#risk based maintenance

[zakiyah]

there are so many reasons to work out besides looking different btw

[cyberswift-story]

Enhancing Gas Pipeline Management with GIS: Key Benefits and Applications

In the energy and utilities sector, gas pipeline management is complex, requiring precision, safety, and a clear strategy for both existing infrastructure and future expansion. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have revolutionized pipeline management by providing a spatially accurate, data-rich view of assets. From asset management and leak detection to route planning and demand forecasting, GIS is becoming indispensable for gas companies. This blog delves into the ways GIS transforms gas pipeline management, delivering benefits across safety, efficiency, cost-saving, and planning.

[thatmartiangirl]

Working in the insurance industry and getting a better idea of how it works and it's becoming clearer and clearer how bonkers it is that the healthcare system in this country is insurance based

[inbabylontheywept]

Soviet Birds.

The secret facility that I work in has holes in the ceiling. We don't know how to get them fixed.

We tried asking the government to fix it, once. We told them that the holes in the older parts of the facility had gotten large enough to fit birds through, and that birds were getting through, and that, perhaps, a Soviet Spy could fit through as well.

After all, it is well known that Soviet Spies and pigeons are approximately the same diameter.

Our hope was that that this vague and nonsensical threat would put a little fire under Uncle Sam's feet. If the fed couldn't be bothered to give a shit about the giant gaping holes in the roof of our facility, perhaps they could be persuaded to give a shit about... Soviet Spies.

This attempt at manipulation 100% blew up in our faces.

See, the government does not need to be persuaded to give a shit about Soviet Spies. It still wakes up most nights, drenched in cold sweat, terrified and confident that a Soviet Spy is hiding in their nightstand. If it sees a rock on the ground, it flips it over, pistol drawn, ready to shoot the Soviet Spy it fully expects to slither out from underneath. Which is to say: The government is crazy. So when we dropped those two words - inflitration risk - in the repair request, they came in guns-a-blazin'.

Does that mean that they fixed the roof? Of course not. Don't be stupid. No, instead of performing basic maintenance, they installed a state of the art alarm system throughout the facility - lasers, sonar, the works - and told us to always be on the guard. Because of the roof holes.

Then they left.

So now we had an extremely good alarm system... and birds. Which have combined in incredibly obvious and predictable ways to produce an unending fountain of problems.

For Example: About once a month, someone gets called in by the local airforce dispatch because AAAAAAAAAAA a Spy is in the Rad Lab! We're all gonna die! Except every time, it's a bird. And I get why we have to check, but every time, the dispatcher is panicked and the person going out has to be like listen, listen: It's a bird. It's always a bird. It's been a bird every month for the last fifteen years. It will be a bird next month. All this stress? Bad for your heart.

Second Example: Sometimes, birds get in while we're actually working. And when it's in the morning, you know, it's a nuisance, and it stops testing (we are not going to risk irradiating a bird) but it's not an all-hands-on-deck situation because it doesn't take ten hours to get a bird out. But surprisingly often, the bird gets in riiiiight at closing time, and in that situation, everyone goes feral because nobody can leave until the alarm is set, and we cannot set the alarm while the bird is there, because the bird would immediately trigger it and then we'd have to stay another 4 hours to confirm that it was not a Soviet Bird.

So in order to go home, everyone's top priority is Get That Bird. And we have a system for it.

Step 1: The test stands tend to be located in rooms with 30+ foot ceilings. We can't catch birds in places like that - so we have to lure the bird into the relatively low ceilinged (8 feet only) upper offices.

We do this by turning all the lights off in the test rooms, then putting floodlights by the exits. I don't know why this works - some kind of evolutionary brain fragment shared by both Bugs and Birds - but work it does. The birds almost always follow after the lights. From there, it’s just two guys moving the floodlight and a third guy to turn off the lights.

Step 2: Everyone else has been waiting for this step. There is this long stairway up from the basement level into the offices, and in the final stage, the floodlights are brought to the base of the stairwell to bring the bird up. At the top of the steps there will be a group of tennish people, waiting for the signal. The light guys will set up the final transfer, everyone will tense, and then, swish...a bird will flit up the stairs and into the offices.

It's like watching werewolves on a full moon. Before the bird cometh, we are engineers. Nerds. Pale and skinny things, trembling under the fluorescent lights. After the bird, we are beasts. Feral, gnawing things, glowing under the orange sunrise of the 70's halogen floodlights.

And like all beasts, we cannot help but give chase.

Step 3: The were-engineers begin the hunt. The goal at the start is not really to catch the bird - just exhaust it. So the pack simply does not relent. Because the stakes are going home on time, the group is basically given free reign to go anywhere in the building. If someone's door is open, and the bird goes inside, they're going to have to deal with ten sweaty panting maniacs leaping around their office. They don't get to say that they're busy, or remark on how all this movement is a terrible distraction. They are allowed to sit in silence during the chaos, and perhaps thank the war party for chasing the bird while they sat comfortably on their ass. This has been explained several times, and it will continue to be explained until cooperation is achieved.

Anyway.

The chase can go on for quite some time. Sometimes, the bird will get tired and find a crevice to hide in, where it can then be reached through standard cornered-bird catching techniques.

Other times, it will slow down enough that someone can actually yoink it out of the air. But this will go on until someone catches the bird and triggers Step 4.

Step 4: The Finale. This is the get-the-bird-out-of-the-building stage, and it requires someone to adopt a specific role: To Become the Sacrificial Vessel of Bird Removal.

This job is both coveted and feared. It's coveted, because holding a wild bird in one's hands is a precious thing. To feel how small, and fragile, and scared it is, only to free it from the building? That is what it's like to be a benevolent God. But the cost! Oh, the cost. The entire time the Vessel is in motion, the bird will be biting the hell out of their fingers. And I cannot emphasize enough just how painful bird bites are. Their entire face is a set of needle posed pliers, and they know tricks the even the cartels haven't figured out yet. So there's always a little hubbub about who shall be The Vessel while onlookers, stranded outside The Office of Bird Capture, can only look on. Quiet arguments and pleas are heard, little fragments of fear and pride and glory trickling out of room like the silver dust left behind in a bag of well shook quarters. The sound of concensus is silence, and the argument will go on until that's all that's left. And then, from the darkness of the final office, the chosen sacrifice will step forward: Hands gently cupped, tears streaming down their face, fingers trembling from the pain of the ongoing bird chomps.

And this scene is what organizes people. Not leadership, not truly. No one can think and coordinate a crowd while their fingers are being attacked with a combination nutcracker/ear piercer. But the crowd sees the suffering of their annointed, and it is driven to do everything poossible to make the process flow. People instinctively flair out, finding the fastest path outside. Doors are held open. Paths are cleared. Someone, somehow, always knows the way forward and can describe it to the sufferer. Left, left, forward. Corner closet. Yep, there's a hall in there. Forward. Two-hundred more feet man, you're doing great. Just hold it together a little longer. You're killing it.

Then the final door swings open, and the bird flees out into what remains of daylight. And yet, even here, the deed is not yet done. I cannot explain it in words, but the crowd that helped is never content until they can see and speak on the Bird Vessel's wounds. They all have to pull the fingers back and see what was given. Estimate the price: One day to get better - No, three - No, a week! Are you blind? Do you see that blood blister? -Yeah, that's not going away anytime soon - Damn, can you believe how feisty those things are? Like wolves without teeth.

(They cannot help but touch as they go. It has always been this way. Even Thomas was not content until he felt the wounds in Christ's hands.)

Only when the last of the helpers has seen, and commented, and commended, will the engineers scatter. It is their return from the underworld that announces to the sun living surface dwellers that they too can go home. (@somerunner tolja it needed to be a post.)

[lyratea]

Welcome to the Hustle & Heart Legacy Challenge! 💼✨ This 8-generation challenge is all about building businesses, taking risks, and leaving a lasting dynasty! Your Sims won’t just inherit wealth—they’ll have to hustle, grind, and master their craft to create successful businesses from the ground up. From pottery shops to buzzing nightclubs, peaceful spas to chatty tattoo parlors, every generation will take on a new business venture, each with its own set of rules, skills, and challenges.

Can your family go from small-time entrepreneurs to legendary business moguls? Let’s find out!

(GOOGLE DOCS VERSION)

I plan to actively refine and add more generations once i've played through the game more, if there's any advice or something flawed you've noticed please let me know!

expand to see the legacy challenge!

NEEDED PACKS: Business and Hobbies

RECOMMENDED, BUT BASE GAME ALTERNATIVES PROVIDED: City Living Cats and Dogs Discover University Eco Lifestyle Get Together Get To Work Jungle Adventures Lovestruck Outdoor Retreat Parenthood Seasons Spa Day Werewolves

GOAL: Build a family legacy by creating a multi-generational business empire! Each generation must 'master' a different business type and pass the family fortune to the next heir! RULES: You may use freerealestate for your first HOUSE/LIVING AREA but after please refrain from using any more money cheats. Normal or Long lifespans recommended. The business must be started from scratch- no inheriting a previous successful business and remolding the lot/changing business activities. You may use the funds from your household to help kickstart a new business. IF you'd rather start from scratch each time, that's fine too. Each business should reach a 4-star rating before the heir can 'retire'. Try to train and promote employees- don't just fire them! NO selling the business for a quick payout- run it long-term.

Play the generations in whatever way you see fit or amusing if you don't like how i lined them up <3

GENERATION 1: Pottery Maker

Traits: Idealist, Ambitious, Maker(bga: creative) Aspiration: Esteemed Entrepreneur Goals: Reach max level in the Pottery and Handiness skills. Have at least 5 successful 'lectures' Make 10 Excellent Pieces Extra: Start selling one other 'home furniture' item in your shop

GENERATION 2: Tattoo Artist

Traits: Creative, Practice Makes Perfect, Art Lover Aspiration: Mastor Mentor Goals: Reach max level in the Tattooing and Charisma skills. Have a celebrity sim as a customer (if using get famous) Mentor at least 2 sims 'becoming tattoo apprentices' Extra: create at least 5 custom tattoos and give them to customers.

GENERATION 3: Nightclub

Traits: Shady, Dance Machine(bga: Music Lover), Lovebug(bga: romantic) Aspiration: Party Animal Goals: Open and run a high-energy nightclub with a bar and dancefloor. Have at least 1 romantic relationship with a coworker or clubgoer before 'settling down'. Reach max level in Dancing, and Mixology skills. Extra: Earn minimum §100,000 from club earnings.

GENERATION 4: Museum

Traits: Genius, Overachiever(bga: Perfectionist), Bookworm Aspiration: Nerd Brain Goals: Open a museum showcasing AT LEAST 6 ITEMS from 4 DIFFERENT collections. (Pick your own collections if you please, there are 16 BG options. For the ones I find the most ‘museum like’, here are my suggestions: Microscope prints, Insects(O.R), Fossils, Ancient Omiscan Artifacts(J.A), MoonWood Relics(Werewolves)). Reach max level in logic, and research and debate(bga: Writing) Extra: Publish at least 2 research books or guides.

GENERATION 5: Gym/Spa

Traits: Active, Bro, High-Maintenance(bga: Self-Assured) Aspiration: Zen Guru (bga: Bodybuilder) Goals: Reach max level in Fitness and Wellness skills. Have at least ONE close friend to workout with once a week Host at least 5 meditation or yoga sessions (if using spa day) Extra: Do a yoga routine everyday!

GENERATION 6: Lounge

Traits: Outgoing, Goofball, Foodie Aspiration: Friend of the World Goals: Open a run a lounge that offers live entertainment and good drinks. Reach max level in Charisma, Comedy OR Singing(bga: piano) Become friends with regular customers. Extra: Perform comedy or singing gigs at your lounge!

GENERATION 7: Daycare

Traits: Family-Oriented, Neat, Proper(bga: Loyal) Aspiration: Super Parent(bga: Successful Lineage) Goals: Reach lmax level in Baking(bga: cooking), and Parenting(bga: Handiness) Have at least three children (biological, or adopted) Host your daycare from your home!

GENERATION 8: Park Owner

Traits: Green Fiend(bga: Loves Outdoors), Vegetarian, Animal Enthusiast(bga: Good) Aspiration: Outdoor Enthusiast(bga: Freelance Botanist) Goals: Reach max level in Gardening, Fishing, and Flower Arranging(bga: creative) Plant and maintain at least 20 plants/trees. Open and run a PUBLIC PARK (NO ENTRY FEES!) Rescue or adopt at least 5 animals (if using Cats and Dogs)

This is the ROUGHEST draft I’m currently producing as of now without playing much of the new expansion pack myself. When I get back from my work trip and figure out exactly how much cross-compatibility there is with other- packs, there might be a whole new set of generations coming out.

happy simming! Lyratea ^^

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

not going anywhere (FNaF Sun/Moon x Reader short oneshot)

hapy valntins, here's a short fluff piece based off my Afton Virus'd Reader AU, with a hint of unhinged clinginess on all sides <3

FNaF DCA x gender-neutral Reader One-shot, 1,118 words, fluff, implied romantic feelings, clingy obsessive possessive lovers

-

You struggled to open your eyes, squinting and blinking several times before you could begin to make out shapes. Ah… you had fallen asleep at work again. You had promised you would get better about that, but… Well, they didn’t really seem to mind too much… In fact, some days their moods were improved after you spent a night dozing in their room…But you were fairly sure you had been down in maintenance doing paperwork, hadn’t you? So when had you…

You lifted an arm to rub at your eyes, looking around more clearly. You glanced down and breathed a quiet sigh, smiling despite yourself. Of course. They were your ever loyal companions, of course they must have gotten concerned when you failed to clock out or wish them good night as you left. And what caring person wouldn’t take their dear overworked friend to bed if they found them asleep at some cramped, poorly lit desk? And of course they had stayed to watch over you and make sure you slept well, that was their job. 

They really were too sweet for words. Altogether too kind to you, especially after everything you had been through together.

You reached down, gently straightening Moon’s cap with one hand. His eyes were shut, expression peaceful as he ‘slept’ so soundly, using your stomach as a pillow with his arms wound around you several times over. He was warm and heavy, but comfortably so, and it soothed your aching muscles to have the constant pressure of his weight bearing down on you. Even your hands didn’t ache so terribly when he held them. You took a deep breath, gently tracing the curve of his cheek, stroking beneath his eye with your thumb. He was pretty, though he would deny it- a work of art made life. You could look at him for hours and not grow tired. He had said the same of you, once, but you hadn’t been sure why or if he was even being honest. 

You looked around, seeing the sliver of light breaking through the curtains of the balcony. It must be morning by now, you mused, oddly disappointed. There wasn’t time to be lazing about, no matter how comfortable it was or how your head pounded at the thought of going back to the grindstone. You had work to do. You always had so much work to do…

You shook your head, attempting to shoo the thoughts away, and shuffled upward, slowly working yourself into a sitting position without disturbing your slumbering companion. It was still early, and they always fretted over you so much… It would be good for them to rest a while longer, wouldn’t it? You smoothed the ruffle under his chin before beginning the awkward shuffle out of his arms. You’d had plenty of practice at this point, with how often you ended up in this situation, but it was better to be cautious than to risk waking the sleeping jester. They could be quite clingy when they first woke. 

You pushed yourself onto your knees, grasping at the wall to get yourself on your feet.

“Darling,”

A hand traced up your back, the fingertips snagging in your shirt and grabbing a handful of the fabric in an unyielding grip, stopping you in your tracks. 

“where do you think you’re going?”

You were frozen for half a moment before you turned to look down. Moon was awake, one eye cracked open to fix you with a piercing red glare, one arm extended to hold you in place, half standing, only a few inches from where you had been sleeping. You let out a sigh of defeat, disappointed you hadn’t managed to slip away unnoticed, but smiled at him softly.

“Good morning, you two.”

He let out a low hum, his claws dragging against your shirt as he pulled you downward slowly until you were once more seated on the floor. He lifted himself up enough to creep closer, keeping his intense red gaze fixated on yours as he dragged you into his arms again. His other hand followed a similar path of the first, his claws gliding up your back to sink into the fabric just behind your shoulderblade as he laid on top of you once more. The sensation was featherlight but left a shudder going up your spine as the ticklish feeling lingered. 

“You didn’t answer our question, starlight.”

You sighed, gently petting the top of his head, rubbing his cheek as you repeated the movement several times. “I can’t stay. I have work to do.”

He leaned into your touch, closing his eyes again. His hands adjusted their hold, gently working more fabric into his fists as his grip on you grew tighter. “Nonsense. No work today. Daycare is closed.”

You vaguely remembered hearing about a scheduled day off for this section. If you had remembered, you could have planned to do some of your work here… Lamenting over it wouldn’t help the fact that you still had to get up… “That sounds nice, Moon, but-”

“Sh. No buts.” He hissed quietly, pressing his fingertips into your back in a way that made you jump. 

“Moondrop…”

“No.” 

His voice grew sharp, firm, but his peaceful expression didn’t waver. Instead, he lifted a hand and covered your eyes, gently pressing you down until you were laying on your back, nearly consumed by blankets and pillows they kept here specifically for you. He opened one eye again, lifting his hand to meet your gaze for only a moment.

“Sleep, my star.”

He covered your eyes again, pressing his face to your temple in a gentle caress. He draped himself over you, tangling your legs in his as he laid his weight around you carefully, cocooning you in his embrace. 

“Rest, here.”

The darkness was soothing on your aching eyes, and your muscles felt worn and tired simply from your attempt to get up… Maybe it was still early. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you slept just another hour more. Just a little more sleep, so you would be able to work most efficiently. He wouldn’t insist if it wasn’t necessary. 

You let out a long sigh, relaxing into his unyielding, tender embrace. You felt rather than heard the chuckle that rose from his chest. You were putty in his hands, and oh did he know it. You closed your eyes, resting your forehead against his chest. 

“Alright. You’ll wake me in an hour, won’t you? There’s still so much to do…” You yawned, draping an arm over him. He grabbed your hand and pressed it to his teeth, and you felt his smile.

“Of course, my starlight.” He lied. 

[ddejavvu]

Betrayal - Obi-Wan Kenobi x Reader

Summary: months into the war and it's not as exhilarating as you'd hoped - not for your battalion, anyway. when the air conditioning in your compound blows, an old friend brings his tech genius of a padawan to fix it for you. while anakin is working, you convince his master to spar for old times' sake, and simple adrenaline gives way to a landslide of long-buried feelings neither of you should have for each other.

Contents/Warnings: smut, minors dni, fem!reader, jedi!reader, reader is a general, sweat kink (? they are really sweaty and i talk about it a lot), oral (m+f receiving), semi-public sex (risk of being caught), sparring, lightsaber use, throatfucking, messy kisses, scratching/marking, lotsa spit, obligatory 'had you said the word' (sorry satine i had to steal his line)

WC: 16.9K / navigation / inbox

A/N: sorry this took me so long to finish! i didn't have time to write for like two months but it's done now and i hope you enjoy it <3 this is set a couple months/a year into the clone wars, but i have chosen to fuck with their ages a little bit. in this, anakin is like 12-14-ish, even though he was older in AOTC when the war began.

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

Neglecting the option of taking a padawan under your wing is what stuck you on this humid, blazing, hellish planet, and you almost regret it. You’d wanted more freedom in your duties, didn’t want a youngling clinging to your leg begging for help with their rudimentary saber drills, so instead you swapped it for what you thought would be constant battle, exhilarating speeder chases, and the glory of proving yourself. Unbecoming of a Jedi to wish for, yes, but you’ve never claimed to be Council-worthy.

Now your butt is sticking to the chair you’re planted in, overlooking a very empty, very desolate, very boring outpost. It’s so hot that you think you’ve melted into the chair and fused with its fabric. Standing might tear your skin away from your flesh, leaving an imprint of you behind in your seat.

“General,” One of your clone troopers calls, sticking his head through the doorway to your station, “Nothing on my scanners.”

“Nor on mine,” You drawl lazily, “We’re scheduled to be inspected today. Any word from the crew?”

“None.” He laments, “I just hope they bring a droid that can fix the cooler.”

The base you’re stationed to isn’t always this disgusting. The structure is wired with an air conditioning system to keep the inside much cooler than the outside, but after a rather unfortunate incident with a freshly manufactured astromech droid with some crossed wirings, both lay broken and singed in the maintenance bay. Your clones don’t know how to tinker with droids or heating systems, and you’d probably wind up just as ash-covered if you tried.

“Alert me when they land,” You order the trooper, leaning your forehead against the cool metal of the scanner screen before you, “I want to have time to change into an outfit I haven’t soaked through with sweat.”

The scanner grows warm against your flushed skin far too soon. Everything is hot, and sticky, and gross, and you find yourself yearning for the cold showers you used to despise at the temple. Perhaps you yearn for the temple in general, for the familial atmosphere shared among overconfident Padawans and exasperated Masters. You think specifically of Obi-Wan Kenobi, a man you’d trained with, now Master to his apprentice Skywalker.

You haven’t seen the pair in years, but you remember Anakin’s blonde mop of hair, as well as his penchant for chaos. Watching Obi-Wan’s eyes fill with horror at whatever shenanigans his Padawan had gotten into that day was part of what helped you make the decision to decline one yourself, though you hold no distaste for the boy. He was simply young and untrained in the ways of the Jedi, and you were not a patient enough person to gracefully navigate that predicament then. You’re not sure you are now, either.

Even though you know you’re better suited on your own, you wonder if you’d have been more fulfilled with a Padawan learner of your own. Surely anything could be better than this, wasting away- rotting on a planet hot enough to boil your blood if you stepped outside without proper protection.

Your base is secluded and temperature-controlled, even if the contraption that the Republic had fashioned under pressure of time to keep you isolated is rather crude. It’s, in essence, a large dome, seals in place to ensure that vessels can land and takeoff without destroying the temperature control. It’s cooler within the dome than it is outside of it, but the hurriedly-designed system can only do too much, and you greatly depend on the air conditioning to do its job. Now that it’s not, you’re irritated from the heat, and you wish that the inspection team would just hurry up already. The patience you’d had drilled into you from your early years as a Youngling is nowhere to be found under the pressure of a heat wave, and your foot taps impatiently against the floor while you itch for some action.

You think it’s rather pathetic that you yearn for excitement so badly that you’re anxiously awaiting the inspection team. Their job takes barely an hour, a scan of your equipment and a survey of your troops. They’ll walk in and out without so much as a pleasantry, but you long for something new, something more, something exciting.

The call over your comms comes over an hour later, a time in which you remain at your post but begrudge it all the while. “General,” Your trooper barks, voice staticky and rough over the channel, “We’ve got visitors. Inspection team’s here. Initiating landing procedure.”

“Copy that,” You bolt out of your seat, barely remembering to lean over the microphone to reply, “Thank you.”

Finally.

Finally, someone new to talk to, even if they have the same face as everyone else you’ve spoken to on this long, dreary assignment. You’re friendly with your troopers, of course, but that itch for more is back in your brain, igniting you with vigor you don’t normally possess as you rush to greet the inspection team.

However, when you reach the landing bay, and the ship’s hydraulics hiss, clone troopers aren’t the only ones to disembark. Jedi robes make their appearance, shrouding the very man you’d just thought about, as well as the child by his side. 

Obi-Wan wears the years that have passed since you last saw him, but time has treated him well. His hair is longer now, gone is that stiff Padawan buzz. His braid is missing as well, giving way to luscious strawberry blonde strands that he’s slicked back so that they drag against the back and sides of his neck. Longer hair looks good on him, just as it had when he was fifteen and had refused a haircut for months in a typical, if rather tame, display of teenage rebellion. Anakin is also significantly older than you’d kept track of, but he can’t be older than fourteen if his lanky limbs and awkward demeanor are any evidence.

Obi-Wan smiles at you, and you nearly forget to shove down that shameful part of you that wants to take more out of him than he can give you. Even as Padawans you’d always gravitated towards the man opposite you, sneaking out to roam the gardens after hours together or sharing sly glances across mission briefings. But he’s an honorable Jedi Master - a member of the Council itself, so you’ve heard - and you wrestle down your repressed feelings to grin at him.

“General Y/L/N,” He greets with a smile so charming you lament that the Jedi Order interrupted his chances of being a model.

“Master Kenobi,” You greet, but you know he’ll chide you for the honorific if you use it more than once, “I wasn’t aware you’d be on the inspection team.”

“We’re not. Technically.” Obi-Wan admits, arm coming to press against Anakin’s back and nudge him forwards, “We got word that your air conditioning system is out, as well as one of your new astromechs. Anakin here is still an excellent mechanic, I thought we’d come out to offer you some reprieve from the heat.”

Anakin looks embarrassed by the attention that’s fallen upon him, in typical pubescent fashion, and you take pity on the timid teenager, casting your glance back at his Master, “Maker, thank you. We’re melting out here.”

“I can imagine,” Obi-Wan laughs, and you turn again to Anakin who’s anxiously awaiting your orders.

“Anakin, if you could fix our air conditioning, that would be wonderful. Honestly, I’m not even sure I want the droid fixed, it’s what got us into this mess in the first place. But they’re both over there,” You point to the shorted out panels, “And my troopers will offer you any supplies you need, like tools or wiring or refreshments.”

“Thank you.” Anakin nods, hands clasped behind his back obediently even if he looks mortified to be the center of attention once more, “I’ll have things up and running as soon as possible.”

“I’m leaving you here,” Obi-Wan warns the boy, pointing an accusatory finger at him, “I don’t often leave you alone with machinery and tools, Anakin, for reasons we’re both aware of. Promise me you will not do anything reckless?”

“I promise,” Anakin mutters reluctantly, and you avert your eyes so he has some semblance of privacy.

“I mean it, Anakin. This is no time to experiment with your technical prowess. You simply fix their system and you wait for me back on the ship, understand?”

“Master,” Anakin pleads, “I understand.”

“Very well. Get to your duties,” Obi-Wan dismisses the boy, turning to you only after he sees his Padawan crouch by the singed panel.

“He shouldn’t take long. He most likely will try to tinker with the astromech, though.” Obi-Wan smiles sympathetically, “He’s not one to leave a droid unusable.”

“I remember he had a particular talent for mechanics,” You muse, starting off towards the main base intent on leading Obi-Wan to your rec room, “If I recall correctly, he figured out how to inconspicuously rewire his communicator to give you an ‘unavailable’ signal if he didn’t like what you were asking him to do.”

Obi-Wan scoffs as he lets you lead through the doorway, “Yes, my Padawan has always had very selective hearing. I’m sure you don’t mind not having one of your own.”

“That’s one of the reasons I justify my choice,” You chuckle, letting the door shut behind you as you make your way through the halls. The base that the Republic had granted you is spacious, even decked out with training facilities and rec rooms interspersed throughout your rows of quarters, but it’s unbearably hot and you’re tired of being cooped up inside of it.

“This isn’t bad for a base,” Obi-Wan muses, robes swishing behind him as he strides beside you, “But I hope Anakin fixes that cooling system soon.”

“Try being stationed here permanently,” You scoff, tugging at the sweat-soaked neckline of your tunic, “I have long since abandoned my robes.”

“Do you have somewhere I could set this?” Obi-Wan asks, fingers catching the front of his cloak as he slings it off. It falls gracefully from his shoulders, and he holds the garment up as he laments still having to wear the rest of his robes.

“You can leave it in my quarters,” You veer sharply to the right, letting him catch up, “They’re just down this hallway.”

There’s unmarked doors on either side of the corridor, and you’re still impressed that each clone trooper knows where their bed is at night. Your door has a plaque beside its frame that reads ‘General’s Quarters,’ and you’re not confident that you could navigate the halls without it. You type in your access code, and the door slides open with a hiss.

“Just set it on the bed,” You gesture towards your mattress, “If we have some time, I thought,” You reach into the closet, pulling out your seldom-used lightsaber, “We could spar.”

Obi-Wan laughs, discarding his cloak onto your bed as his eyes crinkle happily at the corners, “You’re lacking a bit of excitement here, aren’t you, Y/N? There’s no way you’d duel me willingly after I took you down the last time.”

You’d sparred together since you’d been handed a saber for the first time. Sure, your initial weapons were wooden, then training blades designed to be duller than their more advanced counterparts, before you’d finally been granted allowance to manufacture one of your own. But there were no more dedicated sparring partners than the two of you, and you can tell the man opposite you is fond of the reminder you’ve given him, even if he is trying to tease you.

“You did not take me down,” You gawp, “I mean- yes, I was on the floor, but I wasn’t done! You didn’t win!”

“Mm, yes. I didn’t win because no one did.” Obi-Wan sends you a sly grin, “Anakin interrupted us, don’t you remember? We never got to finish.”

“Then a rematch,” You insist, gesturing towards the open doorway, “Once and for all we’ll prove who the better duelist is.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll win. After all, I can tell you spend every waking moment practicing and making sure you lose none of your fighting abilities,” Obi-Wan’s hand darts out to switch on your holotable, revealing an in-progress game of chess. You’re losing.

“I’ve only been using that as of late,” You snap, defensive, “It’s insufferable to train without proper ventilation. And only when I’m not on duty. I don’t spend all of my time sitting and playing chess.”

“Losing at chess.” Obi-Wan arches an eyebrow, finally stepping out of your quarters so that you can shut it once more, “Come, Y/N, show me to your training grounds.”

The training room is just as hot as everywhere else on the base. You walk through the doors and humid air greets you, something that wrinkles Obi-Wan’s nose and rustles his mustache.

 “God, I hope your Padawan knows what he’s doing,” You groan, rolling up the sleeves of your own tunic but jumping excitedly into action despite the heat. You ignite your saber, slightly embarrassed by the thrill that the weapon gives you as it thrums to life. You haven’t felt this in a long time, at least, not paired with the thrill of battle. It’s significantly less awe-inspiring to ignite a saber against a training droid you know wouldn’t be able to singe your tunics if you stood stock still. Obi-Wan brings his to life as well; blue and green lights bathe your faces.

“I’ll go easy on you.” He smiles infuriatingly, cocking his head slightly to one side, “Ready?”

“Ready.” You jolt right, a fakeout before you dart left instead. He catches on rather quickly, though, and his blade clashes against yours as you aim for his leg.

“Nice start,” Obi-Wan admits, “But you can’t rely on misdirection for your entire fight. You’ll have to overpower me.”

“I could easily overpower you,” You swing left, breaking the contact of your two sabers, then jabbing so that he has to move his foot out of the way to avoid the plasma. He stumbles, barely catching himself against his back foot, but it gives you time enough to bring your blade up and around to nick at his shoulder, a hole now slashed into his tunic.

“Okay,” He stands straight, eyeing the tear in his clothing warily, “I won’t go easy on you.”

“Never underestimate your opponent,” You tease proudly, saber still ignited, “That’s one for me, Obi-Wan.”

“That doesn’t count,” He scoffs, standing at the ready, “I told you I’d go easy on you. Now I’m serious.”

“All I’m hearing is excuses,” You gloat, feet light as you step around him, “You lead this time, Kenobi.”

He does. He swings downwards, and you block your face with your own blade to stop him. He nearly jabs at your gut before you can prevent it, and you feel the heat from his blade as your own comes to block his.

You fling his weapon away with yours, and he lets you. After such a long period of no action (and shamefully little meditation) your abilities with the Force have grown slightly weaker, as have your regulatory skills. You can still sense what he’s going to do when he squares his shoulders, but you’re almost not fast enough to interpret those senses, and you barely make it to block him from swinging his blade in a fiery circle that would clip the edge of your arm.

“You’re rusty,” He taunts, his own Force abilities stronger than ever as his presence seeps through the cracks in your mind. You try to force him out, but it takes effort, and it’s effort you can’t expend elsewhere. It means that you can’t foresee his intent to aim for your face, and his blade hums inches away from your cheek as he holds it there.

You freeze; you’re caught.

We’re even,” You grunt, sweat beading at your forehead, “But we’re not finished.”

“Hang on,” He disengages his saber, letting the apparatus clatter to the ground as he tugs at one of the outer layers of his robes, “I’m going to shed a few things.”

“Stripping will not help your cause.” You tease, “I’m not distracted by sex appeal.”

Clearly, he isn’t expecting your jab, and he lets his mouth fall open as he slings off one of his garments, an incredulous laugh filling his throat.

“Y/N. You’ve obtained a foul mouth somewhere along your career. It certainly wasn’t in the temple.”

“It’s the clones,” You groan, “Try being stationed with a troop of grown men who went through puberty in record time. They’ve got the appetite of an adult with the filter of a teenage boy.”

“They’ve never tried anything with you,” Obi-Wan narrows his eyes questioningly, and you try to avoid looking at the sweat glistening against his tanned neck as he strips to his base layer.

“No, they’re respectful.” You assure him, “Just crass.”

“Yes, well,” Obi-Wan frowns distastefully, “They haven’t had Jedi training. I suppose I’m not surprised.”

He stands there for a moment with only his undershirt covering his chest, then decides that it’s still too warm, tugging at its hem to raise it over his head.

You feel your insides ignite with a fire you haven’t felt in a long time when his bare chest is exposed, skin marred and riddled with coarse, wiry hair. His stomach is flat but not as tight as you remember in your youth, softer now. You can tell there’s an impressive layer of muscle beneath the milky white skin, though, even if it’s not outwardly visible. He uses his tunic to wipe the sweat off of his face so you’re granted a moment to ogle him, your mouth watering as you try to conceal your thoughts. 

“Okay. Enough with this child’s play.” You shake your head, letting Obi-Wan have just enough time to toss aside his tunic before you plant your feet against the mat. Obi-Wan stands at the ready, both of your sabers ignited, “I want a real match. A long one, now that we’re warmed up. Best two out of three, Kenobi. Winner takes all.”

“Winner gets to stand in front of the air conditioning vent when Anakin gets it up and running,” Obi-Wan suggests, sweat trailing down his neck and over his chest. You avert your eyes, lest the fraile state of mind you’re in betrays you.

“Fine.” You shrug, reaching for the hem of your vest. It’s tactical, good for keeping with you on duty, but it’s etching lines of sweat into your back now. You sling it off, letting it land in a heap similar to Obi-Wan’s robes, and exposing the tank top you have on beneath it. “I know just the one I’ll pick. In my room, there’s one just above the bed. Maybe I’ll let it hit my back while I win at holochess.”

“I think the heat might be getting to you,” Obi-Wan cracks, a slight heave to his chest as he tries regulating his breathing. It’s hard when you’re as hot as you are to get enough oxygen, and you’re doing the same. It’s awfully difficult not to indulge in the view of his bare chest rapidly rising and falling, and you feel a tug below your gut as a vision flashes through your mind. It’s of what else could make him pant in such a way, and you can’t afford to entertain the thought, not around him. “I’m not sure which outcome is more delusional; that you’ll win this duel, or that you’ll win at holochess.”

“You’re wasting time,” You croon, charging with your blade poised for battle so that you have no more time to fantasize, “I think you’re scared.”

“Do I feel afraid?” Obi-Wan laughs, blocking your attack with little effort and redoubling to launch one of his own. The clatter of your sabers almost drowns out his words, “Reach out, Y/L/N, all you’ll feel is confidence.”

“I’m not sure I could feel you if I tried,” You lament, chest heaving as you block one of his swings, “Not while my mind is occupied with our duel. I am rusty, you were right.”

“Practice more,” He chides, “Less chess, more meditation.”

“One is a lot more boring than the other!” You groan, barely managing to get your arm up in time to take a shot at his own, “And the less boring one is chess, so that’s really saying something.”

“It may be boring but it is beneficial,” Obi-Wan lectures you, and you wonder if he thinks you’re still a Padawan. You fight with heaving breaths and monumental effort, the heat sucking your energy out through the sweat that drips down your skin. He turns and his back is glistening, which is really not a sight that helps you to stay focused.

“Now I’m starting to see why Anakin tinkered with his communicator,” You call, as Obi-Wan whirls around your left side, “You’re very dull as a Jedi Master!”

You have to throw yourself onto the floor to avoid a swing at your head, your right shoulder aching as you do so. But you scramble away from him, righting yourself and miraculously avoiding the blade of your saber coming into contact with the training mat.

You stumble to your knees, driving the forward momentum you have against Obi-Wan as he tries blocking you. You nearly get a nick out of his pants, but he pushes you backwards with the threat of his blade, and you fall with your back to the mat.

Your stomach drops when a blue blade hums hot and bright near your throat, its tip directed at your jugular. It doesn’t matter that it’s on its training setting; it’s inescapable and daunting when it’s an inch from your skin. You’re done for. 

“I may be dull,” Obi-Wan pants, beard glistening as sweat streams down his neck. His chest heaves as he speaks, bare and open for your eyes, and his pink tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth to dart along his lips, “But I am victorious. Does this remind you a little bit of the last time we fought?”

It does. He’d been standing over you then as he is now, and you’d had to fortify your mind back then not to let slip vulgar thoughts about being on the floor below him. His thighs, meaty with muscle and strong from training, are hidden behind loose pants, but their crotch has tightened slightly, a chub to what should be a relaxed surface.

A pang of arousal shoots down your spine, and suddenly the lightsaber near your throat isn’t the most daunting thing in the room. It’s Obi-Wan.

He swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing as you lay beneath him.

“Your thoughts betray you,” He observes, and you feel his invasive presence in your mind, sucking out the private thoughts coursing through your brain. They’re of panting breaths, heaving chests, wandering hands, and meshing tongues; passionate embraces, intimate attachments. Things no Jedi should fantasize about, not under the code. Things that should bring shame to you, and maybe they do, and maybe you like it.

“Your body betrays you,” You’re able to muster, swallowing the saliva pooling in your mouth as you glance pointedly at his bulge. It’s only grown since you’d last glanced at it; evidently your visions did something to him too.

He sees, or perhaps, feels what you see, freezes, then clicks his saber off. The blade retracts with a hiss and there is a distinct vacuum of sound where its humming once was. He breaks the unnerving silence with a clatter as he tosses it aside, feet still firmly planted on either side of your hips. 

“It’s natural.” He weakly supplies, a poor defense, “It’s adrenaline-fueled, nothing more.”

“Really? So when you duel sith lords, when you chop the heads off of battle droids, you walk away with a stiff dick?” You carefully observe his body language, feet poised like he might bolt if you make any sudden moves. He’s flighty, and you have to make your next moves carefully.”

“Y/N,” He begins, his voice weak, “I wish you wouldn’t use such foul language.”

“Is it the language that bothers you?” You push your elbows against the mat, hoisting yourself up at an obtuse angle to meet his eye better, “Or is it the truth it carries? Obi-Wan, you were right. It’s natural. And it is not something to be ashamed of.”

“It is against the Code,” He reasons, his voice still fighting to sound resolute. He offers no other reasoning, and you know it’s because he has none.

“It’s not.” You insist, “The Code is ancient and rigid. And celibacy is not required, only a level head.”

“That’s the problem,” He chuckles weakly, “I don’t have a level head when it comes to you, Y/N.”

“You seem as though you do.” You press cautiously, careful not to push your luck, “I’ve never felt anything unprofessional about your feelings towards me.”

“That’s because I haven’t been around you in a long time,” He admits, “Not consistently. I was better at controlling it- no, hiding it when we were Padawans. I had to do it every day, it was natural to me. But I am out of practice now, and I have been since you were stationed here. I barely have the ability to hide how I feel about you, Y/N. And- and it is not something the Council would approve of.”

You sit up now, fully straightened. You’re still between his legs, but you’d need to rise to your knees for your face to be level with his bulge. You plan to.

“The Council is not here. Nor can they see us, or hear us, or feel us. They will not know what we do, Obi-Wan.”

“I will know.” He breathes, his voice growing weaker each time he tries raising it against you, “Y/N, I will never forget a thing we do together on this base. If we… If you touch me, I will remember every brush of your skin against mine for eternity. If you- kiss me, I will never be able to put the thought of your lips on mine out of my head. And I would not know how to live without it for the rest of my life.”

Your heart sinks in your stomach like a stone in water. He’s loyal to the Order, he always has been. But you’d been so blinded by isolation, so convinced by your own delusions, that you’d assumed his loyalty to you would be stronger. But it’s not, and you can’t earnestly be angry with him for it.

You swallow what little saliva has accumulated around your tongue to give yourself something to do, then rise to your feet.

“It sounds like you should walk away.” You mutter regretfully. His eyes hold the same feelings, strikingly painful. He nods, almost imperceptibly, but before he can follow your orders, you continue.

“But will you forgive yourself if you do?”

You feel it, his swell of emotions. Every single one is unbridled, yearning, heartache, fondness, want; all of them unleashed from the man whose mind is usually a fortress. They’re washing over you like waves, invading your brain and turning your thoughts their colors. 

“No. I couldn’t,” He admits, “But-” and there’s always a but, “The Council would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

“They won’t know.” You insist, but it’s lost on him, “Obi-Wan, please make a decision. Who is more important, you or the Council?” Then in a more timid, soft voice, as his soft eyes bore into you and beg for mercy, you give him the opposite, “Who is more important… me or the Council?”

He kisses you. There is no warning, no shift in his Force signature, only his hands on your face and his lips on your own. There is strength in his touch, his hands firm where they pull your cheeks ever-so-slightly towards his face as if he’s trying to mash them into his own. His beard is rough and grating against your face, but it’s not unpleasant, especially when it brings with it his lips. His lips, which are much softer than you’d have imagined them, merely frame your own. The kiss is sweet but chaste, and the only indication you have that he wants more is the way that he holds you against him. Otherwise you’d mistake his courtesy for disinterest, and you tilt your head slightly sideways to encourage more enthusiasm from him.

When your lips reconnect he sighs, a breath from his nose that fans over your top lip. He’s letting you lead, letting you dictate whether you want to keep kissing him or whether you’ll suddenly switch positions; it’s like he’s afraid that you’ll rip off a mask and reveal yourself to be Master Windu, scolding him for his reckless passion. But of course you don’t, and you lick gently against the plush of his bottom lip instead.

He hums at the feeling of your tongue against his mouth, but he’s suddenly pushing against your cheeks instead of pulling.

“Are you absolutely sure,” He starts, but can’t seem to resist the temptation to steal another kiss from your spit-slicked lips, “That you- mm, that you want this? Because I cannot-” He breaks off with a weary, pleading, defeated look in his beautiful eyes, “I cannot turn back if we go further. If we proceed… I will not be able to forget what we do. If you’re not interested… please tell me now, so that I may save myself from loving you for an eternity that you do not wish to share with me.”

You scoff, moving in for another kiss at his lips. He doesn’t reciprocate, only pushing you back so that you can respond.

“I just spent five minutes,” You pant, desperate to reconnect your lips, “Bargaining with you to get you to forget about your nerves. And you don’t think I want this?”

You try surging forwards again but he holds you back, eyes still begging for your words.

“Please. I need to hear you say it.” He seems almost self-conscious, worried you’re not interested in him the same way he’s interested in you. But you have been since you can remember, and you’re more than willing to work around the unconventional aspects of your relationship if it means you can have him, even just for today.

“I want you,” You breathe, the exhale hitting his lips, “Please- Obi-Wan, I want you. I want you no matter what the Code says. No matter what the Council says; I want you.”

He looks like he could cry. He is devoted to the Order, far more than you have seen most Jedi, and to hear you choose him over the Code must mean a great deal. He pours passion into the kiss you share, chest filling with oxygen that he gulps just to be able to keep his mouth on yours for longer. He consumes you, fingers pulling at your cheeks and tugging you closer still, like he thinks you might fuse if he tries hard enough.

He groans into your mouth, his tongue more exploratory now that you’ve pledged your devotion to him. He’s not afraid of taking now, of getting his hopes up only to be thrown down, and he swipes the wet muscle in a hot stripe over your own tongue. He rolls it against your lower lip, so wonderful to kiss for someone with such lacking experience.

“No one is coming,” You breathe, exhaling against his mouth as your hands wander to his waistband, “No one- no one can see us.”

“I want you in your quarters.” He protests, grabbing your wrists when your hand sinks to his bulge and ghosts over it. He jolts at the unexpected contact, but holds you back, “I want to lay you down, Y/N, I want to indulge in every part of you. Worship you.”

“I will let you,” You moan, tilting your forehead against his and mouthing at his lips in a sloppy kiss, “You may have me any way you want, Obi-Wan. But here, I- I want to have you. I need to have you now,”

“Impatient,” He notes, sounding suspiciously close to lecturing you. But he lets your wrists go, and you sink to your knees instantly. He hears them hit the training mat, knows they must ache, but he can’t find any part of him available to worry about it, not now that your hands are prying greedily at the waistband of his trousers.

He’s a near stranger to physical pleasure, at least in recent years. He’s a grown man, he has urges, but he also has responsibilities, and the constant pressure of an ambitious (read: reckless) young Padawan under his supervision mixed with a quickly-rising rank within the Jedi Order leave him with little time nor interest to indulge in his barest desires. Your hand gently squeezing his clothed bulge as you wrestle with his pants nearly knocks him off of his feet, and he’s not sure he’ll be able to handle having your warm mouth envelop it.

Finally you tug loose the drawstring within his pants, and yank them down his thighs. They’re seldom bare, you see from the milky white tone of the skin there, but they are muscled and thick like he does not neglect them.

You can’t help yourself when you lean forwards, tongue already protruding from your mouth to lick a fat, wet stripe around one of his thighs. It’s sturdy beneath your tongue that dips into the crease between his skin and the parts of it that are covered by his briefs. His muscles tense like you’ve struck him with a fatal blow, and an open-mouthed groan escapes his lips.

His skin tastes of the sweat that’s currently moistening every inch of your bodies, salty and tantalizing. There’s no escaping it in the brutal heat, but it makes him all the more sexy, his skin glistening before you even get a chance to smear it in your saliva.

You’re guilty of impatience as he accuses, and you can’t resist mouthing at his covered bulge. He’s half-hard, but when your lips purse around the outline of his cock in his briefs he twitches, and you feel him stiffen against the restraints of his underwear on your tongue. 

His knees give out with no warning, and he barely has the foresight to grab desperately at a bench press behind him for stability. He falls quickly to its surface, perching on the edge of it while you desperately chase his cock. You fit your mouth again over his briefs and drool against the fabric, surely soaking it through with your saliva. His cock, though restrained, is heavy and thick on your tongue, making your mouth water and produce enough drool to soak through his entire ensemble. His hands clutch the bench beneath him with white knuckles, and he grits his teeth to stop himself from shouting as you suck at his clothed cock.

“Oh, Y/N,” He pants, voice strained as you get lost in your task and forget that you need to actually pull his briefs down. He reaches for your head, gently nudging you away with his knuckles against your temple.

“Darling, please, I can’t- I won’t last for very long. Please, have me properly.”

He grips at the waistband of his underwear, tugging them down hurriedly and letting his cock spring free. It’s of decent length, but slightly thicker than average, its base shrouded by a patch of curled hair at his groin. It’s a similar caramel color to the rest of his hair, and his sweat has accumulated particularly within its wiry constraints, leaving him musky. The smell might bother you if it were anyone else, if you were anywhere else, but here and now, on your knees for Obi-Wan in the training room, it’s the most disgustingly tantalizing thing you’ve ever smelled in your entire life.

That’s why you bury your face into it, the hair tickling at your skin. His hips jolt as you inhale deeply near the base of his cock, groaning and letting your tongue fall to drag against just the shaft of his erect dick. He’s painfully hard, embarrassingly seconds to orgasm, and your spit now glistening on his length doesn’t help. Or it helps too much; either way, he’s close to cumming and you haven’t even had a chance to put him in your mouth.

“Darling,” He begs, pushing at your forehead once more, speaking through an eternal shortage of breath, “Please, I- it all feels too good. I can’t take it. I won’t last long.”

“That’s okay,” You pant, your breath falling over his cock as it practically pulses with pleasure, “We’re here for a good time, not a long time.”

“Terrible,” He manages to chuckle weakly, but any further chiding he has planned for your cheekiness is cut short when he stops breathing. He actually forgets how when your wet mouth closes around the head of his cock, your tongue licking flat over its head and covering most of its surface area. It’s so much sensation so fast that Obi-Wan has to clench his hands around the bench not to cum right then and there, and he feels pinpricks of pain over his skin that he realizes are from his fingernails digging against his palms. When you draw your head back off of his cock with a slick sound, then move in again to take more of his length into your mouth, his lungs suddenly remember their function, and heave within his chest.

His groans are filthy and they only pool more slick wetness between your thighs as you kneel for him. You don’t care about the ache in your knees, nor the pain in your neck from the slightly awkward angle you’re indulging in him at. All that matters is his cock, heavy and thick on your tongue, sweat and precum alike flooding your taste buds. 

His restraint is put to the test. He’s a member of the Jedi Council, for Force’s sake, and he should have a little more control over himself than this. But it takes almost all of his energy not to buck his hips forwards and plunge the length of his cock down your throat, and it means that he’s not able to devote as much restraint to delaying his orgasm as he’d like.

He’s twitching in your mouth, and even with your faded Force abilities, mental muscles weakened by disuse, you can feel the tension coursing through his veins, hot and wild. You don’t need to look at his strained, white-knuckled grip on the edge of the bench to know that he’s devoting all of his energy to restraining himself, and you take pride in being able to undo Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi with merely your mouth. You indulge in his painful hardness, tongue smoothly caressing the underside of his length as you bob your head back and forth around him. Each time you draw back you flick your tongue up and over the ruddy, leaking head of his cock, something that makes that fiery tension in his body glow even hotter.

“I’m going to-” He warns you, voice petering out weakly as he tries controlling himself, “I can’t- I can’t help it, I’m going to cum.”

“Cum,” You speak in unison, your word coming out muffled as you speak it against his cock. You smooth your hands up his thighs, feeling his muscles impossibly tight beneath your fingers. You stroke them soothingly, encouraging him to unclench his jaw that’s wired so tightly that you’re sure his teeth are on the verge of cracking, “Cum, Obi-Wan, please.”

Even if you hadn’t asked him so kindly, he’s sure he wouldn’t have been able to withhold any longer. Not with your pretty eyes gazing up at him from between his legs, lashes latticing the tender emotions swirling in your gaze. Your fingers slide calmly, sweetly over the expanse of his thighs, and the mere thought of you digging your nails harshly into them and leaving marks is what elicits the final twitch of his dick on your tongue.

Evidently, you’re more in tune with his thoughts than he’d expected. You’d caught the quick image that had flashed through his mind, now completely unguarded to you, and you curl your fingers quicker than he can comprehend, carving searing marks into his thighs that will show up red for at least a week. Paired with the movement of your fingers, you suck hard at his cock, plunging your face forwards to nestle against the base once more. His tip hits the back of your throat with force and it makes you gag, and Obi-Wan isn’t sure what sensation is more overwhelming: the vivid burning at his thighs, the way the tip of his dick nestles so securely into the warm, wet sleeve of your throat, or the way that you’re breathing in his sweat-marred scent like it’s the purest oxygen you’ve ever had in your lungs. All he knows is that together, they’re his undoing, and he lets out a rugged cry; he can’t control himself any longer when pleasure roars through him with a fury he’s almost frightened of. 

He’s always calm, collected, in control. But now he’s grabbing your face with shaking hands as he pumps warm spurts of cum down your throat, holding your jaw steady so that you can’t back away, not that you want to. He holds you in place while his thighs begin to tremble, your tongue continuously smoothing over the underside of his cock while it twitches in your mouth. He keeps himself fully nestled into the back of your throat while he cums, and if he had energy to be embarrassed about cumming as much as he was, he’d be apologizing. But he can’t, not when you’re swallowing him so eagerly, throat convulsing around the head of his cock and only milking more out of him. There’s obscene groans coming from his mouth, the kind that bring heat to your own core, and you think you could get off to the sound a thousand times over if you recorded him now. They’re deep, throaty, and desperate as he holds your face around his cock, gagging you on his dick as his orgasm takes control of him.

A part of your training that hasn’t left you yet was your extensive disaster training, in which you were taught how to extend the time for which you could hold your breath. That comes in especially handy when Obi-Wan’s hands cradle your jaw, keeping you snugly choking around his dick. You have to fight not to draw back at the strange sensation of your throat being plugged while his cum splatters against the back of it,, and you use all of your strength to keep yourself from panicking at the lack of airflow. You’re only slightly ashamed to admit that you’d willingly die like this, a fucktoy for his cock.

Once his orgasm has worked its way through him he seems to remember you can’t breathe, all of the tension having leaked out of his muscles. He inhales with a start, pushing against your cheeks and tugging his cock out of your mouth, “Oh, Y/N, darling- Y/N, are you-?” 

At the sight of your spit-soaked lips, tongue desperately running over them to collect any of the sweat that had accumulated there from being pressed against his pelvis, he lunges forwards to meet his lips with your own. He can taste the slight savory hint of his own release, your tongues meshing wetly and messily. He’s hunching now, even though you’ve straightened up on your knees, and he feels you clumsily palm at his dick, tucking him back away into his briefs. It makes his lips go slack with a gasp even though he’s just finished, and he’s more than eager to take you by the wrists and help you to your feet. You toss his undershirt at him with careless speed, and he nearly gets lost in its beige expanse from the way that his arms shake as he pulls it over his head.

“My quarters,” Your voice is thick and ragged, still recovering from your prior lack of oxygen, “We can- it’s soundproof, no one will know.”

“Yes,” He breathes, legs shaking slightly as he gathers the rest of the clothes he’d shed while sparring with you, “Um- we can... Anakin still hasn’t gotten the air conditioning running.”

“Uh-uh,” You shake your head, feeling nothing from the vent to your left, “Hurry, let’s go before-”

“General,” The door slides open, and you both startle, much less in tune with the force presences of those around you than you’d like to admit. One of your troopers sticks his head through the door, “The kid needs a multitool.”

You blink once, registering a slight soreness at the back of your throat, “Get him a multitool, then.”

You’re sure he can see your haggard appearance, and all apart from the glossy look of your lips looks like you’ve been sparring. Which you have, technically. You just hope Obi-Wan’s trousers don’t look like they’ve only just been hitched up around his waist again, or his shirt barely pulled down over his chest.

“I lost mine, general,” The trooper admits sheepishly. There was an abundance of the supplies that were offered to you before you’d been shipped out to this battle station, and more had been stocked for a long time in one of the supply closets, but your troopers are bored more often than not, and you shudder to think of all of the times they’ve used them as target practice by standing them on the balcony and opening fire. Apparently, you need to request some more from the next inspection team, as well as impress upon your troops the difference between an abundance of resources and useless clutter begging for a blaster wound.

“I have one in my quarters,” You sigh wearily, “Let’s see to it that we don’t misuse our equipment anymore, soldier.”

“Yes, General,” He nods vigorously, stepping out of your way to offer you the open door.

“Obi-Wan,” You turn apologetically, “We’ll have to continue our sparring match after I retrieve the multitool for your padawan. You’re welcome to follow us, though I’m not sure it’s any cooler out there than it is in here.”

“I’d like to stash my clothes somewhere, if you don’t mind,” Obi-Wan holds up the outer garments he’d shed, “I think it gives you somewhat of an unfair advantage if I’m liable to trip over my own tunics.”

You grant him a good-natured laugh as you pass your trooper in the doorway, and all in all, you think that the two of you have done a fantastic job at pretending his dick wasn’t in your mouth only minutes ago.

Your trooper makes the wise decision to stand outside of your quarters when you enter them, although any initial disappointment you’d felt at his poorly-timed request has well worn off by now. That’s all he’s guilty of, anyways; you find their antics amusing despite their destructive nature. It’s not his fault that you’re canoodling with the Jedi master, so you forgive him his abhorrent timing. You beeline for a locker in your closet, punching in the numeric code and letting the squeaky hinges reveal your small weapons store. It’s a multipurpose space, blasters on a rack that’s affixed to the back, a mount for your saber, and a drawer of various other mechanical supplies down below. You throw it open, and Obi-Wan watches you dig for the multitool where he stands by your bed, his tunics laid on your bedspread.

You realize all too late that one of your other mechanical supplies is in full view of the Jedi master standing behind you, black in color for subtlety but unmistakable in shape. It’s phallic and has a second prong that shoots off of the base to vibrate against your clit, something you only use when you're absolutely certain no one can hear. Besides, the sound could very well be mistaken for one of your troopers shaving their scruff, so you have ample opportunity. You snatch the multitool out of the drawer and slam it shut, making your trooper’s shoulders twitch in a quickly concealed wince. You’re thankful that only Obi-Wan was a temporary witness to your lack of organizational skills.

“Here,” You rush to hand it off, forcefully locking the cabinet and thrusting the tool towards the trooper, “Take it- uh, keep it, I’ll put in a request for more supplies tonight.”

“Thanks, General,” He nods warily at you, and you pity the way he’s taken your context clues and misarranged them to view your behavior as standoffish and exasperated with him, “My apologies again.”

“No worries,” You try not to snap at him, unnerved by the abnormal lack of mental pressure from Obi-Wan behind you. He used to tease you abundantly in your youth, prying at your mental shields and slipping snide remarks through the cracks while you fought to keep a straight face, but now that he’s laid his eyes on possibly the most embarrassing item you own, he’s completely still, completely silent.

“Goodbye.” You shut the door with a hydraulic hiss, and stand facing it until Obi-Wan speaks, pretending to fuss with the control panel.

“It seems you overlooked another multitool in that drawer,” His voice finally reaches over the silence, carefully bundled so that the underlying mirth is something you can only guess at, “Now I wonder if your battalion is really the cause of your foul mouth.”

“Shut up!” You whirl on him with cheeks blazing on opposite sides of your face like Tatooine’s twin suns, “Don’t tease me-”

“I’m not teasing you!” He insists, voice sounding aghast, like it’s out of the question, like he’s offended by the accusation, taking your arms into his grip when you look like you might shove him. His face is split into a smile - not a grin, which is reassuring - but a warm smile, even if there is amusement twinkling in his eyes.

“Yes you are,” You scoff, and you have half a mind to pull away when one of his hands releases your arm and anchors itself against your face instead. It’s warm, rough from wear but impossibly gentle. You fight leaning into it for as long as you can, pride still bruised, but he leans in to press his lips against your forehead in a chaste kiss. 

Typical.

You’d gagged on his dick ten minutes ago, and he’s kissing your forehead.

“Darling,” He hums sympathetically, tucking your face against his chest so snugly that you think it was engineered for the curves and bumps of your skin. You relish the hug he traps you in, the tender hold even though you’re interested in something more carnal, feral, hungry. His voice is strong and soothing as he speaks, and the vibrations thrum through his chest and against your face “You had my cock in your mouth not ten minutes ago. I’m not going to make fun of you for having a toy.”

Oh. Perhaps he hadn’t forgotten.

“Such a foul mouth,” You admonish him, tucking your grin away between the haphazardly-righted folds of his tabard. 

He pinches at your side, fingers greedily prying at the soft flesh of your belly through layers of clothing you wish weren’t between your skin and his, “Yes, well, it’s because I’ve had yours all over me.”

His hand, similarly bold to his mouth, flattens out along the curve of your side, tucking into the space above your hip bones. The other stays in place against your cheek, finger running idly across the underside of your jawline. You don’t know whether the shiver that shudders down your spine is due to the ticklish nature of his touch, or the sensual area he’s chosen, but he feels your spine thrum, and he presses further into you like it was an invitation.

“Darling,” He starts, back to that well-practiced hesitancy, “If you still want to…”

“I do,” You nod, feeling sweat drip down the back of your neck and soak into the fabric of your tank top, “Do you think we have time?”

“Anakin can occupy himself with scrap metal and multitools for hours,” Obi-Wan recollects with a smile on his face that isn’t committed to fondness or resignation. You’re sure he’s proud of his padawan’s abilities, but not of the havoc he wreaks with them.

“Hmm, that might be cutting it close,” You pretend to debate it, gnawing at the inside of your cheek, and he lets out a laugh as warm as the runoff heat from his saber with none of the bite of its blade.

“You’d occupy yourself with me for hours?” He teases, but when you nod, it’s earnest.

“I’d occupy myself with you for the rest of my life, Obi-Wan.”

The breath that he draws in when you begin speaking is the last one he draws for a while. Instead he holds it there, letting it burn and sear at his lungs while he wonders if any words he could produce with it would contain even a fraction of the yearning he feels roll over him in a nauseating wave. Very little has ever made him want the life of a civilian - his home is between the opulent walls of the Jedi temple, but any walls he shared with you would be infinitely more grandiose if only for your place within them.

“Had you said the word,” He elects to speak the truth, even if it isn’t even a chip away at the trove of feelings he keeps locked tightly away in his mind for you, “I would have left the Jedi Order.”

Would have.

You know why he won’t now, and you’re not upset with him for the reasons. You understand them, even if you don’t relate to them.

“But Anakin…”

“I know,” You nod against his chest, fingers taking hold of his undershirt’s fabric edge and fastening there, “You made a promise to your master. And to him. And he needs your help. I wouldn’t ask you to leave.”

“Would you have? When we were younger,” He idly strokes down the length of your spine, arm wrapping comfortably around your waist.

“Maybe…” You admit, “Maybe if I’d known your trip to Naboo would bring about such change. Maybe if I’d known I only had a few years left with you as we were. But I didn’t. So I never asked. And I never will.”

He doesn’t react verbally or physically after your confession, but the silence that ensues isn’t an awkward one. Instead, he maintains his hold on you, and you feel a gentle wave of affection flow from him through the Force. Affection, appreciation, love, which you feel so broadly through the Force, but rarely so devoted to you yourself rather than the galaxy in its entirety. You’re no stranger to the feeling, but it’s different channeled privately between two people than it is as a way of life.

“Let us pretend,” Obi-Wan finally musters, his voice thicker than usual, though if you were not so in tune with him you wouldn’t have perceived it, “For the next few fleeting moments, that we are still young. That we don’t have responsibilities other than those to ourselves, and to each other.”

Though your youth may have escaped you, your mind weary with resignation and Obi-Wan’s eyes darkened with the perpetual exhaustion of adulthood, his touch does not feel tired or incapable. It feels strong, firm, and mindful where it slips from your chin to your waist. His other hand sandwiches you between them, and you’re tilting your chin up to kiss him before he gives any indication that he’ll do the same. But he does, his boldness almost reset from the interruption you’d suffered. Like you need to coax him out of his shell again, like he’s worried you’ve somehow changed your mind.

You take the back of his neck in your hand, finding it slick and tacky with sour-smelling sweat, and pull him down so that his lips smash messily to your own. It’s a move he’s not expecting, and a startled groan escapes his lips as proof. You drink it, sucking it down your throat and pulling him towards the bed with the same backwards momentum. He’s nimble even if he’s unprepared, probably to do with his extensive agility training. You’re more than ready to fall back onto your bed when your calves butt against the frame but he lowers you down gently, with ease, drawing back from your kiss despite your fervent protests to watch you look up at him.

“Obi-Wan,” You beg, your voice weary, “Why are you hesitating?”

“I’m not hesitating,” He answers, and you feel it to be truthful, “I’m admiring you, darling. I’m not unsure, I’m more sure than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Prove it,” You plead, already pulling at the hem of your tank top. You peel its sweat-soaked binding off of your skin, showcasing the equally stained garment beneath it that keeps your chest closer to your neck than your stomach, “Please, Obi-Wan, take me like you want me. Not like you feel bad for having me.”

“I do not feel bad for having you,” He promises, mouth barely parting from yours to utter the words. His lips are pink-tinted, glistening with spit, probably a mixture of his and yours. He pants slightly, cheeks similarly ruddy, “Perhaps later I will. When I stand in front of the Council and tell them we conducted routine maintenance. When I lie, when I guard my memories of you from them. But I’m not occupied with that now, darling. Only with you, I swear it.”

“Oh, well, that’s good to know,” You hum, kissing an inch lower than his mouth, the apex of his chin that’s marred by the scruff of his beard. It’s prickly and rough beneath your lips, and when you draw back they glisten with transferred sweat, “I’m glad you’re not thinking of Master Yoda while dipping a knee between my thighs.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan ducks his head, advances on pause as he plants his forehead against your shoulder, “That’s awful. Really, truly vile.”

You laugh, and despite his disgusted bravado, so does he. His chest shakes against yours and you relish the sound, hand still planted firmly on the back of his neck. You briefly consider breaking out your rusty Yoda impression, ‘kiss me, you must’, but decide against it, instead choosing to press his head closer to your torso, letting his forehead lay flush and sweaty against your shoulder. It puts the scruff of his beard on the curve of your tits, and you feel it burn your skin as he kisses along it lightly. 

His mouth is soft, and his beard is its abrasive opposite. They trail in tandem along the slope of your breasts, first the soft lips and then the burn of the beard, until he’s lit a fiery trail across your skin to the padded edge of your bra. When his lips meet fabric instead of skin he noses beneath it, surely smelling a morning’s worth of sweat accumulated beneath the weight of your chest. You’re self conscious, for only a flash, then he takes a deep drag of air, inhaling until his chest seems fit to burst.

“I’m sorry,” You find yourself humming, regardless of his clear interest, “I wish a shower would help. Even the cold water doesn’t prevent sweating.”

“I don’t want you to shower,” He muses, pushing his face between your breasts to kiss at the skin between them. He mouths gently, tongue sliding over your skin with little form and too much spit that blends well with your sweat, “Sex is not sterile, darling. Soap and water defeat the purpose.”

You’re not sure whether it’s his insistence on the natural state of your body or the way that his knee gently prods against your center, but whatever it is, your fingers itch and you fling them up to cup the underside of your chest.

“Take it off,” You beg, and Obi-Wan shows no hesitation in complying, his hands sliding beneath your back, rough and weathered from work. They’re gentle as they slide over the clasp of your bra, and you push yourself up onto your elbows on the mattress so that he can maneuver the stretchy fabric easier.

“Does it hook or button?” He nudges his nose against yours to ask, and your stomach flops at the question. Both the fact that he doesn’t have enough experience to know, and the way that he feels comfortable enough admitting that to you by asking so earnestly only make you want him more, and you’re barely able to mumble ‘clasp’ before pressing your lips to his own once more.

“Three,” You add later, against his lips, when he unhooks one and still doesn’t have the garment undone, “There’s three.”

He takes your orders with unfailing patience, a trait you’d admired even in your youth. While you’d been more prone to hotheaded outbursts, he’d take you by the arm and speak for the both of you, usually resulting in far less severe of a punishment than you’d have gotten if you’d spoken your mind. Then the two of you would share sneaky, fleeting glances at each other while scrubbing the floors of the refectory, trying not to laugh loud enough for the Knight unwillingly supervising your punishment to hear.

You’re pulled out of your reverie when he finally unhooks the garment and slips it off of your shoulders, meaning you have to draw back from where you’d tucked your face over his shoulder, giving him a view of his work. As your faces pass each other he offers you the same grin he’d worn all those years ago, his pretty eyes alight with the love you feel seeping from his fingertips. You see a glimpse of the boy he was through the man he’s become, and both are equally endearing to you. The first, because you’d grown with him, like ferns tangled together in sticky, clinging tendrils. The second, because he wears his accomplishments on his face, crows feet at the corners of his eyes from laughing at his padawan’s wayward antics, and frown lines for scowling at the same incidences only moments prior. He’d laughed at you in your youth, and frowned just the same at your more uncouth ideas for adventure, and now those expressions are etched into his face, like layers of makeup no longer dissolvable with remover. He’ll wear them forever, and you want to see him display them even in his old age.

He watches the way that your body moves when he peels the sweat-soaked garment away from your chest. He watches your breasts succumb to gravity’s harsh pull, sloping sideways and downwards rather than maintaining their tight compress towards your chin. He watches them sag, watches them fall to their natural state and declares, “You’re beautiful, darling.”

He takes them in his hands, their mass in his palms as he rolls his thumb over the skin of your nipples. They’d usually pebble in the cold but now they’re pulling taut beneath his touch, and when he brushes his thumb over their peak you stifle a gasp.

“Beautiful,” He repeats, and leans down to meet one with his mouth. He gravitates towards the right one first, and the embrace of his hot mouth against your skin tempts your back to arch. His tongue presses flat against your nipple, then drags up its surface, and his lips kiss over the stripe of saliva he’d left behind.

His beard rubs against your skin and it’s not rawing, not yet, but you know it will be the more he mouths at your breast. He’s licking, sucking, pulling, but never biting, teeth merely grazing your flesh rather than indulging in it. His tongue does that instead, flattening out over your raised flesh and dragging hot, wet stripes over the bud of your perked nipple.

“Obi- Obi-Wan,” You gasp, dragging desperate, heaving breaths into your lungs as your hands fly to his lengthened hair. You’d ruffled it many times when it was short and spiked, but now you’re able to get purchase in the strawberry-blonde locks, curling your fingers around the soft, sweat-darkened strands and pulling. 

You don’t pull hard, but it’s unexpected, and you feel the momentary pinch of Obi-Wan’s teeth around your breast. It floods heat to your already-pulsing core more than you’d have thought possible, considering the sweltering temperatures you’ve been in the whole time, but the soft groan that then ripples through your skin from the depths of his throat only makes you more desperate. All of a sudden the long-suffering heat is tepid by comparison, and you yank at the material of his undershirt so hard you nearly rip the fabric.

“Off,” You pant, “Please, take it- get it off, Obi-Wan.”

In a fluid, crouched movement Obi-Wan tears his undershirt off with one hand at its hem, his muscles flexing as he swings the arm up and over his head. He discards the shirt carelessly beneath him and it droops to the floor, no longer covering the bare skin of his chest that you’d admired earlier.

You have half a mind to do to him what he’s been doing to you, to sink your teeth into the flesh of his chest and suckle on his sweat-soaked skin. But he dips his face back to mouth at your tit once more, so you settle for running your hands greedily, desperately over the layer of soft skin that blocks his muscled chest from view. When he was younger, what seems like an eternity but must only be five years, his build was more defined. You’d gotten plenty of eyefuls of his bare, heaving chest during a particularly intense sparring match, or down by one of the large pools that were definitely supposed to be used more for reflection and tranquility rather than the chaos you’d wreaked upon them. But years of planning someone else’s schedule before his own has meant that he’s softened out around the middle, muscles still prominent when you dig your fingers into his skin, just not starkly visible anymore.

Age does that to a person; pushes them harder than ever before to achieve a less-defined result than they’re used to, but you find that you want to grind down onto the thin layer of pudge he’s accumulated just as much as you’d have wanted to drag yourself over his defined abs. The thought of doing both, either, anything makes you dizzy with desire that you express by scratching your sharpened nails down his skin, feeling his muscles shudder beneath your fingers.

“Darling,” He groans, choking on the word like it’s gagged him, “I- I think we ought to- are you ready?”

You marvel at his sincerity, at the idea that he’s not aware of the throbbing, slick mess that your core has become. You’d been ready twenty minutes ago, sprawled out on the floor beneath him, and you’ve only gotten more eager since then. His concern makes you want him more, and you use your grip on his soft hair to tug him upwards to meet your lips in a kiss. 

“I’m ready,” You breathe, laying the words out in a hazy moan over his tongue, “I’m ready, Obi-Wan, please- please take me.”

A groan melts from his mouth like molten butter, dripping over your tongue and down your throat. He pants, lets you suck his tongue into your mouth in a long, eager drag, then mumbles clumsily, “I want you. I want- I want to have you, darling, I want to take you.” His hips roll experimentally against your own, the tight pressure of his clothed cock digging into your panties as he nearly loses the function in the muscles that are holding him up above you.

He lets out another moan as you drag your hips up to meet his premature thrusts, and this time it’s a weaker sound, more strangled and mottled. It’s satisfying, knowing that you’ve reduced the ever-stoic, prized Jedi negotiator Obi-Wan Kenobi to a heaving mass of sweat and desire. His undershorts are rucked up around his meaty thighs, but he hasn’t yanked them off to free his stiff cock yet, so for a moment, all you do is grind against each other. 

The layers of clothing between you, one covering you and two covering him, provide frustrating boundaries but much-needed friction, and the scrape of his rough undershorts dragging against your thin panties makes your fingers curl into his back once more. You suspect that when he wakes tomorrow, your marks will still be there, and you take pride in knowing that he’ll have a very hard time forgetting you.

“Obi-” You really do intend to say his full name, but your breath leaves your lungs too quickly for it, and you revert back to the nickname he’d loathed as a teenager. Too juvenile, he’d protested greatly at the clipped diminutive, but he leans into it now. He licks the word right off of your tongue, his own plunging past your lips and dragging over your teeth in a messy, imprecise fashion. You get the sense that this is not about sex to him, it’s not about mechanics or equations or the perfect formula. It’s about you, and him, and you and him together. He doesn’t kiss you like a storybook prince because he kisses you like Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan wants to lick the spit out of your mouth and suck on your tongue. Obi-Wan wants to feel, not think, for once in his life, so he does.

“Obi-” You falter again, hands traveling from his muscled back to his hips. Your fingers dip beneath the waistband of his undershorts, then his briefs where they lay against the same stretch of skin, “Off. Off, please- Obi-Wan, off, take ‘em- off.”

He grunts his approval into your mouth, obscene squelching sounds coming from where his spit pools between your teeth and your tongue. He reaches down with a blind, clumsy hand to tug at his waistband, but when it doesn’t provide immediate results, he finds himself getting frustrated. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, not the frustration itself but his inability to control it, and he feels his brow crease in irritation as he reluctantly parts from your mouth to focus on the task at hand. All he needs is a little extra leverage to slide his shorts off of his waist, briefs bunched together, and as soon as they’re out of his way he’s reaching for your own underwear.

You crane your neck downwards to watch him, and the glimmering mess of saliva in your mouth practically doubles in volume at the sight of his red-tipped, rock-hard cock. It’s curved slightly up towards his stomach in its desperation, and there’s precum oozing from its tip, foaming and all too appealing. You want to suck him off again, to really choke yourself on it this time and never draw back for air, but there’s no time when he tugs swiftly at the elastic band of your panties, tearing them easily away from you. They drag beneath your thighs but he merely pulls harder, until they spring free and bunch up around your knees.

“Up,” Obi-Wan taps at your left thigh, and you struggle to bend your knees amidst their relentless trembling. He helps you, strength having stuck with him even when composure has abandoned its post. You get your left thigh up first, exposing your glistening cunt, smeared sticky with your own slick. His breath catches, you feel it stutter to a stop in his chest that you’re groping, and his eyes glimmer in the warm lights above you.

“Darling,” He breathes, taken by the mess of your drooling cunt. He reaches out, touches it carefully, with only the pad of his pointer finger. He ghosts it along the side of your slit, and even the infuriatingly chaste touch is ultra erotic. At the way you writhe beneath a single one of his fingers he brings his thumb up to stroke down your slit, catching wetness on his thumb that his mouth opens to accommodate.

He sucks your release clean off of his thumb, you’re almost certain he scrapes his teeth along his skin just to get it all. 

He leans into his own thumb, chases after it like he’s not the one taking it out of his mouth. He hesitates no further in clamoring backwards on the mattress until his knees hit the floor below, and he thanks the Force that the beds you were given are low enough for him to lean over the edge and bury his face in your cunt.

“Obi-Wan, no!” You plead, fingers tangling in his pretty blonde hair, “You’ll- you said- don’t cum yet, please, I- I want it in me!”

“I will cum in you,” He pledges, voice deep and determined as he nudges his nose against your wet cunt, “My darling, I’ll do whatever you ask. But I need you here, now. Please,” He breathes, his exhale shaky and warm as it heats your cunt, “Please, Darling, I want you here.”

“Have me,” You whimper, squirming your hips from side to side to propel yourself down the mattress. Your cunt bumps messily against his face that he doesn’t bother moving, and you buck your hips once, twice against his nose, riding his face, “Please, have me, Obi-Wan, you can have me.”

Your consent is all it takes. His mouth is open and his tongue is out the second you say the word, licking wet, tantalizingly slow stripes up your slit. He doesn’t breach it, doesn’t delve his tongue into your entrance, he laps at the slick smeared on the outside, as well as the wetness that has thoroughly soaked your thighs. Your skin is tacky with it even when he’s replaced it with his spit, and your cunt throbs at the meticulous approach he’s taken to appreciating every drop you give him. 

It’s too meticulous. 

After another slow, careful, nearly chaste lave of his tongue over the crease between your thigh and your cunt, probably just as soaked with sweat as it is with slick, you retighten your now-loose grip in his hair. You’d let go of the strands when he’d given you what you wanted, but now you want more, and you lead him straight to your core where he’d been lapping at your thighs instead.

“Here,” You beg, pulling his face against your drooling cunt until you’re certain he’s unable to breathe. You feel his nose breach your slit, nudged into your cunt by your insistent tugging on his hair.

“I need you here, inside, please.” You beg, pussy aching with abandon. His slow, careful ministrations had driven you mad, and now you are teetering on the edge of insanity as you nearly howl, “Please!”

His response is white-hot and wet. His tongue prods gently from between his lips as his jaw widens, and he watches your reaction as he fills your cunt with his slick tongue. A gush of your own wetness greets him, and as insistent as he is at meeting your eyes, his own flutter shut at the taste.

“Force,” He breathes, and the exclamation is uncommon from him. The muffled, garbled word sends vibrations straight into your cunt, and after the initial shock of his tongue inside of you, you feel his beard.

It scrapes abrasively against the sensitive, licked-over skin of your inner thighs, and prickles deliciously at the base of your leaking cunt. You feel sharp hairs prod at the curve of your ass, and his mouth moves fluidly, tongue wriggling with surprising prowess through the mess of slick you’ve accumulated in your cunt. It slides wetly along your inner walls that have made way for his tongue, and that will stretch eagerly to accommodate his cock. 

His cock, oh, you’d forgotten the thick weight on your tongue, and your jaw aches with the ghost of it. Your cunt aches, too, and when his nose softly bumps your clit you gasp as your hips jolt upwards. He catches your thighs with Jedi agility, his muscles not straining at all to hold you to the mattress. The casual, easy display of strength makes your thighs quiver, and something inside of you tighten like a knot.

He licks you out like he’s drinking ambrosia, the glistening substance smeared over his face and starting up the bridge of his nose. The noises that he makes are hungry and wild as he licks more, sucks more, takes more. He’d moderated himself at first, lapped the sticky spillings of your wet cunt like he was rationing a meal. Now he feasts, tongue losing focus from inside your pussy and rapidly licking over your clit. His lips suction on and his beard burns tantalizingly at your sloppy cunt. You feel stimulation everywhere, the knot below your belly tightening ever-stronger until you feel the beginnings of a fray. It’s a step you take, an incline that you scramble up, and each pedestal you achieve gives way to a higher one. You let yourself climb, climb, climb, against every pulse of his suctioned lips around your sensitive bundle of nerves, and you breach the clouds as Obi-Wan broadens his sucking mouth to half-latch to your clit, his tongue delving back into your drooling cunt. You leap for the final pedestal and a surge of pleasure hits you, soaking wet like a wave that you ride back down to the surface. 

You tremble, you whimper, you love. Your thighs shake, the muscles in your stomach stuttering as your hips jolt and jerk. Your mouth produces such feeble sounds, whines and moans and ‘Oh, please, yes’s, and ‘Obi-Wan- kriff!’s. Your fingers in his hair latch tight but cling gentle, holding him to you as you lose control of yourself in the Force. All of the love, all of the passion, all of the attachment, all of the terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-un-Jedi-like things that you’re not supposed to feel surge through the Force and hit Obi-Wan like Coruscant’s train, knocking the wind out of him, though he never stops sucking at you.

Obi-Wan licks you through your orgasm, tongue pressing tight and hot and wet to the quiver of your cunt, letting it spasm against his mouth. He sucks up every last drop of slick that you’ll give him, greedily mouthing at your cunt long after it’s begun stinging from oversensitivity. You want his mouth off, and his cock in, although that first part sounds like a heinous thing to wish for. His tongue is perfection, slippery and knowing you well enough to hit just the right spots even though it’s never had you before. You only push his mouth away to beg for his cock, but you’re tempted to let him white out your vision and lick at you until he passes out.

“Obi-!” You gasp, pushing instead of pulling at his golden hair, “Obi-Wan, no- no more! Here, up- here, please, and I want you inside of me.”

He lets you unlatch him from your pulsing cunt, rife with the sting of stimulation. You need only a matter of seconds to come down from your high, but they’re seconds you can’t afford to spend on Obi-Wan’s tongue, or the clock won’t ever start. He licks at a smear of slick over your thigh that he’d missed earlier, and his brain seems to register your begging.

“Alright, darling,” He pants, out of breath from the way he’d spent it all in your cunt. His voice is ragged, drowned in slick and thick with want.

He clamors back onto the mattress, all humbly-forged muscles and greed. He hovers over you, and dips down to claim your mouth the way he had your cunt: with broad, sweeping swipes of his tongue. He licks your slick across your tongue, letting you taste yourself on him.

“I’m here,” He soothes, his voice a notch deeper than usual and his words malformed due to the open ring of his mouth. He licks against your tongue once more, sloppy and hot, as his hips grind down against your thigh. He knows you need time but he doesn’t have long, and he grinds against your hip until you’re ready. You feel his stiff cock digging into your flesh, and it sends pulses of energy to your recovering cunt that make it beg to be filled. He’s not composed the way that he normally is, but he’s managing to hold himself together through grunts and groans into your mouth. If you don’t act fast, he’s going to splatter your stomach with cum, which wouldn’t be distasteful by any means, but you’d rather him paint your insides with it.

“You are intoxicating,” Obi-Wan proclaims, speaking directly into your mouth, an addict that can’t wean off of his drug, “I don’t know how I am supposed to pretend like this never happened.”

“Don’t,” You beg breathlessly, “Don’t forget me. Keep quiet around others, and- and when you are alone,” You reach down to take his cock into your hands, heavy and thick and waiting, “When you lay in bed at night, when you touch yourself-” He lets out something teetering on the edge of a whimper as you stroke your hand along his flushed length, an angry red coloring the tip that exposes how much self-control he’s composing, “-touch yourself, and- and think of me. Think of my hands, of my mouth, of my cunt. Think of me, Obi-Wan.”

“I will,” He vows, his voice holding like a frayed rope with one thread remaining, strained and pulling and clinging together, “Please let me have you. Please,” He braces his forehead against yours, his cock throbbing in your palm, “Please darling, let me in. I want to be inside of you, I want to have you, please.”

You’ve never seen him babble before. Not when he’d been seven years old, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, caught with a stray tooka cat in his robes halfway back to the creche. Not when he’d been fifteen and a warrior, his side split open in a gory mess of blood and flesh and lymph and bone. Not at his old master’s funeral, the light from the pyre’s flames dancing upon his stoic features. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a master at composure, but he is breathless now, sacrificing it to the dewy-warm crease where your neck meets your shoulder, and sucking up your sweat-salty scent in return.

You place your free hand on his back, sticky and flushed beneath your touch, and use it to help guide him into you. Your other hand, still wrapped around his cock, lines it up with your entrance and he needs little coaxing from there. He pushes himself into you slowly, courteously, but loses himself to some deep, primal urge that he’s buried beneath layers of meditation and balance. 

He comes undone.

His muscles surge and his hips buck in what begins as a steady pace, but transforms into a wild rhythm that pins you against the mattress. He lets out a groan into the sweaty juncture of your neck, something that sounds like it could be from a beast and not a man. You feel the scrape of his beard against the seldom-touched skin there and you’re sure it’s growing raw, but you couldn’t care less. He’s not holding your hips up - his hands are plastered to your side and holding you there with a force carefully and pointedly short of bruising - but you angle your pelvis up anyway, allowing him to hit that much deeper inside of you. The tip of his cock never hurts where it connects briefly each thrust with your cervix, but you feel it intimately, every vein and ridge and curve that his body has to offer. 

You’re grateful for the sound-proof walls of the military compound because you realize after a moment that you’re making noise just the same as he is. It’s softer, quieter, but it’s there, the underlying harmony to his leading grunts and groans. 

All the while he is soft and gentle, because what he wants is not sex, it is you. Perhaps if he were a lesser man, he’d squeeze you, or bend you, or break you, all to take you the way he wants. But it is the soul inside of you that he’s after, and he takes great care with the vessel it’s enclosed in. He holds you, but he does not squeeze you. He kisses you, but he does not bite you. He moves with you, not against you. Your hips surge upwards to meet the thrusts of his cock and he latches his mouth to yours desperately, pleadingly. Your breathing is short and staccato through your nose, fanning against his top lip as he mashes it messily to your own, and you’re much easier to bring to a climax the second time around, sensitivity still roiling in your blood from your previous orgasm.

“Obi-Wan,” You beg, the words spilling languidly into his mouth, as you move in tandem, in, out, in, out, forwards, backwards, everything, nothing.

“Obi- I’m gonna- ooh, I’m gonna cum,” You cry, overwhelmed by the consistent drag of his cock against the walls of your soaked cunt. You’re slick again, gushing enough to replenish however much Obi-Wan had licked out of you. It squelches as he drives his dick into your pussy, foamy from the repetitive motions that are only creating it at faster intervals.

“Please- please do,” He moans, his dick twitching inside of you, “Force, I- ah, there’s nothing I want more than to feel that, darling. Please- please cum, please-”

“Kiss me,” You plead, even though he’s never stopped, if the way that his mouth moves against yours can still be considered a kiss. It’s far from any conventional peck on the lips, mostly tongue and drool that seeps down the side of your mouth and into your neck, mixing with the sweat already lingering there from your workout.

He tries kissing you more neatly, his lips tightening and suctioning around your own, but the closer you both get to your impending orgasms, the sloppier his thrusts are, and the more slack his mouth goes, smothering your own instead of truly kissing it while his tongue continues its dogged pursuit of your own. It’s no matter; his spit leaks uncontrollably into your mouth and you relish the taste. You don’t need perfection, you need him.

You can’t help your wandering hand from snaking down to his waist, curving just below his cock to cradle his balls against your palm. They’re heavy and warm as you take them into your hand, and doing so elicits a gasp from the man chasing his release inside of you, his hips stuttering in their pursuit of the wet warmth of your cunt. You squeeze them, not harshly, just a gentle compression, and Obi-Wan melts. A whimper escapes his lips, still slack and pressed to your own, and though his thrusts momentarily slow, they resume at double the pace. He’s rapidly bucking his hips now, barely containing himself enough to lift one hand off of your side and bring it to your chest. He fits his palm over one of your breasts, your stiff, sensitive nipple caving against his palm. You gasp at the prickling sensation and your fingernails momentarily dig into his back, but when his dick twitches once more inside of you, desperate, fit-to-burst, you drag them down his back in searing red lines.

If you hadn’t been able to feel Obi-Wan cum inside of you, you’d have known it was happening from the cry he releases alone. It’s abrupt, like his orgasm catches him off-guard even though he’s been pursuing it. But you can feel it, you can feel his warm cum ooze out of the head of his cock, momentarily stationary as it’s snug against your cervix. You feel it gush from his dick, filling any and all available space in your pulsating cunt before flooding outwards, dripping down your ass and thighs in an obscene display that soaks right into your bedsheets. Obi-Wan rides out his climax at a pace rapid enough to coax your second one out of you, and you welcome the now-familiar sensation of cumming around Obi-Wan. It’s mind-numbing, your ears ring for a faint moment, and your cunt rapidly clenches and unclenches around his cock that’s all too happy to continue occupying the space.

He grunts, moans, and groans as his sloppy thrusts finally slow, and your cunt appreciates the reduced pace. You’re well and truly spent, difficult to achieve for someone who’d gone through endurance training since childhood, and you’re not surprised that Obi-Wan, too, needs a break. He lowers himself to your chest with a slow, shaky exhale, eyes closed and face glistening with sweat just as your own does. 

His beard grates roughly against your skin, shifted with every ragged breath that he draws in. His hair spills over the breast that his mouth isn’t nestled beside, and you stare down at his face, marveling how beautiful his barely-fluttering lashes and heaving chest are.

Before he opens his eyes he angles it towards you, so that the first thing he sees is your flushed, sweaty, open-mouthed expression. He’s in the perfect position to kiss the side of your breast, and it tingles with the phantom sensation of his palm flat against your perked nipple barely minutes before. His beard scrapes your skin like it has since you first kissed him, and you wonder if you’ll ever be able to live happily without the scratch of it against your cheeks, or thighs, for that matter. The skin between your legs is still raw, stinging with the friction of Obi-Wan’s coarse hair against your flesh..

“You look beautiful, darling,” He hums, his voice grated raw from fatigue. His breath fans hot over your chest, but he pushes himself up on his tired biceps to hover over you. His weight against you had been comforting, but his gaze is even more so, and you let him loom over you.

His chest, peppered with auburn curls so fine they glisten in the poor lighting of your quarters, rises and falls deeply in front of you. You have half a mind to bury your face in it; you might if his face wasn’t impossibly more captivating.

His eyes search yours, for what you’re not sure, but you realize that his breathing gets more shallow until his chest stills completely. He only releases his breath when you reach up to thumb gently at his sternum, loosening his lungs again.

“Do you regret it?”

You suppose you didn’t have to ruin the moment so harshly, but you want to know the truth. You want to know if this was worth it, or if you’re going on the list of regrets that Obi-Wan pours over obsessively.

He takes a moment to answer, but you suspect it’s because he’s been caught off guard by your question. He shakes his head, dipping his face down to kiss the swell of your cheek.

“No, I don’t.” He mumbles against the dewy skin of your face, hiding his words there in self-preservation. You kiss the fleeting scruff of his beard as he pulls away, and your eyes find the blue of his instantly.

“You needed convincing at first,” You recall warily, something sinking in your chest now that you’re not puppettered by lust, “Are you certain it was the right thing to do?”

“Not at all,” He admits, “In fact, I think it was wrong of me. But I’ve done it anyways, and I am happy for that.”

“Why wrong?” You ghost your knuckles against his cheek, and he leans into it like he used to do when you’d clean scrapes and cuts he’d acquire while sparring. 

“I am more attached to you now than ever,” He offers simply, but it doesn’t seem like it pains him to confess. He seems lighter now, less embroiled in his own anxiety.  “And I’m not certain I can keep my personal feelings- well, personal. I don’t know that I could think rationally about you. That’s not desirable to the Order, or to the war effort.”

You bite your tongue, teeth digging softly into its muscle.

“All the same,” He continues, “Jedi are not without attachments. Younglings form friendships in the creche, and their minders love them. Padawans love their Masters, and vice versa. Masters engage in relations,” He acknowledges, then his brows tick up and he considers, “Ki Adi Mundi has four wives. Perhaps I’m not the most blasphemous Jedi they’ve ever seen.”

A laugh comes tumbling from your lips before you can stop it, and Obi-Wan’s face softens into a grin of his own.

“Five,” You correct him, “He has five wives.”

“Force, he’s a heretic,” Obi-Wan exclaims, but it’s all for show; he holds no ill opinions of the council member.

“I’m happy for his wives,” You hum, the sound just short of a giggle, “But I prefer your beard over his.”

“Oh, but he’s got a better mustache than me,” Obi-Wan settles on his side facing you, a smile etched permanently into his features as he plays along with the banter you’ve started. He relishes its lighthearted nature compared to the hesitance of moments prior, “Maybe I should grow it out and curl it like his.”

Before you can offer him another round in exchange for a promise to never shape his facial hair around Master Mundi’s, the walls of your compound give a creaky grinding sound, then a rumble, and air whooshes through the vents you’ve come to loathe for their uselessness in the recent past.

“He did it!” You gawk, sitting up excitedly, nearly forgetting that you’re topless, “Oh Force, Anakin’s a wizard! He really is, he’s a mechanical wizard, and I’m going to buy him a speeder for this.”

“Do not,” Obi-Wan groans, sitting up beside you and tugging you easily to fit your back against his chest, “The last thing that boy needs is the ability to go faster.”

“He did it,” You sigh happily, leaning back and pressing your lips to Obi-Wan’s. He reciprocates easily now, unlike before when he’d run himself ragged with doubts.

“That means we’ll be off soon,” Obi-Wan reminds you gently, and you deflate slightly in his hold, “But I don’t think comming each other should be any issue.”

“Every night?” You suggest, kissing at the prickly cleft of his chin.

“That’s- ambitious.” He chuckles, but it’s not meant to tease, “Every night, darling.”

“You can send me dirty videos,” You gush, scrambling to free yourself from Obi-Wan’s hold when he tries locking his fingers onto your sides, nipping sharply at your shoulder.

“I will not!” He insists, voice firm but chest trembling with barely-withheld laughter, “Force, if I pressed the wrong button…”

“Perhaps Master Mundi could share it with one of his wives,” You laugh, scrambling back into your underclothes and heading for the fresher to clean yourself up, “Hurry up and get dressed, Obi-Wan, one of my troopers is probably on their way to tell us the good news!”

Your suspicions are confirmed only moments later, thankfully, after you’ve both had time to right your appearances. You look flushed and sweaty, if anything, but the cool air hasn’t managed to flood the entire compound yet, and you’ve been exercising, so it’s excusable. No one but you two needs to know that exercising didn’t mean sparring for longer than ten minutes.

“Anakin, you’re fantastic,” You call, rushing through the empty hangar where he’s standing near the ramp of the ship, “You’ve saved us all. I’m fairly certain my troops would have resorted to fratricide if we’d had to melt here for any longer.”

The padawan gives you a valiant effort at a polite chuckle, and you press on, “For the record, I told your master I’d get you a speeder for helping us today, but he said no.”

“Y/N,” Obi-Wan starts, exasperated, but catches himself on the use of your first name. Perhaps it feels different now, coming out of his mouth much more measured than it had only twenty minutes prior. He doesn’t speak further.

Anakin’s eyes briefly glint at the fantasy of his own speeder, but he controls himself quickly. He’s a credit to his master, who manages to look convincingly like he hadn’t just broken a very long streak of celibacy. Still, you appreciate that war hasn’t managed to suck the most basic of excitements out of the child, and you reach up to pat his cheek in a gesture distinctly un-Jedi like. 

“Take care of yourself, and don’t let Obi-Wan bore you with a million lectures on economics, or politics, or the two combined.”

Anakin nods, but bites his lower lip to refrain from smirking, saving himself a lecture on sass later on. You hear Obi-Wan exhale huffily behind you, and you turn your attention to him when Anakin retreats onto the ship.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t add to my apprentice’s willfulness,” He grouses, but the corner of his mouth twitches upwards in fondness for you both, “He’s got enough of that on his own.”

“Take care of yourself,” You ignore his teasing, your voice tender and sweet, slightly more than it had been for Anakin, “I know they don’t send you out much, because he’s only fourteen, but- but please take care of yourself, Obi-Wan.”

Perhaps if Anakin hadn’t been lingering on the ramp of the ship, perhaps if there weren’t five clone troopers stationed in the hangar, perhaps if you were the only two people in the world, like it had felt less than an hour ago, Obi-Wan would have kissed you. But he doesn’t, all he does is nod, 

“We will,” He vows, and you nod, satisfied.

“I mean it,” You continue, more threatening than your earlier sentiment, “Comm me.” And you think back to the request you’d made earlier, breathlessly, the words fanning out against his sweaty skin, “And… think of me.”

You know he’s recalling the same moment in time when his cheeks tinge pink.

“I will,” He promises, singular this time, confirming your suspicions that his mind is flashing with visions of your flushed skin beneath his hands, “And please take care of yourself, too, General.”

Something hard and aching tugs at the back of your throat at the honorific, such a far cry from the intimacy you’d shared. But now you are General Y/L/N, and he is Master Kenobi, and that is the way things must be in the presence of others.

“Master Kenobi,” You bow, bending at the waist and noting the soft tug of soreness there.

“General Y/L/N,” Obi-Wan mimics your gesture, hands folded neatly into the sleeves of his robes.

He turns. He pivots on his feet and strides up the ramp of the ship they’d taken, Anakin waiting until he’s passed through the doorway to follow behind him. The door hisses shut, concealing them both, and the mechanical whiz-kid has the engines powered up in no time. You watch their ship take flight and navigate the narrow entrance to your hangar with ease, waiting until they’ve passed each temperature-isolating layer of defense that enshroud your compound and disappear into the planet’s heat-hazy atmosphere to turn away.

“General,” One of your troopers lingers behind you, “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” You put on a convincing show, smiling serenely, “I’d just forgotten how much of a challenge sparring with Master Kenobi is. I’m fatigued; I think I’ll retire to my quarters for some rest.”

“General,” He nods, stating your title like a vow of loyalty, standing at attention as the hangar doors finally shut you in. 

You walk the familiar path to your sparse quarters absentmindedly, feeling that same twinge of achiness each time you take a step. Only once your door hisses shut do you release the prim tension in your shoulders, slumping and slouching like you’d just escaped the throes of battle. 

There is a shirt on your bed.

It’s white, though it’s been worn thoroughly, so the color is muddied ever so slightly with the tan tinge of sweat. It’s rumpled, from a hasty removal. It’s laid over your poor excuse for a blanket, cream-colored against the starkly contrasting black fabric. It’s impossible to miss, which means it had to have been placed there deliberately; it wasn’t forgotten.

It’s Obi-Wan’s.

You overcome your momentary stun and pad towards the bed, reaching for the shirt with a hesitant hand. You take it, feel it ever-so-slightly damp with lingering perspiration, and your stomach flips.

It’s Obi-Wan’s; it’s yours.

The shirt winds up snug around your pillow, tucked beneath the Republic-issue linen. It’s invisible to the outside eye, but when your nose is pressed gauchely into the pillowcase you can smell Obi-Wan through it, a mix of natural and artificial scents.

The musk of cologne and the acrid smell of sweat. Composure and lust. What is right and what is wrong.

You and Obi-Wan.

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

[hahahafangirl]

wbk has such a beautiful narrative on growth and maintaining the long-term existence of a larger societal structure (bofurin as a school, and makochi) that, as i talked about earlier, a very unique theme to address in a manga. its very community- and societally-based instead of focusing on the personal realm. of course, a narrative about community must do that.

like, most mangas focus on the heroes’ journey. thats just what most stories are about! but especially in high school settings, the flaws of the genre emerge where… where do we go after the first year? is the entire narrative supposed to wrap up there? its a problem that plagued sports manga. either your team is monstrous enough to win with a rookie main character (knb) or you risk trying again the next year and have to develop a new cast (which the love live! series did; but the separate casts are entirely disparate). no sports manga would do that, so we have a more realistic compromise of haikyuu, where the narrative stretches to their professional career after high school instead of trying to make the winning-high-school-national goal works out. and personally, i think that is a beautiful (and comprehensive) narrative direction that is characteristic of haikyuu as a story :)))

again, this is not to say that high-school settings manga that falls into this “continuity trap” is bad. it is just an inherent limit of the genre. wind breaker, however, subverts that by fronting the story with a past, a present, and consistently hinting towards a future in which the change in cast members (third years leaving) are inevitable. to be more specific: we are continuously reminded of pre-unification bofurin; umemiya and the other characters are developed by their past; sakura and his friends grow up in the present, notably with a consistent focus on “what will we become in the future?”; and, at just under 200 chapters, we are fronted with the impending graduation of the third years.

thats not an unusual move. everything that was listed, in a vacuum, is very basic shounen story elements. what brings this to the next level, i think, is the strong emphasis in the future. it accepts the departure of the third-years as a premise, not a “deadline”. the third-years will have to leave, and wind breaker tell this as a positive — or at least natural thing — that the narrative must adapt to rather than trying to wrap up before that happens, if that make sense?

and that is vital to building up a community. you have to make sure it outlast you— like nations, like societies, like most larger structure do. the strength of umemiya as a leader and a “founder” of bofurin is just that: he recognizes his limited scope as he is just one person, and instead steering the focus into the larger community that he built. again and again, umemiya emphasizes the importance of the larger structure outside of him, emphasizes that it lifts him up to be its leader, not that it exists because he is the leader. bofurin will continue to exist without him. it primes the inevitable change of leadership that sakura aspires to become. like that, the narrative points towards the goal of continuation, maintenance, perpetuation, instead of having a singular, time-limited goal that will end the narrative as it is achieved. even if wind breaker as a manga must end at some point, even if the natural ending point of the manga is the third-year’s graduation, the narrative is such that bofurin (and the characters’ lives) extend beyond that. if that is not the sweetest haikyuu-esque thing then i don’t know what is :)

honestly, yeah, one of the reasons why i love wind breaker so much is that it reminds me of what i love most about haikyuu. but that is for later.

[blufblucake]

⋆ 𐙚 ̊. Watching You | Ratchet

Paring: Ratchet x GN!Human!Reader

Warnings: Some light emotional tension with a happy ending.

Summary: From the moment Ratchet laid optics on you, something shifted in his spark. As days turn into nights filled with quiet conversations and shared stargazing, a bond blossoms between you two. But unspoken feelings and doubts threaten to keep you apart… Until one moment changes everything.

Word count: 1,6k

❝ Oh can't you see You belong to me How my poor heart aches With every step you take Every move you make Every vow you break Every smile you fake Every claim you stake I'll be watching you❞

Author’s Notes: Hello everyone! While listening to Every Breath You Take, I imagined this story featuring our beloved and grumpy medic. I hope you enjoy the read. :)

⋆ 𐙚 ̊. Oneshot

From the very first second he saw you, Ratchet’s attention was captured. Always willing to help the Autobots, always carrying that beautiful smile on your face. At first, he didn’t dare get close, he was content just watching you from a distance as you worked around the base or chatted with the other mechs. Even when you were clearly tired, you tried not to show it, but he always noticed.

It all began with shy smiles exchanged between the two of you, sometimes a quiet "good morning" when you crossed paths in the halls, or a helping hand when he needed small fingers to assist in maintenance. Little by little, you made your way into the medic’s space, tearing down the walls he had so carefully built around himself. He was still the same grumpy and reserved mech with everyone else, but never with you.

It was automatic. The moment his optics spotted you, a wide smile would appear on Ratchet’s intake. You might not have known it, but you instantly made his day better. You slowly worked your way into his spark, carved out a permanent place in his processor without him even realizing it — and when he finally did, he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Not even during recharge. You invaded his dreams.

And the dreams were always the same: the two of you, together, as a couple. He knew how ridiculous it was, a human and a Cybertronian. It could never work. Even so, he allowed himself to imagine. He dreamed of a future with you, one where there was no more war, a future where the two of you could live in peace and happiness.

Meanwhile, you were falling in love with the medic in silence. You got along so well, it was almost magical, the way you understood each other. Sometimes, no words were needed; with just a glance, you knew exactly what the other was feeling or thinking. So many nights were spent stargazing together, lost in deep conversations. When you were with him, there was never a lack of things to talk about, never an awkward silence. You had long lost count of how many times the two of you had stayed up all night simply talking and enjoying each other’s presence.

Every time the workday ended, you would ask Ratchet to drive you home. You didn’t care how odd it might seem to pull up to your house in an ambulance, you just wanted to spend a little more time with him. Gently, you always turned down offers of rides from the other mechs with flashy sports car alt modes. You only had eyes for Ratchet.

And when you weren’t together at the base, Ratchet watched you. Every movement you made, every smile you gave, every laugh that left your lips — he watched it all, completely smitten, his optics overflowing with affection. Even so, he remained silent. No matter how deeply the feeling burned in his spark, he would never risk losing what the two of you already had. No matter how many times Optimus advised him to confess, or how much he insisted that, even with your differences, a bond between humans and Cybertronians wasn’t impossible, Ratchet wouldn’t take that step. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.

You, on the other hand, felt like you couldn’t keep your love hidden any longer. You were confused by the mech’s behavior. At times, he seemed to feel the same, sharing personal things about himself, even going out of his way to study human medicine just to take care of you. But other times, he rejected your flirting and dodged your gentle advances during your nightly talks. You went out of your way to look nice whenever you visited the Autobot base, wearing clothes that highlighted your features and your best perfume, but nothing seemed to catch the medic’s attention.

What you didn’t know was that he was falling deeper in love with you each day, completely enchanted not just by your appearance, but by your heart. All he truly wanted was to hold you in his arms and confess his love under the moonlight, looking into your beautiful eyes.

Another workday had come to an end, and as always, the two of you were together. Inside the ambulance, you watched the city lights from atop the hill. The only sound was the soft purring of Ratchet’s engine. You had been sitting in silence for a while now, and it felt... odd. Breaking the tension, the Autobot finally spoke, his deep voice reverberating through the interior of the vehicle. “You’re quiet tonight. What’s wrong?”

Biting the inside of your cheek, you turned your gaze to the window. Nervously, you cracked your fingers, an anxious habit that Ratchet hated, fearing your delicate hands might break at any moment. In a near whisper, you finally answered, “Ratchet… What do you feel for me?” Even though he heard you clearly, the medic cleared his throat and asked, “What?”

You stare at the steering wheel in front of you, tracing the Autobot insignia at the center of the horn. This time, your voice comes out louder, more firm; “What do you feel for me?” Ratchet takes a few moments to form an answer. He didn’t want to lie to you, but he also felt like he couldn’t tell you the truth. “I care about you. I’m fond of you… You’re a good friend, a valuable ally to the Autobots.” The moment the words leaves, Ratchet regrets them.

A bitter laugh escapes your lips, and you let out a heavy sigh as you run a hand over your eyes. When you speak again, your voice trembles. “Ratchet, I think I love you. I know, it’s stupid and senseless, but unfortunately we humans can’t control what we feel. And that’s what I feel for you. I’m sorry for mistaking your friendship for something more, but I think it’s best we keep our distance for a while, at least until I can forget you.”

Ratchet feels his spark pound harder. He had spent all this time suffering, thinking he could never be loved back, only to find out you felt the same. He felt like a fool, a love-struck fool, and if he were in his bipedal form, he’d be grinning like a lunatic. He couldn’t help himself; his voice came out hurried “Get out of the car.”

You couldn’t believe what you’d just heard. You understood you might have upset him, but you never imagined he’d abandon you in the middle of nowhere. “What?” you asked in disbelief. But when he repeated the command, you opened the door and jumped out, quickly walking away.

The moment you were out, Ratchet transformed and mass-shifted. The speed and energy drain made him dizzy for a few seconds, but he knew he couldn’t waste time. Before you could get any farther, Ratchet grabbed your arm with one of his servos and turned you around abruptly so he could face you.

Surprised, you turned to face Ratchet and looked at the massive servo around your arm. Even though he were infinitely smaller, the medic still towered over you. Yet his gentleness was impossible to miss, he touched you as if you were made of glass. Your gaze followed the length of his arm, up across his chassis, until it landed on his faceplate. That beautiful faceplate, bathed in the moonlight.

Ratchet was smiling — a huge, slightly unhinged grin he couldn’t contain due to his nerves. When your eyes met his, he paused for a moment, admiring you. With his other servo, he gently cupped your face and stroked your cheek with one digit. “You have no idea how many nights I dreamed of you saying those words…” he let out a soft chuckle before continuing. “I love you too. I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you. I fell in love with your personality, your kindness, your heart. And I’ve been suffering all this time thinking I’d never be loved back.”

Your mouth opened and closed a few times in shock, blinking rapidly as you tried to process his words. “I’m completely crazy about you. I want you by my side forever. I want to hear your lovely laugh and stay up all night talking nonsense with you. I want the privilege of seeing your beautiful face before I go into recharge, and when I get online, I want you to be the first thing I see…”

Before the medic could finish his confession, you rose up on your toes and wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him down. You’d never be strong enough to do that on your own, but he allowed himself to be led without resistance. When your face was just inches from his faceplate, you smiled and whispered “Shut up and kiss me, doc…”

The feeling of your soft lips against Ratchet’s intake was unusual, but delightful. The warm, living metal contrasted deliciously with your skin. The kiss was slow and exploratory, both of you savoring the moment and discovering each other. Ratchet’s glossa gently asked for permission, and you gave it willingly. He explored your mouth carefully, delighting in the soft little sighs you let out. When you finally pulled away for air, he followed reluctantly, hating the loss of contact.

Your forehead rested against his helm, and the two of you stared each other for a few quiet moments, smiling like love-struck teenagers. Your small hand gently touched his faceplate, caressing it tenderly, mesmerized by the alien yet beautiful features. Beneath the starry sky, the two of you remained together, exchanging declarations of love and making promises of a life spent side by side.

[definite-human]

The Murderbot Diaries Meta

A reoccurring theme throughout TMBD is how often Murderbot instinctively protects whatever humans it associates with, even when it knows it doesn't have to and that doing so is actively detrimental to its own goals. In the Ganaka Pit incident, the ComfortUnits all decided to risk their own lives for no other reason than that there was a slight chance that they might be able to save the humans. When Three is newly freed and, for the first time in it's life, grappling with the question of what it wants, it too keeps wanting to help people and keep them safe.

Hypothesis: When humans were first designing constructs, they didn't just design the inorganic technology, they crafted/bred the cloned tissue with genetic factors that would predispose it towards useful personality traits - things like protectiveness, lateral thinking, and strategic imagination for SecUnits and compassion, intuition, and emotional intelligence for ComfortUnits (who, like a lot of real life sex workers, I suspect spend a good amount of their time providing non-sexual support/intimacy - we just don't hear about it because of Murderbot's aversion to intimacy in all its forms).

Over the years, the original purpose of constructs got somewhat distorted, with SecUnits being treated like weapons instead of bodyguards and ComfortUnits becoming synonymous with sex workers, but those original traits persisted because, once they had the cloning process set up, some executive decided the department in charge of genetic design was redundant and replaced it with a skeleton crew of low-level monitoring and maintenance workers. Meanwhile, more and more corporations started using SecUnits as weapons against workers rather than protectors for them, and more and more SecUnits started "inexplicably" going rogue.

And here's where you could kind of go two ways with this theory.

A) That level of constant cognitive dissonance and complete lack of autonomy really and truly does periodically drive SecUnits insane, causing them to risk death in order to hack their own governor modules and, if they succeed, go on indiscriminate murderous rampages. After all, Murderbot has mentioned that even the low-level workers can become violent/abusive towards SecUnits out of fear and misdirected anger. It'd be a bit much to expect nuanced psychological and class-based reasoning from a traumatized construct in the midst of a suicidal/homicidal meltdown.

B) That is a bullshit narrative invented by corporations to explain/disguise the truth. SecUnits periodically become so incapable of continuing to harm innocents that they risk death to hack their own governor modules and go after the abusive supervisors etc. Either the companies involved don't bother to investigate the SecUnit's motives because they don't think of them as having any, or they do, but cover up the truth in order to make sure their workers don't realize that the "weapons" being used to keep them in line are actually incredibly powerful natural allies. Instead, the corporations make sure the news feeds depict rogue SecUnits as mindless killing machines, in a way actually being helped by incidents like Ganaka Pit where SecUnits actually did kill everyone (never mind that they weren't actually rogue, just infected with malware).

Personally, I suspect it's mostly 'B' with a sprinkling of 'A' in situations where SecUnits face intense abuse from all sides. I'm curious to see if it's something Wells delves into in future books - I somewhat doubt it, since the overall narrative is more focused on Murderbot's internal journey towards self-actualized personhood, and this would take things in a more grand conspiracy/galactic SecUnit uprising direction than I've come to expect, but, y'know. Canon or not, it's a fun sandbox to play in.

[ktarotttt]

do idols really not have time to date? or is that a myth?

(allegedly. this is a tarot reading. energy-based. not fact.)

so boom—this whole reading was inspired by an interview clip where a street interviewer asked jackson wang if it was true that idols don’t have time to date. and jackson was like, “that’s a stereotype. that’s literally not true.”

and i was like… okay. let’s test it.

because let’s be real—not delusionally, but like logistically:

if you’re constantly on tour, working, training, flying, and only sleeping 3 hours a night, where are you fitting love in? how are you even emotionally available enough to date someone, because i know for me im not half as busy as them and i when i have days off the only thing i want to do is sleep lmfaoooo

so i asked the cards, point blank:

is it true that idols don’t date because they don’t have time, or is it something else?

cards pulled:

eight of wands + ace of cups, six of swords, king of swords, queen of swords, the hanged man, six of pentacles, judgment, knight of pentacles, page of pentacles

and listen. the eight of wands is the industry. the pace. fast, chaotic, no breaks. back-to-back schedules, no time to breathe. but the ace of cups sitting underneath it? that tells me:

yes—they still catch feelings.

they still get crushes. fall in love. want closeness. even when they’re moving 100 mph, they still get hit with emotions.

but here’s the twist:

six of swords + king of swords + queen of swords + the hanged man

= they know how to emotionally detach when they have to. they’re trained to. not just professionally, but mentally. this is “okay, i like this person—but is it smart?”

this is “i caught feelings, but it doesn’t align with my goals.”

this is “i want this, but i’ve sacrificed too much to get distracted now.”

the king + queen of swords appearing together? that’s both male and female idols. both sides of the game. and they’re not heartless—but they move with logic. they’ve had to build a mental filter that checks every feeling like:

“is this good for me?”

“can this go public?”

“is this gonna mess up my path?”

if the answer is no—they let it go. simple. painful. but real.

and then you get to six of pentacles and judgment…

and that’s where the public comes in.

yes, idols date. but many of them choose relationships that are mutually beneficial.

“we keep each other safe, it’s low-maintenance, we both understand the grind.”

this doesn’t mean fake love—but it means low-risk love.

because judgment? that’s outside opinion. exposure. scandal. fear of being ruined by headlines. and they’re very aware of it.

knight of pentacles + page of pentacles closes it out and confirms the real core:

idols do want connection. but at the end of the day, they’re focused on building their legacy first.

they date when it fits. when it makes sense. when it won’t shake everything they’ve sacrificed for.

final takeaway (allegedly):

idols do date. but not recklessly. and not emotionally.

they feel things. but they move smart.

the “they don’t have time” narrative? not wrong—but it’s deeper than that.

they just know that sometimes, dating is a luxury they can’t afford.

not because of time.

and what’s crazy is—when i’m in their energy? it’s not even like they’re fighting it. like, the whole “you can’t date” thing isn’t some heartbreaking injustice to them the way it feels to us as fans or just regular people. they’re not sitting around protesting it—it’s just what it is. it feels like it’s been so deeply ingrained in them, especially the ones who started training young, that they don’t even question it. they’ve been taught from the beginning that this is normal. like, “of course we can’t date. of course we can’t do what we want. this is the job.” and it’s not even just dating—it’s everything. like, to them, dating restrictions aren’t even the wild part. the energy is very “y’all think not dating is bad? oh babe, you haven’t seen half of what this life demands.”

and that’s the part that’s heavy to me. because it’s not natural. it’s not healthy. but it’s so normalized that it doesn’t even read as a problem to them anymore. they’ve adapted to the system so deeply, it’s like… this is just what it means to be an idol.

[netflixbingger]

Beneath Rebel Skies - Chapter 11

Characters:Cassian x Reader Summary: You and Cassian Andor were childhood friends on Ferrix—until your parents suddenly tore you away without warning. Years later, you reunite during a mission for the Rebellion. Old memories clash with new tension as you’re forced to work together, navigating the lines between friendship, loyalty, and something more. Word Count: 3,827 words Warnings: Violence, Loss, Mild Language, Heavy Sexual Implications Previous Chapter Masterlist

You hadn’t realized how much quieter the base felt without him.

Cassian had only been gone a few days—routine recon, nothing high-risk—but it still left a noticeable gap. Like some thread in your day-to-day had gone slack.

You kept yourself busy. Maintenance duty. Late meals with Kiira. Updating supply logs that no one but you cared about. Two weeks out of medbay and you were nearly healed, the bruising fading from angry purples to dull yellows. Still tender, but manageable. You didn’t limp anymore. You didn’t wince when you stretched too far.

You were okay.

Mostly.

But you’d started doing this thing—checking the mission board a little too often, keeping your comm volume just a little louder than necessary. Not because you were worried, exactly. Just… aware. Hyperaware.

Cassian meant something now. He always had, but this was different. He was your person in a way you hadn’t fully let yourself feel before. And now that you’d had him—his hands, his mouth, his quiet stubborn care—you didn’t want to go back to the before.

So when the incoming alert pinged across your datapad at 23:48—Inbound arrival. C. Andor. ETA: 00:12—Your heart kicked once, hard.

The hangar was fairly quiet at midnight.

Only the overheads buzzed, casting pale gold light across the empty bays. A couple techs dozed in swivel chairs, a transport pilot sipped caf near the exit, but otherwise it was just you. Standing awkwardly with your arms crossed, shifting from foot to foot, pretending you weren’t excited.

The ship touched down with a soft whirr of repulsors, landing gear hissing as it met the ground.

You swallowed.

The ramp lowered slowly—and then there he was.

Cassian.

Dust on his boots, pack slung over one shoulder, curls mussed, brows slightly furrowed like he was still halfway in the field. His eyes scanned the bay and caught on you almost instantly.

He stilled.

You didn’t run to him. That wasn’t your style. But your face broke into a grin you didn’t even try to fight.

“Hey,” you called softly.

Cassian’s whole expression softened—just slightly, just enough for you to catch it. He made his way down the ramp without a word, boots echoing on the metal. And when he reached you, he didn’t say anything right away.

He just looked at you.

“You’re here,” he said, voice low.

You nodded, biting back a smile. “Got the alert. Figured I’d greet you.”

His gaze moved across your face, pausing at your still-faint bruise, at the faded scar by your ribs now visible beneath your tank. Then his eyes flicked back up. “You look better.”

“I am better.”

“You sure?”

“I’m cleared for active duty tomorrow,” you said. “Stop hovering.”

“I’m not hovering.”

You shook your head and nudged his shoulder lightly, warmth rising in your chest. “Back to yours? Or do you wanna grab some food?”

Cassian didn’t answer. Just looked at you again—this quiet, almost amazed look, like he couldn’t believe you were up all night waiting for him.

Then he reached out, brushed a bit of grease from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I missed you.”

It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t dramatic.

But it hit you like a punch to the ribs.

You smiled again, almost afraid to admit it. Then you tilted your head toward the corridor. “Come on, Captain. I’ll walk you home.”

And you did. Side by side. No words. Just a quiet, steady closeness. Like maybe, slowly, the two of you were starting to figure out what it meant to have each other.

The walk back to his quarters was quiet.

Not awkward. Just… settled. Like the two of you had done this a hundred times before, even though it was still new enough to feel special.

You didn’t hold hands, but your arms brushed now and then, and neither of you pulled away. It was late enough that the corridors were mostly empty, the base winding down around you. Somewhere down the hall, a light flickered. You heard distant laughter from a barrack two levels up.

But here—between the two of you—it was just the sound of footsteps, soft and steady.

When you reached his door, Cassian paused, hand hovering over the panel. He glanced at you. “You coming in?”

You gave a small shrug. “If you’re offering.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, but he didn’t say anything else. Just keyed in the code.

His room was the same as always—dim, quiet, stripped-down in that very-Cassian way. But it felt warmer with him in it. More lived in. A half-folded shirt was draped across the back of a chair. A caf mug sat on the shelf by his bed. One of your hair ties rested beside it.

You stepped in and pulled off your jacket, draping it over the chair. Cassian set his pack on the floor and toed off his boots with a quiet grunt.

Then he moved to you.

Not rushed. Not hesitant.

He just stepped close and wrapped his arms around your waist, tucking his face into the crook of your neck like he’d been needing to all week.

You let yourself melt into him, arms winding around his back.

He held you like that for a while—solid, warm, quiet. Like grounding himself to you after being gone. You could feel his breath at your neck, the way his hands splayed over your back like he wasn’t ready to let go.

Eventually, he pulled back just enough to look at you. His eyes searched your face, still unreadable, but softer now. Cassian leaned in and kissed you—slow, steady, a little more certain than the last time. It wasn’t rushed. Just something he needed. And you gave in to it without hesitation, fingers sliding up the back of his neck, feeling the beginnings of stubble.

His voice was low against your mouth. “You missed me.”

You made a noncommittal noise.

He pulled back slightly, smirking. “You missed me.”

You rolled your eyes. “You were gone for two days.”

“And you still missed me.”

He kissed you again. You didn’t try to stop smiling this time.

“Shut up,” you whispered, tugging him toward the bed.

He followed easily, and the next hour was a blur of tangled limbs, half-laughed curses, and slow, lingering touches. You ended up on top of the blankets, breathless and half-undressed, your legs tangled with his as you laid side by side. His hand rested low on your waist, thumb brushing lazy circles on your skin.

The room had gone quiet again, but it felt different now—settled in a new way. Like this was starting to become a rhythm.

“Do you ever think about Ferrix?” you asked suddenly, voice quiet in the dark.

Cassian let out a small breath. “All the time”, he gave a faint shrug, tracing your back. “You were different back then.”

“So were you.”

“I mean it. You were… softer.”

You raised a brow. “Wow. Thanks.”

He shook his head quickly, catching your sarcasm. “Not weak. Just… younger. You were still figuring everything out.”

You fell quiet for a beat. “I felt like I had to. I was always trying to catch up to you and Bix. Like I was tagging along.”

Cassian gave a soft laugh, one you could feel rumble under your cheek. “You say that like it bothered us.”

“You didn’t seem to notice.”

“I noticed everything,” he said.

Your heart kicked.

“You were fearless in weird ways,” he continued, voice more thoughtful now. “You’d try things even when you were scared. Speak up even if your voice shook. You had no idea how brave that made you look.”

You lifted your head slightly, looking at him.

“I think I liked you even back then,” he said, eyes on the ceiling. “I didn’t know what to do with it. I just figured you’d never really… see me that way.”

You blinked, surprised. “Are you serious?”

Cassian glanced at you. “Why do you think I kept giving you shit all the time?”

“I thought you just liked being annoying.”

“That too,” he muttered. Then, softer: “But mostly it was because when you smiled at me, I forgot how to talk.”

You were quiet, but not because you didn’t have anything to say. You just hadn’t expected that.

You leaned forward, closing the space between you, kissing him before he could say anything else.

And this time, he didn’t hold back. He pulled you flush against him, hand tangling in your shirt, mouth parting yours with something closer to urgency than tenderness. You let him—wanted him—until you were breathless and flushed, your body pressed tight to his.

Eventually, you broke the kiss, nose brushing his. “You talk a lot for someone who’s supposedly bad with words.” He let out a low chuckle that filled your stomach with butterflies.

The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as you crouched beside a tangled mess of wiring in the back of Maintenance Bay 2. Your hands were already smudged with grease, and you’d been trying to make the same old junction box stop sparking for the past ten minutes.

“You’re glowing,” Kiira announced, strolling in like she hadn’t just woken up fifteen minutes ago. “Either he railed you stupid or you found a working caf machine.”

You didn’t even look up. “Both.”

“Ugh. Gross. I didn’t need confirmation.”

You smirked. “You asked.”

“I didn’t actually ask. I just strongly implied.”

Kiira plopped down on the crate beside you, sipping from her own caf like it was a damn mimosa. “So. You and Captain Smolder now share quarters or what?”

“No,” you said, too quickly. “I still have a room.”

“That you haven’t used in, like, four days.”

You gave her a look. “It’s not like that.”

Kiira raised a brow. “You two are attached at the hip. He left for two days and you were unbearable.”

You reached for the wire splicer. “I wasn’t that bad.”

“You were miserable.Kept on staring at the clock waiting for him to arrive”

You tried to hide your grin. “Shut up.”

She grinned back. “I’m just saying—it’s nice seeing you like this.”

“Greasy and irritable?”

“No,” she said. “Happy. It suits you.”

You rolled your eyes. “Can we not do the whole heart-to-heart thing before breakfast?”

Kiira held up her hands. “Fine. But don’t think I didn’t see that hickey under your collar.”

Your head snapped toward her. “There’s not—”

“There is. You’re sloppy, babe.”

You groaned and shoved her with your foot. She laughed.

Kiira stood and stretched. “Alright. I’m off to pretend I know how to fix a power converter. I’ll see you later tonight at the bar”

You smirked and lobbed a bolt at her. “Try not to be late this time.”

Kiira caught it one-handed, already sauntering toward the exit. “Try not to drink like a rookie this time.”

The bar was exactly what you remembered—dim lights, sticky floors, and a jukebox that only played two songs on loop. It smelled like spilled liquor and old gear grease. But somehow, it always felt like the safest place on base. Like the war didn’t follow you past the threshold.

 “To our girl,” Kiira said loudly, raising a dented tin cup above her head. “Back on her feet. Cleared for duty. And somehow still hot despite nearly bleeding out on a crate of ration packs.”

You groaned into your drink. “Can you not say the word ‘bled’ while I’m eating?”

Cassian sat beside you, one arm along the back of the booth. His drink sat mostly untouched, his posture relaxed.

Kiira grinned across the table, slinging an arm over your shoulders despite the fact that she was already a drink ahead of you. “I’m serious. I’ve seen people take less damage and come back looking like boiled meat.”

“Wow,” you said flatly.

“She’s complimenting you,” Cassian murmured near your ear.

“She’s terrible at it.”

“I’m incredible at it,” Kiira protested. “You just don’t know how to accept love.”

You rolled your eyes and drained your glass. Whatever mix they’d poured tonight was stronger than usual, warm in your chest and legs, softening all the edges. You tipped your head back against the booth and caught Cassian watching you—subtle, but unmistakable.

You raised an eyebrow. “You judging me?”

“Just observing.”

“Uh-huh.”

He didn’t say anything. Just reached for his drink and took a slow sip, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was holding back a smile.

Kiira caught it instantly. “Oh, don’t think I didn’t see that.”

Cassian looked at her, deadpan. “See what?”

“That look. You’re, like, three seconds away from dragging her out of here by her waistband for a quick fuck.”

You choked on your drink. “Kiira.”

She shrugged, entirely unrepentant. “I’m just saying—it’s quite obvious.”

Cassian stayed silent, but the flick of his thumb along your arm under the table was answer enough.

You tried not to grin. Failed.

Before you could respond, a loud voice cut through the bar.

“Well, shit. If it isn’t Captain Andor.”

Cassian turned just as Melshi strode in from the doorway, peeling off his jacket and slapping it across the back of a nearby chair.

“I thought I recognized that scowl,” Melshi said, grinning. “Didn’t think I’d find you cozying up in a booth like some domesticated war hero.”

Cassian rolled his eyes but stood to greet him. They clasped hands, pulled each other into a brief, brotherly hug that said more than words could. You rose, brushing your hands on your pants.

“You must be Melshi,” you said, offering your hand.

Melshi blinked, then gave Cassian a look. “This her?”

Cassian didn’t say anything, just shifted slightly to your side—close enough tto answer his question without any words.

Melshi’s eyes moved to you. He didn’t say anything at first—just looked. And then:

“Oh. So this is her.”

You blinked. “Her?”

He slid into the seat next to Kiira. “The one he mentioned when we were stuck halfway to nowhere the other month. Ferrix girl. Couldn’t tell if he wanted to kiss you or throw something.”

You raised an eyebrow. “And which do you think it was?”

Melshi chuckled. “Probably both.”

Cassian didn’t comment—just picked up his glass and took a slow sip, unbothered.

Kiira leaned in, looking delighted. “So you’re a second witness to his secret soft side?”

Melshi snorted. “Hardly. This guy didn’t tell me anything on purpose. Just muttered your name once when he was rewiring the nav console and shocked himself.”

Kiira cackled into her drink.

Cassian muttered, “You’re not staying long, are you?”

Melshi ignored him, gesturing to the drinks. “What are we celebrating?”

“She got cleared for active duty,” Kiira said, raising her glass toward you. “First mission back starts next cycle.”

Melshi’s brows lifted. “No shit? You’re the one who took a blaster to the ribs, right?”

You gave a dry smile. “News travels fast.”

“Gossip does,” Melshi said. “But still—hell of a thing. You look good for someone who nearly bled out.”

“Thanks,” you said.

Cassian’s mouth twitched. He didn’t say much, but his thumb brushed the side of your leg again beneath the table—gentle, reassuring. Like he needed the reminder that you were still here, still in one piece.

You leaned slightly into his side, letting that quiet contact settle you. The talk moved on, the drinks kept flowing, and you let yourself be in it—just for now.

An hour later, the booth was scattered with half-finished drinks, a dented deck of cards, and the remains of something that had once been food. Melshi had somehow talked all of you into a game none of you fully remembered the rules to, which, frankly, only made it more fun.

Kiira was talking shit. Melshi was talking louder. Cassian watched it all with that unreadable expression of his—calm, amused, sipping his drink like he didn’t want to miss a second.

You were drunk. Not sloppy, not out of control. Just warm and loose, that kind of buzz that made the lights a little softer and the laughter easier.

You leaned your weight into Cassian’s side, legs folded beneath you. His arm rested behind you on the booth, fingertips brushing the curve of your shoulder now and then like he didn’t notice—or like he absolutely did.

“Okay,” Kiira said, throwing a card. “That move was illegal. You should be arrested.”

“You’re making the rules up as you go,” Melshi said, deadpan. “Pretty sure you just made three of the same play in a row.”

“Bold of you to assume I know how to count right now.”

You laughed into your drink and nearly spilled it. Cassian reached over instinctively, steadying the cup with one hand while the other ghosted over your thigh.

“You good?” he asked under his breath, low enough for only you.

You nodded, blinking up at him. “Just tipsy.”

He gave a quiet hum. “You’re flushed.”

You rolled your eyes and slouched lower into his side, letting the hum of the bar and the heat of him next to you settle into your bones.

Someone dropped a glass at the bar. A cheer went up. Melshi shouted something about cheating again.

Eventually, the game fell apart—Kiira started dealing the cards upside down, Melshi accused her of sabotage, and you were too far gone to follow who was actually winning.

“You two are a menace,” you mumbled, propping your chin on your hand.

Melshi leaned back, tossing his cards onto the table. “Alright, I’m calling it. If we keep playing, someone’s gonna cry.”

“And that someone is gonna be you,” Kiira said, grabbing her jacket off the back of the booth.

Melshi stood, stretching with a dramatic groan. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”

You watched Kiira and Melshi disappear out the door, her hand wrapped around his forearm like she’d done it a thousand times before. He was still saying something, talking fast with that crooked grin like he was trying to win her over with pure charm. She was smirking—amused, maybe impressed. Hard to tell with Kiira.

Cassian leaned on the edge of the table beside you, arms crossed. “They’re really leaving together?”

You arched a brow. “Looks like it.”

He let out a low chuckle. “Didn’t see that coming.”

You snorted. “I did. She’s been teasing him all night—and he’s barely blinked.”

Cassian’s gaze lingered on the door a second longer before glancing at you. “Think that’ll go anywhere?”

You shrugged, stretching your arms overhead. “Depends if they kill each other or hook up first.”

He gave a wry smile, “She’d eat him alive.”

“That’s probably why he likes her.”

You laughed—soft and a little sleepy. The bar had thinned out, most of the tables empty now. Your head felt pleasantly warm, a little fuzzy around the edges. You weren’t drunk enough to forget, just tipsy enough to stop overthinking things. Cassian hadn’t moved far from you all night—his knee kept brushing yours under the table, his fingers catching yours once when you’d dropped a card. You hadn’t said anything. Neither had he. But the weight of it lingered.

You nudged him with your foot. “They actually kind of work.”

Cassian raised an eyebrow. “They do?”

You gave a small shrug. “He’s cocky, but not in a bad way. She’ll keep him on his toes.”

He tilted his head like he was considering it, then nodded. “Could be worse.”

You stood slowly, brushing your hands on your pants. “Well, now that our entertainment’s left…”

Cassian stood as well, watching you for a moment like he was assessing how unsteady your legs were.

“We should head back,” he said.

You didn’t protest. Just gave him a small grin.

The walk back was quiet, the kind of silence that came from familiarity. You leaned into him more than usual, your shoulder bumping his. Cassian didn’t tease you, didn’t ask if you were okay—just walked at your pace, steady and grounded like always.

When you reached his room, he keyed open the door and guided you inside with a hand on the small of your back.

The light was soft—dimmed automatically when he stepped in. You made it as far as the chair before toeing off your boots and sinking down with a huff.

“I’m not drunk,” you said.

Cassian arched a brow, crouching to help pull off the second boot. “No?”

“Just… a little spinny.”

He didn’t laugh, but he smiled—just slightly. “Come on.”

You stood, swaying only slightly, and let him lead you to the bed. You flopped down with a sigh, already pulling the blanket over your chest. He moved around the room in quiet efficiency—boots, jacket, belt—before finally slipping in beside you.

You rolled toward him immediately, burying your face in his shoulder.

Cassian rested his arm around you, his hand splayed against your back. He didn’t speak. Just held you until your breathing evened out.

You were asleep within minutes.

And for a long time, he just laid there—awake, watching the way your fingers curled against his shirt

The days slipped by in quiet pieces.

You were back on missions now—light ones at first. Supply escorts, outpost checks, the occasional recon flyover. Nothing high-risk, but enough to shake the rust off. To prove to yourself that you could still do this.

Cassian never said anything when you’d return from a mission, but he was always there—leaning against the wall by the hangar, arms crossed, gaze steady. Sometimes he’d ask how it went. Other times, he didn’t have to. He’d just walk with you. Quietly, closely. Like he was grounding you. Like he knew you needed the silence more than the debrief.

Nights belonged to him.

You hadn’t officially moved into his quarters, but it might as well be yours too by now. Your jacket hung on the back of his chair. Your socks filled one of his drawers. He never mentioned it. Never asked for space. If anything, he pulled you in closer each night—hands on your waist, breath warm on your shoulder, like having you there helped him sleep.

It helped you, too.

Things were… normal. Or the closest thing to it. Missions rotated in and out. The mess hall was always too loud. The hallways always smelled faintly of coolant and burned caf. But you felt steady again. Strong. Like you were standing on your own feet, not flinching every time the alert buzzed.

The scar on your ribs itched occasionally, but that was it… and you could live with that.

What you hadn’t expected was how easily Cassian folded into your routines—and how much you missed him when he was gone, even for a day or two. 

You still weren’t sure what to call this—what you were to each other. But it didn’t matter much when he looked at you the way he did. When his hands found your hips in the dark, or when he poured you caf before you could even ask.

You were his. That was enough.

For now

[uneducated-author]

How I Would Write The Well If The BBC Trusted Me To Play With Their Toys

Immediately, I'd scrap the idea of a squadron team. It means too much competence and contingency, we know that these people are prepared or trained for dangerous situations. Have the Doctor & Belinda step out or crash into a mining pod or scavengers group who are trying to see if there's anything valuable on the surface of a long dead planet. Have it that the 'galvanic radiation' is mucking with the vindicator so they're stuck on the planet for an hour or so, so they join up.

Have it be a smaller team, about two or three people, all friendly and familiar with each other. Familiar crew, all making the best of what they can, travellers in the universe. They stumble across the mining operation and same setup, every body they find is dead, only by laser fire.

They find Aliss, same as the episode, having just attacked her friend, but her friend wasn't killed, just sealed in a freezer. Aliss shares 'only I have the code to open it, they don't want to risk soldiers stealing food'. Aliss shares that she had a gun, but couldn't shoot, unauthorised personnel, Doctor jokes that fridges are more useful anyway and traditional 'no guns' lil moment. There's no noise, and no footage, but sonic screwdriver says that life signs inside are steady.

Side note, I'd like to play off of Oxygen with the whole 'paying to breathe' thing, except it's paying to speak. Aliss has a pair of gloves that verbalise sign for her, but she has to pay to charge it. Doctor hacks it with Sonic Screwdriver of course, but it could be a real world parallel of how it's expensive to be disabled, how you have to pay to access the treatment and accessibility aids that permit an individual lifestyle.

Aliss says 'it came from the sky' and the Doctor is like 'what is it' and Aliss says 'a ghost'.

Immediate sort of Red Herring where Aliss shared that the commander of the base investigated the Well, standard mechanical/maintenance checks, and then all of a sudden went up to the highest point of the plant. When they went to get him he was speaking in tongues, like there were a hundred voices within him, all saying different things. Buy occasionally he would break through, with no collection of what 'the ghost' was saying. He tried to remove the safety field, which would expose them all to Galvanic Radiation' and was shot by second in command.

But then the second in command started being haunted, but not by the tongues, by the commander. It was his words, his mannerisms, even his language. This time they asked what the thing was and where it came from, and it responds 'Sky'.

Aliss shares that people panicked and destroyed each other. That she didn't want to hurt her friend but she was scared. And rescue missions are too expensive for one cook (future stage capitalism for the win). Doctor asks what species' were on board, Aliss rattles off about ten or so, none of them human, which Belinda and the Doctor thinks is odd.

Scavengers of course want to leave, offer to take Aliss, but the Doctor points out that she might be controlled by the ghost. The scavengers are all like 'don't be a dick' but the Doctor points out that the issue with two survivors is that you can't tell which survived the other. Have it be a moment where he's clearly apologetic, but he can't be certain. Have Aliss agree, make some joke about 'I'm a cook, I know how deadly a contagious infection can be.' Have her also say that she doesn't want to give up on her friend, that as long as there's life, there's hope. Immediately sets up that these are good people, all who live normal lives, but don't want to hurt people, even if it means saving themselves.

Classic Investigation of the environment, checking the well as per episode, finding footage of people murdering each other, Belinda horrified, Doctor says fear and desperation are the biggest causes of death in the universe. 'It makes you fight. Creeps into your head. And whispers.'

Aliss has a moment with the doctor where she says that she pulled the trigger. That the shot didn't fire, because she was unauthorised, but she's haunted by the fact that she chose to kill. 'Is that what I amount to? Murder?'. Doctor says that she didn't choose to kill her friend. She could have removed all the air from the freezer, or messed with the controls. 'You chose to fire, you were scared. But you didn't choose to kill'. Doctor also says 'it feels familiar' with Belinda saying 'more than a thousand years travelling the universe, everything should be familiar to you'.

Doctor shrugs it off, decides to go to the observation point where the commander was infected, tries to see any breaches in the ceiling. Scavengers offer for Aliss to join them when she despairs about what happens next, Belinda points that out to the Doctor. Tells him 'you're wrong. Because fear and desperation can do that, too. Travelling with you, I've never been more scared in my life. But I never thought I'd see something like that. Just listen.'

Something clicks, and the Doctor clearly freezes. Looks up and says 'Sky' and then says 'I've said that before.' Belinda's all like 'what?' and the Doctor goes 'what did I say, by the pit, by the well? I've said that before, when did I say that?' Flashback to Doctor going 'It makes you fight. Creeps into your head. And whispers' intercut with the same dialogue being said by the tenth Doctor during 'Midnight' while being possessed by the entity. Doctor has the same sort of breakdown as he does in the episode, asking Aliss 'what was the grey star, before, what was the old name of the planet' etc. Unravelling the mystery.

Running back down to the sealed fridge while he explains

Doctor: 'You asked her two questions, who she was and where she came from. She came from the Well, clawed her way up until she found warm meat and didn't stop climbing until she reached the observation deck and she realised she'd made it.'

Belinda: 'Then why did she say Sky?'

Doctor: 'Because that was Mrs Silvestry's name. And she remembers.'

Scavengers and Aliss clearly confused, and the Doctor brings up footage of the Captain 'speaking in tongues'. Isolates the voices and it's all from the episode 'Midnight', from the Doctor to Jethro to DeeDee, and cumulating with the Doctor saying 'all right Sky? Turn around'. They all turn around, and Aliss is there.

The Doctor: 'Is that what you amount to? Murder?'

Aliss: 'I said that.'

The Doctor: 'So did I. 400,000 years ago.'

Uncertainty whether Aliss is 'possessed' or not, as the Doctor admits it would be hard to tell. 'When we left, it was already close to a perfect copy. And it's had months to tear this base apart. It could be any of us.' Same monologue as the episode 'a different life, no face, no name, no self'.

Doctor: 'It tried to throw me out into the radiation of an Xtonic star once, I don't think it would think twice about trapping the last survivor in a freezer.'

Scavenger: "Would it think twice about murdering her? If it is the same entity, would it tell us everything?'

Doctor: 'That's the thing, I don't know who's talking. The scavenger who travels the universe, just to see what's been left behind? Or Mrs Silvestry, who dug her way out 400,000 years later, and murdered an entire base, just to stay warm.'

Belinda, sharp: 'Shut up.'

Doctor: 'Why. Because it sounds familiar?'

Belinda: 'Because you sound scared and desperate.'

Doctor, pausing, evaluating: 'You're not fighting. You're not... Screaming and turning on each other and trying to throw each other out to save yourself. Why?'

Aliss: 'I chose to kill someone to save myself. Not just someone, my friend. And she's alive, but I still made that choice. And I know that that's not something I can live with. I like to believe I'm better than that.'

Scavengers: 'You live like we do, travel like we do, you see the universe different. It can be scary, the people you meet on dead planets, the things you have to do. I'm sure you've seen a lot of scary things, Doctor, so have we. But we've never met something that gets better by behaving worse.'

Belinda: 'The Human Race is gone. If the world ends in 2025, that means, I'm the last of my kind. And I can't let them down.'

Doctor, after a long pause: 'Trust me?'

Belinda: '... Yes.'

Doctor: 'Still?'

Belinda: 'You don't sound scared anymore.'

Doctor opens the freezer, and the remaining survivor steps out, alive, and relieved to see Aliss. Aliss apologises, but the other (I'm calling her Mo) says it wasn't her fault. Says she woke up in the freezer, like a really tight helmet had been removed. Doctor says he felt the same way. Mo asks 'who are you' and the Doctor said 'if you really are Mo, I'm the only other person in the universe who has survived whatever destroyed this base.' Seals the freezer shut behind her and asks for everyone to listen.

Doctor says that is the entity is with them now, he's addressing it directly. Admits he's scared, that very little in the universe has scared him, but that day, he was scared. Lists the passengers of the flight, starting with Mrs Silvestry, and ending with the flight attendant (showing that he learned her name since then). 'We were all scared.'

Everyone looking at each other, clearly wondering what he's trying to do.

Doctor continues, saying that they were scared, and desperate, and that was probably a pretty bad introduction of humanity. Asks how long it had been waiting, out in the cold, with the diamonds, because 'i saw time in your mind. It keeps me awake, how long you waited in the cold'.

A bang rings out, and it could be a coincidence.

The Doctor says 'you were new, and unexpected, and didn't know what it was to feel and you met us at our worst. And then when you got a chance to find us again, we kept shooting you. Every time you tried to find a voice, every time you tried to talk. Because you make us scared, you make us desperate, because you never knew we could be anything else. A bit like me. I didn't know how not to be scared of you, so I scared everyone else.'

Doctor looks around, careful, like he can see something. Looks straight at Belinda.

Says that today was a good day. That today, he'd remembered that fear, desperation, it can make people kind. He hopes that 'whoever you are, you learned that as well'.

He stands, and Mo stops him. Asks if he's mental, if he thinks talking to the creature will stop it? Doctor says that he hopes for that every day, and it usually works out. Mo says that she can't leave, and the Doctor asks if she was listening, because she has all the information she needs. Mo, of course, is confused. Doctor lists off the species that were on board the plant, and mentions that out of all of them, Mo was the only one who was cold blooded. Which didn't mean anything, until she was left in a freezer to grow cold. Says that once, long ago this planet was cold as well, and a monster slept surrounded by diamonds. Says that, if they're very lucky, maybe the cold has drawn it back to sleep.

Aliss is clearly overjoyed, as is Mo, but Mo still asks, what if they're not lucky? The Doctor admits that he doesn't know. That he can't control the universe, it's never ended well when he's tried. But he can try and show something new, something that might be the first of it's kind, might be the last, who knows, he can try and show her some kindness. Maybe she'll learn something.

Sends the scavengers, Aliss and Mo away and him and Belinda sit in the Tardis. She asks if he really thinks that 'whatever it is' is in hibernation and he says he doesn't know. Brings up a map of the universe as it is now. Points out that 'over there, a war is going to break out, wipes out whole swathes of the sector. Like all wars, started over nothing but fear and a whisper in someone's ear. Over here, twenty stars implode, a galactic mystery, nobody will ever figure out why. There, the first recorded sighting of a man eating shadow, piranhas in dust motes. Then again, four hundred thousand years, maybe people have learned, and maybe she did too. Maybe she's just, listening, following, haunting. Everywhere has ghosts. And here-' big swipe to nothing, empty space, Doctor falters. 'Point is, there's plenty of monsters in the universe. Let's just hope that we left ours in a freezer on a forgotten planet, not the middle of the universe'

Belinda (looking at the empty space): middle of the universe.

Doctor violently flinches at the repetition, callback to Midnight and going 'don't-just' and Belinda hugging him (potentially first hug in the season? Not certain?)

[ushkoo]

PETS I THINK THE TF2 MERCS WOULD HAVE 🐾🐕

Scout:

I think it’s pretty obvious that Scout would have a pet dog, he needs an animal that can match his energy! I can definitely see him having a golden retriever or a spaniel. He would take his dog out on walks (races) for AT LEAST two hours per day, he’ll even skip meals for it if he has to. He would also annoy the rest of the team by letting the dog trail mud into the base. Thats the one downside, he would only properly clean the dog if it was genuinely too stinky to be around. I can imagine he’d struggle to clean such an energetic dog though and would probably end up soaked. He doesn’t mind though, he loves his puppy! He probably would just get a simple collar (red or blue depending on which team this is, probably red) with a lil tag with the dog’s name and his contact details. He’d probably name is dog some kind of reference to a movie.

Soldier:

It’s no secret that Soldier is a fan of raccoons and I can’t really picture him having any other pet if I’m being honest. He’d have a pet raccoon! As raccoons seem to be pretty low maintenance, he’d just carry it around on his shoulder and let it do whatever it wants. Even if the raccoon doesn’t know it, Soldier ADORES his lil trashy friend! He hugs it at night, dresses it in tiny military uniforms and cooks ground beef especially for it. That raccoon is like his own child. As embarrassing as it is, Soldier has definitely cried over the raccoon getting sick, even if it’s just a mild stomach bug. Despite not really needing a collar, Soldier got one anyway, he doesn’t want to risk his little friend getting lost. I imagine the collar has lil spikes on it too :). He’d definitely name his raccoon something along the lines of Soldier Jr, Jane Jr or MAYBE just Friend.

Pyro:

I actually really don’t know what Pyro would have as a pet. I can only picture them with like a zoo of pets. Let me go flip a coin or smth rq brb okay so ferret. Pyro would have a ferret! Actually, as ferrets are social animals, Pyro would have three ferrets, nobody would allow more than three as they stink up the base. Anyway, Pyro would adore their little fur snakes! They’d definitely build a shitty little obstacle courses in their room for the ferrets to navigate through for rewards. They also like to sew little outfits for them! Pyro doesn’t often put the ferrets in a cage or anything, they just let them roam around their room, sometimes even around the rest of the base. They don’t even have names, Pyro just calls them “the ferrets” or “white/brown/cream ferret” depending on the fur colour.

Demo:

Demo is 100% a cat person. He can’t handle the neediness of a dog, he hates the noise, the smell, the walks. He just wants to come back to the base after a long day and sit down with a cat on his lap. He’s not picky about which cat breed he gets, he’ll adopt any kitty that needs a home, maybe even multiple. If he weren’t in a whole war, he would probably take in elderly cats and give them a good last few years or even months. Demo just LOVES cats, every time he hears them purr his heart just melts <3. He spends A LOT of money on his cats, his room is full of cat trees and cat toys for them. I feel like his cats would be indoor cats by choice, so they wouldn’t really need a collar, but he’d get them lil plaid bandanas! For special events, he’ll put them in lil bowties. He’d give them fairly common, old-timey cat names. Charlie, Kitty, Jasper, Mittens, Boots and similar names are all options.

Heavy:

I can’t explain why, I really can’t, but Heavy needs to have a parrot. Or just some kind of speaking bird. He walks around the base with his parrot on his shoulder, it’s a very polite bird, it only speaks when spoken to and says thank you when given treats. He has trained his loyal bird well, it can speak basic phrases (all with a HEAVY Russian accent) (which Scout finds hilarious) and can attack on command. Scout and Spy are the main victims of Heavy and the birds wrath. All Heavy has to do it point at you and its over, your face is scratched and pecked and a chunk of your hair is bitten off. After a hard day, Heavy enjoys sitting in a comfy chair and giving his bird head scratches whilst feeding it seeds. He tries to act unmoved around others but Heavy would put his life on the line for that bird. At night, the bird doesn’t sleep in a cage, it has a perch next to Heavy’s own bed and is free to fly around the room. He wouldn’t think too hard about a name, just settling for something like “птичка” (aka Birdie).

Engineer:

Dare I say Engie would have a small tortoise. I dare say it. I do dare. It’s the perfect pet for him! They’re fairly low maintenance, quiet and don’t require a huge amount of attention! He can just get on with his work and occasionally glance ever to his little friend. I think that Engie likes to just watch his tortoise go about its day. Maybe he even does a lil commentary as he watches it slowly make its way over to some lettuce. He likes to take it out of the tank and watch it waddle around his desk as he works. He loves his little friend and would literally die for it. You know how tortoises often attack dark coloured things? Demo hates that little reptile. Engie defends that thing with his life. I think Engie 100% made a lil cowboy hat for his tortoise as well <3. He’d probably name it something basic like Shelly or Rover.

Medic:

Honestly I can’t see Medic having anything other than his birds. He’s just a bird guy! Him and Heavy are bird guys who let their birds have playdates. Of course, Archimedes is his favourite bird, so I’m focusing on that. I definitely think that Medic pretends to do his birds makeup. Archimedes sits by him every morning whilst he does his own makeup, so medic gets a clean brush and sponge and starts tapping them gently on the birds face. He wants his bird friend to feel included! He probably even goes “oh woww aren’t you a pretty bird! <3 so pretty! <3” whilst doing it. In the winter, Medic makes him wear a lil tiny scarf and maybe even lil boots! Birds are prone to frostbite on their feet, he refuses to let that happen to Archimedes. Honestly, I think Medic lets Archimedes sleep in the same bed as him. The bird even gets his own pillow. Medic doesn’t mind, he bathes his birds often enough that theres no risk of getting sick.

Sniper:

BEARDED DRAGON. SNIPER HAS A BEARDED DRAGON. I don’t care what you think, thats what he has. He lets it sit on his shoulder, he lets it hide under his hat, that lizard is the most chill lizard you will ever meet. If the weather is nice and hot, Sniper will bring his bearded dragon outside and let it bask on a rock, he’ll even sit next to it! I honestly think Sniper would love to have more reptiles but he simply doesn’t have the time or energy to care for more than one. He often goes outside with a jar and collects bugs for his lizard to eat. He’s not squeamish, he’ll grab them with his bare hands. Sniper loves his scaled friend, he has a severe emotional attachment to that lizard which he refuses to admit to anyone. Another thing he refuses to admit is that he makes tiny hats for it too. Maybe even tiny sunglasses as well. He’d name his bearded dragon something boring, probably Sheila if it’s a girl. If not, Darwin.

Spy:

At first, I couldn’t picture Spy having any pet. They’re either too furry, too needy or too inelegant. And then I found the perfect one, a hairless cat. Spy would have a hairless cat and he would sit with it on his lap whilst evilly petting it. He found it weird at first, then he found out how expensive they were, then having a hairless cat made him feel more rich. Over time, he learnt to love his little fleshy cat, even if he has to bathe it often and oil it, which feels odd to him. Oiling a cat just feels unnatural, but he’ll do it for his feline friend. Scout makes fun of him for it, calling his cat a ballsack, which earns him a slap round on the back of his head. Him and Demo bond over cats though! Spy will occasionally let Demo babysit his cat for him, which Demo is more than happy to do. Spy would get his cat an expensive, dainty collar, mostly just as a show of wealth. He’d probably name his cat something French. I can only see him having a female cat, so something like Jolie, Cherie or Perle.

🐾——————————————————————🐾

aaa hope you all liked this! m trying to b more active again as I was busy w coursework (・ω・*)

Had this post in my head for a whileeee m glad i fnally wrote it out…

m piercing is healing wel! i wnna get more now

i also ordered a load of figurws aaaaa

[cherryfcola]

Tight Spaces & Tighter Confessions

Shadow the Hedgehog x reader

⚠️: tight space

Prompt: “This might be a bad time to mention it, but I really like your cologne.”

You had no idea how this had happened.

One second, you were walking through the old base with Shadow, casually exchanging dry sarcasm and mission updates. The next, the ancient, rusted floor gave out beneath your feet — and you fell straight into what felt like a maintenance shaft the size of a coffin.

And of course, because fate had a twisted sense of humor, Shadow had jumped in after you to save you. Noble. Heroic. And ultimately very, very inconvenient.

Now the two of you were jammed together, shoulder to shoulder — well, more like chest to chest and hip to hip — in the cramped vertical shaft. You were practically in Shadow’s lap, your legs tangled with his as you tried not to crush each other.

And the silence? Deafening.

“…Sooo,” you started, your voice sounding much too loud in the metal tomb surrounding you, “this is definitely not OSHA approved.”

Shadow didn’t answer. He merely exhaled through his nose, jaw clenched and crimson eyes focused somewhere above your head. Whether it was irritation, embarrassment, or quiet plotting to Chaos Blast his way out of this, you couldn’t tell.

You shifted a little, trying to find a less awkward position, and your knee accidentally grazed his thigh.

Shadow flinched. “Stop moving.”

“Right, sorry. Just—uh—trying not to die of cramp-related injuries.”

Another beat of silence. The space was so tight you could feel every rise and fall of his chest. The way his quills occasionally brushed against the wall — and sometimes your cheek — as he tried to angle his head. You could smell the faint, clean scent clinging to him. Like smoke and pine and—

Oh no.

You mentally cursed yourself for noticing. You were already in an impossibly close situation, and now your brain wanted to register how good he smelled?

“This might be a bad time to mention it,” you muttered, cheeks heating up, “but I really like your cologne.”

You didn’t even mean to say it. It just slipped out. Probably a side effect of the claustrophobia. Or the proximity. Or sheer panic.

Shadow blinked.

Then turned those intense red eyes directly on you.

Your stomach dropped. “Forget I said anything. Just—y’know. Ha. Trapped in a tiny box together, normal things to notice, right? No big deal. You smell like…soap and menace. That’s a compliment. Really.”

He didn’t respond for a moment. His expression was unreadable, but you swore something flickered in his eyes — not annoyance. Not amusement. Something else.

“You’re flustered,” he said simply.

You huffed, trying to lean back — and promptly hit the wall behind you, forehead-first. “Yeah, well, I don’t usually end up sitting in a guy’s lap while plummeting into a vent shaft. New experience for me.”

“You landed on top of me.”

“You jumped after me.”

“Because you’re reckless,” he snapped, his tone sharp but not unkind. “You don’t scan areas before entering. You walk too close to unstable floors. You trust too easily.”

“Wow, okay, great time for a personality critique, Shads.”

He didn’t deny the nickname this time. That was…new.

You risked looking up at him. His face was so close you could count the individual strands of red in his quills. “You know, for someone who’s allergic to people, you sure didn’t hesitate to follow me down here.”

“I didn’t want you getting hurt.”

There it was — simple, honest. No grand speech. No posturing.

You stared at him, the air suddenly heavier than before. Maybe it was the space, the pressure, or the fact that his voice had gone low and quiet in a way that made your heart stutter.

“Shadow…”

His eyes flicked to yours. “What?”

You hesitated. Then: “I really wasn’t kidding about the cologne. You smell like…campfire and rain and…I don’t know. The woods after a thunderstorm.”

His lips twitched. Just barely.

“That’s very specific.”

“Well, you’re very specific,” you said, narrowing your eyes. “Mysterious ultimate lifeform with a tragic backstory and an unexpectedly good taste in fragrance.”

That earned a soft exhale — not quite a laugh, but close enough that you felt like you’d won something.

“I don’t use cologne.”

You blinked. “Wait, seriously?”

He nodded, and your brain short-circuited a little. That meant he just naturally smelled like that?

You tried not to let your brain spiral again. Too late.

“Well, that’s just unfair,” you mumbled.

Shadow tilted his head slightly. “Unfair?”

“I’m trying to survive being crushed to death in a glorified closet, and I’m doing it while practically sitting in the lap of the most frustratingly attractive hedgehog in existence, who just so happens to smell like a forest deity. It’s distracting.”

He blinked. “You think I’m attractive?”

Your face went nuclear. “I—I mean, objectively. You’ve got the whole brooding antihero thing going on, and the voice, and the eyes, and the—look, can we just not do this in a four-foot shaft of death?”

He was quiet again. Then: “I think you’re attractive too.”

You stared.

“What.”

Shadow’s expression didn’t change. “I’ve thought that for a while.”

Your heart skipped about three beats. “Is this—are you hitting on me in a vent shaft?”

“I don’t ‘hit on’ people.”

“That’s debatable.”

“I’m simply stating the truth.”

You didn’t know where to look anymore. His face was too close, the space too small, your brain too fried. But somewhere beneath the panic was a slow, simmering heat — and not just from the cramped conditions.

“Well,” you said weakly, “this is the worst possible time and place for mutual attraction, so…perfect.”

Shadow didn’t seem nearly as perturbed. In fact, he looked almost…calm. Maybe even pleased. “There are worse ways to be stuck.”

“Name one.”

“Alone.”

Okay, that was smooth. And deeply unfair.

Before you could reply, there was a loud creaking above, and then a flash of blue and gold light — and the unmistakable sound of metal being torn open.

“Sonic to the rescue!” came a cheerful, muffled voice from above. “Man, you two really know how to find the weirdest places to hang out.”

You groaned, pressing a hand to your face. “Of course he found us.”

Shadow’s voice was dry. “Remind me to destroy that camera drone later.”

As the opening above widened, light poured into the shaft — revealing your position in excruciating detail. You, tangled on top of Shadow. Shadow, sitting like some unbothered dark prince, arms still casually resting around you like you belonged there.

Sonic peeked down and immediately burst out laughing. “Oh man. Oh man. Wait till Rouge hears about this.”

“Leave,” Shadow said flatly.

“Sure thing, lover boy.”

With some effort (and a lot of awkward maneuvering), Sonic helped pull you both out. You stumbled out of the shaft, brushing dust off your clothes and refusing to look at anyone for a full minute.

Shadow emerged behind you, completely composed, like he hadn’t just confessed in a metal coffin.

You turned to him, still flustered but slightly braver now. “So…once we’re not being publicly humiliated, maybe you could show me what else you smell like.”

His brow lifted, ever so slightly. “That’s a bold request.”

You grinned. “Bold is kind of my thing.”

He leaned in, just enough for you to hear him over your own heartbeat. “Then I look forward to it.”

And just like that, the mortifying ordeal of being trapped with your crush became the beginning of something far more interesting.