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liveyourlastbreath · 2 years

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Neil Josten’s adventures in Exy as an (unwilling) Amputee (PT4)

Welcome to book two things are only getting worse from here. Also sorry about this taking so long, I'm not gonna pull an a03 level excuse, this series is just hard to write as I have to write it as I read the book and ya girl has bad adhd

Sunday morning, Neil wakes up to pain shooting up his missing leg. A strange sensation of throbbing and burning racing around in bones that had long since rotten down to dust

Seth’s death is a blissful distraction, something Neil clings onto to push the pain down

Wymack tries to get the team together that afternoon, which ends in a flat out brawl between Matt and Andrew

Neil knows better than to stand against Andrew, but when the blonde's knives are out and aimed at Matt's eyes he steps in, hands out to the both of them but not touching

"Neil, Neil, Neil," Andrew grind. "Surely you're not this dumb?" It hurt to stand but the idea of loosing Matt at the start of the season was enough to keep him steady.

"Andrew." He wasn't ordering him around, threatening him, Neil was simply asking him to stop. And Andrew listened.

By Wednesday the pains had subsided and he was able to deal with the upperclassmens confused glances with a clear mind

"Last I checked Andrew doesn't like you.""He doesnt." And Nicky butts in, "we needed someone to match Kevin don't worry about it" and then gets told off by coach

Pratice starts happening and then when Wymack gets the phone call the conversation is as follows: "Andrew Joseph Minyard, what the flying fuck have you done this time?" "It wasn't me it was the one legged striker!"

Blatent Harrasment, actually just bullying

Life goes on as normal, honestly the beginning of the Raven King is a bunch of exposition we already know

Allison shows up for the game Friday, the line gets switched up, and Neil highly doubts it’s gonna end well. Especially with Andrew going a full game without his meds.

Also in case you’re wondering, Neil brings both legs to his games. He always has his black slip on so changing the bottom half of his gear out is pretty easy. If he ever has to change the slip, he’ll do that in the stall. He doesn’t ever play on his day leg, the blade runner is a lot more comfortable and is better to run with on the court.

When Neil asks Kevin for advice against the Terrapins, Kevin’s response is. “I want you dead on your foot by the time the buzzer rings.” Just little changes like that happen a lot because everyone in this story is in fact a dickwipe

Herrera, Neil’s mark for that game, keeps making comments about him and his leg. At one point Herrera “accidently” slams his racket into Neil’s leg and it sends vibrations all the way up his stump. Then Neil is given permission to destroy him and does just that.

Ya know that cool move he does and nearly gets killed in the process? Yeah imagine that, but he slips his blade runner in there at just the right angle to send Herrera flying into the wall. He doesn’t get carded. Instead lights the goal up red and a triumphant smile breaks across his face.

At half time Kevin is chewing Neil out, ya know, “Injuries are not joke-“ “Oh my god really? *looks down at his leg* woah crazy, would have never guessed that one.”

Once again the story goes on, Neil feels joy for the first time, gets a phone again and flashes back to the beach party gone horribly wrong, same as the cannon series

Also can we just stop and talk about the phone scene in the locker rooms? It has to be one of my favorites, not gonna lie. It's just so them ya know? Like just the dialogue, the subtle "do we need to" before diving into their game again. AGH I love it soso much

"your parents are dead, you are not fine, and nothing is going to be okay. This is not news to you. But from now until May you are still Neil Josten and I am still the man who said he would keep you alive."

The USC game happens, and THEN DUN DUN DUNNN the Fall Banquet is here!!what!!a!!fun!!time!!

It's at moments like these Neil is thankful for his missing leg. Riko last saw him with two functioning appendages, and on top of the hair dye, contacts, and time apart, he could almost find hope in the fact Riko wouldn't recognize him

As the teams are sat across from each other, get talking, and this conversation happens:

Andrew: I'm Andrew. We haven't met yet."

Jean: For that I am grateful. The Foxes as a whole are an embarrassment to Class I Exy, but your existence is unforgivable. A goalkeeper who doesn't care if he is scored on has no right to touch a racquet. You and Josten both should stay on the sidelines like the publicity stunts you are."

Renee: That's a bit out of line, don't you think?

Raven 1: If someone like that replaced you in goal, you must be downright terrible. I can't wait to watch one of your matches. I think it will be entertaining. We would make a drinking game of it but we don't want to die of alcohol posioning.

Dan: Yeah, that'd be a shame

Renee: This is the first time our teams have met, do we have to start off so poorly?

Raven 1: Why not? You're poor at everything else you do. Even down to picking players like the cripple over there. Is it honestly fun to be so terrible?

Renee: I imagine we have more fun than you do, yes."

Jean: Fun is for children-(has a moment of crisis upon looking at renee) A this level it is supposed to be about skill, and your team is sadly lacking. From an unstable goalkeeper to a lame striker with a bum leg to a couple members with deadly drug addictions. You have no right to play with us.

Allison: Fucking excuse me?

Matt: No one wants you here, you can leave any time.

Raven 2: You took something that does not belong to you. You brought this year's humiliation on yourselves.

Dan: We didn't take anything, Kevin wants to be here.

AND THEN, Riko: Is that why the cripple is so quiet? Or did his vocal chords go missing too? He was very spirited the last time we met, or maybe that was just a show for the crowd? Hello, I am speaking to you. Are you really going to ignore me? Hey, deadweight, over here.

THE HOLY MOTHER WYMACK OF ALL LINES Riko: What a coward, just like his mother.

INDEED THE GREATEST LINE IN ALL OF WRITTEN HISTORY (WITH A BIT MORE SASS ADDED)

You know, I get it. Being raised as a superstar must be really really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, nor a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn off the court—yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time. I know it's not entirely your fault that you are mentally unbalanced and infected with these delusions of grandeur, and I know you're physically incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone like every other normal human being can, but I don't think any of us should have to put up with this much of your bullshit. Seriously, is 'cripple' the only insult you know? Maybe next time be a bit more creative, it really shows what little vocabulary you have. Try looking it up in a dictionary maybe, hm? Find it right between the words 'jackass' and 'dickwipe'. But don't feel bad, there are a lot of people who didn't pass the bar exam and they still get somewhere in like, all be it through charity alone. Pity only gets you so many concessions, and you used yours up about six insults ago. So please, please, just shut the fuck up and leave us alone.

aND THHEN our little tin foil ball of a sass master is outed as the Butcher's Son to Kevin, Kevin's face doing all kinds of complex emotions as he examines Neil

Also I love the little things like Neil staring only at Andrew because he doesn't trust himself to look at anyone else

Neil's freaking out, ready to grab his blade runner and book it. But he doesn't really regret most of what he's said, because here's the thing

Every single person up until this point has gone out of their way to call him a 'cripple', to write him off as someone who can't do anything anymore just because he's lost his leg

Nobody, except for the Foxes, believes he's anything more than an amputee. Up until this point he has been torn to shreds because of something he had absolutely no control over. Yeah, okay, it was stupid to put himself in the limelight as someone on the run, but it had nothing to do with being an amputee.

Neil Josten may be an idiot, but going off on Riko was completely justified, something many of the foxes later agree on. And if the Foxes start snapping at anyone, reporter or another team, who singles Neil out for his leg, that's something they just don't talk about

Neil Josten is so much more than a lost leg. Anyone really is more than a lost limb or physical limitations. That's the whole point of this AU and the message I really want to get across.

To the people reading this who may be in the same situation as Neil, you are so, so much more than your physical limitation. This AU is for you, someone who may have been bullied or targeted just because you're "not like everyone else". I see you, and I believe in you.

SORRY AHEM—I just wanted to ramble there for a second because I felt like that was something that needed to be said

So YEAH, Neil doesn't regret what he said, and goes forth after dinner is done, the Foxes have a team bonding moment over protecting the two exy-holics and their blonde bodyguard

Neil gets dragged away to go get screamed at by a little baby bird

Neil: My name is Neil

Riko: Do not lie to me again. You will not enjoy the consequences. Imagine my surprise when the results came back. Your fingerprints, Kathy gave me your glass as a souvenir. All it took was a smile and a kiss. It seems she is growing up to be quite the cougar. Nathanial, explain a few things to me. One, Jean says Kevin did not know who you are. After seeing Kevin's reaction I am inclined to believe him. Perhaps I can understand, as I know how blind Kevin can be when it comes to Exy. I might even forgive him for sheltering you from me. But you must know who you are, so I am very, very curious to know what you think you are doing.

Neil: I'm just trying to get by. If I'd known our families were business partners I wouldn't have signed the contract.

Riko: You're lying

Neil: I am not. I don't want to cause any trouble for your family. I don't want you to cause any trouble for mine. I'm just here for a year and then I'm gone, I promise.

Riko: You don't want to cause any trouble for my family? You have already cost my family a sizable fortune and eight years of trouble.

Neil: How? The money I took was my father's.

Riko: If you think acting stupid will save you, you are sadly mistaken.

Neil: I'm not acting, my mother said it was my father's money. She never even told me about you. If I had known the money was your's—

Riko: Nothing your father owned was his! I refuse to believe she never told you. All that time running and you never asked why?

Neil: Have you met my father? I didn't have to ask.

Riko: You were not running from your father, Nathaniel, you were running from his master. Which brings me to my second question, what happened to your leg?

Neil: Take a wild fucking guess

Riko: (beat) You do realize why don't you?

Neil: Because he's insane?

Riko: You're an even bigger fool than I thought. Running from the master and the money he took, there could have been one thing that paid them off. You, Nathaniel, and yet he chose to take your leg. Your father cost my family a fortune and cut off any way of paying it back.

Neil's head is spinning by the time Matt shows up. He barely remembers the rest of the night, his mind too consumed by Riko's words and the implications of who his father really was.

He takes his leg off on the bus, digging his knuckles into the knotted flesh of his father's work, thinking. He had always known his father was a monster, and this just really put it into perspective.

A text shakes Neil out of his half-asleep state, hand still digging into his knee. A single text is on the screen, from Andrew.

"Shocking, just how many issues such a small body can have."

Neil glares at the back of the bus. "Could say the same thing about you." And that's the end of it

PART ONE || PART TWO || PART THREE || PART FOUR || PART FIVE COMING SOON!

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kiss2012 · 1 month

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i have too many 911 lb thoughts and i was trying to keep it in my notes but it’s too long already

i saw basically all of the shooting in gifs but somehow that did not prepare me for it at all. also the one part i didn’t see in gifs is buck rolling under the fire truck to pull eddie out and i am so glad i watched that for the first time without having seen it before.

are you hurt being the first and only thing eddie says when he’s the one bleeding out is insane.

one of the hottest eddie moments by far has been when he’s telling buck about the will wearing a slutty v-neck with his saint christopher medal on full display. i genuinely can’t stop thinking about it.

MAY GRANT MY FOREVER GIRL. love her and harry’s relationship. i actually get so emotional thinking about them from season 1 to them now

buck is so annoying sometimes and i love him so bad despite and actually especially because of it

speaking of which every day im dreaming of buck’s s4 hair. buck’s s4 hair pls come back to me i miss you.

ravi most beautiful perfect man ever. i need him to be a main immediately

brawl in cell block 9-1-1 is fucking INSANE. both buck and eddie make the exact same face when the other is being searched it’s a millisecond of a look but it says SO MUCH about how they feel about the other being stripped of weapons. and then when christopher is brought up eddie is so afraid he shuts down completely while buck gets immediately impulsively angry about the possibility that christopher could be hurt. jesus christ.

CAN THEY PLEASE BRING UP THE WILL. hey eddie remember how you said your son goes to buck if you die. um did you ever think about how buck is just as likely as you if not more likely to die on the job. and did you decide no i don’t care about the risks it has to be him anyway. but now u are in a situation where you might both die. SO MAYBE WE COULD DISCUSS THAT NOW.

omg the paramedic from chimney begins is back

karen and eva confrontation is delicious tbh

they seriously need to start reconciling the random procedural case parts of the show with the other main characters so that i can bring myself to care about any of it, or just stop giving that so much screen time. i vastly prefer when we get storylines about humanity and connection

everything in its right place playing…

IM SO EMOTIONAL ABOUT THE MONTAGE OF EVERYONE HELPING MICHAEL PROPOSE TO DAVID

NOOOOOO MICHAEL AND DAVID ARE LEAVING AND THEY’RE NOT COMING BACK IM SO SAD at least they gave them a good send-off but :((((((

omg this lesbian who can’t drive and her love interest driving instructor. new favourite call <3

YELL AT EVERYONE’S REACTIONS TO BOBBY AND ATHENA’S ROLEPLAY I LOVE THEM

who is the driver of the fire truck. do we ever learn who this person is??? imagine having to sit there awkwardly just listening to everyone talking about their personal problems?

#911 lb

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blackcat2907 · 10 months

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More snippets from that one Ken oneshot cause I’m having a blast writing/editing this. It is my baby. My pride and joy.

“One thing he noticed was that Big wasn’t with them. Ken wondered what that meant. Was he angry? Most likely. More so with himself than Ken, if he knew him at all. Angry with himself that he hadn’t seen it coming, that he’d let himself fall asleep in the same room as the traitor.”

““He’s… Tawan…” Pol trailed off, and they both stood there, waiting for Ken’s reaction.

He started to laugh, sharp and angry, until he saw how their faces fell when he did. They weren’t lying to him.

“You’re fucking with me,” he said anyway, “If you think that’s going to get me to talk, you’re wasting your time.””

“He had been closer to Big than anyone else, really. That’s just what happened with your roommate, probably. Big knew him too- Well, most of him.”

So normal about them. So normal. :’)

MY HEART! HOW COULD YOU? (This is amazing I love it)

I AM ALSO SO NORMAL ABOUT THEM!

My new pride and joy will be my punishment fic based on that ask I sent you. (The one where Korn punishes the main 6 for the brawl) I'll send some snippets for your enjoyment later.

#kat answers

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insomniamamma · 2 years

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thanks for the ask, Arte ❤️ Because of our shared love of Ezra I'm gonna focus on him for this ask.

Liminal: This is just Ezra and Cee. It's a contemporary AU in which Ezra and Damon are brothers. Ez becomes Cee's legal guardian after the accident that kills Damon and takes Ezra's arm. They go on a road trip together.

Remain Nameless: This is probably the most bleak thing I've ever written. The ending of Prospect is open ended. I wanted to explore what happened if things went wrong.

Persistence: You could call this a soulmates AU if you squint. This was a story where I felt like I caught lightning in a bottle. I saw the prompt and this story came out of nowhere and punched me.

Fairy Tale of Puggart Bench: This is one of my all time faves. I wrote this in the early hours of a very disappointing New Years day. I enjoy this AU because the reader character is the exact opposite of a Mary Sue. She's aging. Her knees hurt. And it's fun writing a younger, foolish version of Ezra. One who would absolutely start a bar brawl over someone talking shit about his love.

Night of Hunters: I love this fic because I feel like a captured the danger and urgency of Prospect here. Also it is super violent and that was a nice outlet. Prickle 'verse is my comfort AU. It has been a joy watching these chuckleheads become family. I know that's weird because I am the one writing said chuckleheads, but you know how that goes.

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woodaba · 2 years

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Me and Mother 3

"A story is a series of memories. Memories are remembered with other memories, and in turn, become memories themselves. If you don't take care to preserve your memories, you'll forget them. So, please tell us frogs your memories of everything so far… That is what people refer to as "saving". Now, then… -hop- Save your game?"

One of the all-time best Hard Drive headlines remains "Huge Earthbound Fan Excited To Play It For The First Time". It's a good gag, an playfully teasing dig that is funny because it's true, and could only come from a place of understanding of the EarthBound/Mother fandom. I know, because once upon a time, I was a Huge Mother 3 Fan Excited To Play It For The First Time.

It's hard to emphasize how much of a fetish object Mother 3 was for the western EarthBound fandom, even for the wider JRPG fandom. I became aware of EarthBound through Smash Bros, as I am sure most people my age did, and was immediately taken in by how out-of-a-piece it was with the rest of Nintendo's stable, and my interest only skyrocketed when I searched the internet and found out that EarthBound was super fucked up and weird and scary in a way only slightly off-beat Nintendo games hyped up by 14-year olds who don't really know anything else could be.

(See also: Majora's Mask, and endless features in Official Nintendo Magazine UK swearing that the ReDeads in Ocarina of Time were the scariest shit in the fucking world man you'd fuckin shit and piss your pants)

And then, of course, there was the sequel on the Game Boy Advance, that never left Japan and never would, implicitly because it would emotionally scar anyone who played it and was even more messed up than. EarthBound has a habit of being slightly spoken over by many of it's most ardent fans, certainly those I was privy to in my days lurking on haven for Absolute Unhinged Freaks Starmen.net, but Mother 3 was on a whole other level. Everything about this game was spoken of in terms of absurd religiosity, which was only heightened by it's relative inaccessibility. Speaking about the game in hyperbolic terms practically became a core tenant of the EarthBound fandom, as if an official translation could be physically evoked out of the ether if enough people were enthusiastic enough for it. Entire swathes of the game were freely discussed, both before and after the (also given a kind of quasi-religious status by the fandom) fan translation were released, spoiling every single conceivable thing in the game in order to entice someone, anyone to give it a go and join the chorus, never quite seeming to realize that, mostly, they were was just talking to each other, and to impressionable 13 year olds like me.

I swallowed all of this. It was hard not to. I remember one day, on what was probably at the time the most exciting website ever devised, the Smash Bros. Dojo, which contained daily updates for the sure-to-be greatest Smash Bros. ever made, Brawl, when Lucas and New Pork City were announced. To say I lost my shit was an understatement. I freaked out to just about any of my friends who would care to listen, performing the same role of Eulogist that all the people I saw online do for Mother 3, giving away every possible twist and reveal and plot point to people who, maybe might have actually played EarthBound on their own one day and liked it well enough.

I did play EarthBound, and really loved it, mostly because like 80% of conversation around the game when I was getting into it was about how totally fucked up the final boss battle with Giygas is, and the remaining 20% was endless relitigating about why a game so impossibly magical and amazing didn't sell well enough, which carried the implicit conversation with the unreleased status of Mother 3. Because of this, I found so many surprises and things I found personally resonant, things that I had nothing to bring to other than myself. I didn't even have this feeling with the even-more over-discussed Final Fantasy VII because the things culture remembers of that game are bafflingly at odds with what it actually is and what I took away from it when I came to it.

But with Mother 3? I can't say the same thing. It's partly because it's a much shorter, more focused game than it's predecessor, it's partially because it stands alongside Far Cry 2 and Dark Souls as one of the most over-analyzed games in existence. But mostly, I think it's because the fandom conversation around this game warped my perception of it and turned every step on the Nowhere Islands into charted territory, where everyone had left their mark, and I had no space to make mine, no space to find myself beneath everyone else.

There are a huge amount of things that I love about Mother 3, so many things that I appreciate, and so many things that make me smile. But I've never been able to feel like my experiences of it were entirely mine. I've never been able to find the unique resonances with my own life or experiences that characterize all of my favorite games. Everywhere I look, every corner I turn on the Nowhere Islands, I see the words of others, the perspectives of others. I look at little elements like the doorknob, and instead of being able to turn it over in my head, and place it within the wider whole, all I can hear is a cacophony of voices echoing throughout the years, the interpretations of posters on Starmen.net, Itoi and Brownie Brown's own comments on the subject, drowning out any thoughts I might have.

Yes, I could definitely discuss my thoughts on the fact that the village of Tazmily was in some way doomed to it's fate from the very beginning because of it's pursuit of an idealized vision of a specifically American past draped in western imagery that conveniently ignores the great darkness of that time in material history…but even this thought echoes with perspectives I've read countless times before. Wess' abuse, the Magypsies as a clumsily earnest attempt to explore gender non-conformity as it relates to the social and "nature", the way forgetting haunts the entire game world, as if everyone else on the Islands knows what a terrible mistake has been made by choosing to move backwards rather than forwards…there's stuff I want to say but every time I open my mouth on these things the words of others spill out, so ingrained and intertwined that I don't know which thoughts are mine and which thoughts are creeping in from forum threads long, long ago. Playing this game is like playing with a director's commentary track inside my head that I cannot switch off, commenting on the meaning or intent behind every single pixel on the screen, and it's heartbreaking because I truly believe this kind of voracious all-consuming analysis is completely antithetical to why these games are good.

Mother/Earthbound games are free-wheeling, lackadaisical, and rarely concerned with all-consuming arcs and statements. Those things are there, but the real pleasure of playing one of these games is just meeting the weird and wonderful people of this odd and beautiful world. You can see it in the battle system, in how it is playfully carefree with it's rules and rhythms, with many boss battles being beaten after you have technically been dealt lethal damage, but the game is kinda taking it easy until it gets to you. You can see it in the, frankly, absolutely astonishing soundtrack that freely mixes and matches genres and tones and instruments all processed through the woeful GBA speakers. You can see it in how the macguffin that dominates the first half of the game's plot is basically forgotten about and never mentioned again afterwards, in the lack of interest in connecting the dots between EarthBound and this game. Mother 3 is laid back, at ease and confident in itself. These are games meant to be enjoyed by all ages, people aged 8 to 88. It's irreverent about itself. And I wish I could be too, but I can't help but play this game with the same awkward, nervous, stammering energy that comes with meeting an internet acquaintance in person. I wish I could be normal here, I really could! But my brain is too filled with EarthBound fansite trivia, I'm so sorry. Did you know there's an unused sprite that depicts the creation of the Masked Man, but that it was never used because it's probably just too fucked up and scary f-

Boney attacks!

…yeah, ok, I deserved that.

I've read a lot on games I love, and games I don't, but never do I really feel like those perspectives take me over, leaving me unable to see the game beneath them. Certainly, my perspective has been altered by the perspectives of others, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill (I think I would have liked Yakuza: Like a Dragon a lot more, for example, if Yakuza hadn't developed a bizarre and wholly unrepresentative Wholesome Chungus Kiryu reputation, of if the much-ballyhooed themes of homelessness and social exclusion existed…at all after the opening stretch) but with no other game do I feel so wholly unable to find myself in, no other game has this opaque wall around it made of What Other People Thought About It. Not even EarthBound has this for me. And it makes me really sad. Mother 3 is a special game. A really great one. And I think I do love it but…it's a love with a lower-case L. Despite its reputation as a merciless feels machine, my appreciation of Mother 3 is extremely emotionally detached in a way I find kind of upsetting. There are definitely things I feel strongly about, things about it that provoke profound emotion in me, but I wish I had been able to find those things for myself, instead of my love for the game sold to me by overzealous fans.

No, that's wrong. It's not the fan's fault. Well, not entirely. I do think that a lot of the conversation with these games is kind of fundamentally opposed to what they actually are in a way that speaks to the relative immaturity of a lot (not all) of the people talking about them at the point in time where their critical reception was still cooling. But ultimately, It's not the fault of people just talking enthusiastically about a game they loved, or at least, wanted to love. Mother 3 is just…as a result of my interactions with it, how long it's shadow is cast across my mind as a child…trying to find personal meaning in Mother 3 that relates personally to myself is like trying to find something new in Citizen Kane. When something is that storied, that discussed…what hope do I have?

When people who were there talk about their first interactions with EarthBound, it's so often framed as this unfolding flower of a work, that grew beyond whatever humble thoughts they may have derived from the game's legendarily misguided marketing campaign. They weren't expecting to find one of the best games of all time inside it, but they did. It's the same I feel about when I played my favorite game for the first time. I wasn't prepared for the things it would do and show me. This is not to say that novelty is an inherent facet of a game I love. But at the same time…I don't know how fully I can love something that falls into a dutiful checklist of the things I already expect to find there.

I know Mother 3 to be a great game. I wish I could feel that it was one, too.

#mother 3 #mother series #earthbound

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talenlee · 1 year

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Josh Lyman Sucks, Again

In award-winning prestige-drama television series The West Wing, season 4, Episode 10, Arctic Radar, there’s a story about the challenges of writing a 500 word speech for the President of the United States as two speechwriters clash in their own ways, old guard and new guard; Sam Seaborn’s Senatorial campaign picks up and CJ clashes with a reporter who dislikes their seating assignment, which you know, feels kind of like the jousting with Danny from earlier seasons but whatever, am I right.

In all of this political maneuvering, there’s a minor plot dotted throughout the episode where Josh Lyman, hero of the people and voice of a political generation of frustrated fighters who just wants to get into a brawl with the other guys, soul and heart of the series and lovable everyman, takes time out of his day to stop a government worker of some level of forgettableness from wearing a Star Trek pin.

I’m not exaggerating. It’s a minor detail in the episode but it takes up two scenes, scenes in which Josh mentions to Donna – his personal assistant – that he saw a government worker in the White House wearing on her suit a Star Trek pin. Not a uniform, not an outfit, but a pin. A worker who I will remind you has a dress code for her job, a dress code she must otherwise be complying with (or they’d send her home).

The whole association is fucking gross, though, because like, the conversation also includes such lines as ‘she was wearing a pin’ and then the shocked response ‘it’s a girl?’ like there’s something dehumanised about wearing a Star Trek pin. And then, in the first scene, we get this note – Josh wants her to not wear the pin – then there’s a followup scene, where Josh finds that she is not wearing the pin any more, and thanks his personal assistant for it. She notes that the woman in question is bothered by it, so Josh goes to talk about it with her.

Now let’s be clear, Josh talking to someone is narrative antimatter. Consistently, if Josh talks to someone, he will say something that should achieve the exact opposite of what he wants it to in the narrative, but somehow it doesn’t. And Josh walks over and talks to her, and the conversation that ensues is somehow absolutely fucking ridiculous and so perfectly in keeping with The West Wing as a genre where you win if you Make A Good Speech at something, but also, what constitutes a ‘good’ speech is much more about if you command the screen for a while.

See, she tells Josh, when he comes to talk to her, that she’s appealing his request to stop wearing the pin. She is complying, but going through proper channels to appeal his instruction to stop wearing the pin (instruction he passed through his personal assistant to her superior). And he then indicates that he’s in charge of the woman who he’s appealing to, which seems to indicate there’s no point her doing the right thing and going through channels, with an appeal that has a reason, which is just a great way to assert that the rules don’t matter, what matters is his opinion.

And then she makes something of a misstep, in that rather than pointing out simply that she isn’t violating dress codes and there’s no reason to ask her not to wear the pin, she explains why it means something to her. What Star Trek means to her. And then we get Josh Lyman’s Speeching For The Win, which like almost every time an Aaron Sorkin Series Character gets speeching is really convincing and compelling until you think about it.

I’m a fan. I’m a sports fan, I’m a music fan, and I’m a Star Trek fan, all of them. But here’s what I don’t do.

Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: Let’s list our 10 favorite episodes. Let’s list our least favorite episodes. Let’s list our favorite galaxies. Let’s make a chart to see how often they appear in our favorite episodes. What Romulan would you couple with a Cardassian, and why? Let’s talk about Romulans falling in love with Cardassians and then let’s do it again.

That’s not being a fan. That’s having a fetish.

And I don’t have a problem with that except you can’t bring your hobbies into work, okay?

Josh Lyman

And she nods and accepts and relents and there’s a joke and the implication is that Josh is right and this one-scene wonder intern played by a character actor has learned her lesson about bringing her hobbies to work, which is what she did by wearing a small pin of a symbol from a classic TV show.

This speech drives me nuts. I want to argue with every part of it. I want to argue with it in particular because it’s all just so fucking disingenuous: Josh saying he’s a Star Trek fan is completely bullshit. The fact that Josh has nothing in his life except this job and complaining about baseball is a recurrent thread throughout the whole series, and you know where he complains about baseball, repeatedly? In the office in front of his coworkers, many of whom ask him to focus on his job and not on the baseball he’s mad about. And you see how by starting arguing with that first point I’m mad at another part, and it’s not even the most berserk thing in this whole fucking spiel.

Because she didn’t do any of those things! She didn’t list her ten favourite episodes, her favourite galaxies (and if you were a Star Trek fan, Josh, you’d know that’s a stupid fucking thing to say, there’s a whole movie about not being able to leave the galaxy), she didn’t start talking about Romulans and Cardassians, she wore a small piece of iconography. She wore something that meant something to her and it was unobtrusive to everyone but you. This entire exchange is about Josh telling this woman to her face she is a strawman, and her accepting his insightful assessment and no longer being a fan of one of the most mainstream things in a place where someone might see her.

One of the more horrifying things about West Wing is its eerie intersection with reality. For a start, the show is almost designed to be read as a roman a clef — a piece of fiction that should be seen as overlaid with real historical events. It’s a mulligan on the Clinton Presidency, a wish that things could have gone differently, an alternate history that drew on real people to inform the cabinet of President Bartlett, and real events to fill the sequences of narrative. Some things were timeless, some things weren’t — in both the real world and fantasy of The West Wing, the United States’ solution to international terrorism was engaging in international terrorism, for example.

Particularly what’s weird is that, like, Josh kinda exists. Josh was created inspired by some real dudes who exist, particularly Rahm Emanual, who you might not remember except as a dude from the Obama White House and then go ‘oh, was he a cool guy?’ and to get your answer to that I suggest ask a Chicago schoolteacher. But by being on TV twenty years ago when the current generation of up-and-coming 40 year old wonk dorks were geting their wheels under them, a lot of people wanted to be Josh Lyman. And now there are a bunch of Josh Lymans in the real world, who are this synthesis of real people into this unreal guy who then reached out into the real world to shape them.

And we know Josh shaped the real world because multiple times, Josh is used by the writers to express impolite or impolitic opinions about the events of the day or the opinions around the show, to the audience of that show. Famously, there’s a whole episode where Josh gets into a pissing match with a forum of his own fans and the Press Secretary informs him that he’s to never do that again (wise) because these people are mentally unwell (man, fuck you). And that’s what we get here, in this speech, again.

Josh is talking to someone about being ‘too much of a fan.’ He is lecturing someone he has never fucking talked to before this about how she’s too into Star Trek because she wore a tiny piece of iconography that he alone could recognise. He picked her out of a lineup and sat her down and gave her a talking-to at work because she’s the wrong kind of fan, the wrong kind of way. It’s really hard to not see that as the authors of the series taking a swing at people watching the series, again, especially because it’s so out of type for Josh. Suddenly, and for these two scenes only, Josh cares about Star Trek.

Maybe he’s just mad that an actor from Star Trek was fucking the girl he had a crush on a few seasons back, hell if I know.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Media

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morgansunflower · 3 years

Text

Little-Wing

Requested tag @candid-confetti

Dick Grayson X Wife! Reader

Jason Todd X Mom! Reader

Warnings:suggestive content, vehicle accident.

Words:1100

In a au were Grayson adopts Jason instead of Batman. There's slammed doors and lots of family love.

Late in the night, I lay in my king size bed unable to feel peaceful until I hear the living room window open. I hope they're OK on patrol. Grayson and I were only married for a few months when we stumbled upon Jason. We adopted him after a week of knowing him, neither of us wanting him in the system or on the streets.. And honestly my heart couldn't bear losing him. I hear the window finally opening, they're home! I move out of my bedroom into the hallway, seeing Jason storm to his room and Grayson following him.

"Jason! Stop, we need to talk about--" the door slammed in Grayson's face "this" he sighs heavily rubbing his hand down his face in frustration. "Jay bud we need to talk about it, Little Wing... Jay will you please open the door and let me talk to you"

"LEAVE ME ALONE DICK!!" he replied yelling from inside his room, he's really mad.

"hi" he whispered to me

I touch Dick's shoulders and kiss his sweaty cheek "go freshen' up, let him cool down for a bit"

He nods yes and then smirks at me "want to come join me" he began kissing my lips.

I part from his lips cupping his face "sure"

We step into our bathroom he kicks off his boots. He stripped down to only his shirt. I step to him as I take off my own clothes.

"so tell me what happened" I take his shirt off and freeze. Bruises, they were dark purple and everywhere. I gently rub my thumb against his face soothingly "oh Grayson" my face fell "is Jason OK?" I sigh with a annoyed smile "what am I going to do with you boy blunder?"

"you can do lots of things" he smirked taking my shirt off "I'll answer your second question first, he's completely OKAY.." he helps me take my pants and panties off, I take my brawl off, listening to my husband "Slade decided to pay a visit" he had a frustrated look on his face "Jay disobeyed me following me when I told him to go home. Slade and I were fighting and then I saw smoke lost conscious, woke up and went after him, but then Jay tried to go after him to. I caught up to Jay and told him he is grounded"

"I see, well I understand both sides"

Grayson and I step into the shower. I turn the water on to warm. Grayson kisses my lips deeply, after letting our love be known, I message Grayson's shoulders. He had a sad smile on his face. I kiss his cheek, resting my face on his shoulder.

"he's just worried about you honey" I assured him cupping his face

"I know, I really do. I just don't know what to do" he sighs heavily laying his head on my chest "I'm trying to do right by him but I just.. Keep falling short. I mean I know what he's going through" he gently shook his head in despair "I should be able to help him" he sighed

I can feel how desperate and helpless he feels.

"Grayson you are a wonderful father to Jason. He cares about you, didn't you rebel to the Batman?"

He snorted in a humorous manner "yeah, quite a bit I suppose" then his tone became serious "I just want to be the best I can be to him"

I kiss his neck and hold him closer "and you are, don't lose sight of that"

I turn off the water. Grayson and I step out of the bathroom and into our bedroom. I slip on my nightgown. He steps from behind me and kisses my neck.

"I don't want you to lose sight of how much I need you Y/N" my heart melts

I squeeze his arms around rest my head on his neck.

"I'm not ever going anywhere"

Jason's P. O. V

I sit on my bed crouched up, I can't sleep. I was trying to protect him! Is anything I do good enough? I'm so scared this is going to crash. I lost my biological parents, why not my new one's to? Should I go apologize? No I was protecting him, I don't want to lose him to. Definitely not Y/N either. They are all I have left. My gut is in knots. I'll just spend the entire weekend in my room. I don't know what to say to Grayson? He's really mad at me. I hear a glass clink in the kitchen. Is it morning already? I waited for a few minutes. The door was cracked open. I prepare for another fight with Dad. He opens the door and steps inside my room.

"hey kiddo, you don't look like you got any sleep. I made hot chocolate it's really really good" he said with a chuckle

His demeanor calm as he steps in with two cups. He sits on the bed beside me. He hands me the cup. I didn't look him in the eye, too afraid of something I am truly terrified of seeing....Rejection, even when he's in here treating me like he loves me.

"Jason I know you're scared, I was too. I still am but I've learned to live with that fear. I'm not trying to replace your dad, I just want to be the best I can for you" I hear a ring come from his watch, he sighs dramatically "I have to go into work, I'll be back soon and we'll talk about it, OK?"

I don't know what to do. I nod yes. He softly smiled rubbing my head and left. I look seeing Y/N with a soft smile.

"hi kiddo" she softly said

"hi, are you mad at me too" I bluntly asked

"oh Jay I'm not mad and neither is Grayson"

She wraps her arms around me. I rest my head on her shoulder with my arms around her. Finally feeling the security and safety of her. She lays down with me in her arms. I am so sleepy, I close my eyes... I hear her phone ring and mom leaving the bed. I lift my head seeing mom on the phone.

"hey... Yes, this is she, is everything OK?" Mom covered her face her face fallen, sending my heart to my gut in fear. Please don't be Dad. Please don't be dead Dad. "Y-yes thank you" she hangs up.

"mom" I said genuinely worried.

She takes a deep breath and cups my face, her eyes shaking. "sweetie... Grayson was in motorcycle accident, he's in the E. R"

"what?! No!" I couldn't control myself, as I started crying. She held me in her arms. I buried my face in her neck "no! No! No! No"

#Dad! Dick X son! Jason #Dick Grayson X Reader #Jason Todd X mom! Reader #Love #Angst #Worry #Crying #Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Reader #Motorcycle accident #Motorcycle #Hurt #Comfort #Fighting

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subwaysurf45 · 3 years

Text

Winter Makes Ice (Ep.5)

Summary: you’re captured after a brawl at the Avengers building, Bucky and others must save you before Hydra makes a new Winter Soldier out of you, Bucky has given up that title.

Words: 4344

Episode: five

Warning: violence, nudity, needles, descriptions of injury

Masterlist! Winter Makes Ice Episode: Four

Time: unknown

Date: unknown

You knew they had full control over you. There was nothing you could do even though you were conscious all the time, your body did what they wanted but your brain screamed against it. There were times where they’d ask you to do the impossible, they’d make you climb the tallest tree in the forest that surrounded the building and then make you jump down without anything to catch you, you’d land and your ankle would break; the worst was when they told you to break it back in place.

It was like you were sat in a large chair as you watched your life unfold in the cell, your wrists were strapped to this imaginary chair so you couldn’t reach out to block the punch, ankles were clasped so you couldn’t run away. You never became lucid, it was always you watching through the shell of your body. Crying yourself to sleep wasn’t an option, you weren’t allowed to cry, or laugh, or scream, or smile; you were dead on the outside. The feeling of control was so close but yet so far away.

There was a moment, just a moment. More I.C.E. had just been injected as you hung from the cuff restraints, you swung lightly as you dangled there. The cell door closed and the silence you were left with was getting louder by the second, your brain starting to pound like it always did and right at the back of your head near the bottom began to pulse, like you were being stabbed. The pain, hunger, exhaustion built up until that one moment, your eyes were slowly closing but as they closed you could see something right in front of you, something was moving. You couldn’t reach out to touch it because you were chained but as you crossed your eyes all you saw was a little black thing slightly swinging with you.

It was the tip of your nose.

Your fingers had also begun to blacken, it was about to hit your first knuckle.

That was when you let the control fully go to the I.C.E. flowing in your veins, the power to keep yourself above water was only getting more and more tiring. No one had tried to save you so they probably were never going to come. Part of you thought Bucky would be there in less than a day, he’d break walls and towers for you, but it might have just been words to make you think he loved you, just sounds put together as a fake.

Time: 6:10am

Date: October 3rd 2024

“Darling, It’s me, It’s Bucky, you’re safe now.” Bucky spoke softly, he flickered between your eyes and nose. You didn’t say anything, just looked right through him. “I will not fight you, but we need to get out of here, we have to go.” He urged, right when he finished talking you stepped forward, he was shocked to see you move, it was rigid and robotic. “Baby, explain what’s going on, please baby?” Bucky stepped forward and reached out, his hand lightly touched your shoulder but he studied your face as he did so. Your nose would have scrunched up but with the lack of that it was just your eyebrows that pulled together. Bucky looked around the room to try and find any sign of how to get you out of your trance; the papers he flicked through were now getting thoroughly read through. All you did was stare at him, waiting for a command.

“Bucky, it’s all clear down here, some got away though,” Steve breathed heavily as he spoke through the coms. “There's this guy who looked to be the head and he got away, didn’t get a good look at him.”

Bucky turned to you, “who’s the leader here?”

“No one gave their name.” You answer quickly.

“What did he look like?” Bucky left the papers and walked to you, he grabbed a lab coat on the way to cover your scared and naked body.

“Slick black hair. Black eyes. Heart shaped face. No facial hair. Slit through his left eyebrow. Hydra ring on his finger.” Your eyes closed as you computed the man who poured the ice water on you multiple times. “Height: six foot. Weight: around one eighty. Scars, markings, tattoos: none.” Bucky watched you in shock, “any other specifics, James?”

“N-no, well done.” He nodded and threw the coat around you, “we’re going to leave now, okay?” Bucky took your hand and led you toward the door.

Your feet tread silently while Bucky’s combat boots echoed three times down the grey hallway, it scared you every time he’d step. With every loud sound came a hard punch, it was a way for you to brace yourself when they’d catch you talking about your past life. As you walked closer to the doors your fingers found their way to the walls, still grey like the floor but clean, the floor was covered in dead bodies and blood from the invasion.

The doctors and agents you knew were slumped over against the wall or splayed out in the middle of the hallways, some people’s blood had congealed while others still created a larger pool around the Hydra operatives. The smell of death didn’t read on your face but it did on Bucky’s, the smell of the inside of your cell just carried out here it seemed like. You were unaware of your smell, part of you thought it was the lack of nose but the other knew it was the lack of fresh air and being surrounded by copious amounts of blood.

“Where to, Sergeant Barnes?” the feeling of someone holding your hand was foreign, his thumb kept swiping back and forth.

“Call me Bucky,” he looked back with sorrow in his eyes. You stopped walking and lowered your head, “what are you doing?” he asked.

“Waiting for punishment,” you spoke softly, knowing they went easier on you if you knew you messed up. There’d be times where you’d push your luck and stare them down but once you grew tired of being tough you head would bow and you waited for the strike, it was now a reaction to any type of dissatisfactory.

“No, no punishment anymore,” his eyes filled with tears and he brought you under his arms, his lips kissed the crown of your head as he opened the doors. He kept you under his arm as he opened them, metal arm gripping right on your forearm.

The sun was barely meeting the surface and yet you had to squint to adjust, everything had a hue of red. The grass felt foreign under your bare feet as you stepped off the tiles and into nature, your toes gripped the leaves and grass as they walked. Your lungs felt like they were about to explode with the intake of fresh air, your nose could still work but it was slightly harder to breathe, the cool wind blew into your mouth and gripped the back of your throat which made you double over to the cough. Your knee popped out of the front slit on the closed lab coat, you were used to feeling naked and vulnerable; Bucky was the one to close it again.

Steve, Wanda, and Nat all stood by the jet.

Wanda screamed your name and ran up to you, her arms pulled you into a tight hug but you curled in and waited for the strike. She pulled away and the feeling of rigidness, “y/n?” She questioned, her hand coming to cup your cheek but you stepped back and held your hand up for protection. Wanda brought her hands into her chest, she looked between Bucky and you but Bucky just shook his head with a few tear tracks present on his face; Wanda was beginning to develop her own after she looked back at you before turning away.

You didn’t really know why everyone was crying, “Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximof.” your head slightly bowed, you looked over her to see the others behind her shoulder, “Captain Steve Rogers and Natasha Rominoff, a pleasure.” Their faces seemed worried and Nat looked disgusted, she brought her hand to cover her mouth as she walked up the steps to the jet.

Wanda got your attention again, “hello, we’re going to take you home, alright?” Wanda took your hand, “do you remember me?”

“From?” was all you said as you made it into the jet. Wanda covered sob with her hand as she turned away from you to sit beside Nat, she was also crying.

Steve didn’t even look at you, he walked straight to Bucky. Steve caught him right as Bucky’s knees were buckling, Bucky caught onto Steve and they both slowly made it to the ground. It seemed like they guided each other, both holding onto one another for dear life. It was a common understanding, grief was written on both of them.

“She’s fucking gone, Steve!” Bucky cried into Steve’s uniform, the blue turning navy with the tears. “She called me James! She doesn’t know who I am, I can't- I don know- what did they-”

“Bucky, it’s alright,” Steve calmed him as Bucky began to hyperventilate, “we’re going to get her back, I promise.” Steve gripped onto Bucky’s shoulders and they both stood, a little wobbly but both were extremely tired and light headed. “I’ll handle everything,” they walked to the jet, “just be there for her and I figure everything else out, alright?” Steve made Bucky look at him.

“Sure…” was all Bucky could muster.

They all made it to the jet, you were placed in a room off to the right. Bucky went right in there to see you curled on the ground when there was an examination table in the middle of the room, he kneeled beside you and ghosted a hand down your shin to try and get your attention.

“It’s Bucky, let’s sit up on the table, okay?” Bucky eased but you didn’t move, his eyes closed as he fought with himself. He didn’t want to abuse your injected substance, but he really needed you on the exam table to check your wounds. “On the exam table.” he didn’t speak harshly or yell, it was just Bucky’s normal tone.

You shot up instantly and sat on the edge of the table, your legs hung off it and the lab coat was forgotten, it was still around you but it seemed you were told to be naked so often it became second nature. Bucky turned toward you and stood between your legs so he could get a good look at you, he could tell you were staring deep into his eyes, he didn’t want to look in yours yet, he wanted to look you deep in the eyes and have you pull him in for a kiss, maybe it was selfish but he needed it.

“I’m going to do something called a head-to-toe check,” he informed but he knew you knew what this was. He slipped on the disposable gloves, “I know you have cuts and scars but I need to find active bleeding first, alright?” Bucky held up his hands to show nothing was on the gloves. “Tell me if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“Nothing is-”

“That’s an order.” Bucky added, “I’m commanding you to tell me if you don’t want me touching somewhere,” he knew he had checked you, there might be a way you could find a loophole in his command and get him further from a checkmate but he was making progress.

His hands gently tapped all around you, he was asking questions as he did so but you didn’t answer any of them. You were now looking straight forward, when Bucky looked to your face for any sign of his girl you’d give no hints or answer. His hands worked down to your chest, he hesitated over your breasts but you gave no indication that you were uncomfortable, when he looked for bumps, bruises, or blood he didn’t find much, just scratch marks that looked old. He did the same when he hit your waist, not a lot of touching but looking, it wasn’t thorough but he knew you wouldn’t say anything and he might trigger you again.

His gloves weren’t picking up much, most cuts were partly healed and the bruises were very noticeable. Part of a head-to-toe check is seeing how the victim reacts to the pressure, if you tap their stomach and they flinch it could be internal bleeding or a broken rib, but you weren’t giving any sign of hurt. He knew you could feel the broken bones and the bruises but you would never tell him in the mindset you’re in. he watched for little twitches in the eye or some type of pull away from him wherever he touched, Bucky wanted to reach in and find your brain so that you could tell him what hurts; he wanted to help you so bad.

“Do you know how long you’ve been gone?” Bucky asked as he picked up your left leg, turning and examining it. He found a deep red mark on the edge of a purple bruise on your ankle, there was the exact same one on the other and on your wrists. He pushed away your hair and moved the lab coat back to find a massive bruise with cuts all around your neck, it was impeccable your vocal chords weren’t fried after being put in that cuff contraption.

“Gone from where?” you asked robotically, you didn’t even look at him.

Bucky was taken back by your answer, he stumbled with his hands as he switched legs. “F-from home, y/n. Shield, home?”

“Hydra is my home, it was where I was created.” your head turned to allow your eyes to lock with Bucky’s.

Part of him wanted to scream and shake your head so hard it might knock a memory back in place, he wanted to tell you of your story and how you both grew. Bucky wanted to tell you about the drawings you do with Steve or the boxing in the early mornings, he wanted to overflow you with emotions but he knew they’d hit a brick wall.

Bucky finished his exam but he needed to keep you for himself for a little longer, he pretended to check your pupils and pulse three more times but all he wanted was to feel the warmth of your skin. His eyes would catch the tip of your nose swinging as he moved you slightly, he had an entire set of questions just for that. But he just kept looking at you for no reason. He’d ask if you’re cold and you’d say no, he’d ask if you were hungry and you’d say no. he’d ask if you were thirsty, you’d say no.

So he stopped asking, “drink this water.” He pulled the little water bottle from the back of his belt loop, the little tear drop shaped bottle fit perfectly in her hands.

You grasped the frosted bottle, it seemed familiar to you. You never got water in your cell, you’d have to suck on the floor after the doctor left; they’d always wake you up by dumping ice water on your head. Calloused fingers gripped and felt the bottle, something was happening in your brain that you couldn't quite understand, you were feeling something deep within you.

“Drink.” Bucky said again.

“Wait,” you whispered, all you saw was black form shutting your eyes so tight. You didn’t see Bucky’s face as he waited to see if this water bottle would trigger something from right before you were taken, this was the water bottle you had introduced to the group.

A picture was unfolding in your head, it was a big room with people all around. There was a couch that some were sitting on while one stood in front of them, the one standing was smiling. The people on the couch were leaned in to listen, some held their chin in their hand as they too, were also smiling. The little bottle of water you were holding was also in this picture, the one standing seemed to be presenting it like a game show host, showing it off as if it was new. The picture began to move and the people standing took a seat next to another person, they cuddled close and began whispering to each other with iggles in between. A pen made its way across the couch and ended up at the two who looked like a couple, one wrote a heart next to their name while the other did it normally.

Your eyes shot open at the sound of the pop, you were squeezing the bottle so hard it exploded. Your eyes frantically searched around and when they landed on the other set of eyes in the room you lunged for a hug.

“Bucky!” you screamed, “thank you!” You wrapped your arms around him so tight. Bucky hesitated before clinging to you like a life source, “I thought it would’ve taken you longer,” you sighed into his touch.

“We left you there for too long,” Bucky whispered, his face his deep in your neck.

You pulled away with tears in your eyes, you looked to him but he kept looking down, “is there something on my nose?” you asked, Bucky was looking between your eyes and nose. Your finger went to touch but pulled away at the feeling of something dangling, “what is that?” you screamed and felt it again.

“It’s the injection side effect, I think.” Bucky added he felt around your face to try and see if you were actually real or if this was some sick joke Wanda was playing on him.

“What injection? They just took my blood once so far,” you shrugged and felt the back on your head, “there was a scab there before, it hurts like crazy, like a pulsing thing.'' You brought your other hand back to try and find that scab you felt what seemed like hours ago. Your hair felt dirtier than the last time you remembered, it was one big clump when you moved it.

“Sit down.” Bucky said, you moved back on the seat without a second thought.

With wide eyes you looked up to Bucky, “I didn’t want to sit...Bucky what did you do?” you asked, it looked like you were glued there as you tried to get off.

“What day is it?” Bucky asked cautiously, his hands coming back to cup your face.

“September twenty third, I didn’t hit my head it’s not a con-”

“It's October third.” Bucky breathed out, “oh my god…” he whispered and pulled you into another hug, he gently rubbed your back as you stayed rigid in his hold.

The plane began to drop and Bucky knew it was just landing but with everything rushing against you like a title wave it felt like the plane was crashing. Bucky held you tight as you slashed around in his grip, pleads to any higher power you could think of to keep you alive didn’t seem to work. The plane froze and you stayed gripped to Bucky, he brought you out of the medical room. The three others just looked at you, not wanting to get their hopes up. But when you ran over to them and asked what day it was they seemed to be more disappointed, they just pulled you in for a hug and tried to calm you down like Bucky did.

All at once medical staff open the jet doors, people rushing to you and you. Bucky was trying to cut through the crowd to get to you but medical staff were getting in the way and holding him back, he could see your frantic search for him.

“You’re gonna trigger her, s-stop, this isn’t-”

A medical staff member flew back and knocked a few others over, everyone began to calm down and slow their moments. You were right over the person you pushed trying to help them up, apologizing profusely, they kept moving back and away from you.

“Y-you were holding a needle, I’m sorry.” you eased.

“Sedate her!” another yelled.

You ran down and out of the jet to try and get away from the many needles that, what seemed like, every medical member was holding. There was just noise surrounding you, vision began to tunnel right when the pounding in your ears began, at the back of your head there seemed to be a knife stabbing you.

“Get a gurney!” the voice cut through the shouts and chasing.

Everything stopped and you froze from your worried state to complete your mission, someone ordered you to find a gurney, you must complete it. There was one waiting outside, you walked over with your back straight and your chin up. There was no need to look behind you shoulder but you did so anyway to make sure no threats were also in need of the gurney, everyone behind you was just still and watched you. This must be a test, after that realization you did everything quickly and efficiently to avoid punishment.

When you brought the gurney to the voice who shouted it they told you to get on as well, Bucky was by your side and offering an arm to help get on but you didn’t take it. People were shouting orders to one another and you kept trying to get up to fulfill the command but Bucky kept holding you down. Some medical staff were trying to shove him away but he stood his ground and kept a hand holding you.

“Why do I keep wanting to do all these things?” you frantically aske as you tried to stand again.

“I’ll explain later, don’t worry,” he squeezed your hand as you made it into your exam room. Hands felt all around you, the lab coat was long forgotten so you sat on the table naked. Bucky was right against the wall and kept an eye on you, though your brain was next to scrambled eggs he could still read you like a book.

“We need to take some blood, might also need to give something to sedate her.” it was, what looked like, the head of this team that spoke.

Another picture flashed before your eyes. The needles and this blue liquid that went into you. Bucky had told you something called ‘ice’ but you didn’t know what that meant. Blood would be taken from you then without you looking, they would stick whatever serum Bucky was talking about in your arm. Voices and sounds rushed into your head as these pictures moved and changed to show that you weren’t there for as long as you thought you were, in your mind a different doctor repeated the same motions over and over and over again. You were covered in water and somebody was talking over you from inside of the cell, their voice seemed as though they too were underwater so you couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but one part stood out. They were saying how they did this all without you noticing, how you were too confident, how you were strong and yet you’d look away from the needles when they were stuck into your arm.

All of these people who you failed to remember that were surrounding you now, all had needles and some had already taken your blood, but you were going to be cautious now, you were going to be aware because you didn’t want to forget everything again. Before anyone could stick anything else in you, your arms flew out to the side and gripped as many syringes as you could, they were smashed to the ground and the clear liquid spilled and dripped on the floor. People were beginning to hold you down but you broke free from their dead grass pushing away the velcro straps that were about to go around your ankles and wrists.

Someone managed to get a strap on your left ankle without you noticing, that sensation of being cuffed made another picture float in your mind. It was a large metal contraption with silver Cuban links and five cuffs, two around your wrists, two around your ankles, and the final one went around your neck. Once they were all attached to you, you were suspended in the air as your entire body weight was being held up by your limbs and neck, even though only one bound was attached to you now, you could still feel the weight of all of it crashing back onto you.

With one large tug the Velcro cuff snapped, you tried to get up and off the table to run to Bucky, he was the only one left in the room that you knew and trusted. He was also trying to make his way to you simultaneously, reading the fear etched deep into your eyes. No medical staff was trying to hold him back so he ripped through all of them and got to you quickly, you couldn’t really hear what he was saying because the pounding in your head that was pinpointed right at the back of your neck was starting to pound into your ears. But you could make out his lips that were moving, you can remember faintly kissing them, the feeling was on the tip of your tongue but you couldn’t quite make out what it really felt like. He was telling you it was going to be okay, at one point he said that you could sleep now and that he’d be there when you wake up, you really didn’t want to trust him but you were so tired and your head hurt so bad.

You didn’t even see or feel the syringe plunge deep into the crook of your neck as he held your face and made your eyes look right into his.

Winter Makes Ice tag list: @small-death-and-codeine @commonintrest @buckyys-doll @lil-baby-nor

let me know if you want a tag!!!

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bvccy · 3 years

Note

Hi!!! Hope you're doing great

Can I please have a mix between number 2 from the soft and 8 from the dark one

Thanks, lost of love ❤❤❤

Thank you so much, nonnie! I am so sorry this took so long, I meant to post yesterday but it wasn’t done. Also, the 8th dark prompt was requested just before you sent in this one, so that is filled separately here.

I tried to do the mix you asked for, and I took the liberty of writing this with Bucky (specifically 40s!BB), and I hope that it’s ok. It’s a bit of a more specific story, actually, that I’d wanted to write for a while. I also did a kind of first for me, because it involves Steve x reader as a backdrop 😂 Anyway.

Lots of love to you too, my dear! 💗💗💗

— PAIRING: soft!dark!Bucky x Reader • preserum!Steve x Reader — PROMPT: Asteria - gazing at one’s object of affection, from afar + Prassius - an impossible desire, and unclean love — LINKS: Masterlist • love stones prompt list — WORDCOUNT: 2.5k

It had taken long enough, and sometimes it seemed like it would never happen, but he finally found Steve a girlfriend — or rather, his girlfriend found him one. Dottie had exhausted several of her close friends and most acquaintances, but she knew how tired Bucky was of seeing his friend mope around, feeling like a third wheel, getting into trouble to pass the time. And honestly she liked Steve too, just not like that — but, wonder-worker that she was, Dottie found a girl that did.

She agreed to come on a double-date one night, and she and Stevie hit it right off. It was the first time Bucky met her too, and he didn't think much of the girl. Small, shy, not quite sickly-looking but not far from it, shoes a bit scuffed, clothes a bit too big for her and smelling of plain soap — in a word: perfect. She was perfect for his sickly, skinny friend who nobody else wanted, and by the looks of things, nobody had wanted her either because she seemed to have no idea what to do around a dance hall. As they were returning home that night, he even heard her confess to Steve that she had never been to one before.

They went out on two more dates, all four of them, within as many weeks. Bucky loved to dance, and Dottie too, but Steve and his girl weren't so fond of tripping over their feet and being laughed at. So they sat together at the table like a pair of broken toys, sharing an ice cream sundae, swinging shoulder-to-shoulder with the music when they liked the tune. Bucky waved at them when their eyes met, and they waved back and cheered at his dancefloor performance, but that happened less and less as they got caught up in each other. Steve would start to sketch things on the napkins while they chatted: the band, the sea of dancers, the fancy chandeliers, and eventually her.

"She said nobody's ever drawn her picture before," his friend said dreamily as they walked back, after they wished a good night to the girls. "Can you believe that?"

"Sure can…"

"She almost didn't let me do it. But she's so pretty, Buck."

"Mhm, nice girl."

"I mean yeah, she's no Dottie, but… I don't know, there's just somethin' I like so much about her… I guess her eyes, the way they look when she's smiling, or how her hair looks when the sun shines on it…"

"Get a load a' you," he grinned, wrapping his arm around Steve's shoulder in a playful grip that moved his friend's whole body. "One dame's sweet on you, and all of a sudden you're Romeo."

"At least I'm not a punk like you," Steve teased, slipping from his grasp.

"You know what I like best about her?"

"What?" he asked, with a hint of jealousy.

But Bucky smirked without a care. "How she keeps you out of trouble."

It had, indeed, been a while since Steve got in an alley brawl, and by their fifth date his last few bruises healed. He'd almost gotten into one by a cotton candy stand at Coney Island, but his girl was there to pull him back.

"Stevie, leave him alone…"

"You heard what he said?!"

"Who cares," she sighed, clinging to his arm and throwing the other man a hateful look. "Come on, didn't you want to win me that stuffed teddy bear?"

"Better listen to your girl, pal."

"Oh go find a sty to wallow in," she hissed.

"I ought'a smack some manners into you, you two-bit broad!"

"I'd worry about my own manners if I were you, buddy." Bucky slipped between them, coming from behind, standing now close enough to punch the guy if things got heated. But, seeing himself outnumbered, the other man cursed them and left. Just then, Dottie finally caught up.

"What's going on?" she asked, a little out of breath.

Bucky turned around, and was met by the heart-melting sight of Steve and his girl holding each other, her hands on his cheeks as she quietly chastised him, but loving enough that it made him smile and giggle. She closed it with a kiss to his cheek that made the boy blush, and a kittenish rub of their noses together.

"Nothing, everything's fine."

It was around the time they went to see a movie together that Bucky's joy for Steve turned into something else. They sat in the back while some musical played, and through the flashing lights and the corner of his eye, he could see his friend with his sweetheart holding hands on top of her lap throughout the whole performance. Meanwhile Dottie kept rubbing up against him, sometimes leaning her head on his shoulder, daring in the darker scenes to kiss his neck, but when she tried to get more of his attention —

"Buckyyy, what's wrong?"

— he shook her off. Hearing his name spoken by her voice suddenly felt disappointing.

He caught himself staring more and more, and not just when they went out together. Sometimes, the girl came by and spent some time with Steve, looking at his newer sketches, trying her hand too — oh and how disgusting they looked, Steve taking advantage of the situation to sit behind, and wrap his arms around her, and whisper in her ear. The pair greeted him cheerfully when he stepped through the living room and caught them, and he grinned back at them as he took a glass of milk, but all his appetite was gone.

And when they walked together through the park, and he saw them holding hands again… When Steve dug for some change to get her an ice cream, and they giggled stupidly as they made a mess of sharing it… When she fell asleep by his side one night at the dance hall, and Stevie woke her up with a tickle down her cheek, and she shivered and murmured like a bird and hid her face in his unworthy shoulder…

"Why don't you ever wanna dance, doll?" he asked as they were fetching drinks.

"Not much good at it, I guess," she shrugged. "The fast ones make me dizzy and I always trip."

"I can teach you. It'll work out great! Stevie teaches you to draw, I teach you how to dance… What do you say?"

The girl seemed to think, but shook her head. "Hmmm… No, not right now. Thanks," she smiled politely. "Besides, what would Stevie do meanwhile?"

She told him no just for the sake of keeping his scrawny little friend company, and Bucky had never felt more insulted — not that she wouldn't dance with him, although that hurt enough, but that he couldn't remember the last dame that gave something up just to stick with him, or got into fights for him, or kissed his wounds away, or held his hand in hers with no ulterior motive, and he'd found a girl that did that, and he wasted her on Steve.

So what if she was a little on the smaller side? So what if her dresses didn't fit right? So what if she came down with the cold at every change of season? He put up with it for Steve and he wasn't half as charming. The girl, instead, looked very delicate, more feminine in her own way, like when she braced her fingers on a table as she talked and mindlessly swung back and forth, animated in whatever she was saying, and her digits bent in such a childish way he feared they'd break, and it only made him want to kiss them. Or when she took her shoes off when she came to their apartment and he could catch a hint of shapely ankle, just perfect for his grip, or a peachy pink instep small enough to fit his palm. And when she fell asleep on their couch that one time and Bucky saw her all curled up, and noticed the arch of her hips and the cinch of her waist and pictured how good it would feel to hold them, and angle them upward, and…

Slowly, he started to appreciate some of what his friend had said that night, because she did have lovely eyes, and hair that looked so soft and warm, and her scent, unburdened by perfume, was sweet and girlish, and her lips looked kissable, and her wrists and knees and ankles too…

"Going out again, tonight?" he asked as the blond boy fixed himself in the mirror.

"Yeah, she wants to try this new place we —"

"Alright, alright…" sighed Bucky, already sick of hearing more. "So, that's all you're gonna do?"

"Well… yeah."

And then he voiced an evil thought. "Don't you ever want to… you know?"

"Y-you think we should?" Steve asked, turning away from his pallid reflection.

Bucky sat sprawled across the couch, and shrugged. "If she really likes you, she'd be up for it, don't you think?"

"I don't know about that, Buck."

"No? Ok," he nodded. "After all, what do I know?"

The aftermath of this particular advice was a draught of dates for poor ol' Steve, because just like Bucky had expected, the girl shrinked at the suggestion and couldn't stand to see him. For a while.

"Can you believe it, Buck?!"

"Yeah…"

"She'll see me again!"

"That's great, Stevie."

"What's wrong? You're lookin' real dour today."

Bucky knew he shouldn't. "I just…" He knew that it was wrong. "Look, it's great that she's forgiven you, but you gotta be realistic about this, pal." He had been happy for Steve at one point, long ago.

"What do you mean?"

But that was before he saw just how much love a girl could give, and realised he'd never felt it.

"Just don't delude yourself this is anything more than what it looks like, ok? She's only forgiven you because she knows nobody else will have her."

"That's mean, Buck."

"Yeah, well… I'm just looking out for you. You're my best friend, you know that. I don't want you getting hurt." It stuck in his throat to say it, but the bitterness stuck more.

And after Steve went to bed that night, Bucky took out the box of candy and the pricey perfume he had bought for her, threw them in the trash, and firmly promised to himself to never wait too long again.

But as he learned a bit later on, when they went back to double-dates, he might not have had a chance at all, because there was an unwitting element of truth to this cruel tirade.

"I can't exactly blame you, honey," Dottie consoled her as they stood in line for the ladies room, not knowing Bucky was just behind the thin divider leading to the men's. "If he does something like that again, I know this other fella —"

"Oh no, Dot, please… We're fine now. He explained things and… he's really sweet, I think he just had a moment of —"

"But just let me introduce you to Jim, see if you don't like him better."

"I… I don't know."

"He's a real charmer," Dottie grinned, "and he has these big, broad hands, jaw like an anvil. He just broke it off with Marcie cause she was a flirt."

He didn't hear anything next, but the girl must've shook her head cause Dottie asked, "You're sure?" and "Really? Well, if you change your mind…"

"Thanks, Dot," she lightly laughed.

"I don't know why you're so stubborn though, it's not like he's that far out your league. You just need to fix your hair a little bit and get a better brand of powder."

"It's not that easy."

"It's all it took me to get Bucky on my arm. That, and a better set of heels," she laughed.

"Yeah but you've always been pretty, Dot. Like, really pretty, and you know it. I guess some girls are for the James Barnes of this world, and some are the for the Steves."

She giggled as she said it, with not a hint of anger or resentment, and that's what stung the worst.

Bucky arranged to go see a late night movie with Dottie after that, while Steve and his girl went back to the apartment to listen to a boxing match on the radio and have some cherry sodas. Dottie went ahead to buy the tickets while Bucky walked them home, and after wishing him good night, she went upstairs to set things up. Steve was meant to go to the store and buy the drinks, but he stayed to chat with his friend a while.

"I can get some eggs and milk as well while I'm at it," he offered, swinging on his heels with his hands in his pockets.

"Sure."

"Or do we have enough for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Go ahead and buy them, pal," Bucky smiled, pretending to be less tired than he felt.

"Ok. And what about — darn!"

"What is it?"

"I just realized, I forgot to give her the keys," he said, taking a hand out of his pocket and holding them out. "I gotta get to the store, can you go up and give them to her?"

"Er, why don't —"

"You know I always trip on the stairs when I'm in hurry, Buck, they haven't changed the lightbulb yet. Don't make me do it."

"Fine, I'll go."

"I owe you big."

"You always do," he grinned, and took the keys from him.

Steve made off for the corner store, while Bucky started the long slow climb upstairs. It was completely dark inside at that hour, and the few candles some neighbours left to light the way had all gone out.

"Stevie, is that you?" he heard her call, standing right outside their door.

He kept one hand against the wall and walked his way toward her, stopping as he heard her whisper, "I think I lost the keys."

Blindly, she moved her hand forward, coming right across his chest. He felt her jolt at the unexpected contact, then burst into a giggle. Bucky could already feel the fanning of her breath right at the level of his chin. With an unseen smile, he took her hand, and placed the keys within it.

"Oh," she laughed. "You had them."

As her hand closed around them his own moved up her shoulder, fingers threading around her hair, and as he touched her jaw he felt her tilting slightly upward, shivering under the feeling.

"Is everything alright?" she asked.

He felt the warming tickle of her breath as he leaned close until, through the pitch black, he touched his lips to hers. Bucky did it lightly, just a little, just enough to taste and sip a kind of love he'd never really had. She stood surprised but took his kiss, and he felt her smiling into it, even beginning to kiss back just as he was parting from her.

"Your lips are softer than before," she giggled, in a sweet but altogether crushing way that made Bucky's heart beat stronger. "Stevie?"

Her hand moved through the air to touch him but felt nothing anymore, and down the stairs the heavy steps echoed, moving downward and away.

#James Buchanan Barnes #Bucky Barnes #Steve Rogers #Bucky Barnes imagine #Bucky Barnes fanfiction #Bucky Barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes #Steve Rogers imagine #Steve Rogers x reader #40s Bucky Barnes #preserum Steve Rogers #bv;answers #bv;fanfiction #bv;oneshots

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mandoinevarro · 4 years

Text

WILL BUY STOLEN GOODS FOR LOWER PRICE

Rule Maker, Rule Breaker: Chapter 1

Words: 8.4k

Rating: E

Warnings: shooting, non-descriptive death, SMUT, fingering, mentions of masturbation, AND masturbation now that I remember, penetration, creampie! just general filth, gambling?

a/n: SO literally nobody asked for this, but I decided to turn NO REFUNDS into the prologue of a short series (you don’t really need to read NO REFUNDS, it’s only for context.) Anywayyys heavy feelings, heavy plot, heavy smut. Have fun.

……………

Maker, you need to start cheating. That way you wouldn’t be in the middle of a staring contest with your cards, like you can change their colorful drawings and numbers if you only glare hard enough. You’ve never been particularly good at sabacc, but a little luck wouldn’t hurt, especially since this is the third round in a row you lose. Duma deals the last couple of cards across the coal black table and stacks the deck, signaling the start of the game.

Well, you suppose it doesn’t really matter; you doubt your sabacc buddies have better hands. These days, everyone in Nevarro is short on luck. Luck and food and water. Others are less pessimistic: As soon as Greef Karga glances at his hand he leans back on the carcass of a cantina booth and slaps his belly. “Ha!” he bellows, “by the end of this round, you filthy gutter womp rats will have to borrow from your womp rat mothers to pay me.”

“Quit bluffing, Karga. We know you don’t have shit,” Cara mutters. She picks up her cards and pulls a face like she bit on lemon, but still the veteran goes all in, pushes forward a couple of stabilizing coils, an identity beacon you could’ve sold at a decent price some months ago and—maker—even a pouch of nova crystal dust. Nobody here is stupid enough to gamble with food, but you’re surprised that even nova has lost its worth and been demoted to casino chip status. “This place smells like shit.”

“Bad bluff, piss-poor trash talk too,” you taunt. “Looks like all that time doing business with Imperials smoothed your brain, Karga.”

“Ex-Imperials,” he corrects. The ex-Guild leader slides a few more credits to the center of his ex-cantina’s table. “We live in a jolly Republic now, didn’t you hear? You’ve been liberated.”

“Fuck ‘em.” Duma turns her head, spits on the melted floor. “Can’t eat liberation, can I?” She throws a few more worthless credits onto the growing pile of nothing. At least, for now, it’s nothing. Credits and ship parts and every other type of currency haven’t meant anything but props in Nevarro for five months, when the siege began. That whole mess with troopers and Greef and Cara was bound to bring some repercussions—aside from making Karga’s cantina look like a volcano erupted inside. For five months, Imperial forces have surrounded the planet, and for five months, food and resources haven’t been allowed inside. They won’t let up, rumor has it, until they find the culprit: one particular Mandalorian with a valuable asset. They think he’s still hiding somewhere in the planet, but you know better. You watched the Razor Crest’s fly off-orbit and leave everything behind. Everything and everyone.

“This place smells like shit,” Cara repeats.

“Not shit,” replies Duma, “ash.” She picks up a card from the deck with long fingers. “You never did explain how that Mandalorian managed to torch this place.”

Cara’s sabacc face melts. Her fingers tighten and bend her cards as she exchanges a complicit look with Greef. “Never said it was Mando.”

“Who else? I was there in the first shootout. That hunter was fierce.” Duma dons a wolfish smile, because this is how she always wins: She plays with people, not cards. In fact, she abandons her hand face-down on the table and—oh no—gives you a once-over. “You knew him well, didn’t you?” You almost want to show her your garbage hand so she doesn’t bother trying to throw you off your inexistent game.

“Swung by the store a couple of times,” you answer as casually as you can manage and pretend the most interesting book is written on your cards. “But we weren’t exactly chummy, if that’s what you’re asking.” Creeping warmth attacks your face and there’s no stopping it. Shit.

“Funny, could swear I saw him leaving your store more than a couple of times.” You feel Duma’s eyes piercing into your forehead. “Pretty late at night, too.”

“Is that so?” Cara pipes with a lopsided grin.

“I thought you two were…friends,” Duma adds.

“Yeah, well,” you mutter, “you thought wrong.” Friends don’t leave friends to their luck in the middle of a fucking siege. It’s the same prickly thought that’s plagued you since you watched the Mandalorian take off triumphantly. It’s a stupid feeling. He was under no obligation to take you with him. You didn’t lie to Duma, you two weren’t friends. You couldn’t even call what you had a fling, even those require some degree of making-love-below-the-stars, quoting-passages-of-Naboo-Nights-to-each-other romance. Flings are shooting stars. No, your…thing, whatever it was, did not belong to the heavens. It was earthy. Human. It was counting credits and arguing about fuel prices or old modulators. It had weight—too much, apparently, to escape gravitational pull and fly away with him on the Crest. It was doomed to planets, both feet planted on the ground.

Still, you remember times when earthy was good. There was never anything airy or celestial in the way he’d take you. The shoved clothes, the harsh grunts, the rough hands, the pleasure, it was all palpable and primitive; earthy was dirty. Your furtive encounters had beating heart of their own, and there was always hard evidence left behind in case either of you ever needed a reminder: marks on the skin, ripped clothes, stained bedsheets. The bruises he left always took too long to heal, as if his touch enhanced your mortality, made you more human. Stars, those moments are what you miss the most. Five months is a long time to be neglected of touch—six, actually: five months since the siege, six since he last came to you. Earthy expires.

It’s not like there’s nobody in the planet willing to help you soothe your needs; quite the opposite, actually. Lately, it seems like handjobs are the new Nevarran handshake. Just last week you caught Cara feeling up some pretty market girl in an alley. You saw her, she saw you, you rolled your eyes, she grinned and got back to work. You were almost offended. Everybody’s screwing their time through the siege, while you’re left with nothing but reruns of filthy memories with the Mandalorian. You just know nobody but Mando will do. You replay your moments with him like a sad, mental porno on the nights you spend trying to get yourself off. Trying and failing, like having to put out a fire by spitting on it, because the only person in the galaxy with a hose is too busy playing hero lightyears away.

“Last round. Place your bets,” Karga announces and pushes a few more trinkets forward. Cara follows, and you pat around your pockets for something to lose. It’s all just rusted metal anyways. Only…shit, the last three games drained you. And Duma reads it on your face like you’ve got “BROKE” written all over your forehead.

“All out, huh?” She reaches down the table for her bag and drops a beskar pauldron on the table with a thud. A Mandalorian pauldron.

Cara purses her lips and balls a fist, but Greef shoots her a warning look. As if cantina brawls could make this place look worse.

“Still can’t believe you didn’t take anything that day,” Duma continues, shaking her head. “Regret it?”

“I’ll regret it,” you answer and go fish, as if a new card—the right card—could fix a life’s worth of bad luck, “when you learn how to chew beskar.” That earns you a signature “Ha!” from Karga and a cocked eyebrow from Duma. She can arch her eyebrows all she wants, but that much is also true. You don’t regret leaving the Mandalorian covert empty-handed.

You were the first on scene that day. After the smoke cleared, the remaining imps left to lick their wounds, and the Crest flew away, you went to check on Karga’s child, his pride and joy. You were met with a gruesome scene. The cantina, Nevarro’s most sacred landmark, had been reduced to its black skeleton, third-degree burns all over, gone. It sounds dramatic, but the cantina used to be the closest thing to a place of worship on this planet. God Booze was dead.

You kicked around the bar’s guts, until you found a gaping mouth on a wall, leading down, down, down into Nevarro’s entrails. Finding purgatory would’ve surprised you less than what you stumbled upon: an underground tunnel, an abandoned covert, and a sinister, unguarded pile of Mandalorian armor. Stars, it would’ve been so easy. You could’ve hoarded the spoils and stashed them away for better days. That amount of beskar could’ve bought you a one-way ticket out of this dumpster and an early retirement. But when you lifted a helmet, it stared back. It was blue and definitely not his, but Mando was all you could think of while you studied the helmet’s unique curves and creases. You heard his exasperated sighs when you got on his nerves, his moans when you’d touch him. And you just couldn’t do it. You sat back and watched as this skughole’s scavengers crept into the tunnels to pillage. Easy as that, everyone in Nevarro but you and Cara now has a beskar toy or two. Soon enough, this planet will house the wealthiest corpses in the galaxy if the siege is not lifted before reserves run out.

Karga clears his throat. “Well, ladies first. Let’s see those cards.”

Duma ignores him. “You know,” she tells you, “I’ve more beskar than I know what to do with. I’ll trade you a vembrance for a couple of ration packs.”

“And what am I supposed to do with a Mandalorian vembrance, play dress up?”

“The cards,” Greef urges.

“You’ll be rich.”

You snort. “The rich don’t starve.”

“Give me a break, we both know you’ve got portions to spare.”

Elbows on the table, you lean forward and closer to Duma. She sniffs weakness like a Corellian hound, and if you falter she’ll sink her fangs. “I’m not interested in your fucking loot.”

“Cause it’s stolen? You never had a problem with that before.” She mimics your move and leans closer. Karga fiddles with a coinage of calamari flan, like you’re both Canto Bight slot machines and he’s trying to decide where to put his money. “What, did you grow morals all of a sudden? Or maybe, you’re too worried of what your Mandalorian friend would think.” You flinch. She smirks. “Oh my, what would the disgraced hunter, code-breaker, cult member say—”

The tiny noise of Karga’s coinage clinking on the table is not enough to distract you from the verbal beating Duma is laying on you. But his voice—like he got the air knocked out of him—is enough to grab your attention when he murmurs, “Ask him yourself.”

Cara, Duma, and you turn to Greef Karga, who stares saucer-eyed at the window. All three of your heads move simultaneously, guided by the line of his eyesight. Outside the window, on the deserted street, stands a trooper barking orders. It’s one of those in all-black armor, the extra trigger-happy ones with a side of god complex because they think the change of color magically makes their aim less shitty. His blaster is drawn (surprise, surprise), and on the receiving end of its barrel…

Maker’s fucking mercy.

You don’t even see the blaster shot, only smoke snaking out of a hole on the shiny breastplate. The trooper plummets to the ground like his puppeteer cut off his strings: no last steps, no resistance. Now, anyone else would’ve walked away from what’s clearly worm food without a second look, but one does not become the best bounty hunter in the parsec by taking chances. A mountain of unpainted beskar looms over the corpse and kicks the blaster off the imp’s limp hand. The Mandalorian sheathes his own weapon—that blaster you’ve tweaked and polished so many times you know it as the palm of your hand—and scans the perimeter for danger.

You don’t tell your legs to move, but they don’t need the command. You find yourself trailing behind Cara, Duma, and Greef, rushing for the door. Outside, all four of you stumble and stop on your tracks to blink stupidly at the Mandalorian, the way children stare wide-eyed at soldiers on military parades. But this warrior stands grander than any Republic or Imperial officer you’ve ever seen. He’s clad head to toe in silver beskar—except for one armorless thigh that makes his other leg look even bulkier. His old armor, the one you used to shine and buff, is gone. This one you’ve only seen from afar, on that day he crashed the imps’ safehouse, and later when the battle broke out. You know it’s him, but in this new getup it’s easy to doubt. Maybe he’s a stranger. Maybe he won’t recognize you.

The Mandalorian studies each of you one by one, his hand near the blaster in case he spots any enemy faces. The hand twitches when he sees Duma—she doesn’t have the cleanest reputation around here—but she’s shocked and unarmed, so his arm relaxes. To Greef and Cara he gives short nods that they return.

And then you. He actually takes a step back when he spots you, like you pushed him square on the chest. The helmet lingers on you and tilts, shamelessly rakes over every feature like he’s memorizing you. You hold your breath. It reminds you of the day you met, that weight on your chest from knowing you’ve been seen. That’s how you know it really is Mando: Whenever he stares at you, you feel it in your bones.

You realize the moment’s dragged out for too long when Karga clears his throat. The spell breaks.

You and Mando look bashfully away from each other. You squint up at the clouds, your hands stiff on your waist in a forced, generic, looks like rain! pose. He turns to his boss (ex-boss? enemy? You never asked for an update on Mando’s most recent status in the Guild) and mutters a short, “Karga.” To Cara he’s warmer, offers a comradely clasp of hands and a pat on the shoulder. “Good to see you again.”

“You too,” Cara drawls, as she stares suspiciously between you and Mando. You squint harder at the clouds. “Didn’t expect you back during a siege, though.”

“I have to…” he spies a furtive glance at Duma and lowers his voice, “I’ve something to do here.”

Duma rolls her eyes and clasps her bag across her chest. “Don’t worry, Mando. I’ll leave you girls to catch up on the hot goss.” She strides into the cantina (probably to bag the bets, the asshole), and goes back outside.

She points at the window of a crumbling building. “Careful with snitches.”

You glance back to the window. Nothing. Jerk. Duma’s not above a made you look moment, apparently. You turn back to her but she’s already disappearing into an alley.

Cara waits until she’s gone to grab the Mandalorian by the arm. “Mando, where’s the…” she glances at you and hesitates. You fold your arms and raise your eyebrows at the veteran. If she expects you to leave graciously like Duma she’s got another thing coming. You’re actually very, very interested on the Mandalorian’s hot goss. Especially it comes with an explanation as to why he left you stranded here. Even though he doesn’t owe you one. Technically. “Y’know,” she finally says and drops her hand. “The asset.”

“On the ship. I need to get back.”

“You, my friend, need to lay low,” Greef says with a raised index. “Every imp in Nevarro will be looking for you. Maker—” he spreads his arms “—they already are! And someone must have heard the blaster shot. You have ten minutes or so until an Imperial squadron gets here. The, uh, asset will be fine.”

“The asset,” Cara exclaims, “is a ch—is…is delicate. He can’t just leave it on the Crest!”

Mando interrupts their game of taboo. “Cara,” he starts, “you go to the ship and check on…the asset. Please. I landed where I did last time. I…I’ll lay low in the covert.”

“About that,” Greef mumbles. He looks at Cara for support, but she steps back and raises both hands: You say it. Greef sighs. “They…they found the tunnels, Mando.”

The helmet crooks slowly to study Karga. “Who’s they?”

“Everyone. Half of Nevarro is living down there, you…you can’t go back.”

Silence.

You imagine all four of you go through the same checklist: Even if Cara didn’t already have a top-secret assignment with whatever the asset is, she doesn’t have a place of her own yet. Every week, she crashes on one of her sweethearts’ couches. On their beds, more likely. There’s no way Karga is letting him near his house, not after what happened at the cantina. That leaves…

“Stay with me,” you blurt before you can really think it through.

≈

The cramped storage room you call a home sits a story above your store. It’s four walls and only the essentials: a bed, an armchair, a table, a stove, and the only detached room is the refresher. It’s enough for you. But the Mandalorian looks like he squeezed into a dollhouse when you usher him inside and close the door behind you. He stands in the middle of the room, all fighter’s bulk and grandiose armor, like he’s afraid he’ll break something if he moves. As if he’s never been here before, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The apartment may be small, but it’s so filled with memories you could turn it into a museum of your dirty escapades with him. And if you look to your right, you’ll see the armchair where he sat while I went down on him on a stormy night.

“So,” you say and lean against the front door, “business or pleasure?”

He moves to stand to the side of the window opposite the front door and his glove moves the old washed out curtain to the side to peer into the street. The sun is setting, and the last streaks of light paint the beskar with warped yellow-orange streaks that stay as still as an undisturbed pond. So this is how he wants the evening to go: quietly and with a reasonable amount of distance between you. Disappointment knots in your stomach.

“Business.”

You open your mouth to cut into the silence, but you’re all out of words. Maybe you’ve lost your touch. It used to be so easy to tease him, but now…a heaviness seems to weigh down on his shoulders, some heightened sense of duty. But also determination: He stands taller now, prouder, like he woke up one day and knew exactly what he needed to do and why. Whatever that purpose is, you’re pretty sure it doesn’t involve you. You’re a detour, and not even the fun kind, judging by the space between you. Maker, this man used to pounce on you. Has the siege really battered you up that much?

“Been busy?” The sudden question startles you. He’s never been one to break the ice, that was usually your job.

“Sure.” Nope, not at all. “Store and all.” You closed the store three months ago. Turns out nobody buys equipment for their ships when they can’t fly past the atmosphere. “Plus, somebody needs to keep Karga distracted from his mourning. You owe him a cantina.”

“He told I did that?”

“Just a guess.” You move a couple of steps forward, like you’re approaching a nervous lothcat. When he doesn’t move away, you sit on the armchair, a little closer to him. “You like that flamethrower too much.”

“That what you four were doing in there?” The helmet moves to the side so he can spy deeper down the street. Always careful. “Assessing my damage?”

“No, just sabacc. Different kind of damage.” He’s making small talk. The Mandalorian, whom you’ve overheard have conversations solely based on grunts and sighs, is chatting with you. He’s not just answering out of politeness, he’s prompting you to go on, to keep running your mouth. That’s something he said once between thrusts, perched over you right on this floor: Keep running your mouth, see what happens. The memory warms your neck. Maker, not the point. The point is, before, he always said you had a smart mouth. Sometimes he’d chastise you for it, other times he’d encourage it. And you used to have the suspicion (or, let’s face it: fantasy) that he actually liked it. That somewhere hidden, beyond his pride and honor’s jurisdiction, he enjoyed the teasing and the banter, the challenge of having to deal with you. Better yet: More than once it crossed your mind that he got off on it, too. It’s been a long time, but some of that might remain. Maybe you’ll take his advice: keep running your mouth, see what happens.

You sit straighter, arch your back a bit just in case he’s watching. “You interrupted a round with your little stunt.”

“Yeah?” The helmet doesn’t move, but his hand runs up the curtain, considering. “Sorry. I bet you were winning.”

That makes you smile. It’s a dig at you. Far and wide across Nevarro, your uncanny ability to lose every single game of sabacc you play baffles locals and foragers alike. Yes, you know you suck, but the game amuses you anyways. You like the trash talk, the double-guessing, the bluff-calling. So much so that you forget to actually play. But what’s important is he’s teasing you, and that’s more than charted territory with him, a match you have a shot at winning. Okay. Game on.

“I was, actually.”

He huffs. “Don’t believe you.”

“Then I don’t believe you’re here on business.” Pause for effect. You can almost see a question mark form in a cloud above the helmet. You lean forward and lick your lips, lower your voice. “I think you missed me.”

You’re used to the helmet’s features remaining impassive, so you don’t look for clues on there anymore. Mando’s hands are more telling. You want to believe you actually see his fingers twitch and clutch the curtain a little tighter, that he takes too long to answer. That’s what trying to read him is all about—blind-guessing and wishful thinking.

“Don’t know about that. Six months and two weeks without your cons, I’m almost rich.”

Down to the week, huh? “Okay, if you want to make it about money we’ll bet on it. Twenty credits says you missed me.”

“Last time I was here you weren’t a compulsive gambler. Store’s doing that bad?”

“Last time you were here,” you coo, “there was a lot less talking involved.” You stare into the visor, and pray he can’t see the desperate hope in your eyes.

Your prayers are answered. In a way. Mando ignores you, doesn’t even look at you. You hear your clumsy attempt at seduction buzz around him like a one-winged bee, crash into the unmoving, unmoved Mandalorian, and fall to the floor in a pointed-lined spiral. You’re so embarrassed you want to step on it. Well, that settles it. Six months is apparently enough for a Mandalorian to lose interest.

“And store’s doing fine,” you lie to try and sway the conversation away from that lame innuendo that missed its mark. He really just wants to talk, then. No big deal. It’s fine. “Nobody gambles for money anyways.”

“Then why?”

You shrug. “Why do you hunt?” He’s never told you, but you saw him chase down a bounty once. He was ruthless, sweating adrenaline and with far too much stamina to only be chasing a bag of credits. “For the risk. The thrill.”

He lets your words float for a second. “You get a thrill out of losing?”

You roll your eyes. “I only lose cause everybody knows my bluff.” That is, except you. “You need to know someone to know their bluff. Greef and the others already know me too well. You, on the other hand.” You smile. “If you and I played, I’d get to keep so much of your stuff you’d think I’m half Jawa.”

And, only then, he seems to tense. That stupid throwaway line is what makes his spine grow visibly rigid and his hand drop from the curtain to his belt, where the leather of his glove creaks with how tightly he clutches the buckle. White and blue streetlights that reflect on his armor glide around like it’s water instead of beskar, and they’re your only indication that he’s shifted slightly. Slowly, so slowly you expect his neck to creak like a door, the Mandalorian turns away from the window to look at you. He holds there quietly, and you feel ants running down your back…stars, you’re nervous. For the first time in a while, he makes you genuinely anxious.

“You’re saying I don’t know you?” he rasps under the helmet. No, not really, but if it gets a reaction out of him…

“All I’m saying,” you start, summoning all your strength to keep your voice from faltering, “is you’ve been gone too long.” You try to make it sound a bit playful, but the words come out tasting bitter when you remember the sharp little edge that’s been digging on your side. He left you here, it whispers, he left you here and didn’t bother looking back. But a heavy boot suddenly drops forward and you’re forced to stop nursing your grudge to try and predict what Mando’s next move will be.

With every step he takes, you’re instinctively swallowed deeper into your armchair, until he’s looming over you. Stars above, the sheer size of him is enough to block out most of the artificial light coming in, and you’re left to squint in the blue twilight. Maker, you don’t remember him this big, this intimidating. Five months ago you would’ve smirked and opened your legs wide. C’mon, I don’t bite unless you ask, you would’ve teased, but now…now you think maybe you are the one who doesn’t know him anymore.

But some things never change, and having him so near still makes your thighs press together. If anything, this new foreignness, the inherent threat of a bounty hunter in your home that never quite poked the right nerve before now pulls on your most sensitive areas. It propels your heartbeat on a sprint. His arm moves, and—oh, you want him to touch you.

Visor trained on you, Mando points to the floor instead. “You hide your credits here.” To illustrate (or just to rub it in that he knows) his boot presses down on the loose tile and shifts from side to side. The sharp sound it makes irritates you less than knowing he found the fox clever hiding spot you used to pat yourself on the back for. “You don’t keep them in the store because it’s too easy to break into. The security panel downstairs is broken, but the one up here works fine.”

You can almost hear his proud smirk under the helmet. There’s a reserved side to him, sure, but bastard can be arrogant when he wants to. And no, you have no idea how he found the spot, but you’re not about to admit it.

“Congrats, boy scout. You can spot a busted panel and you have flat feet. Want a badge?” Your irritation brings back some of your old snark, but you still flinch when he moves closer and his legs brush against your knees.

“You also keep expensive parts inside the stuffing of this—” he takes a tiny step forward and frames your knees with his legs “—armchair.” Your blood freezes at his words, but it abruptly runs hot as the city’s lava river when you realize how close he stands now. His legs press against the armchair and there’s nowhere to go. You’re cornered.

A leather glove moves close and you hold your breath, before you realize he’s only toying with the tips of your hair. But his fingers dig deeper, tangle on thicker strands and, without warning, give a short but firm tug. It’s a tiny pull, but maker’s mercy, you feel your core pulse. And then, before you can regain some lucidity, his fingers dip lower, where the tips trace a slow line down your nape. He draws featherlight circles on that spot between your neck and your shoulder that he knows makes your toes curl, and—stars, it’s just been too long—you whimper.

“Still so sensitive here,” he whispers.

Once, this shielded man knew his way around your body like it belonged to him. You thought that part of him was lost, that he forgot, that he’d truly been gone too long. Those fears dissipate when his palm curls around the back of your neck to hold your gaze on him, while the thumb of his other hand brushes your lips. You know the drill—you open your mouth and give the orange tip some kitten licks. Mando huffs: You can do better than that. Maker, it should be a red flag, how quickly you comply. That urgent need to please him that had never, ever felt so crucial. An O forms in your lips before you can stop them, and his thumb pushes down on your tongue deep and deeper. You should play hard, make him earn it, bite him. But his finger starts to retreat and you panic—no, he can’t change his mind, not now. You seal your lips, trap him inside your mouth and suck. But his grip on the back of your neck grows beskar stiff, and he forcefully removes his finger…only to glide the spit over your lips. Just like that first time.

The visor looms closer to your face, and you catch a ruptured sigh, the pleasured kind that these four walls know so well. If Mando wasn’t holding you down, your chest would balloon with satisfaction and you’d float. His thumb trails down your throat, wetting its path and no doubt feeling the vibration when you chuckle. He cocks his head to the side in a silent question.

“You owe me twenty credits,” you explain, your breath clouding the helmet’s surface. “You did miss me.”

Mando crouches lower, where his helmet brushes your nose, and gropes the tops of your thighs with those wide palms you’ve been dreaming about for weeks.

“Yeah? You like bets?” You’ve never heard his voice so coarse, scratchy like week-long stubble. Did he change the settings of his modulator? Or is it just rash, pent-up need? “Then thirty credits says you’re fucking soaked.” His fingers butterfly higher up your thighs, almost at the apex. Your legs jerk.

“That’s cheating,” you gasp.

He takes one glove off and settles the covered hand on your hip, while the other disappears between your legs until—stars—he cups your core through your pants. You mewl and he hums when he feels the hot, damp fabric.

“I still win.” He presses the heel of his palm right into your clit and grinds it back and forth. Oh, if you thought you were wet before. The pressure, the friction, him—it all scalds you from head to toe like a fever, but you chase it, greedily push your hips into his palm. His fingers flatten along your slit and grope you tighter. “Gonna pay me? Doesn’t have to be credits.” He pushes viciously into you with that wide, hard palm, preening at the little gasps that escape you. Whimpering, you let your eyes fall shut and focus on something sprouting in your belly. Stars, you’re close—how the fuck are you so close already? It must be all the repressed desire, all that time. Fuck, you’re close—

The Mandalorian halts. You’re eyes flash open to see him straighten and step back, take his other glove off to stuff it snug between his belt and his hip, and remain still as a building. Still catching your breath, you study him head to toe, scanning for a sign of what went wrong. He’s clutching his belt, his stance is too smug. This isn’t him fighting temptation, he’s toying with you. Maker help him, you’re going to kill him. Some corner in your brain reasons that it’s kinda fair, as payback for all the times you messed with him. But in the forefront of your mind pulses the climax he just denied you, cast aside and angry.

Before you know what you’re doing, you push yourself off the armchair. “You—”

Mando beats you to it. A hand on your shoulder and a vembrance across your chest, he lunges forward and slams your back against a wall. He hovers over you, tightly pressed against your body. A fleshy, hard bulge covered by his pants throbs against your belly. Of course. You forgot how much he likes it when you look like prey; how much he enjoys the hunt, whether he admits it or not. The hand on your shoulder trails down to cup your breast. You squeeze your eyes shut and let out a shaky exhale.

“You need it bad,” he breathes as his fingers massage your chest. The movement shifts the fabric of your tunic, brushing it against your nipple. You roll your hips to try and stimulate him, to show you’re not the only one worked up. His erection twitches and you smile.

“You—mmm—you’re projecting.” You grind again to prove your point, but he catches on to what you’re implying and retaliates by shoving his hand inside your cleavage. Stars, you have to punch down the moan surges up your throat when he pinches your nipple.

“You missed this,” Mando hisses, and whether he’s trying to convince you or himself, you don’t know. What you do know is he’s plotting to settle this stupid inkling of a bet in his favor. He wants you to admit you missed him so he doesn’t have to. You know, because it’s exactly what you are trying to do.

You sneak your hand down his torso, aiming for the hem of his pants—but before you can get even with him, he crushes his hips against yours and traps your palm between them. And he’s not done—he wedges his thigh between your legs and rubs it up and down, drags your clit just right. Your mouth gapes in a silent moan as white hot pleasure lights up your spine. You want to get away from it but, maker, his forearm is still stiff against your chest. Even when you grab the vembrance with your free hand it doesn’t budge. You’re trapped between him and the wall.

“Can take care of m-myself just fine,” you croak as a last attempt to hold on to your dignity. “At least when I’m alone I don’t have to fake any orgasms.”

Yeah, it’s a low blow. A dirty fucking lie too, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all. Good news is it gets you a reaction—he immediately stops moving, as if your words punched him off balance. Bad news is you hit a nerve—his breathing becomes harsh like a bull’s, so much so that you expect clouds of smoke to come out from under the helmet. The Mandalorian creeps closer to your face and his forearm digs deeper into your chest. There’s a promise of danger in the dark visor that makes your pulse race, and a primitive instinct blasts emergency sirens. Maker, this won’t end well for you.

Just as you’re about to backtrack and whisper you didn’t mean it, Mando lets go of you—only for a split second, before he grasps your shoulders and turns you around to push your front into the wall. You jerk back on instinct, but he flattens a palm between your shoulder blades and squishes you right back against it.

The helmet rests right next to your ear when Mando growls, “You expect me to believe that?” His hands drop to your hips as he replaces the pressure on your back with his chest. His body weight holds you in place, and he rocks the hard outline of his erection along your ass. “That I don’t make you cum, you little fucking—” You curl your back as much as his body allows so he can stroke himself tighter against you. He groans and kneads your cheeks, moves the flesh in tandem with his thrusts. “I shouldn’t let you tonight, t-teach you a lesson.”

The mere suggestion feels devastating enough to let a pathetic whine tumble from your lips. Before, you could’ve turned this into a game, held out a little longer just to watch him break first. But you’re too pent up, too desperate, too sick of waiting. Your fingers hook on the hem of your trousers and push them down. Mid-movement, he traps both of your wrists in one hand and keeps them pressed against your lower back, while the other one gets your pants the rest of the way down, underwear too. You barely have enough time to step out of them before his free hand reaches between the apex of your thighs. You’re sticky, leaking around his fingers, and pushing back against his crotch like you’ll drop dead if he doesn’t fuck you.

“Fucking wet, fuck…” he mutters. His fingers follow the heat and your pussy clenches around nothing. Stars, if he just moved higher, a little higher where you’re hot and soaked and throbbing for him. But he takes his sweet time, molds the inside of your thighs like clay, pulls the flesh, squishes it together, until you’re writhing against him and leaking down your leg. Your vision blurs. “Can—can I…?” He lets his index finish the sentence, teasing at the edges of your outer lips.

Even with the side of your face against the wall, you manage to nod. “Yeah,” you breathe.

Two fingers slide around your folds and you gasp. Mando moves slowly, collecting your arousal and coating his fingers. Your breath catches when the tips finally push into your entrance—only a fraction before they slide back out, so the rest of his palm can cup along your cunt and drag more slick behind it. He’s strategically avoiding your clit, though, and with both arms behind your back and at his mercy, you can’t reach for it yourself. Fuck, you…you only need to hold on a bit more, he’ll get bored of his game soon enough. That’s it, just a little longer. You waited six months, no way he’s making you beg after a few minutes of teasing.

The Mandalorian eventually pulls his fingers away from your thighs and curses under his breath. You hear the familiar rustling of fabric and a divine zip that fills your eyes with tears of relief. Fucking finally. You brace yourself and relax your pelvic floor in preparation, but it’s barely necessary—you’re so ready for it. Your cunt is open and weeping, he can just slide it in. All this time, with nothing substantial inside you, your lower muscles pump and twist painfully with demanding want. Even with his size and in this position, you’re so turned on he might even be able to bottom out. Fuck, he doesn’t have to move much, a few good pumps and he’ll have you cumming, easy. Stars, what’s taking so damn long—

A modulated, battered moan and a wet noise make you turn your head over your shoulder and look for the source. The low light makes it difficult to make out shapes, but there’s no mistaking what you find below you. Hand wrapped solid around his cock, Mando is jerking himself off. With your cum as lubricant. While he treats you like a piece of furniture he’s only gripping for support. A chemical cocktail of lust mixed with fury spikes your blood.

“Is…wh-what are…what the fuck do you think y-you’re…”

“Say it,” he spits between his teeth, “say you f-fucking need me.”

No, no fucking way. As much as the words burn on your tongue and your clit tugs and begs, you’re not saying it. He left, not you. You waited for him. You turn your head as far back as your neck allows without snapping a ligament and look straight into the visor. And pointedly curl your lips inside your mouth, sealed.

Your act of rebellion lasts a good ten seconds.

“You’re so fucking difficult,” he snarls. He stops tugging on his cock, and for a moment you hope he might indulge you, push into you and stop the masochist torment you’ve talked yourselves into. But when it comes to Mando and you, it’s never that easy. Still not releasing your wrists, he grabs the base of his cock, glistening with your stolen juices, and rubs it up and down the swell of your uncovered ass. You gasp, let your lips part and your gaze fall to where he’s rubbing up against you and refusing to push inside.

He's not going to last long. Swollen and a strangled purple, the head of his cock dribbles warm precum and smears it on your lower back. The veins on his length throb against your ass, and stars, they’d feel so much better inside you. The Mandalorian’s grunts and groans ring more frustrated than lost in pleasure; it’s not enough for him either. He’s torturing you and himself just to prove a point, while you refuse to speak the magic words just to keep your pride. Desperate tears threaten to spill, but you shut your eyes to push them back. Either of you could put an end to it, right now. Maker, it’s on the tip of your tongue: I need you. Spit it out, end it. I need you, Mando, I need you, do whatever you want with me. It doesn’t matter that you abandoned me in this shithole, that you discarded me like faulty equipment, that you didn’t even have the decency to tell me—

The thrusting stops. When you open your eyes, you find the visor fixed on you, cocked slightly to the side, like there’s writing on your face. Mando’s grip on your wrist softens, his frustrated panting slows. Maybe he sees the unshed tears, or maybe your face really is that transparent, because he takes pity on you. Gentle palms on your shoulders, he turns you around to face him.

Night has fallen. Fragments of fluorescent light pour inside through your worn out curtains and give the helmet a fuzzy silver halo. The rest of the armor is shiny black, smudges of light here and there. His head moves around the features of your face, one by one, taking its time. Showdown’s over. He’s not playing a game anymore, not trying to get you to break, he’s just…studying you. Staring his fill of you farewell-style, even though he just came back. It hits you that you don’t know how long he’s staying this time. You open your mouth to ask, but stop yourself in time. If he leaves, he leaves. He doesn’t owe you any explanations.

But when he curls an arm around your waist and holds you against the wall and his cold breastplate, it doesn’t feel like goodbye. It feels like old times—pre-siege, pre-battle, pre-everything—when he confidently grabs your left thigh, sinks his fingers into the plump flesh, and hooks it on his lower back. You drape your arms around his shoulders and hold him closer. You’ve always liked the bulk of him against you, it makes everything feel more real. Buried on the crook of your neck, you hear him sigh when he lets go of your thigh and blindly searches your cunt. With your leg around his back you’re completely open for him, so it takes him no time to find your bud. He presses against it and rubs it in slow but tight circles that make your legs cramp.

You push down on him, demanding more. He groans and complies, inserts one finger and continues rubbing on your clit with his thumb. Maker, this has no right to be so good. He’s doing pretty much the same you’ve done to yourself these past months, but with Mando there are never any ghost sensations, no what ifs. It’s all here and now, and you swear you feel the pleasure of his fingers picking up speed in every corner of your body. He has you moaning and rocking your hips, dripping down his hand, and when he starts rubbing you harder and tighter, you finally whine a tiny, “Please.”

The Mandalorian doesn’t need to ask what you want, but he moves his helmet to look at you square in the face, check if you mean it. You stare droopy-eyed into the visor and nod: yesyesyesyes. Mando groans and grips you tighter. Maker, he’s right, you need it—need the bruises, need his cock, need all of him.

“Fuck,” he breathes. His hand leaves you to grab his cock and guide it to your entrance. He moves it around your lips and brushes his tip against your clit as he looks for your hole in the dark. It doesn’t take long for the head to poke right outside where it needs to go. “Fuck, I don’t—don’t think I can hold back, don’t want to hurt you—”

“Stars, please,” you whine, “I want it rough.” You want it more than rough. After six months, you want it fucking depraved, but neither of you is going to last long enough to make it elaborate. Maker, you don’t care. Right now, you don’t care for risky positions or clever techniques, you want him.

He groans and pushes inside—only the head, still testing, but your walls immediately grip him tightly to hinder any attempts to move away. That’s not what you should’ve been worried about. Fingers tight around your waist, Mando pulls you down as he pushes up. Stars. The brutal thrust reaches the end of you and then some more. Fuckfuckfuck. The dull bam of your skull hitting the wall is suddenly drowned by a slicker, filthier sound coming from between your legs. His length begins to pull out, your pussy complains the whole way, and you can almost hear the Mandalorian gritting his teeth through the sweet torture of feeling you squeeze around him…and thrust back up—harder. He likes the pace and sticks to it—fast, rough, deep, repeat—while you make sounds like you’re choking on air. Stars, it has been long. Long enough to partially forget his size, his fucking girth, currently filling you to the brim and punching high little sounds from your throat.

“Mmmando,” you sob.

Mando groans in response, snakes a hand down to your clit and rubs with the same wild abandon as his pounding. Maker, your memory was never this fucking good. No matter how many details you recalled, there’s nothing compared to the real, human meat of his cock pulsing urgently inside you, hitting your cervix, making you whine. Nothing like his fingers around your waist, or knowing there’ll be bruises tomorrow. The pleasure has teeth, carries a painful bite, but it’s exactly what you need. That tangible grit in his thrusts and his fingers is the missing piece. Your muscles start cramping, you pull him tighter against you—Maker, right there, you can feel it. It reaches your head and makes you dizzy, sheds light on some hidden, shameful words.

“Mando, I…”

“I—fuck—I n-needed this,” he grunts and brings his hand down to feel where his cock is inching out of you, like he has to double check it’s actually happening. Thrust. “Used—used to d-dream about you.” Thrust. Three fingers now push into your clit and draw frantic shapes. You clench your jaw, feel the hot tide in your belly rise faster. Thrust. “Wake up so f-fucking hard—cum in my pants.” Thrust—thrust—thrust.

Maybe it’s his words, maybe the rough pace, but something holds a flame to the dynamite building inside you and it explodes. Maker, your head’s going to burst. You moan long and deep into the spot Mando’s ear might be. Your legs shake, your arms cramp. Months’ worth of frustration gush hot and wet around him, as he babbles encouragement: There you go, just like that, make it fucking good. Your walls are still fluttering, your ears are still ringing, you haven’t even ridden out the last of your climax when his hips pick up the pace.

“Let me—let me cum inside,” the warrior pants, “let me f-fill this cunt…I—I haven’t since—fuck, I didn’t—”

“Yes,” you gasp, “yes, please, Mando, cum, cum inside—”

There’s no space left between you, but Mando finds a way to squish you tighter against him as he pounds into you for a few last moments, until you hear a strangled grunt, and a half-forgotten warmth pools inside you. The extra lubrication drives his last thrust as deep as your body allows. A few more lazy thrusts inside you, short and stunted as you take his load inside you, before he stops. A warm string trails down your leg, and—stars, he’s leaking out. How much did he cum that it didn’t fit inside you? Fuck.

You take turns panting, whimpering, listening to each other’s heartbeats slow to a semi-normal pace. The Mandalorian moves away from the crook of your neck to meet your glossy eyes. He doesn’t say anything, but you think will. You can almost hear his mouth opening, words boiling and rising in bubbles up his throat—

Zium!

It’s your imagination. It’s your ears ringing from that orgasm, your mind making stuff up. But. You could swear you saw a red flash glade right past your cheek. And from the way Mando’s helmet cocks to the side, you know he saw it too. You turn your heads in unison, to see smoke coming out of a hole a breath away from your ear. It takes both of you too long to put two and two together, and—before he can pull out—more of those red flashes are raining down on you.

…………

Edit: Chapter 2 let’s goooooooo

Taglist: @rosetophighlander @hellomothermoon @newyorksins @leo-moon @benedrylcumbersnatch

#the mandalorian smut #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian #din djarin smut #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mando smut #mando x reader #mando x you #star wars smut

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mygodyouredivine · 3 years

Text

The Hell In Your Eyes - 3

Summary: Loki doesn't meet her until two weeks after his initial imprisonment, but he knows he hates her. He has to hate her. Because the way she talks to him and helps him and saves him meals can't mean anything. She is too soft to deal with Loki, who is hardened with pain, pain, and more pain. And Loki hates soft things.

Have you ever seen the hell in someone’s eyes and loved it anyway?

Characters: Loki Laufeyson/(f)Reader

Warnings: brief mentions of violence

Word Count: 4836

Previous Chapter

Loki is annoyed.

Loki has sat through thousands of years of political dinners, exchanging thinly veiled insults under a layer of diplomacy, all while smiling through his teeth. Loki has spewed sensical nonsense, charming naive, innocent maids and sweeping young stable boys off their feet. Loki has endured Odin’s wrath — in all its horrible glory — countless times, and never once had he shed a tear, nor had a single cry escaped his lips.

The whole of Asgard had coined him the Dark Prince — and who was Loki to disappoint?

He had long since learned people saw what they expected to see.

And so as the entire realm rejoiced in his demise, as Laufey left him to die, as Odin condemned him for eternity, as Thor abandoned him, as Frigga had sided with her husband again and again and again, Loki maintained his carefully constructed front.

Yet one encounter with a mortal, and he had unraveled at her feet.

If physically kneeling before the wretched creature wasn’t enough, he knew she had seen past his mask. By the time he had regained his composure, he was sure she had seen him.

It won’t happen again.

Loki is a god, and gods do not crack. Gods maintain their image, regardless of circumstance. Gods do not show weakness, do not show vulnerability.

This is a lesson Loki knows well, a lesson etched into his skin countless times by Odin’s hand.

And yet for each time Odin reinforced this lesson, the very same lesson was burned away by Thanos a thousand more.

Loki tried, he truly did. Loki maintained his godly facade for an impressive amount of time, resisting as his body was taken apart over and over and over again. Perhaps it wasn’t as long as he thought. Loki feels as if his entire life was spent doused in agony, spent with his flesh melting off and his bones withering away.

Ultimately, a god is no match for a Titan.

But a mortal is no match for a god.

And yet, Loki has found himself at her feet — at her mercy — twice.

Even after, Loki couldn’t bring himself to summon his cruel exterior. Perhaps it had to do with the way she had waltzed into his space, all soft and defenseless, carrying that deplorable drink as if it was the elixir of eternal life (unfortunately, it tasted just as divine). Perhaps it was his body, still sated and full for the first time in months, reminding him of the food — the debt — he owes. Perhaps it was the way she held out her arm towards him, even though he could see it shaking.

Whether it was any of these things or none at all, Loki’s cool mask of indifference was rendered utterly useless at her delicate, mortal hands.

Loki hates her.

His hatred fills every fiber of his being. It’s a scalding, fiery hatred, much unlike the frozen excuse of Loki’s heart. His frost giant heritage seems to reject her very being.

Loki hates her voice, hates her hands, hates her. He hates how she makes him falter when there is no place for mistakes.

Loki’s thoughts are interrupted by Thor, who enters Loki’s quarters without an ounce of hesitation — ever the righteous, confident, arrogant bastard.

Ah, but Loki almost forgot. Thor is not the bastard — Loki is. How despicable; for really, Loki can not even call himself a bastard. Yet, ‘the Bastard Son of Odin’ has a certain charm to it. Perhaps another false title for his collection.

“Loki!” Thor booms, “Here are your clothes that Lady Angel washed. You should be grateful brother, for she offered of her own volition — ”

Is it so surprising someone would offer to help Loki without external influence?

“ — to see and visit you! You are doing well. I am happy to see you are finally making an effort to get to know all of our friends — ”

Thor is happy? For Loki, or for himself? Why must Loki, even now, strive to prove himself to Thor? Why is Loki’s worth solely dependent on Thor’s judgement?

“ — and Lady Angel is absolutely wonderful. I am delighted to see you two getting along so well! I can’t believe you finally made a friend— ”

At this, Loki’s composure cracks for the second time that day.

“What am I? A pathetic child wandering aimlessly through a school corridor? A helpless hatchling at the mercy of others — groveling for the bare minimum? Who are you to congratulate me for ‘making a friend?’ She is not a friend ,” Loki spits out. He can feel his teeth grinding against each other, his fingernails once again digging into his palms. “She is nothing more than another worthless mortal, unworthy of even breathing the same air as I, and yet you suggest I be grateful?”

Thor advances on Loki, his eyes hardening. The atmosphere is tense; unlike the typical bickering between the brothers, Loki identifies something distinctly different in the way the air vibrates. The space between the two gods crackles. “Watch yourself brother —”

Brother. The word grates upon Loki’s nerves. How can Thor so carelessly throw the word around, even knowing of its false implications — implications and lies Loki foolishly believed.

Sometimes Loki wonders if Thor does it on purpose.

“Do you hear yourself Thor? Bending yourself over backwards to defend this wasted excuse of consciousness — you are the King of Asgard. What is she? She is nothing.”

And now Loki is no longer staring at his brother, but the ceiling of his prison. His back is slammed against Stark’s hardwood floors and there is sharp ringing in his ears, likely the result of the crack in the floor right behind where his head is currently embedded.

Loki almost laughs.

Truly, it is comical — comical that even now, Thor’s first instinct is to physically threaten Loki. As if Loki doesn’t almost enjoy it.

But Loki’s laugh catches in his throat, prevented from escaping by the large hand tightening around his airway.

Thor’s hand is around Loki’s neck — a mirror of His.

A thousand years Loki has known Thor. A thousand years of childish brawls, foolhardy battles, pointless arguments. How many times has Loki betrayed Thor? Thor betrayed Loki? And yet, Loki believed he knew his brother’s character.

A thousand years Loki has known Thor, but never once has he thought Thor to be cruel.

Oh how wrong he is.

Thor’s hands are gripping Loki’s neck and for the life of him Loki can’t breathe. He tries to draw air into his lungs — lungs that are screaming with a familiar ache — and fails. Phantom pains flicker across his entire body and somehow, in the second before his vision goes black, Loki manages to croak out a strangled wheeze of a laugh.

Loki is once again strapped upon a bed of coals, once again stabbed with blades of flame, once again torched with fire so hot he freezes. Loki remembers the only other time he begged — begged and pleaded for the sweet mercy of death, all while knowing death was a pleasure he was never to be granted.

Loki is once again kneeling — boneless — at the feet of a Titan, looking up into a face promising endless pain, a face painted with the patience of a thousand moons and splattered with the ruined blood of a Frost Giant.

Loki did not know that a Frost Giant’s blood could boil.

Ah, but the Mad Titan knew, and he ensured Loki would never forget.

Loki recalls the moment he let go — an eerie echo of his fall from grace, his fall from the Bifrost. And he remembers the horribly invasive power of the scepter, along with the blessed relief and utter disregard for self preservation that followed.

And it is this — the relief — that plagues Loki. He does not fool himself; Loki may be the God of Lies, but he has no reason to lie to himself . It is not the destruction of New York nor the deaths at his hand that weigh upon his shattered mind. No, it is the fact that Loki found solace in his actions.

Make no mistake — Loki does not rejoice in his crime, but nor could he say he regrets it.

For if Loki were given the choice, he could not — would not — choose to spare Midgard at the cost of his own sanity.

(But Loki was never given a choice.)

Alas, Loki is already insane.

The Mad Titan has taken so much from Loki.

Physically, Loki has long since disregarded his own body. He remembers the beginning of his torture, when he still held the title of 'Prince of Asgard,' when he spoke with arrogance and oozed of indignantion. Oh how naive he had been. When the first whips had landed across his skin, Loki's thoughts could never have anticipated what the coming months would entail. Loki did not once stop to consider how he would escape the clutches of his captor — oh the confidence he held! — but instead lamented the scars he would surely have to bear. Dimly, Loki recalls worrying over his marred skin, irritated at the blemishes he would surely have to cover when taking future lovers.

Loki scoffs.

Loki does not recognize the man who spent time thinking of lovers. Or of his physical appearance. Or of his interests. Or of any other insignificant pleasure that ultimately contributes to the annihilation of a soul.

(Even now, Loki carries with him an irrational fear of physical touch — a seed planted by the Mad Titan that Loki cannot gouge out, not even if he tore open his very being.)

In fact, Loki wondered if his corporeal form had even existed anymore. But most of all, more than the ruination of his physical form, Loki mourns the damnation of his mind.

Ultimately, the Mad Titan did triumph over Loki. For no matter how many times Loki escapes, fakes his death, runs away, he can never evade the visions that haunt his mind, the voices that infect his thoughts, the termites eating away at what remains of Loki’s sanity.

(If Loki were given a choice, he would have chosen death again and again and again.)

Alas, Loki was not — is not — given a choice, for suddenly he is not lying on a bed of coals, but on his apartment floor again. Thor has since removed his hand from Loki’s neck and Loki half wishes Thor just kept it there. Just kept on squeezing and squeezing and squeezing until Loki died on that bed of coals.

Loki wonders, if he were to die at Thor’s hand, would his brother feel remorse? Or perhaps, more realistically, relief?

Unfortunately, Loki is not dead, and Thor is gazing at him, concern evident in his gaze. As if Thor wasn’t the one who put Loki in this condition — wasn’t the one who greedily snatched all of Odin’s affection, wasn’t the one who pushed Loki out of favor, wasn’t the one who led his brainless minions in a brash suicide mission, as if Thor wasn’t the one who stared Loki in the eye as Loki let go into the abyss.

As if Thor wasn’t the first domino in a long ripple effect that eventually drowned Loki in his sins.

Thor was the smooth pebble that young children skipped over lakes, just barely skimming the surface of a tempting downfall — nevertheless gracefully leaping unscathed across the reflective waters. Yet Loki was the jagged, unskippable rock, destined to fall through the air and fall through the water with no hesitation. Loki has long since come to terms with this simple fact.

No longer does Loki resent his brother, for he understands: light can only shine in the presence of darkness. And if Loki is condemned to darkness — so be it.

Loki does not resent his brother, but oftentimes Loki despises his lightness . What some might say is endearing — the inability for Thor to give up — is just a burden. Even now, Thor still thinks he can change Loki, can fix him. Thor still thinks that by vouching for Loki and providing Loki a place to live and surrounding Loki with Thor’s friends that he can mend Loki’s broken soul and bring back the brother he once had. Thor is still in denial — he refuses to grasp the very simple concept that Thor’s brother — the Second Prince of Asgard, God of Lighthearted Mischief — is long dead. And so Thor continues to try. But light yelling into the darkness does not change it.

And even now, with Thor looming above Loki, Loki does not resent his brother.

But Loki resents Thor’s very being — the core of who Thor is. Thor is a duality; one of naivety and compassion, yet tainted — or perhaps embellished — with a smidge of cruelty and arrogance.

And as Thor is speaking to Loki, mouth forming words Loki is too tired to hear, Loki simply lies on the floor, limbs relaxed around him, throat sore, and does the only thing he can do when feeling so utterly empty.

Loki laughs.

______________________________

Midgard is rather charming in some regards.

Loki will eventually have to investigate the laundry process, for he has just now made the curious discovery that freshly dried clothes are warm . He suspects they were warmer right after they were dried, but he can still feel the presence of the heat, lingering within the very fabric of his garments. He wonders just how much they were heated up to — would it have burnt his frozen hands at the peak of its fiery glory?

No, Loki’s hands are too well accustomed to fire now.

But he doubts that her hands are. He envisions Angel pulling his clothes out of the dryer, her hands touching the same clothes that he has worn, that he will wear, that he is currently touching.

Yet is it entirely possible Loki is standing around, imagining a scene that never played out, for it was not Angel who brought Loki’s laundry back to him, but his dearest brother. Looking at his pile of clothes again, Loki takes in the telltale signs of Thor. The messily folded shirts stare back at Loki, mocking him.

He wonders if she ever even did any part of his laundry. Perhaps she only offered it as a way to ease the uncomfortable tension that had arisen earlier. Or rather, (and his stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought) she lugged his laundry basket downstairs and dumped it straight into Thor’s arms.

Why else would she refuse his help to accompany her?

A twinge of something rises up within Loki as he realizes she accepted Thor’s offer to bring his clothes back. Or, much more likely, she had pushed the task onto Thor in a desperate attempt to avoid encountering him again.

Not that Loki could blame her.

And yet the uncomfortable sensation within Loki only grows, and he realizes that he feels something akin to disappointment. Loki cannot allow himself to feel disappointment. He had long since learned not to expect anything from anyone — or perhaps, much more cynically, to only depend on — to trust — himself.

Trust, Loki knows, is a fickle concept the naive embrace. Trust itself is ill fated, the certainty of an inevitable betrayal the same as the certainty that one day everyone living on this cursed realm will perish.

Loki hates Angel. He hates how she pretends to care for him, hates how she imitates Thor, hates how she always finds a way to break him, and Loki hates how Angel makes him feel.

Loki's silent anger boils inside of him — like the steady countdown of a ticking bomb — manifesting itself out of him as the laundry basket is violently launched across the room.

He hates how he feels absolutely no satisfaction at the way the freshly clean clothes scatter across the floor, hates how he lost control, and hates how the damned mortal forces him to feel emotions he does not want to feel .

Sometimes all Loki can do is hate.

______________________________

The heat from the clothes have long since seeped into the floor.

The sun is just now setting, dousing Loki’s room in a fiery glow. Warm light spills across Loki’s bookshelves, his impeccably made bed, the clothes strewn around his floor. Loki sits on the ground, bare of his illusions, allowing himself to just be .

Staring across the room, he notices tendrils of light carefully curling around the air, miniscule particles of dust dancing in the golden glow. This is a gold Loki enjoys. Unlike the brash, loud character of Thor’s gold — of Asgard’s gold, this is a much softer, gentle color. The comforting hue reminds Loki of his mother, and against his will, he feels a wall of despair beginning to build within his chest.

For a second, Loki loses himself as the wall crashes over him. He drops his head, allowing his hair to dangle in front of his face, obscuring his view of the floating particles. He feels like a child — wants nothing more in this moment than to run to Frigga, for her floral scent to fill his senses as she envelopes him in her arms. What Loki wouldn’t give to have Frigga’s delicate fingers comb through his hair just once more, for her soft lips against his forehead, murmuring words of comfort.

But he can’t have that. Instead, here he is, sitting on the floor of a glorified prison in the midst of a community of people who hate him, with nothing but Thor to act as his buffer.

Looking up, Loki gazes at the honeyed light as it glides over a particular heap of clothing. He watches, mesmerized, as the light gently moves, unhurriedly bathing each corner of the fabric in its rich glow.

If he were still on Asgard, Loki would most likely have been reading, thoroughly immersed in some story or another. The sun would have showered his pages in its quiet glow, lighting the words aflame. He would have taken a stroll in his mother’s gardens, breathing in the sweet scent of her flowers as he sat in his favorite hidden alcove. He would have taken out his book and continued to read, read until the golden hue of the sun was replaced by the tender shine of the moon. Only then would Loki return, serenely walking back to his chambers, stopping only to retrieve a cup of tea, and resume his reading on his balcony.

Loki wants that.

Loki wants an afternoon to himself, with no worries plaguing his mind.

Loki wants to be able to read, and to do so in an environment which permits him to let his guard down.

Loki wants to sit outside, surrounded by flowers, and watch as the sun transitions into the moon.

Loki wants to indulge in a hot cup of tea as he watches the moonlight spills across the pages of his book.

Loki wants so many things — and he can’t have any of them.

Standing up, Loki decides he has spent enough time reminiscing over what he cannot have today. He feels sticky and hot and cold and hungry and all he wants right now , is a long shower.

And so Loki walks over to the same pile of clothes, now dull and abandoned by the sun, gazing disapprovingly downwards. Thor is truly an imbecile, for he has not even managed to separate their clothes correctly. Loki is currently staring at a dark green sweatshirt, one he knows for a fact he has never seen before. Tiredly, he tosses it upon his bed and scoops up a clean change of clothes, then turns around and trodds slowly into the bathroom.

______________________________

Water droplets rain all around Loki, swiftly sliding down his body.

He doesn’t particularly enjoy showering — it reminds him too much of another substance: denser, stickier, and much more red, trickling down his skin. Loki much prefers baths. Baths, however, render their subject very much vulnerable, and Loki does not fancy risking any more vulnerability than strictly necessary.

So Loki is standing in the shower, unabashedly soaking up the shallow warmth the water provides. Surely if Thor could see him, his brother would lecture Loki on wasting Midgard’s precious resources. But, Loki reasons, if Stark truly possesses the excess of wealth he boasts of, Loki’s water usage will not be of much concern to the man. And so this is a luxury Loki will grant himself.

The shower is one place where Loki feels the safest, where he allows his thoughts to wander and drift into otherwise forbidden territories. Today especially has been challenging, and even his muscles seem to ache, the fibers pulling away from each other, trying to rip Loki apart from the inside out. His mind is exhausted, filled with swirling thoughts of Frigga and Angel and Thor, with the occasional Odin and Titan intruding whenever a particular body part cries out.

And as Loki gazes down at his body, the disfigured canvas of scars stare back at him and he attempts to soothe away the countless aches. No matter how much time has passed and how much magic Loki pours into himself, the pains never seem to retreat. Rationally, Loki knows it doesn’t make sense. He knows his magic is fully capable of healing himself, knows that by all accounts he is healed.

But Loki also knows he does not imagine the sharp pains coursing through his veins.

He is fighting himself — the part of himself that does not want the pain to stop. Because all Loki knows is pain, and he fears the absence of pain almost as much as he dreads its glorious presence.

Loki raises his head, allowing for the stream of water to bruise his face. And if Loki’s closed eyes leak the occasional tear, no one would know.

______________________________

Loki’s self destructive spiraling is abruptly cut short by three succinct knocks from his bedroom door. Still soaking in the shower, Loki debates whether or not to answer; after all, he truly has no desire to see his brother again today. Or preferably, ever again. Unfortunately, Loki is all too aware that if he does not answer the door to let Thor in, Thor will simply let himself in. And if there’s anything worse than seeing Thor, it will be seeing a displeased Thor while Loki stands nude and wet.

Reluctantly, Loki turns off his shower, changes into his freshly washed ‘sweatpants’, and leisurely walks towards the door. He is honestly surprised Thor hasn’t invited himself in yet. He is more surprised when he finally opens the door and is promptly met with — not Thor’s brutish face, but the goddamned mortal.

She stands there, in front of his door, barely out of arm's reach. Loki can’t help but drink her in. He notices her hair, laying loosely around her face, framing her profile. She’s sporting a sweater, much too warm for the present weather. Its collar is stretched out over years of use, teasing his eyes with a fraction of her collarbones peaking through. Her legs are barely covered by absurdly short shorts, and Loki feels the back of his ears heating up. Hurriedly, he averts his eyes, falling down to her feet, once again hugged by soft looking socks — mismatched.

His scrutinization is interrupted by her voice; so soft.

“Hey! Sorry if I interrupted you. I heard you were in the shower but I was going around taking everyone’s dinner orders. We’re getting Chinese.” She tilts her head to the side, lifting her chin ever-so-slightly, distractedly exposing the tantalizing skin of her neck. She swallows, and Loki’s eyes discreetly follow the bob of her throat. “I was just wondering if you wanted anything?”

It takes a moment for Loki to register her question and another for him to process it. She is going to order dinner? For him? And she is asking him for his preference? Loki has not had the privilege of preferring anything in a long, long time. Damn this mortal.

“I am not familiar with this particular cuisine, nor Midgard’s in particular.”

She meets his eyes then, and only after does it occur to him that her eyes had been previously glued to his abdomen. His abdomen, he realizes which has been bare this entire interaction. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

He forces himself to roll his eyes, running a hand through his still dripping hair to hide the scarlet his ears have surely become. “I am saying that I do not have a preference, woman.”

She lifts her shoulders briefly in a gesture Loki has come to associate with Midgard’s daftness and promptly moves closer to him. Instinctively, Loki takes a step back, then curses himself for doing so. He truly must be losing it, backing away from a defenseless mortal. But she doesn’t push further, instead tilting her head at that angle again, asking him another question.

“Can I come in?”

Loki hesitates. He doesn’t understand her motives, doesn’t know if this is a trick the Avengers have set up or perhaps a test designed by his brother. All he knows is that Angel is staring at him with her eyes wide and innocent and completely devoid of deceit.

Angel must carry magic or Loki must be possessed by the Mind Stone again, for against his will, Loki steps to the side, allowing her to brush past him. The sleeve of her sweater comes into contact with Loki’s stomach, and he jerks away.

Awkwardly, Loki closes his door and turns to face the mortal, noting how hilariously out of place she looks, standing in the midst of Loki’s domain. With a wave of his hand, the previously scattered articles of clothing fly onto his bed, meticulously folding themselves. Angel’s surprised, quiet gasp does not escape his notice. She walks towards his bed, small hand landing on Thor’s sweatshirt.

“Take that when you leave.” Loki internally bristles at his own tone, noticing how Angel’s shoulders locked up when he spoke and did not relax when he stopped. “Please,” he adds.

To his surprise (again), Angel approaches him, sweater in hand. “Why?”

At this, Loki is caught off guard. Without warning, he is overwhelmed by distaste. His patience has been tested over and over again, and he does not have even a drop more to deal with this mortal’s incompetence. His hatred for her rushes back, multiplied a thousandfold. Who does she think she is and why will she not leave Loki alone? Why must she cut short his relaxation, intrude upon his personal space, inquire after him when he knows — he knows — she does so unwillingly? Why is she holding up Thor’s goddamned sweater, pretending not to know why Loki hates it so? As if she doesn’t know it belongs to Thor.

In fact, Loki is positive she is intimately aware of whom it belongs to, undoubtedly so. He hates Angel, hates her for reluctantly offering her help, hates her for her smoothies, hates her for asking him about his preferences. Briefly, he envisions snapping her neck. Effortlessly. But the image makes him recoil, bringing about not satisfaction, but horror.

His fists clench, his broken fingernails once again digging into bruised skin. It costs Loki an immeasurable amount of self control not to simply throw her out, hurl her from his quarters. Instead, he snaps at her.

“Girl, do not test my patience. I am warning you, it has been a very long day and if you do not exit extremely promptly, it will not end well for one of us.”

Loki hates the way her shoulders tense up again, hates the way she physically flinches away at his dismissal.

Loki hates how though he can sense her increasing heartbeat, her nervousness, Angel still looks him in the eye and informs him, in a terrified voice coated with forced calm, “I’m sorry to hear that Loki. I added this sweater into your laundry after it was done, but I should have known it would not have been welcome.”

Loki hates how she then drops her eyes, staring intently at her mismatched socks.

“I’ll just leave your dinner outside.”

Loki hates how she leaves, her hands gripping Thor’s — his — sweatshirt tightly, footsteps moving at a much brisker pace.

Loki hates how Angel closed off, how he closed her off.

Loki hates how Angel clearly did do his laundry.

Loki hates how Angel thought of him, giving him an extra sweatshirt, offering him a choice for dinner.

Loki hates Angel more than he hates Thor, more than he hates Odin.

Loki hates Angel more than he hates the Mad Titan.

The only person Loki hates more than Angel is himself.

Fuck.

______________________________

We don't even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.

- Charles Bukowski

______________________________

Previous Chapter

Taglist: @spacedaddydinn @doct0rstrange

#Loki Laufeyson #loki x reader #Loki Laufeyson x Reader #the hell in your eyes #thiye #loki x you #friends to enemies to lovers #reader insert #loki fic #jouce writes

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