#like they’re not *hiding* it but they’re not open about it either. just an unspoken thing

[warriorfujoshi]

despite constantly using different pronouns for them my most specific aloha coroika gender/sexuality headcanon is that theyre quiet about it, especially about being trans. they just don’t talk about it and let everybody think theyre some kind of fruity cis. first reason is that i believe given how pre-getting their ass kicked by blue team aloha acts, they don’t speak with their teammates (or anybody else) about truly personal matters that could possibly ruin a good time. (this doesn’t mean that they don’t care about the people around them, just perhaps that they don’t see discussing personal feelings as worth “killing the vibe”, so to speak. to me this speaks to an insecurity in their friendships but thats for another time). i think aloha is the type to post a selfie of themselves at a huge party during pride month with a rainbow, not a rainbow flag 🏳️‍🌈 but just a rainbow 🌈, temporary tattoo on their cheek and not comment on the pride stuff at all just to see the in-universe s4 rpf girlies lose it on twitter. the second reason of course is that when their crimes of identity theft, literal theft, and kidnaping (among other things) come to light, it would be very funny to see them deflect from being cancelled by suddenly holding a 40 minute long inkstagram live speaking about their journey of self acceptance and the importance of loving yourself #happy pride

[ms-snape]

Prejudices (young!remus lupin x slytherin! reader)

request: not a request, request are OPENED

Summary: Remus is in a relationship with a slytherin and his friends are... NOT happy about it

Warning: Angst, argument between lovers, argument between friends...

Wors Count: 2776

Masterlist

---

The soft light of the setting sun filtered through the ancient trees of the Forbidden Forest, casting long shadows on the ground. Remus Lupin stood at the edge of the forest, his heart pounding against his ribcage like a caged bird desperate to escape. He glanced over his shoulder, scanning the clearing for any sign of his friends. He could hear their laughter in the distance, a familiar sound that filled him with both warmth and dread.

“Hey,” a soft voice broke through his thoughts, and he turned to see Y/N approaching, her long Slytherin robes billowing around her. Her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “You’re not going to run off again, are you?”

“No,” he said, a smile creeping onto his face. “I just… I was thinking.”

“About what?” she asked, stepping closer. The air between them was charged, electric, filled with unspoken words and the weight of their secret.

“About us,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

She tilted her head, a playful smirk on her lips. “You mean our relationship that’s destined to cause chaos?”

He chuckled softly, but the laughter died in his throat. “You know how it is. I told them about us, but I can't introduce you to them. They’d never understand.”

Y/N crossed her arms, the playful glint in her eyes replaced with something darker. “And why is that, Remus? Because I’m a Slytherin? Because your friends hate my House?”

“It’s not just that,” he replied, running a hand through his hair, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. “They wouldn’t see past the House rivalry. I don’t want to lose you, but I can’t risk losing them either.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed her face. “So, you’re choosing them over me?”

“No!” He stepped forward, his voice rising slightly. “I’m trying to protect what we have. It’s complicated.”

She scoffed, shaking her head. “Complicated? Or just cowardly?”

“Y/N, please,” he pleaded, his heart racing. “I just need time.”

She took a step back, her expression hardening. “You know what? Maybe we don’t need time. Maybe we just need to face the truth.”

Before he could respond, she turned on her heel and walked away, her robes swishing in the fading light. Remus watched her go, his chest tight with an emotion he couldn’t quite place.

The next day, Remus found himself in the Gryffindor common room, surrounded by his friends. James, Sirius, and Peter were engaged in a game of Exploding Snap, their laughter echoing off the stone walls. But Remus couldn’t concentrate. His thoughts were consumed by YN, by the conversation they’d had, and the rift that was growing between them.

“Oi, Moony! You’re awfully quiet,” Sirius said, glancing up from the game. “What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just tired,” Remus said, forcing a smile. He picked at his sleeve, avoiding their eyes.

James raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “You’ve been off for weeks now. Is it because of that girl Slytherin again?”

Remus’s heart dropped. He had been careful to avoid mentioning Y/N, but it seemed James had picked up on his distracted demeanor. “No, it’s not—”

“Because if it is,” Sirius interrupted, leaning forward, “I’m telling you, Moony, you can do better than a Slytherin. Those snakes will stab you in the back the moment you let your guard down.”

“Yeah, man,” Peter chimed in. “You know they’re all about ambition and power. It’s in their blood.”

Remus clenched his fists, tension coiling in his gut. “You don’t know her, okay? Y/N isn’t like that.”

James’s expression darkened. “Then why are you hiding her? If she’s so great, why not introduce her to us?”

“Because it’s complicated!” Remus snapped, the words spilling out before he could stop them. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try us,” Sirius challenged, his jaw set. “We’re your friends, Remus. We care about you.”

“Do you care about me, or do you care about your stupid prejudices?” Remus shot back, his voice rising. The room fell silent, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife.

“Moony, we just want what’s best for you,” James said, his tone softer now, but still firm. “Slytherins are dangerous. You know that.”

“Dangerous?” Remus echoed incredulously. “Or just different? Y/N is not dangerous. She’s smart, funny, and she cares about me. Why can’t you see that?”

Sirius’s face hardened. “Because we know how this ends, Remus. You think you can make it work, but she’ll end up breaking your heart. They always do.”

“I can’t believe you guys,” Remus said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re acting like you own me. I’m not a bloody puppet!”

“Then stop acting like a fool!” Sirius shot back, standing up now, his hands clenched at his sides. “You can’t just ignore the truth because it doesn’t fit your little fantasy!”

“Guys, calm down…” Peter stuttered, glancing nervously between them.

But Remus was beyond reason. He felt the weight of betrayal crashing down on him. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am a fool for thinking you would support me.”

He turned away, storming out of the common room and into the maze of corridors that led to the dungeons. His heart raced as he navigated the familiar path, each step echoing the turmoil within him.

Y/N was waiting for him by the entrance to the Slytherin common room, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. The moment she spotted him, the tension in her posture visibly relaxed. “You came,” she said, relief flooding her voice.

“Yeah,” he replied, his voice heavy with unspoken words. “But it’s not good news.”

Her expression shifted, concern flickering in her eyes. “What happened?”

“James and Sirius are idiots,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “They… they still don’t approve.”

“Of course not,” she said, her voice laced with sarcasm. “They’re Gryffindors, and I’m a Slytherin. What did you expect?”

“I thought maybe they’d be okay with it,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “But they’re not. They think I’m making a mistake.”

“Are you?” she challenged, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“No! I’m just trying to figure out how to make this work without losing you or them,” he exclaimed, exasperation rising in his chest.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before getting involved with a Slytherin,” she shot back, hurt flashing across her face. “It’s not like I forced you into this, Remus.”

“I never said that!” he argued, frustration spilling over. “I care about you, but they’re my friends—”

“Your friends who don’t care about you! They only care about their stupid prejudices!” YN snapped, her voice rising. “You’re so afraid of losing them that you can’t even stand up for what you want!”

“Maybe I’m just trying to be realistic!” he shouted, the words echoing off the stone walls around them. “You think this is easy for me? Hiding who I care about just because they might not accept you?”

“Then stop hiding!” she yelled, tears welling in her eyes. “You say you care about me, but it feels like you care more about their opinions than about our relationship!”

“I’m trying to protect us!” he exclaimed, his heart racing with anxiety.

“Protect us?” she said incredulously, stepping back as if struck. “You mean protect your friendship with people who don’t even see me as a person! They see me as a stereotype!”

“Y/N, please…” he said, his voice cracking.

“No! You can’t keep playing both sides!” she cried, her voice trembling. “Either you stand by me, or you let me go.”

“Y/N, don’t say that,” he begged, desperation creeping into his voice. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“Then you need to make a choice, Remus,” she said, her expression resolute. “Because I won’t be your secret anymore. I deserve better than that.”

With that, she turned and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor, leaving Remus standing alone, the weight of his choices crashing down on him like a tidal wave.

Days passed, and the rift between Remus and Y/N deepened. The halls of Hogwarts felt emptier without her presence, and every time he saw James and Sirius, the anger bubbled to the surface again. They had no idea how much he was hurting, how much he missed her laughter and her teasing smiles.

“Moony, you’ve got to get over this,” James urged one evening as they both sat in the Great Hall. “There are plenty of girls in our House.”

Remus shot him a glare. “I don’t want anyone else. I want Y/N.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” James asked, leaning back in his seat. “Just tell her you’re done with the secrecy. Bring her here, introduce her.”

Remus slammed his hands on the table, the sound echoing through the hall. “You don’t get it. It’s not that simple!”

“Why not?” James insisted. “If you really care about her, you’ll find a way.”

Remus stared at them, feeling the weight of their expectations pressing down on him. “You want me to choose between you and her.”

“We want you to be honest with us,I'm sure that's what Pads and Wormtail want as well ” James said quietly. “We want to understand.”

“I’m trying,Prongs” Remus said, his voice breaking. “But it’s hard when I feel like I’m fighting everyone I care about.”

“Then make a choice,” James said softly. “You can’t keep living in the middle. Either you stand up for what you want or you let it go.”

Remus looked down at his plate, the reality of James' words sinking in. It was time to make a decision, to confront the truth of his feelings and his loyalties. He knew what he had to do, even if it meant risking everything he had.

Outside, the crisp evening air hit him like a slap. He walked aimlessly, his thoughts a chaotic whirlwind. Memories of YN flooded his mind—the way her laughter would light up a room, the way she challenged him and made him feel alive. He missed her so much it was like a physical ache in his chest.

Just as he rounded a corner, he spotted YN standing by the lake, her figure silhouetted against the moonlight. His breath caught in his throat as he took a step toward her, but she turned away, her posture tense.

“Y/N,” he called softly.

She didn’t respond, staring out over the water, her expression inscrutable.

“Please, can we talk?” he asked, his heart pounding.

After a long silence, she finally turned to face him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “What’s there to talk about, Remus? You’ve made your choice clear.”

“I haven’t made any choice,” he replied, stepping closer. “I don’t want to lose you. I’ve been trying to find a way to make this work, but my friends… they don’t understand.”

“Maybe they’re right,” she said, her voice breaking. “Maybe it’s just too complicated for us.”

“No,” he said fiercely, shaking his head. “We can make it work. I want to fight for us.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” she replied, her voice laced with pain. “You’re not the one who has to deal with the fallout of being with a Gryffindor. You don’t know what it feels like to be judged every single day.”

“I know what it feels like to be judged,” he said, desperation creeping into his voice. “I’m a werewolf, YN. I’ve felt that sting my whole life.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide. “But you have friends who support you. I don’t have that. Not now, not ever.”

“You could have me,” he said, stepping closer, his heart pounding. “I want to be with you, but I need you to believe that.”

“Believe what?” she asked, her voice trembling. “That you’ll stand up to your friends for me? That you’ll choose me over them?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed, the words pouring out of him. “I choose you. I choose us.”

“Then why don’t you prove it?” she challenged, her gaze unwavering. “Stop hiding me. Bring me to your friends, face them together. Show me you really mean it.”

Remus’s heart raced at the thought. He had been so afraid of the consequences, of the judgment, but now he saw clearly. YN was worth it. “Okay,” he said, determination filling him. “I’ll do it. I’ll bring you to them.”

A flicker of hope crossed her face, but it was quickly replaced by uncertainty. “And if they don’t accept me?”

“Then we’ll deal with it together,” he vowed, his voice steady. “I won’t let them dictate our happiness.”

She stepped closer, her eyes searching his. “You really mean that?”

“Yes,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I won’t let fear keep us apart anymore.”

YN hesitated for a moment, then took his hand, their fingers intertwining. “Okay, but if they make a scene…”

“They won’t,” he promised, squeezing her hand gently. “I’ll make sure of it.”

With a small smile breaking through her tears, YN nodded. “Then let’s do this.”

The next evening, Remus gathered his courage and headed to the Gryffindor common room with YN by his side. His heart raced as they approached the portrait of the Fat Lady, her gaze scrutinizing them both.

“Password?” she asked, her voice dripping with skepticism.

“caput draconis,” Remus replied, his throat dry.

The portrait swung open, and they stepped inside. The warmth of the room enveloped them, but the laughter and chatter stilled as everyone turned to stare. James, Sirius, and Peter sat at a table in the corner, their expressions shifting from surprise to confusion.

“Moony?” Sirius said, rising to his feet. “What’s going on?”

Remus took a deep breath, feeling YN’s hand squeeze his for reassurance. “I want you all to meet someone,” he said, his voice steady. “This is YN. She’s… she’s my girlfriend. I told you about her”

The silence that followed was deafening. Sirius’s expression hardened, and Peter’s eyes widened with shock. James looked between them, a sligh smile on his face.

“You can’t be serious,” Sirius finally said, disbelief etched on his face. “You brought a slytherin into our commun room?”

“Yes,” Remus said, feeling a surge of defiance. “And I care about her.”

“You know she’s not like us, right?” Sirius pressed, crossing his arms. “She’s a Slytherin.”

“Last time I checked, love doesn’t have a House,” Remus shot back, his heart racing. “She’s a person, just like you and I.”

Peter stepped forward, trying to mediate. “Look, Moony, we just want to protect you. You know how Slytherins can be.”

“Right, because all Slytherins are the same,” Y/N interjected, her voice sharp. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about who I am.”

Sirius opened his mouth to respond, but Remus held up a hand. “Let her speak.”

Y/N took a step forward, her confidence shining through. “I’m not here to cause troubles. I care about Remus just like you three, and I’m willing to prove that to you. But I need you to give me a chance.”

“Prove it how?” Sirius asked, skepticism still etched on his face.

“By showing you that I’m not a stereotype,” she replied, her voice steady. “I want to get to know you all, but I can't do it if you’re going to judge me before you know me.”

James looked at Remus, searching his face for a sign of uncertainty. But Remus felt only determination. “She’s right. If you want me to be happy, you have to accept the person I care about.”

The tension in the room was palpable, and for a moment, it felt like everything hung in the balance. Finally, James sighed, running a hand through his hair and adjusting his glasses. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Let’s give her a chance.”

Sirius shot him a look of disbelief. “James, are you serious?”

“Yeah, I am,” James replied, his tone firm. “If Remus cares about her, then we owe it to him and to her to see what she’s really like.”

Remus felt a wave of relief wash over him. “Thank you,” he said, glancing at YN, who looked equally surprised.

“But,” James added, raising a finger, “you better not pull any Slytherin tricks on us, or I swear…”

“I won’t,” YN promised, her voice steady. “I just want to be treated like everyone else.”

“Just don’t expect us to let you win at Exploding Snap,” Sirius added with a smirk.

The tension in the room began to dissipate as the other Gryffindors resumed their conversations, albeit with curious glances at YN. Slowly, she began to relax, and Remus couldn’t help but smile at the small victories.

[anincompletelist]

wip wednesday :D

okay I am super late to the game today but THANK YOU @kiwiana-writes @theprinceandagcd @suseagull04 @nocoastposts @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @littlemisskittentoes @getmehighonmagic @cricketnationrise @zwiazdziarka @ninzied @eusuntgratie @happiness-of-the-pursuit @inekepp @heybuddy-drabbles FOR THE LOVELY TAGS! I really appreciate y'all being patient with me these past couple of weeks with the responses, I have not had the mental capacity to be as on top of things as I usually am but it warms my heart to see y'all pop up in my notifs and to read through your amazing words, even if it's a few days after the fact! hope you guys are all doing well! <333 xx

introducing yet another little guy that was not supposed to make his way onto the wip list but has weaseled his way in nonetheless (I wholeheartedly blame @bigassbowlingballhead and @firenati0n and @affectionatelyrs for the inspiration and enabling, thanks)

back to regularly scheduled programming next week but for now, I present to you the crack treated seriously (beautiful) nightmare of Jeff (bottoms) x Shane (minx) au --

+

“Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong timeline, y’know?” Shane murmurs, one arm folded beneath his head as he stares up at the stars after practice.

The empty football field makes Jeff feel like they’re under a spotlight, the only two left on the stage. The only two in the world, for these few fleeting seconds. Shane’s words are amplified here in the silence, and Jeff clings on to every one of them. 

“What d’you mean?” 

He rolls onto his stomach and lays his cheek on his own arm, content to look at Shane instead of the field or the sky, the unspoken pressure of their teammates in one and the weight of his parent’s memories in the other. 

And then Shane, who’s never once pushed him to be anything more than himself. 

“Like. I like the simple stuff, I think. Old fashioned, I guess. I’d much rather get all dressed up and take somebody out on a date instead of just, like, meeting through an app and having a one night stand,” he says slowly, thoughtfully, before his eyes widen. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that either. That’s also totally cool. Just— I think I’d want to take my time and I’ve just never met anyone who didn’t just immediately want to jump on me.” He sighs and then winces, shaking his head at himself. “I’m sorry. That sounds really stupid, doesn’t it?” 

“It’s not,” Jeff tells him. He pictures Shane, buttoned up and cologned and maybe with some flowers or cheap wine, and rubs his cheek against his sleeve a bit to hide the way he flushes. Tries not to think too hard about wishing it was him on the other side of the door in that scenario. “It’s not stupid. I like simple.” 

Shane’s hand that’d been draped over his own stomach moves down to his side, settling in between them. His pinky grazes Jeff’s elbow, just featherlight, but Jeff shivers nonetheless. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Jeff smiles.

+

since this isn't *technically* rwrb (and brain not wanting to brain at the moment), I'm going to leave this as an open tag!!!!!! please please mention me if you take it so that I can come and scream at you (affectionately!) <3333

see y'all for another bridesmaids update on the 19th! :D

xx

[danitm]

wait, is that DANI CORDOVA? they kinda look a lot like LIZETH SELENE, don’t they? i heard the TWENTY-ONE year old is known as the RUNAWAY around mckinley. it seems like they auditioned to be in THE TROUBLETONES which is so lame? people at campus have said they’re MELLOW, but don’t be fooled since they’re also AIMLESS. rumor has it, you can find them at GAY/STRAIGHT ALLIANCE when they aren’t belting show tunes. their entire vibe revolves around SMUDGED EYELINER, THE SOFT STRUMMING OF AN OLD GUITAR, & A BODY LITTERED WITH TATTOOS OF UNSPOKEN MEMORIES but no one pays attention to that here in ohio.

auditioning with: good luck, babe! by chappell roan 🎵

stats.

full name: danielle elena cordvova

nicknames: dani

gender: gender fluid

pronouns: she/they

sexuality: lesbian

age: 21

date of birth: january 23rd

zodiac sign: aquarius

clubs & teams: the troubletones, gsa

major: music performance

headcanons.

at the age of seventeen, dani's life was abruptly turned upside down when her parents discovered one of the many secrets she'd been keeping from them, before she had a chance to even consider opening up about it herself. rather than stay behind and deal with the consequences, she packed a bag, left town, and finally opened herself up to the freedom of being her true self.

along that journey of self discovery, danielle became dani - a name that feels just far more her, and along with a new name, began to freely label themselves as both a lesbian and gender fluid, refusing to let the opinions of anyone - including those she once loved - get in her way of happiness.

it's been almost five years since she first left her family, and though she still isn't quite sure she's really found her true home just yet, mckinley has been a pretty solid temporary one. she's managed to make friends, ones who accept her for who she is, and though she hasn't managed to work through everything her parents put into her head... it's a work in progress, and every day that she gets to live life without feeling like she has to hide is a million times better than the closet she'd been trapped in for so long.

wanted connections.

ex (open to f/nb) - could be messy, or could be on good terms! 0/1-2 taken 💔

crush (open to f/nb) - could be either sided or mutual, i'm down for whatever! (could also be open to a male muse if it's one sided on their end and you want their heart to be broken lol) 1/1-2 taken ☺️ jane hayward

best friend (open to anyone) - probably someone chill, though it could definitely be a thing where they sort of balance each other out! 1/1 taken 👯 brittany pierce

band (open anyone) - i would love for dani to be in a little garage band! i'm thinking it'll be a new thing that's just getting started, probably somewhere between 4-6 members total, but there's also room for things like a manager role/artistic director/etc. dani would be on guitar and backing vocals, but all other parts are up for grabs! 1/4-6 taken 🎸 noah puckerman (bassist)

enemy (open to anyone) - enemy might be a little bit of a strong term here, but basically just something where, for whatever reason, these two just don't get along. maybe they just got off on the wrong foot, maybe there was some sort of misunderstanding, whatever! there can definitely be reconciliation later down the line, and maybe even a friendship can blossom out of it. 1/1 taken 🤬 finn hudson

one night stand (open to f/nb) - maybe it was something that went poorly and now they avoid each other in hopes of not having to deal with another awkward interaction, or maybe they both realized the connection simply wasn't there and it never went past that one date, but it's something they can laugh about now! 0/1 taken 🫠

friends with benefits (open to f/nb) - pretty self explanatory. maybe there's something more there, maybe not! 1/1-3 taken 🔥 bree brown

roommates (open to anyone) - note: i'm not sure if the campus allows co-ed dorming so this might just be for f/nb muses. dani dorms on campus. i'm cool with this being something where they signed up to room together, or randomly assigned. now in an off campus apartment with bree! 1/1-2 taken 🛏️ bree brown

[misspearly1]

Day Nine: Anonymous Sex - Din D'jarin

Kinktober22 List

WC: 2k Warnings: 18+ Content. Minors DNI. Smut. Unprotected PIV. Brothels + Prostitution. Blindfolds. Dark rooms. Pining. Angst with a Fluffy ending. AN: I could not resist writing a happy ending, my ansgty feelings weren't strong enough lmao. I hope you enjoy, my loves.

-

Exchanging credits like it was making a deal with the devil, Mando sighs under his breath as the woman behind the counter tells him to head upstairs and enter his usual room. Which he does, but hides his anticipation to receive his end of the bargain for three thousand credits. 

It’s a pricey amount for a lady of the night, but Mando would pay double that and more for the lady he chose. He doesn’t know her name, nor what she really looks like, but that’s all part of the confidentiality agreement in which he agreed upon.

In the last two months, he has visited this brothel countless times and buried himself in her burning heat, releasing all his built up tensions and stress via climax, after climax, after climax. Din thinks that the lady of his choice was made for him specifically, simply because of her ability to make him fall apart multiple times and still come back, yearning for more.

More than once now, he has caught himself thinking with his heart and not his dick. That’s the unspoken rules of brothels, you don’t fall in love with the workers inside, however Mando doesn’t know how many more times he will visit the woman before he realises that he’s falling quickly and hard. 

It’s an addiction; Mando is addicted to her and not just her pussy either, but addicted to her silky touch, her sweet voice that works as a siren's call, her natural perfume, the supple skin around her hips, thighs or ass that are just made for his hands to grab. Everything about her is perfect, even her delicate laugh to his ears, the smile in her voice when she talks to him, the beauty in her soul. 

The unspoken rule was broken by Mando, but he doesn’t care anymore, he will gladly pay three thousand credits to have that connection with his lady of the night time and time again until she says otherwise. No one else, not even himself, can stop him from coming here - only her, if that be her wish. 

As he walks down the hallway, dead silence ringing in his ears, he reaches the room he is familiar with and enters with haste. These rooms are small, dark and cushioned for comfort, and they’re also sound-proofed, hence why he couldn’t hear any of the other customers in the other rooms in the hallway just now. 

It’s a nice feature, he likes not being able to hear other people fucking because it makes this transaction in which he is about to receive feel more like a beautiful experience for both parties. Though Mando often hears those little doubts in the back of his mind, he truly believes that she yearns for him too. 

Balling his gloved fists tightly upon hearing someone on the other side of the door, he fought the urge to slide it open and yank her inside. Din knows that she is there and the only reason she hasn’t entered yet is because she is covering her eyes securely before entering. The clothing she wears is already very concealing to begin with, hiding her own identity as much as Mando is, but he asked for an extra piece added to her outfit. A blindfold over her eyes. 

Each and every time he visits her, she is sporting a similar style of clothing, it’s always black and always covering most of her body, and when the door finally opens, he gulps at the sight of her through his visor. His lady of the night wore a flower patterned black veil, covering the entirety of her head and shoulders, which is held in place with a blindfold over eyes. And as well as that, she wore a long sleeved black silk robe, parted down the middle, but tied around the stomach with a wide belt, embellished with gold jewels. 

“Hello again.” She whispers, her tone carrying joy. Stepping into the room and sliding the door shut, she waits for him to lock it as her lack of eyesight stops her from doing it herself. “It’s been a little while… I worried that you might have finally gotten bored of me.” She says while shuffling on her feet as if she were nervous. It made Din smirk as he could still hear the joyous tone in her voice. She’s teasing him, but is using her tone to deflect that it’s a genuine worry. The rise in her heart rate displayed in his visor tells him as much. 

“How could I, cyar’ika?” Mando stands slowly with that question, the room being so small that he was an inch away from her now. The man’s composure weakens when he reaches out for the latch on the door and a small gasp slips past her lips, her heart rate rising again from his proximity getting closer and closer. “Boredom never crosses my mind when I think of you.” He whispers deeply. 

“Oh?” She tilts her head to the side, giggling. “So what crosses your mind instead of boredom? Enlighten me, Mando.” 

“A dream, mesh’la.” He breathes a sigh. Leaning in and pressing his helmet to her forehead, his hands slip around her waist with a bruising grip as he repeats. “A dream crosses my mind when I think of you.” 

“A good dream, I hope?” She gulps, and Mando could see her licking her lips behind the veil, as if she wanted a kiss from him. He nods, relaying to her quietly that it is indeed a really good dream, before lifting his hand and cupping the side of her face. She then moans under his touch, tilting her head to the side with a plea. “Mando please, kiss me the way I like it - the way you always do.” 

Holding back the grunt stuck in his throat, he slowly begins lifting his helmet and as soon as he does, those features of hers that he could see were cloaked in darkness. With only the naked eye, he could just make out the shape of her body and not much else, however hearing her beg for a kiss broke him. He couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to just so he could keep looking at her beautiful features showing through the fabric, he just couldn’t find it within himself to deny her request. 

After bunching up the veil, he held it in his hands and cupped her cheeks. Her breath came out hot and heavy across his face, speaking with pure desire and need. “Beautiful girl.” He finally releases the groan he was holding onto before moving in and kissing her fervently, moving his lips with her together and in almost perfect sync.  

Then, she kissed him back harder, slipping her tongue in his mouth and swirling it around. Mando groaned again, this time louder and deeper, needier, and she not so gently began pushing him backwards to sit down. Clearly picking up his desperation as she, too, was equally, if not more, desperate,  her legs swung around Mando as she sat on his crotch, the action drawing out an obscene grunt from him that he can tell she loves by the way she smiles against his lips. 

“Fuck.” She breaks off to cry. Pulling her hands away and reaching around her back, Din feels her robe and belt falling to the floor then instantly ducks his head down to inflict his bruising kisses on her breasts. He takes her stiff nipple into his mouth, suckling harshly before holding the bud between his teeth and flicking his tongue left and right. Her elegant whines filled the room and it felt like fine silk to the man's ears, though it only gave him a taste of her sweet noises. He wanted more. 

“Krif! (fuck!)” Mando releases her nipple, cursing. He couldn’t help himself, she brought it out of him, made him feel desperate. Impatiently opening his slacks to free himself, she felt his hurried actions and helped while whimpering pathetically. “I know, mesh'la, I know.” He croaks a reassurance in reply, kissing her breasts while she free his cock from the confines of his clothes. 

Once she lined him up at her entrance, Mando took grip of her sides and held on tightly as she sank down, ever so slowly. They each moan together, savouring every inch being buried inside until there was no more. She dug her nails into the skin on his shoulders, clenching around his length that felt so big and full, while Din breathed broken gasps across her face, looking up to what he assumed would be her eyes. 

“Cyar’ika…” He groans. She rolled her hips with skill, whining his name, the name that everyone calls him and the man couldn’t stop himself before the words slipped from his lips. “Din. Call me, Din.” 

“Din?” She whispers in question, as if testing how it sounds, then upon feeling and hearing his reaction, she pauses briefly before wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her forehead to his. “Y/N. My name is Y/N.” 

After Din hears her name for the very first time, he then takes over - the primal needs inside of him takes over. Slipping his hands around the back of her neck, he held Y/N in place and pulled the veil off, along with her blindfold. It was still too dark, but he felt safe with her. Their lips connecting in a searing kiss, she begins to rock her hips back and forth, drawing out all the prettiest, dirtiest noises that he could provide until he reaches his peak with a roar of her name. “Y/N!”

“Din!” She mewls in return, feeling the peak of her own climax taking over. Carefully and very subtly rotating her hips to draw out every ounce of pleasure and drop of seed that he could give, the song she sings in Mando’s face weakens him in the knees. She sounded so beautiful falling apart on his cock and he wanted that again, and again, and again. He wanted to hear her giggles, her delicate voice in conversation, the silky touches of her fingers massaging through his scalp. He wanted all of that and more, day after day, night after night. But he can’t.   

It’s the unspoken rule of brothels; don’t fall in love with the workers, think with your dick and not your heart, but Mando couldn’t stop it if he really tried and gave it all he got. The warmth he feels in his chest speaks clearly in his mind. He’s fallen in love and he’s a hopeless idiot for thinking she would too. 

A few final kisses were exchanged before she grabbed her veil and he put his helmet back on. Y/N swiftly exited the room as Mando reached for her. Sex isn’t always the transaction he receives, they chat for hours before and after, but this time he had royally fucked it up by breaking the agreement in which he agreed upon. No faces, names or personal information. 

He broke it, and Y/N didn’t. It felt like a knife had been stabbed through his heart, shame hung heavy over his head as he cleaned himself up and exited the room, but still, like the hopeless romantic that he was right now, he hoped that she’d stop him on his way out. She didn’t, and the rejection hurt even more than the first time. 

The woman behind the desk called out, holding an envelope in her hands and Mando nearly ignored her, feeling too ashamed to be here for a second longer, until she mentioned it was his money. Confused, he walked over to the desk and took the envelope. It was indeed his money. All three thousand returned, not a credit less or more, but there was a little note. Handwriting swirled elegantly, a perfect match for his lady of the night, stating her gratitude for all that Din has provided and her home address. 

She, too, had broken the unspoken rule.

-

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[elsanna-shenanigans]

December 2023/January 2024 Contest Submission #5: Vanilla Blooms

Words: ca. 5,000 Setting: modern AU Lemon: no CW: mentions of Hans/Anna

Elsa looked the man up and down, not even caring to hide the grimace on her face; not that anyone would notice, either, as everyone was currently too busy focusing on the newly engaged couple, and not the bitter elder sister of the fiancée hiding in the corner.

Well, not exactly ‘hiding’; she was sitting at her assigned place at the dinner table, pretending to follow along with the conversation. And nobody really thought of her as bitter, or at least she hoped they didn’t. Aside from her current expression, which she allowed herself to display purely because she knew all eyes were now on the ring on her sister’s finger, she’d been quite civil this entire evening.

Even when addressing him.

The ‘him’ in question was three full sentences deep into talking about the engagement ring, and try hard as she might Elsa’s lost focus about a second after he’d opened his mouth. Something in her brain simply couldn’t bear to even hear him speak, much less talk to him aside from necessary pleasantries, so instead she focused on the only person she actually cared about at the moment.

Her sister, sitting right next to her new fiancé, nodding along to what he was saying though her eyes betrayed she was paying maybe an ounce more of attention to him than Elsa was. Her lips were curved in a small, polite smile. Her hand, splayed out to show off the ring on her finger, was placed on the table firmly, but with a certain stiffness that told Elsa she was not entirely comfortable with the attention.

That, or she was not entirely comfortable with this whole situation to begin with, though that might just be Elsa’s empty hope.

Their eyes met—Elsa almost looked away, a little embarrassed she was caught staring, but she quickly scolded herself that she shouldn’t feel like this in regards to her own sister—and that absent fogginess was gone in an instant; her pupils dilated slightly, Elsa noted, and the corners of her mouth rose just a tiny bit.

Nothing more than a simple acknowledgment of her presence, but it made Elsa’s insides somersault and churn. She allowed herself to hold her gaze for a few heartbeats before she excused herself from the table.

She made her way across the restaurant floor to where she’d previously spotted the tastefully small sign leading her towards the bathroom. Even his choice of dining establishment had to be so pretentious they almost hid the fact there were toilets in the building.

Once inside the quite dim, but grandiose in a marble and gold kind of way room she barely managed to look at her own reflection—some loose hair made its way out of the braid she’d styled her hair in, but aside from that her makeup and clothes were still impeccable—and wash her hands before the door opened again.

It wasn’t exactly a shock to see her there, but Elsa’s heart still skipped a beat; Anna made her way over to the sink until their hips brushed as she leaned in towards the mirror, her hand fishing out a lipstick from the tiny purse she was holding.

“Pretty dull for a party, huh?” was the first actual thing she’d said to her this evening aside from a greeting. “Makes you wanna gouge your eyes out.”

Elsa huffed, looking at her through the mirror. “They all seem to be enjoying themselves.”

Anna finished applying her lipstick, then loudly smacked her lips together. “It’s a dick measuring contest for wealth and the length of the sticks up their asses, of course they’re enjoying themselves.” A good elder sister would scowl at the language, but Elsa couldn’t help the smile breaking on her own lips. “Honestly I just want the evening to end.”

“I take it you’re not exactly happy with the engagement?” Their eyes met in the mirror and Elsa instantly regretted saying this out loud; it was kind of an unspoken rule the past few months to not mention the subject, not when it was just the two of them, not when Anna could actually speak freely. “Sorry, I didn’t—”

A hand on top of hers on the marble sink cut her off. “Of course I’m happy,” Anna said, quietly yet with a distinct sarcastic note, glancing at the tightly shut door. “Mom and dad are fucking elated with what this means for their business, and what more could I ask for?”

Elsa’s breath hitched in her throat when she saw the tears in her eyes, and the only thing she could think of was how much she wanted to hold her.

Which, coincidentally, she got to do the next second when Anna all but launched herself at her. “Let’s just not talk about this, please,” she whispered into Elsa’s shoulder. “Let’s make the best of this stupid evening and then forget about it until—”

The choked sob caught her off-guard; her arms, previously slack and uncertain, quickly and tightly closed around Anna, brushing her auburn hair out of the way.

She held her for a few moments, letting her sort herself out through what Elsa assumed was a valiant attempt at not losing it and crying; she wasn’t sure Anna’s mascara could take that.

Too soon did the dry sobs turn into deep breaths, and too soon did Anna take a step back. “Thank you,” she said, her makeup still intact except for a small smudge of her freshly reapplied lipstick which Elsa made a mental note to look for on her neck before leaving the bathroom. “I think I need to keep a handkerchief with your perfume for emergencies, the vanilla calms me down.”

She didn’t even let her digest that before she was out of the bathroom.

++

Not even two months later, she sat stiffly next to her own mother in a bridal shop, waiting for Anna to emerge in yet another dress that one or all of them were going to hate.

She was slowly losing hope there even existed a dress beautiful enough to match her sister.

“And?” her voice snapped Elsa out of her gloom and made her look up; she was standing in front of the mirrors in dress number twenty eight. “What do you think?”

Elsa could practically feel the disapproval emanating from their mother. “It’s a bit loud,” she said through pursed lips, which basically meant there was no way in hell Anna was allowed to wear such monstrosity to her own wedding, even if it was her favorite dress in the world. “We should aim for something more… classical.”

Anna sighed, then turned to Elsa. “You think it’s too loud?”

That emanating disapproval turned into a threatening aura while Elsa thought of what to say. “It’s a lot,” she decided on in the end, pointing to the puffy, meringue-like sleeves. “Maybe if it didn’t have these—”

“It would still be hideous,” their mother cut her off. “The bead pattern is shoddy, the neckline is too deep, the padding around the hips makes her look fat, the…”

Elsa tuned her out as she shot an apologetic smile to Anna, who, with a groan, turned back to the fitting room.

Their mother’s tirade continued for another few minutes while Anna changed into the next dress, and Elsa almost wished she could just leave right now; she promised, though, and she knew Anna would straight up go insane if she was left alone with their mother, so the pounding headache building up just behind her eyes was a price she was willing to pay. For one day.

She was almost ready to blow up and tell their mom to shut up when the fitting room curtain opened again, and Elsa’s breath got stuck in her chest.

It wasn’t much; a simple, white v-neck chiffon over a satin base. She’d tried two similar ones before, and they both fit her just right— but they still lacked something.

That something turned out to be a splash of barely-there, warm yellow in the form of small embedded vanilla blooms along the neckline.

She could hear their mother ready another barrage of faults, but she wasn’t listening to her. “It’s gorgeous,” she said quickly, right over their mother’s droning voice, and her heart raced when she saw Anna’s face light up. “You look wonderful.”

“You think so?” She twirled around to reveal more little vanilla blooms on the train. “I really like this one.”

Elsa’s mouth was dry. “It looks like it was made for you.”

Their mother stopped speaking and was now looking between them with her mouth half-open. “This thing?” she said after a moment, motioning to the dress. “It’s so— simple it’s almost pedestrian—”

Anna crossed her arms over her chest, and Elsa tried not to look at how it accentuated her breasts in the low neckline. “I like it,” she huffed. “Elsa likes it too.”

Their mother blinked. “Honey—” she was visibly distraught with the idea of Anna walking down the line in this dress, and it was honestly almost funny to see her struggle to come up with arguments without coming across as too bossy. “There’s so many different dresses— we can even go to a different store if you don’t like anything here!”

“I like this dress,” Anna repeated firmly. “I want this dress, not to go to another store.”

Elsa smiled, trying but probably failing at hiding the pride at Anna putting her foot down.

“And while we’re at it, I don’t want that flower place you chose,” she fired off, their mother now almost as white as a wedding dress at Elsa’s side.

“But it’s a gift from Mr Weselton—”

“I don’t care, it’s my freaking wedding last time I checked. That place makes really boring bouquets,” she sighed, and Elsa was internally just cheering her on. “I want Elsa to make mine.”

And at that, Elsa got just as white as their mother.

++

In the end they settled for the place Mr Weselton recommended carrying out the order for the flowers at the ceremony, except for Anna’s bouquet; that one she was adamant was to be made by Elsa.

Elsa, who did not own a flower shop, and was at best just a hobbyist florist; Elsa, who was now spending a huge chunk of her waking time worrying about designing the perfect bouquet to fit her sister, the dress she was wearing (which, in the end, Anna also got her way with) and the occasion.

Which was extremely hard to do when all she wanted was to beg Anna not to get married. Not to him, at least.

She sighed, letting another arrangement of (fake, she was not going to buy real flowers just to test things out) flowers fall on her desk. Nothing was right. Nothing made sense.

She should not be making a bouquet for Anna because Anna should not be getting married, not at barely twenty to a decade older man she’s known for— what? Eight months, if that? And most of it spent negotiating this whole ordeal like it was just another business endeavor for their parents.

Which, for all intents and purposes, it was. Hans Westergaard was the heir of the rival company, and getting him and one of their daughters together had long been on their parents’ agenda. Elsa staunchly refused, hoping they would get the hint that this was an insanely stupid and old fashioned idea—but instead, what she got was for them to give up on her and focus all their attention on Anna.

All their bad attention.

Now her baby sister was being sold off like priced cattle.

She rearranged the flowers once again before she let out a frustrated groan and let everything fall back on the desk, again. Nothing was right.

No arrangement fit.

There was nothing a fucking bunch of flowers could fix when Anna was getting married to some guy with the most punchable face Elsa had ever seen. No flowers to convey how extremely worried she was. No flowers to convey how sorry she was that this duty fell on her.

No flowers to convey how jealous she was of this man.

She put her face down in her folded hands and let out a muffled scream. She was making a wedding bouquet for the girl she was so deeply and hopelessly in love with. The girl who also happened to be her sister.

Fucked beyond comprehension.

It was a few hours later, sitting in the exact same spot, barely having moved an inch in her depressed stupor, that she realized what she’d been missing this entire time.

++

Anna’s maid of honor brushed past Elsa in the doorway, still muttering about Anna messing with her hairdo; Elsa had no real clue who this woman was aside from ‘a friend from college and daughter of their parents’ associate’. She’d herself refused to be the maid of honor, or even a bridesmaid for that matter, as a sign of silent protest against Anna’s incoming marriage. Their parents didn’t seem to get the hint, but Anna seemed to understand it perfectly.

“She seems cheerful,” she commented once she shut the door behind her, but not before they heard the maid of honor yell some frustrated instructions at the church staff.

Anna smiled, her hands now folded in her lap after apparently messing up hours of work at the hairdresser earlier this morning. “She’ll get over it,” she sighed. “I think she’s more invested in this whole thing than I am.”

Elsa bit her tongue. There was no point in arguing that this was exactly why Anna was making a mistake; not when that mistake was about to happen less than half an hour from now, not when she’d shot her down so many times before. “I brought the flowers,” was what she settled on instead, bringing forth the bouquet she’d held behind her back until now. “It’s not much but—”

Anna’s eyes lit up, and she quickly jumped up from the red velvet loveseat she’d spread out on. “It’s gorgeous,” she breathed, her hands reaching to trail across the thick petals of the white orchids and array of white roses, then stopping just short of resting on top of Elsa’s fingers around the stems.

“You’re gorgeous.”

Her eyes shot back up to meet Elsa’s, who just realized what she said.

“I mean— y-you look gorgeous,” she corrected herself quickly, her voice pitched up. “It’s uh, it’s gonna match with your dress…”

Anna’s eyebrow rose in question, and Elsa couldn’t bear to hold her gaze anymore, not after what she’d said just now. Without verbal explanation, she pointed to one of the smaller flowers in the center of the arrangement, all but hidden by the bigger blooms.

“Is that— a vanilla flower?”

Elsa felt it more than saw, her eyes glued to the wood paneling on the walls, but Anna’s face was now lowered towards the flowers, and by extension Elsa’s chest; she heard her take a deep inhale.

“I-it’s one of my own,” she explained quickly, hoping her voice didn’t betray just how flustered she was right now. “I figured it was gonna match your dress and— I wanted to include something personal…”

She’d spent months caring for the little plant and timed it almost perfectly. She cut the flower off shortly before leaving her house and quickly incorporated it amongst the other, more grand orchids; it didn’t stand out visually at all, just a little splash of yellow if one was to look for it, but it was there and that’s all she could hope for. That, and for it to not wilt before the ceremony was over.

“It smells just like you.”

That comment was not something she’d anticipated, though. “Yeah, I— I guess, my perfume…”

Anna shook her head. “It’s not just that. It’s warm. It makes me feel safe,” she all but whispered the last part, and Elsa finally looked back at her to see the clear fear in her eyes. Figures the first time Anna would openly acknowledge it was just before the wedding. Then, just as fast as it showed up, it was replaced by something much softer when their eyes met again. “Just like you.”

Their faces were only a few inches apart, and Elsa could swear she could hear both their heartbeats combined.

Then, their little bubble universe where it was just the two of them, safe and undisturbed, popped when they heard their father announce they had to hurry up through the closed door.

“Thank you,” Anna said loud enough for their father to hear, but still keeping her eyes locked on Elsa’s. Her hand finally moved lower to grasp the flower stems, brushing and intertwining their fingers together before she added, quietly. “And I’m sorry.”

She leaned in to place a soft kiss on Elsa’s cheek before she finally took a step back. A step that felt like four billion steps as their hands broke contact, and Anna pulled the bouquet closer to her own chest. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

With a curt nod, and a lot to think about, Elsa left the room.

++

She sat in the pew closest to the altar, wedged awkwardly between her mother and one of their grand aunts that she’d last seen maybe at her grandmother’s funeral. The constant hum of hushed voices was overwhelming, driving her almost to the brink of insanity as she stared intently straight ahead, her hands gripping the fabric of her dress so tight a worried little voice at the back of her head wondered if she wasn’t going to tear it apart.

Had she had a choice, she’d be at the very back. As far away as possible from the main event, from this man she was forcing herself to not look at, from the judgmental gazes of the bridesmaids because ‘why in the world would her sister not be a bridesmaid too?’ , far away enough that maybe the two words Anna was going to say in only a few minutes now would not reach her.

She was just one ‘I do’ from losing her forever.

The tightness in her chest turned into breathtaking pain when she heard the first notes of the piano; the voices hushed, now replaced by the tell-tale rustle of a over two hundred people turning in their seats to take a better look at the approaching bride.

Elsa remained staring straight ahead, even when her mother just short of punched her shoulder to point out the ceremony was beginning for real.

She didn’t need to look to know Anna was now walking slowly alongside their father, a soft, fake smile plastered on her face as she stepped over the sea of flower petals on the red carpet in the aisle. She didn’t need to look to know their father sported an expression prouder than he’d ever had before, his dense mustache fighting to hold an unprofessional grin over a transaction gone well. She didn’t need to look at Hans to know his eyes were empty, completely devoid of any love as he watched his future wife approach the altar.

She didn’t want to look but she couldn’t stop herself once Anna climbed the few stairs, now free from the last anchor to her previous life as their father stepped back to sit beside their mother; she didn’t want to but she saw the slight tremble of Anna’s arm, the whiteness of her knuckles around the bouquet that would go unnoticed by most.

She didn’t want to but she saw the rise of her chest when she took a deep breath, her head bowed ever so slightly towards the flowers; there was no way that she herself could actually smell it from where she was sitting, but she imagined the scent of vanilla reaching Anna and stopping the tremble.

‘Safe. Just like you.’

Their eyes met across the cold stone floor for a millisecond before Anna’s gaze turned towards her groom.

It was only then that the full meaning of the words hit her; to Anna, Elsa was like vanilla flowers. A base scent to help others shine, an ever present entity that you don’t even realize is there, familiar and comforting, not until it’s gone.

The priest started speaking, but the thudding of blood in Elsa’s ears drowned him out.

The scent that truly makes your favorite perfume, but you’re sure it’s orchids. You’re sure it’s roses. You’re sure it’s cinnamon, or peach blooms, or jasmine but none of them smell right once you remove the base. On its own, barely noticeable, but your brain seeks it out without even thinking about it.

The priest’s voice droned on, chopped up words making it through to Elsa, but she’d lost any ability to truly process them.

She was vanilla flowers; she was the constant in Anna’s life, safe and warm, always there for her. Always waiting, but never brave enough to act. Reaching out her hand but never grasping Anna’s, though they made contact; though Anna’s eyes pleaded to pull her out of the fog.

She was waiting for the universe to change things for her because she herself wasn’t able to act, and all she was in the end was a flower that’s scared to bloom.

She didn’t even realize she stood up until she heard the murmur of voices.

An errant ‘who is this’ from across the aisle, followed by ‘the bride’s sister’. A hushed ‘what is she doing’ from somewhere behind her. A hissed ‘sit down right now’ from her mother just beside her.

And finally, her brain processed the last words of the priest, who was now looking at her expectantly.

“…or forever hold your peace.”

Her throat went dry.

Her knees buckled, ready to sit back down and apologize. Make an excuse. She had a cramp. She thought there was a wasp. She just realized she forgot to turn off her iron—

But then her eyes met Anna’s again.

“I love you,” she blurted out and the church exploded in muffled questions from uncountable mouths. With a flush, she continued, “platonically,” she hoped that cleared up the confusion, but her mother’s nails now digging into her hand attempting to pull her back down told her otherwise. “You’re a wonderful woman, Anna, and I can’t bear to think you’d marry—” she held herself back as much as she could “—this man. You don’t love him. You barely even know him.” Her voice cracked, and she was almost sure her mother was ready to murder her on the spot. “So please—” she felt like a prisoner begging for mercy just before execution, but her eyes never left Anna’s “—please just…don’t do it. You’re worth so much more than this.”

With that, she yanked her hand free and not waiting for any response hurried towards the exit.

++

She was hyperventilating so hard she thought her eyes were gonna pop out of her skull. She did not just fucking do this. She did not just interrupt her sister’s wedding in front of who the fuck even knows how many people she at best barely knew at all and yet managed to immensely disappoint, and at worst just made think she was some crazy, strange woman in love with the bride.

Which she, for the record, was. She just also happened to be her closest family.

The door opened again and out came an angry banshee shaped like her mother. “What the fuck did you just do!?” she asked her politely, making her way over to Elsa to grab her shoulders in her steel, sharp nailed grip. “What in hell was going on in that thick head of yours—”

“Mom.”

Her mother’s eyes widened, as Elsa felt her own do and they both turned their heads back towards the door. Anna stood there, panting, one hand still holding the flowers while the other hiked up the long train of her dress; she clearly just ran the length of the aisle to catch up with them.

Their mother’s voice, for what it’s worth, attempted to calm down when she spoke to her. “Anna, dear, we’re fine here, you can go back—”

“No.” Anna’s expression was as fierce as their mother’s was shocked. “I want to talk to Elsa.”

She approached them, dropping the dress to take hold of Elsa’s wrist and pull her out of their mother’s grip, but despite her best efforts their mother just kind of dragged along.

Anna shot her an angry gaze that Elsa’s never seen her make before in her life. “Alone, mom.”

Obviously taken aback as much as Elsa, their mother dropped her arms and murmured something neither of them could hear as Anna dragged her down the meandering corridor.

“Anna—”

“Not now,” she shushed her, the tone of her voice hard to gauge. They took another turn and Elsa realized where they were now; she didn’t pay much attention when the made this walk in reverse before, too distraught and occupied with her conflicted feelings, but she could clearly tell now Anna was dragging her back to the ‘changing room’.

She couldn’t help but notice she was still holding the flowers.

When they finally made it there, Elsa opened the door and slipped in, then immediately turned around to look at Anna shutting and locking the door behind them, her back against the wood as if she was scared their mother was about to follow them and try to force her way in.

A moment of silence passed where they just stared at each other.

“Did you mean it?” Anna asked finally, quietly, her shoulders dropping as she finally decided she couldn’t hear any footsteps in the corridor.

Elsa cleared her throat. “I told you before I didn’t think you should marry—”

“Not that,” she cut in quickly as she made her way across the room to stand in front of her, finally putting the flowers down on the vanity table Elsa was now backed up against. Anna’s face was flushed pink, her eyes laced with uncertainty. “What you said at the beginning. That you love me.”

Too stressed to talk, Elsa nodded.

“Platonically?”

Her eyes widened and she gripped the table behind her. “Anna, what—”

Anna sighed. “I know what the answer is,” her voice was shaky, just above a whisper, and she glanced back at the door. “I mean— I think I know. But I want you to tell me.”

It took everything Elsa had in herself to not look away from her when she spoke again. “No.”

Anna’s brows knitted. “No?”

“N-no as in— I love you, not platonically.” She gulped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to— I didn’t want to tell you, definitely not in front of all those people, but I just couldn’t—”

Anna’s brows relaxed again. “Thank you,” was enough to shut Elsa up, but if it wasn’t, Anna’s lips covering her own definitely would. They were softer than she could ever imagine, softer even than the satin of her dress when Elsa’s hand shot up with a mind of its own to hold her at the waist. She wasn’t sure which one of them was shaking (she had a feeling it was both) when Anna’s body pressed into hers, pushing her further into the vanity. Something fell over with a bang, but Elsa didn’t care; her entire being was now only focused on the lithe figure in her arms.

For a moment she almost forgot where they were, and what just happened.

“I love you, too,” Anna whispered against her lips when the kiss broke. She pulled away, her eyes dashing between Elsa’s. “What do we do now?”

Elsa, still elated after hearing the first four words, was suddenly thrown back into reality. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “You’re not…gonna go back, right?”

Anna shook her head. “I didn’t mind…you know, marrying Hans.” She grimaced now, as if the name alone was disgusting in her mind. “I thought that I could never be with the person I love, so I didn’t mind just making sure our parents couldn’t bother me again.” Dumbly, Elsa pointed at herself, and Anna let out a laugh. “Yes, you.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Long enough I can’t remember when it started.”

Elsa sucked in her breath. “Me too,” she said, and finally let herself feel comfortable enough to cup Anna’s face in her hand. “I hoped it would go away, but…”

Anna pressed into her hand. “I hoped that too,” she murmured. “But now I’m too happy to want that anymore.”

The absurdity of it finally surfacing, Elsa let out a laugh. “We’re a bit fucked up,” she said, and Anna snorted.

“Just a bit.”

She looked up at her with half-lidded eyes and Elsa’s breath caught in her chest. “I love you,” she repeated again, the words she’d been thinking for so many years now out loud almost sending her into euphoria. “I love you so much.”

“Enough to leave everything behind?” There was that pleading in her eyes again. “I don’t think we can just come out there, tell our parents I decided to not marry Hans and things be just…okay between us and them.”

She’d thought about that before. The few times she’d entertained the idea of confessing her feelings to Anna, and the even fewer times she’d entertained the idea of Anna returning them, she’d always stop herself at that. The consequences of it all. Ideally, she would have wanted to not tell their parents.

Realistically, she’d all but publicly announced her love for Anna. Even with the stupid ‘platonically’ addition it was just a matter of time before their parents (and everyone else) put two and two together if Anna chose to not to go through with the wedding.

She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

They could run. Start a new life somewhere, together. She could open that flower shop she’d always wanted to.

Anna smiled up at her. “Do we just leave here and not tell anyone?”

“Pack our shit and be gone in an hour?”

“You know I love road trips.”

Elsa bent down to kiss the tip of her nose. “Are you sure about this?”

Her heart hammered in her chest, waiting for Anna to answer.

“Yes. Let me just get my stuff.” She took a step back and turned around. “Could you grab the flowers?”

Elsa did so—and with some amusement, noticed the vanilla flower bloomed wider.

[multi-fan-dom-madness]

I ran over to ship 😵🤣

I humbly ask for your opinion of Ilani x Fives!

I do not know much about Ilani but I feel like it'd be an interesting ship 👀

hiiii friend, thank you for the ask! no one knows Ilani yet, not even me! I'm figuring her out as I answer these asks lmao

I went a little overboard so we've got "how they met," "general," and "nsfw" headcanons. all below the cut

Ilani x Fives

How they met:

Honestly the circumstances for this have to be very specific. Ilani is the general for the 387th, stationed Rimward, but her forces were involved in the Battle of Kamino, and I imagine this is how Ilani first met Fives. 

Or, rather, how she literally bodied him, a newly-promoted ARC trooper, to knock him out of the way of droids firing on his unprotected flank. He toppled to the floor, cursing in every language he knew (which is at least two), about to rip a shiny a new one—when he catchs sight of this imposing wall of a Togruta woman, her lekku whirling as she spins, her green saber a blur in the air as she reflects blaster fire back at the droids. When she grins down at him, pointed canines flashing and golden eyes sparkling with protective fury, he damn near falls in love.

For her part, Ilani was just doing what she felt was right: protecting her own. It didn’t matter that the blue-and-white-clad trooper was in Anakin’s battalion—the clones are her family. 

General HCs: 

Ilani tolerates Fives for the first few encounters. He’s loud and boastful (with good reason, she supposes, but still). And he always seems to be making flimsy, transparent excuses when they’re both on Triple Zero for why he’s hanging around the Temple—“just waiting for the General, er, General”—and inevitably ends up following her around. 

But over time his fierce loyalty to his brothers and his determination to protect the Republic—at any cost—is what wins her over. He’s just as deeply passionate as she is, but he doesn’t hide it. In a way, she’s a little envious of how open he is about his feelings; she often feels that she has to mask her true feelings, or at least the true depth of them, when around her fellow Jedi.

With him, she begins to let go a little. Lets herself experience emotions to their fullest, in a way that she normally only feels comfortable doing on a battlefield. 

He makes her laugh; she makes him consider life beyond the war. At first, not in a romantic way, but it slowly becomes that. 

She’s the first one to make a move. It’s late on Coruscant, both of them will be returning to the frontlines come morning, and she’s finally let her walls down enough to admit to herself that she cares about Fives—cares for him. They’re tucked away somewhere private, and she just leans over and kisses him.

NSFW HCs:

These two are Not Quiet, at all. The entire barracks and/or Temple will know, depending where they shack up, and it’s just an unspoken rule among the others that no, I didn’t hear anything strange last night. 

Ilani learns very quickly that she loves marking Fives, biting into his pecs, biceps, thighs to leave impressions of her pointed teeth. She’s overprotective and has possessive tendencies, and seeing Fives’s body littered with her marks just makes her so feral. (Fives also loves it, except when one of the others catches sight. “No, shut up, vod, I don’t know where it came from.”)

Because they see each other so infrequently, they definitely exchange lewd photos, videos, voice messages—anything to help remind one another that the other is there, alive, and waiting for them. 

When they do have time together, they’re either fucking nasty or making the sweetest love; there is no in-between with these two. 

Ye Olde Ragu Liste: @thorsterstrudle @dystopicjumpsuit @clonemedickix @freesia-writes @littlemissmanga @wolffegirlsunite @anxiouspineapple99 @wings-and-beskar @sinfulsalutations @523rdrebel @sunshinesdaydream @moonlightwarriorqueen @sev-on-kamino @starrylothcat @deejadabbles @starqueensthings @mandos-mind-trick @idontgetanysleep @eyeluvmusic21 @wizardofrozz @mythical-illustrator @sleepycreativewriter @dreamie411 @bobaprint @imarvelatthestars @originalcollectionartistry @droids-you-are-looking-for @goblininawig @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @9902sgirl if your name has a strikethrough, I can't tag you so check your settings! (if you'd like to be added or removed, click here!)

[lunarscaled]

I’m fine. The words come out. Same as always. A perfect lie to hide the ugly truth. She’s battered, bruised. So far from the confident, pristine woman she usually is. I’m fine, Lyric. Their dubious gaze burns. She knows they know. She knows they see what others cannot. Age mattered naught in the face of abuse. A victim could always recognize another, just as a predator cause always recognize one who’s been beaten down their whole life.

She shivers, clasping fingers ‘round her shoulders. The bruising wasn’t bad, but the blood- there was so much. Where hers ended and others began was besides her. Subconsciously a hand shoots out to grip the dragons own when they dare reach out. It’s right, damn near crushing. Safe. They’re safe. She has to remind her humbled mind.

Offering an apologetic look she exhales a shaky breath before leaning back. Her mask had to go back on. She couldn’t keep this up. Not with them so close. Forcing a smile she lets them go. “I’m fine. Really. I just had a really bad fight… after a shower and some rest I’ll be good as new. So don’t worry. I’m fine. I’m fine.”

-> If they were honest with themselves, they don't want to look at it. Just like a child does not want to watch their mother cry, just as you may not stand idly by as a dog is beaten, there is an unspoken fleece over their eyes that whispers: you should not see this. And they understand it. Know it well, even. The feeling pours from her, an opening in a dam she didn't want to crack, and if sorrow was gushing directly from her mouth onto the floor and washing away the blood it still wouldn't change a thing about how flayed she must feel right now. They see their future in her, holding their shambling body together in the center of the wreckage with nothing to show for it but bruises and split knuckles. They see their child self, unsure what to do with how they feel, why their father doesn't want them now, how to get bigger sooner so everything else stops feeling like so much, all the time, forever. They see unmerciful reality stacked upon her back like skipping stones, balanced between her shoulders, crushing her chest under the weight. A witch on trial for something she never did.

-> They don't flinch when they grips their wrist ( they think---have they ever flinched at a painful grip? only when it stopped just short. only when it didn't happen right away. if there was no time between the instinct and the action, they could take it with their head kept down and not make a noise. he always hated that. ) They had only reached out because it felt like they should. Like someone had to do something if they saw it, but really, they wanted to leave her here on the floor. They wanted to stand outside in silence until she pulled herself up from the trenches and said too little but shook too much at the shoulder; they wanted to follow behind her, dutifully, and not say a word because really, they don't think anyone wants to dig that kind of thing up. She doesn't even want to now, in their presence, when she leans back with a trembling breath that never quite reaches her chest and smooths over the terror... for who. Them? Herself? Lyric's face, seemingly always placid, does not react. They lower their hand.

"---You'd rather maim yourself than continue on like this"

-> They stand up straighter. Collapsed to the floor, they are knees and shoulders above her, and they think usually it is them in that position. Their father's broad stature lorded above them like God giving judgement, his hand in their hair. Their heels slide against the hardwoods when they kick and scream and cry, and he barks for them to SHUT UP. They say nothing now, for the moment she composes herself. Even then, their voice is soft.

"That's what it looks like, I mean. These guys are practically mincemeat."

-> They do not touch her. They wouldn't want to be touched, either. They hardly ever do ( and yet they are starving for it. terrified, and yet they want to be held so so badly. they want to be loved---they want to be told they are worthy of the risk. the effort. they want to understand how someone could be loved so much it ruins their life. )

"It's fine. I think you look strong even you are when weak at the knees."

[thatfanfictionchick]

A job for your First

╔═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖✰〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══╗

Mammon x F!Reader

Rating: 18+; Explicit; NOT FOR MINORS

Warnings: Alcohol; Perhaps a wee bit of coercion; Biting; Vaginal fingering; Unprotected vaginal intercourse; Breeding;

Word Count: 1532

Notes: Holy fuck guys this Halloween event has reignited all my feels.

╚═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖✰〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══╝

Time had an irritating way of moving forward, no matter how much you didn’t want it to. You only had a few months left in the Devildom; what seemed like a bare handful of precious days before you’d be sent home.

You didn’t want to go home.

That’s how you wound up outside Mammon’s door just after midnight, a bottle of Demonus in each hand. “What’s this?” Mammon asked throatily. He was bare chested, dark sweatpants hanging low on his hips as he opened the door. His hair was stuck up on one side. From the looks of things he’d actually gone to bed at a decent time for once and here you’d come around and disturbed him.

“I…” you faltered. “I’m sorry, Mammon, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ll just…” he grabbed your elbow as you turned to walk away, pulling you into his room and shutting the door. He couldn’t let you walk away with that sad look on your face.

“Come on.” He plucked one of the bottles from your hand, ripping the foil off the top and untwisting the cap. You were so predictable sometimes. Sad and mopey and needing to talk but not wanting to be a burden. It was so annoying. All this time and you still thought talking about your worries was seen as troublesome. You followed him around the pool table to his bed, opening your own bottle before crawling under the messy covers. Side by side in his bed, you lifted the bottle and drank deeply. Mammon matched you before tapping you with his elbow. “Out with it.”

“92 days until I go home.” Best to rip the band aid off, you supposed.

“...ah.”

“Time just...it just keeps going. Ya know?”

Did he know? Of course he did. For someone who had never bothered himself with trivial things like the passage of time before (why be bothered over something that didn’t apply to you?) Mammon had become increasingly, uncomfortably aware of time. Of how short each day was. Of how few of those hours out of every day he got to spend with you. Yeah, he knew that time just kept going.

“I love my family. I miss my family. I miss my friends.” You took another drink. “But…”

But they’re not the family I’ve made here. They’re not the same friends. They’re not you. You swallowed the unspoken words with another swig of demonus.

“We’ll just chuck ya in Belphie’s bed,” Mammon joked with a shrug. “They’ll never find ya under all the pillows.” You snorted, dissolving into laughter as he continued with a list of ridiculous ideas. “Could build a whole house outta the books in Satan’s room and he’d be the last to notice.” “Beel’s stomach is more than big enough for a little thing like you to hide in.” “Asmo’s tub could support a whole family, just pick a corner.”

“Stop, stop!” you whacked him in the shoulder, gasping for breath. Although it didn’t escape your notice that he didn’t mention his own room as a possible hiding place. He pushed you back and you sprawled dramatically to the side before springing back upward. “Speaking of Asmo, you know what the cheeky shit had the nerve to suggest?”

“‘M afraid to ask.” Mammon muttered, bringing the bottle to his lips.

“He told me to just get pregnant.” You shook your head and tucked the bottle between your knees. “Can you believe that? ‘Diavolo would never send you back if you were having a baby’. Of course, as you can imagine, he immediately offered to do the job…”

“Yeah.” Mammon had stopped listening. He was oddly dazed and you didn’t notice the change in his demeanor until he was pulling the bottle from between your legs. His own bottle was sitting on the bedside table, and he rolled halfway on top of you to put your bottle on the opposite table.

“Mammon?” you squeaked as his knee replaced the bottle, his hands braced on either side of you. His eyes were wide, his pupils dilated in a way that seemed downright predatory. Your heart teleported to your throat. You grabbed onto his forearms, smooth skin and lean muscle practically burning under your palms.

His lips were soft and warm and their sudden touch against yours made you whimper. It was such a soft kiss, so fittingly characteristic of the demon himself that it made it hard to believe everything that followed. Another kiss, firmer this time, and then his lips were ghosting your jaw towards your ear.

“Mammon?” you breathed, voice so quiet you weren’t even sure he heard. His teeth tugged your earlobe and you gasped, arching slightly. He said something, the edge of a growl in his tone making the hair on the back of your neck stand, but you didn’t comprehend it. You were solely focused on the way his hand had slipped into the back of your shirt and was moving along your spine. Your hands were doing things independent of your brain; sliding over his chest, reaching down to grip his hips, thumbs slipping into the band of his sweats to push them down. He moved, settling between your legs.

“Say yes.” he hissed, teeth sinking into the side of your neck. His hands fumbled, pulling your sleep shorts down your hips, grabbing at one knee to get one of your legs free in your jumbled position.

“What?” What was he talking about? You’d already forgotten how you’d gotten here. Mammon groaned and kissed you hard, his tongue parting your lips to tangle with yours. Sucking and biting at your lower lip, you eventually had to push him away so you could breathe, your chest heaving with the effort. Without pause his hand slid between your legs, tracing along your slick labia.

“Let me do it.” One finger slid easily inside you and your eyes fluttered. “Please.” he whimpered, a second finger pushing inside. Another bruising kiss, a third finger pushing inside your walls to thrust and curl. The growl in his chest reverberated through your own. “Let me put a baby in ya.”

“Oh, fuck!” You sounded absolutely wrecked already. You grabbed the back of his head, fingers twisting and pulling at his hair. The head of his cock nudged your clit and you hissed, lifting your hips and moving impatiently against him. His face was buried in your neck and he snarled at the way your cunt twitched as he slowly filled you. Your eyes rolled in your head and your vision clouded.

“I’ll never let ya go back,” he growled. “Never.”

His hips snapped hard against you. His chest pressed against yours, pressing you into the mattress, one hand on your hip and the other on the back of your head. His teeth dug into your flesh over and over, leaving dark marks all over your neck and collar and whatever of your chest he could get at with your shirt still in the way. “Feels so good,” he whined. You sobbed his name, sounding downright pitiful. Some small shred of remaining level headedness was screaming that this was a bad idea, but then Mammon braced his hands on the mattress and lifted himself over you, shifting the angle of his thrusts, his cock grinding and sliding against a spot inside that had you clenching down on him.

“Fuck!” Something about Mammon’s voice had slipped. The edge, the growl, didn’t sound like the Mammon you knew. It sounded like something older, something more powerful, something infinitely more terrifying. “Let me cum inside ya.” he begged. “Please, I wanna knock ya up so fucking bad.”

“God, Mammon, I - shit -” you were babbling. You couldn’t think beyond the way your body was tensing, your orgasm so close you could taste it. Your nails dug into his arms, leaving angry lines carved into the skin.

“I’ll take care of everything.” he promised. “Fuck, fuck, you’re so tight, I’m - “

You came with a hoarse cry, one hand twisted in his hair, the other pressing over your eyes as your body arched and twisted. Your legs wrapped around his waist, holding him solidly in place as he gave in to his own orgasm. He nearly collapsed, only just catching himself as your cunt clenched and twitched, drawing out every drop of his cum.

As the fog in his head slowly cleared he was already thinking about how beautiful you’d look pregnant with his baby. He tried to convey the swell of emotion that brought up inside him in the way he kissed you.

30 minutes later, when you’d cleaned up and redressed and Mammon had tucked you against him in his bed, your brows drew together and you pinched his side. He squealed and pinched you back. “What was that for?!”

“Why didn’t you offer to hide me in your room, huh?” you demanded. He made a noise like a cross between a snort and a laugh and took your chin between his fingers, tilting your head up to look at him.

“Darlin’,” he purred, his lips brushing yours. “If I’m going to hide ya here in my room I’m never gonna let ya leave.”

[no-droids]

Rumors, Freebies, and a Race for Last Place

Part Two of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 22.5K DONT say shit alright just don’t

Warnings: Okay. There is degradation in this, some name calling and heated interactions. There is a LOT of smut, dirty talk and rough sex. If these things offend you, please do not continue reading.

***

It’s recommended to read part one first.

***

Getting into the x-wings is always fun.

It actually might be your favorite part.  Granted, alarm bells ringing and thousands of jumpsuits scrambling in all directions is never typically a good thing, but there’s also an inherent rush about it, a thrill in launching up the metal paneling as quick as you can and suiting up to provide aid.  It’s a side-effect of camaraderie, of being surrounded by like-minded individuals willing to do everything they can to help.  You never feel like you’re going to your death, even though that’s often the grim reality for at least one of you on a good day.  There’s always a roaring in your ears while you do it, adrenaline sharpening your senses and preparing yourself for conflict, not thinking anything beyond gogogogogo—

But getting out of the x-wing is… not great.  At least for you.  It’s sluggish.  Your body is always completely drained and you never come out of it feeling the same way you went in.  Even in times of victory, there’s a somberness inside you after battle.  As much as you tell yourself you’re fighting for good, for prosperity against an evil machine hellbent on enslaving the galaxy, there’s only so many explosions lighting up in front of your eyes and screams cutting out through your comms you can take before winning just doesn’t really feel like winning anymore.  Most pilots are able to handle it better than you are, but since you joined the Resistance, you’ve never truly felt the desire to celebrate.  Not even when you serve a massive, glaring defeat to the other side.  There’ll always be at least one missing x-wing, one empty seat at the table, one person not here to celebrate with you.

You came back in one piece this time.  Barely.

The whole mission went sideways—literally.  You’d purposefully stationed the tandem just outside the coordinates you were meant to be surveilling so that you’d be hidden from sight and dead to the scanners should the fleet arrive, but something must’ve happened.  You must’ve powered down a few seconds too early after he turned the thrusters off, because apparently the ship drifted in dead space for close to eight hours without either of you noticing, having no working computers to actively read your location and correct it.  You were sitting ducks right in the hyperspace drop zone by the time the First Order showed up, and by that point you had no choice but to engage.

“Gold-Ten,” a voice murmurs from behind you, and you blink, suddenly seeing the base landing platform stretching out long in front of you, hundreds of docking ships and boisterous pilots scrambling out of them to hug their comrades and congratulate them even as medics rush past with white coats and gurneys.  They’re never for the pilots, but they dispatch healers anyways whenever a convoy returns in case a straggler gets picked up.  There’s an unspoken understanding in space battle—pilots never get injured.  They either come back unharmed, or they don’t come back at all.

Dameron.

You turn around and watch him slowly approach you with an unreadable expression, his jumpsuit still bunched halfway down his torso.  The once bright white sleeveless undershirt is now greasy and damp with sweat,  his dark curls sticking to his forehead.  He winces with every bow-legged step—you know the feeling—before he’s standing directly in front of you and something is carefully being pulled out of your hands.  You didn’t even realize you were holding onto anything.

Your helmet.  You forgot to leave it in the x-wing, and you’ve been carrying it around under your arm aimlessly while mentally checking off the squadrons as they return, counting the numbers you lost today while everybody else hugs and whoops and claps each other on the back.

It’s not as bad as you were expecting it was going to be, not as bad as it seemed just an hour earlier when you were listening to Dameron bellow out evasive flight maneuvers a millisecond before he enacted them and you adjusted your firing at the TIEs accordingly.  You used to think you were quick with how rapidly you could suit up and fly out, drop in to assist and engage, but on the other side, it felt like your reinforcements lollygagged for ages before arriving.  You were left to defend against an entire fleet in one stupid ship, more lines of TIEs sinking like flies from launch decks every second.

“Gold-Ten,” you hear again, and you blink a few times, needing to focus your vision before you can find his gaze.

Dameron’s palm, previously hovering a few inches above your shoulder, suddenly drops to spread along the curve of it and you take a deep breath, almost wanting to shudder at the feeling of something touching you.  You channel all your focus into it, feel his fingers branch out strong along the tight muscles in your neck, giving you an anchor you automatically lean into.

You and him are no strangers to touching.  Before today it was mostly reserved to poking and prodding and flicking and light slapping in an effort to piss each other off, but now… you can’t even think about it right now, your body will just fucking glitch out on you.  After everything that just happened, you cannot think about where else that hand has been recently, not right now.

“You did… you did really fucking good today,” he tells you quietly, slowly trailing his hand down the length of your entire arm until he catches your wrist and a few of your fingers in his loose grip.  “Seriously.  That was… we were…”

His touch is so present, so reassuring.  Grounding, when all your mind wants is to just float away.  You glance down at where his fingers are gently tangled with yours and you feel your hand tighten just slightly, the smallest squeeze while he blinks down at you.

“We almost died, like… every single second,” you barely manage to croak, not really having the words to express it right now.  You always need at least an hour or two after missions like this to just sit in one place and regroup.  Usually you find yourself wandering back to your room to lay on the bed and stare up at the ceiling while you consider your own mortality, but Dameron interrupted you this time before you could process it by yourself.  “We…”  Your voice sounds absolutely shredded.  “W-We shouldn’t even be alive right now.”

“I know,” he nods in soft agreement, taking a small step closer to you.  “But we are alive.  Hey.”  He dips his head as soon as your gaze starts to drift, catching your eyes once more and drawing your attention back to the present with a squeeze of your hand.  “We’re alive, right?  Be alive with me.”

You take a big breath in and close your eyes, feeling the oxygen fill your lungs once more, but this time, it’s… restorative.  A wonderful, beautiful reminder of your existence.  You’re alive.  Usually the word just feels like a synonym for persevering.  Pushing onwards despite trials and tribulations, not looking back.  But the way he says it, especially with his hand in yours and a quiet invitation to tag along, it sounds… breathtaking.  Full of light, and hope.  It suddenly leaves the dim shadows and slides into a completely different category of feelings, feelings you’d never imagine being able to conjure so quickly after such a close brush with death.  Alive—it slots right in next to words like colorful, radiant, sunshine, and butterflies.  Enchanting words, ones you’d like to hear again and again.

Your eyes slowly open and there he is, the man you were sure was going to accompany you to the afterlife.  You were stuck with Poe Dameron in one of the closest calls you can remember, and strangely, his presence was nothing if not… a comfort.  For the first time in your life, you were grateful he was there.

You open your mouth, suddenly feeling the needy, unfounded urge to tell him that.  “I’m gla—”

“Dameron!”  You hear a series of voices call from somewhere to your left, and he immediately drops your hand to whip his body around and place himself directly between you and the approaching onlookers, using his large frame to hide you from their sight.

“What’s up, Briggs?”  Dameron projects to one pilot in particular that seems to be leading the group, his back oddly close to you in this position.  Your fingers still feel tingly from where he was holding onto them.

A chorus of congratulatory, “Nice flying, Captain!” and the like can be heard floating through the air from beyond his shoulders, before the leader speaks loudly over them.  “Hey—me, Seven, Six, and Twelve were gonna grab some drinks in the mess hall with a few of the Blue girls,” he tells Dameron, slowing to a stop as soon as he sees you standing awkwardly behind him.  “Oh hey, Goldie.”

You lift a hand and clear the remainder of the dissociation from your throat, not knowing him well enough beyond the squadron he and his group fly with.  “Greenies.”

“Anyways, I guess they wanted to know if you’d come too.  These idiots are convinced they’re never gonna give us the time of day unless you—”

“Uh—fine, whatever, just give me a few minutes alright?”  Dameron quickly assures him with a dismissive wave of his hand.  “I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

A few of them take turns giving him heavy claps on the shoulder and acclamatory words before the group eventually disperses, and he waits a few more seconds for their attention to fully scatter in another direction before turning back to you.

Shit, he’s standing really close.  Why is he so close to you?  You take a step back and blink up at him, the noises of the landing deck gradually amplifying back up to normal volume as you retreat back into your own space.  Since when did he have that effect on you?  You suddenly feel wide awake, and the chorus of happy chaos surrounding you is something you’re finally able to take in.  You knew it was happening before, but it was like it just existed outside of the creeping numbness.  Now, the knot of internal turmoil has untied itself a bit and you feel your surroundings start to fight for your direct attention.

Dameron continues to look at you the same exact way, though.  Like you’re still the only one here.

You look down at his half-suited figure and blink at the helmet loosely held in one of his hands.  Hey.  Hey, that’s yours—

“Give me that,” you hiss, suddenly snatching it from his fingertips.  “You have people waiting.”

The cutting words serve to snap him out of whatever spell he’s under.  Dameron quickly lifts his head and looks around a few times with sharp eyes, before hooking your elbow and twisting you into a complete 180 until your back faces most of the excitement.  You resist, immediately trying to push him off you and worried he’s going to confront you about… things, but he’s determined.

He doesn’t say anything to you at all, though.  His fingers quickly grasp the baggy fabric of your jumpsuit even as you sputter and start to ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, and you glance down just in time to see him yanking the gaping velcro closed at your crotch.

Your cheeks instantly start burning as he tugs and smooths the fabric down until it’s seamless once more, especially when his eyes flick up to yours without moving his head.  Fuck, you’re instantly hot with some wicked emotion, a mixture of embarrassment and outrage and… something else.  Maker, you almost wish you were numb and disoriented again, if only so you could avoid feeling whatever the fuck this is.

You quite suddenly shove your helmet back into his stomach with an infuriated sound even as he doubles over with a shocked whoosh of air, changing your mind about returning it to the ship yourself before storming off without another word.

*** 

Okay, so you’ve done some thinking, and.  Well.  Fuck him, that’s what you’ve decided.

No—not… fuck him.  But like, fuck him.  You know.  In the negative sense of the word.  The bad fuck.

There’s a full tray of food sitting in front of you but you’ve so far been unable to touch it.  Mostly you’re just wondering why the fuck you’re even here.  Well, you know why you’re here—you should eat, it’s dinnertime and this is the mess hall.  You’ve been known to skip out on meals after heavy missions, secluding yourself away and just wallowing for a bit, but you… strangely didn’t feel like doing that today.  You don’t want to self-isolate when you feel okay enough to avoid it, not again.  So you’re here, because the clock says your tummy should want food, but you can’t bring yourself to even look at it.

No, you’re looking at him.  Glaring, actually.

Across the mess hall and beyond the transparisteel divider that separates the cafeteria from the bar area, Dameron is all eyebrows and smiles and side nudges and winks right now.  You can’t hear him—the sound won’t travel this far, but you can see him situated in the middle of a rowdy group of pilots.  He laughs in that disgustingly charming way of his, where his stupidly cute nose scrunches up all cute and stupid and you want to just ask the Maker why he’s doing this shit to you.  What have you done to deserve this torture?  Sure, you may have willingly agreed to it, even… conceived and propositioned the idea, and sure, absolutely nothing is stopping you from forfeiting and walking away at this exact second, but does that make it okay?  No, you’ve decided.  It’s not okay.  He’s not allowed to… to make you feel like this, so fuck him.  In the bad way.

“Just fuck him already,” a voice suddenly grumbles as someone plops down into the seat to your right, plastic trays of food clattering loudly on the table and snapping you out of your reverie.  Gold-Sixteen blocks your view as he silently drops into the seat in front of you and wraps his green lekku around his neck a few times before immediately beginning to shovel food into his mouth, while Gold-Three opens her box of blue milk next to you and continues.  “The Blues never fucking shut up about it, it’s getting annoying.”

“Don’t listen to her, Dime,” Gold-Eleven tells you, quickly occupying the seat on your left and biting into a crunchy piece of fruit, talking loudly over the chatter even as he chomps.  “Rossi just knows her pool is up tomorrow, she doesn’t want to lose any of her precious credits.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Gold-Three immediately snaps, leaning forward and around you to point the prongs of her fork at Eleven threateningly.  “Zhang’s pool starts on Sunday.”

“Oh fuck off, you guys are betting on this now?”  You groan, shoving your plate away with a flick of your fingers now that you’re certain you’ve completely lost your appetite.  Sixteen immediately snatches up one of your bread rolls while Zhang swipes your juice and Rossi goes for a packet of glockaw sauce.

“You’re the one who announced it in front of everybody, we’re just being active spectators,” Rossi returns, ripping the packet and pouring the sauce on her vegetables with a shrug.  “How the fuck do you bet against fucking each other though, that’s my question?  It’s a paradox, wouldn’t you both just lose at the same time?”

“Dameron and I aren’t going to fuck,” you tell her very slowly and clearly, starting to get a headache.  Why is it impossible to avoid this conversation topic, even with an entire Resistance base to roam around in?  “Ever.  The bet never had anything to do with fucking each other, it’s about not fucking other people.”

“Literally what is the difference?”  You hear Rossi ask with her mouth full, but Zhang speaks over her.

“Somebody should probably tell Nine that, she’s the bookie,” he tosses out carelessly, dropping the core of his piece of fruit to his tray before wiping his hands on his jumpsuit.  You bury your face in your hands and let out a loud, exhausted sound into your palms, not knowing which response serves to aggravate your already emotionally overloaded ass even more.  Nine is the bookie, of fucking course she is.  “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think any of it actually goes outside of Gold, so.”

“I’ve heard the Blues talking about it, but that’s it,” Rossi chimes in while chewing some of her veggies.  “Maybe some Reds.  Point is everybody else thinks it’s already happening, honestly.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, using your knuckles to rub at the backs of your eyes until bright spots appear.  Where are stress headaches localized?  Are those the ones right under your brow bone?  Because stars, you feel it.  “Fucking… why?  Why do people think that me and Dameron are…?”

Nobody at the table immediately responds, and you drop your hands after a moment to look at each of their astounded faces in turn.

“You fucking serious, bitch?”  Rossi blurts first, her voice completely deadpan, and you growl in vexation.

“Have I not been vocal enough about my severe dislik—”

“And yet you kicked Nine out of your room to let him bunk with you,” Zhang immediately suggests.

“You request mission assignments together,” Rossi adds.

“Spend your off-days together,” Zhang continues.

“You’re both really weird about how long it takes the other person to shower,” Rossi tacks onto the list Zhang is now making on his fingers and you shake your head frantically.

“No—no, that’s so that we know neither one of us is cheating,” you try to explain, and you already know it sounds unconvincing without needing the two quick, lofty and sarcastic nods on either side of you.  “Showers and off-days are prime masturb—no, you know what?  No.  I’m tired of the assumptions, I don’t owe anyone shit.  This is super fucking uncool of you guys, you know that?  It’s insane that this is what counts as gossip in the Resistance nowada—”

“There’s only so much bad news people can take, Ten,” Gold-Sixteen grunts down at his almost finished plate, and all three of you snap your gazes across the table at him.  The forest-tinted twi’lek doesn’t speak much, it’s uncommon to hear his voice without distortion over the comms, but you blink as his sharp teeth continue to form words without looking at you.  “Quit being so sensitive.  Rather bet on this shit than which system is getting demolished next.”

And with that, Sixteen excuses himself with a silent nod, having gobbled down his full plate while you, Three, and Eleven were bickering.  You feel your cheeks flare with anger and shame—you didn’t deserve that, you immediately reassure yourself, but the hidden self-doubt the comment sows just further contributes to your upset.  You want to call out to his back that just because the First Order exists doesn’t mean you have to put up with your own fucking squadron turning you and your mortal enemy into glorified race fathiers, but he’s already leaving the mess hall while Rossi and Zhang have moved on to other topics, both of them continuing to grab more food from your tray as they talk.

You have a tough shell.  But today was… a lot.  You bite your lip down at the table against the sudden wave of emotion, blinking quickly to clear the weakness watering your vision.

See, this—this right here is why you use last names.  These people aren’t your friends.  Betting on who you fuck for laughs, using you as a source of entertainment without your consent just because they’re in the middle of a war, and then guilting you into feeling like you’re the one acting like a stuck up bitch about it?  You’re fighting in the same fucking war—you’re on the front lines just like everybody else and nobody gets to lecture you on the devastation of battle.  You almost died today.  You fought tooth and fucking nail to stay alive and by all accounts, you shouldn’t even be sitting here right now, much less dealing with this childish shit.  This is your squadron.  These people are supposed to be the ones closest to you out of everyone, the ones you’ve been flying into chaos in formation with for years, and yet not a single damn person has even mentioned your performance to you today, all anyone can ever seem to talk about is—ugh.

Unfortunately, your unobstructed view also allows you to look at the source of your bad mood once more, immediately noticing the way more people have crowded around him now, and the headache continues to throb painfully behind your eyeballs.  You were in the same ship, does nobody realize that?  You were gunning, he was flying—you were offense, he was defense—that’s the only fucking difference, and yet, it’s like that side of the mess hall is just completely lit up with hearty laughter and music playing from someone’s holopad and congratulatory drinks being passed around, while yours is… well.

You continue to fume inwardly, struggling somewhere between bitter and hurt, and you can see your reflection through the transparisteel giving him a death glare, wondering how many of the people surrounding him have made bets with Nine.  How many of his little entourage have their money wagered on Dameron getting in your pants by a specific dat—

You stop short while staring at his handsome face, an infuriating, horrifying thought suddenly striking you.  No… no, he wouldn’t…

“Does he know?”  You immediately interrupt the chitchat between Three and Eleven to ask with a deadly edge in your voice, tipping your forehead at pretty boy.  Ooh, you can already feel it burning.  It would be so fucking typical.  Oooooh, Maker, if he’s heard even a fucking whisper about this outside wagering going on amongst the pilots, you will fucking smother his ass in his sleep tonight.  How could he not know?  With as many friends as he has?  If you’re just being made aware of it, then it’s a given that somebody has to have told him by now, which just means that it’s all the more possible—shit, even more likely—that he’s… participating, too.  You do your best to keep your voice even, but you can hear the quiet fury shaking in it.  “The bet about when me and him are gonna fuck, does he know about it?”

“Who—Dameron?”  Zhang turns his head.  “No, I don’t think s—”

“Yeah,” Rossi says at the exact same time, and your blood instantly turns ice cold as Zhang leans around you to blink at her stupidly.

“No.  Yeah?  What?”  He says, sounding genuinely confused.

“Yeah, remember?”  Rossi confirms with a shrug.  “Nine was mad as all shit, came at me in the rec room a few weeks ag—fucking Maker, Eleven, you were there.”

“Oh,” Zhang suddenly exhales, “yeah, that’s right.  Oh, yeah, Dime, he knows.”

You’re—fuck, you’re about to rampage.  You’re burning a fucking hole through Dameron while he converses animatedly with his numerous buddies, waving an open hand and shaking his head at someone with a smile and then gesturing broadly to this side of the transparisteel.  His pool is probably up soon, you figure.  That’s why he came onto you so strong earlier today.  He was going to get two weeks of your pay, plus whatever he must’ve offered up to Nine that says he’d get it to happen within a certain amount of time.  Perfect, your old roomie and the arch nemesis you stupidly agreed to trade her for, two asshole peas in an asshole pod.

“—she thought I was the one who told him—”  You know Rossi is still talking but you’re not actually hearing any of it.  Nobody has any fucking idea.  Nobody has any idea what he did to you today, how unbelievably close you were to… to actually…  “—was all just for fun, but then he had a few choice words for her and told his squad that if any of them had made a—”  You don’t know why you’re so surprised honestly, you should’ve expected…

Wait.

“Wait,” you suddenly blurt, and while she shuts up immediately, your mind starts whirling even faster.  Dameron had some… what?  “Wait.  Explain.  You’re saying he didn’t…”  You slowly shake your head, furrowing your eyebrows and trying to piece it together.  “He didn’t… place a bet with her, or anything?”

“What?  No,” Rossi shakes her head a lot more forcefully than you, getting frustrated.  “No, fucking—didn’t you hear anything I just said, Ten?  He got all high and mighty for some stupid reason, totally reamed her ass out for it.”

“But…”  You blink, stunned.  “But… why?  Why would he…?”

Rossi shrugs.  “Fuck if I know.  All she said was that he ordered Black not to throw in, made her lose a fuckton of money from it.  Had no idea Dameron would be so touchy about his sex life, honestly.”

He… he isn’t.  He isn’t touchy about his sex life—you feel like he never shuts up about it.

Rossi continues talking, but you’re not listening again.  You stare stupidly at yourself in the clear transparisteel as Dameron’s voice comes back to you, repeating something you specifically remember him saying earlier today.  Something you thought was just a careless jab at the time, aimed blindly at one of your comrades with nothing more than the intent to piss you off.

…I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half… 

You blink beyond your own reflection to focus on him once more, still lost in his own little world, not paying a single lick of attention to you while you’re essentially having a fucking crisis over here.  You didn’t think the insult had any real substance to it at all.  You just naturally assumed that was the result of him wanting to lash out at anything or anyone remotely close to you, if only to get a reaction, so you never gave him one or paid it any mind.  

This is why he said that about Nine?  Because he knew she had organized this fucked up betting pool behind your back?

Stars, you need to get out of here, all these rumors are fucking with your head.  Your assumptions and the hairpin turnarounds are giving you worse whiplash than Dameron’s… well, admittedly spectacular flying today.  You were wrong about wanting to avoid isolating—in fact, that suddenly sounds like a phenomenal idea.

So, you just get up and leave right in the middle of Rossi’s sentence, needing some time alone.  Neither of them call out to you as you quickly walk around the table and through the barrier towards the exit, thank the Maker, and you’re just about to retreat with no interruptions until suddenly two Greenies step in front of you and block your path.

You halt immediately, looking up at them with a furrowed brow.  “What now?”  You grunt, not having the patience to even wait for a response before attempting to squeeze around them.

“Hey, so you really saved our asses out there today, Goldie,” the one on the left quickly sidesteps in front of you and rushes to say, and you settle your weight back on your heels with a huff.

“What are you talking about?”  You glance back and forth between them, not recalling a time you’ve ever spoken to either one, before jerking your head to gesture over your shoulder.  “Go congratulate trophy boy over there, he was the one flying.”

“We did,” the one on the right tips sideways to look at Dameron behind your shoulder, likely still laughing and joking with someone about something, something super fucking dumb probably.  “Well, uh.  We tried.”

“What?”  You let out a heavy sigh and rub your temples.  “The fuck is that supposed to mean?  I don’t have the time.”

“He won’t take any credit, just keeps saying that all he did was steer you around,” the other one shrugs as his companion straightens and looks down at you once more.  “Wouldn’t accept any drinks we offer him, nothing.  So we thought we’d buy you one instead.  Unless you’re… leaving?”

It takes you a few seconds to process that, even as he allows the open invitation to hang in the air.  You can’t stop the way your torso automatically twists around to study your copilot from across the mess hall in baffled silence, suddenly realizing that they’re… they’re right.  Dameron has no congratulatory drinks sitting in front of him even though more and more people have made their way into the bar.  He’s just sitting there grinning and nodding along to something someone else is saying, completely and blissfully unaware of the extent to which he’s fucked with you in the past twenty minutes.  The past… whole day.  Month and a half.  Or… fuck, how long have you known him?  Two years?

But then Dameron’s gaze gradually drifts this way, before suddenly locking with yours.  His eyes flick behind you to look at the two Greenies blocking your exit, and then back to the way you’re staring at him, wide-eyed and startled.

He suddenly stands up and starts to take a few steps towards you, and the sheer abruptness of the movement causes you to react immediately.  You stumble your way backwards through the two pilots, feeling a few hands reach out to steady you through the awkward fumbling, but you slap them away and announce loud enough for Dameron to hear beyond them that you’re taking a shower, and you don’t give a fuck how long it’s gonna be this time.

***

The knob squeaks as you turn the water on.  Usually you’d step back and wait the grueling five minutes or longer it takes for it to heat up with your arms crossed over your naked chest, but this time you move directly under the freezing spray, hoping to use the ice cold to shock your system.

You're finally alone.

Technically solitude doesn’t really exist within this base.  You’ve heard of others that are a little nicer, having a little more room for the ranks, but not here.  Housing assignments, showers and restrooms, mess and recreation halls—they’re all communal.  Everyone is given rotating shifts, so while that means there’s never any true quiet to be found, it also means that showers are spread out well throughout the day and night.

But, at least for this moment, there’s nobody else around.  At least in here, in the tiled chamber with multiple shower heads stationed around you—you’re sure there are a few girls lingering in the locker room and the entry area beyond it, but for right now, you’re blissfully by yourself.

And yet, you can’t seem to enjoy it.

You know you should be basking in the isolation.  You should be thrilled at the rarity of only hearing your own flipflops slap against the floor as you turn around and drench your hair with the icy spray, but the lack of an immediate distraction for your focus allows it to wander to things you don’t want it to.

Explosions, mostly.  Lighting up like fireworks in front of your eyes even as they flutter closed and let water drip down them.  Constant, never-ending.  Some of them small—TIEs you shot down, allies drawing fire away from you and then subsequently getting overwhelmed, zipping through dense debris from deadly collisions so quick that you had trouble distinguishing friend from foe.  Some of them were massive—star destroyers splitting apart, warp drives overloading, enormous casualty counts.  You don’t know how many lives you took today, not directly.

The beginning was the worst—when you were still slightly disoriented, when you were panicked and screaming into the comms for assistance.  Then the closest stationed tandem showed up first—Red-Two and Eight, you think it was.  Doesn’t matter now.  They took some heat off you before the cavalry arrived, but you remember Dameron barking out your name the second their left thruster got nicked and they started spiraling, a ferociously deep, “With me!” cutting through the white noise.  It was enough to snap you back, forcing you to instantly flick your eyes away and focus dead ahead without witnessing their demise.

It wouldn’t have normally been necessary.  You’ve been flying with the Resistance for years, you’ve seen way too much bloodshed by now.  But you’ve never been the catalyst of it—you’ve always been able to confront threats accompanied by your squadron, right between Nine and Eleven, the flight controls rumbling steady under your palms.  You’ve never faced down an entire fleet in one single ship.  You’ve never had to rely so directly on the skills of another pilot in order to stay alive.

The water slowly heats to a lukewarm while you reach for the shampoo.

Surprisingly, for as much as the two of you clash in normal interactions, it was like everything eventually became… synchronized.  Spectacularly so.  Dameron started off the enemy confrontation by calling out his flight patterns to give you a chance to adjust your firing in real time, but then at some point, it just stopped being necessary.  There was a moment where you both were able to suddenly… get it.  Get each other.  He didn’t have to say anything after that—you could predict each other without second guessing, react instantaneously, and work your way through the littered battlefield accordingly.  You never thought it would be possible to collaborate so well with someone you’ve spent ages despising.  Sure, you’d both die if you didn’t—shit, you’d probably still both die regardless—but this kind of teamwork extended beyond the need to survive.  It doesn’t matter how much you want to stay alive when reading someone else’s mind is physically impossible, but for some reason…  You have no idea why, but it apparently came naturally between you.  It fell to pure instinct, pure reaction, and remarkably, his would somehow match yours perfectly, every single time.

You lather the shampoo in your hair, remembering how his voice changed over the course of the mission.  How it gradually shifted from panicked roars and barked orders into ecstatic cheers and genuine praise after landing a difficult shot, how he just couldn’t seem to stop whooping.  

You smile softly as the tepid water rinses away the dirt and sweat from your body, until the temperature is brought up to a gentle, comfortable warmth raining down you and echoing in the empty shower room.

And, your first name.  Dameron kept calling you that, the whole time.  The one you’re now absolutely certain you’ve never personally given to him.  The one he would’ve had to have listened for specifically.  Remembered, or at least asked the right person about.  But why?  It’s not… it makes no sense, he doesn’t give a shit.  He’s notorious for not giving a shit.  He can’t even be bothered to remember the names of the girls he’s actually with—so why did he go to the trouble to figure out yours?  You’ve been nothing but a thorn in his side the same way he is to you, right?

Right?

Your mind starts recollecting more recent events, trying to work through and process it by yourself.  He was… singing your praises today.  He was openly giving you credit for the win while you pouted in the corner and assumed the absolute worst of him.  As much as you’re frustrated that nobody else seemed to give voice to your contributions, you’re even more surprised that he was the one who did.

And then even earlier.  Gold-Nine, holding wagers with members of your squad (and others, apparently) about when you’re going to fuck him.  Dameron, tearing her a new one for it, forbidding Black Squadron from throwing in and not attempting to hide his disdain for her from you.  He… he defended you.  Stood up for you when your own squad was being a bunch of dicks behind your back.  And nobody ever fucking mentioned it to you.  What did Rossi say—a few weeks ago?  He’s known all this time and only today, only after you… openly showed more interest in him than you ever have, after you worked up enough nerve to try in your own little way to flirt back this time instead of responding to his casual comments with contempt and disgust, only today is when he decided to make a real move on you.

…Your mind is completely blank and yet you still feel yourself start to heat up just a bit at even alluding to the events that took place earlier.  The way his fingers felt—

Steam begins to fill the open concept chamber while you shake your head against the train of thought and reach for the soap, beginning to circle the bar along your arms and shoulders with a sigh.  This is already the longest shower you’ve taken in almost two months, and your body slowly relaxes under the mist and heat as you take forever cleaning yourself, slowly and hypnotically rubbing the soap along your skin.

The second you let your eyelids dip shut at the feeling, you immediately shiver at a flash of Dameron dragging his finger out of his mouth and blinking dark eyes at you through the transparisteel.

Fuck.  The soap slips from your hand and you quickly catch it against your body before it falls to the ground completely, suddenly feeling the need to breathe in the misty air a bit harder.  Shower, you’re in the shower.  Come on.

The dirt and grime is scrubbed from your face and you tilt your head to move the bar of soap across your neck.  As it lathers, you can’t help but remember the way his lips felt against the skin right there, the scratch of his beard.  You keep working the soap against that same spot for a while, not knowing if you’re trying to wash away the sensation or simulate it, until you gradually slow and make it lighter, softer—yes, that’s closer to how it felt, that’s—

Soon the water is boiling hot and you’re trying not to boil along with it, remembering everything he said against this spot, the filth he whispered to you here.  Your pussy starts to throb between your legs as the memories play out in your mind, how close he got you to shattering bliss without even really working for it.  If you put it all together collectively, you don’t think he actually touched you for more than a minute or two total today.  Mostly he just talked to you, but stars, he hit buttons you didn’t even think you had, had you a split second away from cumming harder than Maker knows while his finger rested just above your clit and provided no stimulation whatsoever.

Fuck, you enjoyed it.  You did, you’ll admit it when there’s no one else here but you.  You enjoyed the fuck out of it.  You wish he’d do it again.  Force you to lose, force you to cum so you can at least blame him for it, remove your responsibility from the equation and allow you to put just one more thing on his shoulders, to taste ecstacy instead of expecting you to bear the weight of pretending you don’t need it any longer.  He was doing you a favor, you realize that now.  Your body is staging a fucking coup and you wish you could’ve called mercy before it got to this agonizing point.  He turns you on, you fucking admit it.  He inspires violent emotions in you—jealousy, arousal, anger, temptation—thoughts you don’t want to have and consolidating it all into various forms of hatred makes the finer details easier to ignore.  Your perception of him has always been skewed by your iron will, but he all but took a fucking sledgehammer to it today, dented it beyond all recognition.  You want him, you want to him to take it all away, you want him to fuck you—in the… fuck, in the good way.

You don’t have a thought beyond that.  Your hand quickly falls down the length of your body to wash your private parts, biting your lip as your hips slowly start to rock into it.  You’re getting clean, you’re getting clean, this is how you clean yourself, this is… yes, as long as you keep the bar of soap pressed between your palm and the top of your curls like this, you’re cleaning yourself and you can just… ease your finger down just a little bit and—

Flipflops suddenly echo from the twisting hallway leading to the tiled freshers, and you immediately snatch your hand back up again, not needing to turn around to know another girl is walking into the room.  A knob somewhere to your right eventually makes a dull squeak as you quickly finish washing up and turn your showerhead off, grabbing your towel and wrapping it around yourself.

Maker, you feel like your pussy is plotting your demise.  Fuck, you can’t believe you almost cheated in the fucking showers just now where literally anyone could walk in, you thought you would’ve had more self-control than that.  You make your way into the changing rooms and grab your pajamas, starting to tug them on without fully drying your body and having only one thought in mind.  

Dameron will probably be celebrating late tonight.  You can tuck in early, scurry back to your room and cheat there.

Well, no, not cheating, because you clearly remember making a very compelling argument about wet dreams earlier today.  Maker, a freebie, the word has never sounded so enticing.  What you’d say amounts to a… bye-week orgasm basically, since you know he’s already lost at least one match against his own body and you’re meant to be competing on the same level.  It’s only fair to let you persevere through the toughest part of the challenge if he was allowed to throw a game early on and still stay in the competition.  Maybe he threw multiple games, you never got a straight answer concerning that, so it’s still under review.  He could’ve thrown… three games, even.  Or four.

You dress as quickly as possible and then nearly bolt through the entrance area to the restrooms with all the sinks and stalls.  The balled up dirty clothes and wet towel in your arms allow you to hide the way your nipples are stiff and tender against your thin pajamas, and you can’t wait to climb into your bunk and take everything off under the covers.  You’ll be able to cum, at least once.  It’ll relieve so much stress, get rid of this nightmare headache, rip through your body like lightning and paralyze it until you can start over from square one and think like yourself again.

And, you’re just about to power walk your ass back to your quarters when a body nearly slams into yours as soon as you step foot outside the door, your shoulder jerking back just in time to avoid a collision.

A mechanic, you think.  You’re not exactly sure, you don’t hang out with too many of them—he’s Chiss and his glowing red eyes don’t even land on you as you gasp and sidestep him at the last second, but it’s not him that catches the majority of your attention.  He just exited the men’s room at the same time you left the women’s, and the door takes a moment to swing shut behind him.

You freeze.  It can’t be more than a few seconds—but it feels like everything slows down and it lasts a fucking eternity.

Dameron is standing at a sink in the far corner of the room, naked except for a towel identical to the one in your arms wrapped loosely around his waist.  He cradles the base of his own throat with one hand and gently drags a razor down the smooth contour of it with the other, his chin tilted up high and regal while his eyelids dip low to concentrate on his movements.  He glances down and holds the foamy blade under the running faucet, tapping it twice against porcelain before the door slides him out of frame.

I can shave, a low, silky murmur slowly fills your ears, heat swelling low and hot in your tummy.  Tonight, I’ll shave it off.  Make it nice and smooth for you.

You feel like your body is just a collection of rigid knots all tied together, and the one between your legs is the tightest it’s ever been.  Stars, on another day you’d say it feels like a bad cramp, even though you know your injection makes your period rare and like clockwork.  Regardless, the split second image makes you shudder and clamp up painfully, and you just stand there and stare at the closed door for a second, trying not to shake.

Fuck, this is so fucking… presumptuous of him.

Realistically, you know it could have absolutely nothing to do with you.  It’s his face—you’re not self-centered enough to have completely lost your concept of autonomy.  He can do whatever he wants to his body, and that includes facial hair, full stop.  You also know that he’s not being… obvious about it, no matter how much it feels that way to you.  He’s using the sink and mirror at the very end of the room, not any of the ones nearest to the door—but even if he was, it’s not like he could’ve planned for you to walk out at the exact moment the metal hinge was angled wide open.  He couldn’t possibly have intended for this, for you to see him doing this.  He wasn’t making a show, didn’t even notice you standing there.  You blame literally everything on him, or at least you always try your absolute best to—but this one…

It sends a hard shudder down your spine and you clutch the fabric in your arms tighter, trying not to drop it.  Fuck.  This is torture.  Fuck him.  Good and bad—both ways, all the ways he can be fucked, fuck him.  Your head is spinning, you’re sweating fresh out of the shower, you need to cum.  Maybe if you hurry, you can get that precious orgasm before he’s finished, because if Dameron is able to intercept you before you can tend to this, you’re… you’re not sure how you’re going to say no to him.

You don’t even think you want to anymore.  

You feel like you’re just… holding onto it on principle now.  Too stubborn and hardheaded to want change.  Too stuck in your own ways to recognize how much everything already has changed.

Somehow, you end up making your way back to your room, but the whole thing is a blur.  Your flipflops plap against your heels as you navigate through hallways as quick as you can, emptier than you’ve seen them in months.  You know most of the pilots are probably out celebrating in either the mess hall or rec room, but the thought doesn’t really presently register.  Almost nothing registers besides your continuous forward motion and the way you feel yourself throb with every step, aching for something you are going to get tonight.  Fuck, you are so attached to this orgasm now, it’s not going anywhere and neither are you.  You deserve this, you deserve some relief.  Come hell or highwater, it’s happening tonight.

As soon as you step into your room and slap your hand blindly against the wall panel to close the door behind you, you’re carelessly dropping the bundle of fabric to the floor and then shrugging out of your pajamas in the cool pitch darkness, having exactly one mission in mind.  You don’t bother with lights, with brushing your hair, with literally anything besides clamoring up the ladder to your top bunk and wiggling under the thin bedsheet, making sure to pull it up to your chin before your legs butterfly open.  The tip of your finger wets itself on your tongue and then you’re dropping it down and sliding it against your poor clit, the pleasure arcing and flaring so sharp and sensitive even from your touch that you have to give it just a second.

…No, no you don’t.  You don’t have to give it fucking anything.  You keep moving your finger hard and quick even as your hips naturally want to jerk away from it, shoving yourself through the sensitivity with gritted teeth and a ferocious will.

Fuck, how long do you think you have?  Was Dameron shaving pre or post-shower?  You can’t remember, all you know is he had a towel around his waist.  And that thin gold chain hanging down his neck.  Was his hair wet?  Fuck, why can’t you remember?  His chin and jaw were smooth as silk, you know that much.  Post-shower, then.  Probably.  Probably?

His chin and jaw were smooth as silk.  You keep getting stuck on that no matter how chaotically your thoughts whirl; they fling out in different directions at different velocities but all somehow manage to go in a perfect circle and end up at the same place you started.  His chin, his jaw, his mouth, his neck, his chin, his mouth, his jaw, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth—

You feel yourself start to clamp down and you speed up, chasing it.  The pleasure starts burning deep inside you, the fire slowly licking down your thighs and rising up into your abdomen, and then—

And then a series of quiet beeps from the hallway practically blare like alarm bells to your frantic mind.

You immediately stop moving your finger, snapping your legs tight together and flat to the mattress as soon as the door to your room shifts open and fluorescent light spills inside, and you feel like you could actually fucking cry right now.

All this edging is just a form of self-flagellation at this point.  You lay there and try not to make a sound, try not to tremble hard enough to shake the whole bunk with it, but even your breathing feels like it’s going to give you away.  Dameron, shirtless with his towel draped over his shoulder, slowly steps into the room and then pauses almost immediately, making your heart stutter for a second at what so blatantly caught his attention.

One quick glance down towards his feet confirms the simultaneous hope and fear—you left everything on the floor.  The towel, the dirty clothes, and your pajamas are strewn about haphazardly right where he needs to walk.

You know what it must look like to him.  A trail of clothes leading directly to an occupied bed isn’t exactly subtle, even though you didn’t necessarily intend it that way.  Still, what can you say?  Your hand is shoved in between your legs right now and you’re in your birthday suit under this thin sheet, what the fuck can you say to him?  Sorry Dameron, got too caught up with how stupid wet you get me that I left those there on accident on my way to cheat, but totally not because I lowkey want your help doing it.  Convincing, that’ll go over great.

Dameron slowly lifts his head to look at you.  Or, at least you think he does—the light from the open door behind him casts his body in a dark silhouette, but you know your face is perfectly illuminated for him right now.  Blinking down at him from the top bunk with your brows pulled up in the middle, wide-eyed and desperate and caught red-handed.  Fuck, you don’t know if he can see the way your knees are clamped tight together and your hand rests perfectly still against your pussy like this from the angle he’s at, but you know it has to be super fucking obvious either way.  You’re breaking the rules, you’re touching yourself, and you both know it.  You can’t lie, you can’t even sit up without confirming his very valid suspicion.  He can call the game at any point, but…

You watch his head fall back down to study the mess you left for him once more.  Fuck, are you positive that was an accident?  Normally you wouldn’t second guess anything about your own understanding of the interactions that occur between you and him, but—you’ve never done that before.  You’ve lived with roommates on this base for years, you don’t just… get naked before getting into bed, that’s bad form.  How are you going to get up in the morning without having your pajamas shoved near your feet while you sleep?  Wrap this thin bedsheet around yourself and scamper down the ladder until you can snatch them up from the floor, and then what?  Climb all the way back up just to wiggle the clothes on underneath the blanket before going back down again?  Maker, you fucked up, your pussy is plotting your fucking demise.

But then everything inside you pulls taut as Dameron suddenly decides to move.  Slowly, he leans down to catch your orange jumpsuit closest to his feet with a few fingers, before he stands upright and carefully begins folding the fabric without saying a single word to you.  Electricity buzzes through you as he very obviously takes his time with it, using nearly his whole armspan to lengthen and fold the sleeves while his chest and chin meet for support.  When he’s eventually satisfied with it, he takes a few steps toward the empty desk on your side of the room and then sets the neat rectangle of fabric atop it where you usually keep it.

You bite your lip and you can’t help it—you start to move your finger as he goes back to sort the pajamas you wore for barely two seconds from your dirty clothes, folding and putting away whatever is clean and then tossing the rest into the shared laundry basket that gets collected every week.  Somehow it makes you feel even more naked, seeing all your clothes be returned to their proper places, realizing that this is your base state now, this is what you’re going to wear tonight.  Nothing.  You left everything on the floor and trapped yourself up here, he’s simply shifting a pawn forward two spaces in kind now that you’ve made your first move.

You can feel yourself pulse threateningly against your own fingertip while he collects your wet towel and drapes it over your closet door to dry, and your breath comes louder through your nose while you bite back the noises you want to make, the way your movements so desperately want to speed up.  Your hand working the way you want it to under the white sheets would be too much, too revealing, but you don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to care.

But then of course, the asshole has to go and put away his towel and clothes, and you endure through the whole thing while pressing back and forth against your clit so hard and slow that your toes curl and pull the sheet tucked under your chin taut.  After that’s done, he makes his way over to the portshade above his desk and slowly slides it open a few inches, the light of three moons outside gradually filling the room.  However, when Dameron goes back to press a button on the wall panel and close the door to the hallway, you immediately see how much softer it is in here, how the artificial fluorescents have thankfully disappeared and the room illuminates more than it blinds, glows more than it beams.  He presses one more button as the lock inside the paneling slides into place.

You bite your bottom lip and try your best to hide the pleasure you’re building for yourself while he makes his way back to his desk, quietly swiping the radio off it and lowering the volume knob completely before he flips it on.  The noise slowly amplifies until you’re able to catch two distinct voices conversing in Huttese—it’s the only lingua franca that still broadcasts on this old technology in this part of the galaxy, but he’s already flipping through the stations in search of something specific.

If you were thinking straight, you may have actually recognized this for what it is, but you’re having trouble even processing the details of your general surroundings right now, your mind is lagging and too slow at reading between the lines.  Dameron’s doing exactly what he said he would do.  He laid it all out earlier for you in the x-wing, telling you exactly what he wanted plain as day, and now he’s checking the whole list off one by one.  The shade is open and the room is lit just enough to make him out, the door is locked, and he’s finding something to listen to.  Something quiet, and easy.

If you were thinking straight, you’d realize that there’s a much more obvious reason why he shaved his beard—you never told him the truth about how much you liked it.  You never tell him the truth.  You allow—even encourage him to think the sharp things you say to him are exactly how you feel.  He did it because he believed you.

Oh, but you’re not thinking straight.  Your thoughts are scattered and the only thing they can agree upon is how good this feels, even as your breathing starts to grow heavier, grow louder underneath the sound of the radio.  The thought stays right beneath your consciousness, tugging at your preoccupied mind.  You work your finger with just a little more verve now that he’s flipping through the stations, knowing he’s distracted by spinning the dial through intermittent white noise while different voices and songs fill the room for just a second at a time.

Your bed, his voice suddenly echoes through your thoughts, originating from your subconscious but almost sounding like it’s coming from the radio in your delirious mind.  I want you comfortable.

Fuck, the understanding finally clicks the second he flips to a slower song and you start to burn at the thought of what’s next.  The silent promise that his actions allude to.  You have the realization way too late but at least it still comes at all with the state you’re in.  Your hand slows down immediately, not even needing to consciously consider the choice between achieving orgasm through your finger or his mouth.  Still, it’s hard to stop touching yourself completely when it feels so fucking good to your deprived body.

Fuck, it’s barely been a few seconds since your realization and yet you immediately bristle in distress at how fucking long he’s taking.

So you open your mouth.  You’re desperate and needy and on the verge of something, and it comes out without thought.  You don’t think it’s loud enough for him to hear, but his head immediately lifts and looks unseeingly at the wall in front of him for a second, as if he’s questioning if he imagined it.  A soft melody plays on a bluesy guitar while you hiccup and wait, but he doesn’t move.

And then you say it again, higher and tighter in your throat, pitched up to an impatient, girlish whine.  “Poe…”

The radio is tossed onto the bottom bunk as soon as he spins around and walks towards the ladder, but it’s like your finger has a mind of its own the moment he disappears underneath your line of sight.  Your legs spasm against the mattress and you bite your lip, not caring about the frantic way your hand begins moving under the sheet as his muted footsteps climb up the rungs.

Your eyes snap to his as soon as you can see him beyond the railing at your feet, heaving himself up until everything above his waist is above you, too.  His pauses there and his lashes quickly dip to the shameless movements between your legs as you work yourself towards that approaching bliss, and then flick back to the way you’re biting your lip and looking at him so torn, wanting so badly to wait for it but not being able to right now.

Slowly, he begins to move forward, crawling his way up the mattress and over your body, noticeably careful with where he places his limbs.  You’re not hard to dodge, though—you’re like a rigid stick of desperation under him, knees and ankles still clamped tight together and your arms streamlined as close to your body as possible with tension as you keep rubbing your clit.  Not to mention the sheet is thin and shows your figure almost perfectly with how tight you’ve hooked it under your chin, only leaving the finest details to the imagination.

But then there starts to be a little strain against the fabric, an unspoken question he’s still bothering to ask even though you could’ve told him to fuck off ages ago.  Poe could yank the sheet down and flip your shit over and destroy you right now if he wanted—fuck, like you want him to do—but his face slowly appears in front of yours instead and his dark eyes search your features for answers.  The length of his chain dangles from his muscular neck and glows against his golden skin, his whole upper body stretched long and bare over you.

From the gradually increasing tightness pulling on the fabric, you expect the sheet to rip down your body as soon as you lift your chin and let that resistance go, but instead… stars, it’s slow.  Why is he going so fucking slow??  The bedsheet barely flutters down to your collarbone before he’s able to stop tugging on it so hard, and then he just gently inches the hem down from that point on.

Fuck—your eyes drop to his lips as he eventually reveals your shoulders and sternum to the room, and then lower to your cleavage while you let out a hushed whimper, praying he understands the extent of how vulnerable you’re allowing yourself to be.  You don’t do this often—and you definitely don’t do it with someone like him.  He’s the one who said you needed this, isn't he?  So why the fuck is he dragging out the anticipation?  Pretending like he doesn’t see the way you’re begging for help in the middle of another warzone that’s breaking out for the second time today?

Poe’s head drops down to give the contour of your neck a long drag of his tongue, slow and hot and wet, the sheet eventually dropping beneath your nipples and exposing them to the cool air.  You bite your lip and keep working yourself under the fabric even as it’s led down the length of your tummy, and you just get wetter and wetter feeling him mouth at your skin as the radio continues to play soft from the bottom bunk.  He follows the skin as it’s revealed, licking down from your collarbone and working with the increasing rate of your breathing.  His lips never feel like they vary in pressure, even as your chest heaves up and down and your lungs work hard for air.

His open mouth slowly drags down the curve of your breast and it makes your blood burn fire through your veins.  You nearly choke when your nipple is enveloped in soft heat, his tongue quickly fluttering up under the stiff peak and giving it to you so gently, contrasting so light and vernal with how brilliant and neon bright the need between your legs is.  Your hand starts to work quicker, and fuck—you can hear it now, your desperate movements audible over the shallow breaths and the sound of one song gradually fading into another below you.  You’re just too fucking wet and your pussy is smushed with how tight your legs are pressed together—the noise is unavoidable, and Poe’s knees are planted too close to either side of your thighs to spread them really at all.

Fuck, you knock against the resistance regardless to let him know what you want, but he doesn’t budge and it makes you just about lose your damn mind.  Does he have to make everything so fucking difficult?  You couldn’t close your legs earlier and now you can’t open them, and it’s like he’s able to take perfect advantage of each opposing position to prolong your torture.

But then his tongue leaves you even as his jaw opens just slightly, and that’s the only warning you get before his teeth graze your nipple with a sudden arc of sensation and you flare up all at once.

It’s a miracle and a curse that you’re able to stop at the very last second, your hand jerking away from your pussy and flexing into a fucking death claw on your thigh at how close you were, and you don’t know why.  Why did the fuck did you stop?  There’s nothing standing in your way right now, you’ve consciously given yourself express permission to cum, but still.  It must just be learned instinct at this point—hammered into your muscle memory for weeks on end to not allow the pleasure no matter what, especially when you’re this fucking close to it.

Nonetheless you garble out nonsense and cinch inwards on yourself to fight it off now that you’ve apparently decided against it.  There’s nothing worse than a half-assed orgasm, and you have to quickly summon the conviction behind your split second reaction before it’s too late and your body takes the pleasure any way it can get it.

Poe’s mouth releases your nipple at the way your whole spine suddenly hunches in and he drops his forehead to your chest, breathing heavy down the slope of your breast as you tremble and grapple for your sanity.

“Did you just cum?”  Is the first thing he says to you, his voice is so ragged and stony it’s practically gravel crunching as he speaks.

“N-n-no,” you quickly stammer at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe correctly.  Inhale, exhale—fuck, which one is inhale again, which one comes first?  Maker, does he need to call a fucking medic?  “Huhhhhalmost?”

Poe takes a deep breath and slowly releases it with a bassy and warm mmmm rumbling against your skin, so coarse but pleased enough to sound like melted chocolate dripping down your body.  The noise sends a violent shudder through you and it’s almost enough to knock you back to that edge again, even without your fingers assisting it.  

His head dips and the sheet pulls down even more, just below your belly button now, and you let out a quiet gasp in anticipation, nearly on the verge of begging him to keep moving downwards.  But when Poe’s eyes close and his mouth suddenly moves back up to open over your other nipple instead, your patience snaps.  

Fuck him, bad way.  This is your orgasm, you’re done waiting.

“I’m gonna cum,” you snarl furiously down at him, shoving your hand between your legs even as Poe’s lips quirk against your skin.  It’s not a warning, it’s a threat.  If he’s gonna be like this, he doesn’t get to share it with you.  It’s your orgasm, you’ll give it to yourself if he doesn’t give a shit about it.  “Thought you wanted it, guess not.”

You immediately feel his teeth again in response to your admittedly slightly bitchy comment and this time he lets your nipple roll just a bit between them, making you jerk at the sensation and quickly find your clit again.  Oh, you’re soaking fucking wet, you’re wet everywhere.  Slick and swollen and burning, and it’s not going to take much at all.  The sheet sticks to your overheated body and you can’t tell the difference between your sweat, his saliva, or wetness from between your legs—it all just feels damp and slippery as you gradually lose your bearings under his mouth.

“Fuck this, I’m gonna cum,” you breathe once more, possibly nothing more than a mindless reiteration but most likely just one last veiled plea for him to give you what you both want.  As if he can tell, Poe quickly lifts his mouth and suddenly the sheet is ripped the rest of the way down your naked body completely, sharp and frustrated, and then his lips brush against your elbow as it twitches, nipping the sensitive skin there.

“Brat,” he growls quietly against your forearm as he keeps dragging his lips down further, following the path it makes along your tummy.  “Just likes making shit difficult.”

“You’re the one—” you hiccup, trying to sound angry but just melting into a puddle at the tip of his tongue slowly trailing down your frantically moving wrist, “—you’re the… the o-one who… who…?”

But you’re already sprinting towards that edge, feeling him drop even lower and his hot breath fan against your fingers, and at this point you’re too far gone.  Poe gently kisses at your closed thighs, in perfect position and ready for you, but you can’t stop yourself anymore unless he makes you stop, and the longer he waits down there without grabbing your hand to replace it with something better the more you don’t give a shit about whether or not it’s going to happen.  You can feel the orgasm rising, you can feel your toes flex and everything start to lock down for the approaching tsunami.  You’re going to get it this time, you’re going to cum, you’re going to—

“This is—” you rasp, “—this is a f-free, a fffff-ffreeeeb—”

His tongue softly grazes your knuckle as it works.

And then there’s a moment.  A suspended moment that seems to go on forever, where you’re launched directly over that cliff and yet you still seem to be gaining altitude.  Where’s the drop?  You’re already cumming—you can feel it, there’s absolutely no fucking going back now, but it’s like your sheer desperation has so much momentum that your body tricks itself into believing there’s nothing to land on, no gravity to immediately rip you straight down to your demise.

You choke out his name and your back arches with it and that must be the signal, because Poe finally pulls your hand away and lets his chin dip, and then his jaw falls open and allows you just enough time to catch the glimmer of his pink tongue before it slides wet and slow through your swollen folds.

Heat.  It sears through your whole body with a wracked shudder, the slick glide over your clit as his eyes flutter closed, and within the very first second of feeling his mouth on you, you’re instantly cumming inside it.

There.  There’s the drop.

The burning erupts into molten chaos, crumpling your whole body on impact like an accordion, but he sinks all his weight down on your legs and forces you to endure it with everything below your waist pinned to the mattress.  It’s fucking mayhem.  You feel like your voice actually rips itself in half with the ragged cry of blinding relief, so enormous and soul wrenching in power that you couldn’t even hope to muffle it.  You can’t move your hips through it, you can’t stutter up to ride it out—you have to experience the whole thing with your lower body completely still while his tongue takes slow, gentle licks at your throbbing clit, only able to sit your shoulders up and slam them back down and grab his head as you endure.

You cum hard.  Fucking hard.  It’s daunting and explosive and utterly devastating in the havoc it wreaks, and just when you think you’ve seen the worst of it, it’s just so slow.  Creeping along and obliterating everything in its path, taking an eternity to pass because of how fucking big it is.

When you’re finally able to float back down into your own body again, the first thing you notice is how tight his hold is.  Poe’s arms are wrapped around your thighs to keep them pressed tight together and you can feel the wetness all the way down to your fucking knees as they tremble against each other.  Stars, what did he do to you?  You feel like you actually wet yourself, there’s way too much dampness on the mattress underneath you to feel anywhere close to normal for you.

His mouth eventually leaves you but his head doesn’t move, nothing else moves.  Even his hot breath feels like rough stimulation to your throbbing pussy.

And then Poe shifts and adjusts his body just enough, catching the backs of your knees and slowly spreading your legs up and apart like you wanted to do ages ago.  They feel like jelly, wobbly and unsteady even as his thumbs hook right under your knees and easily support most of their weight.  Your pussy is soon exposed completely, and his shoulders move down just before his head drops to lick the collection of wetness right from your entrance.  Fuck, he couldn’t get it from the previous angle your legs were at, just your clit at the very top—but this is deep and personal and you know he’s probably getting mouthfuls of how hard he just made you cum, using the tip of his tongue to scoop your arousal up and swallowing it quietly before going back for more.

“Poe,” you whisper, and he rumbles low in his throat in response without stopping.  This isn’t for you, this isn’t for your benefit right now.  Your pleasure receptors aren’t concentrated right here, just the physical evidence of them being overloaded just a few moments ago, but he stays for longer than necessary.  He keeps his mouth here far longer than you need to push past the throbbing sensitivity and start to crave the sensation again, forcing you to bite your lip to stop yourself from telling him to move back up just a couple inches.

So you seek it out instead, the lower part of your body clearly not listening to a damn thing your mind tells it right now.  Your hips drop and his velvet tongue catches your clit at the apex of its repetitive motion, and you gasp and rock upwards again as Poe groans and immediately rises with you to chase it.  He attaches to the swollen flesh and sucks at it gently for you, following your lead, letting your wet fingers comb his hair back from his face and clutch a good fistful of it as you plant your feet and slowly grind up into his mouth.

Fuck.  He was right.  You needed this.  Everything about it is heaven—endorphins pour off you in waves as you roll your hips against his face, and he lets you do it.  He’s not just pliant, he’s willing.  His tongue works diligently, his eyes close and he moans into your pussy, allowing you to tug his hair and fit to his mouth exactly how you want.

Oh, everything burns.  Everything smolders and sparks, because he’s always been so withholding and now he’s just going for it.  He’s reading your mind better than he did during the battle today, not necessarily submissive in his approach but… servicing.  Accommodating.  Finally giving in and putting real effort into helping you chase after another shot of ecstasy without being so stingy about it like before.

As soon as you feel another familiar swell of something deep down, your mouth is suddenly dropping open.

“How many—” your ragged voice comes out without thinking, and it takes so fucking long to actually attach the train of thought to its conduit of translation.  You swallow thickly and flex your fingers in his hair, tugging at him to ground yourself, trying to anchor yourself to the very thing that’s about to fling you into oblivion again.  “—fuck, how many times did you… how many fr-freebies do I—do I…”

Poe eases his chin back just enough to respond, and the slick sound his tongue makes leaving your clit makes you shudder and miss the wretched words at first.  “Mm.  Just the one.”

And then his tongue is already sliding back through your pussy by the time your eyes pop open in immediate panic, and your clit is in his mouth again as soon as yours drops to frantically contest.

But the words aren’t coming, it feels too fucking amazing.  Your jaw goes slack and your fingers tighten in his hair.  Maker almighty, the orgasm swells up so sharp and quick that you have to fucking kick him at the very last second to get away from it.  Thankfully Poe’s mouth abruptly leaves you with his oof of shock at your audacity, lifting his head as you snap your legs together and grit your teeth through your miserable retreat from ecstasy.  You don’t even notice the way your knee almost knocks into his jaw with it—you just focus on shamefully easing your way back down again from the platform overlooking bliss like you’re too afraid of the high-dive.  After a second, you actually have to turn on your side and rock yourself like a child as Poe slowly sits up with a grimace, lifting his arm to rub at his ribcage where your heel slammed into him.

You peek an eye open to watch him do it and oh no, it’s not a good plan.  He’s so… fucking hot.  Fuck.  He’s unbelievably good-looking—his hair curls and frames such handsome features, his body is lovely and warm and seeing his chest bare and up close like this makes you want to reach out and slowly drag your hand down the smooth curve of his side.  But then your gaze catches on the dark sweatpants tented shamelessly between his legs and how he’s glistening with perspiration, too, and how he tugs at the fabric covering his crotch and sighs softly, blinking down at you slow and intoxicated with lust.

You have to close your eyes and bury your face into the pillow because your body is latching onto anything to keep you within inches of that edge.  The mere sight of him is enough to make you worry for yourself.  You take deep breaths and do your best to tune his existence out entirely.  Just you, just you in your bed, trying desperately not to cum without even touching yourself.  You’re naked and curled up and there's no one here to look down at you with deep brown eyes, no one else breathing and especially not equally as loud as you are.  Just you, just you.

And, just when you think you might finally get to the point where you’re not teetering anymore, where you’re at least mostly certain that moving around and looking at things and just existing in general isn’t going to make you completely unravel hands-free at any moment, he has to fucking… go and be himself.

You peek up to see him staring down at you, dark and intimate and devouring, before his hand gently brushes down the curve of your hip.  “Maker, you are so fucking hot right now.  Was that a close one, pretty baby?”

Your hand snaps out to grab his wrist with a whimper and you don’t know if your intent is to stop him or just hang on for dear life, but your grip is weak and you shake and Poe takes the opportunity to grab a handful of your ass while you do absolutely fuck all to stop him.

“Mmmm.  Open your legs,” he murmurs, releasing your flesh just to give it a soft smack.  “You’re only making it worse like this.”

“What?  W-What do you—” you stammer, but Poe drags his hand down your thigh to catch one of your knees and pull it up without waiting for your babbled reply.  Both knees go with him, your pelvis wound too tight and frozen to do anything but rotate your whole entire body on your tailbone.

“You’re just adding more pressure by keeping them closed,” he explains, wiggling his fingers in between your knees to try and get enough of a grip to pry them apart.  “C’mon—open your legs, let yourself breathe.”

“Nnnnnnstop talking,” you groan, trying to slap at him, but he’s strong enough to force the movement regardless, levering your knees apart and then pushing them tight to the mattress.  And, though he would normally be right about it, you’re fighting your mind to get away from the orgasm just as much as you are your body.  The sudden exposure and the positioning and the way he automatically drops his gaze down at your needy pussy with his cock still hidden in his pants like that only serves to displace the cause instead of eliminating the effect.  Closing the door and opening a window, shifting the stimulation somewhere else but allowing it to throb steady and aching regardless.

“Much better,” he sighs lowly, digging his fingers into the sore muscles inside your thighs and you just keep your hands loosely attached to his wrists as he works.  “Fuck me, baby’s got such a pretty pussy doesn’t she?”

“Poe,” you wheeze up at him, hearing him rumble at the sight of your cunt contracting around nothing, probably shining and glistening with your desperation for him.  By this point, you’re worrying again.  You have no doubt whatsoever that he could talk you into cumming just like this, with your hands trembling and clutching at his wrists.  If he keeps murmuring filth while holding your legs open and staring at your pussy like this, you have no doubt you’ll find a way to get there somehow.

Thankfully, he seems to understand.  He goes quiet and just keeps massaging your sore muscles while you try not to writhe underneath him.  Stars, it’s like he’s genuinely doing what he can to take it easy on you and you’re still all kinds of fucked up about it, still frantic and desperate while all he’s doing is just squeezing your legs.

“Calm down,” he gruffs, but you can’t.  “You’re working yourself up, don’t—”

“Stop talki—” your ragged growl is cut off by your own hiccup as you quickly find the strength to shove at his hands, knowing they’re at least mostly to blame for your prolonged tightrope walk.  You can’t fucking think when he’s touching you, you become too hyper-aware of your own body, it feels too good in a way that’s hard to describe and impossible to explain.  Poe’s palms immediately listen and raise in front of him in surrender, his back lifting to give you space while you hide your face from him with shaky hands and gasp.  It’s pathetic and your legs are still held wide open and your fingers tremble hard enough to resemble a malfunction.

You just.  You need a hard reset.  You need that thirty seconds of complete idle, of figuring shit out on your own without an electric current running through you before you can start working properly again.  It can’t be rushed, it’s necessary when most people just want to power down and then right back up again.  The wires connecting your parts are all criss-crossed and tangled and sparks are lighting up at the slightest stimulus, you just need to experience absolutely nothing for thir—

“I’m sorry,” Poe murmurs, still staying in his own space but the gravelly voice shooting a bolt of lightning down your spine.  Thirty seconds, of course he couldn’t give you thirty fucking seconds.  “Fuck, you’re so hot, I’m sorry—”

“Please stop talking,” you beg him, your fingers curling against your face, “Maker, I—I don’t want to cum—”

“Fuck, I know, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucki—”

You go to kick him again and even though it collides wrong and does nothing more than get your message across, the jostle is enough to knock you back from the approaching oblivion just slightly.  It serves to wake you up way more than it remotely hurts him, the equivalent of someone just smacking a piece of machinery and fixing the problem temporarily.

You heave an enormous breath and blink your eyes open behind your fingers, immediately locking with his.  Poe’s teeth are digging into his bottom lip but he’s mercifully silent, even when you drop your shaky hands down to your spread thighs and stay equally silent another full minute while you make the effort to right yourself.  After awhile though, you realize he must be taking cues from you, waiting for you to speak.

Only, you suddenly don’t know what to say.  You’re at a complete loss, looking up at him through your eyelashes in uncertainty now.  Something you’ve never been around him, even as your pussy is wide open for him to look at.  He hasn’t recently, though, you don’t think.  He’s just keeping his eyes on your face, watching you bite your lip and blink up at him while your mind whirls, the only sound that can be heard is the radio continuing to lull from the bottom bunk.

You wish he’d say something.  How come he’s choosing right now to listen to what you tell him to do?  You don’t… you don’t know what to say to him.  Why can’t you figure out something?  You fidget but then suddenly feel your expression lose all its struggle and just look… innocent.  Needing his help.

“Do you want me to leave?”  Poe eventually asks after another moment, tentative of breaking the silence, and you frantically shake your head before he’s even finished speaking.  Fuck, something drops in your stomach at how desperate you’re probably coming off right now, but you’re so lost and you know that’s at least one question you know the immediate answer to.

Poe tilts his head thoughtfully, slowly reaching a hand towards your thigh without removing his eyes from yours.  “Want me to make you cum again?”

You shake your head again, wide-eyed and worried.  He immediately pulls his hand back and blinks slowly at you.

“You want to be edged more?”  He asks lowly, and you shake your head vehemently for the third time.  Poe sighs and sits back, planting his palms to his thighs and pulling at the fabric of his pants in budding frustration, clearly tired of playing twenty questions.  “Well what do you want, baby?  You wanna just hang out?  That’s fine, I don’t care, but you gotta tell me.”

Fuck, he’s right, what do you want?  The only thing that’s standing in your way of feeling better, you soon realize.

“Want you to cum first,” you mumble, cheeks warming at how childish you sound.

“Not a fucking chance,” Poe immediately scoffs, crossing his arms over his bare chest.  “And pouting at me isn’t gonna help.”

“Why not?”  You breathe, dipping your gaze down his body.  “I can use my mouth.”

“I don’t—” he stops short, suddenly registering what you said and switching gears.  “You can—?”  Poe narrows his eyebrows and looks suspicious.  “You’ll let me… cum in it?”

“Okay,” you whisper in breathless agreement, sitting up and reaching for him, but Poe groans and pushes you back down on the mattress with a flattened palm against your shoulder like you just aced a test he was hoping you’d fail.

“Fuck whoever’s idea this was,” he grits darkly to himself while you arch up against his hold, wanting him to grab your tits but knowing it’s not a good idea right now.  “Maker, I’m so fucking hard—fuck whoever’s idea this was, making me turn that down—”

“You said,” you pant, licking your dry lips and blinking up at the ceiling, trying to control yourself, “before, you said that you’re… you’re not doing this for a bet, right?  So why not?”  Your voice goes softer when you flutter your gaze back at him, even though the accusation feels like it should be sharper if anything, since it comes from a very real place of distrust.  “Were you just… lying to me about that?”

“Fuck, come on,” Poe groans, his voice starting to waver as he shakes his head and squints one eye at you, exasperated.  “You don’t get it.  You can’t think of a single fucking reason I don’t wanna blow my load just yet?  Really?”

The sentence coupled with his rock solid hold on you skitters a thrill through your body and you automatically reach up to run your hand along his forearm.  He looks down at the caress and then back to your face and fuck, even you feel like you’re sending mixed signals right now.

“You could… fuck me,” you whisper, and Poe’s dark eyebrows pull up as his gaze falls down your naked body, nodding and digging his teeth into his bottom lip.  An agreement backed by so much unspoken desire that it looks like it almost hurts him just to hear you say it out loud.  “And we can just… see who cums first.”

“Yeah?”  He croaks, his eyes pinned between your open legs.  “Just say fuck it all and race for last place?  Okay.”

Your heart pounds, having just enough wherewithal to preemptively establish a safety net for yourself.  “And—and we can’t finish at the same time or we both lose.”

“Fuck,” Poe groans, reaching down to catch the hem of his sweatpants with his thumb and lifting his hips until his cock is exposed to the dim room.  “We can’t stop once we start, then, we’ll have to see it through.”

Except you don’t catch any of the last part because, uh.  Well, to sum up.  May the Maker have mercy on you all.

Just like that, the only thought in your mind is… you get it.  Okay, you get it.  He told you before that girls were only interested in him for his cock, and it actually… stars, it makes so much fucking sense now, you totally get it.  You thought maybe he was just boasting as a form of overcompensation at first—or, to put it another way you’ve probably used in conversation with him before, talking big talk but walking small walk.  Only now, you’re… humbled.  By a fucking dick, you’re humbled.

You haven’t seen more than a few of them in this context, so you know you’re not necessarily qualified to give an informed opinion, but heavens it’s a sight.  It’s thick and swollen and just a shade darker than his complexion and everything inside you rockets to attention as soon as he wraps his hand around it.  It’s big.  It fills his whole palm without much room to spare.  Far larger than what you’re used to, and you know that no matter how he fucks you with it, you’re gonna feel it tomorrow.  Next weekend, probably.

Your eyes must betray you, because Poe suddenly loosens his grip and breathes your name softly, causing you to flick your eyes back up to his.  You didn’t realize you were staring so openly.

“I’ll go slow,” he reassures you quietly, voice gentle and knowing.  The complete lack of sarcasm or aggression in his tone is enough to snap you back to yourself, knowing that can’t possibly be right.  He’s talking to you like he did when you stumbled your ass out of the x-wing today, when you were barely responsive and lost in dumb shock.  He doesn’t have to… be nice to you right now, like you’re still only moments away from losing it.  It’s offensive.

“I can handle it,” you harumph, widening your legs while Poe immediately suppresses a grin.

“'Course you can,” he sighs with the slightest note of fondness creeping into his voice, dropping his hips as he lines up at your entrance.  “And I’ll go slow anyways.”

You open your mouth to respond but at the first push of his head inside, you inhale sharply and your palm immediately shoots out to press against his chest on complete instinct.  The stab of pain is impossible to mask from your features and Poe instantly stops with a shaky breath, watching how your jaw drops at the intrusion and your face contorts.

“Ahh.  Shit…” he whispers as his head tips down, dark eyes clamping shut and his hold on you tightening.  “What—shit, what the fuck…”

“Keep going,” you growl out, even though you know you’re just making it more difficult on yourself.  You can take Poe’s cock, you can take it, he has absolutely nothing to brag about, it’s completely normal-sized—

His hips inch forwards and you gasp at the excruciating arc of sensation, slapping at him harder.

“Keep going,” you babble while locking your elbows and shoving him back, “fuck, keep going, keep going—”

“Baby,” Poe groans, wrenching one of your hands from his chest and bringing your wrist up to his mouth to kiss and breathe hot air on it, “baby, you gotta let me—”

He moves a little more and you cry out, jerking your hand back from his lips and knocking it hard against his chest before you even realize it.  Oh shit, you can’t handle it, you haven’t been fucked in so long—

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, trying to be nicer by flattening your palm but then immediately digging your nails in, “fuck, I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s been awhile since I—”

“Shit, I can tell,” he pants brokenly, his fingers dropping back down to flex hard on your hip.  “Hoooolyfuck, I can te—ah, fuck, it’s alright, it’s alright, just—nnnnnnshit, okay, just relax, don’t tense up too muuuh… much—”

His cock pushes deeper even as he keeps rambling through it and you feel yourself being rearranged to make room for the slow movement, giving way to a rich pleasure even as the discomfort increases.

Poe stops once more when your hands shove up against him, somehow simultaneously shakier and firmer than all the other times put together and a little more than half of him inside you at this point.  You’re so slick and hot between your legs that there’s no resistance besides the stretch, nothing to stop him from slamming home besides your weak hands trembling at his collarbone, but everything about the way he stays completely frozen for ages says he’s controlled and patient.

Everything except his face, you soon realize.

When your body is finally able to come to terms with the sensation and you blink up at him, Poe isn’t looking at you anymore.  He’s staring directly over your head at the wall, tangible regret manifesting itself in seething frustration marring his expression.  His eyebrows furrow and he scowls but all of it is silent and directed at himself, as if he’s asking why the fuck he actually agreed to do this.  You know then that it must be really fucking wet.  You know then that you must be just blazing hot and tighter than sin and as if in rhythmic agreement, his cock jumps inside you with each pounding rush of blood through it.  You can see the sweat beading at his hairline as he continues to ignore you for the moment, choosing instead to silently lament at the wall like it did something to mortally betray him.

You could… make this a sprint, something devious suddenly whispers to you.  He’s struggling through the pleasure and you can outlast.  From the severity of that look alone, you can put an end to it before it even starts.

Admittedly, you don’t even let the devil finish his damn sentence before you decide to take your own initiative.  You clamp down around him as hard as you can and Poe whips his attention down to you and punches out a curse that sounds like you wrenched the word from his throat before he was anywhere near ready for it.  It comes from somewhere high and defenseless in register and then quickly falls down into a growly pit as his hips automatically lurch forwards the rest of the way inside, hard, smacking into yours as you squeeze wickedly around him.

You keep squeezing through the sudden upward shove of bliss, you keep tightening up even though you’re making agonizing noises and your eyes clamp shut and it hurts.  But stars, it feels good, why does it feel so good when it hurts so bad?  It makes your throat scrape and your face twist up, but you can hear his cursing getting louder and more desperate so you still don’t relax your viselike hold around him.

“Stop it—” he snarls down at you rabidly, “—oh fuck, stop or you’ll make us both cu—”

Shit, he’s right.  You know he’s never been more right about anything as soon as his hips stutter and kick up to a full blown gallop in the middle of his furious scolding, and the sudden build of ecstasy is so fast and intense that you sob his name, not being able to loosen your muscles anymore as soon as it overtakes you.  But it’s like a closed circuit, you’re both recycling the same pleasure without knowing how to shut it off.  The harder you bear down on him, the faster his hips work, the vicious cycle compounding and circling and manifesting in the perfect typhoon within just a few tumultuous seconds.

But then suddenly he rips himself out of you with a gasp and it’s not a moment too soon, because both of you have to scramble and grab onto things to brace yourselves through the worst of it.  You choose the mattress and he chooses the railing, and through the searing discomfort and settling of the chaos that’s becoming more and more familiar to you as this exhausting day passes, you know you fucked up.  You underestimate his self control, time and time again.  But, exactly like earlier today, you feel a thrill skitter up your spine at how he’s going to respond to your brazen treachery in the face of a newly established truce.

“Fuck,” he jerks his head to spit the obscenity at you, sounding more pissed off than you’ve ever heard him, the shredded anger in his voice starting to burn through you.  “Fuckfuckfuuuuck—you make me so mad.  You make me so mad.  I wish I could fuck you right now, on Maker, I’d ruin you.  I’d wreck your shit until you learn and you’d deserve every single fucking second of it, you—”

He stops short and growls jagged sharp in frustration, but you can’t help yourself.

“Say it,” you whimper on a dare, feeling your heart pound.  The words quiver with an inexplicable sort of excitement as you dig your fingers into the mattress, wanting to hear his voice snarl the mysterious profanity.  “Say it.  ‘You…’—what?  Say it.”

Shock suddenly paints his previously tense expression blank, even though his pupils blow out and his chest heaves.  Your voice is too breathless, it’s too needy to sound nearly as antagonistic as you want.  

And then Maker, it’s as if the sheer control he’s clinging to serves to spark his vexation even more.  Mad that you would ask for something so enticing at a moment like this.  Your heart thunders as Poe nearly flashes up close to you and points a threatening finger at you.

“You’re not going to get what you want from me,” he snaps, quiet and furious.  “Not tonight.  I don’t give a shit, I told you I’d slow fuck you and now I’m gonna do it until you act right.”

“You’re an asshole—” you move to lift up onto your elbows, but his hand suddenly plants against your clavicle and shoves you back down flat on the mattress.

“Not even ten minutes after I make you cum and you’ve already got a fucking attitude problem again,” he shoots back, positioning his cock at your entrance with his other hand once more, and Maker you’re drowning between your legs.  His sharp rebuttal and the firm hold on the upper part of your chest makes it that much wetter, knowing you can’t do much more than lift your legs the way you need when he eases his way back inside.  

“P-Poe—” you gasp breathlessly, but it's like he doesn’t hear you.

His expression tenses and he shudders out a low growl.  “Fuck.  Tight little baby.  Rude little baby, just wants everything her way but doesn’t know how to behave herself.”

You have to bite your lip hard to hold back a whine when he’s completely sheathed and his hips connect to yours, and… shit.  You already feel it.  You already feel that simmering starting to take hold deep down once more, that monstrous second orgasm you’ve been fighting now digging its claws into you and licking the base of your spine with fire.  And, as if he can tell, his demeanor instantly changes.

“Uh, oh,” Poe murmurs quietly, equal parts lilting and baiting, slowly dragging his cock out and then starting up the laziest pace you’ve ever experienced with his hand still planted high on your sternum right below your collarbone.  “Can you feel it coming?  Fuck, I can,” he shudders.  “Already.  Fuck, you’re so wet, you’re so wet—wish you had let me eat you out mor—”

“You can’t c—umm,” you hiccup, grasping his wrist and writhing through the building ecstasy, and you don’t know who you’re talking to at this point.  Your other palm slaps at his shoulder with increasing urgency—fuck, he’s been fucking you for barely ten seconds and you’re already struggling to hold everything back.  Only, his hand quickly grabs yours and pins it to the mattress, his face dropping closer as he rolls his hips achingly slow.  You feel his back working with the steady pace, you see his neck flex as his cock drags so thick inside you, and then your gaze starts to lose focus a bit.  It slides up his throat as lazily as he’s augmenting your pleasure, following the contour of his smooth skin until it reaches his face.

And mercy, Poe’s tongue comes out to wet his lips and a dark curl hangs down his forehead, concentrating hard on fucking you steadily without giving into the same creeping euphoria you’re feeling, and you have to turn away and bite back a whimper at the metal railing when the image starts to burn you alive.

“No,” Poe gruffs and his hand slides up a few inches to frame your jaw, twisting until you face him directly once more.  “Right here, you stay right here with me.”

Your eyebrows pull up weakly and your eyes flick across his stunning features, the way he’s so present, so focused and determined while you’re starting to drift.  His skin is so smooth, so golden when his jawline used to be dark, and—

“I—” you choke, starting to lose it, “—I-I…”

“What is it, baby?”  Poe growls, staring down at you with unwavering, intense concentration.  “Tell me.  You gonna cum?”

“I…” you whimper, blinking at him slowly, “I… liked your… b-beard…”

Poe’s eyes, previously hardened and steadfast, suddenly go a bit dumb, a bit dazed.  After a second, his eyebrows lose all strain, his gaze turns warmer and he rolls his hips deeper—

But the swell begins to become the only thing you can comprehend—that and the fact that you should be fighting it.  You should be revolting against it, but now he’s looking so softly down at you and you can’t remember what could possibly be so bad about letting him take away all this ache and desperation again.  Let him continue to take it away, over and over and over until it’s nowhere to be found at all.

And then Poe leans down and kisses you.  And it’s… nothing like you’d expect.

It’s gentle.  It’s tender.  It goes on forever while he rocks into your soaking wet cunt, easing his throbbing cock in and out of you with such a smooth, repetitive motion that sends sparks of ecstasy down your spine at the apex of each thrust.  

You handle it silently.  At first.  You don’t audibly react to any of it, you force your voice to at least keep quiet if you can’t hide the pleasure from your face or body, but then true to fucking form, he has to go and ruin it all.  Poe uses his knees to scoot up just the slightest bit, and then his moan breaks through the absence of the desperate sounds you’ve been holding back as his tongue slowly slides into your mouth.

Your pussy flares, contracting painfully around his cock as it hits a spot that makes your legs shake against his sides.  Your eyes roll back as his soft tongue dips into your mouth and everything just gets tighter, and tighter.  Poe moans again and his hips push a little bit harder into yours on the next thrust, and it’s almost like a domino effect, except that doesn’t do it justice.  It doesn’t topple one by one, it doesn’t take any time at all for the beginning to reach the finish—it’s a house of cards, the whole thing collapses and crashes down in on itself all at once.

You cum.

You lose.  Fair and square.

You make a long, anguished whine into his mouth as you just start spasming, clutching hard at his shoulders and drenching his cock with it, your eyes squeezing shut as you cum so slow and fucking helpless around him.  Oh Maker, it’s fucking devastating, it feels even more destructive and powerful than the first one.  You pull and shove and claw at him equally, mouth slack as Poe tightens his hold and keeps tasting your whimpering cries, fitting his hips snug to yours as he slowly pushes you down through the debilitating ecstasy.  You sob in euphoric defeat and a low, bone-shattering groan of satisfaction rumbles through his chest in response, grinding his cock into you and holding it deep as your pussy convulses.

All those weeks of holding out, just to lose.  You had a freebie, he gave you an orgasm already and it was like a massive dose of spice to your deprived system—all it did was make your body want it more.  Even worse, your orgasm doesn’t immediately inspire one in Poe like a part of you hoped it would, if only so you could reasonably contest the validity of the outcome.  He’s able to ride out every twitch and flex as you shudder your way through it, continuing to lazily slide his tongue into your mouth while it’s held open and slack.  He tastes like you.  He tastes hot and slick and everything about your body feels the same way, damp and unbearably warm from your nape to your elbows to your cunt to the backs of your knees.

You lay there for what feels like a lifetime afterwards, powerless to the way your thighs tremble violently against his hips and letting the tip of his tongue slowly trace the bottom edge of your teeth while he firmly keeps his cock buried inside you.  It pulses thickly and you know he wants to cum, you can feel the tension pulling at his shoulders as he keeps perfectly still.  But then Poe shuffles his arms up until they’re braced around your head, using himself to box you in completely without moving his lips from yours.  His teeth close on your bottom lip as he inches his hard cock out long and aching from your sensitive channel, and then groans and goes back to the same exact dragging pace from before.

Your expression furrows, even as he keeps kissing you and the movement lights up your oversensitive nerves.  Fuck, you want him to speed up, it’s all the more shattering and viseral when he takes his time.  What is he doing?  What is he waiting for?

“Fuck me,” you whine against his lips, demanding a quicker pace.  You don’t know why he isn’t just letting loose on you now, giving into his body’s need to cum.  He’s aching for it, still rock hard inside of you.  “Come on, I already l-lost, just fuck m—”

“Told you before,” Poe whispers back, refusing to speed up.  He keeps his pace dragging and steadfast, no matter how much you work to entice him.  “Never… fuck.  Never gave a fuck about that stupid bet.  Suffer though.”

The complete lack of harshness in his tone sears through your nerve endings even though what he said wasn’t exactly nice.  You never thought hearing him tell you to suck it up could be delivered in a way that inspires so much arousal in you, but then his tongue is in your mouth again as his hips work slow and easy, and your eyes roll back at how… overwhelming it feels.  So intimate.  You’re completely surrounded by him, his forearms propped next to your head and his mouth on yours, and… Maker, there it is again.  Your body is so deprived that it’s already gearing up to go again.  He’s being lazy and you can’t fucking stand how it’s breaking you down.  Gradually, with incredible stamina and a patience you never expected from him.  When you first feel that pull, part of you still wants to pick up the other end and start a tug-of-war with the sensation.  You’ve been fighting for so long that your body almost doesn’t know any different, its automatic reaction is to resist.

A distraction, that’s what you need.  That’s what guys do to stop themselves from cumming too soon, right?  Fuck, think of something, think of…

—Poe, you can't think of anything but Poe.  Fuck.  His cock sinking deep, the way he tastes, how his fingers thread into the damp hair at your crown so you can feel him that much more, how you can hook his biceps with both hands and swirl your tongue around his while he fucks you open.  Your hips roll up with the pace and almost immediately stutter back down again, not sure if you can handle the wicked shot of oversensitivity—but then Poe groans and shifts up until his thighs are under your ass and he can curl you in more, lift your feet a bit more and make you feel smaller.  And—stars, the next thrust in is enough to nearly make you bite him on complete accident, an unexpected sound ripped from your throat as he keeps that specific angle.

Poe keeps going.  He keeps kissing you, keeps rocking into you.  He lets you claw at him, lets you grapple helplessly while his cock shreds molten hot euphoria deep inside you, and then everything tightens up again.

“Ah, fuck,” Poe breaks away and curses a whole few seconds before you descend into mindless chaos once more, garbling out broken syllables with the absense of his mouth keeping yours occupied.  Your voice crescendos and breaks at the same time you do, the pleasure arcing through you over and over and wringing you out repeatedly around his throbbing cock.  Poe’s lips quickly move forward and give your whole cheek an open kiss while your expression crumples with it.  Teeth drag down your skin as he moans hot air across your skin, his hips slowing to a complete stop with an obscenely slick sound.

You throb and clench around him and his lips are suddenly on yours again, his tongue sinking deep and dominating.  Your mouth is slack and all you can do is squeeze him through the bliss, scrape your fingernails down his back and hope it leaves a mark.

Eventually the tremors pass and you’re dead in the aftermath, you don’t have energy.  Your body is starting to acclimate to the slow orgasms and just let them steamroll you flat, fully accepting now that you can cum but still putting everything you have into it like every single one might be your last for a while.  You come back to yourself enough to feel Poe’s cock solid and achingly hard inside you, and your bottom lip is being tugged between his teeth.

And then he eases out and goes back to fucking you.  Same speed, same control.  

Your eyes nearly fucking cross.  “P-Poe—”

He immediately makes a noise of disapproval with his mouth closed, a nuh-uh but kept tight in his throat.  He doesn’t want to hear it, he’s not even letting you finish your thought.

You can’t take it, though, you didn’t think he was capable of this.  This is torturous in an entirely different way, overstimulating and shattering you with every thrust.

So, you think back to the one thing that got him to nearly snap earlier, the one time you really got to see that fire you love playing with.  Only now, you need that fire, you need him to take everything out on you.  Your floor muscles clamp down without warning and squeeze him as tight as possible, squeeze squeeze squeeze until you feel his hips stutter to a halt once more.  Your breath catches—fuck, is this gonna work?—but then Poe breaks away from your lips to drop his head and sink his teeth into your neck.

You nearly squeal at how careless he is about it—an animal that bites you lazily even though it sends sharp agony rocketing through you.  Again, your attempt at sabotage backfires spectacularly as a subsequent flare of pleasure swells up, and oh, that’s what you want, you want him to be mean—

“Please,” you whimper, hooking your ankles behind his back and locking down hard enough to make your toes curl.  Poe groans as you grab a fistful of his hair and tug at the way your skin pinches between his teeth—you know you’re gonna have a bite mark for a few days and it thrills you.  “Fuck, please, Poe—please just fuck me, please, I want you to fuck me until it hurts, fuck me the way we both nee—”

“You and me almost died today,” Poe grits into your neck, cutting off your desperate whimpers with a short growl.  “Maker, it was so close, I don’t think anybody has any f-fucking…”  His hips pull out and then spear deep and you choke, tightening and tightening.  “But—shit, we didn’t, we lived and now—oh fuck, now baby’s finally letting me fuck her and I’m not cutting it short, no matter how pretty she sounds asking.”

His words sound slurred against your neck and you can’t tell if it’s his delivery or your perception that’s lagging.  But when you feel Poe inch his cock out and start to slowly fuck you through the tightness, you let out a weak little whine and feel yourself drifting… somewhere else.  

Things subtly lose their clarity, your eyelashes dip and you stop talking because words won’t come.  You can’t tell if you’re staring at the ceiling or your eyelids or the back of your head, but Poe’s voice abruptly breaking through the silence makes you realize you don’t have a concept for time anymore.  You couldn’t tell him how long you’ve been floating, but you almost don’t understand what he’s saying at all and it takes you a remarkable delay to fully comprehend.  But judging from what he says, it sounds like it hasn’t been long.

“Shit, are you cumming again?”  He suddenly gasps into the crook of your neck and grinds his hips achingly hard into yours,  “O-Oh—fuck yeah, you are—baby’s cumming again—”

“P-Poe?”  You stutter and smack your hand against something, him maybe, not knowing literally anything else.  Not knowing what he’s talking about, not knowing where you are, not knowing your own name, “Poe—oh m-my… God—”

“Whhh—W-What—?”  You hear him breathe a split second before everything compresses down tight, and then it all shoves forward at once.  All of the buildup makes itself known the very moment it becomes too much to control, like a flash flood but the downpour happened miles away.  You think you might actually squeak this time, helplessly cry out like it hurts because stars, it does.  It hurts so fucking good, it spiders pure plasma through your entire body with rhythmic jolts and wipes your mind completely vacant.  Your shoulders shoot you up and knock your chin into something and you think you might be crying?  You don’t know anymore.  Your spine comes back down to the mattress like the damp fitted sheet covering it is made of pure ice—your body is overheated and you keep tensing and jerking back up until Poe forcefully pins you tight against it, growling filth under his breath as he slow fucks you through it.

You feel his hand dropping down between your bodies and you sob pitifully at the ceiling when the tip of his calloused finger brushes your clit.

***

You lose count.

It’s just… constant, there isn’t a point in keeping track anymore even if there happened to be the ability—which, nope.  Not even close.

He ruins you slowly.  Meticulously, with nothing more than steady, unwavering determination.  Every structure you built, he takes apart by hand instead of bulldozing it the way you beg him to when you find the words.  You’re certain you find them—you must find them at some point, but they’re interspaced between babbled gibberish and breathy whispers of his name.

Even though it’s slow—Maker, it’s so slow—you’ve never been so fucking exhausted.  He makes you give him everything and then he drains the reserves, the hidden ones you weren’t even aware existed.  He never goes fast enough; in fact, you think he’s actually slowed down over the unknown amount of time it’s been since you first called out his name and asked for this.  If you were in a frame of mind to notice, you’d probably realize he’s trying harder and harder to not cum, but in your wild headspace, it just feels like a prolonged punishment for you.  It still feels like he’s depriving you for his own pleasure, even though he’s actually depriving himself for yours.  But you always do manage to find some way to read things wrong with him.

Eventually, he begins to waver.  He stops talking so much, stops chastising you when you plead with him.  He hasn’t looked at you since he first kissed you—he’s either hidden his face in your neck or closed his eyes as his soft tongue slides across your bottom lip before dipping inside.

But then there comes a point where even you realize he’s struggling not to let go now, and in your faded traces of sanity, you hear your broken voice cut through the sounds of the soft radio.

“Y-Y-You—” you gasp, trembling under him, “—youneedtocum.  You need to—”

“No,” Poe grits against your chin, sounding shaky and weak no matter how sharp he makes his consonants.  “Fuck, not yet, I—I-I don’t want to yet.”

“Oh no,” you wheeze out, feeling the swell begin again, the familiar flicker of warning you get as his cock slowly rocks into you.  Maker, the pleasure is getting raw and painful even as your pussy is drowning his cock with it, allowing him to glide slow and deep into your sensitive channel and letting the sheer tightness of it be the only resistance your body puts up.  You can feel the wetness on your cheeks though, the tears of frustration gathering as your body prepares itself for yet another wave of attack.  “Oh no, ohhhhhnononononono—”

“I don’t want—” Poe gasps, his hips stuttering just a bit and one of his hands coming down to smack the pillow next to your head as he chokes, “—don’t want this to… e-end yet, I—”

Your next orgasm suddenly slams through you and Poe immediately rips himself out of you before it’s too late.  He shushes you frantically while you sob in distress and writhe side to side through the contractions solo this time, having nothing to clamp down on, not even able to grind up into him because he keeps his leaking cock elevated far beyond your reach.

Oh, that’s it.  That is it.

“Fuck me!”  You wail up at him, water blurring your vision and tears streaming down your cheeks, “Stop fucking around and just fuck me, you asshole!  Fuck me and fuck me hard Dameron or I swear to every fucking star in the sk—”

You don’t get too far.  He’s immediately scrambling over top of you and a strong hand is clamping down tight over your mouth, muffling your high-pitched cries against his palm.  Your legs are shoved apart and one is caught under his arm and wedged back as far as it can go.  His head drops to your neck, and then he snarls a ragged, “Brat—“ under your ear before ramming his cock back inside you.

Stars.  Stars light up, it’s so much—the angle, the force, the speed, the sound his hips make as they start ruthlessly colliding with yours.  Your eyes screw shut and you dig your nails into the meat of his back, but he doesn’t slow down—he speeds up—

“Fuck, you still think that throwing your little fucking fits works on me?”  He hisses, drilling into your g-spot with such blinding hard precision that you can’t do anything more than just claw at his chest, gasping for air that just won’t come into your lungs.  “Huh?  Think you can just be a little bitch to me about it and it’s gonna change anything?  You still don’t have any fucking idea, do you?  Look at me—” he snarls, grabbing your face and shaking it to get you to respond, “—look at what you fucking do to me—”

But you can’t.  You already came countless times and he’s lurching you up the bed with every single rabid thrust into your blindingly sensitive cunt, fucking you into the railing and then the wall behind it.  You still feel his fingers grasping at your jaw, forcing you to address him, to look at him, and you can’t seem to focus your vision on his blurry features even when your eyes flutter open.  You’re too dumb with grinding pleasure to see anything besides blurs and stars, to say literally anything back to him.  But that’s not what he cares about.

“Oh fuck yes, there it is,” his voice whines, pitching up something vulnerable as his hips ram you into the corner hard and unyielding, “fuck, there’s those pretty eyes, that’s what I wanted, baby, that’s all I wanted—th-that’s—fuck, that’s—”

They must cross, or roll back, or something, because suddenly you can’t see him at all anymore.  You don’t know what happens—but you know it’s wet.  You know it bursts forth something fierce and you shriek his name with a hoarse and shredded voice like he steals the last part of your whole fucking soul with it.  Fuck, you’re not even there for most of it, you might actually black out.  

In your conscious moments, you can feel his whole body flexing over and over again on top of you.  He empties his load deep inside you and takes a fucking eternity doing it, so many breathless praises leaving his mouth so quickly that they slur together and you can’t understand any of it even if you could hear him.  All you can do is feel your cunt tighten and convulse in tandem with the throbbing of his cock, rhythmically working the cum out of him until Poe stops stuttering his hips, until he finally trails off into nothing but labored gasps and slumps down on top of you in exhaustion.

You both lay there for a while, dead weight breathing.

You want to hold him, your cum-struck mind quietly provides in the comedown.  You want to feel his body now that you can finally think straight and take a moment to enjoy this blissful relief.  He fucked you so good and you want to touch him, you want to run your fingers through his hair and massage the tight muscles at the base of his neck.

But then you just start giggling.

It’s stupid.  It’s so fucking stupid.  You smack your hand over your mouth but the garbled noise easily floats beyond it, completely elated and having absolutely no explanation at all.

Poe quickly pulls his head back to look at you and you try to twist sideways under him to hide it, but you can’t stop—like a complete loon, you snort and start to laugh harder at the ridiculous sound.  Oh, you don’t just float, you’re the air itself, so light with endorphins that you close your eyes and get lost in the fit until water wets the outside corners.

After a moment, a hand gently grasps your wrist and slowly pulls it down until he can see the way your mouth opens as you giggle, hear it unobstructed and let the sound bubble up at him and fill the room.  And you blink your eyes open just in time to see him slowly break into the most dazzling smile you’ve ever seen him bestow a person.

And… you’ve seen him grin a million times.  He’s almost always smiling, as long as you’re not right in front of him.  He smiles at his squadmates, he smiles at girls, he smiles at complete strangers, and you always thought it was pretty.  Always knew that he could light up a room with it, you always knew he could get anything he wanted with it, but this… this isn’t that kind of smile.  That one is practiced and alluring.  It wasn’t fake, necessarily, but that smile’s purpose always had more to do with making anyone who happens to witness it feel a certain way than it did about signifying his own emotional state.

This one is… goofy.  Amazed, and uncoordinated.  Thunderstruck in a way, except the clouds all part at the same time and let you see a rainbow.  It makes you feel… alive.  Colorful.  Radiant.  Sunshine.  Butterflies.

Poe quickly drops his lips to catch yours and you moan happily, sliding your tongue into his mouth this time.  You both adjust, you arch into him as he pushes your damp hair back and makes a deep noise of satisfaction, letting you explore while he wraps his arms around you and finds a way to make this atrocious position comfortable.  Every part of you is smushed up against him and there’s absolutely no space to be found, and you’ve never been happier.

“We made a mess,” he groans against your lips, rocking his hips into you with a disgustingly slick sound as if to illustrate, and his cock is soft but it’s still so thick that it stays buried inside your sloppy entrance.  “Shit, I—I think I might be bleeding.”

“What?”  You ask breathily, and he heaves himself up with his elbows just enough to reveal his chest.  You both tuck your chins unattractively to look and you don’t immediately see any blood, but your claw marks are clearly red and visible scraping down his pectorals.  “Oh.  Pfft.  You’re fine.”

He drops back down with a huff and your head is tilted at the perfect angle catch on the tiny droplets of blood decorating the marks criss-crossing his shoulder blades.  Oops.

But he’s already kissing up your neck and over the curve of your jaw and making out with you again like he can’t get enough of it, and you forget.  You forget everything.  You forget every disagreement, every gripe with him you’ve ever had.  It’s all wiped away and replaced with giddy, childish adoration.  Resetting completely and starting off on the rightest foot imaginable.

“Let’s go to my bed,” he murmurs, and you make a tight noise of disapproval.  No.  This is good, this is how you want to stay.  The railing is digging into your lower back and he’s heavy but you’re perfect like this, this is perfect.  “Baby,” Poe pants against your lips in exasperation when you quickly clutch the back of his neck and keep him glued to you, “mmph—you got everything all wet—”

This time you make a low hum of agreement and drag your hand down the bare curve of his spine to his ass to give it a squeeze.  A testament to how hard and raw he fucked you.  Poe shudders hard enough for you to feel his body tremble but you just kiss him harder, pulling him down onto you more.

“You’re gonna have to give me, just like—I don’t know, at least an hour or two,” he chuckles, grabbing your hands to make it easier to peel himself from your body and groaning when his cock finally slips out.  “Come on, let’s hang out in my bed.”

You’re so boneless when he pulls you to sit upright, you roll a little bit and Poe has to catch you, and you laugh again.  Maker, you’re a complete mess and absolutely delighted about it.  Your attempts at grumbling and complaining don’t hold any sway when you’re still trying not to giggle, and Poe is able to pull you to the top of the ladder and make his way down first.

As soon as he’s out of sight and calling up to you, you weakly slide into position with a groan and feel yourself leaking at the movement.  “Gah—look what you did.  I’m all… gooey.”

“I know, s’the hottest fucking thing,” he says under his breath from the floor, before beckoning you by tapping on the closest rung a few times.  “Come on, be careful.”

You do as he says, easing your naked body down one step at a time with wobbly legs.  It’s clumsy and you whine the whole way through, wordlessly grousing and mumbling.

“Oh, I just know it,” he comments on the sound, “nice clean sheets, I’ll get the violin.”

Normally, you probably would’ve snarked something back down at him, but you’re still so loopy and shaky-legged that you just start laughing again.  The fact that he’s absolutely right and you’re being ridiculous about something like moving beds suddenly strikes you as incredibly fucking funny for some reason.  You don’t realize his hands are hovering inches away from your hips until your legs buckle and Poe quickly supports your weight.

“Maker,” Poe chuckles before giving you a firm yank, and then catching you before you can tumble down the ladder in your naked, teary-eyed mania, “let’s go, giggles.”

He carries you a few steps to the mattress and plops you down on top of the comforter, letting you take up the whole bed while he sits on the end and puts your feet on his lap.  Poe grimaces for a second and then shuffles until the radio is pulled out from under him, and you can hear the soft sound of it playing once again.  You bury your face into his pillow, inhaling the warm scent lingering there while he tosses it carelessly to the side and rubs your shins for a little bit, watching you stretch out naked on his mattress.  

“I’m not giving you two weeks of pay,” you suddenly grunt, and he just grins down at you, not arguing.  Not saying anything.  Sitting in comfortable silence with you when you’re expecting him to bicker.  So you stay like that for a long time, breathing deep and relaxing, until Poe’s hands leave you for a second…

… to pull a bag of chips out.

Maker, at the first squeaky sound of the wrapping assaulting your eardrums, you want to roll your eyes.  You want to tease him about how fucking typical it is.  Like clockwork, you could probably set your watch to his middle of the night cravings.  You don’t know why you thought fucking him would change any of that.

You want to give him shit for it.  You even open your mouth, the snark on the very tip of your tongue.  But then your stomach growls as soon as he rips the thin plastic apart.

Poe’s eyes shoot to yours and neither one of you move, but apparently your tummy doesn’t get the memo.  It takes forever to trail off into silence again, and he blinks.  Fuck, you know you should’ve forced yourself to eat at least something earlier.  Warmth floods your cheeks and you scramble for something to say, but there’s no way to play it off.

“Would you like some chips?”  Poe suddenly asks with a boyish grin, raising his eyebrows and tipping the open bag freely in your direction.

The corners of your mouth pull downwards even as the inside of it waters.  You wouldn’t call it stubbornness necessarily as much as it is a… a desire to stick to consistency.  After the unbelievably hard time you always give him about midnight snacking, you’re hesitant to partake.

Though, the chips rustle against each other and sound absolutely fucking delicious as Poe shakes the bag and bounces his eyebrows, and you know what?  Fuck it.

You snatch it without thinking, cradling the precious food to your chest as you dig your whole hand in and shove a bunch into your mouth at once.  You catch him smiling again, but he doesn’t comment.

You both take turns, and by take turns you obviously mean you take turns stealing the bag from each other instead of just setting it equidistant between you and openly agreeing to share it, but it works for you.  It seems appropriate.  And then it’s quiet again, just munching and crinkling, except for the radio continuing to play from its place in his lap.  You have to work to listen over the loud crunching vibrating through your skull, but when you finally manage to stop chewing and catch a few bars, you suddenly find yourself trying not to smile again.  Fuck, it’s been years since you’ve heard this song, you love this s—

“Fuck, I love this song,” Poe promptly exclaims with his mouth full, licking the tips of his fingers before scrambling to pick the radio up and twist the volume knob without using his wet fingertips.  He starts humming over the melody, loud enough to almost drown it out completely, because of course he does.  The one damn time you actually want to listen to his radio and he still finds some way to mildly irritate you.

But this irritation is almost… fun.  You want to laugh just as much as you want to yell at him.

“Hey, who sings this song?”  You immediately ask over the sound of him clearly not knowing the lyrics, already ready with it.  Oh, the round is in the chamber, your finger is on the trigger, you are ready, and Poe’s eyes sparkle as he seems to stop and think about it.

“Mm, not sure,” he eventually shrugs, just before you rush, “Let’s keep it that—”

And then he’s slapping a hand on your leg and belting out the chorus while you scoff, giggling.  He ruined the punchline on purpose and is now getting chip dust all over you, but you know any complaint you make will be drowned out by his suspended notes and backing track, so you just roll your eyes and swipe the bag of chips from him while he continues to serenade you.

“My ears are bleeding,” you mutter under your breath.

He has a nice voice, you think.

[neptunekisses]

PICK A PICTURE 🏹❤️

How does your person feel about you? For soulmate/twin flame connections. 💌 *can be read Vice versa since you mirror one another!

Picture 1:

808, 7’s or 777, 212, 222(2), 555, 7(17)

Your person views you as one of a kind. This is a connection filled with passion and exploration. Not even in terms of the world but in terms of soul searching

Someone who is scared to love they have had their heart locked away for a while. But it’s very different with you!! You ignore something within them that has been dormant, they’re inspired by you. I see a lot of passion in this connection, heavy physical and emotional attraction. This person is headstrong and they have no problem communicating but when it comes to you. This person appears to have their head on their shoulders but with you they aren’t afraid to let loose and be adventurous. You two work well together and view each other as life long partners. It seems like you can’t get deep enough, just when you know everything you want to know way more. You entice each other

Channeled love songs 💌💋:

Let’s Get Married - Jagged Edge

Nothin on you - B.o.b ft bruno mars

Come over - Aaliyah

one in a million - Aaliyah

Picture 2

444, 616, 1212, 245, 321

This person can be sensitive when it comes to you. They want to give you the whole word and spoil you, they are very hard working and can seem materialistic at times but it’s because they really enjoy the finer things. I see this person gets easily defensive over you with others. They do badly want to worship you and offer you your dream life. Either of you may get the idea that this is an unrequited kind but that’s simply not true. To the outside world they’re stern and only seem like they’re focused on working and money. When you’re together it’s hard to keep up this tough exterior, you two like to dream like little kids. They encourage you to create more and live out your passions no matter how daydreamy they may appear. You inspire each other to dream bigger

Channeled Love songs 💌💋:

Raining Love - KYLE

Use me - Miguel

I wanna be down - brandy

Have you ever - brandy

Picture 3

888, 313, 33, 1010, 101

This person is very used to relying on logic and not feelings. They could’ve been subjected to a childhood where they were told not to cry and to hide their emotions as it’s the only way they will survive in the real world. With you they’re starting to learn that that’s nonsense. Most of this process is internal right now as they are too shy to voice everything they’re feeling. The two of you struggle with open communication, one person being too logical and the other being too emotional there needs to be balance. This person has their guard up but you’re slowly knocking it down brick by brick. I see your person wanting to be better and be more open for this connection, they see themselves marrying you and they want it to work so badly. They know they have to release the past in order to shape up for you because you aren’t the same as the ones who have treated them poorly in the past. Even with the unspoken truths you guys are soulmates, you feel it’s right with each other even when you don’t exactly understand what’s going on or why they’re so hard to read sometimes.

Channeled Love songs 💌💋:

Honest - Kiana Lede

Mirror - Justin Timberlake

Real love - Mary J Blige

Be without you - Mary J Blige

Picture 4

333, 1818, 1313, 144, 745

This is someone you feel live you’ve known for lifetimes or could even be someone you have grown up with. This connection is very nostalgic there’s always memories to look back on and smile. Your person really admires you and thinks of you as some type of connoisseur. They really value your opinions on things because of your way to always look at the bigger picture. They find you to be expansive. I do get heavy past life energy from you like you may have had several together and that’s why everything between you two feels so familiar and enticing. Your person may have been betrayed in the past or badly hurt in past connections which makes it hard for them to trust sometimes. It’s important to lay everything out on the table to release the past and allow your beautiful connection to bloom.

Channeled love songs 💌💋:

Young dumb and broke - Khalid

The Sexy Song - Eric bellinger

Can’t take my eyes off of you - Lauryn Hill

Ready or not - Lauryn Hill

[gryffindors-weasley]

All Along

Young!Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: The moment your friends knew there was something more between you and Sirius.

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: mentions of smoking, fluff

Drives. It was an unspoken tradition amongst countless others that you and your friends had created for yourselves. Every Saturday evening was reserved for a drive to wherever the road took you, most often leading to the open plains of the clearing you’d found by accident when searching for a place to camp—that or to the lake on the hottest summer days. They were always cathartic and fun, always an opportunity to roll down the windows and feel the wind on your skin, to sing to songs on the radio as you take turns driving down winding streets and back roads. And it was on one of those drives that they knew. James, Lily and Remus knew that there had been more than just a friendship and habit of bickering between you and Sirius.

The sun had nearly set into the horizon as Lily drove, the sky colored with the deepest shades of blues and oranges and the moon rising higher amongst the clouds. The air was warm yet the breeze was cool as it streamed through the open windows, sweeping over your skin and sifting through your hair. The radio was turned down, ABBA playing softly in the background now that Lily’s got control of the choice in music. James couldn’t complain, though, he’s got a soft spot for that band thanks to you and heard and he was itching to turn up the radio but he couldn’t. Not with three of his friends nearly out cold after a day at the lake.

It’d been a good day; any day spent with your friends was bound to be memorable, bound to be better than the last though you were beginning to think it couldn’t be possible. Even with Lily having brought up Sirius at least a dozen times, and James and Remus having brought you up, it was only a minor annoyance in the rest of your trip. It wasn’t really even annoying per say, not on their end. What had been was the inevitable smile that tugged at the corners of your mouth each and every time you’d heard his name, something promptly masked by an eye roll. The inevitable flush in his cheeks at the mention of you that’d been passed off as the summer heat with the addition of an aguamenti spell in retaliation.

Despite that obvious poking and prodding from your nosy friends, it was another moment spent that you’d come to cherish.

They knew—they all did. They knew there’d been something going on between the two of you and that was something that simply wasn’t up for argument. They weren’t sure when they’d come to that conclusion or even how, but they knew something was there, something was different.

Your friendship with Sirius had always been one that was never dull, and to someone who hadn’t been familiar with the pair, one might even say you hated each other. To be quite honest even your own friends had thought you seriously did by your sixth year. You were always arguing about something no matter how trivial and insignificant, though most all of them had been accompanied by smiles and eye rolls, laughter and huffs. You were always the one stealing the cigarettes right from his very lips and putting them out just for the sake of seeing him get annoyed. He knew the reasoning behind it very well, he could even see it coming, but he still couldn’t find it in him to keep you from doing it because your smile was far more worth it.

There were times when you’d actually get mad at the other, where the two of you wouldn’t speak because you both were too stubborn to admit when you were wrong. But everyone would notice that without fail, you would never go more than a day or two without speaking. Lily is fairly certain she’s never heard or seen either of you ever apologize, not once, more so a mutual forgiveness in the form of an eye roll and a smile that couldn’t be hidden a moment longer.

There are times when it always seems to be just the two of you. When you’d sit together in the Great Hall, and you’d walk to class. Even in the most crowded of rooms you could find your way to each other with a certain ease that had made it far too obvious to ignore. Even now at twenty years old, you both were still just the same.

But, most of the time it’d been an undeniably constant state of back and forth banter over things the three of them had started to tune out for the last three years. One of you always had something to say while the other always had a quick witted response lined up in return. Even that day, for that matter. The moment he’d stepped foot out of that lake he’d transformed, and it was all for the sake of shaking water onto you and your book just to hear you complain. He was a pain, really, but not enough to be able to stifle a laugh.

It was inherently obvious that there was more than just a mutual desire to get under each other’s nerves, there was more than just two friends who swore who could never quite see eye to eye on the most trivial of things. Their bets became abundantly clear.

It was James who had noticed it first on the drive home that evening. He’d gotten stuck in the middle in the back seat of Lily’s Volkswagen, Remus on one side and Sirius on the other. You had been sitting up front with Lily, on the brink of falling asleep in the passenger seat much like Moony had been. The trip had been much quieter than it had been earlier, the chaos having died down and making it far easier to notice the little things.

His best friend’s legs had been stretched across his lap haphazardly, head leaned back against the window as the steady breeze blew strands of black hair around his face. Sirius’ gaze had been focused out the window, at the darkened colors of the sunset and each and every time he blinked he swore his eyelids grew heavier. A smile was on his lips, one that was softer than James had ever seen his best friend have before. He didn’t know what the reasoning behind it was, though he had his guesses. But it was a question soon answered when his gaze cast downward.

There, grasped lightly within the raven haired boy’s hand had been your own that dangled comfortably tucked between your seat and the door. James couldn’t see it but he knew you’d had a smile to match Sirius, and he was right. Even half asleep you’d had a lingering smile on your lips when his fingers entwined with yours in a near featherlight touch at first, a grip that had tightened without being aware of it.

Perhaps the thing that made it most difficult for James to refrain from disruptively alerting his friend of the profoundly exciting event was the way he’d brushed his thumb over your hand. It was something so simple yet so wordlessly endearing, something much softer than he’d ever seen him do. It seemed to be something done without thinking about it; it was obvious that’d been just so and he was starting to wonder how many trips had the two of you done this very thing, how long it’d been that you’ve done this. Surely this wasn’t the first time.

In that moment James had swatted Remus’ shoulder, a finger raised to his own lips immediately after he’d stirred to quiet him down. It was then that he grasped his groggy friend’s attention and nodded in your direction.

“They’re holding hands!” He whispered.

“They’re what?”

James gave him a nudge when he tried to lean over him to see, risking a glance in the other direction to check if they’d been far too noticeable. Lily of course noticed—it wasn’t hard to see the two dorks having been up to something in the rear view but James would tell her later. It would be a difficult task to hold it in but he’d manage. But when Remus finally saw just what he’d been talking about his smile was immediate as he swatted at James.

They knew it was only a matter of time before it happened, they were just waiting for it to be so. You thought you had them fooled with every eye roll and every scoff, with every frown and every quip. Sirius thought he could hide behind witty comebacks and stares passed off into a joke about something having been on your face. Truthfully, you had gotten under the other’s skin a number of times. You very much mean it each and every time you say he’s a pain, and you’d steal his cigarettes and put them out a thousand times over just to hear him grumble. Just the same as he means to snatch your books from your hands and steal your sunglasses; he did it all just to see you smile and maybe, just maybe, to see that frown of yours that you don’t really mean.

But they knew. They knew better than to believe that you hadn’t fallen for one another, no matter how stubborn and absolutely mad you drove them with your antics. As you sat in the passenger seat with Sirius just behind you, hands loosely enveloped with the hopes that it just might go unseen—

They knew all along.

—

Tags: @vogueweasley @gxtitobxby @amourtentiaa @hahee154hq @snitches-at-dawn @dracosathenaeum @harrysweasleys @awritingtree @writeroutoftime @medalloway-blog

[tteokdoroki]

hi!! saw your requests were open, can i ask hcs for todoroki, hawks, bakugou and tamaki with a touchy drama queen fem!reader who they have a crush on? (separate)

— touchy-feely | bnha crush headcanons.

⇝ pairing(s): katsuki bakugou, shoto todorki, tamaki amajiki, keigo takami x fem!reader

⇝ rating: suitable for all.

⇝ genre: fluff.

⇝ warning(s): please read ! loads of fluff ?? and some cursing.

⇝ author’s note(s): thank you so much for this request lovely!  it was actually my first so i hope i was able to do it justice for you ( sorry they’re kinda long)  !! also thank you for 300+ followers :( i adore you so much  <3

⇝ masterlist | requests

ok so, we all know that baku despite his bark bark grrrr aggressive nature is really just a sucker for cuddles and shit.

he loves that he lives for it!!

probably cos he never really got many hugs in his childhood ?? idk

so naturally with him having a crush on you all he really wants is for your attention to be on him

All The Time.

again going back to baby bakugou he probably has some kinda thing for praise an attention because everyone praised his quirk when he was younger.

but since he’s stubborn he’ll try to reject your touch most of the time and act like he doesn’t enjoy it when in reality he does.

he tries to hide the angry pink on his cheeks when you ruffle his hair in front of class or when you squeeze his booty on the walk back to dorms.

it’s your daily routine to wake him up with a pick up line during breakfast, some of your classmates think it’s over the top but you like how boom boom boy blushes.

katsuki’s favourite is when you lean your head on his shoulder during class movie night 🥺

he pretends that your hands aren’t intertwined under the blankets too

bakugou enjoys these moments the most it’s like you’re both calm around one another ??

kirishima and kaminari always tease him about it which makes bakugou wanna push you away.

A MISTAKE !!!

being the drama queen that you are you’d probably turn on the fake tears, get those water works RUNNING to the point where poor katsuki is all flustered and doesn’t know what to do.

“QUIT YOUR CRYING YOU FUCKIN DUMBASS”

“DO YOU NOT LIKE CUDDLING WITH ME KATSUKI?? IS THAT IT??”

poor bby just wants reach out and Hold you.

also wants you to shut the fuck up.

will probably grab your hand and yank you into his room for a cuddle session. “stop your crying, shitty girl. it’s giving me a damn headache.”

overall bakugou would probably be very flustered by your random dramatic personality but would get used to your displays of affection over time.

he doesn’t really think much of how dramatic you are.

at least you don’t yell at him like bakugou does.

todo is probably more worried about you than anything ?? because you go from 0-100 in a matter of minutes and that confuses him.

he’s also confused by the butterflies in his liddol tummy when you squish his cheeks and call him a pretty boy before anyone’s settled in for class.

like ??? why do you insist on pointing that out EVERY DAY

:( please tell him he’s pretty bc he doesn’t think it’s true

it doesn’t show but every time you wrap your arms around him to give an overly dramatic detailed account of how beautiful and talented shoto todoroki is he literally short circuits inside his brain

WHY DO YOU KEEP PRAISING HIM!!!

pls don’t stop bc poor baby missed out on all these good feelings.

maybe one of the main reasons you do it :(

todoroki starts attempting to ?? get touchy with you back ??

he knows that he’s fond of you but probably has never experienced a crush before so he doesn’t know if he should return these gestures.

you make it a daily habit to kiss shoto on the cheek and tell him how dashingly handsome he looks while reciting some kinda shakespeare poetry

he decides to ask natsuou what’s going on

Bad Bad Idea

big bro todoroki is like “this girl?? she’s in love With You?? you gotta confess to her right back!!!”

shoto: what is love?

so the next day in class you’re heading straight for the dual haired boy and he is Ready He Has a Plan

before you even reach him he’s grabbing your cheeks and pressing a KISS right on your lips.

“i think you’re very pretty too, miss ln.”

?:&/@-@/9&:

the whole class Freezes ??

and you being the drama queen that you are COLLAPSE in front of everyone because THE shoto todoroki just kissed you.

bby doesn’t even know what he did 🥺

probably ends with you two confessing to one another in recovery girls office.

you make a mental note to thank natsu later.

FJDJDJD here comes the big DUMB bird brain.

we all know that keigo is literally the biggest drama queen out there. he’s a pretty bird and he basks in attention no matter who it’s coming from.

you’d be similarly matched in personality so maybe that’s why he started to fall for you so hard and so fast.

i think you’d both be very touchy with one another, as part of your friendship.

whether that helping the bird with his eyeliner, touching at his stubbled chin to keep his face still or him pretending to peck at you by nibbling on your cheeks and shoulders.

you even squawk back at him!!!

keigo is very touch starved so i think he’d just like always having your hands on him and vice versa

sometimes he’ll do stuff to make you overreact like steal food from your plate when you guys have take out together

or bump into you on patrol

you’ll do either one of two things;

A) scream at him through laughter obnoxiously loud

B) ruffle his feathers a bit and play with his big boy wings.

usually it’s both

“stop laughing at me >:(“

you literally burst into fits of giggles when keigos wings puff up because of how flustered he IS

and of course for that dramatic flare you add some tears of joy.

kei loves how tight you hold him when he takes you for a fly even if you’re spouting a bunch of nonsense about how he’s gonna drop you and how you’re going to die.

probably drops you on purpose to see how you’d react.

when you land he laughs at how you kiss the ground and hug it mumbling something about how “i thought i’d never see you again,”

kei has to hold your hand while you get used to being on solid ground again.

adores the weight of your palm in his.

out of all the boys i think keigo would be the least shocked by your personality and your affections

it all kinda feels normal to him and that’s why he has a major crush on you.

BOY!!!

okay so this little bean has probably had a crush on you for like his whole life idk maybe you were childhood friends.

but then y’all met mirio and he thought that he’d never stand a chance.

pls your hints would go SO SO over his head.

you are Loud so very loud which contrasts with tama’s quiet and shy personality. so in his mind itd make sense for you to fall for mirio instead of him.

so he pushes his feelings for you deeep deep down.

you’re a naturally affectionate person, maybe a little overly affectionate but that just comes with your extremely over the top personality.

but around tamaki, it’s like your affinity for touching people increases by a tenfold.

you’re always clinging into him :(( despite the red tips to his elvin ears and you always smother his face with little kisses whenever you greet him.

of course tamaki loves your attention, no matter how shy it makes him— you’ve always got your hands on him and that makes him feel better.

it makes him feel like he has a chance with you.

the way you bounce up to him every day with a huge smile on your face just makes him Fall For You.

but tama struggles to see the good in himself and always compares the way you act around him to mirio.

baby over thinks :(

one day he’s hanging out with mirio and the blonde kinda goes “when are you gonna ask out yn?”

???? CONFUSED LITTLE ELF BOY

“she likes you, didn’t you know that?”

starts to return your affections a bit more n loves how excited you are when he holds your hand back !!

“EVERYONE TAMAKI AMAJIKI IS HOLDING MY HAND I REPEAT HES HOLDING MY HAND!!”

your feelings for one another go unspoken but he feels better now that he knows you like him and him only.

[misha-moose-dean-burger-lover]

for @bend-me-shape-me 's SPN advent calendar 2020. prompt: phone calls and late night texts.

Cas isn't a serial texter.

And Dean's a-okay with it.

But for all that's worth, they sure seem to have a ridiculous amount of emotionally significant conversations via, or starting off as, texts. And most often, in the middle of the night.

*

>>> hello, dean. [12:07 am]

Dean jolts up at the sound, realizing he fell asleep still wearing his headphones, with the laptop on his lap (and a new episode of The Good Place playing) and rolls his eyes at himself, hitting pause before he can see what’s happening (because he has good reflexes, and because screw spoilers that’s why) and rummaging for his phone.

At this hour of the night, it has to be something important.

It doesn’t really strike him that Mechanical Engineering majors whose only other selfprofessed skill is air guitar aren't exactly the frontline warriors for midnight emergencies.

Cas's name shows up when he squints at the too-bright screen, and he sits up a little straighter.

<<< hey [12:09 am]

<<< you OK? [12:09 am]

The response is immediate.

>>> do you have peanut butter? [12:09 am]

And as if it's an afterthought, Cas adds.

>>> yes, I'm fine. how are you? [12:10 am]

Dean blinks.

<<< peachy. peanut butter? [12:10 am]

At least this time the response takes a while. Dean wonders if Cas realized it was midnight, and not exactly a time to run inventory on your best friend's stash of condiments.

>>> I ran out. [12:12 am]

Dean sighs, unable to help smiling.

It's not like he's a stranger to Cas's weird cravings when he's high. (There'd been this one time with pie and a traumatized Gas 'N Sip cashier that still sits heavy on Dean's conscience.) But he doesn't think Cas is supposed to be high right now — Dean's usually either invited or informed by an unspoken rule — which just means this is regular "jelly, not jam"-Cas, at his core a weird, persistently sleep-deprived economics major and astronomy nerd, that Dean may or may not have had a crush on for an embarrassingly long time, and who's also prone to grammatically perfect texting, deadpan, Disney references, and bluntness when the occasion calls for it.

<<< pretty sure i have some [12:14 am]

>>> :) [12:14 am]

>>> I'm coming over [12:14 am]

*

And weird as it may sound, that had turned out to be the night Cas told him he was gay. Said it had been a revelating moment, unprecedented and wholly unexpected — and apparently revelations come in pairs because it had been followed by an intense need for peanut butter, and the rest, he explained emphatically, was history.

Dean had just snorted, congratulated him, and brought out the fancier plates for sandwiches — shipped in from home instead of a sale at Target — all the while, repeating to himself in a loop, that this changed nothing between them, nothing at all, and Cas having the capacity to be attracted back to him didn't mean that he ever would be (or for hell's sake, he'd scoffed at his traitorous chick-flick-nonsense brain, is.)

*

The second time had been early — way, way too early and it was by pure chance that Dean was awake to respond at six friggin' am on a Sunday. Like, that’s practically nighttime. 

Goddamn stupidly-fit running-freak.

Dean picks up his phone blearily, tongue in cheek as he clicks on it.

>>> I miss you [6:28 am]

>>> I'd* miss you [6:29 am]

Dean's stomach twists, and he's not sure if it's in a good way, or a bad way, or what-the-sincere-fuck-are-you-talking-about way.

<<< what [6:32 am]

<<< wtf are you talking about? [6:32 am]

Nothing.

<<< cas? [6:33 am]

<<< dude [6:34 am]

<<< cas???? [6:34 am]

Dean swears at his screen, more queasy than irritated. He can't stop fidgeting, so gives up on lying down altogether and hoists himself to his feet. Better to get his friggin' toothbrush since he's already up, and now definitely awake. Cas was so paying for this later.

He comes back, mouth mint-fresh in theory but still tasting awful and of fear and dread, and practically sags when he sees his screen blare with two messages from Cas.

>>> sorry, I had to make a call. [6:42 am]

>>> I'm not taking the job. [6:42 am]

*

And that's how Dean finds out about Michael (Cas's oldest brother, entitled asshole) inviting Cas to join his and Lucifer's (second oldest, bag of dicks) firm the year he graduates — invite, of course, being a loosely used word here for expecting it blindly (out of some crap he calls 'loyalty') and being readily willing to manipulate him into it.

And it's how he finds out that Cas turned them down.

"It's not who I am anymore." Cas had repeated, third time probably, and surer than before, and Dean had nodded earnestly before realizing Cas couldn't see him through the phone, and humming his affirmation instead. "And if I go back there, I'm never getting out again."

Dean'd swallowed.

"I don't want to." Cas had said, voice trembling. "I am — my own person here. It shouldn't be like this but this is the first time I have autonomy, Dean. Here is free will, and here are you. I don't — I can't. I'm not going to let them take it away."

"Good." He'd sounded shaky to even himself. "Don't."

"Yes." Cas had promised. "I'm not going."

*

And eventually they'd moved past the heavy talk into why-didn't-I-hear-about-this-before territory, Dean being righteously annoyed at his best friend for keeping something so huge from him, and Cas making lame (but probably valid) excuses in the name of not knowing how to explain the situation until he knew himself what he was going to do, because Dean may've been the first person he'd confided in about the insane fuckery that been his childhood and adolescence, but that still didn't mean he'd understand this, broken and convoluted.

And then Cas had nicely segued himself out of Dean's target of irritation and added, "They asked Gabriel too, by the way."

"And?" Dean didn't ever have much care for Gabriel (third oldest brother, cares about Cas, still a jerk) but Cas shared an apartment with him, so he had to face him plenty.

"He's running off to Miami."

And Dean had thrown his head back and laughed until Cas had smoothly added, "And I was wondering if you would consider moving in with me." 

At which point, of course, he'd started coughing instead, because holy shit, it actually made sense (Sammy had left for Stanford two months back, and Dean lived alone in a space that had probably been two big even when there were two of them) and might actually happen, but Dean wasn't really sure how much longer he'd be able to hide his crush, sharing a friggin' kitchen with the guy.

*

The third time's after their first date.

(Because, well. It happened.

It happened with Dean leaning across the breakfast table to prove to Cas his bacon was superior (to cookie friggin' crunch, because goddamn is Cas a dork) and Cas taking a bite with their eyes fixed on each other's, and Dean turning red when Cas licked his lips and then, just like that, Cas swearing under his breath (definitely filed for later pondering, that bit), grabbing Dean, and kissing the living daylights out of him.

And Dean had kissed back with everything he had, hands cupping his face, and nearly melting in his arms - but then they'd separated for air and Cas had had an apologetic look on his face and when Dean had tried to lean in to kiss it away, he'd received half a smile and a shake of his head.

"Let's do it the way we're supposed to."

And Dean had known immediately what he'd meant. Let's not fuck this up by becoming best friends and roommates who sleep together. Let's...play safe.

"Okay. Uh," he'd rubbed the back of his neck. "Would you like to go on a date with me?"

"Thursday." Cas had promised with twinkling eyes, though Dean had already known he was going to say that since he knew Cas’s week at least as well as he knew his own, and two days and an anxious half of a thursday later, they went on their first date. Burgers and beer, and Led Zepp, and hands held in the Impala. Four hours later, they were back, and in their respective rooms, and Dean couldn't stop thinking about Cas.)

When his phone vibrates, Dean reaches for the bedside table.

It's at least midnight, it feels like he's been in bed for ages, and the only reason he isn't asleep is because all his brain seems to be capable of at the moment is thinking endlessly about the date. Fortunately, he's not the only one — although he's better at hiding it (practise, he'd say) because his heart is in his mouth the moment he reads Cas's text.

>>> I think I'm falling in love with you [11:43 pm]

>>> already. [11:43 pm]

Dean is very grateful for autocorrect as he types back with too-excited thumbs and a racing heart.

<<< so much for doing it the regular way cas mosby [11:44 pm]

>>> in my defense, it's been years. [11:44 pm]

<<< that part i get [11:44 pm]

<<< me too [11:44 pm]

<<< but youre supposed to wait three days before calling dumbass [11:45 pm]

Jesus, he'd never expected to blush cause of texts, but here they are.

>>> I'm texting. [11:46 pm]

And he guesses he'd never expected to giggle (he's alone there, sue him) cause of them either, but Cas apparently exists to prove him wrong about himself.

<<< good for you [11:46 pm]

He sends, biting his lip, and then lies in the silent darkness for a couple of minute, devoid of text notifications entirely, thinking uneasily — before he gives up.

They're idiots, sure, but nobody is this dumb.

<<< so when the fuck are you coming over then [11:50 pm]

>>> on my way <3 [11:50 pm]

And thinking about the lightening speed of that reply and the fucking heart emoji is enough to sustain him the entire one minute it takes Cas to get there, gently opening Dean's door, and climbing into bed — fitting in Dean's space like it's been made for him, and kissing him in greeting after leaving his phone on the table next to Dean's.

*

As it goes, with the confessions and the midnight cravings (and the grocery lists that keep getting piled onto through the day, and random pickup lines Cas decides are perfect to send Dean daily once he's found a website for puns, courtesy of Claire, and of course, pictures of Grease, which clog Dean's cloud in dozens whenever the ridiculously cute cat does something even slightly out of routine, god bless her lazy soul) Cas might just be a texter.

But Dean's pretty sure he's more than okay with it, so it doesn't really matter.

[itsclydebitches]

I am briefly pausing my normal RWBY content to talk about something completely different: Kang Soo-Jin. 

I binged True Beauty recently. As in, “I haven’t managed to watch anything new in half a year, discovered this drama, and promptly marathoned 14+ hours of content,” so to say I’m enjoying it is an understatement. I might do another post sometime about why I think the show works so well, but for now, like many (drama only) viewers, I’m specifically grappling with Soo-Jin’s descent into antagonist territory. At first I was just as shocked and disappointed as others seem to be, but upon reflection I don’t think this is badly written in the way many fans are claiming. To frame this as, “I can’t believe they would make wonderful Soo-Jin suddenly OOC and bully Ju-Kyung over a guy!” is ignoring core parts of her character. I’m as sick of the girl-hates-girl-over-guy plotline as the next viewer, but in the interest of acknowledging that there are exceptions to every rule, I think this is one of the times where that choice makes perfect sense. 

Soo-Jin has been abused throughout her life and I’m not simply talking about the fact that her father hits her. Though that’s obviously horrific, what I think is more pertinent to this conversation is the intense competitiveness her parents have instilled in her. The physical abuse comes about because Soo-Jin fails (in their eyes) to be the best, which is where Ju-Kyung comes in. The Soo-Jin we knew in earlier episodes wasn’t faking. She isn’t an inherently evil person who was just waiting for the right time to show her true colors. Rather, at the start of the story Ju-Kyung—crucially—was not in competition with Soo-Jin. Or rather, Soo-Jin did not perceive her as competition. She’s after the best grades in the school and Ju-Kyung is notoriously at the bottom of the class. All she has going for her are her (new) looks and her easy-going personality that makes her popular, two things that Soo-Jin isn’t interested in. Even if she were, those things already come naturally to her too. She’s already friends with Soo-A and, as is commented on multiple times, naturally beautiful without any makeup on. Soo-Jin has been taught—literally had it beaten into her—that she must be the best and in the beginning of the show she pretty much is: popular, mature, confident, smart… just not the smartest in her class. Ju-Kyung doesn’t threaten any of that, so friendship initially comes easily for Soo-Jin, the sort of friendship that allows her to chase perverts off busses or hide her friend’s real face. 

This changes once Soo-Jin’s “perfect” mask begins to slip. They’re heading towards college, she’s running out of time, and she still hasn’t managed to take the top spot in the class. Worse, she drops out of the top ten. This exacerbates the abuse to the point where, as we see, she’s constantly in the bathroom trying to cope by washing her hands. Any tiny deviation from that “perfection”  — like, say, leaving your tutoring session when you realize your lifelong friend just got devastating news — results in the sort of yelling/physical abuse she can only escape from via a locked door. While things get worse on her end, they get better on Ju-Jyung’s. Her grades go up some and she becomes even more popular, attracting not only school-wide attention, but the attention of the two hottest guys too, including Soo-Ho. For a while this is still fine from Soo-Jin’s perspective, but things really take a turn when Ju-Kyung changes Soo-Ho. Meaning, she helps him come out of his shell and teaches him how to be a kinder person… which includes being a better friend to Soo-Jin. The Soo-Ho who suddenly lies and announces that they have to go study just to get Soo-Jin away from her father’s insults, all of it stemming from a small tick he paid attention to, or comforting her while she sobs over the abuse… that Soo-Ho didn’t exist at the story’s start. He was too wrapped up in his own grief and has been that way for a long time. They may have known each other since childhood, but Soo-Jin and Soo-Ho don’t appear to be particularly close in the past—all Soo-Ho’s flashbacks are with Seo-Joon and Se-Yeon. But that starts to change once Soo-Ho himself changes. Soo-Jin’s ability to keep it together is unraveling, Soo-Ho is opening up and becoming more emotionally available (something Soo-Jin even comments on), then her whole class starts eagerly talking up how good they would be as a couple… so Soo-Jin sees a lifeline. Soo-Ho will care for her even when no one else will. Of course he will. She’s already seen him be that person multiple times. 

The problem is that Soo-Ho has his own life and his own problems to grapple with. Between grief over See-Yeon, panic over telling Ju-Kyung how he feels, and the initial rush of dating—what couple doesn’t want to spend all their time together at the start?—he doesn’t have much energy for Soo-Jin. Which from his perspective is fine. They don’t normally hang out together outside of study groups, so yeah, he can put off a conversation with her… not realizing that Soo-Jin is now putting all her emotional eggs in his basket. By the time her feelings are coming to light, Soo-Jin is actively sabotaging her own attempts to get attention and compassion from Soo-Jin. By manipulating them—here’s a new scrunchy to remind you that you’re my best friend and you can’t ever betray me, here I am showing up unannounced at your apartment and guilting you into not spending more time with me, etc.—Soo-Jin has put Soo-Ho (rightfully) on his guard. He’s wary of having a private conversation with her about something she won’t name when he knows Ju-Kyung has been a mess over losing her friendship. He has no desire to listen to her confession of love after she’s just tossed Ju-Kyung’s beloved necklace into the fire. In her efforts to ensure that Soo-Ho pays attention to her, she only succeeds in driving him away. 

All of which makes Ju-Kyung the enemy in her eyes. The new competition. To her mind, friendship and love cannot co-exist because Ju-Kyung stands in the way of that love, therefore one has got to go. (In contrast Seo-Joon, coming from a loving family, is in time better able to accept that he can be friends with Soo-Ho even though he likes Ju-Kyung. We can discuss the problems inherent in giving one plot to the girl and the other to the guy, but as they are, these characters have concrete, in-world reasons for their different reactions to what’s essentially the same situation.) And why does love (“love”) win out over friendship? Because Soo-Jin has latched onto Soo-Ho being her boyfriend as the way to finally “win” at life and fix all her problems. It’s fine if she’s not the best provided she’s dating the best, just look at how much Dad fawned over him. Second place academically is suddenly an option provided the top student is on her team, so to speak. The fact that Soo-Ho is also one of the most handsome, a great athlete, super rich, and one of the few people to provide her with feelings of safety certainly doesn’t hurt matters. And the only thing that stands in her way of securing this life-saving “win” is Ju-Kyung. Who is she? No one compared to Soo-Jin. Her grades are terrible. She’s not wealthy. She’s pretty… but oh, only with her makeup on. 

Soo-Jin doesn’t need makeup, so why not win this competition by showing the whole school—showing Soo-Ho—what a fraud Ju-Kyung is? 

From Soo-Jin’s perspective she’s done the math and come out on top. Everything that (supposedly) matters she either has equal to Ju-Kyung, or is superior, therefore it’s obvious that Soo-Ho would choose her in the end. She says at much: If I had confessed first you would have loved me first, so now that I have confessed you’ll break up with her. Hell, even Ju-Kyung believes this. She has the nightmare about Soo-Ho learning that Soo-Jin has feelings for him and immediately, publicly breaking up with her. After all, if he suddenly has both as an option the winner is obvious, right? It’s all about competition, what they’ve been taught to believe is a competition: Ju-Kyung through her bullying and Soo-Jin through her abuse. The difference is that Ju-Kyung has had the whole series with Soo-Ho (and others) helping her slowly unlearn this mentality. Soo-Jin had the rug pulled out from under her in an instant. 

Soo-Ho says no, I wouldn’t have loved you if you had confessed first and I’m not going to date you now. It’s important to realize that this shatters Soo-Jin’s entire world. It’s not about a girl being upset that she can’t get the guy — not even about Soo-Ho as an individual, really —  it’s about an abused girl not knowing how to grapple with the fact that she finally did everything “right” and still couldn’t “win,” coupled with losing the last bit of security she had. Soo-Ho broke the unspoken rules Soo-Jin’s father beat into her and she doesn’t know where to go from there. She literally has no one else to turn to. So she falls back on the only way she does know how to handle a situation like this: by still trying to win. If Soo-Ho won’t admit that she’s better, she’ll force him to realize that by plastering Ju-Kyung’s “ugly” face all over social media. Which, to be clear, isn’t an excuse. This isn’t meant to be a way of absolving Soo-Jin of her absolutely horrific actions, only a means of explaining them. Her descent, while shocking to those of us who loved her initial character, is well written because it’s a nuanced look at what can happen when you abuse a kid her whole life and teach her that competition is everything. Oddly enough, she’ll apply a competitive outlook to everything and deal with her stress in unhealthy ways. Ju-Kyung is a victim of Soo-Jin now, but Soo-Jin is a victim too. Her home life has ensured that she does not know how to accept failure—or what true failure even means—so it was inevitable that when things got bad, she’d  try to fix it in ways that hurt both her and those around her. It’s all she knows how to do. 

So far less “Perfect girl goes ooc and abandons her friend over a boy” and far more “Abused girl falls into a terrible, but predictable cycle that the other stressed high schoolers around her are not equipped to break.” Soo-Jin’s story isn’t bad writing, it’s tragic. Thanks for coming to my three page TED talk ✌️

***

2/4/21 FINALE UPDATE! 

[ifmywishescametrue]

"You didn't deserve that... You deserve so much better." for buckytony pls 🤓

thank you for sending one! it got kind of out of hand lol so here's 2.2k of breaking up and making up. hope you like it!

Tony loses track of what the fight is about fairly quickly. He knows it started with what seemed like playful bickering, the kind their relationship was practically built on, but somewhere along the way the jabs turned much more pointed. Barbed wire wrapped around them, until each one was like a knife wound.

The first real cut came from him, he knows. Bucky's witty comment hit a little too close to one of his hundred insecurities, and reflex made him return it with too much sharpness. He can't blame Bucky for reacting, but they're both to blame for letting it get this out of hand. That’s not something that matters in the moment, though.

In the moment, all that matters is the careless insults and merciless words they lob back and forth. They chip away at each other and their relationship until it’s crumbling around them, but even that doesn’t matter. It becomes secondary to getting in the last word and one-upmanship, like it’s a competition for who can hurt who the most that they both desperately want to win, consequences be damned.

“You know this is why people keep leaving you,” Bucky says. “At some point it should be pretty damn obvious that it's you, not them.”

Tony laughs bitterly because the only other choice is crying. “Cause you're a real fucking prize, right? Bet people are just lining up to date a guy they're barely allowed to touch. And God forbid you ever try to do something nice for him, because it'll never actually be right.”

“Better than a guy with daddy issues so severe it'll take him two years to even tell you he loves you. Don't bother saying it in the meantime to him either, because he'll run off to hide for a week after each time.”

“Well, you know what, I'll make it easy for you, then,” Tony says, backing away to grab his jacket. “You don't have to worry about me and all my issues anymore.”

He forcefully shoves his arms into the sleeves and grabs his keys from the hook by the door. Bucky watches with a clenched jaw and doesn't try to stop him, not even when he pauses to give him the chance.

“What are you waiting for? Go ahead and run off. Prove my point.”

Tony shakes his head, an ache already forming in his chest that he ignores. “I’m not proving your point, because this isn’t running. This is breaking up with you because you’re a fucking asshole.”

He lets the door slam shut behind him and speedwalks down the hall, repeatedly pushing the elevator button. It doesn’t come quickly enough, and he flings open the door to the stairwell to rush down them. His vision blurs dangerously, and he can hardly see where he’s going, but he doesn’t slow down. The tears come freely with no around to see, until he’s out on the sidewalk and violently swipes them away with the back of his hand. He doesn’t pay attention to where he’s walking, only on getting as far away as possible.

Where he ends up shouldn’t come as a surprise to him. It’s muscle memory to come here at this point, a walk so familiar he could do it in his sleep and still manage to avoid all the cracks and uneven parts on the sidewalk on the way.

He stands outside of Shield’s Bar, neon lights coloring his face blue and pink, and he contemplates going in. It’s a Thursday, which means Clint is working the bar until midnight. Natasha will be waiting tables, and Steve will come in to replace her at ten.

All Bucky’s friends. He won’t get any of them in the breakup.

Steve will be the first to turn his back on him with his unwavering loyalty to his best friend. Clint will follow next because he hates tension and it’s the easier side to take. Natasha will be last, and she’ll claim that she loves them both and choosing sides is childish and ridiculous. But she’ll go, too, eventually. When none of her other friends will be in the same room as him, and all of their usual hangout spots become off limits. It’ll grow awkward and uncomfortable until promises to meet up turn into vague excuses and texts spaced months apart.

But where does he have to go if it isn’t here?

Rhodey’s on base in California, and Pepper moved back to New York the second her business degree was done. Staying in Boston was never the plan, not until Bucky and his found family welcomed him into their lives and made it feel like home. Where is there to go if home isn’t an option anymore?

He stands there long enough that people start to whisper as they pass by. They must think he’s lost his mind, staring blankly at a brick wall and hardly blinking, but he doesn’t hear what they say. Doesn’t hear anything but his own thoughts running in circles, going from anger to regret to shame and back again.

He wonders if Bucky’s right. If he truly is the reason it never works out. He knows he’s too insecure and emotionally unavailable. He demands too much and gives too little in return and doesn’t know how to communicate.

He used to watch his parents fight, orbiting around each other with avoidance and unspoken words until the dams broke and silence turned to screams, and he would swear that he would be better. If he was lucky enough to be in love with someone and have them love him in return, he would understand just how rare and beautiful that is and never take it for granted.

Easier said than done. Harder to face the fact that sometimes his words sound exactly like his father’s once did and sometimes he feels like his mother when he quietly lets himself be walked on and overlooked. The worst of both of them is tangled up inside of him, and it always kills whatever he touches.

Natasha finds him there eventually. She opens the door roughly, with intention that falters momentarily before she asks, “Do you plan on coming in at some point or are you staying out here all night?”

“I should probably go,” he says, quietly enough that it’s nearly lost to the wind.

Natasha watches him for a long moment, then steps out of the doorway to take his hand. She leads him over to an empty booth and slides into the opposite side.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

She shrugs, “Steve will be here in a few minutes. No one’s going to die if they have to wait for their beer.”

Silence stretches on, and he stares down at his hands on the table. It’s warmer inside the bar, and he doesn’t realize that the cold has turned his fingers numb until they begin to unthaw.

“People coming in here were talking about some guy loitering outside. Some were saying he looked sad, some said lost. A few less optimistic people voted for strung out on drugs, but I think it’s safe to rule that one out now. Same with lost, seeing as you’ve been here a thousand times. That leaves sad, which means you had a fight with Bucky, and you didn’t come in, which means you think it’s your fault. Am I right so far?”

Tony nods, hanging his head low, and she continues to ask, “Do you want to talk about it or drink about it?”

“We broke up,” Tony mumbles. “I did it.”

She takes a long breath, and her hand is warm when it slips back into his. “Are you planning on fixing it?”

“Not sure it’s fixable. I said some things, he said some things. Can’t really take any of it back now.”

“People say things they don’t mean all the time. Doesn’t make it unforgivable.”

He shrugs like his heart isn’t broken. “Maybe it’s better off this way.”

Natasha sighs, “Tony.”

“What?”

“Go home.”

“Pretty sure I don’t have one of those anymore.”

“Of course you do,” she says softly. “I promise you that he wants you to come back.”

Tony shakes his head. “You weren’t there, Nat. You don’t know what happened.”

“I don’t have to know what happened to know that he wants you to come home. If he feels even half as terrible as you look, he wants you. Just because you broke up doesn’t mean it’s over. It’s only over if you don’t go back.”

Tony bites his lip to keep it from quivering, and he asks, “What if you’re wrong? What if he doesn’t want to see me?”

“Well, it can’t exactly make things worse, can it?”

He huffs a humorless laugh, “I guess not.”

Natasha slides out of the booth, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Go home before he comes out looking for you, and text me in the morning to tell me I was right.”

She walks away, greeting Steve as he comes in, and Tony lingers there for another minute before getting up. He waves to them both on his way out and tries not to think about what she’ll tell Steve about his reason for being there.

The walk back to his and Bucky’s apartment seems quicker than the walk away from it, and Tony resents it for not giving him more time.

He takes the stairs again and hesitates outside the door, what ifs overwhelming his mind. What if he walks in and all of his things are packed up for him? What if Bucky isn’t even there or all of his belongings are gone instead? What if he can’t fix it and this is where it really ends? He doesn’t know if he could recover from that.

Turning the key in the lock, he opens the door slowly and holds his breath in trepidation.

Nothing looks different. No packed boxes, no smashed picture frames, no sign that anything ever went wrong.

Bucky is on the couch, curled into the corner with his legs held tight to his chest, and he doesn’t seem to notice that he isn’t alone anymore. It’s painfully quiet, and the single light that was on before isn’t enough now that it's grown darker outside, but he hasn’t turned any others on.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says into the silence. It’s as good a place as any to start. “You didn't deserve that. Any of it. The whole stupid thing. You deserve so much better. I should be better at this, but I’ve done a real shit job of it lately, I think. Maybe not even lately. Maybe I’ve been a terrible boyfriend the whole time, and in that case you should probably tell me to go and not come back, but I’d like to think there were at least moments where I was sort of okay, and I’d like to try to be more than just okay if you’ll let me.”

Bucky stares at him, lips parted and red-rimmed eyes unblinking. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Tony freezes, unsure of how to answer that, and Bucky unfolds himself to walk over and stand in front of him.

“You broke up with me,” Bucky says.

“Yes, but I -”

“No,” he interrupts. “You broke up with me.”

Tony frowns in confusion and slowly says again, “Yes.”

“That means I do the grovelling here, because I fucked it up. I beg for the second chance, because I crossed the line so far that you left. And I did it on purpose, too, because I had a shit day so I pushed until you pushed back,” Bucky explains. “And apparently I did such a good job being horrible to you that you think it’s your fault.”

Tony tries to process that, but it’s taking some time to work through. A complete turn around on his thoughts that almost makes him dizzy.

“Why did you have a shit day? What happened?”

“Is that really what you’re focusing on in all of that?” Bucky shakes his head in disbelief and runs a hand through his hair. “God, it’s you that deserves better. That’s what I’m telling you here. You were right to leave, and I should be the one telling you I’m sorry.”

“You had a bad day and took it out on me. How many times have I done the same to you? You never once left.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“No,” Tony agrees. He reaches for one of Bucky’s hands, because he needs the contact and has a feeling that Bucky does too. “But it doesn’t mean it’s not worth working on. I meant what I said about wanting to be better for you.”

Bucky nods, looking down at their joined hands. “I want to be better for you, too. How do we do that?”

“A lot of talking about our feelings, probably.”

Bucky pulls a face. “God, that sounds terrible.”

Tony laughs, taking his other hand to pull him in closer, “Yeah, it does, but we’ll get better at it eventually.”

“Can we start tomorrow?” Bucky asks. He leans down to rest his forehead against Tony’s. “I’d really like to just hold you tonight.”

“Yeah, baby,” Tony murmurs. “Hold me tonight. It’ll be better in the morning.”