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suuuupernovaaa · 1 month

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The Book Seller - Azriel x f!OC (Part 3/3)

Summary: Azriel’s mate decides whether she wants to accept the mating bond, or if it’s all too much.

Content Warning: Adult, 18+, mentions of death and trauma, sexual content

Part 1, Part 2

The next day, Azriel came and fixed the door to my apartment. While he was there, he noticed a few cabinets askew, and fixed those as well.

Afterwards, we made our way down to sit outside the storefront and enjoy lunch by the river, and he noticed a wiggling floorboard, and a crooked bookshelf.

He fixed those, as well.

My heart swelled to watch him pouring energy into the small bookshop that had been my life for so long. It felt quite right, to see him wipe sweat from his brow as he aligned the book shelf just so, and the satisfied smile that crossed his face was enough to make my heart stop when he turned to me.

I laid awake all the previous night, thinking of the bits of information he’d shared with me. His childhood and the pain he’d endured. The way he found his brothers, Cassian and Rhysand. All the wars and trials they’d been through since then. The killing and the torture. The way the peaceful times we were living in now felt like a dream to him.

It had been hard to part ways with just a chaste kiss to his cheek, but I wasn’t sure how fast or slow we were going to move. Some mates took their time, and some took no time at all. I knew at least that he’d be back the next day, to fix the door and so much more.

I set a tray of food in front of us as we sat down to enjoy one of the last warm days we’d see for a while. The food was ordered from a cafe around the corner, as I knew the significance of preparing a meal for the man before me. Preparing and offering a meal was a sign of accepting the bond.

“Thank you for fixing all of that. My brother, I’ve asked him so many times, but he has a little one at home and not much time to help.”

He took a bite of his sandwich and nodded. “You can ask me now,” he said, and a fist squeezed around my heart.

“It’s a little funny that…” I trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence.

“Go on,” he said, setting his food down.

“We don’t really know each other, do we? We met last night but it feels, almost, like I could rely on you. If I decided to.”

The corners of his lips turned up in a small smile, and that was his only response.

—

Azriel stopped by every day over the next week. Sometimes when the store was open, just to quickly say hi, and twice after to take a walk along the chilly river and talk, hands or arms clasped together. His company was becoming easy, comforting, and I was growing accustomed to him so quickly.

I wondered, was it because we were mates, or would we have found ourselves drawn to each other otherwise?

Despite the ease and excitement, something loomed over me. Azriel was not a normal fae, not a carpenter or a tradesman, not someone I met down the street or at a bar. He was the Shadowsinger, at the hand of our High Lord, and there were parts of his life I was not sure I would ever be privy to. Would that be a true partnership, if part of himself was kept hidden away?

If our era of peace ended, he’d have to put himself in danger. What did being a Shadowsinger truly entail? Would his duties take him away from time to time?We never talked about it, because I didn’t ask.

I was too afraid to. What if he told me he couldn’t share that? What if he told me something I didn’t want to hear? What if he thought it was too soon for me to ask?

When he stopped in the following Saturday, early in the morning with a tea in hand for me, my father was in the shop.

My family joined for dinner together every Wednesday night at my parents house, and my eldest sister had been quick to announce I’d met my mate this past family dinner.

Though they had all insisted on meeting him, I’d not yet broached the topic with Azriel. My family was loud, boisterous, always in each other’s business, and fiercely loving but sometimes overwhelming. Azriel was quiet, and I was nervous that he wouldn’t appreciate them.

My father, a tall man but still a dwarf compared to the Shadowsinger, did not balk when Azriel entered and strode to my desk, handing me the tea.

“Good morning. I came to tell you -“

“Is this him?” father interrupted, and I chided him with a tisk.

“Father!” I hissed, and Azriel straightened. It occurred to me then that truly, Azriel was older than my parents, but fatherhood had made my father mature in a way that only being a parent can, and he looked at Azriel through those eyes.

The tension grew in the air quickly as the two men stared at each other until my father, who had never been described as intimidating a day in his life, grabbed Azriel’s hand in his and shook it violently up and down.

“Great to meet you, son,” my father said to Azriel, the High Lord’s Shadowsinger, his elder by 100 years, as if he was any other man on the street.

To his credit, Azriel returned the shake with enthusiasm, and tipped his head as a sign of respect. “You as well, sir,” he replied.

Father waved his hand to dismiss the title. “No formalities in family. Will you join us for dinner this week?”

Azriel looked to me, and I tried to communicate my apologies with my expression.

He cleared his throat. “Actually, I came to tell you, Holly, I leave tonight and will be gone about a week.”

I gripped my tea in my hands as my father wisely made some mumbled excuse to leave us alone at my desk. I stood from my chair and came around to meet Azriel, perching on the edge of my desk.

“Oh. Um, work?”

He nodded.

“I wanted to ask… how much I might be allowed to know. In the future.”

His face grew dark and serious. “I would tell you anything you want to know, though some of it you may not want to hear. It is not always pleasant, extracting secrets.”

I nodded gravely. “Oh. Right.”

“Which brings me to another point… being my mate, it could land you in trouble. One day. Soon or in the distant future. I’d feel better if you could defend yourself.”

“Fight?” I asked, glancing around at the book store to make sure no one was listening.

“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you never have to, but I would feel more at ease if I knew you could defend yourself. If need be.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. This was exactly what I’d been afraid of - the danger that came with the man in front of me. It only took a week to bubble to the surface.

“Cassian and Nesta have offered to train you.”

“Why not you?”

A small smile crossed his lips. “Just this week, while I’m gone. I’ll join once I return. I thought you’d be more comfortable, with Nesta there.”

Nervous, I reached out and grabbed his hand. He held mine fiercely.

“Will you be safe? Are you going somewhere dangerous?”

He shook his head, stepping closer to me. “No, no one will even know I’m there,” he replied quietly, and pressed his forehead to mind. I closed my eyes, breathing in his scent.

“Do you promise?” I whispered.

To my shock, Azriel’s lips found mine then. For the first time. Soft, warm, and all enveloping, I pressed my body flush to his and opened my mouth to allow him entry, a soft sigh escaping.

I had been waiting, every moment since we’d met, for him to kiss me. Stealing glances at his lips, kissing his cheek with every departure, it wasn’t enough.

He snaked his arms around my waist, and I held his beautifully sculpted face in my hands as his tongue explored.

Every single part of me was on fire in a way I had never imagined possible. I could feel sparks shooting from my toes and the ends of my hair. Azriel groaned quietly as he pressed me tighter to him, and I wrapped my arms around his neck to hold him in place.

He tasted like mint tea and I wove my hands through his silky, dark hair, desperate for more.

Too fast, too suddenly, Azriel pulled away and smiled down at me. Only a moment later, I heard my father approaching.

He must have heard him first.

I removed my hands from his hair and smoothed it, removing any traces that I had been there, as we continued to smile at each other.

“Cassian will fetch you at 6am tomorrow, and have you back in time to open at 10,” he said, and my face fell.

“Azriel, 6am? You cannot be serious.”

He was laughing as he walked out the door.

—

The next week was grueling. Every morning, I met Cassian outside at 6am so he could prove to me how weak I truly was. I had no strength, no skill, no balance.

Nesta assured me she had been the same before Cassian had forced her to train, but it was hard to believe, watching her move with such grace and strength now.

Not only was the training draining me, but I missed Azriel. It felt strange to admit it. Two weeks ago, I had only known him by reputation. Now, a day without him was painful.

Near the end of the week, I’d asked the girls to run the shop for me for the day so I could rest, and Nesta invited me to join her for breakfast after training, just the two of us.

Sweaty and tired, I slumped at the table and asked the house for some water and tea. It appeared magically, delighting me as it had every time this past week.

“Can I ask you something a little personal?” I asked once I’d drank the entire glass of water, and Nesta nodded warily.

Though I did consider us friends, Nesta was still guarded, and I wanted to tread carefully.

“Is it hard, to be Cassian’s mate?”

She surprised me by laughing. “In what sense? He is very annoying.”

“I mean, him being who he is. The position he holds.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “I don’t know if I can say. I was human before, and all I’ve known of being fae is these people, this life,” she gestured to the grand home around us, and I understood.

Her ushering into this life had been straight into grandeur. She had not lived life as a normal high fae, only royalty.

“I asked you to come here last week because I wanted you to meet Azriel. Something felt right, when I thought of you two together. I can’t explain it. I almost knew. Once the idea occurred to me, of you two together, I couldn’t shake it. It nagged at me until I brought you here.”

Though I had suspected, she hadn’t confirmed it before.

I pursed my lips and looked down at the full plated breakfast before me.

“He seems worth it, to me. Worth whatever… trouble, it could bring. To be his,” I said finally, picking up my fork. “I don’t know if I’m worthy of him.”

Nesta reached over and grabbed my arm. “You are. I would not trouble with you, if you weren’t.” She spoke plainly, stating a fact with no emotion behind it, and nodded in return.

—

I returned home early in the afternoon, greeted my employees, and headed up for a long bath and possibly a nap.

After soaking for a very long time to remove all the sweat and grime, I dressed in a simple tan dress, and pulled a book from my night stand. The bath had rejuvenated me enough to no longer need to sleep, so I sat next to the window to read.

Only ten minutes later, I closed the book, unable to focus on the words on the page. They danced around, always spelling Azriel in my mind.

A scary but not entirely unwelcome thought greeted me then: I was in love with the shadowsinger. With his soft smiles and tight expressions. His attention to detail and need to care and fix. His past and present and hopefully, his future.

I wasn’t just falling in love with him because the living bond between us brought us together, but for who he was. I would have loved him without this bond. Would have been struck by his beauty and grace. The quiet assuredness with which he moved through the world.

As I got lost deeper and deeper into my own thoughts, a knock came at the door. Probably Aurelia or Jessiminda, needing something for the store. I placed my book on the shelf before crossing my small apartment to pull open the door.

Neither girl stood there, but instead, Azriel barreled in, sweeping me into his arms in a warm embrace that I eagerly returned.

“You’re back!” I exclaimed, breathing him in. How fully I missed him really hit me then, as I held him safely in my arms. It was as if something had been wrong the last week, something missing from me, a part of my soul, and here it was, returned.

“I came back as soon as I could,” he said, his face in my hair. The unspoken part of that sentence seemed to be, to get back to you.

“How was training?” he asked as he pulled away, just a few inches to look at me, and I could not stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“I’m sore everywhere. I could not kick anyone’s ass.”

He laughed, a low chuckle. “Give it time.”

“I have been thinking… Jessaminda wants more hours, and the store is doing well. I could have her open every morning for me, so I only work afternoons.”

His smile grew. “You don’t want to train at six am.”

“Of course not. But also, it would mean more time for me.”

For us.

Through the bond, I felt a ripple of joy. Only once or twice before had I felt what I thought were Azriel’s emotions - we wouldn’t truly be able to feel each other until I accepted the bond, and we hadn’t discussed that yet.

“Good idea,” was his full reply, and I beamed at him.

“Are you hungry? I could make a stew.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Are you offering to cook for me? Now?”

I sauntered away from him into the kitchen, gathering the supplies I needed and lighting the stove.

“Sit, and tell me about your trip,” I instructed as I began chopping. He sat at my small dining table, looking as nervous as he was capable of after centuries of skillfully hiding his emotions, and told me of his trip. Simple fact finding and information gathering in the autumn court, where he’d also met up with some old friends. I asked questions, and he readily answered, giving me any information I wanted to know, which brought comfort to my heart.

When the stew was done, I filled two bowls, and turned to him.

“Before I give this to you, I want you to know… I think you’re the most incredible man I’ve ever met. If you weren’t my mate, I would still find you as handsome, as impressive, as captivating, as awe-inspiring as I do now. I don’t care that we’ve only just met or there’s so much we have to learn about each other. I’m greatly looking forward to that.”

I sat down across from him, and wondered if my family would be upset that we’d done this in private. Many fae made a ceremony of this moment, but I couldn’t imagine that was something Azriel would want, and I didn’t really either.

There was a look in his eyes that I thought might be wonder, or awe, I set the bowl and spoon down in front of Azriel, and waited.

He lifted the spoon and stared at me with such intensity that it made my stomach churn with nerves.

“I have waited 500 years for you. Had I known what I was waiting for, I would have agreed to wait 500 more.” His voice trembled with emotion, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

We were silent as he took his first bite, and finished the bowl in mere minutes. I hadn’t even touched mine, I realized, and took my first bite as he took his last.

We stared at each other then, the air charged, and I felt it. The bond strengthening, solidifying between us, and I closed my eyes and listened.

I could feel him so clearly. His pain, his joy, and drowning everything else out, how badly Azriel wanted me in that moment. How desperate he was to touch me, and the thread he was using to hold himself back until he got a signal from me.

When I opened my dark eyes, his golden eyes bore into mine, passion sparking behind them.

“Yes,” was all I said, and all he needed, to sweep the table aside and pull me into his sturdy, waiting arms.

His mouth found mine eagerly, and his hands roamed my body. I found myself beyond glad I’d had time to bathe before he arrived.

He lifted me up by the shelf of my rear, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He walked the few steps over to my bed and without breaking the kiss, lay me on my soft green bedding, kneeling between my spread legs.

“Azriel,” I moaned, and I felt how badly he wanted me as he pressed himself into me. I arched my back, searching for more friction.

He reached down, pulling at the hem of my dress slowly, pushing it up over my thighs, his fingers trailing over my stomach, and I sat up so he could pull it over my head.

I made quick work of the buttons of his shirt, revealing his broad golden chest and firm abs.

“Gods,” I hissed as he tossed the shirt across the room. This sculpted angel before me was enough to send me into a spiral. He pushed me back onto the bed, and looked down at me as something to devour.

“I need to taste you,” he said, his voice all breath and gravel, and I nodded eagerly.

He started at my neck with lazy, languid kisses, running his warm tongue over my skin, and then down. Over my chest, he stopped to take my nipple into his mouth, biting and sucking gently. I arched my back, pressing myself into his mouth, and we groaned together.

Down, further down he went, trailing his tongue over my naval until he reached the apex of my thighs, and did not waste any time teasing me.

He pulled my sensitive bud between his lips and sucked. I was so swollen, so sensitive, and so desperate for him. I moaned his name and put my hands into his hair, guiding him as he truly devoured me. He slowed and sped, and stuck his tongue deep inside me, causing another loud moan to escape my chest.

“Good girl,” he murmured, and I nearly came at the sound of it.

“I need you,” I replied.

“Need me where, baby?”

“Inside me. Please. Now,” I panted.

He stood up slowly, torturing me, and removed the buckle from his pants, and slid them down over taught, muscular thighs.

The bulge in his underwear was obscenely large, and I wondered how on earth it was going to fit. He removed his underwear and sprang free, and my mouth watered.

He was on top of me once more, his fingers dragging through my wet folds, circling my clit, as I moaned into his mouth.

I spread my legs as wide as they would go, and reached down to grip his considerable length, and place it at my entrance.

“Please,” I breathed, and my mate’s eyes met mine. I felt him, his love and his admiration and his lust, surging through the bond. “Azriel.”

“Holly,” he whispered, reverently, worshipping my name as he worshipped my body, and slid slowly inside me.

“Gods!” I exclaimed, and dug my nails into his back.

He groaned, stopping to allow me to adjust to his size. “Good girl. You can take it all. Be a good girl for me,” he whispered in my ear.

When he was finally fully seated in me, to the hilt, he stilled again. I felt impossibly full but gods, so good, and I wiggled, encouraging him to move.

He chuckled and placed a rough kiss on my mouth before beginning to move. Slowly, carefully at first.

“More. I won’t break.”

He moaned again then, a sweet sound in my ears, and picked up the pace, sliding in and out of me faster and faster until he reached a punishing pace, and I was making noises in his ear I’d never made before.

“Come for me, mate,” he demanded in my ear, and I came apart around him with a blinding scream, clamping my legs around his waist and scratching my nails down his bag.

He groaned a moment later, finding his release, and collapsed on top of me.

I was thoroughly devoured.

—

We stayed in my apartment for four days together, learning and exploring each other, and I had never felt so blissfully happy.

Or so sore.

The frenzy. I’d heard of it before. It was a dangerous time for newly fated males, but Azriel and I stayed locked up together for the worst of it.

When we were not actively learning each other, we talked, or ate, or slept, or read together. I thought life like this forever might be okay, but of course, it couldn’t last.

On the fifth day, Azriel recommended we might emerge and let our friends and family know we had affirmed the bond, as if they didn’t know. I had sent word to my employees to run the store without me, to my family that I’d miss dinner, and I knew he’d sent word to his family too.

I had not known they’d planned a party, or else I would have insisted we stay locked away for much longer.

As we left through my apartment window, I already wished we were back inside, Azriel inside me and all around me, where nothing and no one else existed.

Sadly, we had responsibilities outside, and decisions to make.

Like where we would live. The thought of Azriel residing with me in my small apartment was cozy, but laughable. He spent most of his time at the House of Wind, but also had a room in the High Lord’s newest home, and his townhome central to the city.

I had suggested it might be nice to have a place all our own. Near the water, and my store, somewhere just for us.

Azriel had liked the idea so well, he’d taken me against the window as we looked out at the city, planning.

We arrived at the House of Wind as the sun was setting, entering through a door in the courtyard that I’d not yet seen. Azriel led me to his room, dark and quiet and without decoration, and I wondered what our new home would look like.

He opened his closet and from within, drew out a golden gown, the color of his eyes. It was beautiful, floor length with a plunging neck line, long adorned sleeves, and intricate bead work throughout.

“For you,” he said, bringing it over to me. “From Feyre.”

I reached out to touch the most lovely dress I’d ever seen. “I can’t accept this.”

He shrugged. “You can,” he replied simply. Money had not yet crossed my mind - what kind of salary did a Shadowsinger draw? Surely more than a book peddler.

I turned and allowed him to remove my dress, and once I stood nearly naked before him, I leaned over the black dresser in front of me, bearing myself to him as I stepped out of my shoes.

His breath hissed between his teeth, and I smiled. I turned and placed my hands on his shoulders, stepping into the dress. He drug it up my body, and stepped around me to zip it up. It fit perfectly, making curves where I’d thought I had none. I turned to look in the mirror, pushing my hair from my face, and decided on a simple, long braid, so as not to distract from the dress.

When I finished, Azriel grabbed my hand. “I also have this for you,” he said, holding out a ring. A thin gold band adorned with one shining purple jewel. Simple, and lovely, and I wordlessly spread my fingers so he could slide it on.

Two weeks ago, I was alone. I was lonely. Time is a funny thing.

—

I expected at most, a handful of people when we entered the dining room, but as we grew closer, the chatter of a crowd was hard to miss.

I gasped when we entered. The hall was decorated beautifully, in purple and gold everywhere, flowers and tapestries and other finery as far as the eye could see.

Everyone in my family was there. My parents, all three siblings and their spouses, and their children as well, five in total.

All mixed in with Azriel’s family, Rhysand and Feyre, Cassian and Nesta, Amren and Mor standing with a beautiful woman who had to be Feyre’s third sister, hanging on the arm of a stunning man with red hair.

“Oh gods!” I shouted.

“Surprise!” Cassian hollered, igniting a laugh through the small crowd.

“Aunt Holly!” my youngest nephew ran to me as I entered and continued taking in the scene, and I bent down to scoop him into my arms. Nearing five, I would soon be unable to pick him up and throw him around, and I relished in holding him when I could.

I turned to Azriel, who smiled at me with mischief in his eyes. “Did you know?”

He shrugged, confirming it. “It was Feyre’s idea.”

Well, my mate was nothing if not clever. He knew I could not be mad if it was my High Lady’s idea. She approached then, arms open to wrap me and my nephew wiggling in my arms in a tight hug.

“I don’t know how you feel about surprises, but it didn’t feel right not to celebrate a new family member.”

I tried hard, but couldn’t resist a small bow. “Thank you, My Lady.”

She tisked. “Enough of that today. Just Feyre.”

Aiken jumped from my arms and ran back to my family, and we spent the rest of the night laughing and drinking as our two families blended. The atmosphere in the room was light, joyful, and calm.

I knew it would not always be this way. There would be very hard times ahead, and times of even greater joy and celebration.

Azriel and I were just getting started. It was all so new and fresh, but I was so sure of it too. So sure of him. The mating bond flowed between us, steady and strong, and we felt when the other was ready to end the night. I saw my family off before Rhysand and Mor helped them all home, promising we’d be at every Wednesday dinner we could, and we bid Feyre and her sisters farewell.

We returned to Azriel’s room quietly, hands clasped together, and I wondered if someone could be too happy.

If it was dangerous, to be too content, so quickly. To have so much change come into your life and to be so incandescently happy with it.

Was I asking for something terrible? Was I inviting in chaos and danger, simply by being overjoyed?

If so, I would not have changed a thing. Would not have chosen another mate, another family, another life for all the coin on the continent.

Azriel wrapped me in his arms as we fell asleep a while later, and I listened to his heartbeat in his chest, counting them.

Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump.

A beautiful sound. The sound of my mate, alive and well.

“What are you thinking of?” he asked, sensing my overwhelming emotions down the bond.

“That I love you,” I replied quietly, eyes still closed, heart beating wildly.

I heard his speed up, too.

A confusing mix of emotions came through the bond. Pain, longing, fear, lust, but there under all of that, there was love.

“I don’t deserve you. You are good and pure. You are kind. Faultless.” His gravely voice was strained, and I propped myself up to see his golden eyes shining.

“You deserve every happiness in the world, and I will see to it that you have them, my mate.”

He leaned up, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips.

“I love you, too,” he said, and shouted it down the bond as well.

We fell asleep intertwined in his dark sheets, only love enveloping us.

The book seller and the shadowsinger.

@rcarbo1

#azriel fic #azriel #azriel x oc #acotar fanfiction #acotar #azriel shadowsinger

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bonny-kookoo · 9 months

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Hi bonny ninny, ruu here

I like your 'Why not' & 'How so' series.

I feel like oc is tone sensitive. Would you write a drabble where Jungkook uses a tone which hurts & upsets oc. Like they are not even arguing but something about tobe hurts her. How would Jungkook consoles her? They would be so cute in this DDLG theme. 🥺

"At this rate I'm gonna have to sleep back at my place again." Jungkook laughs, as he watches you make your bed, adjusting all the different stuffed animals.

You're not sure what exactly he means by that. Or more so, how serious he is.

You don't want him to sleep back at his place and leave you alone- you've become too attached and fond of his late night cuddling and the way he warms up the bed beneath the blankets, but you also love your stuffed animals too much to give them away, or let them simply sit on a shelf. Is he making you choose?

Do you want to choose?

The entire rest of the early day, you can't stop overanalyzing his words, no matter what. You're suddenly hyper-sensitive to the way he says stuff, the tone of his voice, the words he uses, or his body language accompanying every sentence. Is he really that annoyed by you and your habits? But you thought he liked you the way you really are?

"Let me do that for you." He says as you stir in the pot preparing some warm food for the two of you, hand taking the spoon from you. "Can't have you making a mess again like last time." He chuckles, but something in the way he shakes his head just.. makes you feel oddly guilty.

You're not that good at keeping up attention to one thing only for long. You're not sure why- it's not even that you can't cook, you just start doing ten things at once, and just like last time, a few days prior, things boil over and spill, or stuff almost burns in the pan or the oven almost stays on for too long. You can't help it.

Maybe he's starting to have second thoughts. Just like you feared.

"M' sorry." You mumble when he places the filled up bowl in front of you, hand stuttering a bit as he frowns.

"What're you sorry for?" He wonders, sitting down across from you, watching how you only reluctantly pick up your spoon to swirl it around in your bowl, watching the ingredients dance around in the broth. "Eyes up here, baby." He requests, and you do so- though only for a second.

"I'll.. try and put the plushies away." You explain, looking down again. "And I'll concentrate better when cooking too. And I'll start making sure I'll keep track of my own stuff and-" You rant, but he reaches out to hold your hand, stopping you.

"What's brought that up?" He wonders, confused. "You don't have to get rid of stuff, and neither do you need to do better at anything." He offers.

"But I'm annoying you." You say, meekly. "You said you won't sleep here anymore with all the stuffies in my bed-"

"Oh fuck, baby, no-" He sighs, laughing a bit to himself. "How long has that been bubbling up inside you?" He asks, and you shrug. "I'm sorry if I made it seem like I was upset at you. I was just picking on you a little- I didn't mean to make you feel like you did something wrong." He reassures.

"But you're right?" You answer, and he shakes his head again.

"Am I?" He chuckles. "You love your stuffed animals. I know you've got a name for each and every one of them, and that's cute. And they don't bother me at all, since you put them on the carpet every night anyways- it just looks funny with how much space they take up during the day." Jungkook explains. "And I also know that you've got a bit of trouble staying focused, so I'm not mad when you get a bit sidetracked while cooking. If anything, I only worry sometimes, which is why I tend to take over sometimes, to make sure you don't get hurt." He moves on. "I really don't mind keeping your doctors appointments or other stuff in mind. I don't mind doing stuff for you, or taking care of you. I really don't." He presses on. "I love you the way you are. I'd be stupid to try and change you."

"I don't know why I thought you meant something bad." You mumble, and he yet again just smiles.

"It was most likely my tone. Let's make an agreement, alright?" He says, and you nod. "I'll be more clear to tell you when I'm only making fun- and you'll tell me if you think I'm being too mean."

You nod at that, glad that it was only a huge misunderstanding-

happy that you were wrong after all.

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook imagine #bts jungkook imagine #bts jungkook fanfic #jungkook x reader #jungkook imagines #jeon jungkook imagines #jeon jungkook fanfic

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suddencolds · 9 months

Text

The Worst Timing | [2/?]

happy (late) new year :') after a month (and a lot of editing and dissatisfaction), i am back with part 2 of the 'yves has had too easy of a time' series (6.4k words). you can read [part 1] here!

this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!

Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)

—

When they get to the hotel Aimee’s booked for them, it’s already late enough to be dark out. Yves helps unload their suitcases from the back, while Leon loads them up onto a luggage cart.

It’s an exceptionally nice hotel—picturesque brick walls, glossy windows all in a row, slanted red rooftops rising up into the sky. He’d looked at it briefly when Aimee consulted him about the bookings, but it looks even more like a castle in person, like something straight out of a storybook. Yves will have to remember to thank Aimee and Genevieve again for picking such a nice place for them to stay at.

They check in at the lobby. Yves makes sure the suitcases make their way up to Leon and Victoire’s room, which is on his and Vincent’s floor, but at the other end of the hallway. (“Don’t be late to breakfast tomorrow,” he tells them, sternly, and Leon—who has slept through his alarms for as long as Yves has lived with him—laughs. “I’m especially talking to you,” Yves adds, looking straight at him).

Then he wheels the luggage cart down the hallway. “I’m so ready to crash,” he says, to Vincent. “It’s been a long day. Are you tired?”

“I’ll be tired once I lay down,” Vincent says. He carefully extricates one of the key cards and holds it out to the door card reader.

The interior of the hotel room is a little colder than the hallway is. Vincent flicks on the light, slips the key card back into its designated slot, and leaves his shoes in a neat line at the door. Yves follows him in.

Their room is a standard suite—there’s a small sitting area just next to the entrance, a bathroom off to the side, and a door frame—though not a proper door—which leads to the bedroom. On the far end, translucent white curtains give way to a sliding door which opens up to the balcony. It’s a nice room, Yves thinks, with a nice view of the rest of the hotel, its pool and gardens, the circular sun umbrellas stretching out floors below them. It’s only when Vincent hesitates, standing in the bedroom, that Yves realizes what’s wrong.

The bedroom has a singular queen-sized bed, and nothing else.

Of course. It makes sense for this to be the living arrangement, if they’re really dating.

“I can take the couch,” Yves says, clearing his throat, which doesn’t feel any better than it did earlier.

Vincent turns to look at him.

“I mean, this whole pretend-relationship thing doesn’t have to extend to us sharing a bed.”

Mentally, he kicks himself for not having the foresight to predict this. Just because Vincent is fine with putting on a show in front of his friends—and in this case, family—doesn’t mean that Vincent will be fine sharing a bed with him when they’re in private.

“You can have the bed,” Vincent says. “The bed will probably be warmer.”

Whether that’s a comment about how Yves has been too cold all day, or whether it’s just an offhanded appraisal which has nothing to do with him, Yves doesn’t know.

“It’s fine,” Yves says. “I don’t mind the sofa. Besides, hotels usually have extra blankets. I’m sure they’re just hidden in some drawer somewhere.”

He rummages through a few of the cabinets and looks through the closet until he finds what he’s looking for—a feather comforter, folded neatly on the top shelf. He takes it down, keeping it folded under his arm.

“See,” he says, flashing Vincent a smile. “I’ll be perfectly warm, like this.” Vincent still looks a little unconvinced. “You should wake me if you’re not,” he says. “I don’t mind switching.”

“Duly noted,” Yves says, even though he has no intention of waking Vincent for any reason.

“The couch probably extends into a pull-out bed,” Vincent says, already heading back into the living room. “It should be more comfortable. I can help you set it up.”

“I can do it,” Yves says. All this talking is not helping with his throat. Worse, somewhere over the course of the past couple hours, there’s a faint tickle that’s managed to settle into his sinuses.

“It’s the least I can do, if I’m taking the bed,” Vincent says.

Yves is about to say more, but he finds that he really needs to sneeze. He lifts his arm to his face, his eyes watering, his breath hitching—

“Hh-! hHehh’IIZSCHh-IIEW!”

“Bless you,” Vincent calls, from the next room over.

“Thanks,” Yves says, turning into his shoulder with a small cough. His breath hitches again, irritatingly. “hHeh-! HEHH’IiITSHHiEW! snf-!”

When he heads into the living room, Vincent is already almost done setting up the pull-out bed. Yves helps him lock down the legs of the frame.

“Thanks,” Yves says, fluffing out the blanket he’s holding so that he can lay it out over the mattress. “All set up.”

He looks the bed over. It looks inviting enough—a little smaller than the bed in the bedroom, the mattress thinner, but fluffy and clean regardless. Vincent steps past him to duck into the bedroom and emerges a moment later, carrying two pillows.

“Are these your pillows?” Yves says.

“They’re yours now.”

“I can sleep without pillows.”

“They gave me two sets, anyways,” Vincent says. “I wouldn’t have made use of these ones.”

“Okay.” Tentatively, Yves takes a seat at the edge of the mattress. From the doorway, he gets a limited view of the bedroom—he can see the curtains at the far end, the desk pushed up against the wall, and the very foot of the bed. “Do you think this is what couples do when they’re traveling and they get in a fight?”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Vincent asks.

“It might as well be,” Yves says.

“If your family walks in and sees that I’ve banished you to the sofa, I don’t think I’ll ever be forgiven,” Vincent says, so seriously that it almost doesn’t register as a joke. Yves laughs.

“You can just say I snore,” he says. “Or, worse. Maybe I kick you in my sleep.”

“Do you?”

Yves doesn’t—at least, he’s been told he doesn’t—but it’s of no consequence. They’re not going to be sharing a bed. “Luckily for you, you won’t have to find out.”

He gets settled—sets his suitcase out on one of the side tables, sets out all his toiletries in the bathroom, puts the clothes he’s planning to wear for tomorrow in a neat stack, and hangs up the suit he’s going to wear for the wedding in the closet. He’d been careful folding it, but he’ll probably have to give it another good iron before the wedding date. By the time he has everything accounted for, the bathroom door is closed, and the shower’s running.

The hotel has left them a couple bottles of water on the nightstand but he heads downstairs to buy a couple more from the on-site convenience store on the first floor. Victoire had them exchange dollars for euros at the airport, which Yves thinks he might have forgotten to do in their haste. Even though she’s the youngest of the three of them, sometimes he thinks she is the one with the most common sense.

He strikes up a brief conversation with the cashier, in French that he thinks is fairly fluent but probably accented—it’s been awhile since he’s gotten any practice with it. His speaking is good, but there are some colloquialisms and some idioms that he’s not familiar with and ends up having to ask about.

By the time he gets back up to the bedroom, bottled waters in hand, Vincent is done showering, his hair still a little damp.

“I got us extra waters,” Yves says. “There’s a convenience store down on the first floor.”

“Oh,” Vincent says. “Thanks. You didn’t have to.” He looks nice, even with his hair damp, even though he’s wearing just a t-shirt and shorts to sleep, Yves thinks, and then immediately tables that thought.

“It was nice to stretch my legs,” Yves says. “And nice to have a chance to practice my French. My relatives are going to be disappointed in me if I sound worse than I did last year.”

“Are you fluent?”

“Fluent enough to hold a proper conversation. Not fluent enough to not sound like a foreigner. I grew up speaking French and English, but obviously in the states, there aren’t as many opportunities to practice French.”

“I don’t think you would have lost much of it,” Vincent says, as if from experience.

Yves laughs. “For my own sake, let’s hope not.”

When he steps into the bathroom, the mirror is still fogged up from the steam. He swipes a hand over the glass to clear enough of it so that he can see.

He looks fine, still, at least outwardly—a little tired, maybe, if the dark circles under his eyes are anything to go by. There’s a faint flush to his complexion, too, which is strange, because he doesn’t feel like he has a fever. He’s just a little colder than usual, is all.

All in all, he still looks passable. At first glance, it doesn’t seem very evident that anything is wrong at all.

He takes a shower, cranks the water up until it’s almost scalding, and stands under the hot water, shutting his eyes. The warmth is a welcome change. It’s the first time today that he’s been really, properly warm—if only because he’s turned the water up a couple degrees higher than he usually has it at.

The water splashes over his shoulders. He leans his head back, taking in a deep breath of the steam.

It’s fine. It will be fine. He’ll drink tons of water, take all the vitamin C he can find, and sleep this off tonight. He’ll be good as new tomorrow.

—

When Yves blinks awake, it’s still dark out.

The first thing that registers to him is that he’s cold.

What started off as a slight headache has turned into something much worse—his head is throbbing, and even with the blanket, he’s freezing. The air conditioning in the room is on—he can hear the low hum of it through the vents—and everything feels unbearably frigid. Even the bedsheets, which are at the very least warm from his body heat, seem to always be losing heat, unpleasantly, when he shifts.

When he checks his phone, the time onscreen is 3:45 am. Too late to call the front desk and ask them to send up more blankets, probably—even if they are technically in operation, he doesn’t want to be that one asshole to ask for a favor at this time of day.

He’ll ask tomorrow, he thinks, at a more reasonable hour. It’s almost morning, anyways. Maybe if he manages to get back to sleep, he won’t feel the cold as much.

There’s a dull pressure to his sinuses, a slight tickle that seems only to sharpen as he rubs his nose. His breath catches, too quickly for him to do anything to attend to the subsequent—

“Hheh—! hHEHH’iISHHhi-iEw!”

Fuck. The sneeze is loud enough to echo a little within the confines of the living room. Vincent is in the next room over. Vincent is asleep, presumably, like Yves should be.

And Yves’s nose is starting to tickle again.

He raises the blankets to his face, presses his nose to them to muffle the next—

“hhEH— hehh’IZschhH-IIEW! snf-!”

The sound is marginally quieter this time, muffled into the cotton, but it’s far from silent. He hopes, desperately, that it’s quiet enough, or that Vincent is a heavy enough sleeper for it not to matter. There isn’t even a proper door between them.

He reaches up to swipe a hand over his eyes. How did this get so bad so quickly? His head feels heavy, and every sneeze that tears through him is harsh enough to scrape at his already-raw throat—whatever hope he’d had for sleeping it off seems to be diminishing with every passing minute.

He listens, for a moment, for anything: any shifting from the room over, any motion, any footsteps. But to his relief, there’s nothing.

His head is swimming. Worse, he still has to sneeze. The tissue box is on the nightstand in the bedroom Vincent is in, but Yves thinks that it would be too unwise to make a trip right now and risk waking Vincent up a good three hours before sunrise.

“hHh-! hhH-!...”

Fuck. He stays frozen like that, for a moment, one hand hovering over his nose and mouth. His nose tickles, badly, kept just narrowly on edge. It feels like one wrong breath would be enough to set off a sneeze, but sometimes it seems to evade him at the last second—he can’t seem to get his body to settle on something decisive. “hhHEh-!”

The sneeze is unexpected, when it comes, at last—loud and forceful and vicious.

“hehH’NGKT’shhH’EEW!”

A short burst of pain shoots through his temples. Yves can’t claim he’s ever been good at stifling, and this attempt is no exception. It’s not much quieter than the others, even muffled into his pillow, and the attempt to stifle has only made the pressure in his head feel worse.

“Hheh… hh-!” He sniffles. His eyes are watering so much he thinks they might spill over. “hHeh… hh-hHih-HEHh’DJJSHh’iEEW!”

This one he muffles into his hands, ducking forward into his chest. The relief he feels from letting out the sneeze is unfortunately short-lived. He’s nowhere close to done. He can feel it, in the tickle in his nose which refuses to let up, in the pressure to his sinuses which only seems to worsen with each sneeze.

For a moment, Yves contemplates spending the rest of the night just outside their room, out in the hallway. It will almost certainly be colder, he would be quieter there, at the very least—there would be a proper door and a wall between him and Vincent, and that’s something, isn’t it?

Before he can seriously consider it, he’s snapping forward at the waist, muffling another loud sneeze into the covers.

“hhHeh-iIDDSHHhh’YyiiEW!”

He finds himself coughing, after, muffling the coughs tightly into the feather blanket in an attempt to cough more quietly. He shivers, huddling deeper into the covers. His head is pounding. Every time he swallows, sharp, hot pain lances his throat.

He hears nothing from the room over, even when he listens carefully. This much is a relief—truthfully, he would feel awful if he were keeping Vincent up because of this. Yves has survived on less sleep—back in university, 6am crew practice meant waking up early even when he’d been up late to finish projects or coursework, or otherwise out late with friends—but the thought of keeping Vincent up makes something uncomfortable settle in his stomach. Vincent hadn’t slept at all during the flight. He must be tired, now. The last thing he needs—after the stress of being surrounded by strangers in a foreign country, after traveling for almost 10 hours straight, after being assigned to room with his coworker, of all people—is to be woken up at an ungodly hour just because Yves can’t keep this damn cold under wraps.

Yves thinks he should try to sleep too, if only because it means he won’t be awake to succumb to the next sneeze that threatens to tear through him.

But if he’s entirely honest with himself, he’s not sure if sleep is going to come to him anytime soon.

—

Yves doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up to his 7:30am alarm so tired that he feels like he hasn’t slept at all

“Morning,” Vincent says, emerging in the doorway. He’s fully dressed already, his shirt crisply ironed, the collar upright, his hair neatly styled.

“You’re fast,” Yves says. His voice sounds a little hoarse—all the sneezing last night probably hasn’t done it any favors. But if Vincent can tell that it sounds off, he doesn’t say. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Not really,” Vincent says. “We have time.”

“Give me a few minutes to get ready,” Yves says, hauling himself out of bed. “I’ll be out in five.”

He changes in record speed, washes his face, brushes his teeth, and stuffs everything he can see himself needing into a backpack to take down to breakfast.

When he emerges, Vincent is waiting for him in the hallway.

“How did you sleep?” Yves asks.

“Fine,” Vincent says. “You?”

“I slept well enough,” Yves says, before muffling a yawn into his hand. At Vincent’s pointed glance at him, he adds, “I’m just a little tired. It’s probably jetlag. It’s what, like, 2am over in New York?”

“1:42,” Vincent says, checking his watch. “Is your whole family going to be at breakfast?”

“I’m not sure if everyone’s up,” Yves says. “But Leon and Victoire will be. I told them to be downstairs by 8, so obviously they’ll kill me if I’m not there first.”

The breakfast lounge is on the first floor, a few hallways down from the reception desk. Yves saves a table for them.

He isn’t very hungry, for some reason. Still, he fills his plate with breakfast pastries and scrambled eggs and grabs a cup of hot tea while he’s at it. He really doesn’t want to lose his voice entirely before the ceremony. Even with his jacket on—which is probably even excessive, considering the temperature of the lobby—he isn’t as warm as he’d like to be.

Victoire joins them next. She waves to Vincent as she passes. “Hope you guys got some sleep,” she says innocently.

Yves says, “We got perfectly good sleep, thank you.”

“Morning,” Leon says, appearing in the doorway at 7:59.

“You’re really cutting it close,” Yves says, sniffling.

“It’s 7:59,” Leon says. “Whether I’m on time is a binary, not a sliding scale. I’m entirely on time.”

The table Yves picked can fit more than four, so they spread themselves out through the seats. “Mom and dad said they’re having breakfast at one of the cafes nearby,” Victoire says, shrugging her sweater off and leaving it perched on the back of her seat. “They said they’d report back if it’s anything life changing.”

“There’s a welcome party tonight,” Yves says to Vincent, “For everyone who’s flown in. You’ll get to meet them then.”

“Is there anything your parents hate in a partner?” Vincent asks.

“Don’t worry too much. I don’t think— hEHh…” Yves scoots back from the table turning away as he reaches blindly for one of the cocktail napkins he’d taken. “HEHh’DDJJSHh-iiEW! Ugh, sorry.” His nose has been running all morning—he’d made sure to take a generous stack, and stuff some of them into his pockets for later, but it’s been all of fifteen minutes and he’s already nervous that he might run out. “I don’t you could get them to hate you even if you tried.”

“Mom and dad met in college, at a bar,” Leon says. Yves, who has heard this story many times before, busies himself with eating, and tries hard not to visibly shiver. In a way, he’s grateful to the two of them for filling in the space for him—the less he strains his voice today, the better. “Mom was super drunk, and for some reason when she started talking to dad the conversation topic turned to, like, something super specific and not at all romantic.”

“It was whether or not it’s ethical to clone extinct species,” Victoire says, idly folding her napkin into a pinwheel. “Though this was before it had ever been done.”

“Apparently she was drunk enough to ask his hand in marriage mid argument, and he was drunk enough to say yes, because he thought it was a joke,” Leon says. “And it was a joke. But he proposed to her seriously a year later, and all she said was ‘at least you kept your promise.’”

“But now they’re happily married,” Vincent says.

Leon nods. “They’ve been happily married for almost thirty years now. Anyways, my point is that whatever relationship you have with Yves, you don’t have to try and impress them. There’s no need to overthink it.”

“I understand,” Vincent says. “My parents got married because my dad did well in a business competition at the time, and my mom thought he was going to make a lot of money.”

“And how did that turn out?” Victoire says, interested, propping her head up on one hand.

Yves watches Vincent cut a pastry into four even pieces. “Better than you might expect,” Vincent says.

—-

The welcome dinner is held at a local restaurant—Aimee and Genevieve have rented out the outdoor space for seating. The table—a long table that seats thirty, or so—is set with tall, elegant white candles, all in a row; wine glasses with delicate stems; vases spilling over with flowers—lilacs, pink and white roses, orchids.

Above them, string lights are strung up in neat lines. When Yves sees Aimee, he doesn’t drop all of his things to run over and hug her, but it’s a close thing.

“Yves! You made it,” she says.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he tells her, in French. “God. Did you plan out all of this? It looks gorgeous.” “Genevieve did a lot of it,” she says. “She has a good eye for decorations.”

Genevieve is off to the side, talking to someone who Yves recognizes as her sister—Yves follows Aimee’s gaze over to where she’s standing. When he looks back, Aimee is smiling in a way Yves has never seen her smile before—the sort of fond, private smile that he feels like he isn’t sure he’s supposed to be seeing.

Yves is stricken, for a moment. It’s so clear that she’s in love. It shows all over her face, plainly, the kind of love that’s uncontestable; the kind of love that makes love, of all things, look simple. Has he ever looked like that, to someone else?

“How have you been?” he asks. “I imagine preparations have been hectic.”

“Never better,” she says, turning back to face him at last. “You’re right—it’s been exhausting. But I feel like the adrenaline is carrying me through, you know? Like I’m so happy this is happening.”

“You two deserve a perfect wedding,” Yves says, and means it. He clears his throat, sniffling. It’s a little cold out, even though the sun hasn’t gone down yet; he really hopes his nose doesn’t start to run visibly. “If you ever need any help—with last minute preparations, or if anything comes up, or if you need someone on transportation or moving things—let me know. Even if it’s like, 3am or something. My hands are completely free.”

She laughs. “Thank you, that’s so kind of you to offer! It has been hectic, but I haven’t been up at 3am this week, thank God.”

“I hope to keep it that way.” Yves turns away from her, raising an arm to muffle a fit of coughs into his sleeve.

Aimee takes a step forward, her eyebrows furrowing. “Are you okay? You sound a little off. And you’re coughing.”

And Yves thinks: she can’t know. He has his toasts to give at her wedding. He has the wedding rehearsal tomorrow and the wedding ceremony on Saturday to attend. If Aimee finds out he’s coming down with something, she’ll probably tell him to sit things out—to get some proper rest, to disregard virtually everything she has planned, and to not leave the hotel room until he’s feeling a hundred percent better—even if it’s at her own expense.

Worse, she’ll be worried for the entirety of his illness, he’s sure. As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate already, between the setup and all the accommodations and the last minute changes.

Aimee deserves a perfect wedding.

That’s the bottom line in all of this. This is a once in a lifetime thing for someone he cares and cares deeply about. Yves is not going to ruin it. He’ll get through the next few days, even if it means pushing himself a little past his limits. He can crash afterwards, on the plane ride home, after all the festivities are over and everyone bids farewell.

“I’m fine,” Yves says, clearing his throat. “I’m—” This is really the worst possible timing. He takes a few steps back, craning his neck over his shoulder. “hH-! hHhh’kKTSSH-IEEW! snf-! Ugh. I’mb just getting over a slight cold.” Getting over might be a bit of a stretch, and a slight cold might be even more of one, but other than that, it’s not entirely dishonest.

Aimee frowns at him. “Bless you. Does your throat hurt? There are cocktails on the side table, if you want anything to drink. Wine, too. I can get something for you if you’d like.”

“Nice try, but there’s no way I’m letting the bride go and get things for me,” Yves says, grinning. “Do you want any cocktails?”

“I need to be sober until I’ve officially said hi to everyone,” she says. “Can’t make a fool of myself just yet. Speaking of which, where’s your boyfriend?”

Yves waves Vincent over. “Come say hi!” he says, in English.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Vincent says, in slightly accented French, which is a surprise. He seems to hesitate, thinking hard. “Congratulations on your wedding.”

“Oh my gosh!” Aimee says in English, pulling him close for a hug. Vincent hugs her back. “It’s good to meet you too, Vincent. Thanks for always looking after Yves. I’m glad to have someone keeping him out of trouble overseas.”

“Thank you for having me here,” Vincent says, hugging her back. “I know it was really last minute with the flight and everything. I hope it wasn’t too stressful for you.”

“It was no trouble at all!” Aimee says. “Yves is like a younger brother to me. Last summer was pretty rough for him, I think.” she doesn’t mention Erika, but Yves is sure Vincent knows what she’s referring to, regardless. Aimee smiles, a little wistfully. “I’m just so grateful that he met you. I’m glad to see him happy again.”

“I don’t think I can take credit for that,” Vincent says, blinking.

Aimee smiles warmly at him. “He’s the happiest he’s been in months,” she says. “I think you are selling yourself short.”

After Aimee asks Vincent how his stay has been (good, Vincent says, it’s actually my first time in France, to which Aimee excitedly lists off places he absolutely has to see while he’s here) and Vincent asks Aimee how the wedding preparations are going (nothing’s gone terribly wrong yet, Aimee laughs, which I suppose is all I can ask for), they find their way to their seats at the table. Someone has set out little name cards with all of their names written in calligraphy. Yves realizes, faintly, that the handwriting isn’t Aimee’s. Maybe it’s Genevieve’s, then.

“I didn’t know you knew any French,” Yves tells Vincent, in English.

Vincent looks away, a little sheepish. “I took a crash course into it when you mentioned the wedding would be in France,” he says, which Yves finds somehow disproportionately endearing. “I know maybe five sentences total, plus a few common terms.”

“Five sentences is impressive given that you had, what, just a few weeks to learn them?”

“I’m not sure if they are very coherent,” Vincent says. “The vowels are different from English. I’m still trying to get the hang of saying them.”

Yves is about to respond, but he’s cut off with a sharp, unexpected gasp. He pitches forward, raising his elbow up to his face just in time to muffle a—

“Hh… HhEHH-!’IihH’DZSCHh-IIEW!”

He’s glad, for once, that he’s not wearing the suit he’s planning on wearing for the wedding. His nose is running again, which is embarrassing, especially because he can still feel Vincent’s eyes on him.

“À tes souhaits,” Vincent says.

Yves laughs, rummaging through his jacket pockets for one of the napkins he’d taken at breakfast to blow his nose into. “Merci. Is that one of the common terms you learned?”

“No,” Vincent says. “I looked it up last night.”

“Last night?” Yves asks.

For a moment, he’s afraid that Vincent might reveal to him that Yves had kept him up last night, after all, despite all of his efforts to keep quiet.

“On the car,” Vincent clarifies. “During the trip to the hotel. I was just curious.”

“Oh,” Yves says, relieved. He blows his nose into the napkin he’s holding, which he’s sure he has reused at least a couple times already—but with his nose running so much, he doesn’t exactly have the luxury to be picky. “Well, you’ll be an expert at saying that phrase by the end of this trip, at the very least.”

It’s easy to lose himself in the throes of conversation, after that. Aimee and Genevieve have arranged it so that he and Vincent are sitting directly across from his parents. Leon is right—his parents have never really been the type to subject the partners he’s brought home, over the years, to any sort of interrogation. It’s a fun night, especially after everyone’s a couple drinks in.

“I think it’s a good thing that you guys are in the same line of work,” Yves’s dad says, conversationally. “Yves won’t have to explain why he’s always working overtime.”

Yves’s mom says, “Isn’t that a bad thing? We shouldn’t be encouraging their workaholic tendencies.”

Yves neglects to mention that he’s pretty sure Vincent (who worked the entire flight here)’s workaholic tendencies will persist, even without any encouragement.

Vincent tells them how they’d met—it’s the same story as he’d told the first time they’d done this, during Margot’s new year party a few months back, but Yves’s parents seem to find it extremely entertaining.

Yves’s mom says, “I told you Yves was the one who asked him out.”

Yves’s dad says, “I didn’t know if he had it in him.”

Yves’s mom says, “I remember hearing him say something about having an attractive coworker. It wasn’t that much of a logical stretch to assume he’d make a move at some point.”

(Yves thinks he sees them exchange a twenty dollar bill under the table, but he can’t be sure.)

Vincent practices his French with Yves’s parents—Yves fills in for him when he stumbles on a word, or when he hesitates, wracking his memory for a term he can’t quite translate.

“A fantastic attempt,” his dad says, when Vincent is done talking. “I can’t believe you learned so much in just a few weeks. I can only hope you’ll keep learning..”

“I will,” Vincent says. “Maybe next time we can have this conversation entirely in French.” There’s no uncertainty to the way he says it. Yves doesn’t mention that there’s a real chance Vincent won’t see them again, after this. It’s not a thought he particularly wants to confront.

At some point, Leon rises to his feet and shouts, in French, “Let’s toast to Aimee and Genevieve, everyone’s favorite couple!”

They all stand and raise their glasses. Yves finds he feels a little unsteady on his feet—maybe he’s had too much to drink. He feels warm, through the flush of alcohol in his cheeks, despite the evening chill.

He’s marginally worse at covering when he’s tipsy—and worse, too, at anticipating that he’s going to sneeze in the first place. At some point during the night, someone—maybe Vincent, or maybe one of Aimee’s friends from work that are seated nearby—sets down a stack of cocktail napkins in front of him.

Yves just hopes whoever’s put it there knows how grateful he is. The night is getting colder, even though he can’t quite feel it, and his nose is running so much that he finds himself grabbing a new napkin every couple minutes to blow his nose. It’s strange, he thinks, how such a small thing can be so comforting.

At some point, too, Vincent takes the glass of wine out of his hands and switches it out with a different glass. Yves thinks it might be a cocktail, at first, but when he takes a sip, he finds it’s just orange juice.

“I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Vincent says.

“I haved’t had that much,” Yves says. But come to think of it, his head feels hazy in a way that suggests he’s just a little drunk. “Just a couple— glasses— hh-! hHhEH’IIZSCHh’iIEw! snf-!” He barely manages to cover that sneeze in time.

“Bless you,” Vincent says.

“Ugh.” Yves reaches for another napkin from the stack. He feels a little dizzy, now that he’s paying attention. “I swear, my toleradce - snf-! - used to be a lot better before I graduated.”

Vincent hides a laugh behind one hand. Yves is too tipsy to pretend he doesn’t find that a little endearing.

“What?” he asks, faux-affronted.

“Nothing,” Vincent says. “I should’ve known that you went to parties and drank irresponsibly.”

Yves laughs. “Along with every other college student in the world.” He turns aside to muffle a cough into his sleeve. Perhaps he hasn’t been especially conscientious about saving his voice this evening—with all the talking he’s been doing, it will probably sound even worse tomorrow. “What, don’t tell me you’ve ndever gotten irresponsibly drunk!”

“Once or twice,” Vincent says, which is a bit of a surprise—he can’t imagine Vincent being drunk enough to lose the air of… well, composure isn’t the right word, perhaps. Professionalism? Self-assuredness? But maybe even drunk Vincent is professional and self-assured, all the same. Yves wonders, faintly, if he’ll ever have the chance to find out.

—

Dinner winds down slowly. Yves helps Genevieve collect all the name cards, gathers everyone’s plates to set them in a couple neat stacks at the end of the table, says hello to the relatives he’s closer to, and strikes up a conversation with some of Genevieve’s friends, who look to be just a few years older than he is. They talk first about the planning she’d kept them in the loop about, and then about the planning that she’d pulled off behind the scenes. Yves tells them about the many aesthetic and managerial decisions Aimee had consulted him for early on over text. The common consensus seems to be that Aimee and Genevieve are vastly overqualified when it comes to making sure that everything is logistically sound.

“Do you want to head out soon?” Vincent says, after some time, when Yves returns to his seat and some of the other guests have begun to filter out.

“That might be a good idea,” Yves says.

He says his goodbyes—to his parents, to Leon and Victoire, to Aimee and Genevieve, whom he’ll see tomorrow. Then he follows Vincent out. The hotel is a fifteen minute walk from where they are—some of their relatives have cars, but they’d walked here, and Yves thinks it’d be more work to try to coordinate a ride with someone.

Everything feels bright, Yves thinks, blinking.

“You’re cold,” Vincent says. It isn’t a question.

Yves realizes, faintly, that he’s shivering. He crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t feel it that much.”

“That’s because you’re drunk.”

“I’m ndot drunk.”

“Tipsy, then.”

Yves can’t argue with that. “Just a bit. I’ll probably— hhEh-!” He turns aside to direct the sneeze over his shoulder, away from Vincent. HH-! hHEHh’iIITSHh-IIEw! Snf-! —sober up soon.” The end of the sentence catches wrong on his throat and suddenly he’s coughing, a little harshly, into his wrist. The coughing fit is harsh enough to leave him faintly lightheaded, which is a surprise to him.

He thinks it shouldn’t be visible, but Vincent reaches out and grabs his shoulder to steady him. For a moment, Yves contemplates how nice it would be to lean into his touch.

Then he catches himself. He’s tired, but not so tired that he can’t sustain a short walk from the dinner venue to the hotel. It’s dark, but they don’t have any early obligations tomorrow, and it’s not late enough that he won’t have time to shower, get changed, and get a good night’s sleep, with time to spare.

Yves shifts out of Vincent’s touch. “Sorry about that,” he says, with the most convincing smile he can muster. He’s sure Vincent would be understanding if he brought it up, but truthfully, it feels like a waste of time to say anything at all.

Vincent doesn’t reach for him again, but his eyebrows furrow. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“You almost fell,” Vincent says.

“I just tripped. The roads aren’t very even, and it’s dark.” They’re standing in the middle of a small, winding cobblestone street. None of the roads around here are very flat for very long.

“Are you saying that because you believe it?” Vincent says. “Or are you saying that so that I stop worrying about this?”

Yves stares at him for a moment too long. He’s sobering up a little.

For a moment, he contemplates telling Vincent everything—about how tired he’s been, all day. About how much it’s taken out of him to keep up this front, the whole day; about how he feels worse than he did waking up this morning—tired and cold and congested, a little unsteady on his feet. If he’s not mistaken, he thinks he might be running a slight fever; it’s hard to tell through the jacket, through the brisk evening air.

Maybe Vincent would understand. Maybe Vincent would insist that he get some rest, tomorrow, before the wedding. Maybe Vincent would tell him that this is all going to be fine—that this wedding that Yves’s been looking forward to for months, that he desperately doesn’t want to mess up, is going to be perfect, just as Aimee and Genevieve has planned it, even if he isn’t feeling his best.

But this is not Vincent’s problem to solve. Yves’s bad timing and his unfortunate circumstances are not Vincent’s responsibility, and Yves extended the invitation because he wanted Vincent to have fun on this trip, and no part of that entails having to look after Yves. Vincent has always been reliable, but Yves can’t start to expect things out of him—to take his kindness as a given, to take more than Vincent is willing to give.

He already asks more than enough of Vincent, as it stands.

“I’m fine,” Yves says, a lie, as easily as any other lie he’s ever told. The smile that follows comes easily, too, though he’s not sure if Vincent can see it in the dark, can’t tell if it’s more to fool Vincent or more to fool himself. “I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”

[ Part 3 ]

#sneeze fic #snz fic #snz kink #snz #i edited this for a week straight #and now i have given up officially #i hope this doesn't feel too much like a filler/otherwise uneventful 😭#next chapter i promise yves is in for a bad time #yvverse #my fic

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dem-obscure-imagines · 2 months

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I Know the End | Vol. 2

I Know the End

Poe Dameron x Reader

Fandom: Star Wars

Summary: You were one of the Rebellion’s greatest weapons in the Galactic Civil War, a Princess from a distant planet, a Jedi with wings. Now, you’ve found yourself in a new world, a new war, your old friends long gone.

When Poe Dameron was sent on a wild goose chase of a reconnaissance mission four systems out, he never expected to find the key to his heart…

Note: At long last, here it is. Thank you for your patience. I love you all. I honestly wrote this as a long-winded attempt to make Poe Dameron’s dumbest line “Somehow, Palpatine returned” into a gut-wrenching and emotional moment and it got way out of hand. I am no Star Wars expert, but I did a lot of research for this and consider myself waaaaaaay more of a SW nerd now than I was a mere two months ago. Could probably write a dissertation on it at this point (I say as I literally churned out a novel). It is my first time writing for the fandom, though, so, here goes nothing. I did make up a fair bit of stuff and a good handful of OCs for this. Let me know what you think!

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, lightsaber and blaster wounds, alcohol consumption, war and the implications of it, gets a little steamy but no smut, reader has nightmares, misuse of the Force, Rewriting the Rise of Skywalker a lil bit…

Word Count: 82.7k total (Split into four approximately 20k chunks)

Reader Is: 24, a Jedi, a Princess, has butterfly wings

Vol 1. | Vol 2. | Vol 3. | Vol 4.

Charms in Trees

A few small battles came and went. It was pilot stuff, mostly. They’d go, blow up a First Order transport, and be back in time for dinner. You always offered your help, but it was never needed. Still, you’d take any excuse to go see Poe, especially in that orange jumpsuit. You weren’t sure what it was about it, but you couldn’t get enough of it.

Sometimes you thought about taking it off of him.

It was a growing problem, your little unspoken thing. You’d forgotten just how all-encompassing a crush could be, especially when it was as attainable as the one sitting in front of you right now. You shared a base, lived just down the hall from him. Maker, you could feel that he felt the same way about you, but you still couldn’t bring yourself to shatter the normalcy.

Part of you wanted him to do it, finally take that leap of faith. You were patient. You could wait.

So you did.

Supplies began to dwindle, so you put on a utility uniform and went with some of the others to get more, lifting boxes with your arms instead of your mind. You helped Aspen and some of the other mechs with repairs. You spent time with Soren, both training and not. He was fun to hang out with, a funny guy. Had your sense of humor.

He told you that Laesynda had taken him out to Mariposas a few times when he was growing up. They’d leave flowers outside your pod, light a candle for a while and tell stories. It was haunting, almost, the funerals people held for you despite the fact that you weren’t dead.

Poe had been refurbishing an old X-Wing in his free time, which wasn’t very much to begin with. Leia had been upping his responsibilities, clearly bracing for something. Whether it was an attack or a defensive move, you couldn’t tell, but it had him stressed out.

On a beautiful afternoon, you looked for him in the hangar, armed with some baked goods. BB-8 chirped to welcome you and Poe kicked a shelf in shock, a toolbox teetering for a moment before it started its descent straight on top of him. You caught it in mid-air. The tools floated out of the box, your arm outstretched, heart racing. You set them all down gently, safely away from that pretty face of his.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, Dameron. Came here with a peace offering.”

“Peace offering?” He asked, rolling himself out from under the X-Wing. He peeled his work gloves off, dusting himself off as best as he could.

It looked pretty close to finished, you noted, looking it over. It would need a paint job, of course, but all of the major parts seemed to be accounted for.

“Finn said you’ve been in a mood lately…” You admitted. “Figured I’d bring you something to take your mind off it.”

He grinned, looking at the gift and then up at you. There it was, that infamous flyboy grin of his. “Sunshine, you’re all I need to take my mind off of it. But these are appreciated, too.”

Your heart fluttered at the nickname, handing him the container of sweets. “How’s it going in here? It looks good.”

“Thanks. Should be done soon.” He reported, busting into the box and biting into the sweet, berry-filled tart. “And then we’ll really be in business.”

“I’m sorry about your other one, by the way. I feel partially responsible for that.”

“It wasn’t my first. I knew it wouldn’t be my last.” He chuckled. “At least it got to go out with a bang.”

“And some flames, as well. It was on fire, last I saw it.”

“I am glad I got to take you for a spin in it, though. Think I could get you into this new one sometime?”

“I’m always down for a joyride.” You told him, eyes sparkling, words sincere. “Let me know when it’s done and I can try to fit you into my busy Jedi princess schedule.”

“You’re serious.”

“Always.” You nodded. “I’ve been wanting to spend more time with you.”

He pouted, gazing at you through those dark lashes, a little bit of fruit filling stuck to the corner of his stupidly pink lips. His tongue poked out to get it, but failed. “Wish I’d known that a week ago, I would have carved out more time.”

“Don’t worry about it, Commander.” You said, resting a hand against his chest. You reached up with the other hand, gently wiping corner of his lips. “I know you’re busy, too.”

He held your hand against his cheek, meeting your eyes. “Not too busy for you, your Highness.”

“Good.” You replied, thumb gently stroking his stubble.

He turned his face, pressing a soft kiss to the pad of your thumb. He met your eyes, gaze all innocent despite the way your cheeks were flushing. “Did you get it?”

“I did.” You nodded, making a speedy recovery. “Couldn’t let the best pilot in the Resistance walk around with jam on his face, could I?”

“Well, thank you, for the treats, for sparing my reputation, all of it.” His eyes scanned down your face as you finally removed your hand from the side of his. “You got anything going on today, (Y/N)?”

“Training.”

“Mmm. What time?”

“Soon.” You said, glancing at the watch around your wrist. It had been Luke’s, Leia had given it to you. “About fifteen minutes.”

“Could you move that panel for me real quick?” He asked, pointing up at the wing of his X-Wing, where a patch of machinery was exposed, a heavy piece of sheet metal leaning up against it.

“Oh yeah. Absolutely.”

He set his box of tarts on the workbench and rolled a ladder over to the X-Wing while you lifted the wing cover into place, arms out in front of you, the heavy piece floating in mid-air. He stopped and watched for a second, chuckling to himself.

“What?”

“Still getting used to it, is all.” He confessed, gently pushing the piece into place, where you held it until he started bolting it into place. “This thing weighs like two hundred pounds, and you just…You’re amazing. You know that?”

“You think that’s cool, you should see what I can do with some pretty hefty rocks.”

He glanced over his shoulder at you, the whir of his wrench stopping. “Oh I’m sure it’s phenomenal.”

“Anything else you need while I’m here?”

He shook his head. “I’m all set. Good luck with training. I hope you…you know, move things good.”

“I’ll certainly try.” You chuckled, turning and leaving the hangar.

Over and over in your head, you watched him turn his face and press the gentlest kiss to your thumb. You may have been the one with wings, but he was always the one that gave you butterflies.

***

Your final bits of training that day just so happened to be wing-centric. That morning, you’d flitted from tree to tree, hanging metal charms in the branches with lengths of twine. Rey had been given some other independent activities to work on, but it was clear you and Soren had some ground to cover, or…not cover, flight being the main objective here.

The two of you stared up at them. He looked at you for instructions, but you simply repeated what you’d already said.

“Go get them.”

“What, with the Force?”

“Nope. We’ve been using the Force for hours. Time to stretch those wings, little prince.”

He laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been up that high before.”

“That’s why I need you to be comfortable with it. If you go about it the right way, you can get some serious height. More, if you strengthen your wings with practice and exercise, and more yet if you use the Force for a little boost.”

“Could you…show me?”

You chuckled, hands on your hips, looking up, up, up at the charms. Yeah, that would definitely be a bit daunting if it was your first time flying. “Sure. I’m not gonna cut them down, though, because I’ll have to go up there and hang them all again.”

You spread your wings, shaking the accumulated dust and humidity collected on them from Ajan Kloss’ temperate ecosystem. And then you took off, running at a stump on the ground and using it as a springboard, wings carrying you to the first branch, where you hit the hanging charm sending it swinging.

You flipped from the first branch to the next, a few feet higher, touching that charm before heading to the next, and the next. You were like a dancer, graceful, fluid, gliding from branch to branch, using your limited flight to climb until you were near the top of the highest tree in your training grounds. You took a moment to look out at the camp, admire the Resistance crew bustling from building to building, doing their daily tasks to keep your movement up and running.

And then, doing one last somersault, you dove down, catching yourself with your wings and a burst of air, kicking up the leaves scattered on the forest floor.

Soren stared with wide eyes, Rey having joined him on the ground.

“And you expect me to do…that?”

“Not all of it.” You assured him. “That last jump is definitely something you’ll have to build towards. It’s a leap of faith. But that’s why I’m here, to catch you if the landing isn’t going so smooth.”

“Alright.” He nodded. “I can try.”

“Do or do not. There is no try.” You said, the words familiar, even if they weren’t yours. Sometimes the Force spoke through you; you could feel that this was one of those times. “Aim for five charms today. Any more than that and I’ll be impressed.”

Soren looked up at the first charm, on a low, sturdy branch, deceptively close to the ground. Like you did, he took off at a run, using his wings to get some height and land–somewhat shakily–on the branch, but he did it, youthful face breaking into a grin.

“There you go!” You encouraged, Rey smiling as she watched.

“It’s really great, what you’re doing with him.” Rey said, voice sincere. She reached for your hand and you gave it to her, just as you had that very first day you met. Long ago, you and Leia had shared a sisterhood, and now you shared that with Rey.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

“I hope so. He’s…well, he’s my first Padawan. After you, of course, but you had a head start.”

“I wish you had been here when all of this started,” she confessed, squeezing your hand. “It would have been…nice to know I wasn’t alone in this.”

“You’re not alone.” You told her. “A long time ago…I was meditating, trying to find other Jedi out there. Luke and I thought we were alone, too. I found someone, another Jedi, a young woman. The Force works in mysterious ways, of course, because…it was you. You wouldn’t be born for another, what, eleven years? But I know it was you. We were meant to be here. I was meant to help you and…I plan on doing that. No matter what.”

Rey smiled, words failing her. She pulled you into her arms instead, resting her head against yours. You hugged her back, rubbing comforting circles in her shoulders.

“You know, I’ve always wanted a sister.” She admitted with a laugh, tears in her eyes.

“Well now you’ve got one.”

“I got seven charms, Aunt (Y/N).” Soren said, dangling them from their strings when you turned to look.

“How was the landing?”

“A little shaky, but…” He shrugged and then looked back up at the next charm, even higher than the last. “I think I could get another one.”

“Go ahead. Round two.” You encouraged, motioning him up into the tree.

Finn and Poe walked over not long after, chatting animatedly about something, BB-8 rolling alongside them. It was clear, even from that distance, that Finn was teasing him.

You couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

“She getting you up there next, Rey?” Finn asked, pointing up at the trees, where Soren had very clearly already gotten the hang of it, throwing a few flips and flourishes into his movements. You grinned, proud.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so.” Rey shook her head. “I will after you do.”

“Fair enough.” Finn chuckled. “How’s it going, ladies?”

“Good. Really good. Good, productive day today.” You said.

“Good view up there?” Poe asked, shielding his eyes as he glanced up at the highest branch, a glittering charm still hanging from a thread.

“Great view.” You said.

“I thought you said you could only cover short distances, that looks like quite a height.”

“You have to build up to it.” You told him, pointing to all the shorter branches on the way up to that point. “I can’t just fly straight up there. Maybe with some strength training, but these things aren’t what they used to be.” You gave them a flutter, noting the way his eyes caught on them yet again.

“Well, it looked great, from what I could see.”

“That’s high praise coming from you, flyboy.”

“Well, from one flyer to another…you’re a natural. Literally. You were born to be up there, doing that.”

You smiled, voice soft and sincere when you said, “So were you.”

“That means a lot, (Y/N).” He said, head turning downwards for a moment while he thought. “Anyway, uh, Finn and I were wondering if the two of you would join us at the cantina later? Rose’ll be there, too. Things have been so tense lately, we thought we could all blow off some steam.”

“I’d love to.”

Rey nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

“Just let me get changed into something more casual.” You said, flourishing the skirts of your Jedi robes.

“What, the robes aren’t fit for a night on the town?”

“The robes aren’t fit for…much other than looking solemn and kicking ass.” You said with a chuckle. “Unlike your flight suit, which is fit for any occasion.”

“Back to that, huh?” Poe grinned, letting out a laugh. “If you really like that thing so much, maybe I’ll wear it more often.”

You smirked. “I wouldn’t complain.”

“I would.” Finn chuckled. “It needs a good wash, buddy.”

“Alright, alright.”

You watched as Soren landed once again, wings powerful, stance strong. You gave him a nod, pride blossoming in your chest. He was getting there after all. Your training was working. You just hoped that, when danger came, he’d be ready for it.

You hoped you all would be.

Cards on the Table

You sat in your quarters with Rose and Rey, getting ready for your night out with the boys. You braided a few strands of your hair, tying them off with small gold rings at the end.

“This one?” Rey asked, holding the dress up against her frame, a sage green color. It was one of the ones you’d given her.

You nodded. “That color suits you. Brings out your eyes.”

Rey considered your words for a moment before beginning to change. Rose sat at your desk, looking through the accessories you’d pulled out. You plucked a pair of earrings from the collection, setting them in her palm.

“Are you sure? I’ve never worn a princess’ earrings before.” Rose said, staring at them. They were a pair of gold, dangling leaves. They’d go with the blouse she was wearing, a natural pattern on them.

“First time for everything.” You said with a shrug, turning your attention to your own outfit. A wine-colored top with a corset front, the back swooping just low enough for your wings. With it, you’d paired some dark brown pants with flared legs, a decorative gold belt made of metal hoops. You tucked your lightsaber into your bag, instead of displaying it at your hip.

“Oh this…” Rey struggled with the back of her dress. “I can’t get it to stay closed.”

“Here, let me.” You walked over and pulled ribbons from the sides of the dress, tying it closed above the large divot for where your wings went when you had worn it. “I sewed these in for Leia. She and I shared a closet during the Rebellion, more or less.”

Rey’s eyes scanned down her reflection, hands smoothing out the green fabric. “Thank you.”

“You look great.” You told her, words warm and reassuring. “You both do.”

“So do you!” Rose complimented.

A few minutes later, you decided you were ready, not that there was any pressure to be. This was just Finn and Poe you were talking about after all. But you had a feeling quite a few other members of the Resistance crew would be there.

The three of you arrived and it felt like time stopped. Poe and Finn were in a round booth in the corner and they both looked up, faces lit with anticipation at the sight of you. It felt good to be wearing something other than your robes or your standard Resistance gear, a luxury you did not take lightly.

They stood up and crossed the room, meeting you somewhere in the middle. Poe was wearing that leather jacket of his, the one you’d mistaken him for Han Solo in. Beneath it, a button-up that seemed to be missing a few buttons. You swore he was doing it on purpose.

“Hey, Princess.” He grinned. “Glad you made it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

Several Resistance folks milled about, dancing, playing games. A few droids manned the bar, where there were paper lanterns strung from the support beams, casting the room in warm, ambient light.

The five of you shimmied back into the booth, Poe going almost out of his way to make sure he got the seat next to yours, right on the end. His arm settled on the seat behind you, that strong sandalwood scent drifting from his pulse point. Maker, you could get lost in it.

When the droid taking drink orders came around, you each requested something, settling in for a nice, casual night.

A song you recognized came over the speakers in the corners of the room and you smiled. It was familiar. A place like this, people like these.

The more things changed…

“I requested some oldies for you.” Poe confessed, just about causing your heart to melt. “Thought it’d remind you of the good old days.”

“He put ten whole credits in the jukebox.” Finn tattled, earning a pointed look from the pilot. “Stood there forever picking out songs.”

“Well that was very sweet.” You said, leaning a little closer to him subconsciously. “Not to sound incredibly old, but the new music is still…growing on me, we’ll say.”

“How old were you?” Finn asked. “I’m sorry if that’s rude. I don’t think we’ve ever asked.”

“I’m twenty-four. I’ll be twenty-five in…well, I don’t know when my birthday falls now. Four months? Three months? Something like that. Give or take thirty years, of course.”

“You’re younger than me.” Poe murmured, almost in shock of the fact.

He’d taken it for granted, he guessed, just how young you were when they’d put you in that pod. But you’d existed his entire life, etched into legends and stories told by anyone who remembered the war. To him, you’d existed forever. But he was older than you, by eight years.

“Were you…alive when I was?” You asked, running the numbers in your mind.

“I’m thirty-two.” He said, meeting your eyes. There was an odd look in them, like he was asking permission for something. He chuckled, covering the flash of insecurity with a smirk and a quip. “I know I hardly look it.”

“You would have been really young, then.” You bit your lip, letting out a little laugh at the new information. The whole situation was ridiculous. You doubted your paths had ever crossed, so it didn’t matter, ultimately, but still. “That is a little weird.”

“It is.” Poe agreed, eyes still ever-searching yours for some sign that it was still okay, the feelings floating around his heart.

“That means you really are the Han of the group.” You said, in an attempt to diffuse the tension that had blossomed in his chest. It worked. You could feel it instantly. “He was like thirty and the rest of us were in our twenties.”

“Does that make you Leia this time?” Rey asked, catching your eyes, a spark of mischief in her gaze. She knew exactly what she was implying.

“I think it does. Which means you get to be me this time. Congratulations, you are now a princess. Use the title well.” You joked, sitting back against the cushioned bench, also, coincidentally, against Poe’s arm, which was still there, perched on the leather. Warmth emanated from him, both literally and figuratively.

Eventually, the drinks came and you took a few sips of yours, loosening up. You all chatted and joked and laughed. Eventually, Rey and Rose got up to dance with the mechs over on the dance floor. Finn followed behind them.

Jessika spotted you and motioned you over, a broad grin on her face. Beside her was Aspen. Snap was there, too. They were hanging out near the holodart board mounted to the wall.

“Wanna play some darts?” Poe smirked, following your eyeline.

“If you’re ready to get your ass kicked, sure.” You teased, getting out of the booth after him and walking over to where his friends were waiting.

“You look great, girl!” Jessika said. “Give us a spin.”

You did a little twirl, showing off the top, the pants, the accessories. Your wings fluttered behind you like a cape, folded down and out of the way, as they always were.

“Dameron said he was gonna try to get you out here tonight.” Snap said, jostling his buddy’s shoulder. “Glad you joined us.”

“Do you guys do this often?”

“Not often enough.” Aspen said with a laugh, perched criss-cross on a barstool. “But our schedules have us all wound up tighter than a drum. I think we all needed to let off some steam.”

“How have things been for you guys? Missions running smoothly?”

“As ever.” Jessika said. “Thanks, of course, to our fearless commander.”

“Stop, stop, you’re too kind.” Poe said, playfully brushing off his shoulder. “It helps that I have the best team in the galaxy at my disposal.”

Snap motioned you closer, handing you a glowing dart. “Alright, enough chitchat. I want the Jedi on my team.”

“That is not fair.” Poe protested immediately. “It’s only fair if she’s on my team.”

“Sorry, Poe, I’ve been spoken for.” You shrugged, throwing the dart and landing in the outer ring of the bullseye.

Snap’s face lit up and he high-fived you.

“That’s gotta be cheating.” Jessika said, looking to Aspen, who was serving, apparently, as the referee. Pilots took their holodarts very seriously, after all. “Ref, tell her she’s cheating.”

“No, if I was cheating, it would look like this.” You took a second dart from Snap, covered your eyes with one hand, and threw the dart, using the Force to pull it through an exaggerated loop-de-loop on its way to the board, where it hit dead on in the center. You lowered your hand and shrugged innocently. “I just genuinely have pretty decent aim, as hard as it is to believe.”

“She’s pretty and she’s got a sense of humor. You’re a goner, Dameron.” Snap said, elbowing him while you were distracted, laughing with Aspen and Jessika.

Poe chuckled, crossing his arms, eyes teeming with tenderness. “Believe me, pal, I know.”

***

The night went on. You had a few more drinks, toeing the line between tipsy and drunk, but not quite getting all the way there. You and Poe continued to dance around each other, but he didn’t make a move. Well, any further than he already had. But after watching him interact with some of his friends, you’d come to realize that he was a touchy guy. It was definitely his love language.

You sang some songs at the karaoke machine in the corner of the room, sharing the stage with Rose, who had a really good voice, as it turned out.

At the end of the evening, when the crowd began to dwindle, Poe walked you back to your quarters. You, somewhat clumsily, punched in your code, the doors sliding open smoothly. You lingered in the doorway, turning to look at him.

“Thanks for taking me out, Dameron.” You said, breaking the warm silence that threatened to swallow your moment. “I had a great time.”

“Thanks for coming. I, uh…” He reached for your hand and you gave it to him, letting him fiddle with your fingers. It was comforting, his touch. You doubted you’d ever tire of the feeling of those calloused palms against yours. “If you were serious about that joyride…I’m taking it up tomorrow. Little test-drive, checking perimeters. Two porgs, one stone, you know. It’ll still be a tight fit, if that’s alright.”

“Well we both know I have no problem with getting close to you, Dameron.” You teased, giving his hand a squeeze. “What time are you picking me up?”

“After breakfast? Or…well, whenever works. I know you’re busy.”

You nodded, eyes glimmering. “After breakfast works.”

You could feel it again, that warmth sweltering in Poe’s chest. That desire laced deep in his eyes. He was thinking about kissing you. The fantasy playing out in your mind, you weren’t sure if it was yours or his, at this point.

Him, grabbing you by the hip, burying a hand in your hair, kissing you fiercely, passionately, lips exploring every inch of your own. Hungrily. Like he’d been waiting for it. You heard the way his breath hitched, felt his large, warm hand wander further up your back, towards the base of your wings as he kissed you. Cards on the table, heart on his sleeve.

But he didn’t. Didn’t move, aside from giving your hand another squeeze.

You smiled at him, still reeling from the images that had just flashed through your mind, but doing your best to hide the way your heart was racing. “It’s a date.”

These Haunted Wounds

You woke with a start not long after you drifted off. An hour or two at most. Nightmares. Figured.

This time, it was about a different saber. A red one, two little offshoots on the side of the hilt. It looked dangerous. Poorly constructed, if you were honest. One wrong move and the wielder would slice their own hand off by mistake.

No, the scary part was the guy wielding it. Long, foreboding figure, black cloak that drifted in the wind. He wore a mask over his face, voice deepened by a modulator of some kind. It brought back memories in all the wrong ways.

Despite the fact that you hadn’t seen him yet, didn’t know what he looked like, you could just tell. This was Kylo Ren. Had to be. That type of energy could only come from someone who was trying his damndest to stand in the shadow of Darth Vader, an entity you were still all too familiar with.

Luke had made his peace with the guy. You had never gotten that opportunity.

Kylo swished his cape and from his shadow came Insidia, still haunting you after all these years. She plunged her saber into your heart, the pain scorching and real, a scream tearing itself from your throat, and that was when you woke in a cold sweat.

You sat there, hands shaking, heart racing, collecting yourself before trying to lay down to sleep again. Just as you were about to lay back down, there was a knock on your door. Eyebrows furrowing, you swung your legs out of the bed, crossing the room and opening the door with a click of a button on the wall panel.

Poe was standing there in his sweatpants, panting, armed with a piece of a pipe. It was clear he’d run there. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“Huh?” You asked, rubbing at your bleary eyes. You stopped, staring at his bare, toned chest for maybe too long before meeting his gaze. “I’m fine.”

He lowered the pipe. “Oh. I heard screaming.”

Had you screamed out loud? Maybe you had. Maybe you’d projected it on accident, through the Force.

“It was just a nightmare.” You reassured him. You chuckled when you looked at the pipe hanging from his grip. “Nice.”

“Hey, I could do some real damage with this thing.” He defended, giving it a test swing to demonstrate.

“Oh I bet.” You gave a tired smile, let out a sigh, that spot in your chest burning, where Insidia had stabbed you in this dream.

She’s dead. You reminded yourself. She can’t hurt me anymore because she’s dead.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Same old.” You shrugged. “Stabbed with a lightsaber this time. Right through the chest.”

He frowned, nodding. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I’ll be okay.” You promised him. “But thank you for rushing to my rescue. Very daring of you, Commander.”

“Any time.”

You could feel that he wanted to stay. But you could tell he wasn’t going to ask. Ever the gentleman in the presence of a princess. It was kind of refreshing. You smiled at him. “Get some sleep, flyboy. See you in the morning.”

“You too. Goodnight.” He smiled. He held up the pipe in his hand. “I better go put this back.”

You laughed, watching as he walked back down the hallway. He glanced back at you, meeting your eyes before returning to the room he shared with Finn.

A soft smile pulled at your lips and you lingered in the hallway for a moment before closing your door and walking back to your bunk. You sat there, wondering what it would have been like if you asked him to stay. It wasn’t that you didn’t want him to, but…maybe there was a reason he was waiting.

Maybe he was waiting until after the war to get attached. That would be smart. You knew so many during the Rebellion who did just that.

Some hashed everything out in the heat of the war, sure. It was hard to get comfortable. It was hard to know which base would be your last, which fight would end it all. Some people chased comfort, wanting to get close to each other while they had the chance.

But others wanted to wait, to make sure they were going to make it to see the peace after the war, and whatever relationship, whatever life awaited them after.

You rolled onto your side, staring at the wall. You wonder if he knew the way he had his hand wrapped around your heart, a little X-Wing orbiting it around and around.

Tomorrow, you promised yourself. Tomorrow you’d say something, up in the X-Wing with him. Arms around you, chest pressed against your back, legs tangled in the cockpit. And one way or the other, you’d finally have your answer.

This time, when you fell asleep, the only thing you dreamt of were his lips.

The Crash

The next morning, Poe met you and the others for breakfast, already dressed in his orange jumpsuit, the collar flipped open. You could not keep the smile off your face at the sight.

“I can’t believe this is really what does it for you.” He laughed, drunk off the look in your eyes.

“It suits you.” You said, eyes lingering on the collar, fighting the urge to reach out and fix it. You rummaged around your mind for some quip to fire back, but came up empty. He’d stolen the words right from your mouth.

The group of you finished eating and Poe cleared your plate, leading you towards the hangar.

“I don’t have it painted yet, but the mechs checked over it yesterday and gave me the okay.” Poe explained.

“So we’re not going to crash, is what you’re saying.”

“Not with a Jedi on board.” He said, eyes meeting yours. “I still think about that transport you caught. I didn’t know you could just…do that.”

“Took a while to get to that point. Ships are heavy. It helps if I’m not fighting the trajectory. Laesynda’s ship was on its way down, I just…cushioned the fall.” You explained.

“You’re real humble for a Jedi, you know.”

“You think so?”

“More humble than I would be if I could lift spacecrafts with my mind.”

“Oh I’m aware, flyboy. If you were out here with a lightsaber, none of us would ever hear the end of it.” You teased, looking over his flightsuit, still enamored. “You’re already an ace pilot, you can’t possibly have all the skills.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but was cut off by the harsh blare of a distress signal. The two of you looked at each other before booking it to the strategy table, where Leia was, hand still over the button.

“It’s one of our settlements. First Order troops on the ground, TIE fighters.” She made eye contact with you, Rey running into the room right after. “Kylo is with them.”

She dispatched groups of fighters, sent you and Rey and sent out the Black Squadron. Poe marched through the hangar, yelling orders, getting his team ready for battle. You forced your eyes away from him as he loaded BB-8 into his X-Wing, strapped your saber to your belt, and loaded onto a transport with Rey and Finn.

Soren walked over, saber at the ready. You stopped him with a shake of your head, something akin to a maternal look in your eye. “I need you here. It’s just Kylo. Rey and I can handle him.”

“I’m ready.”

“I know you are.” You said, hands on his shoulders. “That’s why I need you here. Someone’s gotta protect the base.”

He nodded, understanding. He took a few steps back, standing with the others as they saw you all off.

You made eye contact with Poe, one last lingering glance before he climbed into the cockpit and took off into the sky, blasting off at lightspeed with the rest of his squadron to clear way for your transport.

The ramp of the transport closed and Finn looked at you. “He’s like you. Soren.”

“Reckless?” You asked.

He shook his head, eyes serious and warm. “Brave.”

You smiled at the thought and put a hand on Finn’s arm. “So are you.”

The ride was short, but shaky. You didn’t like turbulence, especially in a craft that only had thin, tiny windows. It left you uneasy. But eventually, you touched down, saber in hand, leading the charge with Rey.

There were dozens of Stormtroopers, opening fire on not only the scattered Resistance members, but any civilians they could get their hands on. You put yourself between them, deflecting their shots with a few swings of the saber. The fighters that had come with you ran out of the ship, assessing the situation and adjusting as quickly as possible.

In the air, a battle had broken out as well, X-Wings and TIE fighters firing at each other, as well as the ground below them. You tried to identify which ship was Poe’s. You could feel him up there, but it was hard to get a lock. All you knew was that it was a black ship, an orange stripe painted down the side. Black Squadron.

Another trooper shot at you you and you shifted into battle mode. You used the Force to mow over a row of troopers, pushing them onto their backs in the dirt and leaving them scrambling to get back to their feet. One came at you with a melee weapon, electrified, but you did away with it quickly, using the Force to throw him at a tank, the force of it taking out the canon with a loud explosion.

More troopers focused their aim on you and quickly met the same fate.

Overhead, an X-Wing twirled around, almost drifting through the air and taking out one, two, three TIE fighters in quick succession, firing at a cluster of troopers on the ground immediately after. That had to be Poe.

Another turret fired near the civilians and you ran towards it, using your wings to get some height and jumping up the length of it, burying your saber in the metal paneling on the side and riding it back down to the ground as it was destroyed in a cloud of fire and smoke.

Finn ushered civilians to safety, taking out any troopers that got close with a well-placed blast. Rey worked with you to take out the remaining turrets, keeping the troopers at bay as more of them unloaded from landing transports.

You heard a boom overhead and looked, hoping to see a TIE fighter on its way down, but instead catching sight of an X-Wing, black and orange, one of its engines engulfed in flames.

You reached up and caught it with the Force, directing it away from the thick trees it was aimed towards and turning the nose, bringing it down gently in a clearing of grass and dirt, away from the immediate violence on the sprawling battlefield. You didn’t have time to worry if it might be Poe climbing out of it. Didn’t even have time to think before you saw him.

Kylo Ren.

His saber glowed red, contrasting against the lush green of the planet you were standing on, his kyber crystal obviously damaged, the way its blade was flared. He’d forced it too hard, been too rough with it. Maybe that was why the offshoots were there, to redirect the excess energy.

He was dressed like a shadow, long and sleek, all in black, face covered up by that helmet. It was better that way. You were afraid of finding too much of your friends in his broken gaze. Leia. Han. In another life, you may have been something like an aunt to him. Now he stood in front of you, a monster.

And he was headed right towards you, strides long and elegant.

“Mothim said you were awake, your Highness. It’s time to see if you really are the thing of legends.” He twirled his saber, voice distorted beyond anything human. An intimidation tactic, no doubt, in addition to the obvious imitation of one Darth Vader.

“Ah yes, my best friend’s biggest disappointment. I keep hearing about you, and I have to admit. You’re a lot taller than I expected.”

He raised his hand attempting to use the Force to…you weren’t sure. Grab you, choke you, but you had your shields up, always did, blocking out his attempt. “You’re good.”

“I have to be.” You replied, readying your saber, stretching out your neck.

He swung at you and you deflected, angling carefully to avoid the reach of the flares near the hilt of his saber. So that’s what they were for. One wrong move and it would be your hand he was slicing off. You countered, using your wings to spin into position, leveraging an attack that he dodged, his saber clashing loudly with your own.

“Tell me, did you really face Vader by yourself, or did you have Skywalker to help you?” He locked his saber with your own, mask uncomfortably close to your face. “Skywalker is dead now. I saw to that myself. I finished the work that Vader could not.”

You let out a cold laugh at that. “You’re not Vader. You’re not even close.”

That definitely pissed him off. He let out a strangled yell, running at you with full force. You dodged with a leap, spinning out of the way. He took the opportunity to take a swing at your wings, which flared in reply, flattening themselves out of his reach. Your foot swept through the dirt as you landed, breaking your somewhat clumsy fall.

That had been a targeted attack. Straight for the wings. Not your arm. Not your saber. Your wings.

Rey came over next, putting herself between the two of you, battling him with a rage you knew had to be personal. You could feel that they were connected. Always had been. There were layers here that you did not quite understand yet. But she still fought him, moves quick and deliberate and instinctual.

You jumped back in alongside her, red clashing against blue and pink, sparks flying. Some of the brush caught fire, but never fully ignited, instead filling the ground between you with smoke, partially obstructing the rest of the fight.

You landed a hit on his leg, slashing into the skin. Rey got him on the opposite arm and he let out a burst of Force energy that sent you both flying. You used your wings to recover, repositioning mid-air, an outstretched hand slowing Rey’s trajectory as well, just before the back of her head hit a tree.

“RETREAT!” Kylo screeched, his voice echoing through the trees, birds scattering at the loud, distorted cry.

You’d hurt him. Bad. You could see the blood pooling in the dirt as he stalked away.

The Stormtroopers and other forces retreated into the transports that hadn’t already been blown up. The remaining TIE fighters, few though there were, hopped to lightspeed. One of the X-Wings shot a few transports on their way into the atmosphere, but other than that, the fight was over.

You found Finn among the crowd, making sure he was uninjured. He was fine. There had been some injuries, but no casualties, even among the civilians, who were cheering and embracing, celebrating their safety for the moment.

You looked over at the crashed X-Wing, smoking at the edge of the field and ran over to it, wings carrying you farther and faster than you’d flown in years, just a handful of feet above the grass. You landed on one of the wings and used the Force to pop open the cockpit, the windshield cracked, the pilot still inside.

She tugged off her helmet, long brown hair cascading down her shoulders. Jessika. Not Poe.

You offered her a hand, helping her out. She looked up at you, awe in her eyes, her hand wrapping around yours. You used your wings to lower the both of you gently to the ground.

“Are you alright?”

“I swore I was going to crash. You…you saved my life.” She rushed into your arms and you held her, rocking her comfortingly. “How do I even begin to repay you for that?”

“You don’t. We’re all in this together.” You assured her, wiping some of the soot from her face with a gentle hand. “Now let’s get you back to base. I’m sure there’s lots of room for you on the transport.”

One of the Resistance members from the planet rushed over, putting out her smoking X-Wing engine with a fire extinguisher. “We’ll take care of this. Get it repaired as soon as possible.”

Jessika exchanged some words with the mech, arranging something of a plan to come get it before following you and the others back onto the transport.

“Are you alright?” You asked Rey, checking all your bases, counting faces and heads.

“I’m fine. Are you?”

“I’m good. He…I don’t know what he knows about Mariposans, but he was locked in on my wings.” You said, shivering at the thought. “Someone must have told him to aim there.”

“You think the First Order has a Mariposan?”

“Maybe.” You said. “He…he mentioned someone named Mothim. That’s…vaguely Mariposan-sounding.”

You watched the sky, the X-Wings rounding up. Jessika had her helmet tucked under her arm, which started talking, Poe’s voice coming through the headset. You could have cried with relief that he was alright.

“Pava, come in. Are you alive out there? We don’t have eyes on your X-Wing.”

“I’m alive, Black Leader. Boarding one of the transports on the ground. They hit me in the right wing, but one of the Jedi caught me on the way down.”

He chuckled and you could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “That is great news. We’ll see you back at base.”

You watched as the X-Wings took off, hitting lightspeed in rapid succession. Your own transport followed suit not long after, once everyone was accounted for and all the systems had been checked for damage. You breathed, focusing on the quiet until finally, the ship landed and the ramp lowered.

You walked out, surveying the crowd of celebrating rebels when you spotted BB-8 whirring at you at full speed, beeping a mile a minute. He looked you up and down and then sped away, straight to Poe, who looked down at him. His little head swivelled to you and back.

“(Y/N)!”

Poe sprinted over, pulling you into his arms the second he was close enough. He let out a long breath, his gloved hand cradling the back of your head as he held you. You wrapped your arms around him, resting your head against his shoulder, wings twitching before relaxing completely.

“You…you’re alright? I saw him go after you. I wanted to shoot, but I couldn’t get a clean shot.” He said, regret in his voice, guilt on his brow.

“I’m okay, Poe. Really.” You told him, pulling away for a moment to get a glimpse at his face, check him over for injuries. There was sweat dotted on his forehead, wetting the curls at the edge of his hairline. “I thought it was your ship coming down. I was so scared.”

He shook his head, taking a moment to peel off his gloves so he could touch your cheek with his hand, skin impossibly warm. He rested his forehead against yours, the movement familiar and comfortable. “You saved one of my pilots. I…just when I think you can’t possibly impress me more…”

You wanted to kiss him so badly. So, so badly. Just surge forward and collect his lips as he uttered his sweet, flattering words. You could tell he wanted it, too. That victory kiss.

“Poe…” You murmured, mouth impossibly close.

“I’m right here, baby.” He whispered in response, voice gentle, eyes soft. Sparkling with anticipation. “We’re okay.”

Your breath hitched at the petname, heart racing faster than his X-Wing. You repeated his words. “We’re okay.”

He nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. He took a long breath and then hooked an arm around your waist again, pulling you close as he pressed a long kiss to your cheek. He buried his face in your shoulder, inhaling what was left of your perfume, diluted, you were sure, by the smoke from the battle.

Mood lightening considerably once he’d processed that you were actually okay, that you’d won, that you and Rey had fought off Kylo Ren, he chuckled to himself, remembering your original plans for the day.

“Sorry about our date, but…she’s probably gonna need some repairs before I take her up again.” He looked back at his X-Wing, untangling himself from you, but keeping an arm anchored around your waist, just beneath the base of your wings. It tickled, where his orange sleeve touched the soft tissue, but you didn’t dare move him.

BB-8 beeped up at him, agitated.

“I was careful, Bee, why do you think we’re standing here?”

He beeped something complimentary of your performance out in the battle.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” He grinned, proud. “Really, you were awesome out there.”

“So were you, flyboy. I lost count of how many TIE fighters you took down. Are you sure you’re not Force sensitive?”

He smiled that prettyboy smile, reaching over to wipe some soot from your face, thumb moving deliberately, focused on one spot. “Pretty sure. I’ve just had a lot of practice.”

You saw Soren, ready to approach you, but giving you a minute with your pilot. You nodded at him, a promise that you’d be over there soon.

“I better check on my team. Make sure everyone’s in one piece.” Poe said, looking back towards the hangar where the pilots and mechs were conversing, figure out what all needed to be fixed after the skirmish. “Will, uh…would you grab dinner with me later? You know, since our date got rained out and all…”

You nodded, smiled at him. You put a hand on his cheek and guided him closer, pressing a kiss just beneath his scar. “Dinner sounds great. But when that ship is fixed, I better be first in line for that joyride you promised me.”

He laughed, nodding. “Absolutely, your Highness.”

You went your separate ways, his hand lingering on yours until the last possible second until you were finally pulled apart. And yet, as you met with the other members of the Resistance, talking over the battle, taking stock of everything, he was the only thing you could think of, the feeling of his lips still lingering against your cheek.

Vintage Diplomacy

After the battle, you spent the coming days doing strength training for your wings. Your flight across the ground had opened your eyes. If you could cover ground like that regularly, it could be lifesaving.

You’d spend mornings up in the clearing on the hill. Artoo found you up there once and asked what you were doing as you hovered, wings fluttering impossibly fast. You started with five second bursts, then ten, then twenty.

Artoo timed you, let you know when to stop. And that was how Poe found you one morning before a strategy meeting with the General, as well as her Admirals and Commanders. You’d been hovering for nearly a full minute, kicking up a small breeze in your wake.

You touched down when you saw him approaching, wings folding down with record speed as Artoo gave you the breakdown. Your longest yet. With more training, who knew? Maybe you could be the first Mariposan to rediscover the power of true flight. You could certainly hope.

You stretched out your back, hands on your hips stretching both ways. You hoped the soreness meant you were building muscle, if that was how that worked.

“Hey, Princess. Thought I might find you up here. You eat breakfast yet?”

“Yeah, I had something before I came out here.” You replied.

“Good. Meeting starts soon.”

“Thought so.” You glanced at your watch. “Shall we?”

“Lead the way.” He motioned. He was wearing a leather jacket you hadn’t seen on him yet. It was brown, a rebel patch on the shoulder. Definitely vintage.

“Cool jacket.”

“You like it?” He asked with a smirk.

“Yeah. Is it vintage?”

“It is, actually. Good eye.” He rested his hands on his belt buckle. “Not as vintage as you, of course, your Highness.”

“Hey!” You elbowed him and he elbowed you back, both of you laughing as you strode into the meeting together.

A few eyes caught you, knowing looks exchanged between the other assembled people. You said some hellos, exchanged the necessary pleasantries. You greeted your sister, who smiled warmly when she saw you and Poe walk in together.

You were sure after your little, uh, victory celebration out in the middle of the base, that everyone there must have thought you were dating behind closed doors.

You wished they were right.

Poe sat with the pilots, but you could feel his eyes on you as you mingled with the folks filing into the seats around you. Rey, as always, took the seat next to yours. On your other side, Soren. There was always a certain energy to the room when the Jedi were all together. People paid attention.

Before long, General Organa started the meeting. The main topic of interest: Resistance allies, or the lack thereof.

Since the battle at Crait, Leia had been trying to get in contact with anyone she could think of, friends new and old, anyone the Resistance had helped, but responses were few and far between. The First Order had done their best to silence or…eliminate anyone who wasn’t loyal to them.

“What we’re running low on is hope.” Leia said. “The people don’t think we stand a chance against the First Order. They’d rather hide in fear than stand up and fight. And if we don’t find some allies soon…it’s a matter of time before they take us out. We’re already running on scraps here.”

Chewbacca roared out his support.

“More outreach.” Another Admiral suggested. “The people saw what we did for them in the Endor system, that we stand up for them when it matters. Hell, we got twenty new recruits from that battle alone. When people see the difference we make, they want to fight with us.”

“I think our next move needs to be diplomacy, General. It’s been a while since we’ve had representatives at any events raising awareness.” Your sister reasoned. “How are they supposed to know we’re still here if they never see us?”

“But who would go?” Leia asked, scanning the room. “Diplomatic training hasn’t been very high on our regimen, I’m afraid.”

“I can go.” You volunteered. The eyes in the room fell on you quickly, like they’d been expecting you to say it. “The First Order already knows I’m alive, our allies should, too. They think we have one Jedi, we have three. I think that would spark quite a bit of hope, General. Besides, I have the diplomatic training and I never get to use it.”

She smiled, eyes sparkling. “I was hoping you’d say that. I did catch wind of a gala. It’s…mostly safe. Former Rebel sympathizers, a formal event. It would be as good a place as ever to make a debut. You’ll need a pilot of course, to–”

“I’ll go, General.” Poe volunteered before anyone else even had the chance. “I’ll escort the princess. It would be my honor.”

Leia gave a small, professional smile that you could tell she was all she could do to keep from laughing at the sheer speed with which he offered himself up for the mission. She thought about making him fight for it, and she knew he would. Poe Dameron was nothing if not stubborn, ambitious. It was why she respected him so much.

And at the same time, she knew exactly what would happen if she sent the two of you there, together. Alone.

Maybe it was about time.

“Great. Get packed. It’s tonight, three systems out. Take the Falcon.”

***

After the meeting, you went straight to your quarters, shuffling through your closet for anything…formal. You had a lot of Jedi robes, that was for sure, which might have suited an event like this in the olden days, before even your time, but now…all it would ensure was that you would stick out more than you already did.

“Thought I’d find you here.” Laesynda said, standing in the doorway. “I might have something that’ll work.”

You followed her to her quarters. She opened her wardrobe and pushed aside some clothes, reaching for something specific. She pulled it out with a flourish. A long, midnight blue gown. Off the shoulder. It glittered like stars and truly did look fit for a princess to wear. With it, she had a silver circlet, some silver Mariposan cuff bracelets.

“Mom’s…” You remembered, a hand drifting down the sparkling fabric.

Laesynda nodded. “I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. Maybe I knew you’d need it someday.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Now, let’s get you dressed. Sounds like you have a flight to catch.”

Laesynda helped you into the gown, adjusting the flowing fabric so it sat just so, helping to slip your wings through the slot sewn in specifically for them. It was nice, wearing Mariposan garb again, something you didn’t have to adjust in order to wear comfortably.

She put your hair in a simple style, braiding the front pieces back, setting the circlet on your head. You put on the cuffs, put on a silver belt and strapped your saber to it, the final piece of the puzzle. The metal tones clashed, but maybe that was okay. It would stand out, at the very least.

“How do I look?”

“Like a princess.” She replied, a hand reaching out to touch your face. “And like Mom.”

You couldn’t help but tear up a little bit when she said it. She carefully tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear, giving a final nod. You were ready.

You stopped back into your room, packed a bag with some essentials. Among your things, you found your wooden box of Rebel memorabilia. Pins, cuff links, a pair of dangling silver earrings. You tucked it into the bag as well, along with another change of clothes for after the party. As gorgeous as the gown was, you doubted you’d want to be in it all night. You knew how these kinds of parties went. They were long and socially exhausting. You’d be longing for those Resistance standard sweatpants at the end of it.

There was a knock on the doorframe, your door still open. You expected it to be Laesyndra, having forgotten something. Instead, it was Poe, holding a garment bag that you assumed contained his formal wear.

“Tried to get the General let me take my flight suit out for ya, but she wasn’t having it. You ready for–” He stared, voice dropping off once he spotted you, dressed in a dazzling, midnight gown. “Oh. Wow…”

“Ready for…?” You raised an eyebrow, walking closer with slow strides.

“For takeoff?” He asked, Adam’s apple bobbing, eyes half-lidded. “Chewie warmed up the Falcon for us.”

You smiled warmly, nodding. “All packed, Commander. Ready when you are.”

“Perfect. Right. Well, let’s…” He offered his arm and you took it, slipping your arm through his, your bag slung over the other shoulder.

You gave his bicep a playful squeeze, laughter bubbling out of your painted lips. “Loth-cat got your tongue, Dameron? It’s just me.”

He let out a chuckle, meeting your eyes. “That’s the problem, your Highness.”

This Changes Everything

Your friends saw you off, complimenting you endlessly. Rey and Rose demanded you twirl around, showing off the look, which you gladly did.

“You look dazzling, Princess.” Threepio complimented, giving a little bow, arms poised at their odd angles.

“Thank you, Threepio. It was my mother’s.” You said, a sad, proud glimmer in your eye. Poe caught it immediately.

Artoo came with, but otherwise, it was just you and Poe in that big ship. He put in the coordinates, lifted off the planet, and put it into hyperdrive, with you in the passenger seat. Once it was on autopilot, you were free to move around the cabin.

Poe took his garment bag from one of the other seats and moved towards one of the Falcon’s tiny bed cabins to change. In the meantime, you found a mirror and put in a pair of earrings from your box of Rebel trinkets. They were the Rebellion’s symbol, silver and dangling from tiny chains. They completed the look.

Poe emerged a few minutes later, wearing a dark blue formal tunic, dramatic diagonal trim highlighting his shoulders. It was paired with matching navy pants, some black loafers with silver buckles.

“There was a hat, too, but I thought it would be too much.” He said, standing stiff while you looked him over, eyes roving his figure.

“Covering hair like that would be a crime, I think.” You told him, earning a chuckle and that dashing smile.

Your eyes lingered on the ends of his sleeves and you dug around in your box until you found a pair of cufflinks. You walked over to him, grabbing his hand and inserting one of the cufflinks into the end of his sleeve.

“Where’d you get this stuff?” He asked, watching your careful movements as you switched sleeves, putting the other one in as well.

“I’ve had it. Held onto it after the war. Figured we’d wear them to…charity events or something.” You shrugged. You rummaged around the box for a lapel pin, focused as you pinned it to one side of his tunic, straightening it with a quick movement. “Never thought we’d need them for war fundraising, but here we are…”

“My parents were Rebels, you know.” He confessed, voice soft, eyes softer. He’d been holding onto it, unsure why he’d never found the opportunity to tell you until now. Maybe he was afraid the information would shift your already teetering dynamic.

“Hence the jacket.” You noted, meeting his gaze, fingers still lingering on the pin. The wheels turned in your head and your jaw dropped, finally seeing it in his face. Those brows. That nose. Those eyes. “You’re…you’re Kes Dameron’s kid.”

He chuckled and nodded, eyes sparkling. “Yeah. I am. You knew him?”

“I did know him.” You laughed to yourself shaking your head. “Maker, I can’t believe I didn’t put those pieces together. He worked with Han and the pathfinders. I worked with Leia. It was kind of inevitable that our paths crossed. He was a great guy.”

“Is a great guy.” He said. “He still lives on Yavin. That’s where I grew up.”

You hummed, nodding. “That’s really good news, Poe. I’d…I’d love to see him sometime.”

“I’m sure he’d love to see you when all of this is over.” He said, eyes softening when he spoke of home, of family. “Mom was a pilot. Maybe you knew her. Her name was Shara.”

You gasped softly. “You’re…you’re Shara’s son? Shara Bey?”

Poe nodded, smiling. “I am.”

“Poe…I…” You teared up, studying him, dividing his features in your head, which had come from Shara, from Kes. You touched his face, laughed sadly, happy memories bubbling to the surface. “Shara was…so special. She was my bunkmate on Hoth. She and I kept watch together twice a week. We ate lunch together almost every day. We shared wine bottles at parties. I…I always thought there was something going on between her and Kes, but they kept it very professional. Didn’t know they were engaged until after the war.”

Poe got a little misty, nostalgia swirled in his warm brown eyes.

“We don’t have to talk about it, I’m sorry…”

He shook his head, taking your hand and kissing the back of it. “You were there. I always forget you were there. I can’t believe you knew them…”

“Maker, I could tell you so many stories…”

“I want you to. I want to hear all about them when we get home.”

“Okay.” You nodded, shedding a single tear that he was quick to wipe away, pulling you into a hug instead.

He pressed a long kiss to the crown of your head, arms tight around your shoulders, yours wrapped around his middle. You listened to his heart, hammering away beneath his tunic. You felt his lips on your forehead again, lingering for longer this time before he rested his head against yours, swaying slightly with you in his hold.

Eventually, Artoo rolled into the room, beeping to let you know you were getting close.

“Thank you, Artoo.”

He complimented Poe’s pin with a series of beeps and Poe grinned and thanked him.

“Here, I’ve probably got a magnet in here you can wear.” You said, rummaging through your box until you found one. You knelt down and he rolled forward, letting you stick it to one of his panels.

He beeped and whirred in approval, asking how he looked.

“You look very sharp.” You assured him. “You fit right in, now.”

Poe wandered into the cockpit, standing between the back row of seats, watching as the stars flew by at lightspeed. You stepped in after him and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders without a second thought.

He was your pilot, you were his princess. That was all that mattered. You rested your head against him, watching the stars.

***

The gala was being held at a nice hotel, chandeliers glimmering above, painted portraits hanging on the wall and abstract sculptures sitting on pedestals. It reminded you of home, in a way, if Mariposas had been colorless and stiff. There was soft music playing, a band tucked into the corner of the room. Poe took your arm, escorting you through the room of senators and leaders, former Rebellion members.

It was clear that this gala was pretending to be something it was not. On the outside, it had been bolstered as an academy class reunion, probably to drive off any First Order loyalists, keep them off the trail, inside was a completely different story.

You knew these people. A lot of them, wrinkled and graying though they were. Pathfinders, pilots, ground fighters, comm techs…these had been your brothers and sisters on base, and a decent amount of them, seemingly, had bloomed into important people in their own right.

What was holding them back from helping, you wondered, scanning the room. Maybe it was just the fear of the First Order, of making themselves vulnerable just to be eliminated without a second thought. But as the eyes in the room found you, the whispers picked up, speculating how it was you were there, standing there, living and breathing after all this time.

“How’s that for a first impression…” Poe murmured, just loud enough for you to hear, watching the way these legends reacted to seeing you.

“Time to finally use these stares and whispers to our advantage.” You said, leading him over to a corner where some former fighters were standing. You picked one from the crowd, calling his name to your mind. After all, it had only been two years since you’d seen him.

“Y-your Highness?” He asked, looking you up and down. He glanced at the others, as if to make sure you weren’t some Force Ghost standing there in front of him, that they were seeing it too. “I thought you were…”

“Dead? Lots of folks seem to think so.” You replied, offering your hand, which he shook vigorously. “It’s good to see you, Lieutenant. How’s Marsha?”

That was how it started. You navigated through the room, a walking myth.

Once you made your rounds, Poe at your side, chatting with the people gathered there, you felt a tap on your arm and turned to find him. Lando Calrissian in the flesh.

“I was wondering if I might steal a dance, Princess. If you’re not too busy with the Commander here.” Lando motioned to Poe, whose mouth fell open at his sudden appearance.

“Lando!” You all but jumped into his arms, captured quickly in a tight hug. He swayed back and forth, laughing.

“Maker, Leia was right. You really haven’t aged a day.” He said, taking a moment to look at you. He spun you around. “Can’t say the same for the rest of us.”

“You look great Lando. I was wondering when I’d finally get to see you. How have you been?”

“Oh, same old. Leia tipped me off about this…reunion. Thought I could help finally win these stuffy old guys over.”

“No such luck, I’m guessing.” Poe said, scanning the room.

“Not yet.” Lando winked at you. “That’s why she sent her secret weapon.”

“Not so secret anymore.” You said, trying to ignore all the eyes in your peripheral vision.

Lando introduced and reintroduced you to a handful of old colleagues. One of them, a senator now, stiffened at the sight of you, looking you up and down.

“Leia…dressed you up just like her. It would be convincing, if not for the fake wings.” He said with a sneer. “Almost had me there for a second.”

You chuckled softly, malice creeping into your eyes. “Fake wings?” You repeated, raising them slightly.

“I’ve seen them in action, Senator. I assure you, these things are the real deal.” Poe said, expression guarded, tone painfully casual.

Artoo beeped something at him, agitated, but the senator batted a hand. “I don’t speak droid.”

“I can’t translate what he said anyway, it’s hardly appropriate for an event like this.” You said with a laugh. “Do you need another drink?”

“That’s not–” He started to argue, but you held out a hand, using the Force to pull a champagne flute from across the room. It glided smoothly through the air and hovered in front of him. He stared at it, dropping the empty glass in his own hand. He looked up at you in horror as Poe laughed. “You’re her.”

“Obviously.” You replied, plucking the drink from the air and handing it to him. “I know it’s hard to believe. It’s a long story, but I was saved by one very daring pilot, a Jedi, and a fighter after a long time asleep. Imagine my surprise at waking up to another war.”

He shook his head, brows furrowed. “What war?”

“The First Order. The Resistance. Are you unaware of the conflicts, or just too callous to care this time, elevated position and all?” You asked.

“The need for fighting is over.” He said, shaking his head. “I had my war, I’m sure we can all just live in peace.”

“Senator, I don’t know if you’ve been out there, but it’s bad.” Poe said, eyes serious. “What they did to the New Republic…”

“Was a horrible incident, I’m sure, but that doesn’t mean we can all just…hop in an X-Wing and blow things up.”

You laughed at that. “You didn’t even do that the first time. You failed your flight test, if I remember correctly, Senator. Was it two times, or three?”

He scoffed, clearly offended. “Well, I–”

Poe’s eyes lit up, watching as you warmed up to take your shot.

“Don’t you remember what things were like? Under the Empire? Maybe it’s been too long for you. I know thirty years is a long time to hold onto memories, but…it’s only been two years for me. Two years since the Battle of Endor. Two years of quiet after. I remember how bad it was and this is worse. The weapons they have, the forces, the numbers. They have a Sith trying to outshine Darth Vader and Maker knows what else hidden on those Star Destroyers. They are taking children and ruining lives. One of our best friends is a former trooper. I wish he was here to tell you himself the horrors he’s seen aboard those vessels. They can destroy planets with a few button presses. Maybe you feel safe right now. Maybe you’re playing into their pocket, who knows, but someday, they’ll turn on you, too, and there will be no one left to protect you because you didn’t help the Resistance fight back.”

The room fell silent, every ear tuning into your fiery words. Lando let out a proud little laugh.

Someone across the room stepped forward, meeting your eyes. Wedge. Wedge Antilles. One of the best Rebel pilots there was. He’d been great friends with Luke, so you’d known him pretty well. It was good to see he was still around.

“Well, your Highness, where do we sign up?”

***

After a few more hours of networking, of Poe handing out tokens for further communication, taking pledges and handing out contact information for any people they knew who’d like to enlist in the Rebellion, the three of you–you, Poe and Artoo, that is–said your goodbyes and headed back to the ship.

As soon as the ramp was closed, Poe’s face broke into a victorious smile and he took you in his arms, lifting you off the ground and spinning you around. Laughter bubbled from your lips.

“That was insane!” A triumphant laugh escaped him. “You flipped that whole room in less than a minute! I…I…” He set you down, unable to wipe the smile from his face. “I can’t believe that just happened. This changes…everything. We’re gonna have so many new recruits. We’re gonna be able to get so many supplies…”

“New pilots?” You asked.

“New X-Wings. New ships. New blasters. Kriff, new uniforms, even.” He smiled, grabbing onto your arms, just above the flowing, off-the-shoulder sleeves. “Wow, I dunno, I had my doubts when Leia sent me four systems out for a shiny rock, but…I don’t know what we’d do without you here.” He met your eyes, took a step closer, dipped his head down. “I don’t know what I’d do without you here…”

You couldn’t do it anymore. You couldn’t dance around him and pretend your heart wasn’t on fire just looking at him.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and tugged him closer, lips capturing his easily, as you had in your fantasies so many times. He gasped into your mouth, arms winding around your waist and pulling you against him, lips passionate and experienced. Poe held you there with one arm, the other traveling up into your hair.

Your nose brushed against his as he twisted, getting an even better angle, teeth nipping at your lip. You reached up and cupped his cheek, thumb brushing through the stubble accumulated there.

He pulled back, forehead against yours, breaths ragged as his eyes searched your face, looking for some evidence that that had happened, that it was real this time.

“Say something,” you whispered, hand still anchored against his cheek, eyes sparkling with insecurity. “Please.”

“Give me a second. I’ve never kissed a princess before.” He murmured, kissing your forehead, then your cheeks, pressing another long one to your lips. Soft, but filled with so much passion. He let out a breathy chuckle, meeting your eyes. “Maker, you have no idea how many times I’ve dreamed of doing that.”

You bit your lip, a guilty little smile twisting your mouth. “Actually, about that…”

Poe’s eyes widened, jaw dropping before the shock melted into an embarrassed grin. “You…you could feel it, huh? The whole time?”

“More or less.” You confessed. You pulled him back into you and he didn’t resist, nose brushing yours as you whispered, “I couldn’t tell if they were your fantasies or mine, to be honest.”

He stepped forward, cupping your cheek as he captured your lips again, hungrier this time, lit up by your words, by your confession, that you had felt this way about him for just as long as he’d been drawn to you.

Another step forward and your exposed back touched the cold metal of a wall panel, one of Poe’s hands taking yours, fingers interlacing as he held it up against the wall. His other hand tugged your waist closer, closer, closer, like he was trying to fuse the two of you into one person.

You crooned, hooking your arm around his neck, keeping him there.

“Tell me to stop,” he rasped, lips trailing down your neck before crushing against yours again. “Use one of your Jedi Mind Tricks or something.”

“I can’t.” You laughed against him. “They wouldn’t work on you anyway and…I don’t want you to stop.”

“Well good, because I don’t think I can…” He said with a chuckle, nose smushed against yours. He kissed you again, movements tender and slow, smiling against you when he heard your breath hitch. “I thought Jedi weren’t allowed to fall in love. I would have done this so much sooner…”

You laughed. “That’s what was stopping you? I thought you weren’t afraid of bending the rules, Commander.”

Poe let out a breath, smirking. “Well yeah, but…you’re a princess. I thought you might not be so keen on rulebreaking.”

“Well the good news is, there aren’t any rules against Jedi falling in love anymore.” You murmured, resting your forehead against his, hands tugging on the trim of his tunic. “But if there were…I would break them for you, Poe Dameron.”

He grinned that flyboy grin, going in for one last kiss, then another, then one final, lingering kiss, stealing the breath from your lungs, the butterflies in your stomach flying loop-de-loops that rivaled any maneuver he could pull off with his X-Wing.

Soon, you knew you’d have to fly back to base, update Leia on the progress you’d made, return to your schedules and duties.

But now, you shared your breaths with him, heart racing as he cupped your cheeks, whispering sweet words against your lips, promises to steal away more time together as soon as the Maker would allow.

A Little Rebel Spirit

Poe slept in your bed that night.

Your mattress was hardly big enough for one of you let alone both of you, but he didn’t mind, changing out of his formal tunic, carefully returning your Rebellion trinkets to their special little box, and laying in your bed, watching you, hands folded on his toned tan chest, the chain around his neck glimmering against his skin.

You’d changed into some sleep shorts and a tanktop you’d modified for your wings. When you turned to face him again in the dim bedroom, he gasped, eyes falling on your thigh. More specifically, the large tattoo piece stretched across your skin.

“You have a tattoo?” He asked, almost scandalized. “Princess, I knew you were a Rebel, but I didn’t know you were so rebellious.”

“You wanna know what’s rebellious…Leia did this.” You said, fingers skimming over the artwork.

His jaw dropped. “No fucking way.”

“Yes way.” You nodded, walking over to the bed and sat beside him, propping your leg atop his so he could see better.

He ran a large hand over the tattoo, the sheer warmth of his touch sending shivers down your spine. “When?”

“Three years ago.” You answered, before correcting “Thirty-three years ago. We were on some planet, there was a market and she got a tattoo gun for like…twelve credits, which should have been the first red flag.”

“And you let her do that?” He asked, laughing.

“Well yeah. She’s my best friend. I knew it would drive my parents nuts, their second in line for the throne defiling her skin, but…I didn’t really expect to survive the war, to be honest. Besides, I was the spare, what were they gonna do about it? I knew I was never going to be queen.” You said with a shrug. “It’s not half bad anyways. She’s a talented artist.”

“This is…that tree, isn’t it. The one on Mariposas.” He said, studying the lines, the shading. It was a large, sprawling tree, branches thick, covered in flowers. Roots twisted down your thigh, headed towards your knee, and in the roots, were a few stray butterflies. Above it, three moons, their shaded crescents in various stages of their cycles.

You nodded. “The Monarch Tree. From which, all life on Mariposas bloomed, or so the legends go.” You guided his hand further down the art, to where the roots curled into a subtle version of the symbol of the Rebellion. “This was by special request.”

His features glowed with recognition and he met your eyes, reaching up to smooth the hair out of your face. “Wow, that’s…that’s really hot, I’ll be honest.”

You giggled, shifting your body towards him. “Yeah? A little Rebel spirit is what does it for you?”

“You’re one to talk. You’re into that silly orange jumpsuit of mine.” He teased, hand hooking your knee and tugging your leg to the other side of his hips, so you were straddling him, hovering inches from his face.

Your wings twitched behind you as you cupped his face with both hands, nose pressed to his. Tenderly, slowly, you inched in, grinning when he got impatient and chased your lips, hands wandering up to your waist to tug you closer.

“You know, honestly Poe, it’s not so much the jumpsuit as it is the thought of…taking it off of you. How easy it would be to just…reach out and unzip it a little.” Mischief glimmered in your eyes. “With the Force.”

He let out a broken groan at that, throwing his head back towards the wall. “You can’t just say that when I’m not wearing it.”

You smiled, coy. “Next time, perhaps.”

“Oh, there’s no question about that, sweetheart.” He had fire in his eyes when he pulled you towards him, crushing his lips to yours, tongue teasing at the seam between your mouths. You let him in, the taste of him rolling across your tongue, minty fresh from his toothpaste.

You threaded your fingers through his curls, letting out a whine when his lips left yours and started trailing down your neck, stubble rough against the sensitive skin. His hand ghosted up your back, finding the base of your wings, calloused fingertips brushing against the spot between them.

Tingles shot through your limbs like firecrackers and you crumbled against him.

He froze, the panic setting in. “Woahhh, sorry, sorry, is that not an okay spot?”

You took a deep breath, reaching up to cup his cheek, turning his face towards you as best you could from your spot tucked into his shoulder. You laughed sheepishly, cheeks flushed. “S’fine, Poe. I’m okay.”

“No, if it’s not fine, you need to tell me. Baby, I’ve never…touched a Mariposan before, I don’t know what I’m doing.” He confessed.

“It’s…that spot is the most sensitive spot on my whole body.” You said through laughs, pulling his face down to meet yours. “So we just went zero to a thousand all at once.”

“Oh.” He laughed. “So it’s a no-go zone.”

“It’s a ‘we have to work up to that’ zone.” You amended, pressing a kiss to his lips, adjusting yourself so you were a little more upright. “You can touch it, but…it has to be featherlight. Unless we’ve gotten there.”

“Okay.” He nodded, nose brushing against yours. “So, do they…have feeling in them?” He asked, hand hovering just above the crest of one of your wings, still a little afraid to outright touch them, despite the fact that he already had, that night in the kitchens.

“Mmhmm.” You spread one out for him, an invitation. “You can touch them. Just be gentle. Like before.”

Poe reached out, running the palm of his hand down the length of one wing, tingles running down your back as he did.

You let out a contented sigh, lulling against his chest as your muscles relaxed.

“Does it feel good?”

“Yeah.” You kissed his cheek, then the corner of his lips, hand resting against his chest. “It’s like…having your hair played with.”

He smiled at that, continuing the gentle movements while you were curled up in his arms. He kissed you again, lips impossibly soft, like silk, the fine royal satins your sheets on Mariposas had been made of.

“You’re the only one allowed to touch them, though.” You told him.

“Just me?” He asked, absolutely enamored.

“Just you.” You punctuated it with a kiss that he readily reciprocated. “It’s…seen as a romantic thing, on Mariposas. Wing-touching is…very personal.”

“So when you let me touch them that night…”

“I was making a move, more or less. I knew you wouldn’t take it that way, though. It doesn’t mean much to outsiders.”

“It meant everything to me, Princess.” He whispered, kissing your forehead. He basked in the proximity, of the feeling of you in his arms, the way you slotted perfectly against him, like you were made for him. “Should have done my research. Would have saved us both some time.”

You laughed. “I doubt Laesynda would have told you that.”

“True.” He went quiet for a while, thinking over something before asking, “Do you…miss it?”

“Miss what?”

“Just…the way things were, before you went to sleep.” He asked.

You could tell it had been weighing on him. If you missed people from before. If you missed the relationships you’d had. If you missed Luke.

“Sometimes. I miss Mariposas a lot. I miss my family. I didn’t even get the privilege of losing them, really, I just woke up and…they were gone. Had been gone for decades. I miss Han. I miss Luke…but…He left me there. He just…left me there to sleep for thirty years, so…” You let out a breath. “I try not to miss him more than he missed me.”

He nodded, listening quietly, hand still gently passing over your wing, the sensation soothing in indescribable ways. It had been so long since someone had touched you like that. If he kept at it, he would lull you right to sleep.

“But I like this life, too. I like training with Rey and Soren. I like making a difference again, fighting for something important. And someday, when the war is over, I’ll get to figure out what that peace looks like for me again.” You reached up, thumb gently grazing the skin beneath that tiny scar on his cheekbone. You pulled him to you, locking in a slow, sensual kiss. “I like you most of all, Poe Dameron.”

He smirked. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not.” You shook your head, eyes earnest. “You saved my life. You found that pendant. You woke me up. And every day since then, you’ve been finding little pieces of my heart I thought I’d lost decades ago.”

His lips captured yours again, breathing into it. They wandered, down your cheek, past your jaw, down to your neck again. You laced your fingers through his curls, relishing in the burn of his stubble against your skin.

“Maker, I’m so glad we found you…”

He whispered against the sensitive spot he’d found on your neck, the words echoing off the caverns of your mind. That voice. Those words.

It was him. Obviously it was, but the realization still struck you to your core. You’d dreamed of this, dreamed of him for years, and now he was finally yours.

Your pilot. Your Poe.

Can’t Change the Past, Starlight

You and Poe walked down to breakfast separately the next morning. He slipped out of your room carefully, watching for any techs that might be walking by, and hurrying from your room to his to change into some real clothes, as all he had in your room was the formal tunic Leia had loaned him.

You timed your exit about fifteen minutes after, and ran into Rey and Finn in the hallway.

“How did it go?” Finn asked. “I was kind of worried. I never heard Poe come into the room last night.”

“Oh it was great. I’m sure we’ll hash it all out in the meeting later. Lots of new pledges, hopefully lots of new recruits, too. Ran into Lando Calrissian. He’s…an old friend.”

Rey’s jaw dropped. “The Lando Calrissian. Is he joining the Resistance?”

“He’s thinking about it.” You said with a smirk. “He’s always been hard to pin down, but I have a good feeling he’ll come around. Maker knows we could use his help.”

The canteen was bustling with folks, starting their day. Poe was sitting at the usual table with Rose. You grabbed some breakfast and slid into the seat across from him. A calculated move. He slid you a cup of caf, just the way you liked it.

“There you are. I was worried you’d gotten lost on the way to our room.” Finn said, searching Poe’s face. “Where’d you end up last night?”

“I…slept on the couch down in the lounge. Didn’t wanna wake you, we got back really late.” Poe lied.

Alright, you were officially doing this. You were officially hiding your relationship. It was kind of thrilling, you had to admit.

“Mmm.” Finn nodded, not buying it in the slightest. “Well, how’d it go?”

“Fantastic. (Y/N) has a real way with words.” Poe said, eyes sparkling. “Flipped the whole room, had everyone all fired up. We got so many new pledges and allies. It’s gonna take the droids forever to get all the files sorted.”

“Like I said, diplomatic training I never use.” You said with a shrug, taking a sip of caf.

“How’d you sleep?” Poe asked, meeting your eyes.

“Slept alright. Like you said, we got back late, so I didn’t get much of it.”

“Mmm. Sorry to hear that.” He said through a grin that he hid behind his mug. “I slept great.”

You kicked his leg under the table.

After breakfast, the group of you filed into the meeting, where you were somewhat surprised to see Lando, chatting with Leia. Once she spotted you, she motioned you over, hugging you tightly.

“I never doubted you, (Y/N), but I have to admit, I didn’t expect results like these. This changes everything.”

“I’m glad I could do my part, General.” You said, eyes glimmering. You turned to Lando. “Didn’t expect you to head here so fast.”

“How could I not? You need help. I should have been here a long time ago.” He said, slinging an arm around your shoulders. Just like old times. “I’m here for whatever you need, ladies. Just say the word.”

“Well right now, I need someone wrangling the new recruits. They need to be rounded up from outposts in the Outer Rim.” Leia said.

Lando saluted. “Just give me coordinates and a ship. I can make it happen.”

You left the two of them, turning to sit in your usual seat with the other Jedi. This meeting was a little more broad, more of the operatives from the middle ranks present in addition to the higher-ups.

Laesynda walked past, letting her hand brush on yours as she passed, a knowing smile on her face.

You avoided Poe’s gaze purposefully, but you could feel it on you from across the table. Business as usual, you supposed. He was always giving you those lovesick looks, but now there was something more in those warm brown eyes of his. You loved the feeling.

Leia started the meeting, opening with words of congratulations, the numbers from the previous night broken down in the projection on the holo in the middle of the room. The team burst into applause, several congratulative whoops and hollers sounding. Snap jostled Poe’s shoulder and he finally met your eyes, giving you that charming flyboy wink, handsome features illuminated in the teal light.

Leia moved to the next order of business, the intel Lando had been hard at work gathering. About Mariposas.

“The attack on Mariposas…I believe it was an inside job.” Lando said.

Your heart dropped into your stomach, ears ringing. You looked at Laesynda and she shared the same grim expression you were sure was on your face. You felt Poe’s eyes on you, watching as the rug was torn from beneath your feet.

“I don’t mean to impede on our celebration, I just…With three prominent Mariposans among our ranks, I think it’s a logical conclusion that…two of them were the targets of the original attack. So whoever tipped off the Empire splinter cells, if they’re still alive, could be interested in…”

“Finishing the job.” You said, suddenly exhausted.

“Yeah.” Lando nodded.

He brought up some diagnostics, a map of the planet, a breakdown of the attack. He talked those who were unfamiliar with it through what had happened. You watched as red bloomed across the Healer’s Temple, right where you were, blaster fire taking out the Refuge, where the Healers had retreated. A light attack up front to scare them, a heavy attack on their hiding spot to finish them off.

Immediately, you knew Lando was right. It was an inside job. Only someone who knew the innerworkings of the palace would have known the Healers retreated there in the case of an emergency. Someone who had grown up there, perhaps.

You bristled, watching as the attack continued, further details selling his point further. This was an attack that had been planned and executed by someone intimately familiar with your home. And someone who wanted you dead. Or at the very least, didn’t want you to wake up.

“Maddox.” The name left your mouth coated in venom. “My brother. Had to have been. Only the royal family would have known all of this, to exploit every weak spot in order.”

“Why would your brother…” Poe started, finally daring to speak up.

“He was jealous.” Laesynda said, the memories of him weighing her down, too. “Always jealous. He was the oldest, the heir to the throne. It still wasn’t enough for him. He was jealous (Y/N) was the Jedi of the family. Wanted it to be him.”

“Couldn’t have been our parents. I was asleep, Laesynda was ten. It had to have been Maddox.” You laughed bitterly, shaking your head. “Maker, if he wanted me dead so bad, I don’t know why he didn’t just destroy my pod and kill me himself.”

“Because we were there.” Leia said, voice soft. “We were too late to stop the initial attack, but…Han and Lando got the shields up. I guarded your pod. Luke handled the cultists.”

You pressed your lips together, nodding. “Thank you.”

“By the time the fight was over, all of the Healers’ Pendants had been destroyed or…lost. We tried to use the Force to open your pod, but they were designed with that in mind. Only a healer could open it and they were…all gone.”

You took a long breath, nodding as she explained.

Lando looked at you, features apologetic. “And if he is indeed in the First Order, alive after all this time, it stands to reason that…he wouldn’t be happy that you’re awake again, your Highness.”

“Right. Do we have any…intel that he is? On either account, alive or currently working with the First Order?” You asked, adjusting your posture. Your wings twitched. Rey reached for your hand and you gave it to her, the touch comforting, albeit simple.

“Not yet, your Highness, but…We’re working to figure that out. I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.” Lando said, turning the holo off with a click. “Wanted to make sure we all kept our guards up.”

Leia ran the team through a few other things, mostly preparation for new Resistance members she was anticipating. New quarters would have to be prepared, they’d have to arrange supplies and prepare to train dozens, maybe hundreds, of rookies.

After the meeting, you met Poe’s eyes for a moment. And then, you walked back to your quarters, paces brisk. Uncharacteristic of you to just leave one so early with no discussion of meal plans, no chatter with your peers, to just…disappear. Anyone who knew you would know there was something wrong. And Poe knew you.

The door slid shut behind you and you sat on the mattress, letting out a strangled yell, head in your hands, knees tucked up into your chest and wings flaring out behind you.

Your heart raced in the silence after the scream. The force of it, the Force of you had rattled the trinkets sitting on your dressers. You took a few breaths, leaning back against the wall and staring at the ceiling panel, tears streaming down your cheeks.

The door slid open again and Poe slipped inside, closing it behind him. He melted when he saw you there, looking utterly pathetic, you were sure.

“Hey, baby. You okay? That was some heavy stuff.” He crossed the room, sitting on the bed.

You shook your head and reached for him. He pulled you into his arms immediately, a large hand cradling your head, the other wrapped tight around you, legs draped over his. You buried your face in his shoulder, sobs muffled by his warmth.

He started tracing comforting patterns in your back, letting you get it all out before attempting to talk you through it.

“I feel so stupid, crying about it. It happened so long ago…” You confessed, voice soft and broken.

“Not for you.” Poe reasoned, pressing a kiss to your hairline. One gentle hand found your cheek and he used his thumb to gently wipe your tears away. “Everyone here knows it’s still fresh for you. Of course you’re torn up about it, I would be, too.”

You nodded, sniffling. “I always knew he hated me, but…I guess I just never knew how much. I thought after Endor, everything would cool off. But it doesn’t sound like that’s the case. It was quiet for a while, sure, but…I wasn’t here when things started getting bad. I wasn’t here to help when things got worse…”

He listened, empathy rooted deep in his warm brown eyes. “You’re here now.”

“Yeah, but…”

“What happened, happened. We can’t change the past, starlight.” He said, readjusting his hold, one arm cradling you while the other nestled against your cheek, still gently dabbing at your tears as they fell. “I’m just glad you’re here now. For selfish and unselfish reasons. Rey needs you. I need you. You’ve got a lot of good to do here, and you’ve already done so much.”

You nodded, absorbing his words. He was right. He always seemed to be. “What do you have going on today? Is there somewhere you need to be?”

“It can wait. I’m needed here.” He promised, pressing a kiss to your nose, gentle smile turning mischievous with a quirk of his eyebrow. “Besides, they’ll never find me in here.”

You couldn’t help but laugh a little. Poe never failed to bring a smile to your face, even when you were feeling like this.

“It’ll be alright, baby.” He reassured. The name still made your heart do flips in your chest. You much preferred it to your stuffy royal titles.

You sat further upright, kissing his soft pink lips. He kissed back, hand tilting your face just so with passionate precision. “I know it will. We’ll make sure of it this time.”

Rise of the Resistance

It wasn’t long before the new recruits started showing up. Lando ran what was akin to a shuttle service for a few weeks, running back and forth in a tiny transport, trying to avoid as much attention as possible. So far, it had worked.

The new folks were a bright bunch. Among them, Wedge Antilles, who had left behind his flight school, taking most of his pupils with him to help the cause.

“You know, as weird as this sounds, I missed it, Princess.” He admitted, hands on his hips, looking around the base, where soldiers ran in neat columns for their morning workout.

“Missed that Rebel air?”

He grinned. “Exactly that.”

Snap walked over, hugging him tightly and that was how you found out Wedge was Snap’s step-dad. Maker, it was a small galaxy after all. You and the other Jedi took a break from training, trying to help everyone get acclimated. You helped with giving tours, showed rookies where to get their breakfast and sleep, teaching them emergency protocol.

You set up a meditation room in an empty storage shed. It left something to be desired, but it was dimly lit, had some soft music playing, various toys and activities for Force training, cushions on the floor for those who could not float in the air while they meditated.

Aspen led some of the new recruits through while you were organizing your books.

“And this is Princess (Y/N) (L/N) of Mariposas, one of three Jedi we have on base.” She motioned to you. “If any of you think you might be Force-Sensitive, this is who you want to come to with questions.”

“We are always looking for new Jedi.” You said. “But this room is for everybody. If you need to get away for a bit, feel free to come here, do some meditation, read. It’s here for you. It gets rough out there, you need to take care of yourselves.”

Hours later, you had a tour group of your own, leading them through the comms center, then the mech workshop, droid repair, where BB-8 was getting a fresh paint job and beeped and whirred at you excitedly.

You led them past the hangar, where there were pilots milling around, about to head out on a perimeter check. Poe was there, stretching in that orange jumpsuit of his. You couldn’t fight the grin that formed when he spotted you, lighting up. He walked over, introducing himself to the group.

“Any pilots?” He asked, scanning your recruits, standing right next to you, hands on his hips, but his elbow brushing your side.

Professional. So, painfully professional.

“Reggie there.” You pointed him out and Reggie volunteered himself with a proud hand in the air.

“That’s the spirit. Welcome to the team, Reg.” He looked at you, glancing at your holo to take a peek at your schedule. “They’re not giving you too much trouble, I hope.”

“Nope, I’m all set with these guys. Bright bunch.” You replied, meeting those warm brown eyes, where mischief always seemed to sparkle.

“Right. Good. So, you don’t have anything penciled in after lunch?”

“I do not.” You confirmed.

“Alright. Well, uh, I’ve gotta hop in that X-Wing for perimeter checks. See you around, your Highness.” He promised, eyebrow quirked. He turned to Reggie. “Nice to meet you, Reggie. I’ll make sure you get acclimated.”

“Thank you, sir.” Reggie replied, starstruck.

You gave Poe a parting smile. Once the group had turned away, you glanced back. He motioned to the zipper of his jumpsuit, then looked at you with over-exaggerated expectation. Your jaw dropped and you rolled your eyes, laughing. Here in front of all of these people was not where you intended to use the Force to unzip his jumpsuit.

Still, you pinched your fingers together, focusing for a moment as you tugged it down the tiniest bit, just enough to tease him. He gasped, clearly not expecting you to actually do it. The way his eyes lit up, though, you could tell he was into it. Perhaps too into it.

The group didn’t notice, too busy buzzing about their future roles. Some of them were buzzing about other topics, like how hot your boyfriend was.

You moved them along to the next spot on the tour, but one of them pushed.

“Who was that?”

“Who, Commander Dameron?”

“He’s a Commander.” She giggled with the girl beside her. They couldn’t have been older than nineteen. It was kind of cute, admittedly. Harmless.

“Wow, he is something.” The other one agreed.

“Best pilot in the galaxy, in fact.” You chimed, heart surging with pride at your overly casual words. “I do think he’s seeing someone though, ladies.”

They both let out dramatic sighs. “Well, whoever they are, I hope they know how lucky they are.”

You chuckled, watching as his X-Wing pulled off into the air, doing a barrel roll right above the group. Now he was showing off. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t do something to you. “Oh she does.”

***

You ate lunch with Rey and Soren, welcoming a few of the new recruits to your table. Finn was busy with tours, too, training people to do various upkeep tasks around the base, keeping everything running smoothly. Poe was standing in the doorway and Rey looked up at him, then glanced at you, then back at him again.

“I think he’s trying to get your attention.” She chuckled, stabbing at the remains of her salad with a fork.

“Oh, is he?” You replied through a smile, still trying to keep up the act.

“I think he’s into you, you know. Finn and I talk about it sometimes.” She said, tone encouraging. “And he is his roommate. And his best friend.”

“Are you implying Finn has some information I should know?” You asked.

She laughed. “I very well may be. Honestly though, you should just go for it. I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that. May as well give it a shot.”

“Yeah.” You smiled at that. “Maybe I’ll go see what his deal is.”

“Good luck.” Rey said, watching as you crossed the room to where he was waiting in the doorway.

You met him with a cordial, professional smile. “Commander Dameron, is there something I can help you with?”

“Actually, yes, there is, Your Royal Highness.”

“Woah, busting out the big title? What’s the special occasion?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to take a walk down the hall with me.”

“Down the hall.” You said with a chuckle, pushing past him and leading him in that direction. Once you were out of earshot of the canteen, you muttered, “How romantic.”

“Oh I’ll show you romantic, Princess.” He replied, tugging open a closet door and grabbing your arm, pulling you inside. He locked the door with a careful click and then he was on you, calloused hands on your cheeks, lips fluid and hungry.

“Poe,” you mumbled into his lips, taken aback, heart revving like an engine.

“You wanna unzip it the rest of the way?” He asked, the rasp in his voice alone telling you he had been thinking about it all morning.

“That did something to you, huh?” You giggled into his mouth as he latched back on, his steps pushing until you hit the wall behind you.

“Sure did.” He agreed, releasing you and holding his arms open, orange jumpsuit there and ready for you, zipped nearly to the top. “Do it.”

“You sure?” You asked, raising a hand, wiggling your fingers with a coy smile on your face.

“Quit teasin’ me, baby.” He warned.

You bit back a laugh, focusing the zipper. You pinched your fingers together and pulled downwards, the zipper falling at your will without either of you touching it. He stared at it for a long moment, that dangerous spark in his eyes again before he surged forward.

“That is…wow.” He murmured, fire behind his words. One hand cupped your cheek, the other holding your waist as he stepped closer, closer, closer, slotting himself between your legs.

You grabbed the sides of the jumpsuit, pulling it open, working it down his broad shoulders to reveal the thin white undershirt beneath. On top of it, the silver chain he always wore, a simple silver ring threaded through it. A ring you recognized as Shara’s.

“Rey and I had a��conversation…at lunch.” You said between kisses.

“Mmhmm, ‘bout what?” He asked, tilting your head and kissing down your neck. His other hand roamed lower, brushing across one of your wings, sending tingles up your arms.

You let out a shuttered breath, head tilting back against the wall. “She thinks…” another sigh escaped you as he continued to kiss the spot, jaw movements clouding your vision with stars, “you might be into me.”

His lips curled, poised over the vein on your neck. He paused for a moment. “Oh she does, does she?”

“Yeah, she has it on pretty good authority, apparently.” You said, daring to look down at him, at those dark, sultry eyes.

“Yeah, well, she’s not far off.” He breathed, going back in for your neck, determined to leave a mark in the short window of time you had before you and Soren were doing your ground perimeters. “I’m fucking obsessed with you, starlight.”

You moaned at his passioned ministrations on your neck, fingers threading through those lucious curls and giving a gentle tug. His hands hooked under your thighs and he hoisted you onto his hips, your back pressed against the wall of the tiny closet.

You met his eyes, breathless, wings fanned out behind you. “I can’t believe I get to have you, Poe Dameron.”

“Believe it.” He asserted, nose brushing against yours on the way to your lips. You cupped his cheeks with your hands, kissing all over his face before returning. “Kriff, I still wake up every day in disbelief that I get to do this in a closet with a Jedi Princess.”

“We won’t be in closets forever.” You whispered, eyes locking on his. It was a promise. Someday, everyone would know. It wouldn’t have to be a secret anymore.

He nodded, grinned. “Yeah, but…it is kinda thrilling, right?”

“Can’t argue with that.”

His eyes drifted down to your neck and he pulled a plush pink lip between his teeth, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Hey, uhhh…you have a turtleneck you can wear, right?”

Your jaw fell open. “You did not.”

“I might’ve.”

“You might’ve?” You shook your head. “Poe Dameron, what am I going to do with you?”

He pressed his forehead to yours, eyes half-lidded, lips ghosting across yours as he whispered, “More of this, I hope.”

***

Another week came and went. More recruits arrived, but things had hit something of a plateau. Still, your numbers were excellent, a far cry from the shell of a Resistance that had been left after Crait.

Poe was giving the new pilots a walk around the base, all of them suited up in their bright orange jumpsuits, having been fitted for them for the first time. You and Soren were out and about, dressed in your Jedi robes, lightsabers clipped to your belts. You must have just finished some training, he rationalized.

He noticed how some of the pilots in his group stared, watching the two of you with interest. He figured many of them had probably never seen a Jedi before. Hell, he hadn’t until Rey had moved those rocks from the mouth of the tunnel they’d all been trapped inside on that blasted salt planet.

“Is that one the Jedi Princess or the other Jedi?” one of the new pilots asked, voice hushed, as though you could hear his very thoughts at that distance.

“That one is the princess. You can tell by the wings.” Snap explained. “Poe’s good friends with her.”

Good friends. He thought to himself with a chuckle. Just like you and Karé are “good friends.”

“Is she single? Could you put in the good word?” another asked, earning elbows and enthusiastic hollers from his teammates.

Snap laughed out loud, glancing over at Poe, who could feel his ears burn. Cheeks, too.

“Oh, uhhh, Jedi actually aren’t allowed to fall in love.” He lied through a charming smile. “Believe me, I asked her myself. Breaks some ancient Jedi code or something. Sorry, fellas.”

The rookie pilots let out noises of disappointment and Poe couldn’t help but laugh to himself. There. That’d keep them off of you.

“They’re not, huh?” Snap asked, voice quiet enough that the others couldn’t hear. He motioned to you with his head. “Might want to tell her that.”

Snap was right. Poe glanced over and you were looking at him with that starry-eyed gaze. So lovesick he lost track of his footing, tripping right over BB-8, who had been rolling in front of him.

“Poe!”

Bee let out a series of disgruntled beeps and buzzes and he chuckled, embarrassed. He scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, Bee. You okay, buddy?”

Bee beeped up at you, seemingly unharmed. He was a sturdy little guy, after all.

“I agree, he needs to watch where he’s going.” You said, hands on your hips. You offered one, helping him to his feet. “You hear that, Dameron?”

“Loud and clear, your Highness.” He chuckled, brushing himself off.

“No serious damage?”

“Not that I can find.” Poe blew the hair from his eyes.

You reached up and plucked a single leaf from his curls, handing it to him. “There. For your collection.”

“Thanks, I’ll put it with the rest of ‘em.” He said with a smirk. Poe turned to the assembled rookies, who were murmuring amongst themselves. “Pilots, Princess (Y/N), Princess (Y/N), our new crop of pilots. Get acquainted with her. If you crash in the middle of a fight, she’s the one that’s gonna catch your X-Wing.”

“If it doesn’t blow up before that.” Snap added, earning a few unsettled laughs from the group.

It was a dangerous job. You’d always known that. You liked to think that you helped protect them when you could. When it was possible to. But Poe was always taking a risk when he climbed into that cockpit, even for something as simple as checking perimeters. He knew it, too, which is what made him so damn brave.

“Right. That.” Poe agreed with a bitter chuckle. “How was training?”

“Good. Making progress.” You said, shrugging. You and Soren hadn’t done anything groundbreaking, just sparring. But still, it felt good, like you were both making habits, challenging each other and learning little quirks of battle.

“Good. Good. Well, see ya around.” He gave your arm an awkward little touch.

You couldn’t help but laugh as you returned to Soren, who had a knowing look on his face. You knew then that he knew. That that Jedi intuition had finally clocked what was going on. But he didn’t say anything. Saved you the trouble of explaining yourself, why you were hiding it.

The Resistance had enough going on. They didn’t need the drama of one of the Jedi entangled with their ace pilot. Especially if something went wrong.

Tags: @cap-lu20

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron imagine #star wars #sequel trilogy #star wars sequels #jedi!reader #poe x reader #poe imagine

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eomerofrohan · 6 months

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The Grinding Ice

(an excerpt from an as-yet-unpublished WIP I've been working on featuring some of my Noldor OC's. for @march-of-the-noldor)

After what felt like an eternity trekking across the frozen wasteland, Fingolfin called for the group to halt and make camp. They could not continue on their march as worn out as they were, and although trying to sleep in such an environment would be dangerous, he preferred it to trying to press onward and having his people collapse of exhaustion. They’d had too many close calls already.

“I’ll stay awake for now,” Vanessë whispered to her sister Rainiel as they pitched their tent. “To keep watch for cracking in the ice or anything else. You should get some rest.”

“Are you sure?” Rainiel asked. “You need sleep too.”

“I’ll be fine.” Vanessë handed Rainiel the extra blanket. “Take this.”

“Absolutely not, you keep that if you’re going to try to stay awake in this cold!”

“You need to stay warm while you sleep,” she retorted.

Finally, Rainiel agreed to take the blanket, and she wrapped it around herself with one of the cloaks as extra padding. Then she spread a bedroll out on the ground inside the tent and lay down, curled up in between these layers and still shivering.

Vanessë waited until Rainiel’s breathing was steady. Then, slowly and quietly, she laid the fur-lined cloak Turgon had just given her across her sister’s shoulders and slipped out of the tent without another word, letting the flap close behind her. She went and sat down a few feet away and wrapped her arms tightly around herself, trying to ignore the icicles that were slowly forming on the ends of her hair.

“You care about her a lot, I can tell,” Saeldur said, sitting down next to her.

“She didn’t want to come and I feel responsible for her,” Vanessë answered. “Besides, I’m the only one she has now. Our parents stayed in Tirion.”

Saeldur paused. “And… what are your feelings about our expedition?”

Vanessë shivered. “It’s hard to think of anything right now except ice and water. I don’t think I ever want to see ice again for as long as I live. I hope Middle Earth is warm.”

Without saying anything, Saeldur slipped part of his cloak off of his shoulders and wrapped it around hers, so that it covered the both of them. Vanessë glanced at it, surprised, and then looked at him with gratitude.

“I think there may be a limited supply,” he explained. “We didn’t expect to have to come this way, after all.”

“Well, I appreciate your generosity,” Vanessë said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course I did,” he replied.

They sat there in silence for a few moments. Vanessë was the one who broke it.

“I want to kill Morgoth,” she said.

“What?”

“I want to destroy him completely and utterly. He destroyed what stability we had, destroyed the light of the Trees, destroyed my trust in the Valar… I want to pay him back for all of that. A thousand times.”

Saeldur stared at her. “So, you’re still dedicated, even after hearing the Doom that Mandos set down on us,” he whispered. “Even after… after being betrayed by Fëanor?”

“We don’t need Fëanor,” Vanessë scoffed. “We can do this ourselves. Look around: we are a larger force than his, and better equipped. This ice shelf is full of passionate, dedicated Elves who just spent today helping each other out of a number of bad situations. Fëanor could never.”

Saeldur had to laugh then. “You’re right! He is singularly focused on his own personal ambition. We were taken care of in his fortress, but… not by him.”

“So, what’s this about for you, then?” she asked him. “What made you want to take up your sword and march across a thrice-damned frozen deathtrap?”

He thought about it for a moment, shifting a little under the blanket as he did so, subconsciously shifting a little closer to her, drawn in by her body heat.

“Well, I… I swore an oath to Fëanor. Not that one. An oath of fealty, several years ago. I wanted to be a part of something, and he seemed so promising then. But… I’m not a part of that anymore. I turned away from him. I… I defected. But even having done that, I can’t make myself turn aside from the quest. Maybe it’s that I consider my fealty to have transferred to Fingolfin, so the same oath applies… but I don’t think it’s just that. People don’t swear oaths for the sake of swearing oaths. There’s feeling behind them. Some sort of desire or emotion. It doesn’t just go away.”

She was watching him intently. He took a deep breath and continued.

“I was in Formenos when High King Finwë was killed,” he said softly. “I didn’t see it, of course. No one saw it, it was pitch black. But to think that a being such as Morgoth could just… do that… just come into our home and murder our leader, and none of us could stop him… that chills me to the bone. I can’t sit idle and let him get away with that.”

Vanessë nodded as he spoke. She understood that implicitly.

“I think that’s a very respectable thing to want,” she whispered.

The two of them sat there and talked for many hours, and the longer they talked, the more Vanessë felt like she and Saeldur were on the same wavelength when it came to ambitions and things they would or would not accept. Internally, she breathed a sigh of relief that someone else here felt the same as her.

Saeldur gently nudged her. “Look up,” he whispered.

She glanced upward, then stared. In the sky, thousands of tiny dots of light pierced through the darkness. They stretched all the way from the land she had just left behind to the opposite shore, and they reminded her of Varda’s silver orbs. In that moment, a story came back to her mind.

“Varda created the stars so that the first Elves would not awaken in darkness,” she whispered. “This is… this is the light our people were born under.”

“Maybe our road is not so hopeless after all,” Saeldur said. “Morgoth can destroy the Trees, but he cannot destroy the stars, and we are banished from Valinor, but we keep the first gift we were given. No one can take the stars from us.”

Vanessë smiled as she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I like the way you think, Saeldur Elennion.”

After a while, they drifted off to sleep there in the middle of the Helcaraxë, both wrapped in a single cloak, with Rainiel sleeping a few feet away and a handful of the most noble Elves they’d ever met patrolling quietly around them. A cold wind blew, but they snuggled together for warmth, and in that moment, it seemed like their exile might not be such a bad thing after all.

#silmarillion #fanfic #march of the noldor #helcaraxe #my posts

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stuck-in-the-ghost-zone · 3 months

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HI <3 GOODMORNING <33 pact in ur inbox time...

i think. the best, like, overall real pact propaganda i can give is that i had to stop reading it, like, a third through. like i had to sit down and go okay, i genuinely Cannot do this it will fuck my head up Too Bad. pact is about a little guy being stuck underneath a car and getting dragged along the asphalt until there's just a pulpy mess of bone and flesh and then that mess gets dragged along until there's nothing left at all. it does NOT let up. worm if taylor lost violently and horrifically and got fucked over in deeply personal ways every time instead of winning and never won Once. i still haven't gotten back to it it fucked me UP. <- in the most immensely positive way possible. it's just. radioactive to me personally lmao. i still come back to it for specifically referencing how he writes body horror & his demon world shit. he has the MOST delightful supernatural horror worldbuilding imo what if demons was like making lawyerly contracts with loose hydrogen bombs who want to leave you alive while they eat your face & the only way to prevent that was communicating as clearly and specifically as possible because the whole time they're just waiting for u to slip up... & also. fucked up monsters. u can tell he's having the time of his LIFE describing the most freaks ever.

the best pact propaganda i can give YOU SPECIFICALLY i think is that it is fundamentally about having a fucked up identical mirror twin & about identity and blurring between the two of you and which one's the real one and which one's the good one and is there a good one and who's you and who's them and what's the difference between you and you-in-the-mirror and why are you here and they're there. like i cannot express enough how much the entire almost million word serial hinges on the fact that there are Two Of You when there Wasn't Supposed to be Two Of You. AND ALSO equally as much it is about becoming the horror movie monster lurking in the dark!!!!! the slasher villain!!!!! taking a nice normal guy and then systematically stripping him of his humanity and turning him into a fucked up thing!! and also it gets really transgender about it. anyway. -> propaganda snippets for u i hope u r having a good dayyy <3333

oh fuck yes this sounds SO GOOD. i think I mentioned this in one of my worm posts but wilbow has such a specific way of writing Gross Things that scratches such a nice itch in my mind I can't even IMAGINE what an entire fucking novel of that would do to me. imagine the way i am about worm but × 12 million. holy shit.

ALSO I LOVE THAT I GET SPECIFIC MECORE PROPAGANDA AND THIS SPECIFIC MECORE PROPAGANDA is one of the MOST heart wrenching knife in the gut tropes that I love so dearly . looks at my longest surviving oc from when I was like 13. you've described her. anyway. holy shit dude that's EXACTLY the type of shit I love . I love when there's two of a guy!!!!!!!!!!!! and when it's transgender!!!!!!! fuck dude you can't keep giving me long ass wildbow stories to read I have so many books on my shelf I have not touched yet. my storygraph thinks ive spent the last 2 months not reading bc I've been so deeply entrenched in worm. omg. you've won me over with the propaganda

#pact au but its me and cam . this is the most fucked up thing i could POSSIBLY say having not actually read it but knowing how worm goes #DUUUUUUDE. I LOVE WHEN FUCKED UP BODY HORROR. GODDDDDDDDDDD #hell yes #hell YES #AUGHRVHGH #oh btw worm update i just started colony 15.5 lisa thinks coil is trying to kill taylor in secret. u #whuh oh!!!!#asks #friends!!!#pactposting #<< that doesn't hit the same as wormposting. i need 2 think of a better tag #intertexts

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cloudyswritings · 6 months

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Slugcat Ocs P2

The Matriarch: You are the Matriarch , an old slugcat by anyone’s standards, but one who’s led their tribe through some of the harshest times imaginable. You seek to make one final push and take back the city atop Dreaming Deeply from the predators, scavengers, and defense sentries so your people can live without fear of the rain. Bring your tribe into war and train a successor in the chance you don’t make it.

Goal: retake the Sleepless City and bring prosperity to your tribe. Additionally teach your successor everything they need to be a better leader than even you were.

Starting area: The Fairweather Plains, a massive sprawling plain tormented by nearly constant rains, your tribe has made a living underground in this place, but you wish to live amongst the clouds once more.

Color: Pale orange with many many scars. You need very little food for a slugcat and even in your old age stand far taller than those around you, tall enough in fact to scare off smaller predators.

Other: You may be able to convince the iterator to join your side and turn the cities defenses against those inhabiting it currently.

The Mariner: You are the Mariner, a purposed organism created by Built Slightly Sideways and tasked with repairing a leak of void fluid in her intake system at the bottom of the lake as well as reinforcing the crumbling rock shelf on which she sits. It’s quite the large task for such a small being. None will thank you for your duty, not your sacrifice, but it must be done nonetheless. Keep your eyes peeled and your tail ready, things are not as they seem in the deep and the waters teem with hungry mouths.

Goal: repair the damage to BSS’ structure and return to her with the good news.

Starting area: The Shallows, a teaming freshwater coral reef dense with sponges and other filterfeeders. Predators here are few and far between, but be thoughtful when sliding into gaps between the coral as Coiling Venipedes are always waiting for another foolish morsel.

Colors: Black and white counter shading, you have water breathing abilities greater than even the rivulet, however you are well and truly a creature of the water and as such leaving the lake for too long will see you dehydrate and eventually die. You’ve been cybernetically augmented with all of the tools you’ll need to fix BSS, including a plasma cutter that can be used to melt through tough metal doors.

Other: you have the ability to send out a sonar ping that highlights the outlines of creatures and structures within a certain radius, this is especially helpful in the deepest darkest reaches of the lake.

The Stray: You are the Stray, you have been following a trail of memories that are both yours and not, they’ve lead you through many dangerous lands and most recently to the base of an Iterators(Applied Blasphemy) structure. Something about it feels familiar to you and your memories tell you to seek out the being inside of it. Follow your fractured thoughts and reunite with a very very old friend.

Goal: Piece together exactly who you once were and have one last conversation with your old friend. Additionally Applied Blasphemy may send you out on some errands, it’s only fair that you pull your weight if you insist on living in their can.

Starting area: Left Leg, one of the main supports of Applied Blasphemy and the one most in need of repairs, you’ve been hibernating in a den inside the leg. Something about this space seems familiar to you.

Color: Gray with lighter gray stripes and the traditional tabby m on your forehead. You’re smaller than most slugcats and can fit into gaps others cannot. Additionally you can somehow read pearls and ancient texts without help, how interesting.

The Botanist : It’s said that in places with high karmic imbalance fauna and flora twist into strange new forms. Of course you care little for the fauna, but the flora… well that merits careful exploration. And perhaps taste testing. Regardless you’ll be sure to bring samples back to your tribe, maybe you’ll even be able to find something to heal your wounded leader.

Goal: you’ve ventured far and farther in search of a cure to the wounds the leader of your tribe sustained defending her people. Your goal is to gather karma flowers and to find the fabled void fruit while avoiding predators and perhaps learning about the history of the land on which you stand.

Starting area: the Hazy spire, this area is just outside of the rains of Speaks Through the Clouds. This area is marked by chilling fogs that make seeing things far away a struggle and provide predators ample hiding places. The ground is slippery and blanketed in dense clumps of moss. In this campaign you’d be exploring the areas around STC and likely venturing into his structure and city .

Color: a dark green slugcat with small white flowers in their fur that bloom when predators are near.

Other: there’s a small chance that during your cycles playing this cat you might wake up at night and be forced to contend with a very different world. Strange beings lurk in the night, but even stranger plants bloom then. You can also craft potions/remedies with various effects from plant parts you store in your satchel, these effects can range from a strong stench that deters lizards to making yourself temporarily poisonous enough that a vulture would drop you, to increased health and movement speed for the cycle at the cost of being tired the next cycle.

#rw slugcat #slugcats #rw #rw headcanons #rw iterator #my headcanons

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searchingsomewhere · 4 months

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Parenting Oneshot

Gojo x OC

Megumi x OC

[Megumi gets caught with his girlfriend. Gojo has a conversation with him and his girlfriend's mentor.]

"I can't believe I'm saying this to you of all people, Fushiguro," Gojo said, rubbing the back of his head, "But you can't make out with your girlfriend in the library."

Megumi's face was bright red. Were it not for his glowing beet red face and slightly disheveled clothes, he would have come off as innocent. It was unusually uncharacteristic of the fifteen year old- Gojo had noticed he'd been more outgoing than normal, but he had never expected to have the boy sitting in front of his desk for such a violation of school rules.

In fact, Gojo had fully expected to have this conversation with Yuji or Nobara, at the very least.

"She's not my girlfriend," Megumi huffed, looking down his hands.

"Whatever you kids are calling it these days," Gojo said dismissively.

"We weren't doing anything-"

"-Yet. Look, I know it's easy to get swept away in how things feel..."

Megumi groaned, rubbing his face with his hands, "Please stop talking."

"Just don't do it again. Be smart. Be safe. Think it through next time," Gojo finished.

Megumi watched him suspiciously. "...That's it?"

"That's it," Gojo said simply. He tilted his head thoughtfully and added, "I thought you and Daiki were together."

The dark haired teen looked away again. He seemed hesitant at first, pursing his lips as if deciding if he should tell his mentor. Finally, he said, "Tsukiyomi doesn't want her to date anyone."

Oh? Gojo frowned. "I'll talk to her."

Megumi sat up, trying to keep his face neutral. "You will?"

Gojo nodded. "Go on. I'll meet up with you and the others for dinner later."

"...Thank you, Gojo," he said softly.

As Megumi opened and closed the door, Gojo could hear Nobara's and Yuji's muffled laughter from the other side. Megumi made some vague threat to both of them that was just low enough to escape his mentor's ears.

The Six Eyes Sorcerer thought back to his student's statement on his way to the library. Tsukiyomi doesn't want her to date anyone. Megumi's face had tightened when he said that, eyebrows furrowing in frustration. He could only imagine what Daiki was going through, wanting to be with Megumi and yet pulled away by her teacher.

The librarian was dusting off a bookshelf when he found her. Every time he saw her, she looked more beautiful than the last. Her blouse was stark white in the dimly lit library, long flowing skirt the same navy as their uniforms. She had cut her black hair recently. Green eyes glanced over at him as he leaned against the bookshelf opposite of her.

"I talked with Daiki," she said, reaching up to dust the top shelf. She wasn't tall enough to reach it. "We shouldn't have to worry anymore-"

"You told her not to date?" Gojo asked.

Miho looked at him as if he were dumb. "Of course."

"Why?"

"Because," Miho glanced around. "You know why."

"Explain to me again," Gojo said, reaching up over her to grab the duster. He dusted the top shelf and leaned his elbow over her head, effectively pressing her against the bookshelf.

Miho looked around nervously. "Satoru, someone will see-"

"So? We're adults. The higher ups can't tell us what to do," Gojo said, leaning forward to kiss the side of her mouth.

Miho leaned away. "Exactly. We're adults. They are not."

"Speak plainly, Miho."

"I don't want them to force anything onto Daiki and Megumi. If they see she has any interest in anyone, especially someone as strong as him, they'll force her to-" she cut herself short, looking away from him. "Take off your blindfold, please. I hate talking to you with it on."

There it was. He had suspected as much. Gojo removed his blindfold and tucked it into his pocket, watching her with crystal blue eyes that sparkled in the low light.

Daiki was the first person he had found who could use the same technique as Miho, the Simple Seal. Seeing as how both Daiki's parents were deceased and her file had only minimal information, it was safe to say her parents were either noncurse users or at the very least normal people, just like Miho's. The only connection was the way in which they had both developed their technique- sealing a curse under immense mental pressure.

Simple Sealing wasn't hereditary. Not that the higher ups would be satisfied with that. If they could force a new clan, they would.

Every aspect of Miho's life had been controlled by the higher ups. Even her teenaged relationships. Had...certain things...not happened when they did, both he and Miho would have been forced into a marriage as early as seventeen.

"I don't want Daiki to end up like me," she said softly.

"And I don't want Megumi to regret not fighting harder for someone he loves. I know I do."

That made her face harden. Miho broke away from him to walk over to her desk. She began sorting the books piled all around the surface. He could see the tension in her shoulders.

"They're teens. They don't know what 'love' is."

He would regret bringing it up. But he did anyway.

"We did."

Miho's hands on the books stilled. Despite secretly being together for years, they hadn't spoke much of her relationship with...

"...That's different," she said.

He followed her to the desk, gently resting his hand on hers.

"The only difference here is that we didn't have adults protecting us," Gojo said gently, reaching up to touch the side of her face. Miho relented, letting him pull her closer. "As long as we're here, they should be allowed to be teenagers."

It was rare for him to be so serious, even with her, but this was just a simple thing. Just kids dating. You aren't supposed to date seriously when you're fifteen.

"Let them be kids, Miho."

Miho sighed heavily. He was winning her over. Especially without the blindfold. She hated when he wore it, but he knew she was putty in his hand when he took it off. Finally, she nodded, reaching up to press his hand against her mouth in a quick kiss.

"Fine. But if anything happens-"

"- I'll take care of it. You're the best." Gojo smiled at her and kissed her quickly before walking past her desk. "Meet us for dinner tonight?"

Miho's frown warmed into a small smile. "Yeah, just text me where."

#fanfic #gojo satoru #jjk #jjk gojo #gojo x oc #megumi fushiguro #jjk megumi #megumi x oc

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salty-protagonist · 2 years

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Undertaker’s Shop of Mysteries

Ever since he was introduced way back in 2006 (7?), almost all of the weirdness has been shown to have ties with a bigger project. There are many items in the Undertaker workspace that seem like cluster but are actually grave additions to the series.

Here is the overlook from a chapter at the beginning of the Circus Arc:

We already know there are actually 4 people in that room (at least) with RC sleeping inside the coffin OC is sitting on. The speech bubble kind of blocks it but you can see the weapons (I don’t know what they are called) UT uses in Book of Atlantic stored on the right side to the shelf behind UT. Other than these, I think there are three items that can be additions to the plot.

The coffin behind Sebastian that is covered with a cloth. At first only seems normal that there would be a coffin there, but that coffin -just like RC’s- have been there since the start of the story. During the Jack the Ripper investigation, Madam Red, Lau, Grell, Sebastian and OC go to Undertaker to learn about the victims. While OC sits in the coffin that has RC inside, Grell and Madam Red choose to sit on a coffin that is placed around the same location and has a cloth covering it.

Also, the coffins that keep reappearing all seem dirty/older. If RC’s coffin, which appears useless this early in the story looks used. Then there is a chance that the clothed coffin could be used to store an important character presumed dead too.

The second is the coffin behind Undertaker. When UT is introduced to the series, his first action is coming out of there (Jack the Ripper Chapter).

Maybe it’s just his bed since he is a very eccentric character, or like a break room of some sorts. But I feel like he had made that coffin for somebody before the bizarre doll experiments began, and later retrieved it as a memorabilia of some sort.

Maybe Claudia? Maybe Vincent? I don’t think any concrete info can be obtained about the person further than this.

The coffin is probably not used for corpse preservation for bizarre dolls like RC since there are cushions inside and no tanks like there is in RC coffin.

The reason why I think it’s not UT’s coffin in which he was buried as human is because there have been no mention of grim reapers interacting with their human self so far. The design is similar to the ones UT uses for funerals and experimental reasons too so it’s more likely that he made it.

The last object that I believe is important is this weird glass (?) jar of a heart. It’s located under the speech bubble (first image) next to the shelf that is blocked by the speech bubble.

It’s really weird to see an object that is mostly used in today’s sci-if movies in the office of an 19th century Undertaker.

Conservation of human body parts is not a new practice as you all may know. What’s different is the technology. Since Undertaker is a grim reaper, he does have access to technology that is centuries ahead (the death cythes as example). The liquid could be the same one that RC was kept in. It wouldn’t be weird to see organs floating in a glass jar at an Undertaker too. That’s probably why Sebastian didn’t notice it specifically.

To be honest, I’m not sure if that is exactly a heart. But I will assume it is and all the ideas will continue on from there. By know, we know that when bizarre dolls are deprived of blood in a way their blood vessels start showing. Maybe the reason why is that they don’t have hearts. All the nerve impulse is generated from the brain so it makes sense that they can continue moving until their heads are destroyed. If they don’t have working hearts than the blood circulation could be controlled by a device UT installed (grim reaper technology) or while they are given blood, used blood can be removed in the process. This may also be why they can’t go for long times without being hooked up to machines.

I’m currently re-binging the series, will reblog when there’s additional info. Thank you for reading :)

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji manga #kuroshitsuji undertaker #kuroshitsuji theory #black butler theory #black butler memes #kuroshitsuji spoilers #black butler spoilers #black butler manga

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thisismehappy · 2 years

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Olivia's Apartment: A study with terrible gifs

Season 15/Early 16

Seems like the back door leads to a bedroom, but you never see it so that's debatable. Brian said it was a small apartment which would seem to imply one bedroom, but it's not explicit. When Noah has been with her for four months already, she had his crib in the living room which also kinda implied there was only one bedroom. When she opens the door for Melinda there are not big lights in the hallway which we'll look at more later.

Late Season 16

Partway though season 16 the crib moves so that it's visible through the back door which is a little confusing. Is that a bedroom? Is he sleeping in a little vestibule area? In this scene there are now the big lights in the hallway that we see when Elliot shows up in OC 2x03.

Season 17-19

Partway though season 17 the back door starts showing a shelf instead of a crib. We only ever see a bedroom in this apartment in season 19 and it's Noah's. It opens to a little hallway that has a couple of doors. The implication I assume is that one is the back door we've seen since season 15 and the other is Liv's room (never seen). When someone knocks at the door she goes through the one that seems like it's the backdoor to the apartment. But when she walks through it there's a chair and an end table but when she lets the lady in, it's the same shelf we've been seeing since season 17. (The Munch scene is from 18 and the scene with the lady is from 19 right after she walks out of Noah's room.) Also, when she lets the lady in, the door is brown instead of white like it is when Elliot shows up later, but I think we can say there were some upgrades over the years.

Season 22

As far as I can recall we don't see much of the apartment in 20 or 21 and if we did it wasn't much different. The apparent in this scene is pretty much the same as always, but I like that Liv's idea of decorating for Christmas is to just drape light over things. This looks like essentially the same furniture as when Elliot shows up. Same TV stand and couch I think and the same lamp the TV too, but there's a new giant fancy one in the next scene too which is maybe why it's brighter lol.

OC 2x03 (SVU Season 23)

Okay I thought this was a different apartment which is what started me on this whole road, but upon further review, it's the same one. The door is different (could have been upgraded) and as far as I know this is the first time we've gotten a full view of the hallway. But idk for sure about that. Someone let me know if I missed it before. Also, the walls seem whiter to me but it could be lighting or she painted. They were super white in season 16 though too. So if she painted, she's done it at least twice. I just realized it didn't make it into any of these gifs but the ugly brown chair Elliot sits in has been around since season 15. In the first shot we see when they're unpacking the apartment, it's there. I like to think it was Brian's chair that she adopted when he left. (No real reason except I enjoy the idea of Elliot sitting in Brian's chair lmao.) The lights above her kitchen island are a little different too I think, but again just could have been upgraded sometime. It's also just way cleaner, but maybe she was going through a phase. (Re: the brown chair. I thought I remembered seeing it in the new place but I only have 24x10 downloaded so far and I couldn't find it so I'm not sure if I imagined that or if it's in one of the other episodes.)

The 500th Episode (later in Season 23)

This looks like a completely different apartment to me. Now it is possible that the mystery door from Noah's hallway leads to an intensely long hallway that doesn't stylistically match the rest of the apartment, but it seems like maybe this is when she moved. Or the first time we would have seen evidence of it. I think this hallway could work with the new place as far as style and size. As far as I know, these are the most recent 3 times we've seen Liv's apartment, but I could be wrong about that so if anyone's still with me let me know if you've seen other things that support or refute this idea.

@rahleeyah - Just in case you're interested lmao. You were right about the apartment in OC 2x03. I think we were just seeing it from weird angles which threw me off lol.

#lmao these really are the worst gifts known to man. maybe i should have just used pictures but i wanted to have it pan around the room #hope someone enjoys this as much as me😂#olivia benson #elliot stabler #svu #mariska hargitay #chris meloni #noah porter benson #law and order svu #law and order oc #law and order: svu #svuedit #my gifs #i posted a post #long post

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greenticklerdreams · 10 months

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Vex vs. The Ticklelock

Fandom: Critical Role - Vox Machina

Characters (lee/ler): Lee!Vex'ahlia, Ler!OC, Ler!rest of VM

Word Count: 2992 words

Summary: Vex is captured by a very strange villain with an even stranger set of powers. Can she hold out until she's rescued?

“FINALLY!! You FUCKING creep!!” Vex’ahlia shouted, finally free of the Hold Person spell. Her mouth was dry and tasted terrible. Her arms were stretched out to either side, locked at the wrists by padded cuffs. She was sitting up against that backboard, back straighter than when Father tried to drill good posture into her and her twin when they were little. Her legs were propped up on a bench, straight out in front of her, her ankles locked in a wooden stocks. Her bare feet felt clammy with fear, despite the roaring fireplace that was the only source of light in this weird underground laboratory. “What’s the big idea, taking my boots off?!” she snarled. “And ONLY my boots?? Not anything else?? Really?!”

“It’s necessary, my dear,” came a voice from the chair by the fire. Vex perceived the hooded man there, though his face was just obscured by the dancing shadows. This same hooded man had dragged her off after successfully casting the Hold Person spell upon her. Dragged her away from the fight, from her friends battling the giant tentacled creature that had risen from the underground lake in this dank dungeon of his. He’d taken her down hallways, stepping around traps, moving past slavering aberrant creatures waiting in the wings, and bringing her here… It certainly looked like every other mad arcane caster’s lab she’d ever seen, and Vex had seen a few at this point in her adventuring career. A shelf full of scrolls, weird instruments on a nearby table, books… and a rather unusual amount of feather quills. They were quills, right? Most humiliating of all was being completely unable to resist as he forced her into this position, removed her boots and socks, shut her wrists and ankles into their bondage, and spoke a command word that sealed the locks with a magical click. Vex had been terrified at the time, but now that she found herself almost fully clothed and otherwise untouched, she was mostly just nonplussed. And pissed off.

The hooded man stepped into the light. He was pudgy in his brown robes, looking a little like a fat monk. Throwing back his hood, his red-brown hair was revealed to be long and lank, and his beard and mustache needed a trim. His eyes looked just a little too large for his face, and a little too black. “You and your friends have something that my master needs, and he has asked me to get it from you.” He grinned a sleazy grin, those black eyes glinting in the firelight. “I must confess, I hoped you would be the one to fall prey to my spell.”

“You would, wouldn’t you? Get in line,” she spat at him. Damned Arcane Locks, she thought, trying and failing to thrash against her restraints. The hooded man advanced to her, stopping just in front of her stocked feet. “At least ravish me like a proper villain. Freak. Pervert.”

“Like I said, lovely Vex’ahlia,” purred the man, his voice low and honeyed. “What I need is information. I need it quickly. And I am going to get it. Although… I am going to enjoy getting it out of you.” Vex felt his soft, pudgy hands caress the soles of her feet. She shuddered in horror - and worse, it tickled!! - and tried to pull her feet away, but her big toes were tied to an unseen hook on the front of the stocks. “You CREEPY fucker,” she snarled, trying not to let him see her reaction.

The hooded man just smiled. “I also would not deprive my pets of the pleasure,” he said. With a flutter of feathers, a pair of doves descended from atop the scroll case. They were the type noble ladies bred, with big, fluffy feather skirts around their ankles. However, Vex recognized that these were not normal pigeons. Their beaks were just a little too long and sharp, the feathers of their wings a little too large and fluffy, those odd spots of exposed flesh on their chests weren’t normal, and their eyes… were too intelligent. These had to be mage constructs of some type. “Lester, Leelee, get to work,” said the hooded man, and the creatures alighted on Vex’s hapless body. The mage-pigeons walked over up and over her chest - she could feel their sharp little claws hooking into the unarmored parts of her clothes, barely poking her quivering skin - and then they started using their sharp beaks to cut holes around her underarms. “Hey!!! What?! Are you serious?!” she snapped, and she tried to thrash, but she could barely move, and the birds hung on anyway. She felt her armpits exposed to the open air. The hooded man smiled. “Start brushing.”

With uncanny intelligence, the birds looked to their master, and then began brushing Vex’s taut, stretched armpits with their fluffy, feathery wingtips. Vex felt an electric sensation course through her body and choked back a cry. Biting her lip, she grunted with exertion.

[MATT: Make me a Constitution saving throw.]

[LAURA: ……17! HA!]

Releasing her lip, Vex gasped as she convinced herself this wasn’t too bad. “You’re gonna have to do better than that,” she said, blowing air out of her nose with a little “hmph” for emphasis. “What do you wanna know so badly anyway, you freak? Who are you?” The bearded man smiled. “I am Gruvo, a servant of K’nizz Mo’lag, a creature from beyond the stars and beyond your mortal comprehension.” Well, at least he’s easy to persuade to talk, Vex thought through the terrible feathery sensations in her armpits. “His many-feathered wings sweep through the universe and will soon alight in this world. None will be able to withstand him, and your kingdom will be reduced to helpless laughter in his ticklish embrace.”

“Lamest Far Realm patron I’ve ever heard of,” Vex taunted. Gods, it never ends. Oh gods. It tickles. “Did the cool eldritch… beings pi-hick you last at recess? You must be so disappoi-hointed.”

Gruvo looked back into Vex’s defiant eyes and raised his hands, wiggling his fingers in her full view. “Form of Feathers,” he said. Suddenly all ten fingers contorted and transformed into long brown feathers, wiggling at the ends of his palms. His beard changed, too, going from unkempt hair to a mass of reddish-brown feathers that surrounded his lips and covered his chin. His eyes seemed to grow larger and blacker, like an owl’s. He lowered those hands, out of view behind the stocks, and suddenly Vex’ahlia felt ten brushy, whispery feathers gliding all along the soles of her feet. “How do you like this, Lady of Whitestone? Do you still doubt my patron’s power?” A strangled squeal escaped Vex’s lips. Her head thrashed back and forth. “Mmhmmph!! Mmmm!!!” The soles of her feet were tingling like crazy. Her knees spasmed and banged against the bench. Then she felt just the tips of the feather-fingers jittering against her soles, ten little points all at once. They quested for the tips of her toes and the spaces between. They danced on every wrinkle. Gruvo chuckled. “You are already succumbing to our power. Now tell me, Lady Vex’ahlia: where is the Tome of Isolation?”

[MATT: That’s another CON save.] [LAURA: … 19.]

[SAM: LET’S GOOOO!!]

“I’ll… never… tell you… ANYTHING!! Eeheeheeheehee!!! Hmmmph!!” Angry that she had let even a few giggles escape, Vex bit her lip again. Her armpits were twitching, her feet were squirming against the toe-tie, but she resisted with all her might. She resolved herself to scrunching her feet as hard as she could, even as those feathers brushed all over her wrinkled, curled soles. “My friends… hhh-are… haha! They’re… going… to kill you… SO hard! Pfffhaha!”

[LAURA: Seriously, how long does it take to kill a stupid tentacle monster?!?!]

[TRAVIS: Ow!! We’re workin’ on it!!!]

“Maybe… heehee!! Maybe if you tell me… hh-why?!” Through scrunched-up eyes, Vex saw Gruvo’s smile fade. He looked oddly serious as his feather-fingers brushed her feet. “My patron attempted to enter this world and brush his feathery wings over it, but he was thwarted… by a goddess called the Dawnflower. That tome of the Knowing Mistress’s is able to banish a god, am I right? Well, my patron will be able to corrupt that tome to drag a divine being into his realm. There shall we bind her, and K’nizz Mo’lag will tickle your meddling goddess into oblivion.”

Seriously easy to persuade, Vex thought through the sensations flooding her body. Would’ve been more appropriate if he’d grabbed Pike. Not that she would’ve fallen to a lousy - hhooooohhhh gods. Oh gods my feet. Don’t let him get between your toes. Focus. “Stu-stupid plahahannn,” she gasped. “Ahahaha. Heeheehmmmph.”

Gruvo’s face grew uglier. “This is taking too long. I think it’s time we changed it up.” He raised his hands and Vex saw his fingers and beard go back to normal. “Lester. Leelee. The belly.” He walked over to his shelf, but Vex was too busy watching the pigeons walk down her ribs - damn those little claws - so they could start snipping off the middle of her shirt. “Come on! Really? Not my look, you freak. Though I’ve got better abs than you!” It was a lame taunt, but Vex felt woozy from resisting the tickles.

The chubby warlock walked back over with a bottle in his hands. He uncorked it, poured the glistening yellow contents into one hand, and rubbed them together. It had to be oil of some kind. He then started rubbing it into her feet. Vex gasped. Just rubbing the oil on tickled her poor feathered feet so badly. Suddenly all of his fingers slid between all of her toes to rub it in. “YEEE-hee-heek!!” she squealed, throwing her head back. When she looked at her captor again, he was grinning. The birds had fully exposed her belly by now. Gruvo walked around to where she sat, poured more oil into his hands, and then rubbed down Vex’s pale, quivering belly. Vex smothered another squeal and squirmed for all she was worth. “You do have nice abs,” he murmured, looking her full in the face. “Does it tickle, Lady Vex’ahlia?”

Vex shook her head violently. “Nuh-uh. Fuck you.” Gruvo just smiled back. “I think our tough ranger has a ticklish tummy…” He curled his fingers and squeezed Vex’s slick midriff. “Mm-hm!! Hmmmm!!” came the strangled cry. The warlock chuckled softly as he rubbed more oil into her armpits. Suddenly his fingers were digging in! “YA-HA! Heeheehmm!!” Vex heard Gruvo chuckle as he walked away, back down to her feet. The oil wasn’t making her cold - if anything, it was too warm. And her sensitive skin was tingling like crazy. Gruvo raised his hands again. “Form of Nodules,” he said. It was hard to see in the firelight, but Vex perceived his palms and fingers sprouting weird, rubbery-looking little nodules, like painful-looking boils, darker-colored than his sallow skin. “Oh, what the fuck,” she said. “Lester! Leelee! Tentacalus!” One of the pigeons hopped up to Vex’s chest while the other perched just above her belly. Their heads reeled back… and two fleshy tentacles emerged from those odd bare spots on their chests, squirming like giant earthworms. “Ohhh WHAT THE FUCK!!” Vex screamed in horror. “Now,” said Gruvo, voice low and dangerous. “We’re going to try this again.”

Suddenly Vex’s feet were being scrubbed, rubbery nodules bouncing and sliding all over her oil-slick soles. The pigeons’ tentacles were in her right armpit and slithering all over her belly, the tips finding purchase in her soft, slippery skin. One tentacle slid into her belly button and vibrated around while the other prodded one side, then the other. “Where is the Tome?” Gruvo called in a raised voice.

[MATT: Make another CON save, this time with disadvantage.] [LAURA: Aw WHAT?!]

[MATT: It’s magic oil.]

[LAURA: …… 4.]

[the table groans and laughs]

[MATT: There it is! First failure.]

“BAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!! AHAHAHAHAAAA!!!” The laughs Vex’ahlia had been holding back suddenly exploded forth, like a burst dam. She felt herself give in to the sensations as her back arched and stiffened, head hitting the backboard, as tingly fire filled her body. She had taken lightning damage before. This was worse. Her feet were being tortured with endless electric shocks as the nodules scrubbed her arches. That tentacle in her belly button had to be like Percy sticking one finger of his Diplomacy gauntlet in and turning it on. “NOHO!! NOOO!!! WE ALREADY HAVE IIIIIITTT!!! WE HAVE IT!! WE HAVE IIIT!!! AAAAA-HAHAHAHAAAA!!!”

“You see?!” Vex could hear the glee in Gruvo’s voice rising above her laughter, oily as his hands. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Poor Vex here can’t handle the tickles… she’s such a ticklish girl… all will fall before our master.”

[LAURA: Will you hurry the fuck up?!?!]

[LIAM: We’re almost there, we’re almost there! Geez!]

“You're doing so well, my lady,” purred Gruvo. “You like this form better, don’t you? Now you’re going to have to tell me…” He grabbed her left foot, nodules helping him to grip despite the oil. He raised his other hand, showing her his knobby fingers, wiggling them slightly. “Where did you put the tome? Which one of you has it? You will tell me.” He lowered his hand and Vex felt those fingers, noduled on three sides, force their way between her toes and start sawing back and forth.

[MATT: That’s another CON save. With disadvantage.]

[LAURA: I KNOW!! ……… There is a thud as her head hits the table.]

[TRAVIS: barks with laughter]

[LIAM: Yeah, that’s a natural 1.]

[MATT: Hmm. I think that’s Vex’ahlia’s worst spot.]

[the entire table cracks up]

[LIAM: That’s canon now, motherfuckers!!!]

[SAM: Go update the wiki!! Hurry!!]

Vex shrieked as the nodules raked her sensitive toes, her normally sultry voice going full soprano. “NYYAAAAHOOO!!!! NOHO!!! AHA!!! AHA!!! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!”

“Tell me, Vex’ahlia!!” Gruvo bellowed triumphantly, and through the horrific tickling on her belly and armpit - the pigeon had switched to her left - she felt that hand grip her toes and bend them back. “NO!!! NO!! NONONONO!!!” Vex cried, but it didn’t matter. Gruvo took one noduled index finger and scrubbed back and forth across the top of the ball of her foot and under her toes. “AAAAAAAGH!!! IT’S SCANLAN!!! SCANLAAAAANN!!! AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!”

“The little gnome, you say? Then he will be next on our list. My shrieking, laughing beauty, I will drive you mad!!!” howled Gruvo as he continued to saw under her toes.

Just then, the door slammed open from a mighty kick. Gruvo stopped what he was doing and rose with a start. Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III planted his front foot and leveled his pistols at the astonished warlock.

[TALIESIN: Natural 20. 23. And another natural 20.]

[the table cheers as Matt shakes his head ruefully]

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Gruvo’s chest exploded, then his shoulder, then his face. Even as he started to fall backwards, Vax’ildan swept past Percy into the room, swift as a shadow. Dagger, dagger, dagger! One pigeon shot off Vex’s chest, transfixed by a knife, then the other fell upon her belly and slid off. The third dagger buried itself in Gruvo’s ruined chest as he collapsed to the floor. The warlock was stone dead in a matter of seconds.

“Well. That was easy,” said Percy, checking his guns for damage. “I guess the tentacle monster was the real threat… darling! What in heaven’s name happened to you?! Did he hurt you?”

However, Vex’ahlia was not looking at her betrothed. She was glaring daggers right past him at her twin brother. Percy looked to Vax and saw he was wearing his most teasing smirk.

“Don’t just STAND there!!” yelled Vex, out of breath, sweat coating her brow, braid half undone from thrashing about. “Let me out, ya asshole!!”

“Oh, dear sister,” Vax said smarmily. “What an interesting predicament we find ourselves in.” “WE?!?! Get me out of here, you shi-”

“Percy.” Vax clapped his hand on the human’s shoulder. “Did you know my sister is terribly ticklish?”

“So’re you, ya fucker!!” screamed Vex as Percy blushed scarlet.

“Yes, I am. She always won tickle fights when we were growing up.” Vax’s face was all mock sorrow. “I can’t help but see a golden opportunity… to get even.”

“YOU WOULDN’T!! YOU CAN’T!!”

“Her feet were really bad, the couple times I got them,” Vax said to Percy. “I think there was this one time I got right under her toes, and she shrieked-”

“NO!! DON’T YOU DARE!! DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE!!!”

The rest of the team started filing in behind Vax and Percy, coming to see what all the commotion was. A slow grin was creeping across Percy’s face, a grin Vex’ahlia did not like to see at all.

“I’ll tell you what, Vax. I see this as a great opportunity for some team bonding. I think everyone should get in on this.”

“WHAT?!?!?!”

“Come on, everyone!” Percy waved all of Vox Machina into the room. Scanlan was already rubbing his hands together as he walked to her stocked feet. Grog started guffawing as he walked behind the backboard and started to reach over for her armpits. Keyleth hung back, watching with wide eyes as Pike joined Vax at Vex’s tummy.

“All right,” declared Percy in his most noble voice, “on my signal. Keyleth, get over here, everyone participates. I get a foot, Scanlan, you don’t get both to yourself. Ready?” “NO!!! FUCK NO!!! FUCK YOU ALL!!!”

“One… two… and begin!”

They would eventually let Vex’ahlia out, far sooner than Gruvo the warlock would have. Until that time, however, the air rang with laughter, and only a few swears - because, as Vex would have to admit to herself later, being tickled by friends was actually pretty special. Or at least better than being held captive by a creep with “nodule” hands.

#critickle role #tickle fic #ticklish!vex'ahlia #lee!vex'ahlia

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k1nky-fool · 2 years

Text

They Called Her Mania

Part 3/?

Masterlist

Doom Slayer/ OC (Mania)

Pairing: M/F

Rating: Explicit (NSFW)

Warnings: horny filth, size kink, oral (f-recieving), some dom/sub dynamics, but both are switches.

For @ninjarose23 because you were kind enough to comment on my last chapter.

-X-

It was unfortunate what he found on the other side of the gate. There was minimal demon resistance. Apparently it actually took a bit longer for a place to fill back up after he'd cleared it.

He procured his helmet, and he found the sweater that Mania had left behind. However, her twig was in a less than ideal condition.

It had completely snapped in half; probably the result of a larger demon stepping on it. More unfortunate that the demon hadn't at least gotten stuck in the foot with the nails, but the bat was not in any state to be repaired.

He would definitely have to find her a new weapon. Mania had said she was near-sighted. Which meant the majority of guns would be out of the picture. Not to mention, she was also nearly half his size, so any of the wide-range, heavy weapons were also not viable. Though there was definitely one gun she would probably thrive with: shotgun.

It wasn't a good idea to try to hit a demon with a shotgun at long range anyway. But a sawed-off barrel and a melee weapon would be right up her alley. It was absolutely stunning to see her work with a melee weapon.

Small, soft, Mania, that could kill anything she came across, and leave him begging just to let him touch her. The thought of holding her came back full swing, only now he wished he'd ignored Vega, and pinned her to the workbench just to see how much of her fantasy she'd let him get to before stopping him.

"Your heart rate has risen with no exterior motivation, and I am reading a spike in testosterone." Vega commented.

There was never a time he wished he could smack Vega before, but he was coming dangerously close to it. "I'm heading back."

The portal opened, and he stepped back into the threshold of the Fortress. Mania was nowhere to be seen. He headed back to his workshop, taking off the armor, and leaving the retrieved items there, while he went off to take a shower.

He didn't know how many hours he'd been awake at this point, but Vega hadn't mentioned that he was nearing the edge of his sleep schedule, so he would continue on for now.

Mania was still absent, and she didn't come to the workshop. He knew she'd talk to him when she was ready. But he couldn't pressure her into saying or doing anything. He certainly couldn't pressure her into trusting him.

The slight burnout from working tirelessly on his armor repairs was getting to him, though. Vega would have to run a diagnostic on his armor, anyway. Instead of burning himself out further, he took a book off the shelf and left to rest in his room.

Surprise came when Mania was waiting for him outside the bedroom. She looked frozen in place, struggling to say anything at all. He just opened the door, and let her step inside first.

It took her only a moment to be sure of her choice and take his invitation. "Umm… your room is bigger than mine."

"The Fortress was a command center. This was supposed to be a general's room, but yours was a vice commander's." He explained. She looked around at his excuse of decor. Most of it was just guitars, shelves of vinyl records and video games, and old Metal band posters.

"Well, you certainly found your niche." She chuckled, though the silence he left open made it awkward, and it was getting to her. "I- I'm sorry I freaked out on you. I- I just… you've been nothing but kind to me, but I still- … you didn't deserve that, and you-"

"I'm not angry at you." He interrupted her rambling. He went to sit down on his bed, leaving enough room for her to do the same if she wanted. "You got scared. It happens." He said, "The least I could do is trust you with my name."

She pulled his tags out of her pocket, undoing the small tangle. "Flynn B. Taggart." She read off. "I figured you were probably a marine. I knew a few that worked at the shop and you remind me a bit of them the way you carry yourself. At least it's not the same as army guys."

"Figures nothing much had changed in the hundred years I was gone." He chuckled.

"Well, I find military guys are creatures of habit." She remembered. "Even you have your habits."

A teasing smile spread across his face. "Oh, you've been looking into my habits now."

"Not on purpose" She defended, sitting down on the bed with him. "You're just really obvious."

"I am not-"

"You have terrible posture when you're around the Fortress," She began, "but every time I walk into the room, you straighten right the fuck up."

"Alright, you found one habit-"

"You also bite your tongue when you're concentrating." She pointed out.

"I- " she was right.

"You also crack your knuckles like I do." She listed, "And when you zone out while working, you hum the tunes of Metallica songs. And those are just small habits. Imagine what I could find in a month or even a year." She added.

"And what makes you so good at finding my habits?" He asked.

"Well, being a little scared of you made me try to analyze the hell out of you." She shrugged. "But most of it is because you are very difficult to ignore."

"Oh? And why's that?" He smiled.

"Well, you're absolutely massive, I'll start with that." She teased, barely managing to hide her snickering.

"Really? Maybe you're just small."

"I am quite tall for someone of my profile, thank you very much!" She feigned offense, and still laughed.

"Then why are you so easy to pick up?"

"Flynn!" She laughed as he wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her, only to plop her back down on the soft mattress.

"What else?" He asked, holding himself up so he didn't fall on her.

"Well, you certainly aren't difficult to look at." She chuckled, looking up at him, pink dusting her cheeks. "Makes it a little easier to pick up on things when I'm looking at you anyway."

"Mania-"

"Tara."

He actually felt his heart leap at her correction.

"M-My name is Tara Callaghan." She said softly.

Tara. It was a beautiful name, for a beautiful woman. It wasn't riddled with distrust, or something a demon would ever say. It was hers.

"Tara." He repeated. He was close enough to her, that he could hear her take a fast breath in and out, and he could even see her pupils dilate, even as her eyelashes fluttered. "I like that name."

The rise and fall of her chest became more sporadic as she glanced around his face for some clue, anything that could give her a hint as to what was going on in his head at that moment.

Flynn himself wasn't fairing much better. Just the fact he was paying such close attention to her eyes, and her breathing told him enough. He wasn't searching for anything as he glanced around her face. He simply admired her.

Tara's hair fell around the pillow like a dark halo. Green eyes still looked around to solve the puzzle that was Flynn Taggart. While her face usually held an array of freckles and spots, each one was disappearing in the low light, the redder her face became. Her mouth opened as though to say something, but it was like she was still pulling the syllables out of her brain while Flynn's grip on her side tightened the more he thought of what he wanted to do to her. It took everything in him to not give in, but the thought of scaring her away was more terrifying than any demon he's faced.

"Flynn." She said it almost like a warning, but it came out mostly like a plea.

I'm fucked.

"Tara?" She had much clearer attention on listening to him now. "May I kiss you-"She didn't wait a second to let him finish asking before she'd grabbed the sides of his face and claimed the kiss for herself.

Flynn also figured he wouldn't waste time, and kissed her back with the same eagerness she'd attacked him with. She really did kiss like she meant to fight him; some personal inner rampage they'd both been holding back, only for her to draw it out of him when he was trying to keep it under control.

He let his hand leave her side, running it up her stomach and chest, and taking her face in his hand, forcibly slowing her down a tad. She couldn't stop the way she whined, as his pace slowed.

Flynn was effectively holding her down, and making her take it slower. It wasn't easy to get her buzzing excitement to turn to a deliberate pace, but he wasn't budging. Tara's frantic pursuit gave in to her need to show him she could be good. At least this time. She could let him take the lead, and not have to prove she was too strong to be taken care of.

She didn't want to be too strong for this; Flynn was a weakness she wanted to accept. But when his fingers trace her jaw like feathers, he wasn't a weakness, but a carer. Tara could be vulnerable, and Flynn would touch her like he knew just how raw she was under her shell she just abandoned.

He pulled his lips away from hers, and moved from his spot on the bed. He got up on his knees, and easily pulled Tara's legs open to let him sit between them. He leaned over her, tracing touches up her ribs, and kissed the soft spot of her pulse on her neck, feeling just how rapid the rhythm was that made her mind rush. More kisses to her neck made her whimper, and tense for only a second at a time.

"Tara." He rasped. "Do you want me to stop?"

"Please don't." She breathed out. "Please, don't stop, Flynn." It stirred something in him the way she begged him to keep going. It was like he'd been waiting years to hear her say that.

Despite his teasing, he knew he was quite intimidating, especially now that he could see his hands in intimate comparison to her body. Flynn's hand covered from just under her ribcage, to dangerously close to her hip bone.

Flynn also knew his strength. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, or worse, scare her. He tried to keep all of this in mind as he let himself sneak a hand under the tank top she wore. "Still alright?"

"Yes- please just-" Her words died out in the moan as he slipped his hand under her bra and easily palmed her and pinched a nipple. "-Fuck.."

She took the opportunity to lift her whole top over her head, leaving her bare chest beneath him. He was about to enjoy what he had, but her fingers in his short hair, pulling gently stopped him. "Your turn first." She commanded.

Flynn didn't even let himself think over it before his shirt was on the floor. Anything to enjoy the half naked blessing under him.

She moaned and gasped as he gave small pinches to her exposed chest. Flynn let himself indulge in putting a hard nipple in his mouth, and letting Tara scratch at his scalp, being unable to get a grip on his short hair.

His short hair became more of an inconvenience to her as he made his way lower, making quick work of her shorts, exposing her wet, dripping, pussy.

However, he didn't let Tara off easy. Flynn took his time, giving soft kisses to her thighs, still playing it safe and not biting. He couldn't wait to hear her come completely undone at the mercy of his tongue, but he wanted to hear her ask for it.

"What do you want, Tara?" He asked, confidently, knowing she would struggle with her request.

"Mmm- you know~" It was like music to hear the strain in her voice, trying to get the words past moans and heavy breathing.

"I'm not sure I do know." He placed a kiss so close to her throbbing clit that she almost felt like punching him, but all she could manage was a weak attempt at pushing his head where she wanted it. They both knew that her strength was nowhere near enough to make him do anything he wasn't already planning on doing. "Use your words, Tara."

"I- I- please, Flynn- just-" Tara whined at him.

He's barely touched her and she's falling apart. "Please what?"

"Please- fuck- make me cum on your tongue." She broke.

That's all he really wanted to hear. "Well when you ask so nicely."

His tongue licked from her hole to clit before he sucked hard enough for her to see stars. Not even ten seconds in and she could feel the tension building up in her core. Flynn didn't slow at any point, despite how she clawed and attempted to pull at his hair, or how her soft thighs squeezed around his head.

What was simultaneously the worst and best of how he circled his tongue around her clit, was that she couldn't pull him away, or push him down. Flynn locked his arms around her hips, and no matter how much she struggled, there was no moving against him unless he wanted her to.

"Fuck! Flynn, I'm- I'm gonna-" she completely fell apart as her thighs tightened around his head and she all but screamed out.

Flynn savored how she spasmed around his tongue before he got up to take a look at her. Tara's chest rose and fell at an unsteady pace, slowing ever so slightly as she came down from her high.

She sat up, and accepted his kiss as he came up also. Tara could taste herself on him, but she didn't really care. She also placed kisses on Flynn's jaw and throat as he removed the rest of his clothes. Though, Tara had no intentions of letting him stay in charge.

The second he was slightly off balance, Tara gripped him and flipped him under her.

"Fuck- Tara!" He groaned out as she grinded down on him.

"I think it's my turn." Tara chuckled as she looked over his form under her. Many on Earth saw him as a god. Many more in hell imagined him as a titan or a legend. There certainly was some sort of power trip that was not wasted on Tara as the thought of holding a god beneath her went through her mind.

Though as of now, he wasn't The Slayer. He wasn't a god, a titan or a legend. Flynn was just a man. A man she trusted and wanted to get absolutely ruined by, but still just a man.

Tara moved on top of him, dragging a massive, twitching, cock up and down her dripping pussy. Flynn was clearly trying to control himself by holding onto the outside of her thighs, but she could tell he was slowly losing it with how his fingers dug into her flesh, and would probably leave little bruises.

"-Tara, please."

Suddenly his desire to hear her beg for him to make her cum was understood. "Please what?"

She could tell when he realized the script was flipped on him. Once at breakfast, again at the scanner rig, and now while she kept his release just out of reach until he asked her for it. He always kept away from eye contact before eventually coming to terms with how he'd been bested.

It was quite entertaining to watch his face while his mind blanked of all coherent sentences while she felt down his chest. "I'm not moving until you tell me what you want."

"Make me cum." It was almost like he was angry with himself that it took him so long to form the words. "Please."

"I'll take that." Tara smiled, finally sinking down on his thick cock. It was difficult to take him. When he finally bottomed out, she had to stop for a moment to adjust to the size of him. Tara might need to admit she was a little too ambitious, but she was eventually able to move, lifting her hips and falling down again, earning a soft groan from Flynn.

He could tell she was struggling, but it didn't bother him. Instead, he sat up, and wrapped strong arms tightly around her waist and hips. He started lifting her and moving with a slow, deliberately rough, pace, as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

Tara was seeing stars. Her arms wrapped around his neck, losing grip on her self control every time he hit that one spot. As her second orgasm built up, Flynn's thrusts became quicker and sporadic, like he was more desperate to feel every inch of her.

He began mumbling low assurances into her neck as she cried with how rough he became. "You're beautiful. It's ok, you're doing so good. You feel so good. It's ok." Flynn gave small kisses to her pulse and throat in between sweet words.

"S' so much."

"You can take it. It's ok." He assured her again. The rough pace, with soft words sent her over the edge, and he was followed soon after.

Neither of them moved while coming down from the high. Neither wanting to let go and have to process anything else for a while other than being wrapped up in each other's arms.

When they did move, he was hesitant to let her touch leave him. Tara noticed, and gave a soft smile. "I'm not about to disappear, Flynn."

He hummed in response. "Still don't want you to go."

She couldn't help but giggle. "Then come with me to the shower." That sounded like a good idea.

The two of them got cleaned up, though the whole time, he still didn't let her leave his touch for more than a few seconds at a time. Somehow, Tara didn't mind. If anything, she also seemed to not want to leave his touch for any longer than she had to.

Flynn didn't ask her to stay, but she didn't leave. They both seemed to agree it was too hard to separate for the night. Well, at least to sleep, since it was always night in space. Regardless of the hour, it was the easiest Flynn had gotten to sleep in years.

-Tara-

She was the first to wake up, though he had wrapped an arm around her waist, and rested his head on her chest. He was heavy, so Tara definitely wasn't going anywhere any time soon, but she also didn't really want to. Honestly, his weight was more comforting than awkward.

Flynn stirred slightly as she absentmindedly guided gentle fingers through short hair. Somehow it wasn't strange to see him like this. Like he wasn't worried about anything. His forehead where his brows were always scrunched together was softened and his breath was steady and slow.

Tara had certainly never seen him like this before, yet didn't feel new at all. Like he'd always meant to be this soft, but just couldn't while he was burdened with consciousness. While there was always something to be worried or angry about.

Ever so slowly, he became more aware of the waking world. Not that he seemed all that happy about it, but the way he stiffened, and tightened his hold on her waist told Tara that he was definitely awake. "Good morning, love. You look like you slept well."

"Why'd I have t' fuckin wake up then?" His groggy morning voice, paired with how low his voice already was, made it sound like a lion was arguing instead of Flynn. He was many things, but a morning person was not one of them.

"Because as fun as last night was, we still have shit to do."

"Why do I even wanna get shit done?"

Sure, she'd pull the card. "Because if you wanna repeat last night, then we gotta do shit."

Flynn rolled over and sat up as quickly as he could given that he had less than enough brain function to do so. "Fine, I'll get shit done."

"That's what I thought." Tara chuckled, placing a brief kiss on his cheek. She got up and stretched, earning a few satisfactory pops from her back and shoulders. "Did you find my twig yesterday?"

Flynn's expression changed from tired to slightly guilty. "Yeah, about that. Twig didn't make it back from Lima in one piece."

That sucked. "How bad is it?"

"Completely snapped in two. That baron probably stepped on it." He said, "But I did bring it back. Even as busted as it is."

That hurt a bit, but it was just a baseball bat with nails in it. Something like this was bound to happen eventually, it was just unfortunate that it was now, when usable weapons were few and far between. "Thanks for bringing it back anyway. What am I supposed to use for a weapon now?"

"Vega and I are working on something." Flynn promised as he got up. "Along with trying to find something to get you a little more armored in the field."

"You know I need to be a little more mobile than you."

"We can handle it. Don't worry. We won't send you into a fight with something that'll get you killed." He offered. "In the meantime – you know how to use a sawed-off shotgun?"

Tara eyed him suspiciously. "If it weren't the end of the world, I'd call you a cop. But yeah, I have some experience."

Flynn nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. He turned his back to her as he lifted his sleep shirt off, revealing quite the array of red scratches that she had left The night before. "Then you'll do fine. See you in the shop?"

"Definitely." She chirped awkwardly, turning on her heel and moving on light feet from the door.

"Hey, I want that T-shirt back!" He yelled after her.

"No 'ya don't!" Tara head him laugh in the distance

-Flynn-

The workshop was exactly how he'd left it, which was always a good sign. Though, he had a feeling today would be long before Vega became a pain in the ass.

"Enjoy your night?" The AI asked.

"Yes I did, smartass, thanks for asking."

"I, for one, thought you would kill each other a week ago."

"Well, we didn't."

"Even still, it only took you three weeks, one day, fourteen hours, and sixteen minutes to decide to sleep with her instead."

"That long!?" Tara joined them. "Damn, I must be losing my touch."

"For Tara, it only took two weeks, three days, two hours, and eleven minutes to decide to sleep with you. Which happened only an hour after deciding she wouldn't have to kill you."

"Fuck yea, it did."

Flynn was struggling to keep up. "What the hell is happening?"

"Either being horny is a competition now, or we're getting slut-shamed by a robot."

"I mean no offense."

"Then we're competing, I guess." She deduced. "And I'm winning."

That was something he could understand. "Then you won't be for long."

Tara bounced her head from side to side in thought. "Nah, I don't think I'll fall behind."

"That sounds like a challenge." He teased.

A mischievous grin spread across her cheeks. "If you can surprise me by the next mission then…"

"I get to be on top." He supplied surprisingly quickly.

"Fine. I'm only agreeing because I don't think you will." She said, "And if you can't, then I get-" she looked around the workshop until her eyes landed on the weapon rack. "Then I get to shoot the Gauss Cannon at a Girl's Night."

"Deal."

"You gonna take a swing, or are you gonna wait until I least suspect it?" Tara laughed.

"I know exactly what will surprise the hell out of you, and I don't need to be subtle to do it." Flynn let himself drift closer to her.

"Oh? Care to enlighten me?" She took another step closer to him and gently pulled on his belt with a smirk.

He towered over her. He knew how big he was, and Tara seemed to be completely unfaltered by it. Hell, she was attracted to it. "No."

She laughed as he stepped back and began working at his station again, fixing his armor. Flynn tried to pay her no mind for now, but even with her simply sitting on the floor, going through holograms about demons, she somehow kept drawing his attention.

Eventually he turned on a playlist, hoping it would distract him more than she was. His plan backfired on him when Tara began humming along to songs she knew, and even when she didn't know one, she picked up on the melody enough to follow along. It made it far too easy for Flynn to realize that he loved her voice.

It had been hours, and Flynn had made some good progress on his suit repairs. A few more small fixes and it would be good as new. Tara for her part, didn't look any less burnt out. She laid flat on her back, scrolling through one of his old discoveries on Mars about Summoners.

One song ended and the next began. It was a slow, jazzy song, one he remembered his mom liking back in the day. Most of those memories felt so far away that it was like he was remembering a fact that he'd been told about someone else. Not like it was his own life.

But this was his own life, and if he had it, he was gonna use it. Flynn strolled up to Tara. She shot him a confused look when he offered a hand to help her up. It was break-time and goddammit, they both needed to stop using their brains for a little.

She skeptically took his hand and he helped her up. Flynn was met with very little resistance as he pulled her to him and started swaying her with the song.

Tara barked out a laugh, settling into the dance easily. "You're just a big doofus, aren't you?"

"At least when the armor is off." He chuckled back, swaying side to side with Tara to to slow swing of the song.

The two fell into comfortable silence. He'd be lying if he said this didn't have the same effect on him as he was trying to have on her.

In moments like these it felt far more intimate than having her in his bed. Simply having her close, enjoying the warmth of her waist in his hands and her head resting on his chest in quiet lull with the music. Like he was trying to tell her that the only thing that he could ever ask for was for her to stay.

Please, just stay.

Tara gasped slightly and lifted her head for a moment like some realization just hit her like a truck. Green eyes searched his face for some clue, and ultimately landed on the exact conclusion he was waiting for her to find.

"Shit." It was spoken like the word had surprised her.

There it is.

The way to surprise Tara wasn't to make a smooth move, or say something that made her face turn red and her knees weak. No, it was to show her that she was safe. Truly, unconditionally, safe.

The song ended just as slowly as it started. Her forehead dropped against his chest as she let out a defeated sigh. "You win."

"I'll stash that away for the future." He placed a kiss on the crown of her head as he held her there. Eventually he let her go sit down once again after their little break, and he got back to work on the suit.

Flynn could get used to this: having someone else in his workspace, just to enjoy having the company. Hours could go by and he would just be happy that she chose to stay. Every once in a while he'd see Tara shuffle or move around. Maybe he should get her a chair, or something softer than a scavenged rug to sit on.

A soft "Oh fuck." Came from where she was laying on the floor.

Tara had found a picture from the Lazarus project with a sleeping demon set into a wall somewhere in Hell, but she looked terrified.

"What is it?"

Standing up, she brought the hologram to him. "She look familiar?"

Oddly enough, she did. Really, the thing looked like a Summoner, but six times the size with more gold than he'd ever seen on a demon, running along spines and embedded in her head. It looked like the bony wall had swallowed most of her, and she lay sleeping there.

"That's the original Mania." Tara said, pulling up another report. "Dr. Hive on Lazarus was trying to wake and weaponize her. When that didn't work, they just harvested the energy from the prison."

"That's the energy they used on you?" He asked.

"Yeah… she was a titaness. Records at her prison say she was feared and respected across her realm, but she decided to conquer territory that didn't belong to her. Other titans didn't like it, all that much and they turned on her. But her energy stayed within the prison, even in her sleep. Every so often, her energy would build up enough and influence working minds to attempt freeing her."

"So Hive wasn't as smart as they thought."

Tara laughed. "Maybe not. I think they definitely weren't as objective as they thought. This report is nothing but hypocrisy from them about the nature of Mania. They just thought they were built different."

"What about the demons?" Flynn asked, idly fiddling with wiring while they spoke. "Why do they call you that?"

"I think some may actually have me confused with her." She guessed. "The more coherent demons can tell that I'm at least mostly human. But I don't know if they call me that because it's the only name they have for this energy, or because they believe I'm some kind of reincarnation or something. Honestly, I hope I never find out."

"That's a smart choice." He agreed. "I don't usually read the reports unless I have to figure out how to kill something I haven't met before. Everything else is just fucking aggravating."

"Fair enough, but unfortunately this means I have to find an answer to a question before it finds me and answers itself." Tara figured.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"If the Hell Priests conquering Earth give more than one sleeping titan energy, then what does that mean for Mania and me?"

#doom oc #doom fanfiction #doomguy x reader #doom slayer #doomguy #doom slayer x oc #doom slayer x mania #doom slayer x reader #oc mania

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little-mouse-gardens · 3 months

Text

Rottmnt oc headcannons

Part four : Angie

Alright, I officially finished Angie’s head-cannons. Akdjdak sorry it took me so long, I’ve been really busy for the past few months and got kind of distracted. Plus I was trying to add a few more headcannons for her and I couldn’t settle on how many I wanted to add.

Anyways here they are ^W^ also gonna be linking each of my four rise oc’s headcannons in my introduction post as well

- she learned to cook mostly on her own. Kind of observing from afar by watching her mother and sisters work when she was younger at first and then doing it herself as she got older. Slowly learning more and more along the way.

- let’s Mikey paint her nails to match her outfit, mood or just for the randomness of it after she taught him how to paint nails or let’s him paint a few random little shapes on her using her graphic liners for the exact same reasons. He may or may not love adding flowers across her cheeks and nose like freckles.

- her sisters and Mikey’s brothers swear the pair share a brain cell

- they like to give each other piggyback rides. Bought one of those oversized hoodies so they could both wear it at the same time for cuddles on the go

- Angie likes to collect squish-mallows or just plushies in general. Like A LOT of them. Has one of those little hammocks hanging above one side of her room where she keeps them. She will lend them out to Mikey, her sisters, April, the other turtles if they want one. Her favorite is a strawberry frog squish-mallow that she found at a thrift store and likes to hold it to calm down from being overstimulated.

- hates. Hates. Absolutely hates Being sick because she hates being stuck in bed and she’s hates the sensory issues that come with it. Mainly the fact she can barely smell or taste anything when she’s sick.

- always willing to try new foods, baked goods, drinks ect. Her and Mikey like to cook or bake together

- loves cozy games, her favorite would have to be animal crossing or Minecraft, she made an entire candy land themed carnival in Minecraft

- owns a lot of pastel clothing, also a lot of different aesthetics inhabit her closer but a common theme with a lot of her clothes is prints, embroidery or cute patterns.

- is currently learning knitting, and trying to teach raph and sunny how to knit

- a lot of dates she and Mikey go on once they start dating involve going to small bakeries or random places to paint. Picnic dates on the rooftops or at the park are a must with them

- if Mikey is hiding in his shell, Angie will literally just sit down beside him and watch random videos or listen to music together until he comes out. However if he wants to be carried around, she will do that as well

- adores stickers, buying them and making them, collecting them and giving them to her friends and family as a kind gesture. She and Mikey literally somehow give each other a new sticker like three to four times a week

- her favorite bag is a pink Shiba Inu boba bag, puts a punch of pins and charms in the spaces where pins and charms can be put

- Has an entire little office in her room just dedicated to her working on art. Organized drawers of markers, colored pencils, paints ect. A shelf of sketchbooks and canvases, a drawing tablet always charged and ready for hours of drawing

- is absolutely terrified of hippos. (loves the pigmy hippo) she has a phobia of hippos after one nearly bit her arm at a zoo when she tried to feed it watermelon when she was little

- A bad habit of hers is pushing down/setting aside her own feeling of sadness or anger to comfort and tend to others. So much so that sometimes, when she gets to a quiet spot where no one can bother her, after a rough situation she will just sit there and cry and this is something that honestly takes her awhile to officially work on,

- enjoys sitting up on the roof or any spot with a good view of the sunrise or sunset. Something about seeing all the colors fade in together brings her a sense of joy

- has a big fear of anything sharp or anything that could burn her eyes getting near her face after the whole incident with the kraang, where she was nearly splattered in the face by the slightly acidic blood. The only reason she was saved is because she managed to duck down just in the nick of time

- has three pet rats named princess peach, princess Daisy and princess Rosalina

- Her favorite pizza is just plain cheese pizza with some spices and peppers added on

- absolutely loves boba, her fav flavors are usually sweet like cotton candy, chocolate, vanilla, birthday cake ect.

- when the girls go to their grandparents farm, she immediately goes running to her favorite spot to go explore-which is an abandoned cabin she fashioned into a cottage

- Absolutely loves doing her hair, she has a notebook of all the styles she wants to give her curls. She’s got organized drawers for all her cute hair ties, scrunchies and hair clips. Her hair care routine is a something that actually brings her a lot of comfort when she’s stressed

- she loves shopping and visiting farmers markets and art fairs. She has to stop and look at every booth she can and when she’s at the farmers market? Except her to come home with at least one new plant or some homemade goods

- was diagnosed with autism and adhd when she was about fix or six

- After the kraang incident, she has a hard time with people moving their hands near the right side of her face without warning for a long while (a kraang blood almost got in her eyes and damn near blinded her) the only person she trusts to do that is honestly Mikey, because he quite literally was the one to shield her from getting directly hit head on when she lost the shield she’d been holding

- She and mikey confessed to eachother when he invited her over to the lair for a movie marathon and they had their first kiss on their first date, which was a rooftop picnic

- She doesn’t have too many nightmares after the kraang incident….just a specific two nightmares that come every once in awhile that are very very vivid that honestly freak her out. After she has them she usually either stays up for a little while and hangs out with her sisters in the living room for comfort or she goes out on a walk. If Mikey’s awake she’ll just pop over to the lair and talk with him for a while. Especially if they’ve both been having a rough night dealing with nightmares.

- she painted a mural in each of her sisters rooms. A sunny field for her sister sunny, the beach for her sister Skye and a fairy garden for her sister Marcy

- absolutely hates getting sick, like she tries to avoid getting sick when she can. However she doesn’t mind helping others out when they are sick…she just seems a little more cautious than usual

- Has a irrational fear of fire ants due to an incident she had when she was a child

- When the turtles had to defeat the shredder, Angie got a small scar from the incident on her left side when she pushed mikey out of the way of getting hit, which she covers up with some tattoos later on

- Has always wanted to cosplay princess peach. She’s got a whole vision board and everything

- Current champion of Mario party among her sisters (shes just oddly good at Mario party for some reason)

- She likes to bring her friends and family little gifts that remind her of them. Like for example she made April a set of flower charms for her bag or she brought Mikey a new apron after his old one got ruined while he was cooking

- She does talk in her sleep and girl says the most out of context random sentences when that happens

- her biggest goal is to one day open and run her own bakery

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt oc #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles oc #rise oc #oc : Angie #tmnt oc #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt mikey x oc #oc x canon #tmnt #mouse rambles #mousespeaks #writing #reblog

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emotionalcadaver · 1 year

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Part 13: Dance of Darkness

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Grace Burgess x OC

Summary: It's the first time either of them has seen Grace since she left Small Heath two years ago.

Word Count: 4,448

Notes: Warnings for depictions of infidelity, smut including a threesome, and references to infertility.

Previous Chapter • Series • Fic • Next Chapter

Chapter 11: Happy or Sad

With Ada staying at Polly’s until they got the whole situation with Campbell sorted, that meant that her house was available to be used. Staring at herself in the mirror in one of the upstairs bedrooms, Lucy raised a trembling hand to her lips, wiping a small smudge of bright red lipstick, running a hand through her hair. Downstairs, she could just distantly hear the hum of Tommy and James talking, as Tommy explained that he and Lucy needed the house to themselves that evening.

She’d picked out a bright red dress with a long skirt and intricate black beading, and had swapped out her usually simplistic and less flashy jewelry for a few of the more expensive, lavish pieces she owned. Most of which had been gifts that Tommy had gotten her throughout the years. Fussing over her hair one last time, she sighed, and began to climb down the stairs, careful in the heels she was wearing so that she didn’t fall. She heard the door open and close, as James finally left for the night.

When Tommy saw her, his eyes lit up, crossing the room to her in several quick, long strides, hands landing on her waist as he kissed her.

“You look beautiful.”

She blushed under the praise. “Thanks.”

He’d prepared the sitting room while she was upstairs, turning on a few of the lights and getting a fire started, the dim glow leaving the room feeling seductive and romantic. He had shed his coat, leaving him in only his waistcoat, slacks, and white button down shirt, making it easier for her to feel the muscles in his biceps flex as she ran a hand along his arm.

“What if she doesn’t show up?” she asked, nerves spiking again. Tommy looked her up and down, clearly appreciative.

“I’m sure we can think of something to do.”

She laughed, leaning more solidly against his chest. He rubbed her back.

“Nervous?”

“A little.”

“It’s just Grace, love,” he reminded. She nodded.

There was a knock at the door. They both drew in deep breaths.

“I’ll get it,” he said. Lucy nodded, but then followed him anyway.

Grace looked more or less the same; more done up, in a beautiful, elegant dress and carefully done makeup, her golden hair shorter and curlier where it fell to around her chin. Her smile was wobbly, bordering on unsure.

“Hello, Tommy.”

“Hello, Grace,” Tommy stepped aside for her to come in, taking her coat for her and hanging it up.

“Grace,” Lucy stepped forward.

“Oh, Lucy,” she reached out to her, pulling her in a warm, firm hug. The smell of her perfume was the same that it had been years ago. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too,” she pulled back to look Grace over. “I love your dress.”

Grace flushed, tucking some hair behind her ear. “Thank you.”

“This way,” Tommy gestured, leading them back to the sitting room, closing the door behind them. Grace looked around as Tommy offered her a seat, gesturing to the orange couch and armchairs, settling himself down in one. Grace sat down in the armchair across from him, and Lucy took the couch. Tommy fumbled with his cigarettes.

“Do I not get a drink?” Grace asked. Tommy gestured with a cigarette to the alcohol shelf.

“Please,” he handed Lucy another cigarette, probably knowing that she needed one. Grace stood, fumbling with her little handbag.

“You want one?” she asked, looking between them.

“Yes,” Tommy said.

“Sure,” Lucy nodded.

“Still whiskey?”

“Yes,” Tommy answered for both of them. Grace started to pour, mentioning briefly that she’d seen his name on vans at the docks. Tommy kept his eyes lowered, like he was afraid to look at her. Lucy, for her part, couldn’t stop staring at her. As if she did, Grace would disappear. Grace passed them both their drinks. Lucy eyed the massive, obvious glittering wedding bands encircling her left ring finger. Instead of returning to the armchair, Grace came to sit on the couch next to Lucy.

“Tommy, I really wasn’t sure about coming tonight–” Grace began.

“I lit a fire in the bedroom upstairs,” Tommy interrupted. “My plan was that we’d sit here for a while, talk about old times, drink some whiskey. Then I was gonna tell you, I hadn’t spent a day without thinking about you. And then we were gonna go upstairs, the three of us, and sleep together.”

Lucy shifted closer to Grace, until their shoulders were nearly touching.

“But just now on the way to opening the door…I changed my mind.”

Lucy’s eyes snapped up to his, unable to fully tell if he was joking or not.

“So just have one drink, tell me how happy you are in New York and then you can go,” he said. Lucy raised an eyebrow at him. Interesting seduction strategy. She would have interfered if she wasn’t so curious to see if it actually worked.

“You changed your mind?” Grace asked, voice trembling, angry.

“Mm. So you can go.”

“Well…” Grace looked up and away. “As a matter of fact, I am happy in New York. And I am married.”

Lucy looked back down at the rings on Grace’s finger, swallowing.

“Oh yeah, he’s rich, I know,” Tommy said, a trickle of bitterness leaking into his voice.

“And he’s sweet, and he’s kind to me. So what makes you think that I would’ve gone to bed with either of you after one whiskey and some conversation?”

“I was accounting for three whiskeys,” Tommy defended. Lucy snorted, raising a hand to clap over her mouth a moment too late. Grace’s hair whirled as she turned her head to stare at her.

“Sorry,” Lucy mumbled, still trying not to laugh. Grace spun back on Tommy, snapping at him while he maintained his appearance of being unbothered.

“I came here because you asked me.”

“Even though he’s sweet and he’s kind to you?”

“Tommy,” Lucy groaned, tilting her head back. “Stop being an ass.”

Grace continued to bicker with him, and yet she still did not take him up on his offers to leave.

“But you’re still here,” Tommy observed.

“Are you so certain?” Grace asked.

“That you’re still in love with me? With us?” Tommy asked. He sighed. “I was. But I’m not anymore.”

Grace was still looking at him with cooling anger in her eyes. Tommy narrowed his pretty blue orbs, slightly, and asked her if she was armed.

“No, I’m not armed. I don’t carry guns. I don’t have to.”

Tommy looked like he was trying not to smile and failing at it. “You don’t have a sense of humor anymore either.”

“Ugh, Tommy,” Lucy groaned, resting her fingertips against her forehead, but her smile was uncaged, clear on her face as she watched him have his fun. He shot her a teasing grin before looking back at Grace.

“What are you talking about?” Grace snapped, looking between, seemingly greatly offended. Tommy downed the remainder of his whiskey, and stood. Lucy scooted across the couch, making room for him to sit between her and Grace, curling into his side.

“Thing is, I hate reunions,” he told Grace.

“That’s because you’re shit at them,” Lucy mumbled, pressing her face into his shoulder, yelping when he lightly pinched her hip in retaliation, snickering.

“I didn’t want to sit here for hours talking about nothing and dancing around what we really want to say. So now…I know you’re happy in New York, I know your husband’s rich and sweet and kind to you. I know you’re unarmed. And you didn’t come here for sex, because you don’t love me or Lucy anymore. And it’s only three minutes past,” Tommy explained. “Another drink,” he determined, then poked Lucy. “You want one?”

“God, please,” she said, handing him her empty glass to refill. Grace squirmed in her seat, stammering.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he went to the alcohol shelf, then turned around. “It’s good to see you, Grace.”

“So you didn’t light the fire?” Grace asked, and Lucy pulled her lips in to try to hide her smug smile at the glimmer of disappointment that she sensed in the words. He handed Lucy a refilled glass, then went to fill both his and Grace’s.

“You see, my real plan…was that we go out. I want to impress you,” he leaned forward. “Now…do you like Charlie Chaplin?”

Grace smiled, confused. “Yes, I like Charlie Chaplin.”

“Good,” Tommy smiled. “I bet you’ve never heard Charlie Chaplin speak.”

∗ ∗ ∗

They walked side by side, her and Grace with their arms linked with each of Tommy’s. Jazz music gently played, as they stepped into a room where several people were gathered.

“Oh my God, that’s him,” Grace gasped, eyes round as dinner plates as she stared at the man across the room from them.

“Mhm.”

“That’s really Charlie Chaplin in person.”

“Surprise,” Lucy grinned. In response to Grace’s question as to how he knew Chaplin, Tommy whispered an explanation that he knew Chaplin through his bodyguard, Wag MacDonald, who, like Chaplin, was a Gypsy. A waiter came by holding a tray of glass flutes of champagne, and Tommy scooped up one, handing it to Grace. “Thank you,” then another to Lucy before taking one for himself. “Thank you. See, we all have our secrets, Grace.”

Lucy smirked, wondering if he was going to tell her about the horse they’d gotten that he’d named after her.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you,” he began to pull them along, introducing Grace with a charming smile. Lucy smiled politely to Wag and Chaplin, having already met them each at a different function. Grace blushed, smiling so wide the dimples appeared in her cheeks as she began to chat with them. Tommy let her go, then gave Lucy a tiny tug on the arm, eyes lit with a wicked type of mirth.

“We’ll be right back,” Lucy whispered into Grace’s ear. She nodded.

Tommy dragged her away to the telephone in the far corner of the room. He dialed, then held it up to his ear, angled just enough so that she could hear. “Hello, Mr. Campbell.”

Lucy clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from cackling. Tommy elbowed her with a grin.

“You said you knew my sister’s address in Primrose Hill. So I expect you have men watching the house to see who comes and goes. Well, tonight your men will see me return to the house with a very beautiful woman. She will stay until just before midnight. Of course, I’ll close the curtains. Can you guess who the woman is?”

Lucy grinned, clinging to his bicep, snickering to herself.

“Liar!” Campbell roared from the other end of the line.

“Sleep well, Mr. Campbell,” Tommy hung up the phone. Lucy nearly doubled over, fighting to keep herself from howling with laughter.

“I love you so much,” she said finally, holding firmly onto his arm. Tommy smirked, and pulled her along with him, back towards Grace.

∗ ∗ ∗

When she kissed Grace, she tasted like champagne and whiskey, with the hint of something sweet underneath it all. Maybe strawberries.

Tommy was behind Lucy, groping at her hips, kissing messily at her throat, pushing his erection forward to rub against the small of her back. Grace’s hands found her breasts through the material of her dress, squeezing them, and Lucy broke the kiss to let her head loll back onto Tommy’s shoulder, eyes rolling into the back of her skull.

Taking her by the shoulders, Tommy spun her around to face him, mouth crashing down onto hers, grunting when she squeezed his biceps. Grace’s face nuzzled into the crook of her neck, hands still cupping her breasts. She broke away from Tommy, leaning to the side to give him the chance to kiss Grace, swapping places with him so that he was in the middle, hands shaking as she smoothed them over his chest, nibbling at his neck.

“Tommy,” Grace whispered, reaching for his face. “Tommy, do you have someone?”

He just kissed her again. Lucy buried her face in between his shoulder blades.

“It’s too late, Tommy,” Grace tried. Lucy shivered, bottom lip wobbling when she said it. One of Tommy’s hands grasped hers where it was laying on his chest, squeezing.

“It’s eleven, Grace,” he said, noting the time on the clock.

“I mean, it’s too late,” her voice trembled with it. Lucy pulled away from Tommy to wrap herself around Grace’s back, burying her face in her neck, breathing in her perfume. She didn’t want her to go. She never wanted her to go again. “If you had come with me to New York…” she trailed off.

“I had things to do,” he said, simply, kissing her again. Lucy petted her golden hair, letting the curls twist around her fingers, trailing them along her shoulders, feeling how it made Grace shiver.

“You mean the coin landed the wrong way?”

“It couldn’t have worked. That was the question.”

Grace just kissed him again, probably to get him to shut up. Lucy flattened one hand on the middle of Grace’s chest and slid it down, until she just grazed over her core through the material of her dress. Grace nearly sobbed, pulling away from Tommy’s mouth again.

“Tommy, do you have someone? Do either of you have someone?”

“I have a racehorse,” Tommy said, and Lucy snorted into Grace’s shoulder. “She’s gonna win the Derby.”

Lucy curled the fingers of one hand around the zipper of Grace’s dress, pulling it down slowly, grazing her hand and her lips along the newly exposed bare skin. Grace let her peel away the top half of the dress, leaving it bunched up at her waist. Tommy cupped her breasts and kissed her hungrily, rutting his clothed erection into Grace’s stomach, pulling her deeper into his arms while Lucy pressed herself flush to her back. Suddenly, Tommy's arms were around her as well, effectively squishing Grace to his front as he pulled Lucy closer, until he was able to find the zipper on her dress and pull it down. Grace spun around, pulling Lucy’s dress away, dropping her mouth to kiss at her breasts. Moaning, Lucy tangled her hands in her hair.

“Oh, fuck,” Tommy hissed, leaning around Grace to kiss Lucy, growling when she nipped playfully at his bottom lip. Grace wriggled the rest of the way out of her dress, pressing her naked body to Lucy’s firmly, bare skin sliding against each other.

Lucy let out a yelp and then a laugh as Grace suddenly pushed her back into one of the orange armchairs, her hands catching at Grace’s hips, lips pressing into the bare skin just below her navel. Tommy sank to his knees, and her legs fell open for him without him even needing to ask, his tongue finding her clit with little preamble as he began to suck.

“Here,” Lucy said, reclining her head back as much as she could. It took a little maneuvering, but eventually she had Grace settled on her face, closing her eyes and lapping at her folds with long, slow licks of her tongue. Grace shuddered, fingers closing in her hair, being careful not to pull too hard. It was hard to focus, with Tommy pushing two thick fingers into her, but she managed to mimic his movements onto Grace, tongue playing with her clit while she slipped her fingers into her, smirking as she felt Grace already start to tense with a building climax, the vibrations from Lucy’s moans only helping to get her there faster. All it took was a few more well timed strokes of her fingers, and Grace came onto her mouth with a moan, head thrown back. And Lucy was right behind her, thighs squeezing around Tommy’s head as he pushed her into an orgasm.

Grace slid off of her, gasping for breath, while Tommy rose up to kiss Lucy, letting her sample herself on his lips while he took a taste of Grace on hers.

Grabbing at Tommy’s face, Lucy fixed him with demanding eyes. “I want to watch you fuck her.”

Grace moaned, Tommy’s hips thrusting forward at the suggestion.

“Touch yourself,” his voice was deep and growly as he gave the order.

Grinning, she sank down into the chair, letting her legs fall open, fingers circling around her clit.

Tommy pulled Grace into another kiss, lowering her onto her back on the couch. His clothes were shed hastily, tossed haphazardly around the sitting room. He and Grace kissed languidly as he settled between her legs, adjusted himself, then thrusting into her with one quick roll forward. Grace moaned, legs wrapping around him as he began to thrust slowly. Lucy sighed at the sight, slipping two fingers into herself, pumping in time with Tommy’s thrusts, watching them as they kissed and thrust against the couch, Tommy cradling Grace’s head gently. The hand not pumping within herself fondled at her own breasts. A growl rumbled from the couch, Tommy watching her with dilated eyes as he continued to roll into Grace at an increasing pace.

“Lucy,” Grace suddenly cried out, gripping tightly to Tommy’s back. “Lucy, come here. Please.”

It took a good deal of willpower to manage to pull her fingers from her sopping core, climbing to kneel on the floor beside the couch. Grace used the hand not clinging to Tommy’s shoulder to cradle the back of her head, pulling her into a deep kiss. She could tell that they were both close, turning her head to kiss Tommy next while Grace threw back her head with a cry as she came. His hips continued their slow rolls forward, and when Lucy brushed her nose along his neck, she felt him tremble and then groan, low and deep in his chest, pushing himself forward as deep as possible, bursting within Grace, the muscles in his back straining with how powerfully he came, emptying deeply and heavily inside her.

Lucy watched her lovers slump against one another with soft, fond eyes, biting back a smile at the erotic sight before her. Very slowly, Tommy raised himself back up onto his forearms, giving Grace a quick kiss on the lips before pulling out, sitting up on the couch.

“Lucy,” he said, urging her up into the space between him and Grace. Leaning back against the opposite armrest from the one Grace had her head resting on, he pulled Lucy into his lap, mouth hungry on hers, dropping down to suck on one of her nipples.

“Mm…” she sighed as Grace pressed in from behind her, legs wrapping around both her and Tommy possessively.

“Our pretty girl,” Tommy praised, knowing well enough that he could probably have gotten her off using just his voice alone.

Lucy could feel his erection swelling up again underneath her, only encouraged when Grace reached around her to stroke him, chuckling upon finding him already half hard, mumbling something into Lucy’s neck along the lines of, “stamina of a fucking stallion.”

The moment that he was fully hard again, he was lifting Lucy up and sheathing himself in her, groaning and pressing his face into her chest. His hips bucked up as she balanced her hands on his shoulders to stabilize herself while she rode him. All the while, Grace remained flush to her back, kissing her neck and fondling her breasts, pinching her nipples.

“Oh, fuck…” Lucy choked, head falling back to rest on Grace’s shoulder.

“That’s it…” Grace encouraged. “Fuck her good, Tommy.”

Lucy nearly sobbed, walls spasming and tightening around Tommy in a way that made him growl, cock twitching. With one hand still squeezing her breast, Grace dropped the other down to rub Lucy’s clit, and she came with a scream, still bouncing in his lap. Tommy’s thrusts remained deep and powerful, working her through it until he moaned, loud and low and–

“Oh, fuck,” she whimpered, as she felt him release yet another large load, seed thick as it coated her walls, cock spasming when it emptied.

They all collapsed in a tangle of limbs, Tommy sprawled half on his back on the couch with Lucy on top of him, face buried in his shoulder while Grace was draped over her back, nuzzling at her neck. For a long, long while, none of them moved. Just content to lay together in a silent little bubble of satisfaction and fading pleasure.

It was Grace who moved first. Pulling away and leaving Lucy’s back cold as she sat up, pushing her hair back.

“I have to go. It’s getting late.”

Lucy felt Tommy tense beneath her, as she raised her head, watching sadly as Grace stooped to pick up her dress. There would be no point in asking her to stay. Moving off of Tommy, she looked around, searching for her own clothes amongst the pile that had been tossed to the floor.

Slowly, silently, they all began to dress. Lucy helped Grace with her zipper, watching as Tommy pulled on his shirt and waistcoat. Grace touched her shoulder, and she turned to let her zip her back up.

“I’ll drive you,” Tommy offered, after they were all more or less presentable. Grace nodded, silently. “When do you sail back?”

“We don’t know yet.”

Lucy frowned at the answer.

“You don’t have a return ticket?” Tommy’s brows furrowed.

“This wasn’t right, Tommy,” Grace fretted.

“When do you go back, Grace?” he asked, ignoring the statement.

“They’re doing tests on us. I don’t know when they’ll be finished.”

Lucy and Tommy both stared at her blankly.

“We’re having treatment. A doctor in Harley Street. Some new thing, a breakthrough,” she hesitated. “We’re trying for a baby.”

Lucy felt like she’d been punched in the throat. Tommy stared at Grace, then looked down, rubbing at his eyes, pinching his nose, sniffing, and grabbing a cigarette from the ashtray for a drag, then setting it down again.

“Why did you come here tonight?”

“The doctor believes it’s surely me who’s at fault,” Grace said, eyes sad. Tommy shook his head. Lucy swallowed around her own memory of pain, as she’d sat in that doctor’s office years ago and listened to him tell her of the surety of her barrenness.

Perhaps she and Grace were more alike than she had ever even thought.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed. “It’s no one’s fault.”

Lucy glanced up at him, moving a tiny step closer, wondering, not for the first time, what he would say to her if she told him the truth about her broken, sterile womb.

“I’m tired of that, Tommy,” Grace said, not unkindly, eyes miserable. He reached out, and rested a hand on her arm.

“Can I see you again?” he asked. She looked down. “Grace,” he nearly pleaded. Lucy looked at her with begging eyes, already feeling the beginning cracks in her heart as the silence, in it answer enough, stretched on and on. Tommy dropped his hand. “You still working undercover, eh?” he asked. Grace’s head snapped up, and she slapped him hard across the cheek. Tommy jerked back, but other than that, he didn’t move. Lucy’s muscles tensed on instinct.

“I have never lied to him once,” Grace growled out, suddenly furious. Though Lucy suspected that it was more at herself than at either of them.

“So tell him the truth,” Tommy urged.

Grace’s face twitched and shifted, looking down, she pushed some of her hair back behind her ear. “I promised that I would be home before midnight.”

Tommy let his head drop, then nodded. “Alright. We’ll drive you back,” he took Lucy’s hand, holding onto her particularly tight as he went to the door, grabbing his coat.

They drove Grace back to her hotel in near silence, only bidding her goodbye with quick, quiet words. Watching as she disappeared inside, Tommy’s hand covered Lucy's, squeezing her fingers as they drove away.

“Lucy?” he said, voice low in the dark.

“Mhm?”

“I’m so happy that you’re still here. With me.”

She tilted her head up, gazing at the shape of his jaw in the darkness, understanding what he meant. She pressed a kiss into his cheek.

“Me too, love.”

∗ ∗ ∗

“I feel terrible,” she complained, slumping over in her seat beside him in the car, staring at May’s house with mounting dread.

“I can do it, if you’d like. You don’t even have to be there,” Tommy offered. Lucy sighed.

“I feel like I should be.”

He shrugged. “You really don’t.”

She glanced over at him. “I feel like a coward.”

“You’re not. Go do some work in the drawing room or take a nap or something. I’ll handle it.”

“Thank you.”

He just stroked her hand affectionately in answer. The guilt twisted sickly in her gut as May greeted them in the entryway with a huge smile.

Despite Tommy’s assurances, she still felt like a coward, but she really couldn't bring herself to face May. To have to watch her pretty face fall as they told her about things could no longer continue between them. So she muttered something about having a headache and needing to lay down, and left them to go to the stables on their own.

She didn’t actually get any rest, simply laying there on her back and staring at the overly fancy canopy of the bed in one of May’s guest rooms, silently hating herself.

Poor May. They really were awful people.

∗ ∗ ∗

“I want you to go down to the phone in the Garrison and call Alfie Solomons.”

She paused, head raising from where she’d been staring at the cobblestones as they walked. “You do?”

Tommy nodded. “Tell him that I want a meeting.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is this just because you don’t want me in the office when you meet with Campbell?”

Tommy’s lips twitched upwards. “Yes.”

Looking him over, assessing, she frowned. “Is that because you plan to kill him?”

“No,” he said, though from his tone it was clear that he very much would have liked to. “I just don’t want him near you,” she opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off before she could speak. “But I really do need to set up a meeting with Alfie.”

Giving him a once over, she nodded. “What do you think Campbell wants?”

“Probably to talk about Russell’s house being burned out and the location of the assassination being changed.”

“And you’re still going to suggest Epsom on Derby day?”

“I am.”

“Okay,” she shoved her hands into her pockets. “I’ll head over to the Garrison now.”

“Thank you.”

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