a soft kiss to Nightmare’s shoulder - a delicious contrast to the sharp thrusts into Nightmare’s hole - and whispers filthy praise against his skin. Nightmare begins trembling, hole sporadically tightening around Morpheus’ cock.

“Are you close?”

Nightmare’s answer is a high, thready whine and a jerky nod of his head. Morpheus brushes another kiss over Nightmare’s shoulder before hissing into his ear, “Cum.”

Nightmare’s mouth opens in a silent scream, body seizing, shaking, quivering as his third orgasm crashes through him and his eyes roll to the back of his head; the throne room trembles.

Morpheus is only able to stave off his own orgasm due to his control over his form. He pulls his cock out of Nightmare and drags them both to their feet, spinning around and sitting on the Throne. He immediately yanks Nightmare into his lap and pulls him right back onto his cock, smiling at the filthy noise Nightmare makes before taking his mouth in a surprisingly gentle kiss. He grips Nightmare’s hips but groans into his mouth when Nightmare rolls his hips unguided.

Nightmare opens his mouth to Morpheus’ questing tongue, hips rolling and undulating in a slow, smooth, graceful rhythm. Their tongues tangle together as they pant and moan into each other’s mouths, Nightmare moaning in equal delight and surprise at how much deeper Morpheus is hitting in this position; he didn’t even know Morpheus could hit deeper than before.

When Morpheus pulls his mouth away, he begins licking and nipping down Nightmare’s jaw to his throat, latching on and sucking a mark into the smooth skin, causing Nightmare to whimper once more.

“You feel so good, my King.” Nightmare’s voice is barely above a breathy sigh.

Morpheus drags his teeth over Nightmare’s throat, rocking up into his slow rolling. “As do you, my Nightmare. So good for me, so good to me.”

Nightmare cannot stop the way his voice goes high when Morpheus rocks up, cock unerringly hitting his prostate. He does not speed up, but he matches Morpheus’ angle without hesitation, breathy moans and cries falling from his mouth like prayers. Morpheus keeps up a steady stream of praise as they rock together, desperately holding off his own orgasm in an effort to get Nightmare to cum at least one more time.

“One more time, my love. Cum for me one more time, and I will fill you with my spend. Let me feel you cum just once more.”

Nightmare’s hoarse cries slowly grow louder and higher as he gets closer to the edge, dangling over an abyss, coil tightening in his gut once more. Without even realizing, he has begun pleading, though he knows not what for.

“Please, my King. Please, ‘m so close, please.”

Morpheus’ shudders, knowing what Nightmare wants, even if he himself does not. He brushes fangs over Nightmare’s throat before biting down, easily breaking skin as Nightmare has done to him many times before. Nightmare goes rigid atop him, body seizing once more as the coil in his belly snaps, and he falls over the edge of the precipice into an abyss of pure bliss, orgasm cresting and rolling over him like a gentle wave this time, but no less intense for it.

Morpheus gives a strangled cry - muffled by his mouth on Nightmare’s throat – as he allows his own orgasm to finally peak. It crashes into him in waves, like an uncontrollable tsunami, again and again, filling him with a euphoria that only Nightmare has ever given him. When he has finally finished filling Nightmare with his spend, Morpheus removes his fangs from his throat, lightly kissing the wound.

Within a blink of his eyes, they are in Morpheus’ chambers, spread out on his silky black sheets. He slowly pulls his cock out and conjures a wet and warm flannel, gently cleaning Nightmare as he presses equally gentle kisses everywhere he can reach. When he is done, he lets the flannel vanish and pulls Nightmare into his arms, laying with him and running his hands soothingly up and down his body.

Nightmare clings to Morpheus, overwhelmed by the wonderful feeling of being wanted, of being loved. He buries his face in Morpheus’ throat, understanding, now, why Morpheus had seemed so overwhelmed before. He takes slow breaths, relaxing into Morpheus’ arms and allowing himself to enjoy it. It was, after all, exactly what he had wanted; only, he’d assumed it would take longer for Morpheus to love him the way he loved Morpheus. He was glad to be wrong.

”I love you, my King. My Morpheus. My Dream.”

Morpheus shuddered and held Nightmare tighter, taking a deep breath. “As I love you, my Love. My Nightmare.”

#dream of the endless #the sandman #morpheus #forgotten and discarded

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shingekinomyfeelings · 1 year

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Okay so this post got me thinking about how Reiner would be as a pet parent/co-parent, and now I must share my little selfship headcanons for what his dynamic with each of my pets would be. I encourage you all to do the same with your own pets if you like! Also I like showing off my babies.

Reiner trying to befriend my pets

Reiner has more experience with dogs than with cats, so he's immediately excited to meet Mason. Mason's trauma from being abused by his original owner means he still gets spooked very easily by loud noises and unusual objects, so Reiner kind of tip toes around him - more than he needs to, to be honest. If he accidentally scares Mace, he's following him around practically on his hands and knees, offering treats and trying to make it up to him. Mason quickly realizes that Reiner is easily manipulated for food, and it's not long before I have to put a very strict limit on how many treats Reiner can feed him per day.

Reiner hasn't spent much time around cats and isn't quite sure how to interact with them at first, but he soon becomes pretty much as obsessed with Mochi as I am. She's tiny! Adorable! Ridiculously sweet! But boy when he finds out that she's a teeny bit disabled and has certain physical limitations, he starts treating her like she's made of glass, making sure she doesn't over exert herself and helping her onto every surface she wants onto even though she's perfectly capable of climbing. Within a month of meeting him, Mochi realizes Reiner is basically a meow-controlled elevator/butler.

Reiner thinks everything about Chicken Nugget is hilarious, and is inordinately amused by the simple fact that this little being actively responds to the name 'Chicken Nugget' no matter how many times he sees it happen. Whenever she gets fired up and starts upsetting the others by playfully slamming them to the floor, he picks her up and patiently explains to her that being bigger and stronger than her siblings means she has to control her strength :c He tries to decode her mysterious whims, but she seemingly develops new ones constantly just to keep him on his toes.

Porscha is the worst cat on the entire planet, but Reiner is aghast when I say so. He refuses to believe such things and is incredibly permissive of everything she does. Slowly he grows to regret this as Porscha obsessively touches his face while he sleeps, does literally the worst thing she can at any given moment, and eats his hair. Reiner is still too stubborn, though, insisting that she's not being that annoying. All of the behavioral training I've done with Porscha is set back to square one because Reiner won't tell her 'no' for anything. Finally he breaks down one morning when Porscha freaks out because a strand of hair she pulled off his head and ate is stuck in her butt. We being training anew, but Reiner still feels guilty when he has to curb her obsessive behaviors by not rewarding them with interaction...

He doesn't even see Ponzu for the first time until several months in, when she peers out from a closet. He thought maybe I was joking about having a fourth cat who fears all humans but me. Reiner is so excited to finally see this cryptid that Ponzu gets startled and vanishes into the cat dimension. Reiner becomes determined to befriend her, setting up stake outs where he'll set out food and hide behind a chair and wait until Ponzu approaches, and any time she glances at him he tries to do the 'slow blink' that I told him cats use to signal goodwill. He's a little pouty when after nearly a year, he can only interact with Ponzu if he's seated on the floor and not looking directly at her, but sometimes when he's sleeping I'll catch her snuggled against his feet.

#(I love Porscha I promise)#(she does suck though)#reiner #Reiner x Zeki!#Reiki?#self ship #my pets #kitties #puppers

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sissytobitch10seconds · 1 year

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Our Love Died

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: Dumped into a strange yet familiar world, Viktor falls back into some old habits- including losing contact with his siblings. Eventually, some years pass and they start finding him again. At that point he's not quite sure he wants them to, though. Warnings: Domestic abuse, abusive relationships, trans male pregnancy, childbirth, depression/anxiety, and transphobia Word Count: TBD (Chapter 1: 3,535) Chapter(s): TBD Ship(s): Viktor Hargreeves/Five Hargreeves

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A/N: (fic notes) So I actually created an entirely different story and character off of labour and King by their respective artists and then I realized that it would fit really well into this kind of a fic as well. I decided I was just going to write it so I had another nice chaptered fic for TUA before the last season comes out. I'm going to leave a little disclaimer here: I have never been pregnant and I am not a trans man (I'm genderfluid, so still trans) so some things may not be entirely accurate. I'm also writing and uploading this at the same time so there might be some awkward plot holes or something throughout. I'm going to try my best to prevent that but please honor me with some grace if I don't manage it! I hope that you all enjoy this, I know I'm loving writing it so far. Make sure that you heed the tags, though, things do get pretty dark. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <;3 (chapter notes) Here's chapter one! This is basically a complete rewrite of the last scene of the last episode of season 3. I tried to write every bit of dialogue directly from the show, so if things sound a little awkward it was probably a typo I didn't correct because I didn't want to go rewatch that scene again. Rewriting directly from a script is exhausting, after all, lol. I hope that you guys are enticed by this first chapter but if you're not, try sticking around to the second when the plot is gonna actually get started! Things are moving pretty slow for now but they'll pick up soon. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

The first thing that Viktor saw when the elevator doors opened was a garden.

He hadn’t been in a lot of gardens when he was younger because it wasn’t something that Reginald put a lot of his time and energy into and then he had never sought them out as an adult around the monotony of his everyday life. He had to admit that it was an improvement to the accommodations that they had been staying in for the past week while they tried to sort out the third end-of-the-world.

It was dark, just as he thought it would have been when he was traveling in the hazy, half-asleep state during the ride up the elevator. The dimness wasn’t caused by the dark colored walls and lack of windows, however, but rather because at some point the sky had turned into night. The moon was hanging high in the sky, glinting pale silver-blue light down onto the earth with the help of the blinking stars. The sky was clear and bright, devoid of the heavy rain clouds that so often plagued The City. The color of the light reminded Viktor of the heavy power that slept inside of him, waiting to come forth and create another apocalypse like it had three lifetimes ago.

He tilted his head down so that he could take in what the garden actually looked like while his legs slowly carried him out of the elevator and into the cool night air. There was a gray cement path that led to a bust and plaque in the center of the main part of the garden. From it were several more paths, though it was hard to see where exactly they went because of the trees and shrubs that were obscuring the already dark view. He could just barely make out the vibrant green of the grass clashing with the darker shade of the neatly trimmed bushes along the paths. He thought that it was strange that there were no flowers, all of the books that Viktor had ever read as a child that contained gardens had them described as overflowing with different colors of petals.

Next to him, Lila giggled, “Cool.” It made sense that she would be able to process the weirdness that they had all just endured better than all of them. Viktor was probably handling it with the least amount of grace since he had never been a hero when the Umbrella Academy was active and thus hadn’t seen any of the weird powers or abilities that the villains the others fought possessed. The closest that he had gotten was just seeing his siblings train and listening to their exploits through the radio that Grace kept on when missions were underway. Lila, conversely, had grown up surrounded by time traveling assassins and flipped through many different periods in time with her mother. This was just another thing to add to her list of adventures instead of something that was emotionally shattering as it was to Viktor.

The sound of a police siren wailing in the distance was comforting and terrifying at the same time. The images of the police towering around the car that he had been trying to get his girlfriend and her son to safety in flashed through his mind, quickly followed by his nerves fraying just a little bit more at the memory of his electro-shock torture session. He flexed his hands at his side to try and get rid of the anxiety, something close to what he had used to do. His violin was nowhere in sight now, though, so it meant that he couldn’t pick it up and use that to get rid of the adrenaline-summoned energy.

All of those thoughts were pushed from his mind as soon as he turned properly and saw the towering figure of his brother. He short-circuited for a moment as the only thing that he could really process was the overwhelming joy about seeing the man he thought he had lost, just as he had lost Ben. Viktor was so used to mourning, to grief, that the joy surging through his body was foreign and addictive.

“Luther?” he asked, breathless and awed. Viktor was barely even aware that his legs were moving as he made his way closer to the other. He was moving a little sluggishly, as if he was scared that if he made even a single wrong move then his brother would disappear again forever, just as he had done when Klaus summoned him during their fight. “Luther?” he asked again, which got the blond’s attention.

“Oh, shit,” Luther swore as a smile blossomed over his face. “You can see me?” he asked, pointing towards some of the others.

“Yes! Yes!” Viktor almost screamed as he threw his arms around his brother’s neck and shoulders to trap him there in a hug.

“I’m alive?” Luther asked, his body almost vibrating with the shock of his realization.

Viktor and Luther had shared two hugs in their entire lives. They had never been terribly close as children since Reginald kept Viktor as far away from him as possible, both physically and mentally, while Luther had basically been on his coattails all the way up until the last year of his life.

The first hug that they had ever shared was one of Viktor’s least favorite memories. He had been under the impression that he had just killed his sister with no reassurance from his then-boyfriend. It had felt so wonderful to be wrapped up in the arms of someone he had known and loved without anything in return. Then he had felt the air slowly being forced from his lungs, his body compressing in on itself while black spots danced in his vision. Then he had woken up in the soundproof room where the only thing he had for company was his own quickening heartbeat, watching as his siblings all abandoned him one by one again.

The second hug that the duo had shared was the one that they were having now. Luther’s arms stretched all the way around Viktor and he was so tall that he had to bend over at the waist to be able to loop around Viktor’s chest. He could tell that the other was holding back his strength significantly because this time it felt nothing like it had before. Luther was hugging him and holding him tightly enough that he could know for certain that the taller was there, but there was no pain, even as he got lifted into the air.

“Luther’s alive!” Klaus crowed in the background.

“Oh my God,” Lila breathed. It was odd how quickly she had been assimilated into the family and how deeply she cared for them all already, but they were the Hargreeves. Nothing about their family had ever been normal and nothing about it ever would, not that they would want it any other way.

“And that’s not all, big guy,” Viktor felt like he was going to explode with how many emotions were flowing through his system. Luther had since put him down on the ground and he was able to get a proper look at his brother, though it was already confirmed when he had been up in the air. He was staring at Luther’s chest and arms as he tried to come up with a way to phrase what was racing through his mind.

“Huh?” Luther asked before he gasped when he noticed it as well. “Holy shit, my body!” he brushed his hands over his chest and then looked down at his arms again. Where there had once been copious amounts of thick, wiry hair stretched out over grotesque, engorged muscles was nothing but pale skin with blond hair and lean muscle. “Wait, I look amazing!” he beamed as he realized what it really meant.

Jealousy and happiness mixed inside of Viktor until all he felt was nauseous. He knew that Luther had struggled with how he looked after the experiment that their father had performed on him to save the life Reginald himself had endangered. That much was evident from the way that Luther had hidden himself away in layers and layers of clothing when they had all first reunited. Viktor was very familiar with what it was like to feel uncomfortable in one’s body as that feeling had been magnified for him since he realized what his gender was. He wished that the transport to the new universe had given him a body that he felt more comfortable in, one that didn’t make him want to crawl out of his own skin when he caught himself in a reflective surface at just the wrong angle. At the same time, he couldn’t help but be happy for the gift that Luther had been given after everything he had been through.

Klaus wandered over to them in that stumble-walk that he had perfected when they were teenagers. Viktor had always been amazed he wasn’t tripping over himself more often, the same way that he would be if he tried that. “Luther’s all svelte now,” he commented as he touched his brother’s arm as well.

“Wait. I gotta show Sloane!” Luther beamed. It was heart warming to see him being so affectionate towards someone other than Allison. When they were younger, it was very disheartening to Viktor to try and pour so much love into his relationship with his brother only to be pushed to the side. Of course, back then, he hadn’t realized that Luther and Allison were romantically involved so the relationship he wanted was actually very different. Given everything that had happened with Allison in the last couple days, up to and including Luther’s death, it was a good thing that he had someone who adored him just as much as he did her.

The mention of the Sparrow hero was enough to make Viktor take attendance for everyone standing around in the garden. Lila and Diego were standing next to each other, so close that their shoulders were brushing against each other. Ben and Five were hanging around the bust in the center of the little garden path. Klaus was near Luther, who was standing in front the elevator still.

Five raised up his arm, fussing with his watch. “I got my arm back,” he informed them plainly like it wasn’t the best thing that had happened to him in decades.

“This is so cool. W-wait where’s Sloane?” Luther asked as he reached out towards Klaus for the information.

Surprisingly enough, the most chaotic member of the family actually did have an answer for him. “Oh, she was, uh… she was right behind me-”

“When Allison hit the bloody button,” Lila finished for him, gritting her teeth in anger.

“She’s gone too,” Diego groused.

Five began to walk towards one of the dark paths surrounding the small place of respite that they were in. His brows were furrowed and his face was pinched in that way that it always got when he was upset about something. “You know, I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t felt this good in years,” Klaus said as he also turned his gaze towards the peaking city that they could see between the trees.

“Does anyone know where the Hell we are?” Ben asked.

Viktor felt his heart sink down into his stomach as he realized that it was the version of Ben that had come from the Sparrows despite none of the other Sparrows being with them. He had been hoping, after Luther had risen from the grave and stepped out of the elevator with them, that his long-dead brother would also return so that Viktor could apologize for using up the rest of his unlife energy. He figured that it made sense it would be that version of Ben, since he was the one that fought the final battle with them after they fucked up the timeline so that he existed in the first place.

“The hotel,” Lila quickly supplied before he could get in a fight with anyone. “Or at least, this is where it used to be.”

Five let out a breath, which really emphasized just how tired he was. “I think the old man did it. I think he reset the universe.”

Diego walked over so that he was standing in front of Lila with his hand up in front of her. She gasped as she held it in both of her own and said, “You got your fingers back!”

“Sloane? Sloane!” Luther called through the garden in a desperate attempt to find his wife.

Viktor could only stand there and watch his siblings interacting with each other as he tried to process everything that had happened. Something inside of him felt like it was missing, something that left him hollow and slightly damaged. He didn’t have time to unpack it now as tensions were already rising between the other family members.

Moving around the bust, Luther grabbed onto one of the lapels of Five’s suit jacket. “I don’t care about any resets, all right? I want my wife back. Where is she, Five?”

“I’m glad you’re alive, but please take your hand off me,” Five snarked. He was using that voice that he always did when he was upset about something or close to getting in a fight with someone. Viktor had heard it often when they were all going through the beginnings of puberty.

Anxiety began to rise inside of him as he realized that this could all go very badly very quickly if someone didn’t step in to stop them before they did something stupid. “Not until you give me an answer,” Luther threatened as he grabbed the other side of Five’s jacket so that he had no chance of escaping.

“Okay, screw this!” Five sassed back. He jerked to the side like he always did when he was getting ready to teleport, but this time he just fell limply back to where he had been before. A look of confusion took over his face and he glanced out around the garden as if that would somehow give him an answer. “Something’s wrong.”

“That’s right, something’s wrong, you’re about to get your ass kicked,” Luther snarled as he jerked his brother around again.

“Yeah, kick his ass,” Diego goaded.

“No, you moron,” Five seethed. The panic was beginning to make him mean, Viktor knew exactly how that felt. “My power. I can’t blink.”

“Yeah, right,” Diego said sarcastically as he got one of his knives out from the vest that he always wore. It was nice to see him in something other than black leather, even if the knives were probably going to exist with him throughout his entire life. Diego flipped the silver blade around his fingers once before it toppled down into the dirt below them. “That’s not good.”

Suddenly everything fell into place. Viktor glanced down at his hand as he raised it. He focused for a moment to try and pick up on the minute noises that existed everywhere in the world. It was only then that he realized that everything had been muffled since he had stepped out of the elevator. Hearing every tiny thing that was happening around him, even if it was accentuated only when he was off of his medication, had just been how he lived his life. He didn’t realize that the world was so quiet for everyone else until his power had been stolen from him. It explained the heavy emptiness that rested in his chest, right where the supernova of noise had been only an hour prior.

A few feet away, Klaus was waving his hand out in front of him as he said, “Okay… come on… Alakazam… ghosties.” Nothing happened. Ben strained with his hands clenched in fists out to the sides, but again there was nothing. “This means I’m mortal again? Aw, man,” Klaus whined as it became more and more obvious that they were ordinary.

“Wait, wait, wait. How do we get them back, you idiots?” Ben asked before anyone had the chance to do anything else.

“Shit,” Klaus groaned when no one was able to come up with any ideas. Reginald had told them so little about their powers that none of them knew where they came from, much less how they were supposed to get anything back.

“I gotta… I gotta go find my wife,” Luther said hoarsely. Viktor had enough breakdowns in his life to recognize that the other man was clinging to something that felt like it could still be tangible. They had all been through something deeply traumatic and painful on top of arriving in a strange world that they didn’t know well enough to tell if it was safe. Learning that their powers, which had been a constant for everyone other than Viktor, were gone had to be enough to make some of them deeply rattled.

Luther turned and began to walk down one of the paths to do as he said he was going to. Klaus turned after him and said, “No! Luther, you can’t go. You were dead ten minutes ago, you’re fragile.” He whirled back around to the rest of the family and said, “I gotta go after him.”

“No, wait, Klaus!” Diego tried to argue with his brother but at that point Klaus had already begun down the path after Luther. Despite what a lot of the public had thought when they were younger and actively acting as the Umbrella Academy, Klaus was the most stubborn out of all of the siblings. If he got an idea that he decided he just had to do, then he was going to do it come Hell or high water.

Ben was the next to leave, already stalking towards the other side of the park, “I’m out, bitches!”

A flare of panic unlike he had felt in a long time rang out in Viktor’s chest. Memories that were hazy with sedative and time flashed through his mind. All the times that they had left him for their training, all the times that they had been ushered into a car together while he had been left watching them out of a stained glass window, all the times that they had snuck out together and left him behind, played over the top of each other. “Guys, come on,” Viktor said desperately. “We should stick together and figure this out-”

“Well what are we supposed to do?” Diego asked, interrupting Viktor before he even had the chance to say what he was planning to. Too much of it felt like what it had been before Viktor had gotten his powers and had become too dangerous to ignore.

They were all quiet for a second as Diego and Lila turned slightly towards each other. “Live our lives?” she suggested. Diego remained quiet as he obviously rolled the idea around his head. He then took her hand, weaving their fingers together, before he disappeared down another one of the paths.

Then it was just Five and Viktor, as it had been so often when they were children. The conversation that they had about other people being ants, which had given them some common ground now that they had shifted so much in their adult lives, rolled over in Viktor’s head again. He knew that it wasn’t true anymore since neither of them had the massive powers that they did when it took place, but he was still hoping that it would mean something.

He supposed that hope was his greatest flaw. Just like last time, Five turned on his heel and marched away from Viktor without saying anything. He disappeared into the dark foliage so that not even a glimpse of his back could be seen.

That morning at the dining room table, when Five had lurched away and thrown himself outside to try time traveling for the first time was a moment that replayed over and over again in Viktor’s mind. He always wondered, both now and when he had been a child, what would have happened if he had just had the balls to pull his brother back into his seat instead of just letting him go.

What was happening now felt so similar to that, that Viktor almost felt himself shrinking down into the demure version of himself that he hadn’t been in so long. Being off of the medication had let him feel free in a way that he had never before, and the idea of having to go back to that now that his powers were gone brought the panic that had been resting dormant in the back of his mind to the forefront of all his thoughts.

He paused for a moment to try and pick up on the sounds of footsteps and rustling leaves from where his siblings and Ben were now lost in the park, but there was nothing. He tilted his head down towards the bust of Reginald and gave his head a small shake. “Asshole,” he muttered.

Viktor turned and walked down the last remaining path so that he could get out of the park.

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bixxelated · 1 year

Text

Wavelength

Chapter 2: Landmines

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--o--o--o--

Mike jolts awake with a strangled gasp, his heart racing in his chest, goosebumps trailing down his spine.

Just a dream, it was just a dream, you’re okay, you were just dreaming…

Wiping his wet eyes, he does his best to stifle his panting and tries not to give in to the tightness in his chest, sitting up so that he can focus on breathing in slowly and deeply.

Inhale as he counts to five. Hold it in, count to eight… and then count to seven as he exhales. Five, eight, seven. And again. And again.

He follows this pattern for several minutes, pulling in air all the way down to his belly until his heartbeat finally starts to slow down. Once the last screams of his nightmares fade away, with one final exhale he looks over at the numbers blinking on his digital alarm clock, bright red blaring in the darkness of the room. 5:33 AM. Yeah that’s… typical.

Groaning, Mike falls back onto his pillow, but he only lets himself lie there for 10 more minutes before he finally admits that he's not getting any more sleep today. Not like he ever does.

He sighs as he climbs out of bed to change out of his pajamas, his body aching with exhaustion. Might as well get ready for school before Nancy goes and hogs the bathroom again. Such a shame, too, he'd been having such a good dream before it turned for the worst, about a girl he'd found in the woods who was like him…

Except then he finds the pile of muddy clothes he'd shoved away yesterday into the corner of his room, and he realizes it wasn't a dream at all.

Heart rate picking up again, he exhales shakily and lets his senses unfurl beyond his bedroom. Nancy and Baby Holly are still asleep, but Mom’s already awake, sleepily shuffling around her room getting ready for the day while Dad snores away in bed. And stretching further downwards, he finds the girl from the woods still hidden in the basement where he left her.

El’s still comfortably curled up in his blanket fort, but to his surprise she’s quite awake despite the early hour. She’s fiddling with something in her hands, some sort of object, he can’t quite tell…

And then she stops, and lifts her head upwards in curiosity—at an angle looking directly back at him.

With a strangled gasp, Mike loses his concentration, the bubble of awareness popping until it’s just him in his bedroom again.

No one’s ever reacted to the sensory aspect of his powers before.

He forgoes changing or getting ready in favor of sneaking out of his room, quietly tiptoeing down the stairs and creeping all the way down into the basement.

El peeks out under the blanket fort as soon as he comes down.

“Hey El.” Despite the early morning exhaustion, he manages to dredge up a sliver of cheerfulness for her. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

She shakes her head, eyebags almost as dark as his.

“Didn’t get much sleep last night?”

She shrugs before going back to tinkering with what he now sees is his walkie-talkie.

“Mm, yeah me neither. I see you found my supercomm though. Pretty cool, huh?”

He holds a hand out, and when she gives him the supercomm he tweaks the knob a little, static morphing and wavering with the motion. “I use it to talk to my friends.” He explains to her. “The signal’s usually pretty weak—most of the time I can only reach Lucas ‘cause he lives so close to me. But I can do this..."

It takes a bit of concentration, gathering up a handful of his power until with one sharp effort he pushes it all into the radio. El's tired eyes widen as it crackles and whines with feedback.

"—and it increases the range so that I can talk to Dustin and even Will from their houses too. For a short while at least." He blows out a short breath and hands the supercomm back to her, although she doesn’t seem interested in it anymore, looking up at him with her big brown eyes instead.

Mike clears his throat. “Are you hungry? Mom’s a really good cook. She hasn’t made breakfast yet, but I can save you something if you like.”

She doesn’t answer, only keeping that wide gaze on him. That laser focus would be intimidating were she any other person, but Mike can barely stop himself from staring back at El too. The sight of another kid with powers is mesmerizing. He hardly wants to look away.

"So," he forces himself to go on. "I know I told you I would help you, but I don’t exactly know how to do that… usually I would just tell my mom so that she can handle it, call the authorities, send you back where you came from. But…” he cocks his head, watching her grow frightened at the proposal. "I don't think that's such a good idea, is it?"

“No." She says.

Mike gnaws at his bottom lip, gaze falling to the floor. Dread sinks heavy into his stomach. "…You're in trouble, aren't you?"

"Yes."

“Who… who are you in trouble with?”

“Bad.” She explains, gaze distant.

“Bad? Bad people?”

A nod.

“They wanna hurt you? The bad people?”

El says nothing, only bends her fingers into the shape of a gun, and presses it up against her temple. After a moment, she then turns her hand on him as well and Mike can’t stop himself from recoiling with a shiver.

“Understand?” She says.

Mike does understand. He wishes he didn’t.

--o--

Karen’s mind is still foggy and slow when she puts on the finishing touches of her makeup and makes her way down to the kitchen. It's not exactly elegant—she's lucky that Ted doesn't wake up with her clumsy stumbling, her body still weighed down with exhaustion until she gets that first cup of coffee.

It’s a bit of a challenge to prepare breakfast so early in the morning, but it’s a challenge that she’s well prepared for. With one teenage daughter, a pre-teen son and a toddler to look after in the house, she’s no stranger to running on little sleep. With all the things she has to do—including but not limited to: keeping track of school and clubs, doctor’s appointments and therapies, groceries, laundry, cooking, cleaning, house and car maintenance, etcetera, etcetera—it’s a wonder that she manages to sleep at all. It’s a full time job running around keeping everyone’s schedules on track.

It’s not that she’s ungrateful, of course. She’s blessed to have the life she has; blessed to have a husband who’s good to her and three darling little angels. It would just be nice to be able to sleep in every once in a while too.

She’s so focused on making sure to set out all of the necessary ingredients that a sudden sharp ringing nearly startles her out of her skin. Clutching her chest, it takes a moment for Karen to realize the ringing is coming from the phone, and then another for her to realize that the phone is ringing.

Well that’s certainly one way to get me wide awake. Cracking one last yawn, she spares a confused glance towards the clock as she makes her way towards the phone. 6:28 AM. Just early enough for twilight to barely start seeping into the darkness outside the windows. Who would call this early in the morning?

The phone clicks as she picks it up . “Wheeler residence, this is Karen speaking.”

“Um, uh, hey Karen. It’s Joyce.”

Karen pauses and softens immediately. “Joyce? Hey, how are you?”

“I’m—well, I’m… doing the best I can, I guess, I… s-sorry to call you so early in the day.”

“No, no, no worries, I was already up anyway. Just preparing breakfast.”

“Oh that’s, that’s good. Um. I wanted to ask you a favor? Jonathan needs to go over to the Xerox store to make some—some copies, but I need to stay here to wait for news and I-I don’t want him to go by himself…” A shaky sigh. “I was hoping you could take him?”

“Of course, Joyce, anything.” Karen replies, forcing lightheartedness into her tone of voice. It’s hard not to feel such dread when little Will’s disappearance hits so close to home. “I’ll make sure to head over as soon as everyone’s off to school. Let me know if I can be of help with anything else, okay?”

Joyce murmurs a distracted thanks and hangs up. Karen places the phone back on its base and leans forward on the kitchen counter, sighing into her hands.

It’s not the same, she tells her racing heart. It’s not the same thing at all, but it doesn’t stop the chills from seeping down her spine as her mind dredges up unpleasant memories.

"...Mom?"

It takes a moment to remember that she’s warm and safe in the comfort of her own kitchen. Karen blinks and looks over her shoulder to see Mike standing by the entrance, clad in his pajamas with his face scrunched up against the bright kitchen lights.

"Hey Michael." She greets quietly, mustering a weak smile just for him. "What are you doing up so early in the morning?”

"I… I just… I had a nightmare. Couldn't sleep."

“Oh I’m sorry to hear that honey.” She frowns, noting that he’s standing by the wrong entrance. “I didn’t hear you come down the stairs, did you sleep in the basement again?”

Mike shrugs, looking down at the ground.

She sighs, crossing her arms. “Mike, you know that you’re not supposed to stay down there all night. You won’t rest any better if you’re outside of bed, remember?”

“I know.” Mike gnaws at his lip. “I just… it’s hard to sleep anyway…”

“Oh honey…” Her eyes soften, and she walks over to cup his face in her hands. "Is it because of Will?"

He hesitates, and then nods.

“Oh… I know, Michael, I know... all this that’s been going on with Will, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you. I know it’s a scary situation, believe me I do, but it won’t help to worry yourself sick over Will.”

“I can’t help it. He’s my friend.” His eyes are reddened around the edges from lack of sleep, and glinting when he looks up at her. “One of my best friends.”

“And he’s already got a lot of people looking for him, okay?” She insists, brushing a stray strand of hair away from his eye. “People who are well-equipped to find him. It might feel like no one cares because you can’t see it with your own eyes, but I assure you they are doing everything they can to get him home. Everything. Okay?”

“Okay…”

“Attaboy. Now, I was just about to start with breakfast, you hungry? How do waffles sound for today? With some whipped cream and strawberries?”

“I mean… yeah… but… Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think…” Mike hesitates. “Do you think I could maybe stay home today?”

That gives her pause. “I don’t know, Michael…”

“Please? My attendance has been really good this year, and—Lucas can bring over our homework and lend me his notes so I don’t fall behind.”

“Even so… I just think it’d be better if you tried to have a normal day instead of just driving yourself crazy with worry in here, all alone…. School would help you keep your mind off of things.”

Mike slowly blows out a breath through his teeth. “I just feel like I’m not gonna be able to focus anyway. Like… school is going to stress me out even more.”

She eyes him thoroughly. “You sure?”

Mike nods.

“Well then…” She bites her lip. “Okay. Just for today. But I want you to get a few more hours of rest while you’re here, okay? You’re a growing boy, and your sleeping patterns are erratic enough.”

“Yeah, of course.”

--o--

Mike does not get any more sleep.

Instead, what he does is bring El up and out of the basement as soon as Mom leaves with Holly for errands. Dustin and Lucas are gonna be so pissed when they find out that he’s ditching for seemingly no reason, but he doesn’t see any other choice. He needs to get more information out of El, and he can’t do that and hide her at the same time if the guys are there, and this could be important, it could be relevant to Will’s disappearance, he can't afford to wait until after school.

Watching El explore the house is a study in sadness. Mike is incredibly reminded of a day a couple of years back, when they went over to Dustin’s house to meet a recently adopted baby Mews. The kitten would stalk around just as carefully as El was doing, trying to figure out whether the new environment it found itself in was safe or not.

The way El drinks his house in like she’s never seen any of it before, the thoroughness with which she looks over everything as if it's the only opportunity she'll get to brand them into her memory—it makes him nauseous. What kind of life was she living before he found her, if she doesn't even know what a refrigerator is?

She’s a kid. She’s just a kid, just like him. The toys, the TV, Dad’s La-Z-Boy, the family photos, this is all stuff she should already know about. Stuff she should already have. She should be growing up safe and happy, not living on the run from bad men that want to use her for her powers. It makes a familiar bitterness rise and clog up the back of his throat.

Who we are and what we can do is unique, and one-of-a-kind, and special. That’s what all the movies and comics and books say. But instead of celebrating our abilities and using them to make the world better, we have to hide and live in fear because it would be so easy for evil people to hurt us otherwise.

If things were different, that could’ve been him. If his circumstances had changed even a little bit, if his powers were flashier, if he'd blabbed the wrong thing to the wrong person, that could’ve been him.

Mike goes upstairs to his room. He plants himself on his bed and forces his lungs to breathe steadily until he can choke the anger and fear back down into the deep dark hole where they belong. He doesn’t want the black tangle of his emotions to ruin El's exploration of the house. She deserves to have the whole experience unmarred by his anxiety acting up.

Of course, she notices his absence and goes to find him anyway. “Mike?”

Mike sighs, runs a hand through his hair and looks up at her. “Sorry,” he tells her. “It’s not you. I just needed a moment. I’m kind of high-strung.”

El cocks her head. “High… strung?”

“It—” he grapples with the right words to explain it, “it means that I feel emotions really strongly all the time, and I get upset very fast because of it.”

“Oh.” El says, but doesn’t make any moves to leave the room.

Mike watches wearily as she checks over all his stuff with the same meticulousness she’s given the rest of the house. Then her eyes fall onto a certain photograph, the one of the Party celebrating last year's victory at the science fair, and she pauses, and taps it with her index finger.

The molten power in her body spikes at once, and Mike is unable to stop his own from doing the same on reflex. All at once, images crash into his mind, flashing, jumbled, overwhelming:

—bare feet standing on lightless black water—

—looking up worriedly at his best friend under the dim garage lights—

—bolting out of the tunnel into the forest where there’s cover—

—swerving off of Mirkwood and crashing into the undergrowth—

—fleeing from the sirens blaring in the distance—

—shaking hands loading bullets into the gun, just like Dad showed him—

—a face peeling open like flower petals, revealing rows and rows of jagged teeth—

“Will!” Mike gasps, and jerks so upright he bangs his head on the top of his bunk bed.

The pain snaps him out of the visions. Yelping, he curls in on himself, cradling his head until he can recover enough to look up at El with watery eyes. “What was that? Did you see that too? Did you see Will?”

El says nothing, face pale.

“El please, this is important. I—" he swallows. "That kid you pointed at? In the picture? His name is Will, and he’s in trouble, he’s missing, and that’s why I was out in that storm yesterday, I was looking for him. Do you know him?”

“Missing.” El repeats quietly.

"Yeah, he—no one’s seen him since Sunday. Did you see Will last night? On the road?” She doesn’t answer. “Do you know where he is?”

El bites her lip.

“El, do you know where Will is?” Mike repeats. “Do you know what happened to him? Do… do the Bad Men have him?”

Timidly, she meets his gaze. “No.”

Mike’s heart is trying so hard to beat its way out of his chest. It should be a relief to know that Will hasn’t been kidnapped by some secret evil organization, but it’s a small mercy at best. Because if Will isn’t being held captive in some top secret cell, then where is he? Why hasn’t he come home? And why is El so frightened by all these questions?

Mike doesn’t have time to ask her any more. A familiar voice calls his name from downstairs—Mom’s voice. He hadn’t realized before, but she’s come back home, and she’s now coming up the stairs.

He needs to hide El.

--o--

Never let it be said that when presented with a mission, Lucas Sinclair is not the man for the challenge.

Granted, all things considered, breaking out of Middle School isn’t exactly a challenge. There are very few teachers willing to deal with them hellions during lunch break unless someone like Troy is causing too much of a ruckus to ignore. All they need to do is squeeze through the hole in the fence behind the outdoor bathrooms while everyone’s busy getting their lunch and tables from the cafeteria. From there it’s a simple walk round the hill up to the high school, from an angle where they won’t draw so much attention.

Finding Nancy might present more of a challenge, but they get lucky this time. Lucas easily spots her eating lunch with one of her friends over on the outdoor lunch tables. Barb, he thinks. He’s seen her around the Wheelers’ often enough to recognize her short red hair and taller figure.

Lucas points the pair out to Dustin, and trots over in their direction. “Hey. Hey Nancy!”

“Nancy!” Dustin also calls as they approach.

“Oh my god.” Nancy puts her sandwich down in surprise. “Lucas? Dustin?”

“What are you two doing here?” Barb blinks from beside her.

“We snuck out.” Dustin admits unabashedly. “We need to talk to you.”

Nancy’s mouth twists in displeasure as she takes the two of them in. “I’m pretty sure little kids aren’t allowed out of the middle school without permission. Do you know how much trouble you’re going to be in when the teachers realize you’re missing?”

“No one needs to know unless you tattle on us.” Lucas crosses his arms and juts out his chin defiantly.

“Yeah, it’s not a permanent breakout, we’ll break right back in, we just wanted to ask some questions.” Dustin nods.

“Where’s Mike?” Lucas gets to the point, brow wrinkling. “Is he okay? Why didn’t he come to school today? Is he sick?”

This seems to be news to Barb as well, who frowns when she turns to Nancy. “Mike didn’t go to school today?”

Nancy hesitates for a second before she shrugs it off. “Mike’s—fine, he’s just rattled about all this stuff with Will.” She tells them all primly. “Mom decided it was better if he took the day off, you know how it is.”

Lucas does know how it is, which is why they went to all the effort to get some info from the closest source available after no one answered home at the Wheelers. It’d been pretty alarming to see Mike’s empty desk this morning after yesterday’s announcement that Will had gone missing.

So it should be a relief to hear that things are… relatively fine on Mike’s end. Nancy certainly doesn’t look particularly worried about it, but Lucas also knows that since she started high school, Nancy and Mike usually just stick to each doing their own thing. It wouldn’t surprise him if she missed something being truly off with him.

“He is okay, though?” Lucas insists. “No attacks or anything?”

“No. At least not that I know of.” Nancy huffs. “He was his usual annoying little self from what I could see this morning, so go back to school before someone thinks we helped you break out.”

Dustin and Lucas share a glance, considering, before nodding. That’s really all they’re going to get out of Nancy until they see Mike themselves later this afternoon.

After all, one member of the Party is already missing. They can’t afford to lose another one if they’re going to get Will back.

“Alright, thanks girls!” Dustin says.

“Remember, if anyone asks, you didn’t see us.” Lucas adds, with a pointed ‘I’m-watching-you’ motion. Nancy rolls her eyes at him, but Barb salutes the both of them with no air of sarcasm to it, which immediately makes her his favorite in his books.

It's not much information, but it's enough to make a plan now at least. And so they’re off.

--o--

When Mike flings his bedroom door open it’s just in time. His mom stands on the other side, one fist poised to knock while the other keeps Baby Holly up against her waist. Surprise flicks across her face for a second before it softens. “Hey, bud, how are you holding up? Have a nice nap?”

“Um,” Mike shrugs wearily, picking at the pants of his pajamas. “Yeah, I guess…”

“Listen... I had an idea. Since you’re not at school today, how about Holly, you and I head over to Joyce’s house in a bit, just to pop in and see how she’s doing, offer some friendly support. This way, you’re not stuck in this big house all alone and... I’m sure she’ll be glad to see some friendly faces as well. What do you think, sound good?”

Mike pauses, tries not to let on how distracting the buzzing beehive of El’s emotions are, radiating as they are from his closet behind him. “I don’t—I don’t know, Mom… I—do we have to go right now?”

“Well, I’m just going to quickly whip something up to take over to Joyce, so that should give you time to arrange yourself into something appropriate, but yes we’ll be leaving soon.”

“I just think…” It’s hard to think of a proper excuse with all the noise, “I’d rather stay here for the day... maybe get some more sleep?”

Mom frowns, looking him over. “I don’t want you to sleep the day away either, hon. It’ll be better if you have something to keep you occupied, and we won’t be over long anyway.” She replies firmly. “ We’re leaving in an hour, so make sure to be ready by then, okay?”

“I… okay.”

Mom nods and walks away. Even though his eyes are watering, Mike waits for her to reach the bottom of the stairs before he finally darts back into his room.

“El?” He calls for her as loudly as he dares, beelining for the closet. “Is everything okay? Eleven?”

When he opens the door, Mike doesn’t need psychic empathy to realize that asking El to hide in the closet was probably the worst plan he could have come up with at the moment. It’s pretty obvious in of itself when he finds her curled up into a ball on the floor, pressed as far back as she can go, fear and sadness and hurt wafting off of her in erratic waves. She looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Mike.”

“Oh,” he says, and kneels down with her. “El? Are you okay?”

El’s breath hitches, and for a moment he thinks she might burst into tears, but she nods instead.

“Are you sure?”

She nods again, and the frenzied static of her emotions starts smoothing out. “Promise.”

The way she says the word is so heavy with meaning that Mike sees no other choice but to believe her, even without the external evidence telling him she’s calming down. “I’m really sorry I made you hide in the closet. I didn’t—I should have realized it was one of your landmines.”

She swipes at her eyes. “Landmines?”

“It’s a term Lucas came up with. It’s stuff that you usually have to avoid doing or talking about because if you don’t it’ll blow up in your head and hurt you, but like, mentally.” Mike explains. He hesitates before adding, “when... when I hit a landmine I get so scared I get these—these crying fits, and I get really dizzy and it’s hard to breathe. It feels like I’m dying or something. Is that what it feels like for you?”

She nods slowly.

“I should have realized you didn’t like closed spaces when you didn’t want me to shut the bathroom door yesterday. That’s one of your landmines, I think.” Mike holds a hand out. “Come on, let’s get you out of that closet.”

She grabs his hand. As soon as their skin makes contact a jolt of electricity runs through Mike’s body like a live wire, and he flinches and immediately lets go—

But not before his clothes blast off of their hangers and come falling down all over the two of them like goose feathers.

Thankfully, Eleven isn’t overly frightened by the incident; just a bit startled as she pulls a sweatshirt off her head. “Mike?”

“Agh, sorry.” Mike shakes the excess energy off of his hands, his skin tingling from where it touched El’s sweaty palms. Whew. She’s so strong. “That’s my bad, sorry. I lost control a bit.”

Crap, he’s gonna have to work on that, isn’t he? The same thing happened earlier when El got those visions of Will with the science fair photograph. If Mike’s powers keep acting up every time Eleven uses her powers near him, every time she even touches him, someone’s gonna figure out something’s up real quick, and that’s the absolute last thing he needs to deal with right now.

Years and years of having superpowers, and he’s only just now realizing he needs to learn to control them. He can’t believe he didn’t think of that before now.

Well to be fair, he thinks somewhat bitterly, it’s not like there’s ever been anyone around whose had powers I could lose control with, let alone use to help me practice.

El frowns at him, and looks between his hands and her own. “I... hurt you?”

“No, no, no, it just took me by surprise, that’s all. I’m not used to being around someone else with powers.” He admits, crossing his arms and tucking his hands under his armpits. “Before you came along... I was the only one in town like this.”

“The only one?”

“Yeah. I mean I looked, but….” He shrugs. He’d never seen anyone else with that certain aura of… of something more , something brighter so to speak, that gave away that a person was not what they’d seemed. As far as he could tell there was no one else like that in Hawkins. Not until El had shown up.

El goes quiet at that, and after a moment Mike shakes the thought off and tentatively tries to bring her out of the closet again. Power hums ominously inside of him when he grabs Eleven’s hand, but he’s careful to push it down as he helps her up this time. The trophies on his shelves rattle suspiciously, but Mike manages to help El out without incident, so he counts that as a victory. Hopefully, the first of many.

He can do this. He just needs to go slow and be patient. Take it step-by-step. He’ll adjust and they’ll find Will and he’ll figure out a way to help El and everything will go back to normal before he knows it. He can totally do this.

--o--

When the Wheelers arrive at the Byers’, Mike is caught off guard by the gloomy sight of it. The house that’s always been like a second home to Mike is almost unrecognizable with how… cold… it looks.

It's strange. Nothing has physically changed inso far as he can tell, but it looms in a way it never has before. Although Mike’s only ever been able to sense other living creatures, he can’t shake the idea that the house feels gloomy and hollow—he’d go so far as to call it lifeless even.

Whether she can sense it or not, it’s clear that the ambient is putting a toll on Mrs. Byers. He’s long learned to adjust to the uncomfortable prickle of her stress buzzing in the background whenever he comes over, but now it’s escalated into a frenzied static that’s painful enough to make his eyes water, when she opens the door to Mom’s knock.

Mike winces and takes a subtle step back to put Mom as a shield between them, even as Mom greets her with a shaky but sympathetic smile.

“Joyce! Hi! I brought you a casserole.” She lifts the tin-foil covered dish in explanation. “It’s not baked yet though. I hope you don’t mind. I figure it’d be better to pop into the oven here instead of letting it get cold on the way.”

It takes a moment for Mrs. Byers to blink past her surprise and usher them in. “Oh, uh, no—that’s, that’s fine, please, come in.”

She pauses in surprise when Mike walks past her. “Mike? Hey, what are you doing here, kiddo? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“No, I… um…” Mike turns sheepishly to his own mother.

“Oh, Michael didn’t feel comfortable going to school after hearing about Will.” Mom explains apologetically. “So I figured that it couldn’t hurt to miss one day of classes. I hope that’s okay? That he’s here?”

“Oh, no, it’s—it’s absolutely fine, I understand completely.” Mrs. Byers smiles thinly, leading them over to the dining area. “I’m sorry about all this Mike. Kids your age shouldn’t have to deal with this sort of situation.”

Mike shrugs uncomfortably, unsure of what to say in face of the yawning abyss of her grief and worry.

“Neither should their mothers.” Mom adds, squeezing Mrs. Byers’ shoulder. “Especially not alone. I hope you know that we’re here for your family if you need us. For anything at all.”

“I appreciate that, Karen, thank you.” Mrs. Byers says quietly, and gently takes the casserole from Mom’s arms to put it into the oven.

“So, um.” Mom starts awkwardly. “Where’s Jonathan? I thought he’d be here with you.”

“Oh… no… I just—I didn’t want him waiting here with me all day long, so I sent him to school. Better that he keeps himself busy, at least.”

“I can understand that.” She shoots a quick glance at Mike as if to say, see? “How’s he been holding up with… with all this?”

“Well,” Mrs. Byers sighs. “What can I say? He’s my rock. You know, he’s always been good at taking care of himself and—us, and I’m proud of him for that but... I just worry that sometimes that keeps him from depending on me in return...”

As Mom and Mrs. Byers solemnly chat, Mike swallows and wanders off into the rest of the house.

It’s not what Mom intended from the visit, but he’d been wanting to take a look around anyway. He doesn’t think it’ll help much. From what he gathered from the Chief yesterday, as far as anyone can tell Will disappeared in the woods on his way home. But still, short of going back to Mirkwood, it doesn’t hurt to look for clues, for something that might be missed by normal eyes.

It's harder than he expected. Mike shudders as he rounds the living room, and heads to the dim hallway that leads to the bedrooms. To call it eerie would be an understatement. Just like outside, every inch of the rooms inside are cold and subdued, as if Will’s disappearance took all warmth along with him. Mike would certainly believe it.

He finds Chester in Will’s bedroom, curled up on the bed with his scruffy nose tucked into the quilt looking sad and subdued. Mike sighs deeply and settles down next to him, the old springs creaking under the added weight.

He’s not sure what Mom hoped to accomplish by bringing him here. It doesn’t help any—he just feels more depressed.

“You miss him, huh?” Mike tells Chester softly, stroking the wiry hairs behind his floppy ears like he likes.

Chester whines at him.

“Me too, buddy. I’m trying to find him,” Mike confesses frustratedly, “but it’s—it’s a work in progress. I just don’t know where to start.”

Will’s lamp flickers at that moment. Mike and Chester both snap up their heads to stare at it, but it turns off after a moment and remains dark and quiet.

And then, the telephone rings.

Even as far away as he is in Will’s bedroom, the noise startles him. Chester immediately leaps off the bed to go running into the hallway, barking wildly like he’s never seen him do before, and Mike follows right at his heels, peeking out of the bedroom to see Mrs. Byers rush over to the phone.

“Hello?” She answers desperately, clutching the yellow plastic like a lifeline. Chester dances around her feet, still barking like there’s no tomorrow, and Mom watches worriedly while rocking a startled Holly on her hip. “Hello? Who is this?”

A pause, as she listens. And then a small whimper, and the one word he’d never think would come out of her mouth at that moment. “…Will?”

Mike’s chest goes cold.

“Will? Baby—baby, it’s me. It’s Mom. Talk to me.” Mrs. Byers’ shaky voice gasps. “I, I-I can hear you, just—talk to me, please.”

Another pause, as Mrs. Byers listens, but whatever she does or doesn’t hear can’t be any good, because she visibly shakes all over as she curls into herself, clutching the phone even tighter in her hands.

Chester barks his absolute head off. Mom tucks Holly’s little head into her shoulder, partly to comfort Holly and partly to comfort herself, looking frightened beyond anything he’s ever seen or felt from her before.

“Will! Will, yes, it’s me, please, just talk to me, just tell me where you are, please baby, I’ll find you, I promise, talk to me honey—”

And then the lights in the whole house flicker, and a high-pitched whining is their only warning before the phone crackles with electricity so strong he sees it arc into Mrs. Byers hands, causing her to scream and drop the phone into the floor.

In the span of less than a second, the plastic’s warped and gone black with extreme heat, and when Mike starts to smell the acrid burning of it all the way over from the other end of the hallway, his lungs forget how to breathe for a moment.

“No. No!” Mrs. Byers whimpers, immediately dropping to the floor to scramble at the phone in spite of her blistered fingers. “No, no, no, no, it was Will, he was there, I heard him, it was his voice—”

“Joyce,” Mom tries, still rocking Holly as she gets increasingly upset with the noise. “the phone isn’t—please, you have to calm down—”

“But it was Will, I heard him, he was there, I just know it, he was—the same thing happened yesterday—!”

Bark! Bark, bark! Bark! Bark! Bark!

The pandemonium is overwhelming. Mom’s eyes dart uncertainly from Mrs. Byers to Chester to Holly before finally landing on him, and when she sees him her face hardens with decision all at once.

“Michael,” she hisses, putting a whining Holly down. “Come get your sister. I need you to take her outside right now.”

“But—”

“Right. Now.” She growls, her voice lined with a steely edge that he’s never heard before, especially not directed at him. All the hairs in his body stand up straight, even as he goes to fetch Holly.

“Go play with Chester in the front yard.” Mom tells him, helping Mrs. Byers to her feet. “Go!”

And so Mike has no choice but to obey.

Chester turns to scratch and whine at the front door as soon as it closes behind him, and nothing will pull him away from it short of dragging him by his collar, which Mike isn’t strong enough for, so he doesn’t bother trying.

Mrs. Byers is emitting such a strong, eclectic blast of emotions that even from outside the house the bombardment is giving him a headache. And Baby Holly is rapidly gearing up for a full-grown tantrum, so he takes Holly far out of range, all the way over to the edge of the tree line down the driveway in the hopes of distracting her before she gets too overwhelmed. This at least is something he can do.

Usually no one but Mom can get her to calm down when she’s exposed to too many loud noises, so it’s a bit of a gamble to try redirecting her to the piles of leaves gathered around the floor, but the quiet and games seem to work well enough for once. Holly quickly entices him into a few rounds of patty cakes, and he tries to play along, careful to hide his worry from her even though his heart thumps wildly in his chest and his lungs are working harder than usual to breathe.

Baby Holly’s enthusiasm is contagious though, and helps calm him down. He’s just barely starting to settle into the rhythm of it when a scream rings out from within the house.

“Mom!?” He yelps. His heart jumps to his throat, and he leaps up to his feet at once, but there’s no need—Mom bursts out of the house not a moment later, dragging Mrs. Byers with her, and both of their faces are whiter than he’s ever seen them.

Chester likewise only takes one step inside the house before he yelps and comes speeding right out with his tail in between his legs. Something’s got them downright spooked.

Mom ignores the fleeing dog in favor of rounding the house, and confusion blooms amidst her fear when she stops in front of the windows, as if expecting to see something there. She feels around the glass and wooden frame before looking around the surrounding bushes and trees with wide eyes, and when her gaze falls on Holly and Mike watching from the other side of the street she stiffens.

“Kids, are you okay? Did you see something?”

Mike crinkles his nose in confusion. “No…?”

“I… I thought I saw—” Mom puts a hand to her forehead and breathes out shakily. “Nevermind. I’m just glad you’re both okay.”

--o--

When Lucas and Dustin roll up to the Wheeler’s house after school, they find that the house is quiet from the outside and the garage door is closed shut. The Wheelers usually like to keep it open when they’re home, Lucas knows, which means that no one must be inside at the moment.

It doesn’t deter Dustin from dropping down his bike as soon as they get to the front yard, so that he can go up to the front door and bang at it frantically. “Hello? Is anyone home? Hellooo?”

Lucas slouches forward on his bike so that he can rest his chin on his hand. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s around to answer.”

“Ah well, it doesn’t hurt to check, just in case—” Dustin takes a deep breath so that he can holler out, “Mike! Are you there?! Open the door if you are, man! You got some ‘splaining to do!”

“Dustin!” Lucas hisses. “You don’t have to be so loud! I got my supercomm with me, remember?”

“Oh,” Dustin pauses. “Yeah. I forgot about that.”

Lucas rolls his eyes and pulls his backpack off to rustle around in it as Dustin sheepishly bounds back to him. Lucky that he thought to bring his radio with him today, even if he’d been hoping to use it to get a move on the search for Will. “Mike, do you copy? Me and Dustin are at your house, let us in if you can hear us.”

“Don’t forget to say over so that he knows you’re done talking.” Dustin reminds him cheerfully.

Lucas shoots him a look, but obligingly brings the supercomm up to his mouth to add, “over.”

They wait for an answer, but several minutes pass by with nothing but radio silence to show for it.

Lucas tries again. “Mike, are you home now? We’re at your front door and we got your homework with us, let us in so that I can give it to you.”

“Over.” Dustin adds.

“Over.” Lucas sighs into the supercomm.

It’s no use. The house and radio remain ever quiet.

Lucas’ stomach twists unpleasantly, but he takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. It’s fine, he tells himself. Just because Will’s gone doesn’t mean he needs to jump to conclusions about every little odd thing he runs into. Best to not let his nerves get the best of him. Dustin does enough of that for the whole party, and someone needs to keep a level head to find Will.

And sure enough—“you think something happened to them?” Dustin whispers, suddenly pale and wide-eyed. “What if the monster got the Wheelers as well?”

Monster? “They’re probably out on errands or something.” Lucas says reasonably. “C’mon, we can wait for them to come back over at mine.”

He rolls his bike back without any further input from Dustin, meaning to cross the street with it, but nearly falls off when the other boy suddenly yells out of nowhere.

“Dustin, what the fuck—”

“I saw him! He’s in there!” Dustin points several times at the window for emphasis. “I just saw Mike peeking out of his room right now!”

“What?” Great, now Dustin’s hallucinating. “No way he’s in there, why wouldn’t he answer us then?”

“It’s true, I didn’t imagine it! He was right there!” Dustin insists. He lifts both hands to cup around his mouth. “Miike! C’mon, open up! If you’re ignoring us on purpose we won’t tell you about Mr. Gursky’s assignment and you’ll have to blunder through it on your own!”

Lucas eyes the window consideringly, but nothing happens. At least, not at first. Dustin keeps yelling, and even goes so far as to pick up a pebble and lob it at the Mike's window.

The pebble hits way lower than where the window actually is, but that doesn’t stop a large pair of eyes from peeking out from the side-curtains and then disappearing just as quickly.

Lucas sucks in a breath.

“See! I told you!” Dustin exclaims.

“What the hell, Mike?” Lucas shouts up at the window. “This is not the time to go AWOL on us! Why didn’t you come to school today?”

But no one answers.

“Welp!” Dustin says with a pop of lips. “What do we do now?”

Lucas is so mad he hops off his bike, kicking the stand out and marches over to the backyard.

“Wait, Lucas, what are you doing, where are you going? Lucas!”

With one hand, Lucas holds a finger to his mouth, motioning for silence, while the other grabs the spare key hidden under one of the planted pots.

“What?” Dustin just barely manages to contain his surprise to a whisper. “How long have you known that was there?”

“I saw Mr. Wheeler put it down there once.” Lucas explains, and inserts the key into the door. “Never really had a reason to use it before.”

“Never—? Lucas, think of all the hilarious pranks! The pranks!”

“Yeah well generally people don’t like it when you break into their houses so, shh!”

The house is empty and quiet when they slip inside, erasing any doubts that Mrs. Wheeler or Holly might be home as well. The only noise they actually get is from the TV, playing brainless commercials Lucas cares not for. It’s a good enough cover to muffle their footsteps, so Lucas motions for Dustin to follow him.

They have to be extra careful. Mike can be pretty avoidant when he wants, and he’s never been easy to sneak up on, so it’s a slow trek upstairs to make sure he absolutely can’t duck out of their ambush.

It must work, because as they come up to the door they can hear him shuffling around his room, unaware.

Which is why Lucas is more than happy to burst through the door with a satisfied growl of, “gotcha!”

Except, it’s not Mike who’s lurking inside.

It’s not Mike who jumps and whirls around in surprise.

It’s not Mike who throws her hand out, and pins Lucas and Dustin to the walls. With her mind.

“What... the hell—?” Dustin gasps out past the paralyzation.

Staring at the strange girl as she gasps for breath—the strange bald girl wearing Mike’s clothes standing in Mike's room, wiping her bloody nose with wide eyes as she stares right back at them—Lucas couldn’t agree more.

--o--o--o--

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cecilysass · 2 years

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The Kaleidoscope (4/4)

Read on AO3 | Angst, JealousMulder, MSR | Tagging @today-in-fic

take three.

Realization.

He’s distracted as he enters the garage, lost in the tangle of his thoughts as he walks to his car. When a black Camaro barrels down the ramp, much too fast, he isn’t even aware of it until it is almost too late.

When he does finally process the headlights coming directly at him, he reacts on pure instinct.

He springs forward exactly at the same time as the Camaro brakes. There is a demonic shriek of tires. It’s not a clean jump. The edge of the halting car knocks him, and he’s jettisoned violently forward.

There’s a painful impact. And the world goes dark.

***

“Can you hear me?”

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“I don’t see any blood. Is he hurt?”

A woman’s face, indistinct, looking down at him, her brow furrowed. “Young man? Can you hear me?”

He blinks, and his eyes slowly focus on details of the woman’s face. Middle-aged, black, glasses, a burgundy blazer, gold earrings.

“Yeah,” Mulder says blearily. “Yeah, I can hear you.”

“Are you all right?” Quentin stands behind the woman, looking down in anxious concern, and Mulder wonders stupidly if Mario is behind the security desk all by himself. A few other onlookers stand nearby, including a blonde woman Mulder recognizes as a receptionist from the sixth floor, and a short man he knows is a forensic accountant.

“Yeah.” Mulder sits up, gingerly. “I think I’m okay. I got clipped by a speeding car. Did you see it? It was going way too fast.”

“The Camaro.” The gold earrings woman shakes her head disapprovingly. “I saw it. I have to say, you’re fortunate to be alive.”

“I guess I am,” Mulder says weakly.

“You should go to the hospital and get checked out,” urges Quentin. “In case anything is busted in your head or something.”

“I’m sure lots is busted in my head,” Mulder says, starting to stand up. “But not from this.”

“Careful,” the gold earrings woman warns, grabbing his elbow. “Take it slow.”

“I really don’t think you should drive for a few minutes, Agent Mulder,” the blonde receptionist suggests, with a concerned frown. Mulder tries to recall her name. He and Scully have asked for her help a few times—Scully would definitely remember her name. “Sit down and make sure you’re okay first. A head injury can be dangerous.”

“That’s a good idea,” Quentin agrees. “Sit down.”

“I think I’m fine.” Mulder tries to look casually cheerful.

“Better safe than sorry,” the gold earrings woman says firmly. “Go sit for a few minutes. You have an office in the Hoover Building?”

“I have a desk,” Mulder says. “I can probably go upstairs and hang out a little while.”

The blonde receptionist, seemingly more familiar with his reputation than the others, looks unconvinced, crossing her arms in displeasure.

“And there’s someone who can help you if you don’t feel well?”

“My best friend is a doctor,” Mulder says evasively.

“You promise you won’t leave until you’re sure you’ve got your feet under you?” the gold earrings woman asks.

“Yeah,” Mulder smiles wanly.

Quentin claps Mulder on the back and shakes his head. “Man, you are having one bad day. First your heart breaks and then your head, right?”

Mulder gives Quentin a look and nods warily, glancing at the blonde receptionist, who knows Scully and therefore can’t be privy to any heartbreak talk.

“I’d say he’s having a very blessed day.” The gold earrings woman regards him seriously over the top of her glasses. “Someone up there wants him alive. You should ask yourself why, young man.”

***

Now that his unexpected near death encounter is over, Mulder’s mood reverts to gloomy fast. Scully is out on a date with some banker, and he is back in the bullpen by himself.

Her seat is empty, as are all the others. The entire bullpen, the whole floor, appears to have cleared out in record time. No eager worker bees putting in extra hours this Friday evening.

Sitting in the dark and deserted row of desks seems fitting, really.

Mulder slouches in his chair and sighs heavily. He probably doesn’t really need to stay here long. He feels fine. Just a few minutes, to satisfy the promises he made to his caretakers in the parking garage, and then he can go home.

He uses his legs to swing back and forth in his chair sulkily.

Maybe, in some great cosmic insult, every single agent but him is out with a significant other tonight. Perhaps even Agent Carnahan is out with somebody, some extra special human being who doesn’t mind a date making inappropriately-timed political jokes and coming at you with breath that always smells like scallions.

It is Friday night, after all. Date night. He tries to think of the last time he had a real date, one for which he put on some intentionally nice outfit, picked a restaurant, got a little nervous, and considered the etiquette of goodnight kisses. It must have been that pretty lawyer? That was at least five years ago, and he doesn’t even remember her name.

It’s embarrassing to admit it, but since that time, he has made lots of imitation dates on Friday nights.

At first he didn’t do it consciously. And then, after a while, he did. Usually his imitation dates have been something related to work, sort of, but sometimes, especially in more recent years, there’s not even that pretense. It’s just: Do you want to go get a beer? Want to grab takeout? Movie night? She almost never says no. On some rare occasions, she’s even been the one to suggest it.

Unless he’s the worst profiler in the world, she likes these evenings together. She rolls her eyes, sure, and she employs her sarcastic wit, but she’ll also smile, even laugh. He can usually figure out ways to get her to relax. She’ll toss out a flirtatious one-liner that will have him alert and sitting up straight. She’s affectionate. She’s occasionally rested her hand on his, just for a moment or two.

The kaleidoscope sitting on his desk catches his eye again, and he picks it up, shaking it to hear the beads inside roll around.

Well, so what. She enjoys an evening eating takeout with her partner. Her best friend. That’s obviously not enough for her.

He supposes he understands where she’s coming from. Viewed from a certain light, his imitation dates are sad. They are incomplete and unsatisfying. Not everyone wants perpetual Friday nights of half-assed ghost hunts and pizza from the box, plans designed to appear thrown together at the last minute, plans that feel intimate in some ways but lonely in others.

Plans that might lead to heads resting on shoulders. But never, ever to goodnight kisses, much less someone in your bed. He can see how you might want to move on to something more grown-up.

He feels a fresh little sting, realizing how much he’ll miss the imitation dates. How lonely he’s going to be, if from now on she’s going to be spending Fridays with someone else. They were enough for him. Sort of.

The ring of his cell phone breaks him out of his sad reverie. He raises his hips to fish it out of his pocket.

He presses it to his ear without thinking. “Mulder.”

“You’re a difficult man to reach, Fox.”

Of course it’s not Scully. Ridiculous to think it would be. “Diana.”

“I left you three messages today. Didn’t you get them?”

“Messages.” He considers that. “Oh. Right. With Scully.” He sees the stack of paper messages on his desk and picks them up. “I, uh, got them, but didn’t read them.”

“Is everything all right, Fox?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“I was calling to make sure we were still on for lunch next week. I really want to pick your brain about the Deloitte case. There are some inconsistencies between the witness reports and the evidence, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me out.”

Mulder is spreading the six phone messages out in a grid on the desk, with the kaleidoscope at the top of the grid. He eyes them with some surprise. “Hmm.“

“We could get together tomorrow instead, if that’s better for you?”

“Uh,” he says. “I don’t know. Hey—”

“Yes?”

“Why did you leave me three messages?”

A pause.

“I told you, I was trying to talk to you about our meeting.”

“Three messages, though?”

“Well, I have to admit, I’m eager to talk to you about this one. Spender is adequate for some purposes, but there’s no mind like yours for the X-files. Which reminds me, I was also going to ask—”

“I guess what I mean is,” he says slowly, adjusting the paper messages carefully, “why would you call three times on my phone in the bullpen? I didn’t get any calls from you on my cell.”

“You were in with Kersh,” Diana says patiently. “You wouldn’t have been answering your cell.”

“But if you knew I was in with Kersh,” he says, biting his bottom lip, “then why would you keep calling? Why not wait for me to get out of the meeting? You called three times in under an hour.”

There is another pause. “It gave me a chance to talk to Agent Scully,” she says.

“Talk to Scully about what? The case?”

“No. Just — about other things. You know.”

“I don’t.”

“Why are you asking? Are you worried we were talking about you?”

“Were you talking about me, Diana?”

She just laughs very lightly, and it’s like a faint alarm bell ringing.

He stares at the messages with dawning realization.

One time, years ago, when they were together, he and Diana went to an FBI training seminar, and a young agent suggestively slipped Mulder her number. Diana had turned unrecognizably mercenary in finding out who the woman was and then in making a point of humiliating her before they left.

At the time, young and smitten as he was, he’d found this possessive mean streak of Diana’s alluring.

He doesn’t find it alluring now.

“Diana,” he says. “Let me ask this a different way. Have you been intentionally giving Scully the impression that you and I are… closer than we are?”

He hears her faint breathing on the line. “I’m going to be completely upfront with you here, Fox, because I know you value the truth. That’s possible.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I wish we were closer than we are,” she says. “Maybe I miss the closeness we used to have.”

“And how do you see that involving Scully?”

A low laugh. “Oh, Fox. Even you can’t be that oblivious.”

“Apparently I am.” His voice is flat.

“I miss what we had, Fox,” she says softly.

She’s possibly telling the truth, Mulder thinks. Or possibly she is primed to carry out some other agenda altogether, to place a strategic wedge between partners for reasons Scully has understood better than him all along.

“Do you remember what it was like… when we were close?” she adds, her voice colored with longing.

“Diana…” Mulder says thoughtfully, “do you honestly believe we were close? Do you think I really understood you? Or you me? I’m not sure I’d know. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a truly close romantic relationship.”

“Fox–”

“But I am very sure about one thing. If you continue to try to fuck around with Scully’s mind—if you do anything at all to interfere in my partnership—you and I won’t have any kind of relationship at all.”

“Oh, Fox–”

He hangs up.

He stares at the messages again, twisting the kaleidoscope absently as he does. They’re all written in Scully’s neat handwriting, recording Diana’s name and time of call, dutifully jotting down each message: “You apparently left your sweater in her car Tuesday evening.”

He imagines the artful way Diana probably described his sweater being left in her car: what details were left out, what details were included. What kind of story she made the forgotten sweater tell. How she might have wielded that in conversation with Scully.

And how well did it work? What effect did it have? He thinks about Scully’s reserved tone when she discussed the messages with him, a stiffness in her posture as of late, a hundred other times she seemed distant.

All at once he feels certain it worked very well.

He feels sick to his stomach. Clearly he’s been astoundingly, unforgivably stupid. He hasn’t seen evidence right in front of him.

He knocks the messages angrily off his desk into the wastebasket below.

Now the events of the entire afternoon are cast in a very different light.

The kaleidoscope turns in his fingers. The pieces continue to fall.

***

On the drive home, Mulder thinks through what he could realistically say to her, if he were going to say anything. If that were even a good idea. He plays out different scenarios in his mind, all increasingly horrifying.

Scully, just so you know, I’m not dating Diana. Do you think you might not want to date that guy now?

Scully, why do Diana’s mind games work on you? What has Diana seen that I haven’t? Is it possibly related to a subtext—can we agree there’s a subtext?

Please. You’re my person, my only person. Please don’t date that seemingly stable and attractive banker.

He can’t imagine any of this, or any variation, being received well.

Maybe he’s just too late. Possibly now she is irreversibly charmed and intrigued by this Ryan. Maybe Ryan’s much funnier than he seemed on first impression, funnier than Mulder. Maybe he’s fucking amazing in bed.

The sound of his phone irritates him. It keeps incessantly ringing and ringing, and he knows he’s not going to answer it. It’s going to be a long time before he can even contemplate talking to Diana again. He reaches into his pocket and switches it off. No more.

***

Once he’s home, he decides to go for a run. It seems more productive than sulking and stewing around his apartment. Or calling Frohike and having him do research on Ryan, which he also seriously considers doing.

Running’s good. Healthy.

His run is fast, hard, invigorating. It’s warm outside for the season, and his shirt sticks to him, but it feels satisfying to sweat it out.

Sometimes, when trying to think through a problem, running can provide him with crucial mental clarity. He can’t say that exactly happens today, but the jolt of physical activity calms him down anyway, shaves off the sharper edges of his anxiety.

He walks down the hallway to his apartment feeling pleasantly worn out. He decides to shower and order some food, try to keep his mind distracted from Scully and her date, and possibly aim for bed early.

Tomorrow he’ll figure out what to do. Tomorrow maybe things will seem more clear.

He unlocks his door, steps inside, and nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Where have you been?” Scully demands. She leaps up from his couch, racing to intercept him before he’s made it even three steps inside.

“Scully…?”

“You went for a run?” she gasps, looking down at his clothes. “Mulder, what were you thinking?” Her palms fly to his face, manipulating his head slightly from side to side.

“Scully…what’re you doing here?” he tries, as she rotates his jaw down and looks in his eyes. “What about your date?”

“Do you have a headache? Nausea or vomiting?” she asks sharply. Her eyes are boring into his, her hands running over his sweaty forehead, and he finally puts together that she is examining him.

“No,” he says helplessly. He’s intensely aware of how close she has pressed her determined body into his, how she is wearing some kind of fitted black date dress, how rumpled and smelly he must be.

“Double vision? Ringing in the ears?”

“No…”

“Any disorientation? Confusion?

“Wait, wait,” he says, swatting her hands away. “Stop. What is this? What are you doing?”

She steps back, regarding him in disbelief. “You were hit by a car. You were unconscious, Mulder. You have to be examined for a concussion. You can’t just get up and walk away, assuming you’re fine.”

“I am experiencing some disorientation and confusion, as a matter of fact,” he says. He shuts the door and steps past her, headed for his couch. “Like…how did you know I was hit by a car?”

“Natalie told me,” Scully says indignantly, following after him, her hands on her hips. “Natalie who works on the sixth floor, the receptionist?“

“Right, Natalie,” Mulder says. Scully does know her name. Of course.

“Ryan and I were having drinks at Oiseaux, and she came in — and when she recognized me, she told me she’d just seen you have an accident in the parking garage. That you’d been hit by a speeding car.”

Mulder sinks down on his couch and stares at her. “Why would she do that? Why would she interrupt your date to tell you that?“

Scully rolls her eyes. “Come on, Mulder, the whole building calls me Mrs. Spooky.” She sits down next to him. “Not to mention, I think she felt somewhat worried about you.” Her forehead furrows. “I was worried, too, once I heard what happened.”

She shakes her head, and then smacks his knee with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe you would come home and go running. The number of injuries you’ve had? You should know better.”

Mulder smiles a little, glancing over at her. He can’t help but feel a rush of pleasure at her concern, even though he knows that’s childish and self-absorbed.

“No disorientation at all? No memory problems?” she adds.

“No,” he says. “Not that I remember, anyway.”

She gives him a look and sighs. “Natalie said you were going to wait at your desk a few minutes before you drove home.” A sideways skeptical glance. “I knew that had to be a lie, because you’d never voluntarily go back up to the bullpen.”

“I did,” he protests. “I sat in the bullpen and waited. Then I seemed fine, so I drove home.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Scully.” Mulder laughs weakly. “You were on a date.”

“Then you should have gone to the hospital.”

“Come on, the car didn’t even hit me full on,” he scoffs.

“What a ridiculous thing to say, Mulder. If you were unconscious at all, a concussion is always a possibility.”

They’re sitting side by side, and Mulder realizes how strange the situation is. How physically close she is to him, in a beautiful dress, but how even making eye contact with her feels too intimate. How she’s supposed to be on a date, but she’s here bickering with her sweaty partner instead.

“Sometimes I make bad choices,” Mulder says haplessly.

“Certainly the understatement of the year.”

“Why’d you drive all the way over, Scully?” He turns his head to look at her. “You should have just called.”

“I tried to call, Mulder. Quite assiduously, actually. You weren’t answering your phone, which was also alarming.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Mulder says, remembering. “I turned it off. So you came here from…?”

“Oiseaux? Yes.”

“You just left Ryan?”

“Obviously I explained there was an emergency.”

“But it’s not an emergency.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t know that,” she says tensely, throwing her hands in the air. For the first time, he understands she has actually been on edge. “It felt like an emergency to me. I didn’t know where you were… or why you weren’t answering your phone.”

“I didn’t mean to worry you,” he says.

“You were in such a strange mood when Ryan and I left. I just…” She drifts off.

“You thought I jumped in front of a speeding Camaro, Scully?”

“No,” she says quickly. “And that’s not funny.”

He stares at her profile. He has a thousand questions for her and a thousand things to tell her.

“Were you having a good time?” he asks casually. “On your date?”

“Sure,” Scully says, shrugging.

“Did you order a fancy drink at Oiseaux? You’ve wanted to go there forever.”

“Just a glass of wine,” she says.

“Is Ryan a good conversationalist? Is he funny? Interesting?”

She turns to look at him. Her eyes run carefully over his face. “I suppose he is.”

“That’s good, right?” Mulder smiles at her. “I assume that’s what you want?”

She continues to study Mulder. “Those are desirable qualities, yes.”

“If you wanted to, you could probably call him and meet up with him again now,” Mulder says. “So you don’t ruin your night. You’re dressed up. You look nice.”

“It’s just my work outfit without the jacket,” she says. “But thank you.” She looks down at her dress, smoothing it with her hands, then back up at him. “I think I’d rather stay here and just make certain you’re all right.”

“Okay,” he says softly, feeling a little bubble of pleasure. “You’re always welcome, obviously.”

There is a pause. Mulder gestures towards the bathroom. “Am I allowed to go take a shower? Or is that too dangerous?”

“You may,” she says archly. “If I hear a thump on the floor, I’ll come in to rescue you.”

“Now that’s the kind of service I’ve come to expect from my house calls.”

“Maybe I should order food?”

“Yes,” he agrees eagerly, hopping up off the couch, his mood now buoyant.

As he starts to walk towards the shower, he has the impulse to unsettle the established pattern. Right now, while she is staying, while he has the chance.

He turns around again, hesitating only a second before he can change his mind.

“You don’t look ‘nice,’ Scully,” he says carefully, seriously. “You look… beautiful. You always look beautiful.”

She has just stood up from the couch, and she freezes, staring back, her expression actually stunned. “Thank you,” she says, her voice barely audible.

He nods, spins around, and heads towards the bathroom.

***

As he’s toweling off out of the shower, he hears his home phone ringing. He considers shouting for Scully to pick it up, but decides it’s probably better to let the machine get it. The only person he’d really want to talk to is here. Not on her date: here. Which feels like the second turn of incredibly good fortune he’s had this evening. He smiles to himself.

In the other room he hears the drone of the machine and the murmur of someone talking on the message as he puts on boxers and jeans.

When he steps into his bathroom to put on deodorant, he realizes the caller’s voice is female. And recognizable.

He grabs a tee shirt and walks out into the living room, where he can hear the tail end of the message playing clearly.

“…again, so sorry, Fox. I’m sure you’re going to need a day or two, but at least I hope you’ll be willing to consult with me about the X-files. I hope I speak to you soon.”

Scully is standing over the machine with her back to him. He wonders if she’s upset.

“Hey,” he says, pulling the gray tee over his wet hair. “It was Diana, huh?”

Scully turns around quickly, hugging herself tightly. She looks startled, and perhaps a little guilty.

“Yes,” she says. “She left you a message.”

“So I gathered. What’d she say?”

“It’s long,” Scully says awkwardly. “Maybe you just should listen.”

“Would you mind summarizing?”

She blinks. “All right.”

Her gaze goes up to the ceiling, as if playing it back mentally.

“She’s sorry,” she recites, her voice unsteady. “She says that she shouldn’t have tried to interfere in…your partnership. That she knows how important it is to you. She did it because of her feelings for you. She hopes you can forgive her. She still wants your input on the X-files.”

“Hmm,” Mulder says with a nod. He eyes her. “None of that seems very surprising. Did you order food?”

“I did,” she says. “So you two had a…falling out?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says. “I guess that’s what I’d call it. I’m not sure if you can have a falling out if you weren’t… fallen in. Let’s just say I think you were probably right about her not really being my friend.”

Scully’s forehead creases and she nods, slowly.

“I’m going to need to think about how to handle her going forward,” he continues. “Because we do need access to the X-files.”

“What does she mean about ‘interfering with your partnership?’”

Mulder bites his bottom lip. “It seems she tried to mislead you about the nature of my relationship with her. She thought it would upset you and put distance between us.”

Scully’s eyebrows lift sky high. “Oh.”

“Out of curiosity,” he says, trying to sound offhand, “did it work?”

She hesitates, pressing her lips together, seeming to make a decision. “Yes.”

“I thought it might have,” he says. “I’m sorry. I should have guessed what was happening earlier.” He pauses, looking her over carefully. “Why did it upset you, Scully?”

She recrosses her arms protectively and stares back at him. “I suppose it made me feel like there were things you weren’t telling me. Things you were sharing with her instead.”

Mulder opts to be direct. “You were jealous?”

“Jealous? We’re not a couple, Mulder,” she scoffs, turning to sit on the couch.

“That didn’t exactly answer the question.”

“You should rest. You’ve pushed it enough tonight.”

“I was jealous, you know,” he says.

Now her eyes shoot back up to his, on high alert.

“You know that, right? You must have known why I was in such a strange mood tonight.”

“Mulder,” she says uncomfortably.

“Come on. You had to notice. I was hating that guy, Scully.” He moves to sit down next to her, scooting as close into her orbit as he dares.

“It did seem like you were… but I just…” She shakes her head, and she looks truly frustrated. “I don’t understand why.”

“Because—” He can hardly get the words out. “Because he’s this stranger who shows up and kisses you, and takes you out on Friday night. Probably … does other things. And I know, I know, we’re not a couple.”

“No, we’re not.“

“And I know, he’s probably a good choice. A good guy. You wouldn’t date him if he weren’t.” Mulder’s knee is nearly touching hers. “Still, I’ll admit that I think of you as … I think of you as mine.”

He reaches out, taking her small hand from her lap and placing it palm to palm on top of his. With his fingertip, he begins to trace an idle, winding pattern over the back of her hand.

She inhales softly, her eyes watching him.

“But you’re not mine,” he says, letting his fingertip come to a stop, ending the pattern. “Not actually. I know that, too.”

He waits for her to say something. He can only hear her breathing.

“Mulder?” she says at last in a small voice.

“Yeah?”

“I have some questions about what you just said.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

There’s another unbearable pause. Mulder clears his throat. “Are you going to ask them, Scully?”

Her gaze can’t quite settle between her arm and his face. “You had this … epiphany about your possessive feelings because I’m dating Ryan?”

His finger traces an N and O on her forearm. “It’s not new.” He meets her eyes. “It’s hardly an epiphany.”

She nods, her face completely unreadable to him. At least she isn’t pulling her arm away.

“This ‘being yours’ thing,” she says, her voice soft, “what do you see that involving, exactly?”

“What do I see it involving?”

“Yes,” she says. His tracing finger has slowed. Ever-so-slightly, she nudges her hand towards him. He obediently resumes drawing changing patterns over her arm lightly again. He notices now that all the tiny hairs on her arm have sprung up.

“I don’t know, Scully,” he says. The sensation of her skin beneath his fingertip is absorbing part of his attention, and he is scrambling to catch up with what it might mean that she just prompted him to touch her like this. “I don’t know if I see it involving anything—so much as being a feeling.”

“Oh,” she says faintly. “That’s exactly what I was wondering.”

He draws a featherlight question mark on her arm.

“If I were actually yours,” she says, “it couldn’t just be a feeling. It would have to involve … something real.”

He looks up at her, a question in his eyes. In response, she removes her hand from his. He worries, until he realizes from her expression she has something else in mind.

She bends her legs up, and her feet slip out of her heels, sending them clattering to the floor. She then scoots towards the end of the couch, reclining against the arm rest. She deposits her small stockinged feet into his lap.

Her eyes look to him cautiously. Expectantly.

It only takes him a second to understand and react, placing his fingertip on the top of her foot, beginning to draw the little patterns over her ankle and calf.

Her black stockings are silky and smooth, and he lets a few more fingers join in the tracing, until really it’s just the end of his hand trailing in soothing circles.

“Do you—do you have other questions?” he asks conversationally, as though this is not happening, as though he is not touching her leg like this, as though he were not already having an increasingly obvious physical reaction in his lap just inches from her feet.

“Yes,” she sighs deeply, her head rolling a little. The apparent effect his touch is having on her sends another wave of desire through him. “Do you think you feel possessive of me because I’m your partner? Because you want control of my time?”

He shakes his head. “No. Well. Yes.”

“Unclear answer.” Her voice is low. He is slowly outlining the S-curve of her calf with his fingertips, taking his time, like he is an artist.

“I’m possessive because you’re my partner, yeah. But it’s more than that.” He swallows, his attention on the lines of her leg, the slippery feel of the stocking gliding under his hand. “I’m possessive because I’m scared.”

“Do you feel … scared right now, Mulder?”

He slides forward slightly, and his hand edges up to the inside of her knee, and he circles gently around her knee cap with the tips of his fingers.

“I’m feeling nervous, maybe,” he whispers. “Not scared.”

Her face blooms into a tentative smile at that, so Mulder assumes that was the right answer. The path of his hand swoops up past her knee, dipping under the hem of her skirt. Her legs part with no hesitation.

Mulder slows, looking up at her face, still trying to comprehend what is happening. Her eyes meet his, and it’s like they are both waiting for the other to call their bluff.

Well. It won’t be him.

He slips his hand up the silky slope of her thigh, and she drops further back against the arm of his couch and exhales raggedly, watching him intently.

His fingers reach the prickly lace tops of her stockings, which are apparently thigh highs. He’s momentarily a little dazzled by how much of an erotic fantasy this has become. It’s almost overwhelming, circuits on overload, like being a teenager touching a girl for the first time.

His other hand now dives under her skirt, too, to run along the rough lace edge of the stockings on her other leg. Scully gives him the barest hint of a smile, and Mulder, now longing to see, dares to hitch up the skirt of her dress a little. There’s a flash of bright white thigh providing contrast atop the black stockings. It’s all far more sexy attire than he really imagined Scully had going on under her work clothes.

That idea makes him halt abruptly. He withdraws his hands, stiffening.

Scully, looking questioningly at him, sits up a little.

“Did you wear these stockings for your date? For Ryan?” he says. He’s horrified at how vulnerable he sounds, how hurt, how angry.

She stares at him in surprise, unmoving for a moment.

“Oh,” she says, “you weren’t lying about that jealous thing.”

She sits up and begins to affectionately rake her fingers through his hair, soothing him.

“Mulder,” she says. “I didn’t think it was ever going to happen with you. It’s the reason it seemed like a good idea to say yes to someone like Ryan.”

Her hand runs down the line of his jaw, and he turns into her touch, his expression unhappy. “Okay.”

“He seemed like a good choice, like you said. Like maybe someone I could potentially be happy with.”

“Hmm,” he says. This isn’t what he wants to hear. Still, here she is, right? She’s here with him. He plants tiny kisses over her fingers.

“But there’s a bit of a boredom problem, I admit.”

He turns his head to look at her. “Oh?”

“A little, yeah. It’s hard to talk to him about my life in any way that makes sense. If you know what I mean.”

“I do.” He nods, leaning sideways over her. “I think I do.”

“I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”

“Aw, Scully. I wish I could say I was sorry to hear that.” Mulder’s smile is sincere, but his eyes are running greedily over the pale swath of skin above the neckline of her dress. He lowers his head into her personal space, ghosting his lips along the column of her neck experimentally.

“No offense to Ryan,” she continues. Mulder begins to meticulously graze up her jugular vein, lightly and carefully with his lips. She pauses for a half second. “He seems very nice, and we have a few things in common but… he’s not really someone to wear special undergarments for.”

“No?” Mulder lifts his mouth from her neck, looking up with interest. “Who is, then?”

“Not to disappoint you, but these stockings are actually just my regular warm weather office wear,” she says, dropping her head back as though offering him her neck. “I feel like you’re looking for a different answer.”

“Tell me a different answer,” Mulder begs, now applying his tongue across her collarbone.

“The main issue with Ryan,” she says in a low voice, threading her fingers through his hair, “is that I have this partner, and for whatever reason, he seems to be my…”

“Person. I’m your person.” Mulder murmurs directly into her damp skin.

“I was going to say ‘recurring preoccupation.’” Scully strokes his hair.

She lifts his head off of her clavicles and twists his face toward hers.

“Preoccupation,” he repeats, his mouth hovering inches from hers as he studies her lips. They’re pink, the color of cherry blossoms, curved, slightly parted. He’s reminded of Ryan placing his unearned peck on them with that stranger mouth.

He feels a powerful surge of possessiveness, something he doesn’t think he’s ever felt towards a woman quite like this. Reaching under her slightly bent knees, he drags her further down the couch so that he can better reach her. He leans in swiftly and pins her mouth with his, and she makes a tiny whimper of surprise.

If she questioned it, he couldn’t rationally justify this feeling to her, but every cell in his body tells him she belongs here, exclusively, to him. When she makes another soft sound, he finds himself lost and falling further in. Her lily smell. Her impossibly soft lips. His hips flex involuntarily.

She feels his reaction and pauses, framing his face with her hands. Her eyes are very bright, the pupils black and gleaming. Dragging her hands down the sides of his face again, letting her palms stutter over his stubble, she mouths softly whispered words. “I was jealous, too.”

He smiles, because he knows this, of course.

“I couldn’t stand the idea,” she leans in to whisper in his ear.

“Why’s that?”

She pushes her lips slowly back on his. Their kisses turn over again and again, like the flecks in the kaleidoscope.

With each press of his mouth, Scully reclines slowly back, her hands around his neck pulling him down with her. He nestles into the space between her body and the back of the couch, and he slides his hand back up her dress to the top of the stockings, running his hands along the jagged lacy tops, then higher to stroke that petal soft skin of her inner thigh. His fingers play back and forth there. He’s taken with that small tactile pleasure: how soft, how perfectly soft.

In reaction, her legs wriggle delightfully against him. She hitches her own skirt up to her waist to give him better access, her legs falling open a bit more, and he breaks their kiss and glances down to see, reaching up further to find the edge of her panties.

His eyes fly back up to hers, checking in to see if this next step is okay. Scully—flushed, out of breath, her lips wet from his kisses— locks her eyes on his again, and she nods.

He reaches down and pushes the panties aside. His finger makes its way to slip inward, brushing across her wet core, and Scully reacts instantly, her body going taut, her breath sucking in.

“That’s it,” he whispers. Her breathing speeds up as his finger circles her, then moves into her folds. Mulder realizes he’s so laser focused on her, her every movement, that his breathing is trying to sync with hers, too.

His finger, and then another, test out what she likes best. He watches as her eyes flutter shut, her head tilts back, and messy strands of red hair loop across her face. A gasp escapes her mouth, and he leans over to press his mouth back to hers, tender now. He nips carefully there as she pants little breaths on his lips, his fingers beginning a rhythm she seems to respond to.

“It’s just you,” she breathes, opening her eyes to look at him. “No one else.”

“Just us,” he agrees. He thinks she’s the most fucking beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life.

She comes quietly, her mouth open in a silent cry, her hands clawing at Mulder’s back. He sighs and mouths kisses down her neck. His body collapses a little over hers, and he presses his cheek into her chest, letting her rest, listening to the thump of her heart.

They’re there for only a few seconds when there’s a knock at the door.

Mulder’s head lifts off of Scully in alarm, meeting her eyes. There’s no way Diana would come over, is there? Or it’s not Ryan coming to look for his date? He doesn’t see panic reflected back in her expression; Scully’s eyes are all sea blue calm.

“The food,” she reminds him in a rough voice, her lips curling into a tiny smile. “Dinner.”

“Right,” he nods, returning her smile, standing. “I guess I’ll get that.” He gives her what he hopes is a playful look. “Because, uh, frankly, you seem a little disheveled, Scully.”

She leans back on the couch and smiles more completely, struggling to adjust her panties and skirt, looking unperturbed. This is apparently one delightful way to mellow out Scully on Friday night, he can’t help but note.

“All right,” she says, “but maybe carry a blanket or something in front of you, Mulder.”

She gestures to the sizable bulge in his jeans, arching an eyebrow. He grabs the Navajo blanket.

***

Much later, when it is no longer Friday night but some time in the wee hours on Saturday, he’s awake in his bed thinking about happenstance.

It’s just like him to ponder this kind of topic after he’s had sex for the first time in years, he thinks. He should be more like Scully and bliss out into some impressive post-coital sleep.

He turns his head to burrow his face in her hair, closing his eyes. Her head feels like it is creating an indentation on his bare chest, a pleasant warm weight. He can’t see her face, but he can hear her snoring lightly.

It’s all very good. The best outcome he could imagine.

If he had lingered in the lobby a moment longer, though, made further contact with the Camaro, he could easily be experiencing … nothing. Absence. End. It all seems so unacceptably arbitrary.

In truth it wasn’t really the Camaro that first set the evening branching into possibility.

It was Ryan. The date. The kiss. The wiggle of instability that could have pushed him in any direction. So many ways he could have fucked it up. What guarantees it ever lines up to one’s advantage?

“Go to sleep,” Scully’s voice breathes creakily from his chest. “Stop tensing muscles.”

“Sorry,” he says, quickly kissing the top of her head in penitence. “I will.”

He can tell she hasn’t gone back to sleep though. Her head shifts slightly.

“Having regrets?” she whispers offhand, like that’s a nothing question.

“Yep,” he says, leaning in towards her in an intimate whisper. “I’m really going to miss unrequited love and unsatisfied celibacy. How could I give that all up so easily? I take it all back.”

“Not unrequited,” she mumbles. “Never unrequited.”

He draws his arms around her more tightly, skimming his hands up her bare back, and she makes a humming noise.

“It just seems so unacceptable, Scully,” he says, as she readjusts her face and cracks open her eyes. “What leads us to one outcome over another is so frivolous, so whimsical. The half second step or stumble that makes the difference between death by Camaro or pouting in your apartment alone or lying in bed with a beautiful woman. It seems like there should be more meaning to it.”

“Who says there isn’t?”

“That’s what the woman with gold earrings who helped me in the parking garage thought,” Mulder says, yawning. “She saw some purpose.”

“You don’t like that idea?”

“I guess it depends on what we mean by purpose. God? Fate? I don’t know, Scully,” he says. “It scares me that my small choices have the power to change my future so dramatically. But it scares me to think there’s someone else calling the shots, too.”

“I’m calling the shots,” Scully murmurs sleepily. “That should scare you.”

He moves in and kisses her. “That delights me, actually.”

“It’s possible that something could have happened tonight that would have led to me not being here right now,” Scully says, blinking. “But I think in the end, we’d have ended up here somehow.”

“You think the elements were all there, it was just a matter of how and when.”

“More or less.”

“Like the turn of the kaleidoscope. The pattern varies, the chips are all the same.”

A muffled laugh. “Jesus, we’re going to have to get you a new toy, Mulder.”

His lips find the whorl of her ear. “I may be sufficiently entertained for the time being.”

#x files fanfic #xfiles fanfic #the x files #my fic #the kaleidoscope #jealous mulder

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littlefreya · 3 years

Text

Vanilla Milkshake

Summer: Henry and a long time friend hangout at their usual spot when things turn chaotic because of an innocent misunderstanding...

Prompted by:

Oooh Freyaaaa I just *need* some scene featuring Henry and ofc drinking milkshake.

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Unamed OFC (no description of ethnicity or body type).

Word count: 1.7K

Warnings: RPF, major fluff, friends to lovers, sexual innuendo, mild seduction, sex talk, an unwanted boner, Henry being a boomer, Henry having a meltdown.

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it, ideas or parts it and claiming it as your own.*

A/N: So, first thing first, thanks @agniavateira for quickly beta’ing my work! And of course thanks @the-soot-sprite for bouncing ideas with me and being an emotional support. Decided to go with friends for lovers because I live for that stuff. Also, I am aware that “Milkshake” can be interpreted in several ways but for the sake of the story I went with that particular reference. Divider by the lovely @firefly-graphics

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Title: Vanilla Milkshake

“I swear, this diner looks like Barbie had an orgasm all over the place.” A whimsical grin sliced between Henry’s marble cheeks. Eyeing the pastel-esque surroundings, he huffed scornfully and adjusted the cap over his nest of unruly curls.

“Remind me again why we always meet here, young lady?”

Staring at the beastly man who barely managed to squeeze into the plastic-pink faux leather booth, she couldn’t help but chuckle. Henry carried himself with something that was both eloquent yet unmistakably feral, reminding her of a burly forest creature. Sturdy tree trunks stood for limbs, torso, and shoulders—the widths of icy mountains and a blanket of thick fur coated the entirety of his body, deeming him a dangerous bear.

No wonder he preferred himself clean-shaven. The sharpened edge of a razor kept him a cut away from becoming ‘Henry the Barbarian’.

Seeing him surrounded by pastel and sparkly fairy dust brought far more joy than she could ever imagine. The utter look of contempt gleamed on the surface of his shifty eyes.

Oh, by God, how much he hated glitter!

“And what would you know about Barbie’s orgasms?” she teased with a crooked eyebrow and a comical suspicious glare.

Readjusting his cap over the messy mane of chocolate curls, Henry offered a terrible wink and shrugged, “a gentleman never tells.”

Her fingers rapped on her thigh while she contemplated whether to allow this naughty joke slide, but then the urge to provoke him was far too great. After briefly chewing on the inside of her cheek, she broke into a wicked grin.

“Is that… like a role play you have with the missus? She’s Barbie, and you’re G.I.Joe? Because I kinda don’t want to hear about it, but then I kinda do.”

Henry’s smile gradually faded along with the playful glee in his eyes, his melancholic gaze dropping to the sparkly table. He slumped into a heavy sigh, “If by missus, you mean ‘Miss Hand’, then no… not really.”

Dumbfounded, she frowned at Henry with confusion when then it struck her; a sense of incredible embarrassment drained the blood from her head to her gut.

“Oh…”

“Yep.” Henry blurted and grabbed the menu, pretending to be incredibly interested in the kids’ meal options.

Just in time to rescue them from a prolonged awkward silence, the waitress arrived with their order, serving Henry a hot cup of double espresso while she received a tall glass of a luscious vanilla milkshake.

“Enjoy your drinks, guys!” the waitress smiled sweetly and kept her eyes glued to Henry as she walked away. But the gloss of the waitress’ flirtatious excitement was lost on him; drenched with greed, Henry’s blue sapphires were fixated on the generous scoops of ice cream and the dark chocolate swirls that decorated his companion’s dessert.

“Henry, my eyes are up here!” she provoked and grabbed the straw between two fingers while throwing an amused glance at his simple cup of coffee. Henry followed her gaze and scoffed before raising the cup to his mouth and blowing to cool his drink.

The way his lips pursed together and his finger stroked the ceramic surface did not escape her observation. A sudden tingle swam down the length of her spine once it resonated in her mind that kind, charming, and beastly Henry was now single. Here they were, long time buddies, but now sitting together felt less comfortable than before. Her limbs felt like pins and needles while staring directly at his eyes was as risky as staring at the sun.

“Cheers,” Henry mumbled and took a sip from his cup.

Almost jolting in her seat, she stiffened and then grabbed her straw.

“Cheers.”

Giggles came from the other side of the diner. Among the retro gumball machines and rounded plastic bar stools, the waitress and a colleague leaned against the counter and stared at Henry, who turned his head for a brief moment and tipped his head.

Their giggles turned even louder.

She frowned.

“So, have you been single for a while?” she heard herself asking with a rather urgent tone. Right away, a look of contrition crept on her face as she regretted her verbal onslaught and lack of sensitivity.

Henry directed his gaze back to her and watched as she slowly sipped from the milkshake and then suckled the cream off her mouth.

Absentmindedly, he licked his lips. “Since May. How about you, weren’t you with…?”

“No, ended, dodged a bullet.” she spat and pumped the straw up and down the thick beverage. “My milkshake brings all the boys… except it doesn't.” she sighed.

Henry frowned and shook his head with confusion. “What? You never told me you make your own milkshake. How come I never had some?”

Her face abruptly froze, her eyes rounded with surprise before she snorted so loudly the waitresses stopped their whispering.

“Umm… Hen?” she called out, trying to hold herself from bursting into chuckles as her friend accidentally asked for a very sexual favour, “you honestly don’t know what ‘milkshake’ is slang for...?”

“Uh…”

“Omg, you’re such a boomer.”

“No, I was born in ‘83! I’m a millennial. But please, indulge me.” he begged and crossed his arms together.

Clearing her throat loudly, she did her best to fight the wicked grin that stretched on her already painful cheeks and wrapped her fist around the straw. “So you know... how… certain male bodily fluids are sometimes white and creamy...? And when you perform a certain motion it’s like you’re shaking it…?”

Henry blinked and became silent. An unbidden rush of blood pooled at his groin as he watched her thumb graze over the tip of the straw and her fist pumping it into the smooth liquid in a slow, gentle motion. Wickedness glazed her eyes, but he tried to dismiss it as nothing but their usual playful banter; yet his adam’s apple bobbed up and down while his shoulder tensed at the oddly arousing sight of her performing a sinful act on a milkshake.

There was an unmistakable stir in his cock and for once, he was thankful for narrow spaces as it hid his predicament.

Leaning forward, she opened her mouth and swirled her tongue around the straw. She went deliberately slow, making him watch while she playfully licked and suckled the tip until finally wrapping her lips around it and taking a generous sip.

Henry gawked utterly smitten, unaware that his jaw was nearly at the floor.

And to make things worse, she moaned—not too loud—but definitely enough to make his shaft harden more.

She wasn’t sure what stirred this whimsical boost of confidence, only that seeing the large, handsome man pale at her provocations made her feel like the most powerful woman on earth. She also gathered she’d regret it forever and a day once they’ll part ways, but it was too late for that now.

Gingerly she pulled back, though not before allowing a single drop of cream to trickle down the corner of her lips.

“Oops,” she smirked casually, wiping the cream with her fingertip and sucking it clean.

“Please stop…”

It was then when she noticed that Henry’s playful mien was all but gone. Far from amused, he glowered with a clenched jaw. “If you’re going to keep doing that, I’ll have to leave,” he stated matter-of-factly.

A rush of panic made her freeze in her spot, the same needles that pricked her skin were now setting jolts of electric bursts. “I’m so sorry, I crossed the line,” she said and covered her mouth with shame, “did I offend you? Do you want me to leave?”

“What? No, no, not at all.” Henry’s voice softened right away, and he reached a hand in the air, as if trying to stop her from leaving. The last thing he wanted now is for her to think he is angry with her. If anything, he wished they could spend more time together, not because of his obvious arousal, but because for the first time in a long while, he was having fun.

Still, she looked at him so utterly distraught.

“Then…?”

Henry scanned the diner as if trying to make sure no one was staring or taking any photo and then shifted in his seat uncomfortably. His eyes altered between his spread thighs and her several times, trying to signal toward his… trouble.

“Oh...” she gaped.

An odd sense of pride began to permeate her chest, battling over the burning embarrassment that flamed up her neck and cheeks. At this point, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel, only that it was definitely the most awkward hangout they had to date.

Problem was, she never knew when to shut up.

“Is little Henry hungry?”

Hearing those words, his brows dropped to an irritated sulk. “There is nothing little about it.”

“Ha! Prove it!”

It was as if the entire diner and perhaps the world fell into silence. Had the clatter of the dishes being washed in the back kitchen not rung their ears, she would have thought she grew suddenly deaf.

“I didn’t mean it… sorry, I’ll stop,” she mumbled slowly and pressed her fingers to her mouth while shaking her head at her stupid behaviour. That was it, this was to be the last afternoon she would ever hang out with Henry and right now, she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him.

Henry chewed onto the inside of his cheeks, trying to stop the words that came faster than his thoughts.

“You didn’t?... Because I’ll definitely be up for proving...”

She blinked at his words and tilted her head, hoping that he won’t notice the wild tremors that shook her limbs, “What was that?”

“I... yes? No?...I… fuck!”

Henry lowered his head and slapped his palms across his face, rubbing back and forth with an utter meltdown while mumbling, “Forgive me,” a couple of times. He couldn’t care less of what the waitresses or whoever was watching would think of him; all he cared about was to make her feel comfortable around him again and maybe… even make her like him?

“Henry?”

Soft and warm her voice called to him, slowly pulling him from his anguish like a sailor being rescued from a sunken ship. His blue sapphires shone, an ocean of confusion and anxiety still pooling within while he peered back at her face that was now smiling at him a mixture of comfort and exhilaration.

“Would you like some of my milkshake?”

#henry cavill #henry cavill rpf #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill fanfiction

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no-droids · 4 years

Text

Beginner’s Luck

Part Twelve of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 14.6K

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maker, why are you being so weird about this?

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

So Peli is… a character.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” you admit quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also… girlfriend?

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Try again.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So how did you toggle so fas—?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay.

Okay, so that one gets you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maker, did he just drop his fucking gun?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It sounds… wonderful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… What? N… No…

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

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

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

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

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

—it hits dead center.

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

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

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

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

You do, and oh. Oh, no.

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

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

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

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

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

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

… that’s not closed.

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

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

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

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

***

Stay tuned for the next part!

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

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purple-babygirl · 3 years

Note

Bucky’s little is obsessed with him tickling her ❤️

Pairing: Daddy!Bucky Barnes x little!f!reader

Warnings: ddlg dynamics, fluff turned smut, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), nsfw content, 18+ content.

Word count: 1,720

A/N: this has been in my WIPs for like at least 3 months because i suck like that. Nonnie, if you're still here, i love you and never meant to make you feel ignored i apologize:"💜. Please enjoy xx

~~~

tickle time

She loved so much about being Bucky’s little, one thing being the privilege to be tickled by his long, fast fingers at any given moment. She was obsessed with the way his nimble digits stroked over her sides, spreading goosebumps throughout her body as her delighted screams reached the ceiling.

And Bucky would never miss a chance to be the cause of her uncontrollable giggling.

“Tickle time!” She announced out loud before plopping herself on Bucky's lap.

He let out a dramatic “ouff”, making her chuckle cutely, before his fingers put down the book they were holding, and with a sly smile on his face, found her sides to tickle her.

Barely a minute in and she was laughing, screaming and thrashing; begging to get away even though she'd asked for it.

Bucky wouldn't let her though. He carefully slid her off his lap and on the couch, got on top and started tickling her harder, burying his smiley face in her neck, his slightly chapped lips tickling the soft skin there, “where do you think you're going?”

His metal fingers glided with ease as they stroked her over the thin material of his shirt. Her head was thrown back and her legs involuntarily kicked as she squealed, “dada!”

Whatever the time or place, she was ready to get tickled till she’d lost her breath and Bucky was always more than happy to give her just that.

“Tickle time!” Bucky heard her giggle before he felt her wrap her arms around his waist from behind.

He grinned silently, setting the spoons he was tossing the salad with down. He wiped his hands on the towel slowly, knowing she was waiting.

“Dada, it's tickle ti-” Her own startled shriek cut her off when Bucky turned and in the blink of an eye she was in the air and tossed over his shoulder.

She squealed and swung her legs lightly as he carried her to the bedroom, laid her down to tickle her and pulled the loudest laughs from her chest.

“Oh, no, where do you think you're going?” Bucky laughed and pulled her back to him by the ankle when she tried crawling away to avoid his torturous, determined ministrations.

“Dada!” She screamed out yet another laugh, her smaller hands trying to push his big ones away from her sides. Her cheeks hurt from laughing so much.

Her shirt has ridden up from all the squirming and Bucky immediately put his mouth on the showing skin, gently biting at her tummy, his fingers never stopping as she giggled louder and writhed harder.

Bucky’s lips then sucked on her flesh before letting go, making her blush and giggle at the sound. He liked the reaction too much not to repeat it.

“How’s that feel, doll?” Bucky wondered, pecking her belly button.

“Feels tickly. Tingles everywhere,” she panted, giggling again when Bucky nuzzled her tummy and nibbled on her flesh.

“I’ll take that,” he mumbled and the vibrations from his lips tickled her more.

It was like that almost every day, sometimes more than once in the same day and Bucky cherished those happy, sweet moments with her more than anything.

“Dada, what time is it?” She asked as she stood by the door to Bucky's office.

“It's almost two, dol—”

“'Ts tickle time!” She ran inside, putting her arms in the air.

“That’s like the third time today.” Bucky smirked as he lifted her up to seat her on his desk.

“It's tickle time, daddy. I don't make the clock.” She shrugged seriously, making Bucky laugh aloud before laying herself down on his desk and letting out a quiet giggle in anticipation.

Bucky calmly put his papers back inside the clear file, before he stood up and planted his hands on either side of her, caging her between him and his desk.

“What am I gonna do with you?” He shook his head, his stare was slightly different and it had her cheeks warming up.

“Dada,” she whispered bashfully as Bucky leaned forward.

“Shh, doll, it's tickle time,” Bucky confirmed in her ear before pecking it.

He slid his hands under her shirt, holding her sides and she shuddered in expectation.

She was so soft and so beautiful and all his.

She felt Bucky slowly blow hot air on the side of her neck. She let out a small giggle, her head leaning towards her shoulder to hide from Bucky's tickling breath. He softly blew down the column of her neck again and she giggled louder, jerking away.

Bucky chuckled, pressing a kiss to her warm skin and started lightly sucking on the spot behind her ear.

A different type of goosebumps pricked her skin, but Bucky’s fingers gave her no time to react as they began their sweet, languid torture on her sides.

Feeling both the metal and flesh directly on her skin along with Bucky’s lips on the sensitive spot behind her ear, she couldn’t stop the moans bubbling out of her chest with her giggles.

“Dada,” she sighed when Bucky’s fingers slowed down their movements, her small hands clutching the end of Bucky’s desk.

“What is it, doll?” Bucky questioned teasingly against her neck before bringing his face to hers and pecking her lips.

“I feel tingly.” Her breathless, low, timid admission made Bucky smirk as he bit down, her body already putty in his hands.

“Here?” he asked, squeezing her sides where he’s been tickling.

She shook her head shyly.

“Here?” Bucky’s lips brushed against her ear.

She shook her head again, her eyes shutting as Bucky’s hands inched further up under her shirt.

“Here?” He peppered kisses up and down her neck.

“No.” shook her head, her breath picking up as Bucky’s right hand squeezed a boob.

“Where then?” Bucky hummed, his thumb rubbing over her hardening nipple.

“Dada,” she whined, her clutch moving from the desk to Bucky’s muscly arms.

“You’ve gotta tell me where, doll. Or otherwise I won’t be able to make the tingles stop.” Bucky pecked the side of her mouth teasingly.

She took his metal hand out from under her shirt, the other still playing with her nub, and pressed his open palm between her legs, right on her mound, “here.”

She could hardly hear her own voice, but Bucky did. He’d heard her clearly and his satisfied grin was proof.

“You want daddy’s help, doll?” he dragged it out while he had her exactly where he wanted her, the tips of his fingers mischievously caressing her covered core.

She was already wet and he could feel her, hot and slick behind the thin panty.

“Yes, please, dada.” She swallowed, awaiting Bucky’s relieving touches.

“You got it, baby.” Bucky pecked her lips one more time before taking off her underwear.

“Let's see.” He gently pulled her lips apart using his thumbs to 'take a close look'. Her tight hole closed around nothing and Bucky felt his cock strain in his pants.

He let out an actual moan at the sight of her bare, open core, all wet and glistening and needy for him.

“You feelin’ tingly here, doll?” Bucky pressed his thumb to her button, rubbing lazy circles over the tiny bud.

“Y-Yes, dada. Please.” She breathed, her eyes watching her Daddy’s every move as he brought his face closer to her pussy.

“I can fix that,” Bucky whispered, his warm breath sending tickles up her spine and she opened her legs more, biting her lower lip.

Bucky pressed his tongue to her entrance, slowly licking up her silky lips, groaning at her taste. Her head fell back on the desk as a mewl escaped her.

Her whines were uncontrollable the second Bucky got his lips around her throbbing clit. Her fingers were tangled in Bucky’s hair as she writhed a different kind of writhing because Daddy was giving her a different kind of tickle time filled with different tingles.

Bucky kept his mouth on her clit, his lips sucking on it while the tip of his tongue massaged it, making her moan and wiggle on his desk. She tasted so good and he couldn’t get enough, his tongue sliding down to her core to lick her sweet arousal.

“Dada, plea-ah you’re making it more tingly,” she moaned, tugging on Bucky’s hair, making him hiss.

“But I thought you liked being tickled, baby?” Bucky asked against her core, the vibrations from his lips making her eyes roll as her clit pulsed even harder.

“Please,” she whispered, her jaw going slack as she felt Bucky’s finger poke inside her pussy.

He slid it in up to the knuckle before curling it upwards and her back slightly bowed off the desk, “what about now?” Bucky teased, pushing another finger inside her, his teeth softly nibbling on her clit.

All she could do was beg, a string of pleads leaving her mouth. Her fingers tugged harder on Bucky’s strands as she succumbed to the pleasure. The spot Daddy kept poking at inside of her made her feel the evil, yet delicious tingles everywhere from the back of her neck to her cunt. Even her toes were tensing with her abdomen.

The tip of Bucky’s tongue found the head of her clit, swelling and peaking from underneath the hood and kept flicking it again and again until her thighs were closing around his head and her fingers were pulling hard at his hair.

“Daddy.” One broken moan and she was gone, stars exploding behind her eyelids as their fire burned inside her.

Her pussy wildly contracted around Bucky’s relentless fingers as her back fully arched off the desk.

The pleasure was too good, the tingles too much and she screamed, her legs wrapping around Bucky’s head and trembling.

Bucky let her clit go, pressing soft kisses to the sensitive nub as his fingers slowly slipped out of her pulsing center.

Her back was on the desk again and she was panting. She closed her legs shyly, pressing her thighs together, her clit still throbbing.

She was already looking fucked out but Bucky wasn’t having it.

“Where do you think you're going? Now it’s time to fix daddy’s tingles,” Bucky said, one hand palming the bulge in his pants as the other stroked up her shin, “open those legs wide for me, doll.”

~~ Tags: @harrysthiccthighss @tinystudentfirepurse @lavendercitizen @tumblin-theworldaway @pretty-pop-princess-hs

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earlgreydream · 4 years

Text

take care.

| loki x reader | smut | fluff |

anon requested: ok so he makes the reader come until she physically no longer can and then f l u f f where he takes care of her afterwards🥺

here’s some loki overstim for you, angel 😘

You walked through the castle, ignoring the bows and respectful addresses from the maids, staff, and others wandering around. Your mind was elsewhere, and you were only focused on making it back to your chambers. You stepped through the large golden doors, seeing your lover on the balcony that hung off the huge bedroom.

Loki turned upon hearing you come in, walking back into the bedroom to meet you. He noticed the frustration that had turned your mood dark, and his long legs carried him to you.

“What’s wrong, darling?” He asked, and you shook your cloak from your body, tossing it over a lounger in the corner, unintentionally avoiding his grasp.

“I can’t make everyone happy! Everyone expects so much from me, and I’m just not enough for anybody!” You were yelling, and Loki put his hand on your face, making you turn to look at him.

“You’re everything to me. You’re more than enough.” He said, soothing some of the overwhelmed frustration you held. He pulled you into a kiss, and you melted into his touch, letting the anger fall away. You murmured a soft, I love you, and he said it back between kisses.

“How can I make it better? Tell me what you need.” Loki smiled at you, willing to do anything to please you.

“I need to let go,” you sighed to yourself, and a mischievous smirk adorned his face. You looked at him nervously, knowing exactly where this was going, and there was a moment of silence before you broke into a run. You didn’t even make it to the doors, a shriek leaving your lips as he wrapped his arms around your waist, dragging you back against his chest, his large hand wrapping around your throat, keeping you pinned to his body.

“Now, now, little one. Don’t run from me,” he laughed darkly, kissing along your jaw. You looked up the god, excitement sparking through you like a live wire.

You squirmed in his arms, but he held you firmly, dragging you backwards to the bed. Escaping him was the last thing you wanted, but you wanted to play and get him worked up, and you knew he loved to chase you.

“Loki!” You squealed, trying to climb away as you were tossed onto the bed.

“Are you going to be good, or am I going to have to restrain you? This is for your benefit.” He asked, holding your ankles so you couldn’t get away.

“I’ll be good,” you sighed, relaxing against the duvet and looking up at him as he leaned over you.

“That’s my girl.” He leaned down and kissed you, lightly brushing his nose against yours.

He snapped his fingers, and your clothes were gone in a shimmer of green. His were too, and he laid back against the pillows, lounging in all of his glory.

“Come here, darling.”

You moved between his legs, your back on his chest so you were laid out in front of him. He kissed the side of your head, trailing his hands up and down your sides before moving up to palm your chest. You moaned as he rolled your nipples between his fingers, working to arouse you, knowing you were sensitive. He had your body and all of your pleasures memorized, and he knew exactly how to get your body to respond to him. He was determined to make you forget about all of the reasons you had to be stressed, and you were more than willing to let him.

He kissed your neck, and you moved to allow him more access. He moved your legs over his so you were spread open below him, pushing away your shyness. Loki never made you feel like you had to be embarrassed, and he was careful to never embarrass you himself.

You squirmed as he dropped his hand between your legs, teasing you with light touches.

“Can you please just get me off?” Your voice was impatient, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Of course”

You immediately regretted it upon hearing the tone of his voice, the one reserved for schemes and mischief. You were about to be victim to his torture in some form, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care as his fingers rolled slow circles on your button, teasing it until it swelled. You preened, leaning your head back against his shoulder, letting him get you off.

A moan escaped as he worked two fingers into your slick sex, finding your g-spot expertly.

“Loki!” You arched your back off him as you felt your muscles tighten deep in your belly. You didn’t wait for permission before coming, the orgasm rolling through your body.

“Y/N, hold still for me,” he protested your attempts to squirm away from his touch. He’d given you a small break, but now he was back to stroking your clit directly, sending shocks through your nerves.

“What’re you doing?” You asked, fighting to relax and be good for him.

“Giving you orgasms like you wanted, darling.”

“I didn’t mean-” you rolled your hips against his hand, making him laugh, your body betraying your needs, despite your hypersensitivity he was exploiting.

“Shh, darling,” he hushed you, moving his free hand over your mouth when you yelped from him pushing his fingers back inside of you. He kept stimulating you with his thumb while pumping his fingers inside of you, the filthy sounds making your head spin. You whined against his hand, and he hushed you gently, though his voice dripped with devious amusement.

You neared a second orgasm, and you tried to fight it off, your thighs twitching.

“Let go, y/n,” he encouraged you, and you came again with a scream.

You sighed in relief as Loki climbed out from behind you, letting you lay on your back on the bed. Your eyes fell closed, your body twitching from the aftershocks of the pleasure that ignited all of your nerves.

When you felt his soft hair brush the inside of your thighs, you instantly tried to close your legs, your eyes snapping open. Loki turned his head and bit the inside of your thigh, pulling a yelp from your lips.

“I can’t take another, m’so sensitive!” You whined, but Loki wasn’t finished with you yet.

“You can, darling. Don’t you trust me?”

Your fingers tangled into black locks, pulling at his hair as he attached his mouth to your core, giving you head. Normally, you’d be ecstatic for him to expertly eat you out with his silvertongue, but now you were overstimulated and his touch felt like fire. You blinked back tears, the pleasure and ache overwhelming you as his tongue pushed through your muscles, and back up to your clit.

Loki tore a scream from your throat as he lightly pulled your clit between his teeth, his laughter vibrating through you. The coil in your belly snapped, and you came on his face. You writhed and screamed as he didn’t let off of you, pleading with him for relief as his overstimulation became painful after your third powerful orgasm.

“You’re so good for me, Y/N,” Loki hummed, kneeling between your legs, watching you struggle to catch your breath.

“Loki, Loki!” You protested as he positioned himself, rubbing his head against your heat, making you shudder.

“What did I say about having to restrain you?” He asked as you pushed against his chest.

“I can’t!”

“You can give me one more. One more, then I’ll bathe with you, sweet girl,” Loki promised, and you writhed when he so much as brushed against you. You didn’t say no again, and he eased into you, letting you stretch around him with a weak sob.

His hips rolled against yours, and he was already close from having his head between your thighs. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him against you as you came for the fourth time, squeezing him like a vice and crying his name. Feeling you contract around him sent him over the edge, and he painted your insides before slowly pulling out.

“No more,” you begged, and he nodded, kissing your cheek.

“No more, Y/N,” he repeated, making you sigh with relief. You were barely conscious as he carried you to the massive bathtub, sinking into hot water up to your shoulders. You jerked at the heat on your raw sex, and he kissed your shoulder, praising your resilience.

He massaged vanilla-scented soap into your sore muscles, his touch soothing you. He washed your hair, glowing at his success, making you forget about all your stress and frustration. You were thankful, though you were already devising a plan to get him back for his brutal torture... at a time when you weren’t exhausted.

“I love you, darling.” Loki’s kind voice filled your heart with butterflies, and you kissed him sweetly.

He helped you out of the bathtub, and you dried off, shivering in the cold. Loki smiled sympathetically, pulling you into his arms and kissing you deeply.

“I’ll start a fire,” he told you, leaving you to dry off in the bathroom. You pulled one of his shirts over your head and walked unsteadily back to your bedroom, crawling onto his lap. He was on the lounger in front of the fire, your favorite novel in his hands.

He knew that listening to him read was your favorite thing, and you pulled a blanket over the two of you, picking up a cup of steaming tea that Loki had magicked to you. He allowed you to get comfortable and settle against him before snaking an arm around your waist, resting his head on top of yours. He began to read to you, and you drifted off to the sound of his voice, feeling safe and relaxed in his arms.

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid anymore.” Loki’s voice reading aloud Steinbeck was the last thing you heard before sleep consumed you.

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casuallyimagining · 4 years

Text

Fix You (1)

hybrid!Min Yoongi x female!reader

Summary: When you take in a stray cat, you have no idea he’s secretly a hybrid trying to escape his past. Can you help him heal? Genre: hurt/comfort, angst, slow burn, fluff Word Count: 3,660 Rating: M Warnings (may not appear in every part): minor character is a dick to animals, mentions of a gun, main character injury (non-serious), discussion of physical abuse, emotional abuse, discussion of sexual abuse, discussion of self-harm

Notes: This is for the March project for @thebtswritersclub. The prompt word was ‘adventure’ and I mean, what’s more of an adventure than adopting a pet? Banner by @birbdae; thanks to @voiceswithoutlips, @taetaesbaebaepsae, @hoebii and @aroseforyoongi for editing various parts of this for me.

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“That cat got into Rick’s chickens again. Killed a couple chicks. He said he’s going to kill it if he sees it on his property.”

Your dad had said it nonchalantly, barely glancing over his newspaper. Without a second thought, you were out the door. There was no way to be sure, not really, but the sinking feeling in your stomach made you run a little faster down your parents’ driveway.

You could have sworn you saw that cat slinking under Rick’s fence on your walk earlier.

Rick’s property neighbored that of your parents, but you wouldn’t necessarily consider him their neighbor. If you stood on their front porch, you could just barely make out Rick’s house through the stand of trees that served as the property line. Your parents had chosen to let their piece of the world be natural, carving out just enough space for a house and a decent sized yard all those years ago. It had made for some great childhood adventures in the woods: pretending fairies were real, living out your childhood fantasies of being some sort of wizard, making friends with the trees--normal kid stuff.

Rick, on the other hand, had turned his land into farmland, even though he neither farmed nor cared for the land. The vast rolling fields of Rick’s “farm” were mostly bare. He had a pond in one corner on the other side of the property, and he had a small cabin for hunting when game season started. Mostly, though, Rick raised chickens. Annoying things, the chickens were, not unlike Rick himself. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the hens’ incessant clucking from your parents’ house, and the roosters never seemed to shut up.

When you moved to the city to attend college, you were elated to get away from the chickens.

According to your dad, the cat had showed up in the woods a few weeks ago, and it had made an enemy out of Rick almost immediately. The poor thing was skinny--too skinny, like it had been living on the streets for a while--and though its dark fur was ruddy and matted, you could tell it would be a beautiful onyx if taken care of.

As you got closer to Rick’s farm, you heard barking and a sharp yowl, and you hurried in the direction of the sounds, afraid of what you’d find. Rounding the corner of the chicken coop, you gasped in horror.

Rick stood with his back to you, shotgun in his hands. His dog, an old bird hound with caramel spotted fur, had the cat clutched in his mouth, the dog’s teeth sunk directly into the cat’s shoulder. The cat, to its credit, had puffed itself up greatly, its tail nearly double its normal size. It was growling and hissing, and, despite the pain it was almost certainly in, was swiping at the dog with its front claws.

“Call your dog off, Rick.” Your voice was steadier than you thought it would be. You were out of breath from the run over there, and being anywhere near Rick with a gun and his snarling dog made you a little uneasy.

“Fuck off.” The man barely turned his head to you. “Damn cat’s been a pain in my ass since someone dumped it here. It killed four of my chicks.”

“Look at it. Of course it’s going after your chickens. You don’t keep them in their coop. It’s starving.”

“Damn thing should stay at your soft-ass parents’ house if it wants handouts.” Rick cocked his gun, pointing it at the cat. The cat’s copper eyes flashed to Rick at the sound. It looked terrified.

The fact that it knew what a gun was and knew to be afraid of it broke your heart a little bit.

“Call off the dog,” you said again, taking a step toward him, hands splayed out in front of you placatingly. “Calm down. I’ll get the cat out of your hair, and you won’t have to worry about it again.”

“Ain’t going to replace my chickens.” Rick’s voice was gruff, but he lowered the gun.

“I’ll pay for your chickens. Just call off your dog.”

He stared at the cat, the gun clutched in his hands but no longer pointing it at anything. For a second, you thought he was going to sicc the dog on the poor thing just to spite you and make a point. You had a feeling he was the type of person to do that. But after a tense stare down, he whistled through his teeth.

“Drop it,” he commanded the dog. The dog looked to its owner, and he repeated the command. It took a second, but the dog released its bite, and the cat slumped to the ground. Rick regarded the cat with a sneer before turning to you. “Take care of that thing. If I see it on my property one more time, it won’t be so lucky.”

You nodded tensely, and he whistled again. The dog trotted over to Rick’s side and the two walked off. You stared after him for a moment. A pained yowl drew your attention back to the cat.

The cat looked angry, and you didn’t blame it. Its tail was still puffed up, and you could tell that if it hadn’t just been attacked by a dog, its hackles would be straight up. Its copper eyes glared at you, its ears flat against its head. You approached cautiously, and it growled deeply in its throat.

“Hey, it’s okay,” you soothed, crouching down to make yourself less threatening. “I’m going to get you help. Is that okay?”

The cat hissed at you and attempted to back away. It made two limping steps before collapsing into the mud around the coop.

“That’s alright. It’s okay.” You sighed, unsure of your next steps. You didn’t want to traumatize the cat by coming any closer, and you really didn’t want to risk injuring it further by picking it up and having it fight you.

You looked at the cat, blinking slowly when you accidentally made eye contact with it. You had read somewhere that blinking was a way to show a cat that you weren’t a threat, and though you felt kind of silly, at this point, you were willing to try anything.

“What am I going to do with you, kitty?” you questioned, sitting down in the mud. The cat looked at you curiously, as if asking what the fuck you were doing. “I don’t want Rick to hurt you,” you confessed. “I’d like to take you somewhere safe.”

Truthfully, that was part of the reason why you were even visiting your parents. Your mom had told you about the cat, and how it didn’t seem to be wearing any collar, and while you were visiting them you wanted to try to trap it, either to bring it to live with you, or to take it to a nice shelter where it could get a good meal and hopefully find a nice family.

“Can I take you to the vet, at least?” You really were desperate, talking to the cat as if it understood what you were saying. The cat, to its credit, looked at you, copper eyes staring into your face before it blinked, just once, slowly and deliberately.

When you reached out to it, it didn’t growl.

You stood and approached the cat, doing your best not to make any sudden moves. You scooped it up gently, careful not to jostle his left shoulder too much, and cradled it close to your chest.

The walk back to your parents’ house was slow, but the trip to the vet was even slower.

It was a weekend, so the vet in your parents’ sleepy little suburb was closed. You had no choice but to pack your bags back up and make the trek home to the city to take the cat to the 24/7 emergency veterinary hospital.

You tapped your hand on the steering wheel. Traffic wasn’t usually this terrible on a weekend, but there was some sort of sporting event happening, so of course, all the roads into the city were clogged.

Stopped at a red light, you spared a glance toward your passenger seat. The cat laid on his side--it was a him, your mother had confirmed--his breathing labored. You could tell he was still on edge. His tail was still puffed up like a cat-of-nine-tails, and he kept eyeing you warily. But he had let you wrap him in a blanket and carry him to your car, and he had stayed on the seat, almost like he knew it was the safest place for him.

“Almost there, kitty,” you mumbled, changing lanes, finally free of the congestion. “Hang on just a little longer.”

Thankfully, the vet wasn’t busy, and you were able to get in with the assistant almost right away. You explained everything that had happened to her as she examined the cat, tutting slightly as she checked his shoulder.

“There are some punctures, but nothing that’s too worrying. I can bandage it and give you some antibiotics.” The assistant pulled her hand back as the cat swatted at her for touching his shoulder a little too forcefully. “Do you know if he has an owner? It would be helpful to know his shot records.”

You shook your head. “He just showed up in the woods one day.”

“We’ll get him a full round of vaccines, then, too.” Copper eyes met yours, and for a second, you thought you saw a look of concern cross them. But then he blinked, and it was gone.

The vet ordered an MRI, and thankfully, because it was a large veterinary hospital connected with the local university, they were able to do it the same day. So you ended up staying at the vet for two hours as they anesthetized the cat and did the scan. While the cat was waking up, the vet called you into the exam room.

“We checked for a microchip, and there was none,” the vet--Dr. Jung--informed you, his brow furrowed. “Based on the cat’s malnutrition and the condition of the coat, it’s likely he was a stray for at least a few months.” You nodded. The poor cat. “We should have the MRI results soon. I’ll give you a call in a few hours once I get a chance to read them. Normally, since he’s a stray, we would contact our foster network to see if anyone would be able to take him in. But since you brought him in-”

“I’ll keep him,” you said quickly. You were planning on it anyway. Just because he was hurt didn’t mean you were willing to give him up.

“Good.” Dr. Jung smiled at you. “My assistant is wrapping his shoulder now, and we’d like to just monitor him for a few more minutes to make sure he’s coming out of the anesthesia well, but you should be clear to take him home after that.” He placed a box on the table between you. “This is Clavamox. One millilitre twice a day for seven days. I don’t think he’ll develop an infection, but since he was so dirty, I think it’s probably better to be safe.” You nodded and pocketed the box. “We also gave him a rabies shot while he was here. It’s standard because he was bitten. If you notice any symptoms, please call us immediately. Once he’s feeling better, we can get him the rest of the vaccines he needs.”

You nodded. This was a lot all at once. And you didn’t even know what you wanted to call the cat yet.

Dr. Jung seemed to be able to tell you were feeling overwhelmed, because he offered you a comforting smile and patted your shoulder. “I’m going to go check on him. You can come if you want.”

As soon as you entered the room, groggy copper eyes were on you. The poor thing looked stoned out of his mind, but there was recognition there, and that gave you some comfort. At least he wasn’t glaring at you anymore. Dr. Jung’s assistant had wrapped his shoulder, so he had a bandage from his upper left front leg wrapped all the way around his chest and up around his shoulders.

“What are we going to do with you, kitty?” you questioned softly, reaching out and gently placing your hand on his head.

After checking the cat’s vitals one last time, Dr. Jung let you leave.

He was limp in your arms as you carried him into your apartment, still a little drugged up from the anesthesia. The whole way back to your apartment, he had sat in the passenger seat and looked out the window like a drunk, moody college student.

“It’s up to you if you want to stay, kitty,” you told him, gently laying him down on your couch as soon as you kicked your shoes off. Of course you wanted to keep him. You had grown attached to him in the few hours you had been with him. But if he was miserable, you were willing to help him find somewhere that was more suited for his needs.

He tried to stand, succeeding only long enough to give a dramatic wobble before collapsing back into the overstuffed cushion. While he was completely recovered from the anesthesia, Dr. Jung had warned you that the cat might be feeling the side effects for a day or so. You reached out to pet him, but his copper eyes slanted into a glare, and you pulled back.

Assuming the cat was hungry, you left him alone and headed into the kitchen. You had some chicken in the fridge, and you thought maybe he would enjoy some fresh meat he didn’t have to steal. You weren’t sure when his last real meal was, so you wanted to go easy on his digestive system until you knew he was feeling better. You’d have to stop and get cat food at some point, but for now, chicken would do.

You did your best to trim off all the fat from the chicken breast. You knew he wouldn’t mind eating it--cats ate weirder things from fresh kills, after all--but you figured with how thin he was, lean meat would probably be better. Carefully, you cut it up into small, easy-to-chew chunks and put some on a plate, wrapping the rest and putting it into the fridge for later. You used a dropper to evenly spread the required dose of the antibiotics onto the chicken in hopes that it would make it easier to give him the medicine.

Returning to the living room, you noticed that the cat hadn’t moved aside from doing his best to curl up as small as possible in the corner of the couch. You tried not to make eye contact with him as you pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it on the cushions. You weren’t particularly keen on having raw chicken all over your furniture, but you sat the plate on the blanket anyway. There was no way you trusted the cat to be able to jump down off your couch at this point.

“Here’s some chicken, kitty.” You gestured toward the plate, and he eyed it warily, unmoving. You supposed he would feel more comfortable eating if you weren’t in the room. “Don’t leave it too long--it’ll go bad. I have to go do some work. I’ll be in my office if you need me. It’s just down the hall.” As you stood up, you paused. You were talking to a cat. You were talking to a cat as if it could understand exactly what you were saying.

Maybe your parents were right. Maybe you had been living alone for too long.

Your mother had suggested you get a hybrid when you first moved to the city--a nice, loyal, protective one, like a German shepherd hybrid or a golden retriever--but you had never gone further than passively looking.

You were happy for the hybrids. A majority of them were still owned, but they could move about their lives freely and without question. It was illegal to treat them as servants, and all ownership had to be consensual, though you weren’t sure how well those rules were enforced. You didn’t really understand how someone could just own a hybrid--they were people, after all, even if their DNA was a little altered. It was weird to you, owning another sentient being like that.

Their lives were certainly much better than they had been. Some hybrids were naturally occurring, but others--a majority of them--had been created by rich and powerful individuals and the government in secret during some shady human experiments in the early 20th century. And, of course, because they were experiments, it created a whole host of problems regarding rights and discrimination.

But despite all the improvements, there was still a long way to go. There was nothing wrong with owning a hybrid if it was consensual, but that didn’t mean you were necessarily comfortable with it.

After a few hours of sitting at your desk working on your most recent graphic design project for work, you turned away and stretched. If you had to stare at the color chartreuse for ten more minutes, you thought you would go blind. It was time to check on the cat anyway, and you wanted to make sure you threw away any chicken that was left on the plate you had given him so he wouldn’t get sick.

When you entered the living room, you were immediately confused. The cat was gone, but so was your blanket. The plate was still on the couch, almost exactly where you left it, but it was entirely empty. Wonderful. You had taken in some sort of Houdini cat.

You grabbed the plate and put it in the sink, trying to look for your blanket as you went. You found it when you returned to the living room, the corner sticking out from under your TV stand. There was just enough space between the bottom shelf and the floor for the cat to fit under, and apparently he had taken the blanket with him. You couldn’t really blame him--it was April, and it was late evening, and your floors were still a little chilly.

“Hey kitty?” you called, bending down to see if you could see him under the shelf. You had thought about it while working, and at this point, you were just going to lean into the whole ‘talking to the cat like he’s a person’ thing. “It’s starting to get late. I’m going to go get ready for bed, okay?” You could just barely see his copper eyes hidden all the way under the TV stand. His pupils were blown wide to capture all the ambient light they could. “You can explore or whatever you’re comfortable with tonight, but please don’t ruin my stuff. Please be a good kitty.”

He blinked once and continued to stare blankly at you.

“Okay, well… if I don’t see you, goodnight.”

You stood and headed off to your bathroom to start your nightly routine. It only took you about a half an hour, but you were soon laying down in bed with your book. You had started it a few days ago, but you were hooked, and you were already almost done with it. The author had managed to somehow insert a space alien robot into today’s modern digital age, and you found it fascinating. You would never look at social media and influencers the same way after reading this book.

It was cozy in your room with the little bedside lamp on, snuggled up in your blankets. Your bed was soft--it was one of those that you could change it using a remote to fit your mood and preference, but you almost always preferred it soft--and you had plenty of blankets and pillows to make it comfortable.

You only had a few pages left when you noticed it, the shadow lingering in the hallway, slowly getting closer to your open bedroom door. It started out against the wall across the hall. When you next looked up after glancing down to your book, the shadow had moved to your doorway. He even had turned his head away like he was pretending it was a coincidence that he had ended up in your room.

He was walking with a slight limp, which was unsurprising given the bandage and the fact that he was attacked not even 12 hours before. He was much more lucid than he was when you first brought him home, though you could tell he was still a little groggy. You didn’t say anything to him--you figured if you did, he would bolt, so you let him do what he wanted.

After a few minutes--maybe 15 or 20--you closed your book quietly, careful not to startle the cat. You glanced at the doorway and didn’t see him, so you put your book on your nightstand and turned off the light. It took you a second, but you snuggled down into the blankets, pulling them tightly around you. You were just about to drift off when you felt it.

Something landed gently on your bed by your feet. It paused for a moment before slowly making its way up the bed to your head, its gait uneven. When it got to the other pillow, it laid down. You risked opening an eye then, and were met with copper eyes staring back at you.

He watched you warily, as if waiting for you to yell or kick him off the bed. When you didn’t, his eyes narrowed, and he slowly allowed himself to lay down, his head on his paws, curled up as best as he could be.

You fell asleep to the sound of him snoring lightly.

As always, your feedback is appreciated. Feel free to pop into my ask box with questions or thoughts about the series. I’d love to hear from you!

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