#there are a lot of other songs i wanted to add but i figured id just stick to these like 4 albums so uh

[acrystalwitch]

DEITY GUIDE

(From research but also from my own workings with her as my matron. This isn’t meant to be strictly historical this is more for pagans wanting to work with her. There will be a lot of UPG or SPG)

Selene is a Greek Titan (I call her goddess because I find it honoring but she is a Titan) She is the moon incarnate. The embodiment of the moon itself in spirit form. I believe to look up at the moon and call it beautiful is to call her beautiful as well.

Her parents are Hyperion and Theia and her siblings are Helios (The Sun) and Eos (The Dawn)

She is ever changing and ever shifting.

The myths of her have a lot to do with a man named Endymion. There are many versions, but my favorite take I’ve ever heard is that he was a human she fell in love with. She knew that he would die one day and couldn’t bear that. So she requested to Zeus that when it was his time to die, he’d go in his sleep, and he’d instead just sleep forever, preserved and immortal. She visits him every night and has many children with him. (I like to believe the version that this was all consensual and that Endymion would’ve wanted it this was as well)

What working with her is like?

She is as ever shifting and multifaceted as the moon itself. She is a sweet mother, and a firm scolder.

She is the only deity I’ve had who has set off my fire alarms (it was a very normal glass candle with no herbs or extras 😅) and a second time she melted a pillar candle of hers onto the floor because she got very excited that there was a lot of love in my household that day.

She doesn’t put up with me wallowing, she wants me to confront my issues head on. Has tried to work with me on emotional problems and addictions. She’s a fierce protector of women and I’ve found that she will even look out for my girlfriend’s emotions as well, though she doesn’t work with her.

She is a strong mother figure, loving yet stern. She also can go quiet for long periods of time. In my experience prefers meditation as communicating, or the moon oracle deck I have.

Offerings for Selene:

(What I personally have given her or known others to say that she likes! Feel free to add your own id love to know!)

Physical offerings:

- moon water

- moon stone

- selenite (named after her!)

- amethyst

- moon imagery

- grey candles

- white candles

- jewelry

- silver coins

- flowers that bloom at night

- white flowers

- imagery of white horses (she has a chariot)

- the moon tarot card

- the lovers tarot card

- the chariot tarot card

Devotional offerings

- look up at the moon! Call her beautiful

- learn about the moon phases

- look after yourself and your health

- meditate with her

- draw pictures of her/the moon

-write songs/poetry

- don’t be afraid to feel your feelings!

Personally, though she is my matron I have some of the most difficult times connecting with her. It could be due to my issues with my mother and seeing her as a mother figure. But, I’d say if you want to work with her be prepared for it to be a bit different than most deity work talked about.

She’s quiet and confusing at times and requires a lot of work. But she’s also patient and forgiving and loving. All in all if you feel a pull to her, I’d say go for it! Just be very respectful of her!

[owlpellet]

Hi I saw your post about having 12 species of birds in your backyard so now I’m genuinely asking: what’s your advice for bird watching? And getting those birds into my backyard?

so i'm not what anyone would call a comprehensive resource but i can offer a few tips, yeah!

for making your yard attractive to birds:

birds do not like open space, as it makes them vulnerable to predators. they need lots of foliage to hide, so place any feeders or other features in places that aren't wide open. if you do not have a lot of plants in your yard, change that if you can!

diverse plants will also attract nectar-feeding birds and insect-eating birds, and are sort of your "natural" feeder setup. you can check if your area offers grants for pollinator gardens.

a non-stagnant or regularly-changed water feature (fountain, bird bath) is also very attractive to birds. in hotter climates, i would say it's an essential addition.

different types of feeders and food attract different types of birds. you can draw hummingbirds with nectar and bright flowers (they love fuchsia), most songbirds with black oil sunflower and safflower seeds, a whole variety with different suet, corvids with peanuts; doves and juncos and corvids prefer tray or ground feeding, little songbirds like something they can cling to, etc. research what kind attracts what you want to see, or make a diverse setup if you have the space. you can usually avoid feed that has millet, most birds will just hurl it everywhere.

don't feed birds bread; it's empty fluff and just fills them up. seed is boring but fine, they don't really have a concept of food being "boring"

clean your feeders every time you refill them (and change hummingbird feeders every few days regardless); there are several contagious avian diseases and you want to avoid outbreaks. your feeders will become known as foul and the uninfected will move on.

if you live in an area that has them, figure out a way to rodent-proof your feeders, like squirrel baffles. they'll destroy your whole setup and scare away all the birds (you can try to set up a special squirrel feeder, but they do not respect borders).

consider nest boxes! make sure they can be opened for cleaning, and don't have any harmful materials in their construction.

check if your town has a backyard birding store, like wild birds unlimited or a locally-owned equivalent. there will almost always be an old woman who may or may not work there willing to dispense advice about your local birds.

keep your cats indoors

for watchin them birds:

get the merlin app on your phone; it's kind of like Bird Shazam and can help you ID based on its song

if you want to get more serious, you can also get eBird and report your findings/keep a checklist

if you don't have a fancy zoom lens camera, get a pair of binoculars! they're good to have even if you do. you can even take pics through them with your phone.

the best time to watch birds is from about sunrise to late morning

don't interact with the birds, save for outlier circumstances (rescue, one lands on you, etc)

yard-watching and trail-watching are pretty different when it comes to ethics and how much humans and birds should be interacting. in general it's frowned upon to feed birds in wilderness areas to attract them, whereas urban birds are already accustomed to human presence. it's also frowned upon to play mating songs to attract birds.

don't go off-trail trying to find birds you can hear. it's dangerous for you and upsetting to them.

your area might have local birding meetups, or online groups where people report sightings and good spots.

there's uhhh probably a lot more i'm forgetting to add but i think this covers the basics!

[sun-stricken]

Man I am so happy I found your blog. Like it’s so refreshing to see a gray blog about, well, GRAY. Anyways id love to hear some more of your headcanons about gray, maybe ones on his demon slayer traits as well. If that’s ok with of course😅.

if u like my blog u should see my notes app, its almost embarrassing how full of him it is

i struggled with this ngl, single character (even when its ur fav) hc list r weirdly difficult for me

BUT I DID IT SO ENJOY!

Grays has a scarily good memory, he can see something once and be able to recall it in almost perfect detail even years later

amazing for molding, horrible for embarrassing or traumatic memories though

If someone needs something done, they go to him

He has a lot of people that owe him favors on standby, and no he will not say how those favor came to exist

he has a patch of natural white hair in his bangs, he got it from his mothers side

He has a brown cat named Catnip

shes his pride and joy

he has boxes full of letters, notes, and cards people have given him since joining Fairy Tail.

He’s really good at talking himself out of situations, as someone else said, hes a bit of a diplomat

if theres a fight or job that requires no magic hes one of the best for it

Some call it gaslighting, i call it being a lawyer in another life

Grays like, terrifyingly smart, he knows what to say, when to say it, and how

if other guilds/maybe the council did scouting, hes at the top of the list

nobody wants him as an enemy

ESPECIALLY after he got his devil slayer magic

speaking of

devil slayers are the embodiment of cute aggression

he gets the random urge to bite people

theres an 80% chance that he’ll try to head-bunt people now

if he gets too happy he’ll try to throw smth

he has ‘fangs’, really sharp canines and he probably has a self-induced tongue piercing from how many times he bit his tongue from them

the tips of his fingers are black, whether thats a demon slayer trait, or a product of having two ice magics, which makes him work in prime frostbite temperatures, is unknown, they just are

Gray collects siblings the way Natsu collects father figures

He also has a larger male following than Erza, but its okay bc she has a higher female following than him :)

he wears eyeliner. i just. i need to say it.

i want to add smth thats in every fairy tail au i make but never explicitly stated

hes deaf, he was born hoh but its gotten worse over the years, especially after Deloria

he has lacrima hearing aids and will turn them off if someone is being particularly annoying and he just isnt in the mood

he stress cooks and has gotten pretty good at it

he has a recipe book full of Isvan style foods and those are his favorite to make

He realized hes lived in Magnolia longer than he ever lived in Isvan and it tore him apart

When he writes things down, its a mix of Fioren and Islavic/Isvani writing

when he gets tired or really stressed he speaks his native language without realizing

hes a secret theater kid

hes the type to hear a song and lie on the floor for a couple hours

he tries to say he doesnt, but my god does he live off drama

he flirts when hes nervous bc its a very fun image to me

a weird amount of ppl hes dated/friends with were his enemy/rival in a sense

THATS ALL TY FOR THE ASK SORRY ITS KINDA SHORT AND ALL OVER THE PLACE

[dc-polls]

The DC Comics "Best Dancer" Who's Who Dance Party Post!

[ID: Thumbnails of the characters Guy Gardner, Booster Gold, Ted Kord, Sir Justin, Greg Saunders, Cass Cain, Batman, and Virgil Hawkins. /End ID]

Here are the submissions we received for DC Best Dancer. I'll be honest, it's a very unlikely group for a dance battle, but here we are nonetheless. 😁 Feel free to comment, tag or add on to any of the polls or this post with your propaganda! Without further ado, let's bring in our contestants...

Guy Gardner (Green Lantern)

🎵I Just Want To Celebrate by Rare Earth (YouTube)🎵

[ID: Comic panel of Guy Gardner as Green Lantern, leading in several people in a conga line all singing Celebrate drunkenly. /END ID]

Michael Jon Carter (Booster Gold)

🎵Shakedown by Bob Seger (YouTube)🎵

[ID: Cropped comic panel of Blue Beetle leapfrogging over Booster Gold. Booster talks to Scott Free off screen saying, "The question, Scott, is - URK! I hate playing leap-hero - Why aren't you there with that girl?" /END ID]

Ted Kord (Blue Beetle)

🎵Shakedown by Bob Seger (YouTube)🎵 Note: Booster and Beetle were submitted together, so they get the same song. But alas, since this is an individual tournament, we must do the unthinkable and split them up.

[ID: Comic panel with the setting labeled "Justice League Embassy, New York". Ted Kord as Blue Beetle and Fire dance to the stereo while Ice looks on. Beetle sings along, "Oh, do the mon-kay, at the love shack, bay-ay-ay-BEE!" /END ID]

Sir Justin (Shining Knight)

🎵The Wind That Shakes the Barley by Dancing Willow (YouTube)🎵 A message from the submitter: "traditional music for a reel, a traditional dance that may have gone back to Justin's time. we don't know a lot about medieval dance but this is a bet"

[ID: Comic panel of Sir Justin as Shining Knight riding atop the pegasus Winged Victory with sword brandished. In the background are a wizard and other figures. /END ID]

Greg Saunders (Vigilante)

🎵Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers, 1940s square dancing music (YouTube)🎵

[ID: Character profile image of Greg Saunders as The Vigilante with one gun drawn and a hand on the other. In the background are several characters from his adventures. /END ID]

Cassandra Cain (Batgirl)

🎵Enchanted Lake from Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (YouTube)🎵

[ID: Comic panel of Cassandra Cain in many graceful ballet poses. A small image in the bottom corner depicts her near a window overlooking the city. Narration reads, "And, in her own way, she begins to speak... She begins to shout... And sing." /END ID]

Bruce Wayne (Batman)

🎵Drives Us Bats by the Music Meister (YouTube)🎵

[ID: Old comic panel of Batman stuck in what appears to be a fishing net above water. His narration reads, "I did the Batusi on that netting -- until a certain cap of my utility belt opened and the laser-torch fell out..." He thinks to himself, "It'll float on top of the water -- drift past me with the moving tide..." /END ID]

Virgil Hawkins (Static)

🎵Static by James Brown (YouTube)🎵

[ID: Comic art of Virgil Hawkins as Static in a nighttime city with electric energy surrounding his hands. He is in a crouched pose and his hoodie flows behind him. /END ID]

--

All polls and posts for this tournament can be found using #dc-polls-best-dancer!

[polyamorouspunk]

hi sorry this is a genuine question, i dont mean to be offensive im just kind of confused! ive always been told labeling things that have mature content is good, so people can avoid it, even if theyre not following you they can avoid it in the tags or if someone they follow reblogs your stuff without warning. and that stuff thats about death, violence, and other horror content is mature since children shouldnt be exposed to that stuff and even adults might be uncomfortable with it since not everyone likes horror or death, so as a horror writer ive always made sure to label all my writing and posts accurately no matter what site im on so everyone can avoid it. i feel like im missing something pretty big bc i cant figure out how that stuff doesnt apply on tumblr but im seeing a lot of posts like yours really upset that your stuff is labeled accurately and i know everyones gotta have a good reason for being upset im just having a hard time figuring out what it is and if you could explain in more detail id really appreciate it! if not thats fine i hope youre having a good day anyway!

Reporting someone else’s content for mature themes is basically narcing on them. You as a user are responsible for your own media experience: if you don’t want to see horror themes, don’t (in this case) follow a blog (me) that posts horror themes or search through the tag of a band (INK) that posts horror themes. Because of tumblr’s fucked-up-ness when you click the links in my masterpost to the posts I’m making they take you off the app. That means that if you get re-routed you can’t have the option to see if the post without signing in which can sometimes loop between the app and the website causing your stuff to crash.

I tag my stuff appropriately. If I answer an ask about SA or CSA or whatever I will tag it. This is literally song lyrics. That’s it.

I’m also a horror writer and I tag and add labels to my horror stuff as well.

But narcing on someone else’s post to a really sketchy corporation (aka Tumblr) is a huge breach of trust and is very scummy and boot-licky. I, personally, have made it very clear that INK is my favorite band, so if someone has an issue with me posting literally just INK lyrics and not even graphic images then that’s their job to unfollow me 👌🏻 forgive me if I disagree that song lyrics that include the word “die” are “accurately” tagged as “mature”. “Children” aren’t even allowed to be on this website (minimum age requirement is 13). You step into an adult space you respect that it’s an adult space. Don’t go to pornhub if you’re 13 and you don’t want to see porn. Don’t go to a place where people post horror content if you don’t want to see horror content: OR take the time to curate YOUR dash so you don’t see it instead of narcing on creators. Creators are going to stop giving you content if you’re slapping problematic labels on them with minimal reason:

[sol-draws-sometimes]

Disc World bookclub thoughts- Monstrous Regiment

Pages 20-28

Hey @anna-neko ! Did I miss last week… yes. BUT JUST BECAUSE I MISS ONE WEEK DOESN’T MEAN I JUST ABANDON THIS. Look, finals are the week, so these past few weeks have been alot… also I’ve been hyperfocusing on dnd(stares in adhd). I’ve barely read but that’s alright. Once finals are over, I’m going on a roadtrip, so I should have time to read when we’re driving(unless I catch up on critical role…we’ll see).

It’s so late and I’m literally way too tired for nuance. With expectations set, Lets go

“Ankh-Morpork is a godawful city,” he said. “Poisonous, just like its river. Barely fit for humans now, they let everything in—zombies, werewolves, dwarfs, vampires, trolls—“

Something something we live in a society. Cue family talking about how NYC is corrupting the youth or something 🙃. Tbh, insert any big progressive city, and it should work for most of them.

A lot of good stuff in this page(and the next few ones)

1. Something Something colonialism bad. They[Borogravia] are the bad guys here🏃🏃🏃

2. Cool POV stuff coming back. Especially with the song and what not

3. Damn Strappi’s certainly something

4. I hate nationalism. The line b/w patriotism and nationalism is real hard sometimes. I mean, something something, true patriotism is knowing how your country’s fucked, and wanting to it be better. You fight for change cause you love it, and that is way more patriotic than just blinding fighting for country and defending it, even when it is in the wrong.

5. Uggh, the national anthem. Yes the flag thing is an actual thing we do in US. And certain teachers DO loss their shit if you don’t stand up/sing. Look, it’s not like I’m trying to disregard veterans, it’s just… weird and indoctrinationy. Plus, they added, “Under God,” during the cold war so, that feels even more insidious.

6. Poor Wazzer man. I’m glad he rebels in his own small way. Small acts of rebellion are still rebellious.

7. Learning new phrases! I figured due to context clues, but it’s always good to check.

Literally this conversation is literally my fucking thoughts

Uuuuh. War bad! Look. See!

“Well, I’m not buying into it. It’s all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It’s only your country when they want you to get killed!” said Tonker.”

Tonker. King Behavior!

And just as they’re going to sleep, so am I.

Fuck this book is good!

Here’s another quote good night!

It’s all lies, she thought muzzily. Some of them are just prettier than others, that’s all. People see what they think is there. Even I’m a lie. But I’m getting away with it.

Ps: I realized last time I stopped at pg 20 but wrote 60… my bad.(should be fixed now tho)

I will add ID text some other date cause I don't have the mental energy rn. I just did, scan text, and copy pasted it into alt w/out checking. If someone besides Anna finds this post and wants them, just @ me in the comment and I'll @ you when I finish this.

First | <-Previous | Next->

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Im about to watch RWBY Volume 9 because I need some background noise while I translate a german version of Jesus Christ Superstar and then I remembered that I watched that RWBY DC crossover a few days ago as background noise while I made my lyric videos and then I wanted to make a post about my thoughts but then I just. never did. So I might as well do it now

Before that though, I feel the need to explain myself and my lyric-video-translation process. Basically, what I do is I pick my song that Id like to translate from german to english and then I make what is essentially a normal lyric video, which involves a lot of me listening to the song a bunch of times so I can make sure everything is properly synched up, in this particular case I actually had to listen to the entirety of the song in order to make sure it was actually synched because something went horribly wrong with my editing app and I couldnt figure out how to fix it. And then once Im done with my lyric video I can just kinda turn the audio off and add my english translation without worrying about anything because Ive already synched everything up properly. When I do musical soundtracks like this I usually synch up all the lyrics for all the songs first before getting to the actual translation process, which means theres a long period of time where Im just kinda listening to the same part over and over, except worse and it took me even longer this time because again, something went wrong and I had to listen to the songs from the beginning, otherwise it just inexplicably wouldnt synch up, and because I have a low attention span Im usually watching youtube videos or movies Ive already seen at this point

Now, I was still in the lyric video stage when I watched this movie (I was doing Pilate and Christ if youre curious) so picture this: im sitting in front of my computer, I have this RWBY DC crossover open in some piracy site bc I was looking for A Movie and this one came out recently so it was on the front page, I have my tablet with the lyric video Im about to make in front of me, Im wearing headphones, one of them isnt actually on my ear because I need to be able to hear both the song and the movie at the same time, Im playing the song over and over again as I watch the movie, slowly zoning out entirely the further I get into it because thats just kinda what happens when youre forced to listen to the same first two minutes of a song even when you do have some background noise to break up the monotony a little

The reason Im giving you that long winded explanation of the boring shit I do for fun is because I want to stress to you that I was practically physically incapable of properly paying attention to anything. So you would think that I would also be incapable of finding shit to criticize or complain about, after all, I barely managed to watch the movie

And you would be very wrong. Im gonna be honest I just wrote that long intro to whatever this is in like 20 minutes and Ive already run out of steam so please enjoy this bullet point list of mostly shit I didnt like about this crossover, as someone who doesnt know anything about DC and also didnt pay a lot of attention just in general

The Justice Leagues semblances were so bad you can tell they just kinda took their existing superpowers, barely if at all modified them and went "yep, those are semblences alright" and as a result Superman, Wonderwoman and Green Lantern all basically have the same semblance, which inexplicably consists of multiple unrelated abilities and also Vixen's semblance seems pretty similar to theirs as well

The dialogue was so awkward man, I know some stan is gonna try and defend it by being like "well none of these people know each other ofc theyre gonna be awkward" guess what, i dont care if you can like stuff about this show for no reason I can dislike stuff about this show for no reason

That weird love triangle between Nora, Ren and Cyborg was so weird and unnecessary and idk why it was there

'Weird, unecessary and idk why it was there' is honestly a great way to describe this whole movie, I dont get why they did this Isekai thing with the Justice League I feel like this wouldve been better if they were already just characters in RWBY's world but I guess then neither continuity would be able to really consider it canon which would be bad I guess??? Idk i think this crossover thing was a bad idea tbh and they shouldve made it more of a cross-promotional thing where its like "lookat the RWBYfied versions of these DC characters!!" "oooooo look at the DCified versions of these RWBY characters!!" for one movie each if you know what I mean

Speaking of pointless romance, I saw some people say that they didnt like the weird romantic subplot between Bruce and Weiss but honestly, I didnt even see one there they had less romantic sparks flying between them than Bumbleby and thats saying a lot, not that I was paying too much attention

Ive seen some DC fans say that Bruce's thing about him maybe not wanting to leave Remnant because hes got powers there was really out of character and idk anything about that, I just know that that whole thing was pointless and barely set up and didnt mean anything at all for anyone

Ruby's arc about learning to be a better team leader is something that she shouldve had in like volume 4 max this is too late into the show for the Main Character whos been leading A Team since basically day one to learn how to do it, then again its not like shes gotten any meaningful screentime in the past 9 years so maybe that justifies it

Killgore or Killg%re or whatever was just cringe

When Killgore was explaining his plan and how he was working with someone and then it turned out that he was actually trapped in this VR world by that someone, I thought, oh its probably Salem given that shes yknow, the main villain. I mean, it doesnt really make sense why she would do all this shit but its not like her motivations and actions have ever been consistent right. And then he was like "he" and I went, its fucking Ironwood?? Are you joking?? Like, yeah, I'll give them a smidge of credit here, that does make more sense but I hate how these guys' weird desire to demonize Some Guy gets in the way of even attempting to make The Actual Main Villain even remotely threatening. Someone tell MKEK that sidelining a female character in favor of a male character isnt suddenly less sexist because shes Satan Herself but they wanna villanize the "shitty white guy" instead

The action scenes were decent enough, obviously nowhere near the level of Volume 1-3s fightscenes but Ive definitely seen worse from RWBY at this point

I guess the mystery aspect was fine too I was atleast kinda intrigued

And to end this whole thing on a somewhat positive note, heres some stuff I actually kinda liked:

While the isekai thing honestly doesnt seem like a good idea, it was still kinda fun watching people from a setting more similar to our world interact with Remnant and try to blend in even though they had no idea what was going on

I kinda liked Barry, he was pretty fun

I really liked Jessica, her finding that ring and saying that rhyming incantation actually gave me goosebumps, her VA was really good. I just wish she didnt spend all her screentime with Jaune and also I wish Jaune died already

I liked that they were wearing their Beacon Era outfits for most of it so I didnt have to endure their absolutely horrendous Atlas outfits although I am about to watch Volume 9 and they dont get an outfit change from what Ive seen so. You cant run from your problems forever I guess

Thats about it, but to bring this thing full circle Id like to once again elaborate on my lyric video translation stuff. Right now Im fully done with the lyric videos and all I gotta do is add in the english translations which I can do without needing to listen to the music, which means I can actually listen to the dialogue at the very least even if Im not properly looking at the screen. I was originally gonna do the same thing with Volume 9 as the crossover movie which is to say, blast music while watching and fully zoning out half the time but I figured the actual volume deserves a little more respect than that. I mean, thats still not a lot but RT isnt getting any more than this from me

[auspicious-voice]

UTAU Tutorials - Posting Covers

Posting covers on the Internet is pretty easy at a glance, but you need to consider the credits of what resources (voicebanks, songs, USTs) you used, what kind of title naming conventions are used, and various tips to get your cover out there.

The bulk of this tutorial is under the cut (as usual)!

Selecting Your Uploading Platform

There are plenty of online platforms to upload your cover to. There isn't a right or wrong platform to use, so just stick with the ones that you like the most.

YouTube

Arguably the most popular platform to upload covers to. If you really want it simple, you can simply upload your cover along with the original PV of the song you covered. Or you can make your own custom PV and upload it. Either choice is fine!

You can also do livestreams on YouTube, and in the case of using UTAU, this can range from tuning covers, mixing covers, or even recording voicebanks.

NicoNicoDouga

This is a video sharing platform very popular in Japan, and is similar to YouTube in various aspects. It has a unique commenting system in which "bullet comments" appear on the video according to the timestamp they are posted on. Other unique features include mylists (playlists), voting and quizzes, and so on.

BiliBili

This is basically the Chinese alternative to both YouTube and NicoNicoDouga, but it mostly resembles the latter in many aspects. The major caveat for this platform is that given China's laws and such, you will need to do the following things to even use the platform:

To sign up, you will need to use your own phone number to verify

To upload videos (and post comments), you will need to take a 100-question exam and score at least an average of 60% to even pass.

To broadcast livestreams, you will need to verify using your ID.

SoundCloud

If you don't feel like uploading videos, you simply upload your covers to SoundCloud. You can even share tracks on your dashboard with the repost feature - as a way to support fellow UTAU users. The few caveats with this platform are that a) you have 3 hours of free upload time unless you pay for a subscription for unlimited uploads, and b) the copyright system is... harsh.

Whyp

See, I would have mentioned Clyp here for the fact that you have lots of space to upload covers, WIPs, and various tests, but ever since they restricted free uploads to subscriptions, it's no longer a viable option these days (unless you have boatloads of money on you).

This is where Whyp comes in. It does the exact same things Clyp does, and you can upload for free. But if you were to upload something privately, it will expire in 7 days unless you upload it to the public. From one perspective, it can be useful if you just want to post a sneak peek of a cover you're working on.

Cover Names and Descriptions

Aaaaand here's the meat of this tutorial.

Titles

There isn't a right or wrong way to format your cover titles, but it is important to at least put in the song title and the UTAU voicebanks you used. Variations of these include:

[UTAU cover] SONG TITLE [VOICEBANK・VOICEBANK]

【UTAUカバー】SONG TITLE【VOICEBANK・VOICEBANK】

【UTAUカバー】SONG TITLE ft. VOICEBANK・VOICEBANK

Description

Now the description is where it's REALLY important to provide credit for the resources you used to make your cover. You have consider the following:

Who made the original song? Composer? Arrangement? Lyrics?

(if applicable) Who made the PV?

Who made the UST/MIDI?

Who mixed the cover? Who tuned the cover?

What voicebanks were used, and who do they belong to?

It's important to credit people for such resources because there are people will want to cover the same songs as you and figure out what kind of resources you used. Plus you don't want people to assume you stole the USTs/tuning/mixing yourself one way or another.

Posting Tips

Some tips to consider when posting covers and promoting them!

Add keywords and tags to your uploads. This increases the visibility of your cover and increases the chances of people viewing it.

Share your cover to friends. They might be amazed that you made a cover featuring singing robots!

Post your cover on social media. It can be on Twitter, Mastodon, Instagram, and even Discord. That's where most of the UTAU community resides, and they might see your cover!

I hope this tutorial has helped those who need a headstart on how to post covers on the Internet. Remember that UTAU is a hobby and not a profession, so don't be too hard on yourself if your cover doesn't have that much recognition! Just have fun making covers, and it will reward you a lot in the future.

[starlightsearches]

with your story, Mixtape, i loved it. so much lmao it was so angsty and sweet and i like how you do miscommunication. i normally hate when characters dont "just talk to each other", but you make it unannoying and understandable, even with your shorter works. i love it lmao

me being me though, i do want to add what Mixtape made me think of. and thats, arrogantly enough, me. bc. y/n. of course. buT STILL, hold my hand, listen to me-- i got this thing right, called an Auditory Processing Disorder. its part of the D/HoH. (actually, i have a lot of processing disorders, probably, but Mixtape made me think of that one) its where your ears are fine, but your brain has problems processing language. so a lot of the time, if you arent reading lips (their back is to you, theyre in the other room, or theyre a recording on a mixtape), or if theres competing sounds (like the melody can make lyrics hard to hear), if there's an accent, or if youre just having a bad processing moment-- people sound like theyre speaking Simlish. they sound like the Peanuts parents. theyre suddenly speaking a foreign language you dont know, and maybe you can catch onto the meaning via context clues and pass by the "i heard your voice but didnt hear a word you just said" moment. other times you have to ask people to repeat themselves (and sometimes you process belatedly and realize what they said in the middle of their repetition, meaning the repetition was useless, its annoying). it's like,you can hear a car door slam down the street just fine, you can hear the faucet dripping in the other room-- but trying to hear your bud that's driving while youre in the backseat?? with their face away from you, the sounds of the car itself moving and the sounds of traffic, god forbid if any music is playing or multiple people in the car are talking at once-- you cant hear a thing anyone is saying. its all gibberish

i have a point to this, promise. the end result is cute, i just have to explain a lot about this disorder first because idk if you know it already or not, and yeah

growing up, i couldnt figure out what the fuck people were saying while they were singing because of this disorder. the melody was competiting with the singer, i could hear the singer's voice but none of the lyrics. so what i always had to do was search youtube for the lyric videos or try to find the lyrics online. because if i couldnt do either (and i very often couldnt growing up. i generally can now, but every once in a while, i still google it and come up with zilch), and i had no lyrics to reference, then that meant looping the song until i could "get" what they were saying. and very, VERY often?? id get like. two or three lines of every other verse, and the rest was a garbled mess of English-ish words and im just sitting there going "i guess i'll never know"

now. call me crazy. i was born in 1997, idk what tech was available in the 80s. but i know youtube was NOT, and im pretty fucking positive googling song lyrics was also not something one could do. youd have to find the album's song books somewhere or hope the lyrics were printed on the vinyl case (idk if cassette tapes also sometimes had that, idk). a mixtape?? you definitely dont get the lyrics printed anywhere. buying several albums of song books for a single mixtape of miscellaneous songs is just expensive

actually, as a genuine ABBA fan, the fact that rheir voices are never comepting with the melody (the voices are always SIGNIFICANTLY louder than rhe melody) and they ennuciate well, shit sounds crystal clear, i dont have to look up lyrics usually. same thing with musicals, they usually have to put a lot of focus in vocal clarity since not everyone can see the actor's face on stage, so that's part of why im a musical nerd. its easier to process

so. im here. just sitting. imagining my y/n with their auditory processing disorder, wincing at eddie and going "I'm taking it slow. I've been re-listening to the songs until I can actually process what the singer is saying. It's hard to, like, hear the words. I haven't let myself move onto the next song until I figure it out. Because. Y'know. You made it for me, and I want to appreciate it and understand what you've made me."

"Oh. That's right, your brain-language thing. Uh. Well, how far have you gone?"

"I've been on the first track all week, actually. But I promise I'm trying! Really! I do like how it sounds, I just want to get what the guy's actually saying before moving on to the next one, y'know? I'm sorry."

and i say this because. god. eddie probably knoes all the songs. and i dont think hed like sernade someone who he wasnt dating, bUT

the idea of eddie having to "make it physical", like, him having to hand-write the lyrics for y/n (he knows the songs afterall, hes probably nemorized them or at least can re-listen and pause the song to write the next bit down bc he can hear better than them) so they can read the lyrics while listening, him having to take this ethereal concept of trying to communicate his feelings and WRITING IT DOWN, knowing y/n will have his heart in his hands (as opposed to the slight distance of putting a cassette in a player, no longer touching skin) and see all the mispellings and scribbles and smudges, and just. god. the fear of what if your handwriting betrays what youre feeling. the addition of paper and pen makes the will they/wont they get it, get me, get what im saying mystery of a mixtape feel even more like a love letter now, aw fuck. poor eddie. he already went through the nervousness of handing them the cassette, now this is like the sequel and he still has no emptional pay-off from the first one yet on if this is just him or what

ugh. i just thought thatd be so fucking cute. him writing down the lyrics for them. god

i cant write a fic, i dont have the time, but i thought youd like this vague outline of one in return for the gift of what you crafted and polished so well. thank you for it. again, shit really tugged at my heart strings, i love the angst and pining of it all. i hope this attempt of a return gift made you at least smile. i know it doesnt parallel with your AUDACIOUSLY wonderful idea of "i cant listen to this tape because i love you", but it still was an idea generated because of you. and i just love the tenderness of eddie doing the Love As An Act Of Service in it, and i hope that you end up enjoying at that aspect of it too. again, what youve done is an utter delight, and i hope this outline gives you a fraction of the leg-kicking squeals kinda feelings you gave me. thank you again. good luck to you in all you do ♡

Hey friend!!

I'm so glad you liked Mixtape! I actually also have auditory processing disorder (because of ADHD) and I totally get what you mean about not understanding lyrics. Thank god for google 🙌🏼

Also, I do think the idea of Eddie writing out the lyrics would be pretty cute—going through half a notebook of paper because his handwriting looks like shit or he keeps misspelling words. And then he knows that you'll look at it, see the lyrics written out and how scary that would be for him.

[damianacottstudio3]

Experiment

process of creation

i wanted to play around with spray paint as an iteration of my blue and orange spray paint piece

i opted to insert text that references songs

white text reads Trapped in my conscious

red text reads ooh and ahh

i still have'nt quite figured out the technical side of applying spray paint ( overspray, drip)

Character i been working on

i created this character a few weeks ago

during the process of creating this piece i decided that i should add this character

although i do feel like the work maybe could've been better if i weren't to shade in the body and just leave it as an stencil

i did get a lot of comments saying it was reminiscent of an five nights freddy, kaws, zombie cartoon.

i did consider creating the character in a more controlled way

like to remove the man made errors or lines

however i feel like it gives it a more raw feeling

i feel like the overspray of the work is good however im not sure if i like it

i did enjoy this process

i was going to add maybe two characters beside the centre figure however opted out

in another work id like to trial the effects of placing readable text

i think this work is more a personal exploration of my subconscious or rather myself as a whole (individual)

the text is from song lyrics that i find relatable, enticing, fun, playful, contradicting or outlandish and the layering of these lyrics kind of create the tone or theme of the work

im not sure why but when i view this work i cant seem to find a meaning other than just personal exploration of my interests

i dont know maybe this character is trapped you know, trapped in this world where his eyes are oblivious or have been blinded by his surroundings. his teeth missing from poor treatment, physical scarring of a traumatic event or accident

like if i had another character on it instead of the bear i feel like it wouldn't fit

even the text says trapped so maybe the character is trapped, trapped behind this clear frame no one can see. you can only see what the figure shows you ? does that make sense? not sure

i do like the point where its trapped behind a clear frame or glass, like a two way mirror in a prison walk through thing idk

[pepperleste]

these're just lyrics i think bloomic charas would like (this is very biased these are some of my favorite songs lmao)

___________

Quest

All Along - Fun

Cause I know that tone

I remember the first time

We wished upon parallel lines

Waiting for a friend to call

And say they're still alive

I've given everyone I know

A good reason to go

But I came back with the belief

That everyone I love is gonna leave me

I Don't Smoke - Mitski

So if you need to be mean

Be mean to me

I can take it and put it inside of me

If your hands need to break

More than trinkets in your room

You can lean on my arm

As you break my heart

Why Didn’t You Stop Me? - Mitski

I look for a picture of you

To keep in my pocket

But I can't seem to find one

Where you

Look how I remember

Northern Downpour - P!atd

I know the world's a broken bone

But melt your headaches, call it home

Behind the Sea - P!atd

Toast the fine folks casting silver crumbs

To us from the dock

Jinxed things ringing as they leak

Through tiny cracks in the boardwalk

Friends With You - the scary jokes

How long do I have to wait

'Til my lonely days are over?

I miss being friends with you, but what can I do?

What can I do but leave you alone?

__________

Nightowl

Townie - Mitski

And I want a love that falls as fast

As a body from the balcony, and

I want to kiss like my heart is hitting the ground

I'm holding my breath with a baseball bat

Though I don't know what I'm waiting for

I am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be

Your Best American Girl - Mitski

If I could, I'd be your little spoon

And kiss your fingers forevermore

But, big spoon, you have so much to do

And I have nothing ahead of me

I Have Friends In Holy Spaces - P!atd

Take a chance, take your shoes off, dance in the rain

Yeah, we're splashing around

And the news spread all over town

Class of 2013 - Mitski

Mom, I'll be quiet

It would be just to sleep at night

And I'll leave once I figure out

How to pay for my own life too

Mom, would you wash my back?

This once, and then we can forget

And I'll leave what I'm chasing

For the other girls to pursue

Behind the Sea- P!atd

A daydream spills from my corked head

Breaks free of my wooden neck

Left to nod over sleeping waves

Like bobbing bait for bathing cod

Floating flocks of candled swans

Slowly drift across wax ponds

Folkin’ Around - P!atd

If I'd forgotten how to sing before I'd sung this song

I'll write it all across the wall before my job is done

And I'll even have the courtesy of admitting I was wrong

As the final words before I'm dead and gone

Admire the Architecture - the scary jokes

Sweet talk on the phone

Ugly doubts that won't leave me alone

Your Vicious Kin - the scary jokes

Caught in the grip of the icy fingers of malaise

"Honey, you should've known better than to trust her"

It follows me like a second self, a malignant shadow

Honey, it couldn't be better than it is with you

Jeannie…You’re a Tragedy - the scary jokes

I don’t mean to be bitter

I just feel a little insecure

But when you send me love from your podiums

It does help to reassure

Sleepyhead - the scary jokes

There's dust upon the stairs, the mansion has the air of a tomb

She hardly leaves her room some days

Friends With You - the scary jokes

Here's to you and me

And the crumbling infrastructure no one else can see

The end result of my own reckless impulsivity

Could you spare a sec to talk to me?

And I can tell you really love me

Can you tell I'm really sorry?

__________

Xyx

All Along - Fun

And I know, oh no

You've fallen from the sun

Crashing through the clouds

I see you burning out

And I know, oh no

That I put up a front

But maybe, just this once

Let me keep this one

Francis Forever - Mitski

I don't need the world to see

That I've been the best I can be, but

I don't think I could stand to be

Where you don't see me

A Pearl - Mitski

You're growing tired of me

You love me so hard and I still can't sleep

You're growing tired of me

And all the things I don't talk about

Sylvia’s Just a Dying Fad - the scary jokes

When your walls go up, I hope that they're mirrored

So you can serve your sentence with somebody sympathetic

Darlin' you're a hack, but it's charming when you crack yourself up

But everybody knows what you go to to keep yourself together

It's a shame, nowadays all your friends have become such a drag

They make you feel like a running gag

Emotional Vagrant - the scary jokes

It must be hard to stay ahead of such deadly apathy

When you become bored so easily

And every new fixation feels like it'll fix everything

Sleepyhead - the scary jokes

The days are dark

The nights are long

Your heart is tired

Of being strung along

Crushed Out on Soda Beach - the scary jokes

I tried just burning the whole thing to the ground today

But decisiveness is such a foreign tenant to my psyche

It violently and immediately began to reject it

I could hardly stand under the weight of my little crush on you

And you, so limp in my arms, hardly helped

So, all that I could do was collapse under you

__________

NakedToaster

It Gets Better - Fun

It's hard to keep a straight face when I just want to smile

If you could see the look that's in your eyes

Carry Me Out - Mitski

The scent of flowers

Still in bloom from morning shower

And I

Say your name

In hopes you'll hear it in the stars

Northern Downpour - P!atd

For diamonds do appear to be

Just like broken glass to me

And then she said she can't believe

Genius only comes along in storms of fabled foreign tongues

When the Day Met the Night - P!atd

Well, he was just hanging around, then he fell in love

And he didn't know how, but he couldn't get out

Just hanging around, then he fell in love

Apple Pie - the scary jokes

And isn't it wonderful?

How you make me so confused when I talk to you

Am I losing my mind or am I winning your heart?

Every day's an apple pie

When I'm with you I'm not so shy

And I almost feel alive in your arms

Help me forget what I'm going through and I'll give everything to you

It's the least that I could do

[snoppy]

Alas, very soon everything will disappear:

the birdcalls, the delicate blooms. In the end,

even the earth itself will follow the artist’s name into oblivion.

“All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world.”

After the fairy tale, the world is hazy, blue.

The roles and faces here are unrehearsed.

The soldier sings the partisan’s laments.

The young girl plays her songs of mourning…

as the world caves in

memorial to a marriage / louise glück / mary ruefle / sylvia plath / life to the last drop, mahmoud darwish / leaving the movie theatre, wisława szymborska / gwendolyn macewen / from an old post by @librarycard / two umbrellas, heather ihn martin / howards end by e.m. forster / the conditional, ada limón / @soracities / certain days, certain hours by erik mattijssen / the hot chair by william ireland / come. and be my baby, maya angelou

[Image ID:

(1) a marble statue of two lovers lying down, embracing.

(2) text saying “I remember thinking the world ended a long time ago but no one noticed. I remember every dinner”. the first line is highlighted in green.

(3) If someone said to me again: 'Supposing you were to die tomorrow, what would you do?' I wouldn't need any time to reply. If I felt drowsy, I would sleep. If I was thirsty, I would drink. If I was writing, I might like what I was writing and ignore the question. If I was having lunch, I would add a little mustard and pepper to the slice of grilled meat. If I was shaving, I might cut my earlobe. If I was kissing my girlfriend, I would devour her lips as if they were figs. If I was reading, I would skip a few pages. If I was peeling an onion, I would shed a few tears. If I was walking, I would continue walking at a slower pace. If I existed, as I do now, then I wouldn't think about not existing. If I didn't exist, then the question wouldn't bother me. If I was listening to Mozart, I would already be close to the realms of the angels. If I was asleep, I would carry on sleeping and dream blissfully of gardenias. If I was laughing, I would cut my laughter by half out of respect for the information. What else could I do, even if I was braver than an idiot and stronger than Hercules?

(4) CROZIER:

(Speaking slowly, painfully)

We scattered our instruments behind us, and left them where they fell Like pieces of our bodies, like limbs We no longer had need for; we walked on and dropped them, compasses, tins, tools, all of them. Now we come to the end of science...

(5) a living room with a green couch and lots of ornaments.

(6) a painting of a white kitchen door with an umbrella and a pair of boots leaning against it.

(7) text saying “We know that there's poetry. We know that there's death.” the word know is italicized in both sentences.

(8) Say tomorrow doesn't come.

Say the moon becomes an icy pit.

Say the kitchen's a cow's corpse.

Say we never get to see it: bright future, stuck like a bum star, never coming close, never dazzling.

Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified. Say the sun's a foul black tire fire.

Say the owl's eyes are pinpricks.

Say the raccoon's a hot tar stain.

Say the shirt's plastic ditch-litter.

Say we never meet her. Never him. Say we spend our last moments staring at each other, hands knotted together, clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.

Say, It doesn't matter.

Say, That would be enough.

Say you'd still want this: us alive, right here, feeling lucky.

(9) a tumblr post by @/soracities, saying “maybe a lot of life really is just figuring out who you'd sit and do the dishes with even while the world ends”.

(10) a realistic painting of a bedroom. there is a desk, a bed and an open window. several baskets hang above the bed.

(11) an impressionist painting of a living room with an open door and beams of sunlight coming in. a few armchairs are seen.

(12) Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrow

But others say we've got a week or two

The paper is full of every kind of blooming horror

And you sit wondering

What you're gonna do.

I got it.

Come. And be my baby.

/end ID]

[ryderdire]

So since ya all seem interested in my crane wives Playlists post

I figured I’d show you some of my notes because I over thought some of my choices a lot basically this post is some fun character analysis using lyrics as a guide because I am insane

Marcy

Curses

when the war starts in my heart”

Tell I am good enough

This song is Marcy

This is totally Marcy

Okay this is about Marcys abandonment issues obviously so I’m thinking pre tc got the first part or maybe post tc remnenising as the night takes over

(Could explain darling ashes dust to dust the devils after both of us)

No wait because andrais and the night are the devil who’s after both Anne and Marcys respectively

Lay my curses all to rest could possibly be a reference to her shortcomings leading to her downfall? (abandonment issues + navity + lack of love = shit ton of problems)

Strangler fig

You built your kingdom around me now I’m trapped in your walls and all I want is to be free

All your doing now is using me

So this is from Marcy to andrais i thought the castle imagery fit Marcy and andrais really well and the line “I gave you everything but now I want it back” fits scarily to seeing as Marcys arc is tied to the word everything and she gave Andrais so much and got cheated and stabbed in return.

Ribs

Listen, I just really like the implications of the line” the night doesn’t frigten me I chose to close my eyes” and “the night doesn’t frighten me I chose to let it thrive” In the context of Marcys arc okay

Allies or enemies

Honestly I almost didn’t put this one in but “now listen close- this will be the death of me” struck me as very marcy .

“You caught me in a moment of weakness” could be referring to her spilling out her heart to andrais

It works quite well with “forget it all “right before too. I like the idea of Marcy asking andrais to just forget everything she’s said if only because it adds to later betrayal

are we allies or enemies /this will be the death of me is the betrayal of andrais or even Marcys betrayal to Anne and her fear she is no longer loved. Or hell was never really loved.

Either way this will be the death of me serves as either ominous foreshadowing to the you know what or just the you know what happening

Sasha

Take me to war

listen to this song listen to it this is literally Sasha

“And I’ll rangle the beast with words”

“Dress me in red and throw your Roses// And I’ll rangle the beast with words”

It is literally Sasha like come on

It’s hard to explain exactly why this song works so well with Sasha without just repeating myself a lot. It fits with her manipulative tendency’s and her growth her role as the strength gem and how she grew to fill it and didn’t fill it at the beginning like marcanne (I could make a whole other post about this honestly but idk it ya all would wanna hear my ramblings about it) but yeah also I just the vibes are sahsa it almost Sounds like a war March at first and it slowly gets more and more complex a lot like Sasha and a lot of peoples perceptions of her

“all the words I’ve swallowed all of the sharp things I’ve kept in my mouth// honey I am always bleeding out //

id imagine it’s referring to her pretending to change in thrid temple to true colors (notice the first time this line is used it also has the singer using violence give me something to break with my fists in the next line)

all of the ire I’ve swallowed all of the coals that still sit on my gut

I am always burning up//

I like to think of this line in reference Turning point and more speffically Anne’s return to wartwood in comander Anne and Sasha still making an effort to change and it being hard on her sometimes

Take me to war honey I dare you!

Hehe sahsa is at war to save her gfs

-

Metaphor

Another Sasha song

Do…do I even need to explain this one?

Like this is Sasha “lies manipulation and backstabbing are her whole thing in s1-s2

“you can't trust a single thing I say” Okay so this to me changes from a prideful boast to a pained realization throughout the song and like seeing as andrais”s manipulation is part of what pushed her to change it’s really fun to imagine that’s about when it happens

I cant trust a single thing you say

Is either from her to andrais or Anne to her either way it works really welll

OR MAYBE TO MArcy??? Oooh that’s fun actually and then maybe directly regretting it with the next couple of lines where Marcy gets stabbed and maybe a singer switch here to Marcy idk

Allies or enemies

I think the beginning fits sasha (post reunion maybe post turning point) really well seeing as her main thing is relying to much on manipulation and shit like (I swear I didn’t mean what I said I swear i didn’t mean it) is absolutely my favorite line in the context of Sashas arc

Remember when I could tell you not to smile /when you where mad and you would crack /and we’d both be laughing in the end /now your not so quick to forget

So this is current Sasha looking back To pre amphibia times and then the and reunion (possibly true colors maybe like seeing the consequences of her actions like Anne hating her and Marcy d wording from her pov).

All is fair in love and war /but I can’t fight with you anymore .

Still looking back but specifically when Anne catches Sasha and right before Sasha falls definitely what Anne says or maybe even what is going through Sasha's head at the moment

Anne

Not this ghost

This song is super fun In the context of Annes character and especially her earth arc

My dear there are secrets here //there are secrets here

And I will carry them home

Carry them home

I thought this line was really interesting because Anne directly after being lied to by Marcy for good intentions lies to her parents to protect them and don’t get me wrong I get why but the idea of Anne carrying on the lies for good intentioned reasons the realization she’s doing the thing Marcy did is… just really interesting

This is about her trust issues and carrying the weight of everything that went down in true colors

“If only I could break the chain of disappointment waying me down” I think this fits Anne being stabbed in the back (metaphorically and honestly it’s terrifying I have to specify) over and over by people she trusts

//It’s the fear not the ghost that leaves me haunted// haunted

Anne had the least danger to deal with after true colors Imo which is saying something because she was being chased by killer robots and the government but she also did have a lot of time to think about what happens and Process it probably more then Sasha did it’s not the physical danger that leaves her afraid it’s the memories

Allies or enemies

What happens now/do we have another go?or do we bow out and take our separate roads/

So I think this is Anne before the third temple she’s looking back on all that’s happened and wondering if things CAN be fixed between them and if they even should be. Obviously she wants Sasha back in her life in some capacity but not the same Sasha who was such a toxic infulance.

I’ll admit I had my doubts I want to be their In not out x2

This is Sasha and Anne’s reunion in third temple and Anne growing to trust her again before the betrayal in tc this is basically like Anne’s POV of some of the Sasha stuff so far and her thoughts on it.

Are we allies or enemies

This is mostly about how Sasha and Anne went from besties to enemies to having each other’s back in tc

That’s the last one check keep reading for thoughts

Thats all I have unfortunately some of this has been in my docs drafts for months and some of it is newer I had a lot of fun with this i enjoy character analysis a lot but I do find it difficult to organize my thoughts alot of the time which is why it was so fun to use songs as a way to start thinking and building on. Plus I doubt I’d Thought of these without the prompts of the lyrics

I had a lot of trouble Anne and tbh I’m not exactly sure why but she was the Hardst

Marcy was the easiest though Sasha was the one I enjoyed the most

[mintymiknow]

Trust Fall ch. 8 | Lee Minho

summary | character profiles | masterlist

Pairing: Lee Minho/Lee Know x Reader

Summary: Little discussions here and there seem to open some eyes and hearts, but is it enough to fully break down the walls that were built? 

Genre: Secret agent/spy au, romance, angst, action

Word count: Approx. 5.8k

Warnings for this chapter: Genre-typical violence & blood due to fight scenes (rest assured, it isn’t gore; just basic or typical violence for fight scenes). Let me know if I missed anything or should add more warning tags though!

A/N: I know you all had to wait for a bit, but I used my break to spend time with family (and play Genshin so...hehe I needed some “me-time”). Anyway! I’m back and here to give you all the next chapter for the series. I hope you enjoy reading it as the end scenes have been my favorite to write so far ‘cause you’ll be getting some tension and fluff at the same time. Leave an ask for any questions and comments!

“I’ve fallen into a daily routine now. I’m used to everything and go about my day normally now.”

That’s what you’d like to say anyway.

While it’s somehow true that you’ve fallen into a systematic rhythm in SKZ, it’s still something that weighs down on you, and you just want to get things over and done with. You still have to drag your body away from the bed, drag your feet here and there, and work in the lab department.

This systematic rhythm consists of working in the lab with Seungmin and Jisung - and eating your meals with them mostly. It also involves Minho and the other boys going on smaller-sized missions, each return giving you more things to work with and whatnot.

In the very back of your head and heart, the brief moments Minho spends with you - namely late nights in the lab discussing the recent findings and theories - are somewhat a breather as it reminded you of the times you and Dr. Kang would stay in the doctors’ lounge, talking about how your rounds with the patients went for the day.

Well, at the end of it all, at least you’re basically good friends with Seungmin and Jisung now. Being with the two gave you a sense of freedom as if you were back in your more relaxed college days or something of that sort.

After getting showered and dressed for another day, you head to the lab department. On the way, you bump into Felix in the courtyard-like area of the HQ. The young male greets you with a smile, “Morning, y/n! Lab duty again?”

You offer a small smile and nod in response, “Hi, Felix. Yes, as usual.”

“I see.” Felix chuckles lightly, “Don’t forget to stand up and stretch from time to time. Sitting for long hours isn’t good for your posture! Though you’re the doctor so I’m sure you knew that…”

“We can forget.” you chuckle, “Thank you for the reminder. You should keep that in mind too.”

“Yeah, sitting in front of computer screens and whatnot is bad for my eyes, but probably my back too.” Felix laughs, his eyes filled with so much brightness.

You release a soft sigh and smile, “I commend you and your efforts in the tech division.”

“Thanks…” Felix says sheepishly, “I’m not one for being in the limelight, but it’s nice to hear that us tech agents are doing good too. We are working in the background most of the time.”

“Well, I’m sure that without you and the other tech guys, Minho and the rest of the agents would be doing missions blindly and without any advantages.” you say seriously yet warmly.

“That’s true.” the younger laughs, “Gee, you’re really nice, you know that?”

“Not really...just...um, saying facts.” you stutter, suddenly taken by surprise by his compliment, “It’s from a completely objective perspective after all…”

Felix grins wider, shaking his head, “I can tell you’re a nice person, y/n! Minho says you’re a bit closed off, but it’s understandable. Jisung and Seungmin know you best, and they like you a lot, so that’s more than enough to like you too. Besides, you wouldn’t be here if you really didn’t care, right?”

After that statement, another agent calls for Felix, so the freckled male has to excuse himself. As he trots off to the main HQ building, you stand there, dumbfounded.

“Besides, you wouldn’t be here if you really didn’t care, right?”

You’ve been blaming Minho and Jung and SKZ for dragging and forcing you back into the game. Blaming them for giving you no choice no matter what, but deep down, you knew that you did have a choice. You could run away any time, turn to the government or something to fight for your rights. You could give in to the dark whispers of joining Cle to end whatever struggle once and for all.

But you had a choice, and you chose to work with SKZ.

Because yes, you cared. Yes, you wanted to make sure no one lost their lives over a stupid serum.

You chose this.

Who knew that Felix, happy-go-lucky and carefree as he was, would just nonchalantly utter words that would open your eyes and heart. Well, maybe it was that innocence and cheerfulness that made it more believable and genuine to you.

Shaking your head to release yourself from a trance, you clear your throat and make hurried steps towards the lab department. You take the elevator and go down to the underground level where most of the work is done. You then venture further inside, heading for the hallway where various rooms are lined. You’re about to scan your ID to open the door to the lab room you frequently use when the door slides open by itself; you’re met with a tall figure in front of you.

You look up, only to see Jung standing in front of you, tilting his head to the side. “Oh, Dr. Song, good morning.” he chuckles.

You nod politely, “Yes, good morning, Jung. What...what brings you here?”

Jung rarely stepped foot into the lab unless you guys summoned him and the agents for briefing on test findings and results. As far as you were concerned, the results for the tests Jisung ran yesterday are due later in the afternoon, not this morning.

Unless...something happened and Jung needed to speak directly to you, perhaps?

“Did...something happen?” you ask again, clearing your throat.

Jung shakes his head and offers a smile, “Well, technically I was looking for Seungmin, and since you both work closely, I thought he’d be here...where’d that boy go?”

“Seungmin’s doing his rounds in the medical wing, I think.” you explain, “Did you need something from him? Maybe I’d know…”

“Oh, no. It’s just about an agent that needs treatment, and I think Seungmin would be the best doctor to work on it.” Jung sighs and offers a small smile, “No matter, I’ll look for him myself.”

“I see, alright then.” you nod.

“Have a good day, Dr. Song. Don’t forget to take breaks. Minho says you’ve been working non-stop.” Jung calls over his shoulder as he walks away, muttering something about ‘where is Kim Seungmin’ afterwards.

You go inside the lab room and press the button for the door to slide shut. Call it “trust issues”, but as soon as the door closes, you scan the room and check everything there, making sure how you left it last night was how it was until now.

Not a single thing was out of place, so you mentally slap your mind for being so suspicious.

You then proceed to study whatever chemicals and substances the team has brought back the past few days, and you study them along with...well, vials of chemicals that you’ve hesitantly withheld from the rest - from Minho. These withheld items were things you’d only test and analyze when you were working by yourself, keeping the observations and notes in a small notebook that you kept in utter secrecy and safety.

If Jisung and Seungmin wanted to enter the lab room, they’d have to knock or scan their IDs, and if it were the latter, the beeping sound before the door opens gave you enough time to conceal whatever substances you were hiding under the table or in the desk drawers.

After a few hours or so, you finally decide to take a break and keep the vials and flasks in a locked cabinet before clearing up the desk and returning whatever equipment you used. However, you still remain seated on the stool, going through the notes you’ve written in your notebook and rattling your mind to come up with mental calculations and formulas to make sense of your findings. So far, you don’t have anything, and your eyebrows knit together in desperation.

“Y/n.”

You freeze in your spot upon hearing that sharp and clear voice; you don’t even bother to make any moves in hiding your notebook - that’s too suspicious. Instead, you simply close the notebook and try your best to look as calm as possible as you look up, “Agent Lee.”

Minho crosses his arms, something you’ve learned to look away from - unless you want to internally drool over how attractive the simple gesture looks. “I thought you were supposed to be with Jisung for today? That’s what he told me last night anyway.” he says plainly.

You sigh. Did they all keep tabs on you or what? “I was just about to meet with him.” you answer, breaking eye contact with him once again, “I just...wanted to check some things here.”

“Anything of use?” Minho raises an eyebrow, and you know he’s trying to get you to explain yourself.

You lift up your notebook and weakly wave it in the air before explaining, “Just...going over some notes from previous findings and trying to connect the dots. I...am yet to see anything of significance.”

Once again, not a complete lie; yes, you were trying to connect that dots and whatnot, but nothing of significance? That was a lie. You’ve already noted some pretty significant findings aside from the ones you discovered with the other scientists, but you didn’t need to tell Minho that. Not yet...maybe.

Minho walks over, stopping a bit too close for you, and you involuntarily flinch at the suddenness...and proximity. The agent notices the subtle reaction, eyes slightly lidding in either annoyance or guilt...you aren’t sure which one. He plants a hand on the desk, leaning against it as he raises an eyebrow again, “Care to share anything else?”

You shake your head, moving to put your notebook in your small purse and slinging it onto your shoulder. You stand up from the stool, but instantly regret it as Minho takes one very miniscule step towards you. That tiny step is enough to cause you to take your own step back, unfortunately bumping into the stool behind you. The male catches you with ease, a hand lightly supporting your lower back as he tugs you close with one swift and effortless motion.

Your hands fly out to settle against his chest in an effort to put as much distance between you two. Minho leans close, his head perfectly and dangerously near the side of your neck; his dark hair tickles your ear, and you can almost feel the tip of his perfect nose against the skin of your neck. You can’t help but gulp, and you’re sure the agent notices it. Despite his body warm against yours, you’re frozen like ice, unmoving as Minho remains in that position for a few more seconds.

After, he pulls back and stares at you with an unreadable expression, dark eyes still somehow sparkly despite the tension in the room. “Did you...perhaps drink at the bar before coming here? While on duty?” he asks sternly, as if reprimanding you.

You blink your eyes, staring at the male with confusion. “Excuse me?” you blurt out.

“You smell like alcohol.” Minho says in a deadpan manner.

You angle your head to sniff your shoulder to see if he was telling the truth. Surprisingly, you caught a whiff of alcohol from your jacket and internally groan, closing your eyes in embarrassment. If this were a cartoon, your cheeks would be tomato-red. You open your eyes to see Minho smiling at you, the curl of his lips nothing short of teasing and playful. Your cheeks are probably redder now.

“I didn’t drink today.” you clear your throat, tearing your eyes away from Minho’s to look down. Instead, your eyes land on his tie, already loosened at the top with the first few buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. Your mind goes hazy.

Minho laughs lightly, “You do know it’s against the rules to go to the lounge bar when on duty, right?”

You snap out of whatever reverie you were in, dragging your eyes back to Minho’s. You nod, narrowing your eyes to mask your flustered state, “I drank yesterday, but with Seungmin and Jisung. I didn’t do anything today. This is the jacket I wore yesterday, that’s why.”

“I see.” Minho tilts his head innocently, pulling away and retracting his hand from your back; you suddenly miss the warmth.

You clear your throat once more before bowing politely, “Now if you’ll excuse me, Jisung might be waiting.”

You don’t wait for Minho to reply, skirting around him to leave the room in a hurry. Minho watches your retreating figure with warm eyes, but as soon as you’re gone, he narrows said eyes and scans the room. Though nothing in particular seems wrong, he does notice a small sheet of paper on the floor, perhaps slipping from your notebook when you hurriedly put it back in your purse. He bends down to pick it up, flipping it over to reveal a small polaroid photograph.

Minho’s eyes glaze at the photo, taking into account the three individuals posing happily. He sees a woman on the right, one eye closed as she makes a winking face with a smile wide and bright as she flashes a peace-sign with her hand.

In the middle is a male who Minho recalls is the man you met up with before - Dr. Kang Hyunbin, the one you claimed to be your good friend. He smiles calmly, eyes twinkling even through a photograph as he has one arm around the other woman’s shoulder, and another arm around your shoulder.

There, at the left side you stand, smiling wider than Minho has ever seen, eyes full of life and not dull like how it is in here. The three of you were in casual clothes, though still wearing your usual lab coats in what seems to be the outdoor garden of Gongjak Hospital.

“Never thought I’d see someone smile like this after her.” Minho thinks to himself, “How cruel is fate, huh?”

He catches himself looking at you a second too long than he intended, so he releases a sigh and pockets the photo, making a mental note to return it to you soon. Turning on his heel, the agent then heads for the training facility in the main building.

“If I may be so bold, I’d say you’re in love.” Jeongin laughs after finishing a routine on the treadmill, plopping down onto a bench, “Not kidding.”

Minho leans against one of the gym equipment, raising a displeased eyebrow as he utters, “Yeah, you’re being too bold as usual, Innie. That’s not even - I don’t even know what to say in response to that.”

Chan wipes the sweat off his forehead with a towel after he finishes his turn with the punching bag. “I am intrigued how you came with that conclusion though.” the eldest says.

Jeongin laughs, his eyes narrowing into a playful yet sincere disposition, “Well, you don’t show it, but we know you well enough to see that you really do care about her. And it’s not just because you’re her partner or it’s your job to do so. I know how you are when you genuinely care about someone, and your eyes tell me that you do care about y/n more than you lead on.”

“Ok, but what if I’m only like that because I don’t want her to die? Because we’re agents? We’re supposed to be protectors of this country and its people?” Minho reasons, heading towards the punching bag.

“You’re pretty touchy and teasing with her, am I right? Kinda flirty and charming.”

“It’s called a cover, Innie. You’re familiar with that.”

“I just have a feeling. You don’t care about people to that extent. You tend to act out of duty and obligation, not attachment and emotion. With us being an exception to that, the other person I can see this side of you with is when you’re with y/n, or if it involves y/n.” Jeongin leans back against the wall, his smile not faltering one bit, “Not saying you’re attached to her, but I’m just saying that there’s already an emotional connection, and I have a feeling it won’t be long until it becomes something more serious.”

Chan looks at the youngest in awe, smiling like a proud father as he slowly claps his hands. He puts a hand on Jeongin’s shoulder and gently shakes him before turning to Minho, “You know, I do have to agree with Innie on this. You don’t even have to act on feelings or whatever. Just...try not to close yourself or your doors, alright? Maybe you’ll earn another new friend along the way.”

“I don’t need her if I have you guys.” Minho lightly punches the bag a few times, “She’s a waste of time. I just need her to finish her part so we can finally conclude this long mission.”

“You’re probably going to shoot me for saying this,” Jeongin starts as he hides behind Chan, “but are you just saying that because she reminds you of Jiyeon?”

At that, Minho shoots a glare at the two males, eyebrows furrowed. Jeongin sheepishly chuckles, but he boldly presses on. “Changbin told us...how much y/n reminds you of Jiyeon, and well, yeah, we do see it too. Is that why you don’t want to get attached? Not even romantically...platonically, even.”

Minho’s eyes soften as he looks down at the floor, “I’ve made myself clear when I said that emotions are a waste of time and are a useless distraction - things I can’t afford in this job. I’m here to protect people, not make friends and fall in love.”

Chan hums, offering a slow and easy smile as he looks at the male with warmth. “Y/n isn’t going to kill you. Or us. Or anyone for that matter.” the eldest agent states confidently, “It goes against her principles...against the doctor in her. That’s more than enough to convince me she’s on our side.”

“Wasn’t that what we thought of Jiyeon?” Minho scoffs, “Noble woman serving the organization to protect the people because of her pure heart?”

“No.” Chan says in an instant, his voice filled with certainty, “Y/n cares about lives, otherwise she wouldn’t be here. She’ll do everything in her power to fix this just so she can prevent harm...and maybe find peace from whatever past is haunting her.”

Then Minho and Chan stare at each other, a brotherly connection swarming in their eyes as whatever determination Chan has to share makes its way to Minho. The eldest agent then continues with a softer, more apologetic voice, “Jiyeon...is the opposite of y/n, now that I think about it. Y/n reminds you of the mask Jiyeon had, but not Jiyeon herself. That woman...worked in the complete opposite way of what we stand for - what y/n stands for.”

Minho releases a sigh, slumping down onto the bench beside Jeongin. With a groan, he leans his head back and rests it against the wall. Chan chuckles, giving his friend a light pat on the shoulder.

“Jiyeon’s gone, so let go of her now.”

A day later, Jung sends Minho and a small team to a factory site for investigation. He requests your presence as well, as the factory was used for chemical experiments, and you might have additional input as the investigation is carried out.

You sit in the backseat of the car, staring out the window as Minho sits next to you, and despite being on the other end of the backseat, you can feel his warmth radiating from him. Usually, he’d be driving or seated in the passenger seat if Chan was driving. But right now, two other agents were in front, and while Minho was supposed to sit in front, he swapped places with the other agent and sat with you.

Though, if you were being completely honest, you couldn’t decipher why, because right now, the man has barely spoken or looked at you. It’s a quiet ride, and you aren’t sure if it’s because he’s with agents who aren’t his usual circle of friends; you decide to keep quiet as well.

The agent driving parks the car by some trees along with another car before your groups begin to trek up a small hill that leads to a secluded factory building. The other agents go their own way with Minho reminding them to keep things subtle and quiet. The male agent then addresses you, but he does not look your way, “Follow me.”

Not that you really cared, but his indifferent - or more indifferent than usual - demeanor slightly puts you in a confused state, but you follow him nonetheless. Once inside the factory building, you look around and whisper, “Is this an abandoned site?”

Minho shakes his head, sharp eyes looking around, “Technically not. Cle occupied and used this site, but as per intel, they’ve only recently relocated the operations for this place somewhere else. This is now just a backup hideout, in simpler terms.”

You nod your head, and Minho continues, “We’re here to investigate, nothing more, nothing less.”

“Ok.”

With that, another blanket of silence befalls you two, and you find yourselves searching and investigating the room you were in. You both work in silence, and while it has its pros and cons, you can’t help but feel uneasy. On the bright side, you could focus on your task at your own pace and not get distracted, keeping things to yourself if needed. However, you’re slightly used to him asking questions and checking on you every now and then, so you can’t help but think if he’s upset or angry.

Or he knows something about what you’ve been hiding.

Impossible; that couldn’t be the case right?

He’d confront you if that were the case, not avoid you...right?

Unfortunately, there’s nothing of interest and significance in this room, so you tell Minho. It would seem he has the same thoughts because he furrows his eyebrows and gestures towards the rooms down the hallway nearby. “They must have swept this place clean.” he sighs tiredly, “Let’s move on.”

You nod and follow him in silence, the agent carefully and quietly navigating through the confusing halls and rooms of the factory building. Unfortunately, it was as he said; it would seem Cle did a good job in making sure no traces were left for SKZ to pick up on, leaving you empty-handed. The agents communicate with Minho through their communication devices and inform the male that they’ve moved on to the North building which was on the opposite side of the factory compound.

You and Minho head to the last location to scout, and it turned out to be a run-down lab room. The interior and leftover equipment and tables were clean, but you could see specks of rust forming on the surface. You gingerly brush your hand on one of the table surfaces, sighing, “This kind of environment could affect whatever chemicals and substances they were working with.”

“Unless this is a set-up to make it look like they haven’t been doing anything here.” Minho points out, squatting down in front of one the shelves lined with bottles of murky liquid and chunks of...whatever specimens, “Any idea if these will be useful?”

You walk over to him and look at the stuff on the shelf. You sniff the bottles of murky liquid before contorting your face in disgust, “This is just stagnant water. It’s murky because of dust and dirt.”

“But these…” you trail off, tilting your head to examine the containers with whatever solid specimens, “...these are…”

You gulp, unable to finish your sentence as your mind finally registers what those specimens were; pieces of body parts that had long decayed, probably to be used for observational purposes but rotted over time.

Minho notices the way you stiffen, gulping hard as if urging yourself to keep the bile to yourself. He breaks whatever “silent treatment” he had going on, putting a hand to your shoulder to get you away from the shelf. He steps in front of you to block your view, bending slightly just to get to your eye level. “Y/n, just rela - ”

He doesn’t get to finish his words because in a split-second, his eyes leave yours as they fill with urgency. Before you know it, he grabs your shoulder more firmly and pushes forward. You yelp as you land on the ground with him on top of you at the exact same time you see a small dagger lodging itself into the shelf. Your eyes widen and fall to Minho who already has his icy eyes on the newcomer to the room.

He mutters a hurried “get out of here” before getting up and facing off with the stranger. However, you can’t bring yourself to move, frozen on the floor as you watch the stranger lunge for Minho. The two men engage in a frenzied hand-to-hand battle, but it would seem like the man is at par with Minho, keeping up with the skilled agent’s moves.

Minho refuses to draw out his gun to make sure he doesn’t make any noise to prevent attracting attention should there be more enemies around the area. He manages to gain a short upper-hand, sending the enemy a few feet back with a strong spinning kick. He then rushes over to you and grabs your hand so that he can pull you to your feet.

“Let’s go.” he says in a low voice, not wasting any time in running from the room.

You’re both running as fast as you can, hand tightly gripping each other’s as if your life depended on it. You arrive in one of the open-space rooms, and as you continue to run, the wooden floor below creaks softly. The enemy is a quick runner as well, somehow managed to catch up with you two. He reaches out, grabbing your other wrist and pulling you from Minho’s grasp and pulls his fist back to land a punch. The agent refuses to let him do so and turns around, using whatever momentum to pull you behind him just as the enemy’s fist lands on his jaw. The impact causes Minho to let go of you as he falls to the side, and you find yourself yelling his name.

The opponent chooses to go for Minho instead of you, picking the agent up by the collar of his shirt. He bashes his head against Minho’s, and while the agent winces in pain, he grits his teeth and fights back, back to being on equal ground with the enemy. They engage in another physical combat, landing blows on each other here and there. As if nothing could be worse, another stranger runs into the room, grabbing you from behind in a choke-hold.

You do your best to stop him from suffocating you, kicking and trying to elbow the man behind. Minho sees it from the corner of his eyes, clicking his tongue in exasperation. His opponent lunges an arm forward, holding a knife, so Minho grabs said arm and pivots with complex skill, doing some sort of flip and twisting the enemy’s arm so he could end up behind the agent. With the opponent in a similar choke-hold, Minho grabs the knife and skillfully throws it towards the stranger holding you.

Unfortunately, because you were both moving a lot, the blade seems to approach you instead. Your eyes widen with fear, but thankfully, it only shallowly cuts your cheek before lodging itself into the stranger’s neck. He lets go and collapses on the ground with a thud, blood now pooling around him.

However, because of that moment, Minho’s opponent gains the advantage once more, headbutting Minho’s chin, prompting the agent to let go. The enemy is quick to turn to Minho, another knife in his hand to jab at the male who is recovering his bearings. You don’t know how you managed to bring yourself to do it - maybe the adrenaline rush or fear of having Minho killed in front of you - but you pull out the knife that killed the other stranger and run towards Minho’s opponent, stabbing the blade into his shoulder as he was wearing a muscle tee.

You try to ignore the blood painting the enemy’s skin, using the time he takes to get the blade out to rush to Minho’s side. You both then take steps to run away; however, the enemy isn’t too pleased with what you’ve done, shifting his attention to you instead of Minho. As he takes a step forward, however, the wooden floor beneath creaks loudly, and Minho’s eyes catch the subtle splintering around the three of you.

“Minho, let’s go.” you say in panic when the agent seems to be standing still.

Minho’s eyes are stuck to the wooden floor, making some sort of mental calculation in his mind.

One more step.

As the enemy makes one more step, the floor makes a breaking sound and gives out. Minho, however, is able to push you back just in time, allowing you to remain on the unbroken part as he and the enemy fall to the floor below with a sickening crack.

“Minho!”

You see the agent pushing himself to get up with a few coughs, but so is the opponent. The agent then looks up to you, eyes still calm yet with a sense of urgency, “Go now! Run to the rendezvous point! I’ll follow!”

“But - ”

“I promise, just go!”

You bite your lip, nodding in understanding as you turn on your heel and make a run for it. Minho then wipes the blood dripping down his chin and turns to his opponent, a cold and almost cruel smirk playing at his lips, “Now that I don’t need to hold back, I hope you’re ready.”

Meanwhile, you pump your legs as hard and fast as you can, running towards the rendezvous point. Unfortunately, that meant where the cars were parked, but you still had a bit of distance to cover since you and Minho ventured deep inside the building. Just as you’re about to reach the end of the hallway near one of the back doors, you hear gunshots, bullets barely missing you. You try to conceal your screams, ducking down and running into a rather large room, quickly finding a hiding spot behind a cement pillar.

The shooter repeatedly shoots the structure as you cover your ears. Fragments of the pillar crack of and fly here and there, dusting your hair and shoulder with chalky-white bits. After a moment, the shooter stops to reload his gun, and you take the chance to sprint to another hiding spot. 

He begins to shoot just as you drop down and make your way behind an old couch, a bullet barely missing your leg. He shoots without stopping, the couch fillings flying everywhere. Another round to reload his gun, and you grab a nearby ceramic vase and throw it to him as hard as you can. 

The shooter shoots it, but the split-second allows you to find cover behind a desk in the other end of the room. You curl yourself up, hugging your knees to yourself as you take deep and shaky breaths. In the dead silence of the room, you can hear your shooter’s footsteps approaching slowly, the grasp of fear locking onto you as you cover your mouth. You hear the clicking of the shooter’s gun, and you close your eyes, anticipating the worst.

However, when you hear a bang followed by a thud, you don’t feel anything and instead see a body collapse to the side, thankfully facing away from you. A few seconds later, Minho appears, kicking the body away from you and kneeling beside you. “Y/n.” he whispers.

You let out a deep breath, only noticing now that tears have streamed down your face. Minho’s expression softens, eyebrows knitting in concern as he reaches out to brush off the cement particles that dusted onto your hair and shoulders during the shootout. He then moves to wipe your tears with his thumb.

Never have you seen so much warmth in his eyes as he stares at you, eyes never leaving yours as you let out quiet sobs that rattle your shaky figure.

Despite the cuts on his bleeding lip, bruises painting his cheekbone, blood trailing down from his head to the side, and disheveled hair, he still looked familiar, warm and comforting - like a home you’d return to after a hard day’s work in the hospital.

You didn’t know it was possible for him to look like that.

You close your eyes when his thumb stops brushing your tears away, his hand now moving to cup your cheek with a tenderness opposite of how he fought off his opponents. “Hey.” he whispers so softly, only you can hear it like a secret message, “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head, still trembling. Minho nods in understanding and helps you up before telling you to wait for a second. He walks over to a nearby window and communicates with the rest of the team, giving them an update on the situation. Meanwhile, you kneel down next to the shooter’s dead body upon noticing a small plastic vial filled with red liquid. Quickly, you swipe it and shove it into your brassiere for extra measure. You stand back up, walking over to Minho.

He finishes communicating with the team before gently taking your hand in his, “Come on.”

Without a word, he leads you out, walking calmly towards the rendezvous point. Once there, it would seem like the team was still on the way from the other building, so Minho sits on the hood of one of the cars, eyes still on the sharp look-out for any enemies. You sit next to him, exhaustion clouding your eyes as you stare straight ahead.

“I’m sorry.”

You hum emptily, “Hm?”

Minho sighs, turning to face you. You don’t pull away when his hand finds your face, thumb gently dancing around the cut you got from the knife from earlier. The blood had dried up, but it made its mark. The agent’s thumb is soft as he strokes the skin under the cut, “Sorry about this. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine.” you clear your throat, looking at him for a fleeting moment before turning your eyes to his chest, “You still saved me, so thank you.”

“And you saved me.” Minho responds, offering a small smile.

You can only nod, the impact of the events finally catching up to you. Tears swell in your eyes again, and you feel a light shiver travel down your spine. Minho isn’t new to comforting people; he may say he doesn’t care, but he knows what to do and how.

So he reaches forward, gently tugging on your arm to pull you close to his chest. Once your head comes into contact with his chest and you feel his arms wrap around you, providing warmth and security, you weakly sob against him. He brings a hand up to your head, softly stroking your hair as he whispers against your temple, “This mission wasn’t supposed to go this way. My bad for not being able to foresee these circumstances. Sorry you had to go through it.”

Perhaps today, you put your guard down enough for him to console you. You let yourself believe and trust him. Just for today. Tomorrow, who knows?

You shake your head and clear your throat, “Not your fault. It’s part of the job, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Minho sighs, hoping you don’t notice the way he holds you closer and tighter, “It is.”

Maybe Jeongin and Chan were right.

Loved you? Maybe not that.

Cared about you? Genuinely? Perhaps he sees it now.

But can he afford such a luxurious feeling? Such an emotion?

Last time he allowed himself such indulgence, he paid a cost too high.

[spvce-cowboy]

songbird

ch. 4 of i’ll be here in the morning (the mandalorian x fem!reader)

previous-ch. 3: “reunion”

next-ch. 5: “the hero’s shoulders”

rating: mature

11.3k words

warnings: PERIL!!!, violence, alcohol and drug use, jealous/protective mando

a/n: apologies in advance for the slight cliffhanger—this chapter got WAAAYY too long so I had to split in two. luckily means I’ll be able to get the next one out to you all asap ! <3

summary: you are forced to go undercover in order to help Mando capture his next quarry, the lionized Tyreus Cavill. 

**

You’re most nervous about remembering the proper steps to a waltz. You know, instead of being worried about aiding one of the deadliest bounty hunters in the galaxy on his highest profile mission yet. Because that totally makes sense, right?

At the Estate, you and Febhana were taught dancing in order to entertain the Lord’s guests. Digging up any memories from that period of your life is enough to have the taste bile flood your mouth. You do your best to swallow it down, keeping a cool face for your sake and everyone else’s.

Honestly, you’d trade being afraid of the known over the unknown any day. The anxiety of remembering your time at the Estate was more familiar, something you could deal with, and have been for years now.

Thinking too hard about the severity of the current situation, about how you had absolutely no idea what you were doing, that was the kind of fear you avoid at all possible cost. So you settle for being nervous about a waltz, nothing more and nothing less.

Mando is seated beside the driver. He doesn’t turn back to address you and Febhana directly, instead tilting his head slightly in order to look at the two of you through the rearview mirror. Before the three of you left, he gave you a small listening device that you now have tucked against the edge of the undergarments you have on. The dress is too exposing to hide it anywhere else.

He debriefs you on the specifics of the mission the entire ride there, showing you multiple images of the quarry, plans of action, a blur of different scenarios and how you should react that you have already quickly forgotten in the haze of your building anxiety.

“The main rule is no secondary locations,” he concludes. “We can’t risk either of you being alone with him. It’s too unstable of a situation as is.”

You nod, staring at him through his partial reflection. From the back of your mind there’s a quiet glimmer of endearment, how you’ve never seen him this thorough about a hunt—Mando seems more like a wing-it-and-figure-it-out-from-there kind of guy. You’re not sure if you’re getting special treatment because he doesn’t like involving someone like you in his job or because this quarry is too valuable of a target to botch. The former doesn’t add to your anxiety, so you run with that.

You tear your eyes from the mirror when Febhana digs through her purse and plops a set of papers in your lap. You examine them closely, trying to bring the little details to memory as best you could.

“Is that even a real name?” You ask, face screwed up slightly, pointing where it’s listed on the fake ID.

Febhana cranes her neck over your shoulder, looking down at the papers with you. “Sophste Wilkbail? Sure, sounds like a poet or something. You can play that up.”

From the front seat, Mando gives a sardonic huff of air. It’s such a cruel sound you can practically visualize the scowl he’s put behind it. Febhana rolls her eyes.

“Listen, darling, believability is just about the last thing we need to worry about, right now,” Febhana settles back into her side of the speeder’s velveteen cabin. “Hiding who you are is more important. As soon as we get past the guards it’ll be easy. Just try your best to pretend like this is any other party.”

You neglect to tell her that you have not been to any parties besides the ones at the Estate. Instead, you nod, training your gaze out the front windshield.

The driver lights another cigarette as he pulls the speeder into a line of idling vehicles that border the streets outside the Tagge mansion. You can tell that you’ve arrived by the bright lights and banners flooding from the building’s open face, an intimidating amount of guards tucked away at every discernible outpost. You drum your fingers against your knee to the song you can faintly hear playing from the radio.

Febhana’s soft hand against your arm breaks you from your reverie. Her words are far more gentle now. “Are you ready?”

You nod. It’s a sharp, curt movement of your head. Steadfast. You’re kind of scared shitless, but determined. She smiles at you, widely, and it’s enough to have you smiling back.

“Let’s get this show on the road, then.”

**

The first thing you are certain of upon entering the Tagge’s mansion is the fact that this isn’t a home. It’s a cathedral. Possibly the biggest, most extravagant place you’ve ever been in.

The entranceway alone is enough to have you clinging to Febhana’s side a little tighter than you had initially intended to. It looks like… it looks like a marble maw, stretched open, fangs bared. You and Febhana follow the tongue-like carpet down the hall in small, measured steps. She takes to ducking her head in greeting to those she recognizes, you  

It only takes a few moments for you to realize the awe you’re feeling is a strange combination of genuine wonder and pure intimidation. You think that’s the point. It doesn’t help with the uneasy feeling that’s situated itself in the cavity of your chest since getting into the car.

“They like to play pretend royalty here, don’t they?” Febhana mutters under her breath, giving a polite smile to a passing guard as she does. “Stars, you’d think they’d try to lay claim to Naboo itself with a place as decked out as this. Tasteless.”

You huff a laugh as she continues to lead you down the main hall. You try to look as dignified as possible, as if environments like this were an everyday occurrence. It’s difficult to do, but with the assurance of her at your side and Mando a few rigid steps behind you, the anxiety pressing from within your chest is somewhat quelled.

The main dancehall is filled with people. Everything—from the tall curtains to the paintings on the walls—is in cool tones of green and gold, interrupted by great expanses of marble. At the far end of the room are two twisting staircases leading to a platform where the band is playing. The ceiling has some kind of intricate mural you desperately want to examine, but when you try to crane your head back Febhana tugs at your arm slightly, reminding you to play it cool.

You square your shoulders as Mando sidesteps to remain pressed against the walls with the other guard droids, the movement a little too fluid for someone who is supposed to be a robot. You pray everyone is too drunk to notice. They are.

With Mando’s presence lost you sink a little further into your anxiousness as Febhana begins introducing you to a flurry of different people. She delicately places a drink in your hands from a passing server, murmuring a word of encouragement in your ear before moving to the next group. It all passes in a blur, but smiling and graciously dipping your head seems to get you through a lot of the interactions without having to actually pay attention.

You quickly realize she is strategically maneuvering her way towards the stage—or, rather, those who are gathered beneath it. There are a collection of small tables lining the perimeter where people are seated if they are not dancing. Below the stage are three larger tables that overlook the entirety of the ballroom. It’s too crowded from where you’re standing to see any of the occupants.

What you really notice, right after taking in what you can of your surroundings, is that there will be no feasible way for you to pull this off. Not here in the Tagge house at least. Every entrance into the private portions of the house are heavily guarded, cameras everywhere. You do your best to swallow the mounting sense of dread, keeping a smile on your face while Febhana continues to lead you through so many introductions all the names and faces blur together.

You tug at Febhana’s arm slightly between introductions to signal your need to speak with her. She eventually pulls you into the cubby of a towering window after disentangling the two of you from another meaningless conversation.

“Febhana,” you lower your voice and maintain small smile on your face to keep prying eyes and ears disinterested. Better safe than sorry. “There’s no way this is going to work. Not here. I’ve counted at least five guards around every possible entrance.”

“I know, I saw,” Febhana takes a deep breath, eyes wandering out the window. “Let’s just… tough it out. See what happens. I don’t really want to get on the Guild’s bad side, or your friend’s for that matter.”

You wince slightly as the idea that this plan could affect her in any way but nod, trying to swallow your guilt in not fully thinking through how much you were asking of her to help you and Mando out like this. You step out of the little alcove and move your way back to the perimeter of the floor.

From this vantage point, you can see one of Febhana friends wander up to the main tables and hug a seated boy in greeting. The contact leans down and says something in the boy’s ear before turning back to glance at where you are standing.

You’re close enough, now, to realize the table the contact just approached is where the Tagge siblings are sitting. The playboys surrounding them have such a loud presence you’re surprised you didn’t notice them earlier.

They’re all practically kids, at least a year or two younger than you, but they act in that way where they knew they were untouchable. They have lived and breathed an entire lifetime of knowing that they are people who could get away with absolutely anything—and have, more than once. It radiates off of every movement they make, from the way they throw their heads back in obnoxious laughter, to the cruel tilt of their mouths as they speak. Everything about them set off some deep-seeded instinct in you to stay away.

Scanning their faces, you recognize the quarry almost instantly.

The photos Mando showed you didn’t do him justice. Tyreus Cavill is wearing a crisp black suit and has skin so pale it’s nearly opalescent. His hair is slicked back close to his scalp, the severe nature of his bone structure combined with some of the darkest eyes you’ve ever seen gives him the appearance of a leering jackal. 

Cavill stares up at the ceiling, tracing the rim of his wineglass with long fingers as the person seated beside him speaks. He looks bored--they all do, a kind of lax slant to their gathered bodies that stands in stark contrast to the tight, aloof postures of most everyone else around them.

You tear your eyes from Cavill as the boy that Febhana’s contact is talking to begins to stand. You look at the new boy evenly from where you’re standing, holding his gaze as confidently as you can, before turning back to where Febhana is standing behind you.

Febhana flashes you a sly look. You can practically see the gears turning in her head as she flicks her eyes in the direction of the Tagge brothers and Cavill. You quickly put two and two together.

Whoever it was that’s approaching you right now is your invite to the table. Possibly the only one you’d be getting all night.

“I’ve got eyes on him,” you murmur to yourself, hoping Mando’s device can pick it up. You glance to where he is positioned against the wall and see him dip his head slightly in response. Feeling a little more confident, you pull your shoulders back and pretend to make conversation with Febhana.

The boy enters your periphery shortly thereafter, standing at your side as he greets Febhana first.

“Febhana,” the boy tucks his head in greeting to her, then turns his gaze to you. His hair is a thick mop of curls, nose slightly twisted in a way that suggests he isn’t too good at fighting. The crooked smile he gives you is warm enough to push off your initial feeling of disquiet concerning his friends. “And who is this?”

“Lucius, this is my old friend, Sopheste Wilkbail,” Febhana introduces you by your fake name, then motions to the boy. “Sopheste, this is Lucius Laycam, his father owns the racetrack we went to earlier.”

“Dreadful business,” Lucius’s eyes glint, keeping his head tucked slightly in that way men do when they want you to feel like you’re the only person in the room. You don’t like the fact that he knows to say something like that, it demonstrates an ability to read you too easily.  

Lucius takes your hand delicately, leaning down to kiss the ridges of your knuckles. He straightens to say his next words directly into your ear, getting unnecessarily close to do so.

“I’d like to treat you to a dance, if you don’t mind,” his voice rumbles. Your eyes flick to the table from over his shoulder. You make brief eye contact with Cavill, who has leveled his head to take a swig straight from the decanter at the center of the table, entirely disregarding the glass already in his hand. Cavill actually looks at you this time, and holds it, albeit briefly. Lucius finishes his proposal as you train your gaze back to the floor, “And then another drink.”

You give him your best smile and nod. It’s just a small dip of your head, but he eagerly pulls you away from Febhana and towards the center of the dance-floor.

Luckily for you, Lucius isn’t a flashy dancer. He’s amicable in a way you weren’t expecting, considering the company he keeps. He reminds you a lot of the village boy you were having a bit of a fling with before you left Am’ile’s planet: slightly empty-headed, but cute, and very enthusiastic about whatever task he’s put to. There’s a certain goofiness to him that pushes away any residual anxiety with the fits of laughter you tumble into as a direct result of his antics.

It’s kind of… exciting. You don’t want to admit it fully, but there’s something thrilling about someone taking so much interest in you. You’ve been so touch-starved that just the feeling of his hand partially cupping your exposed back in enough to send butterflies straight to your stomach. A different kind of anxious butterflies. Good butterflies.

Maker, it’s only been a few months since you left Am’ile’s and you’ve already been reduced to a giddy schoolgirl at the very brush of someone’s hand against your bare skin. You don’t know how Mando does it, you really don’t.

Lucius pulls the two of you to a halt when the band dies down, the singer murmuring something unintelligible into the mic.

“It was a pleasure, Miss Wilkbail,” he steps back, kissing your hand again and bowing. By this point you’ve figured out that his exaggerated, gentlemanly manner is just another shtick of his. You press your lips together to poorly conceal a giggle, giving him your own mock curtsey in turn.

“And you, Mr. Laycam.”

“Now if you’d like to join me, I’m on a mission to get absolutely plastered before these blowhards,” he motions to the others on the dancefloor with a twirl of his finger, “find a way to make this night even more suffocating than it already is.”

“Sounds just about perfect,” you say as you take the arm he offers you. He pulls you toward the table and you try to keep up with his long strides, bunching some of the skirt of your dress in your hand and lifting the fabric to prevent tripping.

Lucius pulls out a seat for you, introducing you to the playboys seated beside him. You’re directly across from Cavill, who is still nursing the table’s decanter, completely disengaged from the conversation occurring between the two friends that are seated on either side of him.

“Are you new to Canto?” The playboy who asks is a Tagge twin, one of the three brothers who are currently seated at the table with you. You can tell by the signature white-blonde hair.

“A friend of mine wanted me to stay with her for a while,” you say, graciously taking the champagne glass that Lucius plucks off a passing server’s tray to offer you.

“Febhana, you sister’s friend,” Lucius clarifies for the Tagge boy.

“The visiting court singer Heresta was telling me about, before?” The Tagge brother directs the question to Lucius, when his friend nods he raises both eyebrows and shoots you a grin.

“I’m still in training,” you clarify with a nervous laugh, finding it easier to talk if your eyes are trained on the glass in your hand. “But yes, that’d be me. The court singer.”

“What did you say?”

Cavill’s voice quiets the conversations of the other playboys almost immediately. The other Tagge brothers glance over but quickly resume a normal volume. The hierarchy of the table becomes very clear, after that.

“I’m training to be a court singer,” you repeat yourself, sliding your head towards the quarry with your best stab at a cool, practiced gaze of utter ambivalence. Cavill’s eyes remain trained on you, utterly serpentine.

Ah. You press your lips together and look down at your hands folded neatly in your lap, initial resolve broken.

“A court singer?” His voice is a low purr. You raise your gaze again. It seems as though once he takes interest in something, most of his buddies do too. A few of them glance away from their conversations to give you a scathing examination. It takes everything within you to not crawl out of your own skin. So much for the ease you felt back on the dancefloor. “Will you sing for us?”

Your cheeks fill with a heat that quickly travels to your chest. Didn’t expect that. Maybe you should have.

“I... Not here. The singer the Tagges have hired is so lovely, I’m afraid they far outshine me,” your eyes flick back up to his at your last word, you do your best to mask your burning revulsion as shyness.

“That wasn’t a request.” Cavill’s response is so blunt and immediate you actually flinch a little.

“C’mon Tyreus,” Lucius’s voice is quick to intervene. “Leave her alone, she just got here.”

Cavill blinks slowly, as if his eyelids are too taxing of a weight for him to bear. He hums, leaning back in his seat slightly and stretching his arms out to rest on the backs of the chairs on either side of him.

When it becomes clear he has nothing else to say, the other conversations at the table continue as a normal. As if there were no previous interruption. You gradually return to the sense of ease you’d begun to develop earlier, the feeling is seemingly dependent on Cavill’s lack of attention.

Eventually, one of the playboys taps Lucius on the shoulder in passing, quickly murmuring something in his ear before leaving the table to chase down one of the serves for another decanter. Lucius nods, then turns back to you.

“Tyreus wants to extend an invitation to a club we’re going to in an hour or so, if you’d like to join us,” his fingers graze over the peak of your exposed shoulder from where his arm is resting against the back of your seat. For some reason it does not feel as nice as his touch had previously. It’s more intentional, all his playfulness gone. You think that’s why. “Way better than this shit, not so fuckin’ rigid. More private.”

The emphasis he places on those last words is so overt you have to resist an eye-roll. You nod, trying to keep your expression light and ditzy while straightening slightly in your chair. “Tell him it would be an honor.”

Lucius smiles, the fingers that were tracing the line of your opposite shoulder coming up to brush against the shell of your ear. You blink at the touch, vaguely aware of his face inching closer to yours.

You stand without warning, mumbling something about having to use the bathroom before quickly maneuvering your way around the tables and through the arching marble columns that line the ballroom. You walk as briskly as you can into one of the adjoining hallways, following it down and into the women’s bathroom.

Taking a shuttering breath, you place your hands on your hips and close your eyes. Your brain runs at a mile a minute, trying to figure out how to adapt the plan as Mando communicated it to you, considering the fact that Cavill’s posse was leaving within the hour.

You reach your conclusion quickly. You’re the one with the invite, with the way into the inner circle. No time to try and bring Febhana along with you. Honeypot it is.

The bathroom door slamming open breaks you from your thoughts. You gasp, hand pressed to your chest as you whip around. There’s a second of blind panic at the decorated droid stiffly stands at the door’s threshold, both fists clenched at its side, before you remember Mando’s disguise.

You open your mouth indignantly to scold him for bursting in like that but he holds a finger up to shush you, entering the bathroom in one long stride, checking under the stalls for people then briskly locking the main door behind him.

He’s furious. It’s the most blatant display from him you think you’ve ever seen.

“I—” Mando grits out. “Your singing. He doesn’t deserve to get that. None of them do. They’re just using it to get to you.”

You blink twice, completely baffled that that’s the first thing that comes out of his mouth.

He makes another frustrated sound, obviously recognizing your shock, and tries to clarify. “They were… clearly making you uncomfortable but they just kept pushing you—you shouldn’t have to just sit there and take that—"

“Yeah, Mando, that’s kind of how flirting works when you’re dealing with a bunch of entitled assholes,” you snap, finally finding your words. Out of any other possible thing he could be angry about and this was it? “I’ll have to play into what they want to get closer to Cavill. Lucius seems sweet, a little overbearing but sweet. It’ll be fine.”

You’re already hovering the fine line between tipsy and just plain tired. All you want is to get home at this point—your feet hurt, the dress is uncomfortable, and, by your book, making conversation with these silver-spoon pricks could be comparable to pulling teeth. You love Febhana, and you could see the fun in a night like this, but you’re also trying to help Mando do his damn job and if he doesn’t start cooperating—

“He doesn’t. Lay. A finger. On you.” There’s an anger in his voice you’ve never encountered before, not while directed at you, at least. It stops any other thoughts from entering your head. He takes a deep, quivering breath to calm himself. It doesn’t work. “If you’re… if you don’t want it. He will not even look at you. The second—I don’t care if it makes a scene I’ll—"

“Mando.” You lay a hand on his chest. He instantly freezes. “I know that. Thank you. I’m a big girl, I can hold my own. It’s okay.” Trying to lighten the mood, you lift your chin up a bit, smiling at him as brightly as you can manage. “Can we please just talk about how we’re gonna pull this off?”

He gives you a tight nod.

“I… I know that you’ve been doing this for a lot longer than I have, which is the understatement of the millennia, but just… hear me out here. Lucius just invited me to go with them to a club—like, right now.” You feel like if you stop talking he won’t listen to what you have to say, so you keep plowing forward. “I know you made a point about no secondary locations. But, if we have the time I think the best plan of action would be for me to split off, go with them to the club and draw him out to you in some way. The security here is so tight, there’s no way I think we could pull this off without it blowing back on Febhana. She’s important to me and I would appreciate if we could get her out of this scot-free.”

You take a breath, glancing up at him to gauge his reaction thus far. When he doesn’t interject, you continue, keeping your hand on his chest as you speak—for some reason you feel like he listens to you better when you do. “Lucius mentioned that things are way more lax there, so I’m thinking that’ll translate to security measures too. I’m sure Febhana is familiar enough wherever they’re going. She can give you enough intel to be able to get an idea of the place on your way over. Then we can go home.”

“I agree.” His reluctance is palpable, but his next words are far more level-headed than you expected. “You’re right, we shouldn’t jeopardize Febhana. Try to get one of them to tell you a specific location and I can meet you there. I just—” he flexes his hands. “I need to get off this planet.”

“I know,” you sigh, giving his chest a reassuring pat before turning away to go back to the line of mirrors stationed above the sinks, checking your makeup. “Me too.”

You turn on the faucet and lean down to drink straight from the tap. You’re stone sober at this point and the icy water is potentially the best thing you’ve ever tasted. The headache pushing at the back of your eyes has increased to a dull throb.

Mando’s voice from behind you. “Ladylike.”

You turn off the sink and straighten, rolling your eyes. “Oh bite me,” the sharpness of your voice is negated by the laugh you have to push through to get the words out. Relieved that the charged air between the two of you has dissipated, you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. “Let’s get this over with, I’m exhausted.”

Mando escorts you back down the dimly lit hall, the low hum of the party forms a gradual crescendo the closer you get to the intricate archway where the hallway breaches the ballroom. He pulls you to a stop with a hand on your forearm before you are able to enter.

Despite the heels you’re wearing, he still has to lean down to speak to you.

“Be careful,” he murmurs. Unexpectedly, he swipes his thumb across your elbow before turning heel and rejoining the other droids against the wall.

It’s such an unnecessary motion you can’t help but freeze, unsure how to process that small display of… well, if you didn’t know any better you’d describe it as intimacy. And not the unique sort of platonic camaraderie you’ve started getting used with him. It feels too much like a stolen gesture for that. Something he’s only done out of a pure disregard for his usual utilitarian ethos.  

You swallow and square your shoulders, putting on the best smile you can before heading back to the Tagge table.

Biting your lip as you sink down onto the seat beside Lucius, you drag the knuckles of a relaxed hand down the length of his arm.

“Could I say goodbye to Febhana before we go?” You say as innocently as possible, still figuring out a way to organically ask where the fuck they were going to be taking you without acting too suspicious.

Lucius’s eyes flick over the table, only a few of the seats have emptied. Cavill is gone already.

“Yeah, that should be fine. Just find me when you’re done.”

You stand back up, stretching your neck to find your friend among the crowd. Quickly spotting Febhana, you navigate your way back through the crowd. Just as she has predicted, the uptight façade of the event is quickly dissolving as glasses empty and bodies inch closer together. The crowd you are now navigating through seems completely different from the one you’d encountered upon first entering the dancehall. The heady breath of the gathered crowd leaves a different crackle of energy over the room—considering Cavill’s circle wants to leave this for something “more exciting” is foreboding. Wherever you end up, you’ll deal.

Reaching Febhana’s side, you gently touch her arm to get her attention. She turns, smiling as she sees you.

“There you are! I thought I’d lost you,” she aligns her inner forearms with the length of yours, gripping you lightly in greeting. Touch was once meant survival for the two of you. Back on the Estate, sometimes the only communication you would be able to engage in for days on end, the smallest of reassurances are sometimes the most solid. Old habits die hard. You reciprocate the motion, grasping the inner portion of her elbows.

You duck your head in the direction of the person she was speaking to in a small apology for interrupting. Leaning in to quietly inform her of the change of plans, you tell her that Mando is going to try to meet you at the club. Febhana keeps a straight face as you do, but there’s a glint of worry in her gaze.

“Alright,” she says cheerfully. “I’ll tell the driver to wait outside. He can pick you up and take you back to the apartment when you’re ready to call it a night. I’ve prepared the guest room for you, the service droid can lead you there.”

“Febhana—” your brow furrows as you pull back, unwilling to take advantage of her kindness more than you already have, let alone her only way home. She interrupts you before you can insist.

“I’m going for drinks with friends after this, I’ll ride with them. Please, darling,” she kisses your cheek. “Good luck, and be safe,” she says softly as she pulls back, still gripping you by both elbows. You squeeze her forearms, giving a curt nod.

“I’ve learned from the best,” you manage a confident smile and disentangle her arms from yours. You tell her you’ll update her over the comlink and turn to rejoin Lucius, who was in the midst of his own farewells.

Febhana leaves as you wait for Lucius to finish his conversation. Mando has long since disappeared from his place at the wall. Taking a deep breath, you keep your shoulders back and your head high. You were completely alone.

**

There are five neat lines of spice on the mirrored platter. The Tagge twin is the one to offer it to you, pushing the surface in your direction before sinking back into the velveteen material of the curved couch.

You are in a private room at the club, one of a series of pod-like structures suspended over the dance-floor. The private pod opens into an expansive piece of curved glass that fills out the rest of its intended, ovular, form. If it weren’t for all the plush carpeting, the liquor and smoke and sultry lighting, it would make a decent observation deck. The room makes you feel like the surrounding world is a fish tank, all those people below you just interesting little creatures to look down at and inspect.

There’s something about the very nature of the space that drips luxury—but it’s a kind far removed from the crisp marble lines of the Tagge mansion. This is all seduction. All contours. All darkness and deep tones of amber, starkly contrasting against the pulsing blue lights of the dance-floor below.

The table before you is cluttered with empty glasses, bottles, as well as a few personal items owned by the boys who had already left to chase down the bodies below: a tuxedo tie here, a watch probably worth more than the Crest itself there—you know, the usual things you abandon in search of a warm mouth.

Lucius and Cavill are sharing a cigarette, the burning cherry one of the brightest sources of light in the room. Everything else is illuminated by low shades of red and orange from the warbling fixtures woven against the solid portion of the wall, which then part to trace the curved edges of the observation window.

The music is subdued at this height, yet the grinding pulse of a guitar still sends vibrations through the floor. Through you. The boys’ cigarette traces patterns between them as they exchange it, back and forth, saying very little in between.

Taking a deep breath, you glance down at the platter on the table. You press your lips together, glancing up at Lucius, then Cavill, who has gradually started to pay more attention to you the further into the night you descend.

Pretending to take another sip of your drink, you push the platter towards Lucius. Trying not to draw too much attention to your refusal, you move a little closer to his body as a potential distraction. Either it works or they didn’t care to begin with. Lucius curves into himself, pressing a finger against his nostril to inhale a line. Cavill does two.

Genuinely, there’s no way they could find any kind of appeal to this. You just can’t fathom it—they barely talk to one another, this group. And when they do they seem just as bored in the act as everyone else is. You’d take a night spent with Mando and the kid over this any day.

The Tagge boy jolts back awake, blearily rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. The motion is so sudden it startles you, jumping slightly as he pushes away from the table.

“M’gonna go downstairs,” Tagge’s legs wobble like a newborn calf’s might. “Getta girl.” His departure is unceremonious, just like the others had been. You have a feeling the only thing keeping Lucius at this table is you, and the only thing keeping you at this table is Cavill. Fuck doesn’t really cut it.

As the two of them work on what remains on the platter, you carefully shift out of the circular booth, pacing over to the glass wall to look down at the crowd of writhing bodies.

“Have y’ever been to this place before?” Lucius asks after a moment. He stretches over the top of the couch to look down at the crowd with you. As he does, because you think the universe genuinely hates you, you notice Mando’s disguised silhouette—he’s barely concealed by the darkness of the dance-floor’s periphery. You look away as to not draw too much attention to that one spot.

“No. Never. I’ve been cooped up at the conservatory for most of my life,” you say as angle your body towards the couch, crossing your arms and leaning against the wall with one shoulder. Like this, you’re able to keep Mando in the very edges of your periphery.

What you just said was true for your mother, you knew that. Honestly, you’ve gotten through most of the night by just adopting what you remember about her. It was far too natural of a mask to adopt—maybe that should have creeped you out, but the ease of being able to do so is comforting considering the scope of the mission before you.

You take a breath to clear your mind, needing to get ahead of the conversation before either of them can corner you in a story you’re not able to fabricate. You need to give Mando a clue about where the hell you are.

“How far up do you think we are?” You ask, cocking your head slightly, praying that Mando’s comlink can hear your above what you’re sure is a raucous crowd. It works, you see his head jerk up to finally notice the private rooms above him. Thank the Maker.

“I dunno,” Lucius turns his head to look where you’re looking. “You afraid of heights or something?”

You give a nonchalant laugh, shaking your head slightly. By the time you look back up to scan the crowd one more time you’ve lost track of Mando. Either he’s disappeared in the mass of bodies or he’d gone completely. You have absolutely no clue, and you don’t want to draw attention by continuing to search for him.

Leveling your gaze back to the two boys, you look them over in a way you hope will draw either’s attention. Both are belligerently intoxicated, the glasses before them long since emptied, the smell of spice thick. It gives Cavill the air of a cat luxuriously stretched in the sun, as if it were just some kind of a natural, comfortable state for him.

As if he can read your thoughts, he speaks.

“Why wouldn’t you sing for us, earlier,” Cavill’s voice alone is enough to make your skin crawl. He ashes the cigarette he was smoking. There’s a loud sound of inhaling from Lucius, whose shadowy form is hunched over the table as he finishes what is left on the platter before him.

“Could you quit it,” Lucius mumbles as he rubs either side of his nose, head thrown back as he sniffs indignantly. “She obviously doesn’t want to.”

“If you were shy earlier, it’s just the three of us now. Completely different,” Cavill says, reaching over to wipe his fingers over the platter’s surface. He rubs his gums with the residue. You expect Lucius to defend you and divert the conversation like he’d done earlier. He doesn’t. Cavill sucks his teeth, leaning back once again. “Sing. I want to hear you.”

“It just feels strange is all,” you bite your lip, voice admittedly a bit brisk in how absent-mindedly it disregards what Cavill is asking. Your turn your gaze back out over the club, mainly to get Cavill’s off you.

You’re worried about Mando, about how long it’s taken him to give you some kind of sign that he’s ready. Maybe he’s waiting until you’re completely alone with Cavill? He pushed that in the car, how this whole thing has to be done as quietly as possible. The problem is that you’ve got absolutely no idea how to get Lucius out of the picture.

“Before there were too many people and now there are too little? What do you want?” Cavill’s words float in the air behind you as you pace to the bar cart, determined to busy your hands by remaking the drink you hadn’t touched since entering the room. “Isn’t that what you’re training for?”

Maybe Mando has been stopped? Your eyes flick to the circular doors partitioning the enclosed room from the catwalk hallway. You remember loudly greeting the guards that were there when the posse first entered the room, giving him the best heads up you could organically muster. Could he take both of them out on his own? Quietly?

“Um, yeah I suppose. It’s just different, there. In conservatory.” Dropping ice into your glass, you hear Cavill scoff. Lucius mumbles something. You bend slightly to get some of the bitters from the cart’s lower shelf.

And an explosion of glass shatters right where your head just was.

You whip around in shock, only to see Cavill already standing, swaying a bit on his feet, dress-shirt partially unbuttoned and messily untucked. It’s almost like some kind of switch went off, transforming him into something utterly unrecognizable.

He’s a fucking mess. Eyes nearly black. The empty decanter from the Tagge mansion in his hand.

“In conservatory,” he mocks, his lips pulled upwards in a vicious snarl. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Before you can react, the decanter is being flung at you—it misses, again. Shattering on the ground in front of you this time. You press yourself as far as you can against the bar cart, eyes wide. Cavill spits, then wipes his mouth with his hand, looking at you through half-lidded eyes.

“Kneel.”

Horrified, your gaze flicks from Lucius back to the tantrum-throwing, wolf-eyed aristocrat standing in front of you.

“What?” You ask incredulously, browns knitted together in complete confusion.

“I said kneel,” Cavill jabs his finger to the ground. “Pick that shit up.”

Lucius does a poor job of concealing a pained grimace. Or maybe you’ve grown far too good at reading the tiniest expressions from your masked companion that you’ve become hyper-aware of these kind of things. He gives a small: “Maker, Tyreus.” If it were supposed to be a warning it was a shitty one.

Survival instincts set in immediately. You turn your eyes to the floor and make your breathing as small and quiet as possible. Obediently, you comply. Kneeling on the ground and reaching out a shaking hand to begin plucking the shards from the carpet.

Cavill stalks behind you in an instant, one hand sealing around the back of your neck and pushing your head down to immobilize you. Simultaneously, his other hand wraps around your wrist, twisting your arm back and making your body to fold in on itself, pressing you into the ground.

You can’t help but cry out, the sharp motion forcing you to quickly catch yourself with your free hand. Your palm lands directly in the broken glass. You’d give anything to erase the wet sound it makes from your head forever.

It takes you less than a second to realize he’s trying to force your face into the carpet. Into it. Fuck.

“D’you want to tell me, huh?” He’s folds in half to speak directly in your ear, his spit hitting your cheek. He twists your arm further, grinding the hand supporting the rest of your body deeper into the glass. You grit your teeth to prevent another pained sound from escaping. “Wanna tell me who the fuck you think you are? Too good for me, whore? Too good for all this?”

The doors burst open. Cavill lets go of you in shock, it gives you time to crawl away from him as Mando levels his blaster at the boy. You scrape one of your knees in the process, you don’t notice it over the adrenalin pulsing through you.

Lucius swears loudly, standing.

“Don’t move.” Mando’s words are more of a growl than anything else.

In the pause this creates, you’re able to kick out your leg and take Cavill out from the back of the knees. It’s not graceful or pretty but it works. Cavill falls to the ground and you quickly clamber on top of him, forcing his hands behind his back, keeping him down with a bloodied knee to the spine.

Mando throws you the cuffs, training his blaster back on Lucius as you work on securing the binds around his quarry’s wrists.

“The spice,” Mando barks out the order. Lucius, eyes wide with terror, looks from the bounty hunter, to you, back to the bounty hunter.

“W-What?”

Mando shoots Lucius in the leg. The boy screams a curse, folding into himself in pain. The air smells like burnt flesh and coins. You swallow, looking back down and busying yourself with keeping Cavill still as he struggles against the floor.

“The. Spice.” He repeats. Choking on his sobs, Lucius reaches a shaking hand into his suit jacket’s pocket, throwing the little bag on the floor. Mando stalks over to him, Lucius cowers.

“Listen, man I—I’ll give you anything you want, ok? My father—”

Mando pistol whips him, the force behind it is enough to also slam Lucius’s head into the table as a result, knocking him unconscious. The bounty hunter turns, snatching up the spice on the ground and crossing over to you, kneeling beside Cavill, whose face is pressed into the ground.

“Mother fucker,” Cavill snarls, the first coherent set of words he’s said since Mando entered. Without reacting, Mando pinches Cavill’s nose shut. You’re confused for a moment, then Cavill opens his lips to either breathe or continue his litany of abuses and Mando takes that opportunity to empty the rest of the spice directly into the quarry’s mouth.

Cavill’s eyes widen, then almost immediately roll back into his skull. He jerks once, then lays still.

It all happens so fast you barely process Mando’s gentle order for you to stand. You do eventually, your legs a bit shaky as you cross back over to the bar cart, holding your palm up to the light in order to puck the largest pieces of glass out before wrapping your wound with a decorative napkin.

When you turn, Mando is pacing the room’s glass perimeter, looking down at the dance-floor to see if anyone noticed the commotion over the pounding music. His takes two brisk strides to cross the room, back to you.

“Are you okay?” He asks, his voice curt and professional. You duck your head in a nod, still pressing the napkins to your bleeding hand. Mando then turns to deal with Lucius’s body, stuffing his mouth with one of the tux ties on the table, binding his wrists. Buying the two of you time, you guess.

You look down at Cavill’s crumpled body. Unconscious, like this, you realize he couldn’t be more than twenty years old. Maybe even nineteen. “They’re all just kids, aren’t they?”

Mando’s sighs, crossing the room again to lean out the open doors to gauge the best way of getting back to the driver. “Pel kar’ta.” Whatever he just called you, it sounds like an accusation “That doesn’t excuse it.”

“No,” you murmur to yourself, gaze still fixed to the boy on the floor. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

**

The napkins you use on your injured hand manages to somewhat stop the bleeding. You wait in the backseat as Mando and the driver stuff Cavill’s body into the trunk. You manage to pluck the last of the shards out of the meat of your palm once Mando silently slides into the seat beside you.

The driver leans over to the seemingly empty passenger seat, plucking a bundle of swaddled fabric and passing it back to Mando. It’s the child, sleeping deeply.

“Febhana said she had a feeling you’d want to get off planet as fast as possible. She sends her well wishes,” the driver grits out. He pulls the speeder off the roof of the club, quickly maneuvering the vehicle into Canto Bight’s weaving back alleys.

You take a deep breath, leaning your head against the window.

“I’m sorry,” you manage after a few minutes of driving, the words so soft they break slightly as they leave your mouth. “I… I didn’t think it could get that messy. I should have stuck to the plan.”

He says your name softly, it crackles over the speakers of the modulator. You take too much comfort in how he says it, the way it fills the space between the two of you. “Jobs like this are never clean.”

“You said this needed to go quietly,” you turn your head to look at him directly. “That wasn’t quiet.”

“I should have interfered earlier, that was my fault,” his response is immediate. “You shouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes and resting your head against the window. “I am not trying to make this about me. I just—I know it was a leap of faith involving me in this. I screwed it up, I want to apologize.”

“I didn’t think you were. I was making a clarification. You shouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

The kid makes a small sound in his sleep, you know he’s stretching and nuzzling into the crook of Mando’s arms without having to look over.

“Okay. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

He says your name again. You shake your head.

“Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen like that, if that’s okay?” You keep your gaze trained out the window, watching the city as it passes a good distraction from the pain pulsing from your hand up your wrist. “I’ll be fine once we get home.”

From your periphery, you see Mando nod.

Arriving at the hangar, you scoop the child in one arm and open the speeder door with a slight wince. You thank the driver and make a beeline for the Crest, busying yourself with tucking the little one in his cradle while Mando deals with the body.

By the time you shed the dress Febhana leant you—now ruined, thanks to that asshole—and quickly shower, you’re starting to catch a second wind of energy. You’re wide awake by the time you pull on a sleep shirt and a soft pair of shorts, catching yourself on the wall as the Crest rumbles into hyperspace.

Settling at your med station, you examine your injured hand under a small portable light, making sure you didn’t miss any pieces of glass due to the dim lighting of the landspeeder’s interior. You hear Mando step behind you.

“Let me see it,” he says. You straighten, looking up at him. Mando is holding a hand out, for yours. He’s back in the clothes he sometimes wears during your long stretches of travel, no armor save for the helmet on his head. His gloves are removed.

The first time he’d done this it had nearly knocked the wind out of you, stopping your words mid-sentence as you entered the cockpit to feed the kid breakfast. He was reclined in the pilot’s seat, the sturdy fingers grasping a rag to oil the pauldron he held in his other hand. You only caught the brief glimmer of a thick beskar ring on his thumb before averting your eyes, stuttering an apology.

At this point, you’ve seen enough of his hands to have memorized every scar and callous. You know it all, from the broken mountains of his knuckles to the small tattoo below the web of his thumb, so weathered by age you still cannot make sense of what it’s supposed to be.

This is different, though. He’s asking to touch you, skin on skin. That’s what makes you pause, looking at him blankly. Mando tries again.

“It’s my fault you got hurt—please, let me take care of you this once.”

There’s something in his voice that sounds incredibly pained, it’s enough to break you from your thoughts. You hesitate, then shift to face him on the crate you’d pulled over to sit on.

You offer him your hand, palm up, in wordless agreement.

He starts his work there, diligently giving it one last look over for glass before slathering it in bacta and firmly wrapping it with gauze. His hands feel just as you thought they would, rough but warm, hesitant at first but firmer once he gains the confidence to really touch you.

Mando then begins to examine your shoulder, delicately asking you to lift your arm, shift it in different directions and tell him when it hurts. You comply, easily succumbing to his little, light touches.

Maker, if Lucius had managed to give you butterflies on the dance-floor this… this couldn’t even be qualified at anything close to that feeling. The flight of birds, more like. A whole flock. A force only rivaled by the quick beat of your pulse.

“I got you something.” If you didn’t know any better you’d think his voice has a certain tinge of shyness to it. “A few days ago. I kept forgetting to give it to you.”

“Do tell,” you manage a casual yawn, then wince when his fingers dig into your scapula. “Ow.”

“Sorry,” he removes his hands from you, turning and walking to the other side of the hull. He rifles through a crate and emerges with what looks like a little box, offering it to you. You balance it in your bandaged hand, recognizing the object the second you see the speakers affixed to either end of it.

A wide grin breaks out over your face as you look up at him. “Is this a radio?”

He nods, plucking the tube of muscle warming agent from the med-kit and spreading it against your shoulder. His gloves are still off, the rough feeling of his hands against you enough to steal all words from your parted lips.

“Thank you,” you manage. “Mando—this is so nice I—”

“It’s nothing,” he says it frankly. You gladly don’t continue your sentence, turning the object over in your hand. “The woman told me it should work just about anywhere. If it loses signal it’ll just play some kind of recorded catalogue.”

You nod, bracing your forearms against your thighs and fiddling with the radio’s controls as he continues to talk, his thumbs working against every part of the joint they can. The feeling is far too easy to give into, you allow yourself to close your eyes as he continues, placing the radio beside you and leaning back to rest your elbows on the table to your back.

“I thought it was the least I could offer you. You seem so happy whenever there’s music,” Mando says as he kneels in front of you, wiping off your injured knee, rubbing away the scabs that were already forming with a disinfectant-soaked towel. He disregards the hiss you give and begins applying the bacta to the scored surface. “Especially tonight, when you were dancing. I didn’t realize you could.”

You laugh, smiling to yourself. “I was most nervous about that, as ridiculous as it sounds.” You muffle a relieved groan at the numb warmth that begins to spread as soon as the bacta sets in. You turn over what you want to ask for a long time before you muster the courage to say it. Why not? “I could teach you.”

A pause. “What?”

“I could teach you to dance, if you want me to,” you open your eyes to look down at the man kneeling before you. His fingers are frozen against the bandage he was in the process of tying off—incorrectly, you might add, but you can fix it later. You can’t help but smile at him. “Put this radio to use.”

He pauses for a moment longer, then shakes his head and goes back to adjusting your bandages. “Don’t mess with me like that, I’ll take back the compliment.”

“Hey! C’mon,” you bite your lip, stretching out your uninjured leg to faux-kick his side. He grabs your foot before it can make contact, gently guiding it back to the floor. “I’m being serious. Gotta blow off some steam before I can sleep.” Heat shoots up to your face, the words leaving your mouth before you can think them through. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Alright.” Mando stands, crossing his arms over his chest to regard you.

You genuinely don’t believe it. Your smile widens. “Are you serious?”

His head cocks to the side. “If you make a big deal out of it I’ll purposefully step on your toes.”

It’s hard to contain your glee. You push yourself up to your feet, Mando’s arms shooting out in a protective gesture to catch you when you wobble slightly.

“Relax, I’m fine,” you gently push his hands away, walking over to the other side of the hull to place the radio on top of a stack of crates. Fiddling with it for a moment, you find a station playing something slow.

Turning back around, you see that Mando has turned off the med-station’s light, the brightest source of illumination now coming from the radio’s tiny interface behind you. The rest of the hull’s sconces are in night mode, the dull orange glow just enough to see what’s in front of you.

“Okay,” you begin, standing in the middle of the room and motioning Mando towards you. He complies. You hold out both hands. When he doesn’t get it, you press your lips together to suppress a smile, taking them for yourself where they rest limply at his sides. “So, you’d start by approaching your lady and holding her hand up, like this.” You bend your right elbow, your loosely interlocked hand forcing his left arm to do the same.

Mando nods, head bowed to you in observation, a diligent student.

“Then,” you continue, guiding his right hand to the curve of your waist. “You’d place your other hand here, or mid-back, whatever feels most appropriate for the situation.” He doesn’t move his hand. It sends a bit of a thrill through you. You place your left hand on his bicep, looking up at him and grinning. “See? You’re a natural.”

The both of you laugh at that one. His comes out as nothing more than a hoarse release of air from the modulator, but it’s enough to have you absolutely elated.

You start to sway slightly, to the rhythm of the song now playing from the radio’s speakers. Mando picks up the hint, taking up the role of leader while you gladly follow. He’s actually okay—granted, the two of you are just swaying in place, but still.

“I meant that, you know.”

“Hm?” You ask, partially distracted in trying to figure out what move to teach him next. The waltz you and Lucius did would be far too complicated, maybe there would be some kind of way to simplify it…

“What I said earlier. You looked beautiful, tonight,” Mando says, chin still tucked to look down at you. You blink, only actually processing what he’d just said a few seconds after he said it. You purposefully keep your eyes trained to his chest in order to keep your thoughts straight. “I um… I didn’t know how to tell you. Earlier. In the car. But I wanted to.”

“Hate to inform you, but the dress is in tatters and I am way too lazy to put all that makeup on again,” you chuckle, using the side of your foot to nudge him into a bit of a wider stance. He has the resting state of a soldier at attention—fitting, you guess, for a Mandalorian. It’s something so natural about to him that you’ve only really noticed the rigidity of it now.

“No, no I’m not… That’s not what I meant. You look that way always just—tonight, especially.”

“Well, Mando, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you sound a little bashful right now,” you joke, trying to move on as quickly as possible to cover up the fact that you had no idea how to take a compliment. You turn your head a little too quickly to look back down at his feet, ready to instruct him on the next steps, and your forehead collides with him helmet.

It fucking hurts.

You wince, cursing slightly under your breath and screwing up your face, trying to laugh off the heat burning in your cheeks and across your chest. “Ow.”

“Fuck, sorry,” Mando mutters, releasing your hands and cupping either sides of your jaw with his hands. His thumbs press along the underside of your chin, tilting your face up towards him as he inspects it for damage. “Are you okay?”  

You close your eyes and nod, swallowing. “Yeah, just surprised me is all—never had to teach a tin can how to dance before, forgot I had to be conscious about the...” one of his thumbs traces a curved line against your chin before he removes his hands from your face. The motion is quick and then gone immediately, just as he had done in the hallways of the Tagge mansion. It has a far more vivid consequence of completely scrambling your thoughts, this time around. “Helmet,” you manage.

After a moment, Mando tilts his head.

“Close your eyes,” his voice is husky, from the modulator or something else you don’t know.

You comply without question, pulse increasing as you feel Mando step away and rummage through something. He returns, standing behind you this time. Fabric is wrapped around your eyes—once, then twice. You reach a hand up to touch it, recognize the slightly rough texture of gauze almost immediately.

There’s some kind of a hissing sound, then the clank of metal being placed on something solid. Then he’s back in front of you.

“Think you can teach me like this?” And it’s his voice. His voice. Rough but warm and unobstructed. Just as his hands had been. It takes the wind right out of your lungs.

“Mando,” if you could think of anything else to say, you’d cringe at how breathless you sound. What are you, a locked-away damsel in distress?

“When I was younger I was… a bit more lax. Running with the wrong people. I relied on… technicalities, in our code, a little too heavily back then.” You never want to stop hearing his voice. There’s something about the modulator that doesn’t do the light lilt to his words justice, the low but crisp resonance of his voice. “But I’ve… this is new. But okay. Within the rules.”

“Are you—” clearing your throat, you try again. More firm this time. “Are you sure?”

“Just don’t touch my face with your hands,” his voice remains clipped, slightly cautious, but resolved. Typical. “If you—I can put the helm back on, if this makes you uncomfortable.”

“No!” You interject, placing both hands on his chest in reassurance. “No, I… no. I feel honored and happy, really happy, that you’d trust me like this. It means a lot.”

You hear him hum low in his throat, a sound you know he makes sometimes when he nods. He takes your hand, again, the other going back to your waist. “Okay, start over.”

“So,” you begin again, trying your best to run your mouth enough to distract from how… serious this feels. You know it most likely isn’t a huge deal, if he’s willing to do this after one accidental collision—but, well. Still. “When you’re ready, you’ll step forward and I’ll step back. And… uh…” you bite your lip as his hand drifts lower, just an inch, to rest at the small of your back. You look up at him through the blindfold out of habit. “You lead, I follow, simple as that.”

“Simple as that?” His words have a rare, palpable heat to them. You can never be certain, of course, but you’re convinced there’s a small smile behind his question. It’s easier to tell, now.

“Yeah,” your chest feels tight with an emotion so close yet so different from the joy you’re used to feeling. Your smile is uncontainable, if barely visible in the hull’s dim light. “It really is.”

He’s a fast learner, easily taking you in slow, looping circles around the room for the next few songs. The silence between the two of you is comforting.

The longer the radio plays, the deeper you sink into one another, your entwined movements eventually spiraling back to the center of the space, settling into an easy, sedentary sway there. You only really notice this as Mando’s hand drifts from your lower back to wrap around the curve of your opposite hip, the length of his sturdy forearm braced against your body. After a beat, you let go of the hand you’re holding onto and wrap both arms loosely around his neck, leaning into him fully.

The two of you don’t acknowledge it, playing it off as an incidental thing, this gradual enclosure of your bodies. The equally quick thrum of your hearts betrays the known secret behind the little game you are playing.

“What did that phrase you use mean, when we talked earlier?” You press the side of your face to Mando’s chest. He props his chin against the crown of your head in welcome response.

The hand previously holding yours moves up your spine in order to gently cradle the back of your neck, gently holding you in place. His thumb traces repetative arcs against the sensitive line between the corner of your jaw and your earlobe. It feels like a salve in its own right, erasing the feeling of Cavill’s skin pressed against your own.

“What did what mean?” Mando asks innocently enough, as his hand continues its serene movement. It’s the most he’s ever touched you, and you suppose he keeps his tone completely casual to make up for the fact. As if the two of you were conversing from other sides of the room, not entangled in each other. You’re more than willing to play into the charade if it means you can have this, the ability to close your eyes and take in the rumble of his voice against your ear.

“Pel… pel kar-ta?” You wince at your gross mispronunciation. “What you called me back there, at the club.”

“Oh—” he seems surprised, like he didn’t even remember saying it. “That’s—that’s Mando’a. It means… well it’s the closest expression to kindness we have.” He keeps rubbing the corner of your jaw with his thumb, keeping rhythm with your movements. If it could even be considered that, at this point. “A more direct translation would be ‘soft hearted.’ Someone who is unapologetically forgiving towards others, even to those don’t deserve it. An ability to love that clouds greater judgment.”

“I have the feeling it’s not the most complimentary nickname for Mandalorians.”

“No, no it isn’t,” the breath of his laugh ruffles your hair. You can’t help but hide your smile in the warm fabric of his shirt, laughing with him. Mando shifts slightly, curving over you, your cheek against his, rough with a well-developed five o’clock shadow. “But, um. I mean it as a compliment, for you. As stupid as you can get.”

If someone punched you in the gut it wouldn’t have left you this breathless. You try to disguise the euphoric feeling it gives you in humor. You’re worried that if you give too much away he’ll stop touching you. Stop holding you like this. Like you were the one gentle thing he’d succumb to.

“Well, it seems hardly fair that you get to call me a nickname and I get nothing at all,” you huff in playful offense, barely able to keep the smile off your face. “Totally unfair.”

“Give me your best, then.” He’s still smiling, you don’t know how you can tell but you just can. It’s infectious.

“What about… hmm… I dunno—tin can?”

“That one’s taken.”

“Oh, have some lady in waiting I should know about?”

“That’s probably the exact opposite way I’d describe him.”

You laugh. “Bucket head?”

“Not very original.”

“Well,” you give an airy hmph. “I’m stumped. You win. Mando it remains.”

Continuing your sway as the music maintains its soft tumble from the radio’s speakers, the two of you go so long without speaking you think the conversation has ended--until:

“Din.” He says the word so softly it wouldn’t have been picked up if he were still speaking through the vocoder.

Your brow furrows. “Sorry, what?”

“Din. Din Djarin. My name. When it’s… when it’s just us, you can use it. If you’d like.”

You cup your hand around the other side of his neck and pull back slightly. His hand automatically lifts to press against your cheek, a refusal to allow you to move any further despite the fact that you’re wearing the blindfold. Pure habit, you think.

You blink against the fabric stretched over your eyes, trying to quell your burning desire to do something absolutely disastrous.

So you say his name instead.

**

tag list: @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11 @walkingthegrounds @roseallisonparker @kaitlyn2907 @dinsbeskar @mandoandyodito @kyjoraven @ineffableloveforyou

please let me know if you would like to be added/removed !!

[psychewithwings]

Bitter Taste: Iwaizumi x f/reader Pt. 1

pt. 2 here

THIS IS SO LATE and I’m a fuck up hahahaha (kinda ironic this was 2 weeks late for Mental Health Awareness month) 

I am crediting my girl @kuso-deku for giving me Iwaizumi brain rot to begin with. I am also crediting @gixxie and @idonotagreebitch for helping me talk through my ideas... and crediting @doinmybesthere for the wonderful idea of a mental health awareness collaboration the link is here. PLS READ THE REST OF THE WORKS. Everyone deserves the love.

TW: manipulative male/female relationships, gaslighting?, subtle shit head crap that most men do (don’t worry Iwa is a peach as always tho, it’s Ushijima that’s the problem)

_ 

Iwaizumi stands and stretches in the cinema. The movie had been good, but long, he figured it was a little after midnight. “What’d ya think?” Kuroo asks as they exit the theatre. “I hated the ending…” Oikawa gripes, “I hate endings where everyone just dies.” “You are such a princess Tooru, I swear, it’s a metaphorical ending… did you not catch all the symbolism in the opening credits?” Iwaizumi sighs and turns his phone back on, trying his best to ignore their bickering. Slowly, notification after notification pops up… all from you. He blinks, surprised. You had declined his offer to join him for the film, stating you had previous plans attending a close friend’s birthday.

Iwa opens the messages from you. He sees first the selfies. You look beautiful, extravagant even. Your dress is beautiful, it compliments your figure perfectly with the corseted bodice. It’s white and so is your lace mask. Broad, feathered angel wings rest on your back. Angelic would have been a word he’d used to describe you before, but now, it was confirmed. He wants to keep staring at the photos but Kuroo and Oikawa are starting to become too curious about the contents of his phone. He scrolls and relaxes his face to look more casual. But it’s hard when your intoxicated messages are so darn cute.    

hope the movie is good!

okay so I guess there’s an open bar? Is it my birthday too?

if you wanna come by after the movie I’msure you coul

this partyyyy suckssssssss assssssssss

wish id gon wiht u xx

You are clearly drunk and he laughs to himself before Kuroo peers over his right shoulder. “Well she’s thinking about you at least,” he smirks. Oikawa peers over Iwaizumi’s left shoulder, “ooo play the voice message.” Oikawa taps the message before Iwaizumi can give him an answer.

“Hiiiii Iwaaaaaa, hope you like the moovie and you’re having a good time, cuz I’m having a preetyy good time, they gots free margaritaaass. Okay byeeeee”

The guys laugh and Oikawa presses the next one.

“Hey Iwaaa, I made up a song about you, ready?

Iwaizumi

Doesn’t know what he does- to me…

Sshfhsijknfhahaha I cant remember the rest som’n bout… som’n I dunno. Byeee”

“Okay, Ushi says that I need to say sorry for sending so many…” you pause and then whisper, “drunk messages, but I’as only tellin’ ya I ssink ‘r awesome ‘n you should totally come to this party and hang out with me… you’re awesome, okay byeee”

Oikawa and Kuroo pause and look at Iwaizumi. “Ushi?” Oikawa asks, “like Ushiwaka?” Oikawa’s eyes are narrowed and he gags dramatically in disgust. Iwaizumi nods and walks to exit the theatre. “Wait… that’s her friend who’s having the birthday party?” Iwa grimaces as Kuroo chuckles. “No wonder you’ve had a stick up your ass all night.” Iwa glares at him, “they’re just friends… apparently… I don’t know, she said they’ve known each other for a really long time…” Kuroo claps Iwaizumi on the back. “I think you should definitely go to the party.” Iwaizumi starts to object but the ring of his phone draws attention, and he answers it. “Heyyy you're outta th’moviee, heheeheheha,” you slur. Iwaizumi laughs softly and smiles, “yeah, I’m out of the movie now, are you… good?” There is so much background noise, it almost drowns out your sweet sleepy voice. “I’m soooo good… … I just-” he can hear your voice drop to a drunken whisper. “I’z just hoping to see you today,” you mumble finally.  

Iwaizumi can feel his heartbeat quicken, his head reeling. “Oh really?” He plays cool but then instantly regrets it when you give him a serious answer. “Yeah, I was really hoping you’d come to the party, even for just a little,” you murmur. Iwaizumi can’t help but chuckle. You were pretty cute like this, not normally so transparent. You were actually quite hard to read, so sweet but guarded and teasing too. You were a friend of Oikawa’s first and he had met you through him. He’d liked the way you sat cross legged on the couch smiling, chin in your hands while you asked questions and listened to his answers. Your eyes sparkle when you hear something you like, and your face lights up when you talk about things you find interesting.

“Ya don’t have to, I can just see ya another time,” you add. He’s been silent too long which causes him to speak without thinking. “No, I’d love to see you, I’ll head to you now.” Kuroo and Oikawa are silently cheering him on and Iwa turns away in embarrassment. “Really? Okay! I’ll drop my pin… as the kids are sayin’ these days hahaha.” “See you soon, drink some water okay?” “Mhm, I will, see ya soon!”

You were at a club owned by Ushijima’s family. A place called ‘Eagle’s Nest’. He’d only known you for a few weeks but he couldn’t help his infatuation. It was immediate, the night he had gone to Oikawas for game night. You spoke to him so easily not knowing him at all and laughed at his little side jabs to his long time friend. The way you looked at him… Iwa knew then that he wanted to see you smile, hear your laugh, and that he would be happy to assume the responsibility of making that happen.

He was surprised when you had declined his offer for the movie, feeling that you both had some definite chemistry, but Iwaizumi was even more surprised when you had said that you had prior plans with his old time rival Ushijima Wakatoshi. Iwaizumi hadn’t seen him since high school but they knew a few people in common, Oikawa being one of those people. Oikawa could sure hold a grudge but Iwaizumi took all of his comments with a grain of salt. Ushijima often came off entitled and cold, which would leave Iwaizumi with a bad taste in his mouth. Maybe Oikawa had the right idea holding a grudge… But grudge or not he wanted to see you, hear your voice and admire you all dolled up.

When Iwaizumi arrives at the club he is met with a large security guard. “Invitation?” he grumbles. Iwa remains calm but a small trickle of fear runs down his back. Iwaizumi gives the guard a casual smile before he starts to answer but he is interrupted. “Iwaaaaa,” you cry from the top of the stairs. The mask you’d had on is now resting on top of your head, the delicate features of your face now exposed. The floofy skirt of your dress bounces with your excitement as you run down the stairs. You crash into him, throwing your arms around his neck. You bury your face in his collar and still momentarily. Drunk and bubbly, you melt when Iwa wraps his arms around your waist in return, avoiding your costume’s wings. “Mmmm,” you hum, breath hot against his skin, “you smell good.” You pull back and stare into his wide eyes. “You look incredible,” he offers, a slight pink tint to his cheeks. You grin in return and simply take hold of his hand. “He’s with me,” you beam at the guard. Iwaizumi is doubtful this trick will work here. But he is surprised when the guard steps aside saying, “as you wish Miss L/N.” You giggle and pull Iwa towards the doors. “I’ll bring you some cake later, okay Jurou?” Jurou laughs, “just have fun darlin’.” “You’re the best,” you call behind you as you push open the doors. Iwaizumi can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy knowing that you are on a first name basis with one of the body guards at the Wakatoshi’s club. How close were you with Ushijima?    

Blue and purple lights illuminate the vast space while black tiles make up the main floor. The dance floor is sunken, in the middle of the club with a small set of stairs leading down to it. It’s made entirely of glass, beneath is a saltwater garden of different plants and coral.  

“You’ll need one of these,” you explain, swiping a simple black mask from the welcome table. You hand it over to him and pull yours down over your eyes. Iwaizumi adjusts it to where he can see. “You look so handsome,” you admire. He grins, “what about you? You’ve got wings!” You laugh and adjust your mask back on top of your forehead. “I’m a swan, and Ushi said I couldn’t be a swan without wings!” You spin for him, trying your best to flap the feathered wings. Small pieces of confetti glitter rain from the skirt of your dress. Iwaizumi takes in your face illuminated by the lights of the club. Blue and pink dancing over your cheeks as you smile up at him. “What?” you giggle nervously. Just a few weeks but he is mesmerised by your everything. He shakes his head and tries to move on. He wanted to tell you how he felt but this wasn’t the right time. It should be when you’re sober, when you can take in his words properly.

You coax him down towards the bar.  “You’re sure it’s okay to sneak in uninvited guests?” Iwa questions. “Well, I asked Ushi ‘nd he said it was okay, so yeah!” You grin but notice Iwaizumi’s reserve. “It’s really okay, I promise, let’s just get a drink,” you suggest and take his hand. “Only if you drink more water,” he smirks. You roll your eyes at Iwa, “I drank some water before you got here actually.” You look back at him as you both head down to the bar. “I’ll prolly regret that yurr seeing me like this tamorow, ya know,” you call over the blaring music. “It’s cute, you’re cute,” he assures as he leans against the bar, “I didn’t know you thought about me this much until I saw all the snapchats and voice messages and texts.” You cover your face in humiliation, “I knowww, I’m sorry but you were on my mind a lot, alot alot, and  couldn’t stop think about ya, and the booze told me to keep on messaging…” You trail off,  finding the last shred of your filter to keep you from talking.  The bartender hands you your water and you take a long drink.

“Iwaizumi,” a voice projects over the baseline. Ushijima stands tall advancing towards where you both stand. His expression is neutral though, his eyes keep darting to you and then back to Iwaizumi. Ushijima is dressed as a knight, his silver mask hangs languidly around his neck. “Ushiwaka,” Iwa acknowledges, “this is a hell of a birthday party.” You giggle and point at Ushiwaka, “he’s 28 today; getting sooo old.” In that moment, Iwaizumi watches him do something he had never seen him do before. Smile… and then laugh. Ushijima wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you closer.  “You’re just a baby,  you’re only-” You wave your hand in front of Ushiwaka’s face, shushing him. “No, no, Iwa doesn’t knowww, don’t tell him,” you plead. “She’s only 23,” Ushiwaka says. You hold your face in your hands once more and groan. Ushijima pulls your hands from your face, “just barely twenty three too.” You glare at him and look back at Iwaizumi embarrassed.  “Did she not tell you her age?” Ushijima asks Iwaizumi. Iwa shrugs, “She didn’t, but I never asked,” Iwa shrugs casually, addressing you now, “didn’t seem important since you carry yourself so well.”

You turn to Iwa, mouth open like you’re about to respond but Ushijima swipes the glass from your hands before you can finish. “Drinking water?” You look up at him. “But it’s my birthday… and this is a party…  you need something stronger…” Ushijima beacons the bartender with a single flick of his hand. The barman pours three double shots of a clear liquid from a foreign looking bottle. Ushijima takes a glass and hands it to you, before handing another to Iwaizumi. Ushijima gives him a wink as he loops his arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him. He raises his glass, the violet lights illuminating the liquid. Iwaizumi follows his lead. “To my Juliet, the belle of the ball,” Ushijima bellows. You smile slightly and shake your head. “No no, to you Ushi, it’s your birthday, not mine, we are celebrating you!” Your eyes find Iwa’s, but you leave your glass raised. Ushijima grabs hold of your hand that’s still wrapped around the glass. “Cheers,” He tips the glass towards your lips and you swallow the clear liquor as he feeds it to you. You down it all in one go and Ushiwaka smiles wide once again. “She’s good, huh?” With that, Ushiwaka clinks his glass to Iwaizumi’s, “to you brother,” he assures. Iwa is surprised with the sudden sentiment. “And to you,” he replies before downing the shot. The liquor is surprisingly smooth, expensive, and strong. Iwa can feel his head starting to get light from the small portion that was in the glass and Iwa wasn’t a light weight. “Strong huh?” Ushijima smirks. Iwaizumi nods then turns to the bartender to signal for a water.

Ushijima turns to where you stand swaying slightly with the music. “Look at her, she gets drunk so easily,” Ushijima smiles. “How are you feeling, princess?” he shouts over at you. Iwa turns away and downs his water in disgust. ‘Princess?’ Ushijima shouldn’t be calling you that if you’re both just friends. You blink and give him a smile and a thumbs up. There was a natural innocence about you, a childlike wonder and curiosity, the embodiment of sanguine. Ushijima’s air was sometimes sinister, like he was taking advantage of your natural trusting nature. Iwa watches as Ushijima’s large hands rest on either of your shoulders and he pushes you back and forth like a pendulum between his palms. You giggle and try to push him away, “Ushi stooopp.” He laughs with you and continues pushing you around, “you’re so cute and small though, see?” He places a hand on top of your head and you still. “I said to stop,” you mumble. “And I did,” he retorts before letting you go.

Iwa watches the sudden weight of gravity find you as you stumble in your heels. He catches your arm just in time. Your arms find their way around his neck once more, your face in the crook of his neck. You pull away and Iwa examines your foggy eyes. “You okay?” You nod, pushing off of Iwa’s chest. You fix your hair, “it’s fine, he just messin’” you turn to Ushijima, “and someone doesn’t know when to quit.” You’re pulled away into Ushiwaka’s arms. He sways you back and forth, your back held against his chest while he says soft apologies. He whispers something to you and you nod. Iwaizumi wanted to pull you away from him. Not because he was jealous, but because the way that Ushiwaka was behaving with you was odd.

“Y/n is a little bit tired, why don’t you join us in VIP?” Iwa smiles and gives his thanks, trying his best to hide his scowl. Iwa follows after you and Ushiwaka, upstairs and under velvet ropes hoping that he will find a good moment to pull you away. But instead you are pulled onto the couch beside Ushiwaka. He lights a cigar and offers one to Iwa, but Iwaizumi declines with a simple, “no thanks, don’t smoke.” It’s strange the way that Ushiwaka keeps whispering in your ear, giving you sips of his drinks, and blowing smoke in your face. “Ushi, stop please, the smell is making me sick,” you whine. But he just pulls you closer to him, chuckling all the while and does it again. You’re laughing and poking his face, but it’s not out of joy... Watching Ushijima interact with you the whole night has been like watching a cat toy with a mouse.

Iwa grimaces when Ushiwaka tickles you. “Stop-stop-don’t-stop,” you giggle and howl. “She said to stop!” Iwa raises his voice. Ushijima’s eyes shoot towards Iwaizumi while you squirm off the couch. Your eyes are heavy as you walk towards a dark hallway and disappear into the shadows. Iwa’s eyes flick to the entrance to the hall. Ushiwaka sits in a contented silence, sipping a drink, “she’s so dramatic,” he sighs. He continues smoking, arm rested over the back of the purple velvet sofa. Ushijima takes a sip of his drink, swirling the ice in his glass. Iwa doesn’t move to break the silence no matter how expectant Ushijima’s expression was. He stamps out his cigar in the tray before addressing him.

“She’s awfully talkative, and incredibly fond of you…” Ushijima starts, an odd smirk painting his expression. Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow in intrigue and Ushijima’s face hardens. “She won’t shut up about you since she met you… it’s annoying...” Iwaizumi, remains quiet, the silence settling over the men like a thick fog. The only sounds are muffled club music and the ice tinkling against Ushijima’s glass. “I’m going to be honest as a friend… bad idea.” Iwaizumi can feel the rage bubbling inside his gut, “I don’t think that what’s going on between us is any of your-” He’s cut off by Ushijima.

“I’m really looking out for you Iwaizumi, girls can break hearts and Y/n is kind of known for that… she’s just a sweet soul, makes friends easily, but love? That’s harder for her… doesn’t have the best taste in men I’m afraid, I want to protect her and you from a situation where I can already see the conclusion… I get that you like her, everyone does.”  Iwazumi leans forward, “does that include you?” Ushijima is stone faced, then gives a cold laugh. “You’re funnier than I remember, Iwaizumi.”

Iwaizumi rises and heads towards the hall you disappeared down. If he sat in front of him any longer he was going to say something he regretted… and you still haven’t come back. He slips into the dark hallway as you’re exiting the bathroom. Your mask has been removed and even in the dim lighting you look pale. “Hey, what’s happened?” You look up at him embarrassed, your dress almost as wilted as you are. “Got sick…” you mutter. You’re shaking slightly, arms wrapped around yourself. “Oh Y/n, are you alright?” he sighs. His arm starts to reach for you but he thinks better of it, pulling it back to rest by his side. His eyes widen as he feels the warmth of your hand in his. He didn’t figure that you would want to be touched right now. But your fingers interlace with his,  your skin soft. “Are you good to drive?” you whisper. His hand instinctively tightens around yours protectively. “I only had whatever Ushijima gave us, it was strong but I’ve had water- yeah I’m good.” “Would you mind taking me home?” you ask, as you start to walk back towards the VIP room. “Sure, course,” Iwaizumi replies gently. He feels how your thumb brushes over the back of his hand in silent gratitude. The gesture has his heart beating hard against his ribs. Iwa walks forward, his eyes on you and nothing else. Your brow is furrowed and your expression painted serious which was unusual from how he knew you to act.

“Iwa’s taking me home now,” you announce and walk towards the stairs. Ushiwaka’s face hardens, “I can take her home, you shouldn’t trouble yourself,” he addresses Iwaizumi. You smile and turn around facing Ushiwaka. “But Ushi, ‘s ur birthday, you can’t leave this party jus’ ‘a take me home,” You turn to Iwa now. “Let’s go,” you say and Iwa nods, still holding your hand.  “Where’s my hug, princess?” Ushijima calls after you. You stop in your tracks and close your eyes, taking in a deep breath. You drop Iwa’s hand slowly, hesitantly. You walk back slowly and stand before his open arms. He lifts you and you groan. You’re still hugging him tightly but not quite with the same intimacy as before.

As Ushijima places you down you turn to look back at Iwa when Ushijima catches your face with his large hand. He coaxes your face back towards him then leans down. Ushiwaka locks eyes with Iwaizumi as he whispers something in your ear. Then he presses his lips to your cheek, still not moving his eyes away from Iwaizumi’s. Iwa tries his best to remain neutral but he can feel his lip creeping upwards in contempt. Ushiwaka is too prideful for his own good it seems.

You take Iwa’s hand again, leading him towards the exit. An exasperated look rests on your face. “What did he say to you?” Iwa asks. You sigh and shake your head. “‘S nothin’,  ya shouldn’t worry your pretty lil head ‘bout it.” Iwa can’t help but allow a smile. He raises an eyebrow at you, “think my head is pretty?” he asks. He’s met with your hazy gaze, “I do,” you say simply. Iwa wasn’t prepared for such a straightforward answer to his question.

Once out of the club, the valet pull Iwaizumi’s car around. He’s careful not to let you walk too far on your own. Sick, in those ridiculous shoes and still quite drunk, he opens the car door for you before hopping into the driver's seat. “Will you put your address in?” Iwa hands you his phone and you type it in as asked. “Thanks for doing this,” you sigh. “Yeah of course,” he says as he puts the car into gear. A few streets of city light pass by in silence. Your hands are resting in your lap but your body is still trembling. “I can- umm- pull over if you need me to…” You wave the thought away with your hand, “it was the smell of the cigar more than anything…” Iwa’s gut begins to boil again. Your voice is soft, almost defeated. He speaks before thinking better of it. “Does he always treat you like that?” You look at Iwa and make eye contact briefly before his attention is back on the road. “He was being a little extra weird today, maybe because y’all used to play volleyball together or… I dunno really, he just gets like that sometimes…” You trail off, allowing your thoughts to fade into the rearview. The silence is deafening and you feel the need to break it. “He’s really nice too though, don’t get me wrong, he cooks for me and calls to check in, he even gets me little gifts, so I know he cares.” Iwa shakes his head, “if he cared he would have stopped when you asked him to.” You take a breath, “I know but he was just having a night I guess…” Iwa pulls into your driveway as the GPS notifies him that he has ‘arrived at the destination’. He puts the car in park, “you don’t have to make excuses for him… it’s okay to be angry, if that’s how you feel.” You start to open the door, your fingers on the handle. “I’m not angry though, I’m just kinda hurt.” You open the door and start to get out, “okay, maybe a little angry too.” You laugh to yourself but not out of joy. It’s an ironic laugh and Iwa can hear the pain ringing inside of it. “Let me walk you inside.”