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tadpolesonalgae · 7 months

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Azriel x Cam-Girl!Reader: His Personal Assistant - Part 2[*]

A/N: This one’s pretty light for October, but I wanted to have a bit of fun :)

Warnings: masturbation, sex toys, exhibitionism (?)

Word Count: 3,378

-Part 1-

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Your lips part, back bowing off the bed as you tip over the edge.

The small red dot flashes, showing the camera’s still recording, and if you squint, you can see the comments rolling in. Complimenting your form, your body, your moans, everything. Occasionally a critique from a guy who probably hasn’t been within three metres of a woman, but… Well, they brought you to fame. Of course there’s going to be the occasional creep.

Your lipstick’s smudged a little from when you slapped your hand over your mouth, and you run your tongue over your teeth before sitting upright, facing the camera. “Well, that’s it for tonight guys,” you pant, your tits pressing together as you lean closer to the recorder.

“As always, exclusive content will be going up on my private channel, so if you want to see a little more of me…” You give a feline grin, as your spine arches, thighs parting a little wider to serve as a reminder of what sort of content they’ll be getting.

How much is it. why isnt it free

Exclusive contant????

Id fuc u so good bby

The usual assortment of comments roll in, and you scan for a final talking point.

You’re working a job?

Bingo.

You give a wide smile, settling back onto your knees so they have a full view of your pretty nipples and the mess decorating your thighs. “I am working a job, yes! Stuffy corporate business—lots of men who could use a little fun, if you know what I mean,” you purr, winking at the camera, shifting to be comfortable without compromising their view.

You should definitely fuck your boss

Lush shout me out!

Where u working at

The smile widens into a grin, “I should fuck my boss? I did ask you guys that, didn’t I?” You laugh, dipping your head before straightening again, feigning a little embarrassment. Human. Draw them in. “He’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. Could really use a night out with a woman—or two,” you grin, tongue flicking out to wet your lips.

“Would you guys watch that? If I get him to fuck me?” You ask, already knowing the answers. Sure enough, the enthusiastic encouragements come spilling up the screen in rapid succession to one another. You laugh again, looking away from the camera, “well, I’m not sure if I can promise that, buuuttt…” Eyes return to the camera, looking up through your lashes, lips lifting into a feline grin. “The office I’ve been given doesn’t have any security cameras in, so… I could accidentally slip over one day… You know, happens to the best of us, sometimes,” you say, shrugging nonchalantly. “Maybe I could record a short little video for you guys.”

More questions spill in, asking for details, but now you’ve whet their appetite, it’s time to pull away. “Well, that’s it for tonight, everyone. Tune in next week for the stream, and get on that private channel for some additional content,” you purr, reaching forward to turn off the recorder. “Maybe I’ll do some personalised videos to someone who tips well.”

And it’s off.

You flop back into your bed, the vibrator bouncing besides you, arousal already drying on the rubbery toy. Excitement sizzles in your belly—filming yourself at work.

It could go so wrong…

————

You lean over his desk, the deep V in the neck of your navy dress showing off just a little too much cleavage as you set the mug of coffee down.

To your utter irritation, he hadn’t shown any appreciation for the last one. Made by a professional! Now, you’ve taken to stopping in at different cafes, just to see if one of them can get it right. So far: nothing. Every single one has been sub-par, and it’s getting on your nerves.

It’s been nearly a full week since your first day, and you’re still no closer to cracking him. He’s almost always submerged in some sort of Matter, dealing with organising files on his computer, or stamping out email after email. Really, you don’t understand how he doesn’t bore himself to tears every day.

The only highlight has been Gabrielle who seems to be the only spark of life to exist on this miserable floor.

You’ve been on the lower ones, too, and it really is just this floor that seems to be completely devoid of any kind of life. Nobody’s talking by the water cooler, no hushed gossiping girls by the photocopier, and not even a single person waiting in the waiting room. It’s ridiculous. The only way you’re saved from insanity is the brief interactions you have with Gabe, and those are still too infrequent for you to consider yourself safe from the madness.

You sigh internally, moving onto the next stack of papers he’d made that need photocopying, swinging your hips subtly as you depart from the office. Not even the slight prickle of hairs rising at the nape of your neck to signal a sneaky peep.

Stick-in-the-mud.

Putting your bad luck aside, you begin formulating a rough outline for when you’ll have the chance to record that sweet, little video you kind of promised. Well. Technically you didn’t promise, so it’s not owed or anything, but…

It’s exciting!

Rhys had specifically told you not to—so you have to. That’s just how these things work, and he’s a fool if he doesn’t understand that appeal.

Either way, you’re looking forward to it. Fuck him if he thinks he’s going to spoil your fun.

————

You slide your phone back into your bag, hastily wiping down the chair and opening the windows. You don’t want the cleaners getting any ideas, nor do you feel it would really fair to subject them to that sort of mess.

A quick sanitisation and few short spritzes of perfume later, and the room seems pretty normal. The small remote is still on the desk, vibrator deep inside your warm, wet cunt. You should probably take it out, but… It’s fun, and you could use a little excitement. Especially working long, boring hours like you currently are.

The door to your office swings open, and you spin on your heel, taking a startled step back, nearly toppling onto the desk as you do so. Your widened eyes flit to the source of the noise, just as Azriel steps over the threshold. He halts, pausing as if he hadn’t been expecting you.

With a hand over your heart, you lean fully against the desk, legs still a little weak from the orgasm. “What are you doing in here?” You ask, too rushed and too breathless to be acceptable. You clear your throat, straightening your dress—hoping you don’t smell of sweat.

Sharp hazel eyes run over your form, and it’s the most he’s looked at you since you arrived here. You’re unaccustomed to being at the centre of his attention, and all of a sudden you find yourself flushing under his scrutinising gaze.

His brow narrows, closing the door behind him, holding up the papers in his hand. “I was going to put these on your desk,” he says, moving silently across the room, aiming for where you’re leaning. “For tomorrow,” he explains.

You stiffen, then dart away—he’ll be able to smell sex on you if he gets too close, so you shift to be the opposite side of the furniture. “I was wondering which demon was sneaking those in,” you joke, bringing your gaze to meet his. It’s so piercing and intent, it’s difficult to maintain. Suddenly struggling to function under his attention. “Looks like it was you,” you smile.

Azriel’s eyes stab into you, raking beneath your skin, and you fight the urge to fidget. Instead you straighten your back, spine curving enough to push your chest out—just a little.

Your attention flicks over his shoulder to the door, which you know you locked. “Say, how did you get in here? I know I locked it so I wouldn’t be disturbed,” you ask, peering at him from across the desk. You’re now leaning the majority of your weight on the spinning chair, legs trembling slightly.

He’s quiet for a moment, and you wonder for a dreadful second if he somehow knows. You dismiss the thought quickly. There’s no way he does. You sprayed that perfume, and it’s pretty strong. He can’t have figured it out, there’s not enough evidence to even suggest you’d been doing anything other than flicking through emails and moving files about to the correct Matter.

He pulls something from his pocket, holing it up the metal ring. “Skeleton key,” he answers, simply. You nearly blanch at the information—he could have walked in at any moment. A flicker of arousal licks between your thighs as you imagine him walking in on you like that. How would he react?

He’d probably be pissed off for potentially getting some files dirty. Typical stick-in-the-mud behaviour.

You shift on your feet uncomfortably, “so, you have access to any room in this building?”

“That is how a skeleton key works, yes.” You blink at his tone. Narrow your eyes. The dry tone…the slight tug on his lips, as if suppressing a… “Oh my god you made a— You have humour.”

You stare at him, slightly mortified the thought slipped out, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Simply raises a brow, “I’m loosely acquainted with the concept.” You stare longer, unsure how to react, lips nervously twitching up at the edges. You nod, slowly, blinking—dumbfounded.

His lips curve almost imperceptibly, and you stiffen, for once unsure what to do, how to react. He seems to have difficulty suppressing his smile as he takes in your reaction, “I had no idea humour would have such a profound effect on you.”

You snap back to reality, tightening your grip on the chair. “No, it’s not that,” you explain hurriedly. He raises a brow, lips still slightly quirked in a way that only magnifies his beauty. Classically complimenting his features.

He’s waiting for your explanation.

You flush, realising you don’t have one.

“I just…didn’t expect it, is all,” you try, concealing your wince. But the slight lift of his mouth doesn’t fade, and you realise you should be using the time to make a move on him. Drop a couple of hints. Maybe he’ll be different outside of working hours.

Azriel opens his mouth to respond, and you prepare yourself for whatever quip he’s going to surprise you with, but instead his eyes flick down to your desk. More specifically, the small remote that’s connected to the device inside of you.

Your heart actually stops in your chest for a moment, time slowing as his brow narrows, and—picks it up.

For the few seconds he examines it, you’re paralysed, holding your breath and praying for the love of god he doesn’t recognise it.

“What is this?” He asks, and you have to control the sigh of relief that wants to whoosh from your lungs. You’re saved. “I have no idea,” you lie, unable help the smile that’s graced your lips.

His brow narrows, eyes flicking to yours as he holds the remote in his large hand, making it look tiny. “It’s not yours?” He asks, and you mentally kick yourself for the mistake. You should have said it was some kind of charger!

But you’re stuck now, so you nod stiffly, feigning ignorance.

His brow narrows further, flipping the device over in his hand, making you tense. If he presses one of those buttons… You don’t allow yourself to consider that path. No way.

“Are they for the lights?” He asks, peering closer at the small buttons. Seven in total, all different types of vibration. Labelled with their number, nothing else. You shrug, stepping out from behind your chair, moving to walk over to him, “no idea. I’ll drop it off at reception or something and see if they—”

He presses the the third button.

You stumble but catch yourself, thankful for the whisper-quiet motor. He won’t be able to hear anything, thank god.

Teeth dig into your lip as you halt, fingers pressing onto the hard wood of the desk, a shaky breath exhaling from your lips. Your mind scrambles for an excuse to take it from him, but you come up empty. All you can think about is the high-speed buzzing, how good it feels against your sensitive walls.

“Azriel…” you manage, unsurely, becoming temporarily breathless when those hazel eyes slice into, carving your exterior clean off. “I’m not sure it’s wise to press those if we don’t know what they do,” you argue, fairly soundly considering the situation.

He weighs your point, peering at the remote again. “Maybe if it’s on a different setting we’ll see what it is,” he says instead, and you have no time to prepare as he presses the fourth button. Your thighs tremble, nails digging into your palm.

“I’m really not sure—”

Fifth button.

You stumble backward, knees hitting your chair as you collapse down. The fall pushing the toy deeper inside of you, brushing against that wonderfully delicious spot, switching to a patterned pulse. Your teeth dig into your lip as you shift in the seat, attempting to relieve the pressure, but it only leads to the toy pushing harder into that spot, abusing it continuously as you bite back any reactions that would be off.

His attention switches to you, and you nearly come apart right then and there.

“Are you okay?” He questions, concern shining in his sharp eyes. You manage a nod, fingers digging into the arms of your chair, attempting to sit upright. You need an excuse to leave, to go to the bathroom, or something. If you don’t soon, you’re going to fall apart right before his eyes, and there’ll be no way for you to conceal that.

“Absolutely luscious,” you reply out of habit, mind too preoccupied to sift through each word, switching onto autopilot. His brow quirks, and you could really moan at the sight. Thankfully, you don’t, clamping your teeth together as you dig crescent shapes into the heel of your palm.

“Luscious?” He repeats, the letters dragging appetising from his throat, coated in something dark and syrupy, something that would melt and splash over your skin. He sounds vaguely confused, but you have no time to unpack that.

“Delicious,” you correct, weakly, “I meant delicious.”

Upon seeing his confused look, your mind whirrs and spins for an explanation. A dizzy smile makes its way to your lips, hopefully just appearing a little drowsy from a long day of hard work. “I know it’s a weird phrase. My friend and I used to say it all the time because it made us laugh.” The smile becomes a little too sleepy looking, appearing closer to blissed out. “Guess it stuck.”

For a moment, you don’t think he’ll believe you. His gaze pierces into you, and you tighten around the vibrator, bringing the sensations…deeper.

“Full of kinks and quirks, aren’t you?” He drawls, attention returning to the device, looking ready to press another button. “Maybe you should stop messing around with that,” you suggest with forced lightness. “What if it’s messing with someone’s computer?” You argue, being dragged closer and closer to the edge with every second. “I can think of at least one Director who would be pissed if someone was messing around after-hours and accidentally deleted some files.”

He gives you an indecipherable look, then says, with a little too much pride, “every single file on my computer is backed up and stored elsewhere. If someone hasn’t taken precautions, that’s their own fault.” And presses the sixth button.

If you had been standing, you would have collapsed.

As it is, your spine arches ever so slightly, and you shift in the chair again, fingers digging into the arms. The pleasure hums between your legs, and for a second you’re worried he’ll be able to see arousal dripping to the floor.

“Either way,” he says, seemingly completely unaware of the hell and heaven he’s putting you through—for better or for worse. “It doesn’t seem to be doing anything.” And sets it down on your desk.

Without thought or explanation, you snatch it up, holding the power button for three second. Blissful reprieve soothes your nerves, even as a small part wishes for her release. At the odd look he’s giving you, eyes gleaming with something you can’t read, you manage to fumble out a vague explanation for your antsy behaviour, “I’m a bit anal about things like that.”

Not your best word choice, but it’ll have to suffice.

“About strange devices and stranger buttons?” He asks, and you could hiss at him. He so nearly— You don’t even bother expending energy on what would have happened if he hadn’t put it down. How you would have come apart right before his eyes. How furious Rhys would be, if it got back to him.

You’re not sure Azriel would be the type of man your usual persuasions would work on.

So you just nod, tiredly. “It’s like with plug sockets,” you manage, albeit a bit breathlessly. “I can’t stand when they’re on but not plugged in. Seems like a waste of some kind. Bothers me.”

Azriel simply hums, making your thighs squeeze together, shifting nervously as you try to relieve the intense buzzing feeling—the memory of those delicious, rapid-fire pulses.

Your breathing begins to even out, and you reach for your bag, hoping to get out of the room as soon as possible. Escape the situation. You must seem a little too out of it, though.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Azriel asks in that usual disinterested, monotone voice. Deep and rich. You manage to nod, “slightly unaccustomed to working a nine to five,” you explain, grabbing the device. “I’ll drop this off at reception on my way out,” you mutter, silently cursing your carelessness.

He shifts, and you realise he’s checking the time, brow raising. “A seven-thirty to half-ten, is more like it,” he corrects. You nearly groan as you realise how long you’ve been in this damn building for. In fact, you do groan, covering your face with your hands.

Heat shoots straight to your cunt when he laughs—actually laughs. Deep and delicious.

Bloody hell.

He’s so…different, outside work hours.

Maybe… No. No way. It wouldn’t work.

Unless…

“How was the coffee today?” You ask, sounding a bit too casual even to your own ears. His lips quirk and that’s it. You’re done for. He’s far too attractive to be working a job like this.

Well, you’re working a job like this, so you suppose it’s not too unbelievable.

Still.

“You can do better,” he replies, a faint smirk on his mouth. Damn him. You narrow your eyes, half teasing, half entirely serious. You take pleasure very seriously, even if it’s not sexual, and it seems his coffee may be the only thing that keeps him from throttling someone in this job.

“I don’t even know what I’m aiming for, Azriel,” you point out, a genuine smile curving your lips. “How do I know you’re not just sending me on a wild goose chase to create this perfect cup, huh?”

“I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it and keep trying,” he replies easily, amusement gleaming in his hazel eyes.

“Or,” you say, and you can’t believe you’re actually trying this. “You could give me a taste of this heavenly coffee. Firstly, to prove that it actually exists,” —you glare at him— “and secondly, to see if it’s better than the ones I’ve made.” You offer him a challenging smile, “because I’m going to be furious if I have a sip and it’s not even half-decent.”

He regards you silently, features unreadable, but you don’t retract the offer. Stand with a straightened spine, staring him down.

“Okay, then.” He relents, and you blink. Wow. Great.

Where from here?

His lips curve into a quiet smile, “I’ll show you tomorrow. Be ready to leave at five past one.”

Huh.

That settles it, then.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

General Taglist: @myheartfollower @tcris2020 @mali22 @amygdtjhddzvb @sfhsgrad-blog @needylilgal022

Az Taglist: @azrielshadows1nger @jurdanpotter @positivewitch @nightcourt-daydreaming

His P.A. Taglist: @i-am-infinite @going-through-shit

#Azriel #Azriel x reader #Azriel x reader smut #Azriel smut #azriel shadowsinger #His Personal Assistant #October

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softlyspector · 2 years

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Hard Landings

Summary: Everybody in the kriffin galaxy seems to know you...Except for Poe.

He's not really dealing with that well.

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Word Count: ~12.5k

Warnings: lots and lots and lots of pining, idiots in love, bit of grumpy x sunshine, angst, fluff, the reader is described as having scars, Poe being a literal absolute sweetheart about everything

A/N: My first star wars fic! Please be kind to me I tried my very best! If anything is inaccurate, no it isn’t and you don’t see it. And please, please, please (as always) let me know what you think! And a big thank you to miss @velvetofyourheart I’m glad you got to meet Poe through this fic, hopefully I did his character justice.

Poe would never admit it to a soul, but he’s a little bit obsessed with you.

The obsession comes on slowly, it creeps in and roots down in his veins before he really has a say in it, before he even meets you.

Maybe obsession isn’t quite the right word.

He has an interest.

A vested interest.

As a commander in the resistance.

Yes, that’s it.

That’s definitely how it starts, at least.

An interest.

Your name is mentioned casually to him one morning in the mess, a name he doesn’t recognize and one that is suddenly everywhere.

Repeated and repeated and repeated.

Until he wants to burst, because who are you and shouldn’t he know and why did everyone else know you and not him?

He hears about you for kriffin weeks.

Black Squadron adores you. You make an impression on Rey and Finn and Rose.

Yet, Poe never sees you.

You’re never around when he is – off doing some other thing, always just out of the room, just moved, just – not around.

It goes on for so long, that he starts to suspect you’re avoiding him. Or, that it’s an elaborate prank that’s went on for far too long and no one knows how to tell him the truth.

That you simply do not exist.

He starts to suspect you aren’t real.

He knows everyone on the base, can pick out most people by name and face and has talked to all of them at least once, in passing, in the mess, in debriefings.

Not you.

You are a faceless mechanic that came from nowhere, that has charmed people quietly and quickly, that has a supposedly famed and wicked aim (if he has to hear about how you only hit the bullseye on the holodarts board at the cantina again he’ll lose his mind – really).

The holodarts thing only bothers him a little – mostly because Poe has never seen you at the kriffin cantina.

People whisper that you’re kind, that you’re quiet, that you’re stubborn, and that you’re hiding something.

Even BB-8 knows you. The droid that almost never leaves his side, somehow knows exactly who you are.

Poe has no idea what world you come from, what led you to the resistance. He supposes it doesn’t really matter, and the fact you hadn’t offered that particular bit of information to anyone not unsurprising, considering that the things that led people to the resistance were usually traumatizing.

Poe is intrigued by you.

He has no good reason to be, really.

And at the end of the day, you are just one of the many mechanics. You’re just one of the many people that live and work on D’Qar, that’s a part of something bigger than yourself.

But Poe? He’s never really been good at letting things go, letting it lie. He’s stubborn, he knows that, and usually he can work that to his advantage.

Not this time though. This time he feels like he can’t do anything but dig his heels in.

Poe isn’t used to being…left out. He isn’t used to feeling left out, like someone just doesn’t want him around.

He’s…well, the poster boy, the golden child, Leia’s favorite – the leader everyone looked too when things got tough.

Poe hits his breaking point when Rose mentions that you were at the cantina the night before.

Again.

And that he didn’t see you.

Again.

“What? What do you mean? I was there the whole night! And I never – ,”

“Left right before you got there,” Rose shrugs, looking to Finn for backup. “You got there later than the rest of us – the debriefing with Leia?”

Finn nods, glancing from Rose to him and back again, lifting a brow at Poe’s slightly distressed tone. “Yep. It went late, remember?”

Poe sits with that for a moment, scratching a hand over his jaw, nodding slowly. “Why doesn’t this person want to meet me?”

Finn and Rose share another concerned look. “I don’t think it’s on purpose, Poe – ,”

But Poe decides that’s enough. “Right,” he says, standing, making an effort to clear the irritation from his voice. “I’ll go introduce myself now.”

Before anyone can stop him, before he can think it through and stop himself, he’s striding away, through well-known halls and familiar corridors, BB-8 trailing along at his heels whirring and beeping as he goes.

“I know, buddy,” he says, glancing down at the little droid. “I know it’s not on purpose.”

But it kind of feels like it’s on purpose – like you know something about him or heard something about him that makes you stay away, that makes you avoid him. Something that either isn’t right, or he needs to correct.

You aren’t avoiding him, right?

You don’t even know him.

Why are you avoiding him?

His stomach twists, because there’s always the possibility you know him from his spice runner days. “Can you lead me, Beebee?”

Really, he should have done this weeks ago. It was his responsibility to be familiar with the other pilots and mechanics.

BB-8 rolls ahead of him with a whirr, leading him toward the one of the hangars.

Another series of beeps.

Uneasy. Cautious.

Poe frowns, stepping quickly behind the droid, to the entrance to the hangar. The smell of fuel and oil and something slightly charred greets him like an old friend. It’s a smell that’s as close to home as Poe feels he’ll ever get these days.

It’s a smell that’s like flying and falling, like stars and sky, and hope.

Most people are in the mess for dinner at this time and so the usually chaotic hangar is quiet, only a couple of people lingering, quickly finishing up whatever they were working on to get to dinner too.

BB-8 races around a banked ship, Poe following closely when he pulls up short.

He watches BB-8 cross the duracrete to you and knock into your ankle.

Poe has definitely never seen you before.

He would remember someone like you.

You smile, immediately stooping down to run a hand over BB-8’s side. You have a wrench in your hand, a smear of grease on your forehead. You’re working on his x-wing. Poe does a lot of the maintenance himself, but not all of it, not these days, not with the responsibilities that weigh on him.

He can’t figure out how to put one foot in front of the other suddenly, struck a little bit dumb from where he watches you attempt to communicate with his droid. It’s obvious that you don’t understand binary, but that you’re trying to interpret his beeps to the best of your ability anyway.

You frown, furrowing your brow, mouthing something under your breath. The movement of your mouth pulls at a scar that spiderwebs over your jaw and a portion of your cheek.

Kriffin hell.

He hadn’t expected you to be so pretty. He hadn’t expected you somehow. Even from where he stands, he can see the long flutter of your lashes against your cheek, the curve of your bottom lip, the delicate knob of bone in your wrist.

You touch the droid’s domed head softly, your voice finally carrying over to him, “– sorry, honey, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

With a series of exasperated beeps, BB-8 rolls away from you, back toward Poe.

You glance up, your gaze like mourning flowers, like the sharp points of rocks at the bottom of a whirlpool, like raw burning grief. Something about you is overwhelming, something about your gaze is like tumbling through open space, like free falling in a star shower.

For a moment, he thinks you won’t spot him, but then your eyes snap to his and those fathomless, unknowable depths soften just a bit.

You lift a hand in greeting, still crouched on the floor, the corners of your lips lifting in a smile.

Beep.

He looks down at his meddling droid.

Another sassy beep.

Go. Over.

But he can’t get his feet to carry him over to you.

So, Poe just waves, smiles back at you. He feels dopey and stupid. Black Leader, Commander Dameron, afraid to approach one of the kriffin mechanics.

You lift a brow, dusting off the knees of your trousers as you stand.

“Sorry for bothering you! Don’t know what’s gotten into him!” He settles on calling over to you, pointing down at BB-8 like it was his fault, like Poe didn’t ask him to lead him to you (the droid gives an indignant little whirr at the implication), before he turns on his heel and marches away, like he has somewhere important to be.

Poe Dameron is not a coward, but what he sees in the depths of your eyes scares some part of him he didn’t know existed.

Well, at least he knows you’re real.

And he now, now, he can say he’s obsessed.

Because Poe’s never backed away from something that scared him.

A crash sounds to your left, makes you jump, your bad ear ringing.

You glance up and around just in time to see your toolbox slipping to the floor in a cascade of metal. The only thing you can do is watch as your carefully organized madness spins across the floor, the noise catching the attention of a few passersby. Despite the usual chaos and noisiness of the hangar – it still attracts attention.

A final wrench pings to the floor and you trace the orange flight-suited legs behind the new mess up, until you meet the eyes of Poe Dameron.

He’s cringing, his face contorted into a pained expression before it eases into the relaxed smile he usually sports.

Maker, he’s beautiful.

He’s unfairly attractive actually – soft dark brown curls with eyes to match, a kind of warmth behind his gaze that couldn’t be faked.

You lift a brow when he stoops down to sweep your tools back into the box, haphazardly piling anything that would fit back into the box.

The carefully organized compartments are all but ruined, it’ll take days to sort them right again. “Sorry about that,” he says, righting the box on a stool as his ever-present droid beeps at him, a little orange and white BB unit that most people adore.

Including you.

You’re more familiar with the droid than you are with his owner.

BB-8 had a strange habit of periodically checking in with you.

Still, you’re surprised to find Dameron in front of you at all. That day he stared at you from across the hangar is burned into the back of your mind, the way he’d looked at you like he was seeing a ghost.

Or something worse.

He couldn’t wait to be out of the same room as you.

Everyone who mentioned him had nothing but kind things to say, even when they were criticizing him - a little hardheaded, a little reckless. But a good leader, a good man.

You resist the urge to reach a hand up and cover the scars that stretch across your jaw and cheek, anxiety beating through your chest.

“It’s okay,” you answer, only a little bit of carefully controlled despair dripping through your veins, despair at your things being knocked about, despair at having been so swiftly judged by someone so supposedly kind.

His presence is a reminder of that day, that odd little lie he told, the rejection you’d done nothing to earn but lift a hand in greeting.

You had precious little, your things were your touchstone when everything else disappeared, when you no longer felt safe, or like yourself. Some of those tools had been with you since –

You force yourself to take a breath.

They’re just things, you remind yourself, things that could be rearranged and replaced.

The droid whirs and beeps again, sounding a bit irritated.

“Right,” Poe stands and sends you another overly charming smile, like he’s trying to make up for something other than your upset tools. “Beebee is right. That was a bad apology. I’m sorry for startling you and I’m really sorry about knocking over your things. I can help you reorganize them, if you want,” he offers, sheepishly rubbing a hand against the back of his neck.

You blink at Poe, a little bewildered at his offer, more than a little baffled by his sudden presence.

Maybe you’d caught him at a bad time that day, maybe he’d really been rushing somewhere.

The droid swivels to look up at you, chirping excitedly, apparently now satisfied you’d been properly apologized to. You can’t help but smile and crouch down, reaching out to pat BB-8 who happily rolls forward into your hand like he always does. “Does your droid always scold you?”

“Only sometimes,” Poe says, smiling again, the crinkles by his eyes pulling at his cheeks. You’ve never seen anyone smile like that before, with their whole face, like they were putting effort into it.

If it were anyone else, you might still be a little bit irritated, but Poe’s inflection is one of total earnestness.

That, and you can already tell he’s the kind of person that it’s impossible to stay angry with.

It only helps him a little that he’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever laid eyes on. His energy is infectious, too, and you suspect that even if he wasn’t a pretty boy, he’d still be able to charm whoever he talked to, that he’d still sound like sunshine radiated right out of his veins.

You both glance at the messily assorted tools. “Don’t worry about it,” you say, some tension rolling out of your shoulders. “They needed to be sorted out again anyways. No harm done,” you say, partially to reassure yourself. “Is there a reason you’re here knocking over my things?”

Why are you suddenly talking to me now? Your real question goes unspoken.

Poe scrubs a hand through his hair, curls artfully threading around his fingers, messy but like it was supposed to be that way. “Well, word around base is that you can fix pretty much anything.”

You frown at him, cocking an eyebrow up.

Were people saying that? It’s verifiably untrue. There are plenty better mechanics than you. You preferred tinkering with more delicate things anyway, smaller machinery than the ships that surround you.

“I can certainly try,” you answer cautiously, still patting BB-8. “But I gotta ask – who told you that? I think I’m a pretty average mechanic.”

You don’t know much about Poe Dameron, besides the popular, regular gossip about him.

He’s hotheaded, he’s reckless, he’s a great leader, he’s the best pilot in the whole kriffin galaxy, he’s the poster boy of the resistance, he’s kind, he’s a flirt, he’s –

He’s staring at you guiltily, like he’s been caught doing something bad, and you have a feeling that his sudden interest has something to do with the day he avoided you.

It’s a miracle you hadn’t seen him before that day, especially considering how much you interacted with Jessika and Snap and Finn and so many others. Because Poe knows everyone, is friends with damn near everyone.

But you haven’t really had cause to speak with him yourself before he so boldly strode over and knocked your tools to the floor, before he stared at you from across the room and sent little bolts of panic racing around your veins.

It had been hard not to notice Poe, to wonder about him, even if you didn’t interact with him yourself.

“Finn and Rose. Rey too. Which, if Rey is saying that you can fix anything…well, I thought she was the one that could fix anything.”

You tilt your head and straighten, BB-8 rolling back to Poe’s side as you do. “What is it that you need help with exactly?”

Poe stares at you for a long moment, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes before he recovers himself and reaches out a hand. “Poe Dameron, by the way, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

You don’t take his hand, nodding back at him, locking your fingers tightly together behind your back. “No. You were in such a hurry the other day,” you say, watching as Poe winces, testing your theory of guilt. “But everyone seems to know you around here,” you let him off the hook a bit and tell him your own name, though he clearly already knows it.

He lowers his hand, doesn’t make a big deal about you not taking it.

Which you appreciate.

“Everyone knows you, too,” he says. “Except for me.”

“I really doubt that.”

“No, really!” He exclaims. “All of Black Squadron – all they talk about is you. Kriffin hell, if I have to hear one more time how you’ve never miss the bullseye in holodarts...” he trails off, shaking his head.

You blink, just a bit surprised. Though you see all of the pilots quite a lot, you didn’t think they talked about you, thought about you outside of your brief conversations with them, your very occasional outings to the cantina.

“Maybe that’s just because I keep them from falling out of the sky,” you say to Poe before you can really think your words through.

Poe laughs, and it’s a nice sound, even if it startles you just a little.

Maker, how did anyone bare being around him for more than a few minutes? When he looks the way he does and smiles like that and laughs like that?

Poe is the kind of person who burns, scorches the world around him. His energy is like an exploding star and you can already feel yourself getting sucked into his orbit.

He nods you in the direction of his x-wing which you’re more than familiar with. You frown as you approach. “Something happen in flight? It was fine before.”

There had only been drill flights earlier so you can’t imagine something drastic could have happened to it.

Poe maneuvers behind you, brushing a friendly hand across your shoulders as he passes you. You stiffen and the hand is retracted, but he doesn’t call attention to it, just works at removing an external panel of the ship while you stand by, arms crossed over your chest as you watch.

He lifts the panel, chattering on at you about some of the wiring.

You frown and watch him, the flutter of his lashes, the movement of his throat, the bit of warm brown skin that peeps through the open collar of his flight suit.

The problem he claims to be having with the wiring is so simple a child could have fixed it. You narrow your eyes and watch Poe Dameron lie straight to your face about not knowing how to fix it, about not even knowing what was wrong in the first place.

Stars, he’s a bad liar.

But when he turns to you with those wide, brown eyes, you don’t have the heart to call him on it.

Though you have to wonder why.

Why pretend?

Why pretend not to know what the problem is? How to fix it?

Just to speak with you? Surely not.

You glance down at BB-8 who stares up at you, like he knows what’s going on too and is begging you not to mention how stupid it all is.

A laugh bubbles to the back of your throat, one that you have to bite your lip to avoid leaving you.

Poe feels guilty about the other day, you would guess, and this is his in to talking to you, making it up.

Like he couldn’t have just approached you under the guise of introducing himself.

Its profoundly circuitous and you find yourself warming to him because of it.

So, you just reach out, point out to problem with the wiring. “There’s your issue. Here – ,” you step forward and make quick work of righting the issue, holding back a grin as you do.

This is certainly not something you expected from Poe, he seemed like a more direct person to you.

Like the day he’d marched into the hangar, clearly with the intention to talk to you, only to back away and lie.

Maker, he does feel guilty.

He’s smiling at you again, watching you with rapt attention.

BB-8 rolls slow circles around the pair of you, engulfing you in your own personal bubble with Dameron.

“So, are you heading to the mess now? For dinner?”

You tilt your head, “Sure, Poe.”

“Wanna eat together?” He’s not looking at you, there’s a tracery of pink on his neck, creeping up his throat. He knows he’s been caught.

“I promise I won’t tell Rey,” You say, just to watch him blink over at you in surprise, just to watch the pink spread and turn red. “That you would think she can’t fix something like this.”

He laughs, the sound loud and unrestrained. “Thanks. Guess I should have made up a real problem.”

“Should have,” you chirp. “Something really complicated. Next time, rip out this,” you suggest, pointing to a panel. “That’s a real problem. No steering.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he’s grinning like a fool at you.

Famous charm, famous flirt.

You shake yourself, wonder at how quickly you were sucked in by him.

You clamp that feeling in place, ice it off, seal it away. You won’t, can’t, get attached to anyone. And you don’t like the feelings bubbling up in you. “Glad we finally got to talk, Commander Dameron. I don’t think I’ll be able to join you at dinner.”

Before he can ask, you walk away.

But you feel that burning gaze, the weight of his eyes on you, until you turn a corner out of his sight.

Poe tries to right his wrong.

Of course, it backfires. Of course, he decides to do it in the stupidest way possible.

Beebee doesn’t let him forget it.

He’s still a little bit afraid of you and the things that lie in your eyes, but that only fuels his interest, his obsession.

But approaching you after that first encounter – casually – seemed like a bad idea. He didn’t want to mention how he’d basically fled the room – Maker, he can only imagine what you think of him because of that.

Having a reason to approach you, like needing help with something, seemed so much better.

“So, you’re going to lie to her?” Rose had asked him. “Why? Just introduce yourself, Poe. I thought you did that when you marched off the other day.” She’d seemed disgruntled. “It’s not even a good lie!”

And Poe was notoriously bad at lying.

Still, he hadn’t been able to regret it as he watched you replace the couple of tangled wires he’d hastily tugged out of their respective panels. Not when you were so close to him, not when you smelled like engine fuel and something distinctly earthy, not when he could see the swoop of your lashes against your cheek and the webbed scar that extended down your neck into the collar of your shirt.

The way you hold yourself, upright and proud, but guarded, makes him want to peel back the layers of who you are.

So even if the excuse is stupid, even if he pulled those wires out himself, he’s glad he did it.

Even if you turned down his offer to eat together, it gives him an opening into your life.

Whenever he has time, which isn’t much, he makes a point to seek you out.

Anytime he sees you in the mess, he makes a point of sitting beside you and talking to you, even if it’s just to watch you grumble about how close he is.

He notices that you don’t like to be touched, that you seize up like you’ve been electrocuted. You try not to tell him things, but some things slip out, some things are just hard not to notice about you.

You’re afraid of flying, your home world was warm year-round and you don’t like feeling even a little bit chilly. You like those blasted holodramas that Poe thought no one in the galaxy actually watched, you read maintenance manuals in your spare time. The tools you use have undue importance to you, he catches you cataloguing a couple of them more than once, just to check they were still there. He notices that your hearing isn’t as good on your left side, that you’re more easy to startle if he approaches from that way, and so he always goes to your right.

Poe brings you cups of caf until he realizes you don’t really like how bitter it is, your face screwing up with the bold flavor of it. So, he starts bringing you something sweet instead, something warm. It makes him happy because he likes sweet things too, he always found the caf too bitter too.

He hunts down a jacket for you, one of the ones with fur on the inside and leaves it on your workbench.

He has a feeling that if he gave it to you in person, you’d never wear it.

Poe isn’t sure why you’re so closed off, especially with him, but eventually you stop frowning when he appears, you smile and greet him and ask him how his day has been.

Poe doesn’t think you realize it, but one day, one of the days when he’s lost people and things feel hopeless and he still smells like kriffin fuel after washing for so long his skin feels raw, you pass your cup back to him – filled with that something sweet.

It’s still warm, and he likes to think maybe he can taste the shape of you on the rim of the cup.

“I heard what happened,” you say. “I was waiting for you.” You don’t offer any platitudes, and he’s glad for it. It just makes it sting worse, when people say things like – I’m sorry and It’s not your fault.

It’ll always be kind of his fault.

That’s just who he is, what he does.

But you don’t seem to realize what you’ve admitted. That you wait for him, think about him while he’s gone.

And before Poe can think about that too much, you’re passing something else to him. “They had them in the mess while you were away. Saved some for you.”

You press a koyo fruit into his hand, your skin carefully not touching his.

You smile and take the cup from him, sipping from the same place his lips had just touched.

Instead of saying thank you, like he should, like he wants to, he asks for something else from you. Some deeper part of who you are. He slides his thumb across the skin of the fruit, reminded of home. His throat is tight with gratitude when he asks, “Why don’t you like to fly?”

You blink long at him, fingers tightening on the cup until he worries you’ll hurt your hand.

He waits, is about to tell you that you don’t have to say it, not ever, but you nod, and loosen your grip on the cup. Instead of speaking, you gesture to the scars that disappear into the collar of your shirt.

Poe just nods.

“What about before?” He asks, probably against his better judgement. “Before that?”

“Nothing better than being in the stars,” you answer easily, gaze distant. “Maker, I loved flying.”

He can’t help the grin that pulls over his face.

Poe Dameron easily becomes a menace in your life.

A nuisance some could say.

He starts appearing in your life, in your carefully created little bubble, anytime he can.

Really, he’s got no good reason to.

Still.

He starts finding reasons to be in your presence.

Poe becomes your problem, and your solution.

True to his word, even when you tell him he doesn’t have to, he helps you reorganize your tools.

He sits with you at your workbench any free moment he has, brings you cups of caf and then replaces it with a sweet drink you can’t name, makes probing small talk, tells you about his home world.

You learn a lot about Poe, about his life. He talks about flying a lot – a romantic edge in his voice that doesn’t fit with being a pilot in a war. You let yourself imagine Poe as a different kind of pilot, the kind that could just go, be, explore.

But you can’t figure out why he tells you these things, you offer hardly anything in return. He shouldn’t be interested in you, he should have given up on you a long time ago, he should have gotten bored of you a long time ago.

You don’t tell him how your home world was destroyed, you don’t explain your fear of flying even if you do let that information slip out.

Poe’s eyes go round when you tell him that, like he can’t imagine it, being afraid of something he lived for, loved more than anything.

He doesn’t ask why in that moment, though he does eventually.

And when he does, you tell him.

You tell him, and he accepts it for what it is.

A sneaky little, “You should let me show you how to love it again,” slipped in before he left you that night, koyo fruit in hand.

You do not want to know Poe Dameron. You don’t want to care about him. You don’t want to care about any of these people. Caring about people just complicated things, just made everything worse, when something inevitably took them from you.

And you’re starting to rely on Dameron, you’re starting to care about him. Really care about him and weather he made it back in that banged up ship of his.

You never meant to make an impression on them, never meant to make them think about you more than they should. Never, you never should have gone to the cantina with Black Squadron when Jessika Pava invited you. And you certainly shouldn’t have gotten sucked into a game of holodarts – something which apparently lived in everyone’s memory just because you happened to be a good shot.

Dameron is the worst of all – always around, always smiling, always cracking jokes. He’s also the one who leaves the most, who comes back to D’Qar singed and beaten and who takes far too many risks.

He makes you nervous, not just because of the way he flies – like nothing can touch him, like he’ll always make it out alive – but also because of his penchant for digging himself into your skin, burrowing himself inside you and becoming a part of your life, your routine.

You want to hate him so badly.

You want to stop caring about him, but Dameron is determined to be in your life, he’s determined to assault you with daily kindnesses.

And so, you start to care about him, to like him, to wonder about him and find your thoughts occupied with the ways you could make him smile on the days where he can’t.

The world always feels like its ending. The war feels never ending. Something life altering is always happening, always just around the corner.

You hate it.

Poe is talking to you now, rattling on about something or the other, and you can’t focus because it’s hard to breathe – it’s hard to breathe when you have to stand by and watch him climb into the x-wing you take meticulous care of, and stick that stupid helmet over his head.

“I’ll be okay, you know,” he says, grinning down at you. “You don’t have to worry so much.”

Maker, let that be true, you think.

Instead, with acid on your tongue, you say, “I’m not worried about you, Poe.”

“I’ll come find you when I’m back.”

Like you wouldn’t be waiting anxiously the entire time, like you wouldn’t go sit out on one of the bluffs hidden by the trees and stare up at the stars, imagining you might be able to see his ship if you looked hard enough.

“You don’t have to do that. I probably won’t even notice you’re gone. It’s not like I send all my time thinking about you.”

Poe laughs at your tartness, “Okay. I’ll be thinking about you though, so I’ll still come find you.”

You roll your eyes, annoyed that it makes you happy. “Bye, Beebee, stay safe,” you say to his droid instead of him, walking away before Poe can say anything else, the noise and commotion of the hangar too loud for you to hear anything else anyways.

Despite your best intentions, you think about Poe while he’s gone. You save some of those blasted koyo fruits from the mess because he always acts like he’ll die when he misses out on them. They’re native to his Yavin IV and remind him of home even if he doesn’t say it. His mother had planted a koyo tree when he was a child, and they grew in their yard.

You’re always one of the first to know when he’s back. People make sure to tell you, even when you don’t ask.

You never touch Poe, but you sit close to him when he gets back, and give him those stupid fruits, and share a cup. He still smells like fuel, but you don’t mind, because its Poe, because he’s alive.

And you admit to him that night that you were waiting, that you always wait for him, if only to see him smile.

He makes you feel like an idiot, he makes you feel uncertain, because he is so very certain.

Despite it all, Dameron is there, and if he can’t be, his droid is.

He invites you to dinner whenever he can, and once you go, just to watch him beam like sunshine, just to watch him hold court, make everyone in the mess his best friends for an hour.

Hope, Poe had a way of inspiring hope, of making people laugh when things got tough, of making them believe in something better.

You grow a little bit attached to him, find yourself waiting for him from time to time, even when he’s not away, before you catch yourself and feel that ice around your heart shiver and spiderweb and crack.

Maybe you should stay away from him, but you can’t – not when the sun of him feels so nice, is melting the ice.

Not when he looks at you with eyes softened by something unknown, something you don’t want to see or recognize.

Because you can’t have the inside of you exposed to the light again.

But you can’t quite bring yourself to make him stop either.

“Here.”

You glance up, squinting into the low light. “Poe,” you say, not at all surprised. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

He rolls his eyes, smiling. “Just take it will you?”

You grin back, flip your magnifying glasses above your forehead and peel off your gloves before taking the cup Poe is offering you.

“Do you ever stop?”

“Do you?” You counter easily, sipping at the sweet drink as Poe sits on the spare chair across from you at the workbench.

He shakes his head, “Guess not. Hard for me to sit still. There’s always something else to do.”

You nod, yanking the glasses off your head and tossing them onto the bench. You haven’t seen him in a while, you want his attention. “It’s late,” you comment, trying to hide a yawn.

“I know.”

There are purple circles beneath his eyes, creases at the edge of his cheek, like he’d accidentally fallen asleep on something.

“Why don’t you go get some sleep then, Poe?” You ask gently.

He shakes his head, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes. “When I haven’t seen you in weeks? Never.”

You snort. “What, you need me to put you to bed or something?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that,” he hedges.

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

He peeks one eye open at you, “Is it so surprising that I like being around you?”

You look away, fidget with your fingers, the edge of your jacket. A jacket you know is a gift from Poe. “A little bit. It’s hard to imagine why.”

For a moment, you don’t consider continuing, you don’t even think of it, because there’s nothing more to say. It really is hard to believe. Why should he? When you give so little of yourself in return? When Poe burns brighter than the sun and you are but a faded star?

But before you can think of something to say, of the words to describe how you feel, before you can get your next words out, Poe leans forward, right into your space, the smell of him, the scent of clean soap, the fresh smell of the shampoo he used, the cologne he put on, invading every part of you, diving down into your veins, like sunshine on ice. “I like you,” he says softly. “That’s why.”

His gaze is warm and open. Big brown eyes staring at you from beneath thick lashes.

You blink at him, “I like you too, Poe.”

And you do, you like him too much, maybe to your own detriment.

But you don’t say it the way he does, with teeth and grit and meaning. You say it like you don’t understand what he means, what his constant presence means, what his patience with you and you only means, what the jacket left on your workbench means, what the cups of something sweet, and always approaching you from the right side means.

Poe likes you. And he wants you to know it.

Poe doesn’t smile at you, just watches you for a moment. “You don’t get it do you? What do I have to do to make you get it?”

“Poe…” You trail off, not sure what to say to him. “I don’t understand why.”

“Does it matter why?” He sounds a little bit offended. “Why is it such a surprise anyway? I’m not…I don’t really know how to be subtle,” he offers. “I’m telling you. I like you.”

You bite your lip, worry at the hem of your shirt.

But there are things he doesn’t know, and there are things you aren’t sure you can give.

And because he could have pretty much anyone he wanted and yet he wasted his time here with you. Because the world is always ending, and you can’t lose everything again.

And Poe, he’s sort of becoming everything to you.

Instead of answering, you drain the rest of the drink, flick out your light, and switch off your datapad. “You need sleep, Dameron,” you say. “It’s making you delusional.”

Poe stands, following along after you without complaint, rounding a corner into an empty corridor.

“So, it doesn’t matter why?” he chirps, smilingly upbeat again, like you didn’t just reject him without explanation.

You roll your eyes, following a well-known path to his quarters. “Of course, it matters.”

“It shouldn’t. You could just accept it.”

You reach his door, automatically punching in the code, stepping back to wave him in ahead of you. “Poe,” you stop him, standing very close to him in the low light of his room. You can see every lash against his cheek, the bruise darkening along his brow. “It’s better this way.”

“I don’t think it is,” he says, obstinate about it.

You sigh, exasperated, opening your mouth to respond when he cuts you off. “No. You’re wrong about this. It’s not better this way.”

“Poe,” you say again, growing frustrated. “You don’t know anything about me. I give you nothing in return for all you do. You should hate me. I can’t even touch you. I can’t even look at you when you leave. I can’t even say goodbye.”

You stop, press your hands across your chest, ribs aching with the pressure you exert. You wait for him to get it, but Poe just says your name, so quietly and sweetly it makes you want to crumble. “Baby,” he coos, and you know he’s thinking about reaching out to you, about how much easier it would be if you were an easier person. Your throat goes tight with the sound of that pet name on Poe’s lips, directed at you. “Baby,” he repeats, palms open, eyes like little galaxies of their own. His lips twitch up into a gentle grin, “I know you. You’re easy to know.”

And Poe repeats the things he knows about you. That you like it warm and come from a warm world. That you don’t like bitter things. That you’re meticulous with your tools and work, that you preferred to be alone when you worked but you like to have company when you eat. That you’re easily annoyed by loud noises and that your left ear is sensitive. That you pretended to think the koyo fruits were too sweet but that you now look forward to them just as much as Poe does.

“You tell me things. You just don’t realize it. I like who you are.” Poe steps away from you, toward his bed, slumping down to yank off his boots.

The circles under his eyes are in sharp contrast with his skin in the low lighting of his quarters. You stand there, not sure what to say, not sure if you want to say anything. Not really sure how to say anything.

“Poe,” you say softly, his name on your lips making him pause, glancing up at you with eyes that are such a rich warm brown, you’d gladly lie there forever, gladly lie in that shade and sleep. “Thank you.”

His brow softens, that little pinch smoothing out, and he holds out a hand to you.

You hesitate, not sure the contact won’t kill you, won’t end everything you know.

“C’mon, you’re tired too. Stay with me,” he lays back, scoots as far away as he can. He doesn’t say it, but you hear it anyways. I won’t touch you.

You pull your feet out of your shoes and kick them away, and you lie down beside Poe as he flicks out the light. He turns to you in the dark, the shine of his eyes the only thing visible to you before your eyes adjust and his features come slowly into focus.

He’s beautiful, unreal in his beauty.

Poe smiles. “Are you going to stay?”

“Sure, Poe.”

“Good.” His eyes flutter shut and you have to tangle your fingers together to resist the urge to reach out and touch his cheek, to trace the arch of bone.

You shut your eyes instead, and listen to Poe’s quick breathing, the shift of him on the bed, still fully clothed and above the blanket.

You tilt closer, wriggle closer.

You want to press your nose into his shoulder, into his bicep, you want to dig your teeth into him, to consume him.

Because he’s just so…Poe.

He’s everything you don’t really deserve.

The scent of him overwhelms you – forest pine and rainwater, the lingering smell of fuel that you’re starting to become addicted to.

Just before you fall asleep, you press your nose into his shoulder, you feel the briefly light touch of his hand against your cheek. The feather light touch is immediately retracted, jerked away, a reprimand unto itself.

But you wish it would linger.

You don’t make things easy on him after that night, like you regret falling asleep so close to him.

He should have known better than to fall asleep too, he was a clingy sleeper, and he hated the panic in your eyes at finding his skin against yours when you woke.

There had been a moment, between waking and realizing, where Poe had been blissfully happy. It had been a long time since he woke up touching someone else and he was loathe to let that feeling slip away, it was only a bonus that this person smelled just like you.

But then he’d opened his eyes and found you really there, a look in your eyes like you were deciding whether to push him away or pull him closer.

Instead, you mumbled an apology and stumbled out of bed, out of the room.

There are some days after that when Poe just can’t find you, no matter where he checks, no matter what he does.

He thinks about the way your hands sometimes shake, about the times where you look like you haven’t slept in days and days and days, the scar that trails over your jaw, the circles under your eyes, the haggard, drowning look in your gaze. Like something is tormenting you.

He wonders sometimes if he should just let you be, he wonders if he is the thing that’s tormenting you.

Your eyes haunt him, the look in them still scares him.

But he doesn’t want to look away, he doesn’t want to give up on you, not for anything. Poe doesn’t give up, doesn’t look away from things that are difficult. And you always come around eventually, looking for him but pretending that you aren’t, quietly sitting down beside him or waving to him from across a crowded room.

There are times that things keep him away – he’s off planet, he’s on a mission, he’s participating in kriffin diplomacy. He misses you like a part of himself has been lost.

And ever since you came around, he can’t focus on anything else, can’t think about anyone else.

No one else can warm his bed, not even for a night.

He doesn’t consider anything more with anyone else because –

Well, because they don’t bring him koyo fruits and sit out and stare at the stars when he’s away and tells BB-8 goodbye and not him because it’s too painful, it’s too close to losing too much.

He wishes you would just let him in.

“You’re going,” Poe says, standing with his arms crossed at the threshold of the mess. He’s vaguely sweaty, a black mark across his forehead and down his cheek, a frayed kind of burned smell emanating from him.

Half the buttons on his shirt are undone and you want to hate him for it. You hate that expanse of skin, the ever present chain around his neck poking out. Another piece of himself he’d given you, why he wore the necklace. That his mother’s ring is looped on the end. Poe had let you see it, let you fist your hand around it, trace the edge of the ring.

He’s back from a mission, something, you don’t know.

Your brain goes all fuzzy, blanks out the specifics of what goes on with the actual flying in the sky part of things. You don’t like to think about it, don’t like to know the details of what he does, what any of the kriffin pilots do.

Maker, to be afraid of flying in a place like this was like being a bird with its wings clipped, defenseless and easy to be left behind.

You wrinkle your nose and turn away from him. “Not sure what you’re talking about, Dameron.”

Poe strides forward and takes the seat across from you. “Cantina. Tonight. You’re going. We had a very successful mission,” he beams at you, clearly proud, satisfied. He doesn’t offer details, knows it makes you anxious. “And you’re coming to the cantina.”

You don’t care about the mission, you’re just glad he’s back.

But all you say is -

“Nice try. I don’t respond to pressure,” you refocus on your datapad.

“I command – ,”

You groan, “No – ,”

“Yes! As Commander Dameron, I…” he hesitates, clearly trying to think of a synonym for command. You lift a brow, and he continues with much less zeal and gravitas, “ –command you to come with me to the cantina tonight. I can finally watch you beat everyone at holodarts in person.”

“That really hurts your feelings, doesn’t it?” You snort. “It’s just darts.”

He pouts at you, an exaggerated expression that makes you laugh. “Yeah, it does actually.”

You shake your head, reaching out to adjust the collar of his shirt a little bit. Poe stops breathing, his shoulders tense, as you smooth the fabric back. “What happened to your flight suit?” You ask, silently begging anyone listening for him not to mention your fingers against his shirt.

“Had to look my best before I came to see you,” he recovers quickly, his eyes on your hand as you withdraw your touch, brows ticking up. “Didn’t I?”

You wrinkle your nose, “Stars, this is your best?”

“Hey!”

You bite down the smile that threatens to overcome you. “You definitely didn’t hit the fresher before you came here.”

Poe rolls his eyes, “Are you going to come or not?”

“Sure,” You agree. “Just this once.”

He blinks, surprised, because you’ve never gone with him. “Really?”

You pause, watching him, “Kriff, Poe, do you want me to go or don’t you? I can change my mind – ,”

“No! No, no, no, you’re coming. You already said yes.” he’s beaming at you, just sitting there looking at you, eyes flicking over your face, smiling like you’ve agreed to something much more important than going to the cantina. “I missed you,” he says suddenly, the words bursting forth like they no longer fit inside his mouth.

“Right,” you agree, sliding your gaze to your datapad again, not acknowledging his words, “Just come find me after you’ve found some soap.”

You should tell him, you think. You should tell him what happened to you.

There’s something like hardened trust between you and Poe now, something deeper than that too, something you’re afraid to name.

He deserves to know.

And selfishly, you want him, you want him to touch you again, you want to touch him again without surprise pulling over his features, you want him to keep bringing you cups something sweet and you want to keep hoarding koyo fruit for him.

You owe him the truth, the core of you, in exchange for everything he’s given you, so he can make a decision about you.

Poe finds you exactly where he left you earlier, hunched over a datapad in the now nearly empty mess, brow furrowed as you review schematics, make notes on them, absently twirling a stylus.

He plucks up the datapad and switches it off.

You glance up, your fathomless mourning eyes brightening when they fasten on him. “You look nice,” you say in a rare moment of openness, like you can’t help but let the words tumble out.

A heat he doesn’t expect crawls up his neck, traces over his cheeks. “Let’s go. We’re holodarts partners.”

You wrinkle your nose as you stand, carefully wrapping your hand around his elbow, your fingers avoiding direct contact with his skin. But he can feel the warmth of you through his shirt and that’s enough. “Who decided that?”

“Me.”

“So I’ll be carrying our team then.”

“Ouch,” he lies his other hand against his heart, trying not to disturb your touch on his arm.

The pressure of your fingers at his elbow feels so good, warm and heavy, and Poe thinks he’s actually starting to become a bit touch starved. Never has indirect touch felt so good.

He’s normally a touchy person, and it’s been a bit of a challenge to remind himself that touch scared you. He hugs his friends, sure, and the pilots are a strangely tactile bunch, but there was something deeper he craved, something only a partner could really give, something that he hasn’t had since he’s gotten hung up on you.

Poe isn’t really even thinking about sex, just touching, just holding you, any part of you, of being allowed to hug you when he sees you, kissing you, holding your hand.

He fantasizes, sometimes, about getting to hold your kriffin hand.

You’re gradually coming around to careful touches though.

Even a couple weeks ago he could have never imagined you willingly tucking your hand against his arm.

Once at the cantina, you refuse to play holodarts with him, claiming it isn’t fair. “Black Leader should have to fend for himself, shouldn’t he?” You say quietly over the rim of your drink, not looking at him but grinning when everyone starts to heckle him.

So it ends up that everyone is partnered but Poe.

You sit out the games, instead chatting with Rey, the two of you bent over your glasses, talking lowly about something. What you might be talking about, Poe can only guess. But it’s distracting enough that he loses every single game.

Finally, after all this time, you’re here at the cantina together, and you don’t want anything to do with him.

You laugh at something Rey says, your eyes crinkling at the corners, fingers laced together over the tabletop as you lean closer to listen.

It’s only much later, when you’ve had a few drinks that someone fits a dart into your hand and nudges you up that he gets to watch your famed aim. You refuse at first, and so adamantly that people start to complain, and Poe has to warn them off it. You’re a little bit tipsy but you’re still game, still willing to indulge them a little.

They make you stand much further back than normal, make you spin in a circle a few times, until you’re laughing and dizzy and Snap has to catch you gently when you almost trip. The others are trying to test you, to see if you really have skill or if you’re just particularly good at holodarts.

You barely take a breath between shots.

Every single dart meets its mark, dead centered on the glowing board across the room. Drunken cheers erupt and coalesce around you. You look vaguely embarrassed, like you don’t want the attention. Your smile is tense, your fingers tight on the next dart, eyes flashing to his gaze where he hoots along with everyone else.

“Someone needs to get a blaster in your hand!” One of the recruits says, jostling an arm around your shoulders.

Your smile goes, tight, hard, panicked – and you gently extract yourself, laughing, brushing your fingers over your arms before you cross them tightly across your chest.

He starts to move toward you, but someone else is already there. Rose and Finn pulling you toward the bar, away from him again.

Poe misses the searching glance you direct back at him.

“Hey,” you press your hand against Poe’s back hours later, squeezing in next to him at the bar. Poe immediately turns to you, beaming like sunshine incarnate. He tilts his head down and your breath stalls for a moment, your mind curiously blank.

Touching Poe, you’ve found, is nice. Your skin doesn’t crawl with the sensation, pain doesn’t echo inside you with the warmth of him against you. It’s so nice, and you want more.

That first time had scared you so badly, you were conditioned to find pain in touch, and it was only after you abandoned him in his quarters that you realized you felt none of those things. It had felt good, warm and safe, like being bundled up against a cold wind.

“Hey!” he answers, a curl of his dark hair feathering along your forehead, his nose nearly touching yours. “You havin’ a good time?”

“Yes,” you answer, your fingers still against the back of his shirt, curling into the fabric. “But I miss you. You left me,” you echo his words from earlier in the evening, the ones you couldn’t make yourself parrot back to him in that moment.

“I’m right here,” he smiles at you still, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He looks tired, exhausted, older than you’ve ever seen him.

His skin is warm through his shirt, and you have to resist the temptation to lean into him, to press your nose to his throat and inhale. The smell of his skin is coppery with sweat and his cologne, the breath of something very Poe just beneath. “Sorry I wouldn’t partner with you earlier.”

“S’okay,” he says, eyes dark and framed with lashes that make you jealous. You want to touch them, count each little hair.

He’s pretty, so very beautiful, and you’re angry with yourself for wasting your evening anywhere but right here. His shirt is unbuttoned, the chain he wears around his neck peeking out, the length of his throat, the twist of tendon in his neck, mesmerizing.

Poe tilts his head closer to you, carefully not touching you, eyes fluttering shut, lashes long and dark against flushed golden skin.

You laugh.

He’s a little bit drunk and it shows.

You tighten your fingers into the back of his shirt again, tugging gently, “Poe,” you say, breathing his name out softly. “Poe, will you come with me?”

He doesn’t even ask where, just nods and follows you when you step away from him.

You let go of his shirt and watch him frown at you, like he just realized that your hand had been on him at all and now he’s missing the feeling. “C’mon,” you nudge, “It’s a secret.”

“Secret,” Poe echoes, an excited smile tugging back into place on his face. “Okay.” You start to trail away, through the thick forest greens that make up D’Qar, and Poe follows closely behind you. You glance over your shoulder to make sure he’s still there but Poe does you the service of talking your ear off, so you don’t have to constantly check he’s still there, rambling on about whether or not droids have souls, stomping loudly through the dark forest, your path lit only by the light of D’Qar’s moons.

The dry swell of his voice is comforting, the rumble of it pitching upward when he gets particularly excited about something.

You drop back to walk next to him, pushing aside verdant undergrowth as the ground begins to slope upwards. Poe doesn’t question you, just follows, climbing up the hillock until the trees thin and a cool breeze slips through the hanging vines.

The edge of a cliff looms ahead.

The bluff isn’t that high, and there’s a small waterfall that feeds into a pond. You think it’s beautiful, lush emerald below and the flight of stars overhead, the glow of two moons. But Poe turns to you with a frown, a worried line appearing between his brows. The spray of mist from the fall rises around you both, cocoons you in itself.

A light breeze shifts the collar of his shirt, all those undone buttons, the breath of exposed skin and the chain that hangs around his neck.

And before Poe can say anything, to you or about you or about this strange little world you’ve brought him to, you lose the courage you thought you had – the courage to tell him, finally, why. And what happened. And what you feel.

Before you can change your mind, you step around him and leap into the void.

When he looks over the edge of the cliffside, he imagines the spikes of rocks in the water below.

The swirl of the water reminds him of that thought he had about your eyes the first time he saw you. Grief like the sharp tips of rocks at the bottom of a pool.

Poe gets that feeling again, the same one that had bubbled up in him when he first met your eyes. Fear rakes through him, but he’s never backed away from something that scares him, not even you. With his heartbeat loud in his ears, and an unknown feeling tugging at the back of his throat, Poe watches you jump.

He lets out a strangled gasp.

You hang there for a moment, suspended in space, light from the moons crystalizing around you, threading through your hair. And Poe thinks, Maker, save me, because you look like a falling star, you look like all the stars in the galaxy raining down.

And then you drop and fall into the pond, sinking so deeply he loses sight of you.

You disappear from sight and Poe curses, not hesitating to follow you, jumping over the side too, without hesitation because all he can think about are the blades of rocks.

The water is dark and something darts by his ankle, but when he surfaces, you’re already there, smiling at him, your teeth shining in the light of the moons. Any warmth he felt from the glow of the drinks settled in his veins has evaporated. “Kriffin hell, what were you thinking – ,”

You bob closer to him, the falls a distant roar, your lips dipping below the surface of the water. His breath stutters to a halt, through the cool cut of the water, your warm hand tangles with his.

For the second, third, fourth time tonight, you’re willingly touching him, and this time it’s your bare skin against his.

You stroke your thumb over the back of his hand, “I do it all the time. It’s fine.” You point up at the cliff, water trailing down your arm, “That’s where I watch for you.” Your arm ticks out, pointing at the stars now.

Poe catalogues that information for later, his brain short circuiting at the thought of you at the top of that cliff alone, waiting and watching the stars.

“A little warning would have been nice,” he huffs. “You know there are predators in this forest.”

“And yet, I’ve always been fine.” You ghost your other hand up his arm, fisting in the collar of his shirt. “Jumping…It’s the closest feeling I get to flying these days.”

Poe doesn’t know how to respond for a moment, watching beads of water pearl and drip down your face, over the line of your nose and curve of your jaw. “What happened?” He asks the question he never dares to.

You hesitate for only a moment, sliding your hand down his arm. The moment is surreal, the warmth of you like walking on the surface of a sun, like flying through fire. It’s only made more intense by the cold water around you, binding you together. “What happens to everyone, I think. I’m not special.” You shrug, the whites of your eyes blinding in the dark quiet world you’ve brought him to. “The First Order came. I was the only one left. After.”

The way you say it is breathless, like you’re breathing through pain, an old injury.

“It’s more than that,” he says, stubborn about it. “There’s more.”

You blink, water webbing in your lashes. “And I want to tell you, Poe. Will you listen?”

You tell him about the destruction of your home world.

“I raced,” you say hollowly, sitting next to him in the sand that rings the pond. “I used to race. I always won. I was really good at flying, Poe. I can’t remember ever losing.”

Poe squeezes your fingers, the sensation of finally getting to touch you muddling his brain just a bit. “What did you race?”

“Anything,” you say breathlessly. “Anything that I could. Anything that would fly.” You pause and clear the tightness from your voice, “Anyways, we didn’t have much of a resistance presence and no connections. So, when the First Order came…” you trail off and don’t continue for a long time, turning your forehead into Poe’s shoulder, the crown of your head heavy against his arm.

“It was over before it started. But we had to try. I thought I could fly anything. And I could. But it was just me and a few others and it was…there was no way…” you swallow. “I was the only one left, and I crashed.”

There are a lot of details you’re leaving out, that’s clear. But the pain in your voice makes him keep his questions to himself. Instead, Poe strokes his hand along your temple, the curve of your cheek, swipes away the tears before they can really escape.

You only continue when he wraps an arm around your waist. Those eyes, your mourning flower eyes, like the deadliness of unseen depths, like something sharp and angry and deep, flash open.

You still scare him, but he never wants to look away, he never wants you to look away. Those pierced, shattered bits of you stare back at him. “I crashed. And there was nothing and no one and – everyone was gone.” Dead, you don’t say. Everyone was dead. “And I didn’t even have a medpack. No food. Everything hurt. It still hurts sometimes, like I can feel how raw my body was for so long. That’s why…the scars. The wounds weren’t treated and so I scarred really badly. And the pain never really goes away. It’s worse when people touch me because it wasn’t over. That wasn’t the end of it.”

You close your eyes, “They found me. But I didn’t know anything because I was just some kid with a ship and guts. They thought I knew some kriffin resistance secret.”

Poe goes still.

You were tortured.

“What happened?” he asks, instead of lingering on that thought, on those dreadful memories that swarm up the back of his throat.

“I wasn’t worth killing. Or maybe they thought I was as good as dead, or already dead. They left me. Somewhere. I don’t remember. Until I was found and healed. I don’t really remember by who. I don’t remember where I was. And then I didn’t know what to do for a long time. My memories are…they come and go. Eventually, I joined the resistance because what else was I supposed to do? Everything I knew, it was all gone. All I had were a couple of spare tools from my ship.” Your eyes flash open, “But now I can’t even look at a ship without – ,” you stop, jaw clenching.

“It’s why I worry about you and why I don’t want to say goodbye and why I tried so hard not to let you see me. Why I didn’t want you to touch me, for anyone to touch me.” The words spill out of you in a torrent, like you can’t get them out quickly enough. “Anyways. Now you know.”

Poe doesn’t have any words to offer you, nothing that can take away what happened to you. He pulls you close, tucks your head under his chin, and you lean into his shoulder, nose pressed to the fabric of his shirt.

It’s quiet for a long time, so long the sky starts to lighten, and he knows you both need to head back to base. He’s already been gone too long. The only thing keeping him from going is that fact he hasn’t been commed.

If something drastic happened, someone could always contact him.

Your fingers tighten on his before you release his hand and pull away and lumber to your feet. You open your mouth, blink at him, an amused expression pulling over your face.

You reach down and brush a hand through his hair. “You’re covered in sand.” You show him your hand, a lot thin layer of sand coating your palm.

Maybe sitting on the sand in your entirely soaked clothes hadn’t been the best idea.

He wouldn’t change it for anything.

Poe grins, “You are too. We’re about to have a reputation.”

“Okay,” you shrug. “I’m okay with that.” You don’t look at him when you say it, eyes turned toward the horizon instead.

His heart shutters, his lungs seize, at the meaning behind your words. “Oh, yeah? Y’know gossip goes around quick.”

“It’s not really gossip, is it? More like an announcement.”

He grins, takes your hand when you offer it to him and pulls himself up, smearing more of the sand down your cheek and over your neck as he does, leaning into you, pressing his nose to your cheek, because you let him. You squirm, trying to pull away. “C’mon,” he laughs, stooping for another handful of sand, “I thought you were okay with this!”

“Poe…” you warn, a smile finally jerking into place on your face as you back out of his arms and away from him. “Don’t.”

“Too late!” he starts forward, and you dash backward, crashing into the copse of trees and out of sight.

When you finally make it back to the base, both of you covered head to toe in sand, Poe finally catches you.

He doesn’t hesitate in kissing you for the first time, doesn’t mind that it’s gritty and kind of gross. You taste like D’Qar, like stars and evergreen. You tilt your head up, smooth your fingers up his arms.

Poe tilts you back into the nearest wall, not caring who sees or what they think. It’s an open secret that he’s in love with you anyways, so if any reaction was warranted, he feels it’s cheering.

Besides, what better what better way to announce yourselves?

Your fingers cup around his wrists, mouth soft and giving beneath his. A sigh slips past your lips, the breath of you against his chin.

Poe can’t help smiling, grinning, into you, knocking his forehead against yours. “This is okay, isn’t it?”

“You would have known by now if it wasn’t, Dameron,” you say.

“I mean,” he thinks back to your words, “You’re not in pain? I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“You can’t, you wouldn’t,” you murmur, tilting your head to the side, eyes wide and open, those unknowable depths just a bit less grief stricken. His gaze trails down your neck, over the soft skin, the bump of scar tissue. You have sand there too. “How did you get sand inside your shirt?” Your fingers slide against his chest, inside the open buttons, fitting right in above his heart.

He closes his eyes, jaw clenching.

You trace the vein in his neck, cup his cheek, press a kiss to his nose. “Sorry,” you say. “Sorry it took so long. Sorry I ran out of your room that day.”

“It didn’t take too long,” he blinks at you. “But I will be making up for lost time.”

Poe mirrors the grin that spreads over your face.

“ – well, but, baby, if I’m the one that’s flying,” Poe whines. “Would that be as bad?”

You glare at him from your workbench, huge eyes staring at him from behind those magnifying glasses you use to work on delicate equipment. “Yes. It’s still in the air, isn’t it?”

“What if we have to suddenly evacuate?”

“Guess I’ll be standing out front with a blaster,” you snark. “Waving goodbye to your ship.”

Poe rolls his eyes, “You're gonna have to fly again someday. Why not with me? For a start?”

“I absolutely do not have to fly again.” You ignore the rest of his offer.

“So, you’re planning to stay on D’Qar…forever?” He pauses, “How did you get here?”

You frown at him, taking off the glasses and tossing them on the table. “By ship, and it was horrible. And so what if I am? I like it here.”

“Well,” he approaches your place at the bench, circling an arm around your shoulders, “hopefully one day this war ends.”

You don’t look at him, but you do tilt your body into his, warm and pliant against him, scrolling idly on your datapad. Poe catches the way your fingers shake a little bit. “Hopefully,” you intone, scooting over on the bench so he can sit next to you. “That doesn’t mean I have to go off planet.”

Poe decides to drop it, instead leaning in to press a kiss to your temple. “I’ve never crashed you know,” he says against your skin.

You grin and glance over, “That is a lie, Poe Dameron.”

“Only a little one.” He presses a hand to either side of your head, tilts your face up. “You look pretty today.” He swipes at the line of black grease down your cheek. “Really pretty.”

“Just today?”

“Everyday. But especially today,” he presses a long, lingering kiss to your mouth, likes the way you follow his lips when he pulls away.

“Poe?” You say against his lips, and he hums back at you, nuzzling his nose against yours.

“Yes?”

“I’m not going in that kriffin x-wing with you.”

He sighs, standing to pick up his helmet, “Worth a try. Are you going to come say goodbye?”

“Of course. I’ve never let BB-8 leave without telling him goodbye,” you hold out your hand to him, folding your fingers between his.

You smile and brush your thumb across the back of his knuckles.

Poe wears you down one night.

About the flying thing.

He doesn’t let it go, like he can’t let anything go, though he tries to be gentle with you about it.

“Baby,” he says into your skin, and you melt, and sigh, and you’re mad, because he knows what he’s doing. You’re vulnerable because he’d come back this time in a limping ship, had been regulated to the medcenter. “For me.”

His skin is warm and still bruised under your touch.

Kriff, you hate him.

You open your mouth to refuse him again, when he says, “Don’t you miss the stars?” And your throat goes tight, “I mean, you used to race. Do you remember what it was like the first time you left orbit?” His voice goes dreamy, and soft, “I do. I never wanted to land.”

You tangle your fingers into his hair, prop yourself up on one elbow. “If you could live in the stars, would you?” You tug on a curl and then settle your chin on his chest, feel the tips of his fingers draw over your bare shoulder blades, he’s tracing your scars, but you don’t mind. You close your eyes, the feeling so nice after so long without even casual touch.

“Yeah.” And you think he’ll leave it at that but of course, Poe is sickly romantic. “But only if you’d come with me.”

“Poe,” you wrinkle your nose and squeeze your eyes shut tighter. “You’re horrible. Maker, you’re just – just kriffin awful. How does anyone say no to you about anything?”

“They try,” he chuckles. “Doesn’t really work.”

“Ugh.”

“So, c’mon, do the easy thing and say yes.” You don’t answer, only look at him, at the bruise on his cheekbone, the home you’ve found in his eyes. “I’m taking this as a yes.”

You frown at him, “You’re very cruel. Asking me this after you crashed back onto this planet.”

“I’ve never crashed. It was just a hard landing.”

You scoff, poke the bruise, turn your cheek into his chest. “Uh huh, hard landing. Worst landing I’ve ever seen.”

His chest rises and falls with a few long breaths, and you think he’s finally fallen asleep when – “So…is that a yes?”

You roll your eyes and groan, “Yes, Poe, it’s a yes.”

Poe tucks his arms around you, breathes against your temple for a moment, before you find yourself on your back, his mouth trailing down your neck, along the ridge of your shoulder. “I’m so proud of you,” he says excitedly, like he really is, like it means something to him that you’d let him take you up in that stupid ship. “We don’t even have to go anywhere. Maybe you can just sit there? Get used to the cockpit again. Beebee can keep you company – ,”

“Won’t you be keeping me company?” Your throat is a bit tight, your voice strained.

He frowns down at you, ignoring your hand on his bicep, the light way you trail your fingers over his chest. “Are you okay?”

You cup his face between your hands, not really sure how to answer him. “You are unbelievable.”

He frowns, opens his mouth –

But you kiss him again, you don’t know how to tell him what it means, that he’s proud of you even though you haven’t done anything, that he stuck with you even when you tried hard not to fall for him, that he always comes back even if he sticks some hard landings.

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x you #poe dameron #poe dameron fic #poe dameron fanfiction #star wars

2K notes · View notes

riyangiis · 1 month

Text

royalty, or loyalty?

han yujin, the prince soon to be king, falls in love with a commoner knowing it would get him in trouble. he needs to convince his father to let them stay together.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 , han yujin x f!reader

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 , angst, fluff, birthday special

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 , royalty!au, lowercase intended, established relationship, yujin has daddy issues, mentions of headaches, crying, overthinking, bad parenting, mentions of marriage, not proofread, lmk if I should add more!!

𝐰/𝐜 , 5.2k

[ 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: the characters in this fan fiction are not based on real people, everything in here is purely fictional. ]

𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 !

"han yujin, I warned you not to get closer to that peasant!?"

echoes of a deep voice shouting can be heard all around the large room with fancy designs. the sound of a disappointed father scolding his son. one that yujin is familiar with, but makes his ears want to bleed and go deaf.

"you're going to be the next ruler of this kingdom, yet you decide to be with that.. commoner?! you don't know if she's just with you for the gold, for the fame?!"

this peasant his father speaks of, the commoner. is so much more than that. she helped him on how to deal with his problems even though she had little to no experience, she was with him at his lowest when no one was, she was everything.

if anything, he's extremely glad that he met [name]. yujin was way beyond grateful. he was glad that he sneaked out to get fresh air in the river.

today was exhausting, yujin just got scolded by his father again for something he messed up. I guess you could say he's used to this. still, he feels down. the amount of times his father got disappointed at him, is he that bad? he was never that hard on his younger brother.

what did he do wrong to not get that exact treatment? was it because his father was more strict on him because he was the heir to the throne? sometimes he wished swapped places with his brother instead.

yujin looks at the window, the forest is beautiful. he never got to go and play like an actual child outside. he never got to see the beautiful scenery in front, not even see his own reflection in the river. everything was just lessons, events, "stay inside the castle for your safety". it was tiring.

he wonders, what if he actually went outside? he knows it's prohibited but it wouldn't hurt to try.. prince minjoo tried it multiple times and never got caught! what about the guards you ask? yujin knows his way around the castle, his home. he knows a few secret tunnels and how to not get caught by the tight security.

after a little while, finally escaping the castle and getting a taste of the fresh breeze and the calming atmosphere of the forest, his hands were a little sweaty worrying about how he would get caught and scolded by his father again.

yujin checks the most recent map the guards have of the forest, he checks the path needed to go through in order to arrive at the river. this is quite literally the first time he went in the forest. by himself. he explores around the forest to try the experiences he missed out on. why did they prevent him from going to the forest?

he finally made his way to the river. yujin starts to get a little cold by the cold breeze, but it's definitely refreshing. he sits down on the grass and puts his hand inside the water, it's cold. just as expected. yujin tries to take a look at his reflection in the mirror. wow, he forgot how attractive he is.

he then checks his surroundings to see if anyone is near him. he spots a girl that looks near his age, sitting not so far away from him. she hasn't seemed to notice him yet, instead just drifting off in her own world.

'is there someone staring at me?'

the girl then becomes alert and checks if there's anyone near her. she spots yujin staring at her, he gets shy and looks away immediately.

'oh, it's just him.'

she's relieved that it's not some creep. although, the boy looks familiar. but the girl never saw him around the town, not even once. she then starts thinking about where she has seen the boy before, then..

'wait, is that the crown prince?!"

she swiftly turns her head to see yujin putting his entire hand inside the water. others would think he's a weirdo, but it's sort of understandable since you barely see him go outside, just on special occasions.

'what's he doing here?'

you look at him again, confused, rubbing your eyes and continuously blinking to make sure you weren't hallucinating. yujin looks back to you and sees that you're staring at him, he blushes and gets shy all of a sudden. he never really interacted with people that much, especially commoners.

you're still looking at him. he figured that he should just suck it up and talk to you. he can't put on a bad impression in front of someone, even if he's literally sneaking out.

"uh, hi.. I'm yujin, what's your name?.."

now you feel like you're delusional, like it's a dream. the crown prince? making small talk with you? the atmosphere feels even more awkward than before, yujin feels embarrassed after you didn't reply to him.

"oh, my bad.. ehh, your majesty..? my name is [name]. you don't have to introduce yourself, everyone knows you.."

you feel even more embarrassed knowing that you just made a fool out of yourself in front of yujin. this is ridiculous, you feel like sinking in a volcano right now.. yujin feels even more shy after you said "your majesty" in front of him, it feels weird to have someone call you that when you're trying to just be a normal teen making small talk with another teen..

that's basically how the both of you met. shy, awkward teenagers just making small talk with each other at the forest.

his mother just stands there, knowing that she can't do anything else than defend her son. she glares at yujin, who is still staring at the ground and fidgeting with his hands. she looks back at her husband, who is clearly raging. same as yujin and her husband, she has a million thoughts in her mind.

'this man, this isn't the man I loved. what has happened to you?'

the silence is deafening. yujin is facing down on the floor, not wanting to look at his parents. to see a face full of anger and disappointment, and a face full of worry and shock. his vision is starting to get blurry with all the tears he's holding in.

the king turns back to yujin's direction, prepared to yell and scold him.

"answer me!-"

his father, also known as the king, scolds him once again as yujin fails to reply with all the thoughts running in his head. yujin's mother cuts him off.

"that's enough. give him time to think, just look at him!!"

it hurts. his head hurts. he can't think properly. yujin's breathing gets more intense as more tears keep on rushing, he tries his best to hold it back and not make it noticeable.

he knew this was risky, he knew he had to do so much for love, yet he did it anyways. times with you were the only times when he felt free, away from the problems and the burden he carried in his back as prince. when he felt truly appreciated, when he was able to show his true self.

ever since his father found out about how you and yujin have been secretly sneaking out to see each other, he had been matching yujin up with different girls from different kingdoms. his father tried so hard to convince him to just like one of them and he's fine. as long as the queen isn't.. inexperienced as he likes to call it.

even with all of them, none of them caught his attention. he just continued attending the meet-ups to avoid having an.. argument with his dad again.

he wonders, why is it illegal to live freely? why did life have to be this way? his train of thought come to a halt and flinches when he heard his father's voice.

"I might have to let your younger brother be king instead. I'll make sure he doesn't grow up like you."

yujin's entire body, even his mind froze. meanwhile, his mother stands there speechless. his vision starts to get even blurrier, he felt something wet in his face.

drip.

the tears are coming down.

drip.

you can clearly see that he's crying.

drip.

his mother glares at her husband angrily, he's no different from his mother. yujin's father scoffs carelessly, muttering a gentle 'weak'.

"alright you're dismissed."

yujin is quick to walk and exit the room. as soon as the door shuts, multiple shouts are heard inside. he rushes to his room and wipes his tears with his hand.

"wow, I feel bad for him. jiyoon, what do you think?"

minkyung, one of the young butlers in the castle, whispers to the young maids eavesdropping with him. jiyoon was one of the many girls who admired yujin.

"eh, it's not my business. both of us don't have anything between together for me to be mad. if anything I wish him the best? [name] seems to be a good person, I met her."

the butler and the other maid beside jiyoon stared at her as if she was crazy, she didn't really feel jealous?

"what? I'll find someone who'll truly like me? I need to focus on getting money for my family. now let's go before we get scolded by mr. lee!"

the trio then rushes to get their chores done.

yujin is still walking to his room, he wishes the castle wasn't that big and that his room wasn't so far. all he just wants to do is lay down and take a break from everything.

"prince? do you want anything?"

he stops and sighs, clearly tired. he looks over to his butler, mr. lee, with a sweet an reassuring smile as if nothing happened earlier. however, mr. lee knew him for far too long that he can see through his fake smiles and sweet lies, instead he just let him be.

"mr. lee, I'm fine. I just need time to myself. so take a break from your work, hm?"

yujin's eyes and nose are still red, he can't hide anything. mr. lee sighs.

"alright, just call me when you need me-"

yujin continues walking before mr. lee finishes his sentence. he walks faster, and faster, now he's out of mr. lee's sight.

'gosh, that boy. he's growing up faster than I thought.'

where has yujin been?

you were waiting patiently in your usual meeting spot, the abandoned park in the middle of the forest, near the river. this was rare. he never missed a hangout day, when he did he would tell you why. but he just.. didn't.

maybe yujin was having problems with his dad again and he prevented yujin from going outside, right? or maybe he's just late. really late. attending some really important event and he didn't have time to tell you.

whatever, you shake your head and let go of the thoughts of why yujin isn't here. you shouldn't stick your nose to other people's business. that's what your aunt told you, she's very wise. considering he's a prince, he has a lot of stuff to handle and many personal things.

you decided to wander around and do whatever you like. whether it would be singing, or dancing, or climbing trees.. just something to relieve your boredom. you suddenly think about how you don't deserve yujin as a commoner, that he would eventually leave you alone since he's the crown prince and no one would like a nobody with almost no knowledge on royal stuff as the queen.

stop it. just enjoy the time while it lasts. don't stick your nose. into other people's business. you lay down at the grass and drift off into a peaceful sleep.

yujin stares at the ceiling in his room while laying down on his bed. he wonders if he should sneak out and go to you, but it's extremely risky at this situation. his overthinking never stopped even if it's been a long time, he should just let go and have some real beauty sleep for a bit because gosh..

knock knock.

he hears a gentle knock at his door, is it mr. lee? did something important come up? yujin feels to lazy and tired to even stand up and open the door himself. should he answer it though? are his parents done fighting? is his dad gonna scold him again?

he gets up and sits on his bed. he slowly stands up and takes one step at a time. still unsure if he should open the door.

step.

he rethinks his decisions.

step.

"yujin, it's me.."

mother? what does she want? yujin walks up to his door and twists the doorknob. his mother walks to one of the couches in the bedroom, she signals yujin to sit with her.

"we.. need to talk."

what? does he have to really let go of name?

"I want to tell you a story, of me and your father."

yujin gets curious, his parents never really told stories of them. he wanted to know about how they met, was it arranged marriage? he wanted to know about their experiences throughout their relationship.

"your father was indeed a, stubborn person. as stubborn as you. and I was the witness of it all."

we usually saw each other in some events. then.. we stumbled across each other at a random spot. alone, just us. he tried to talk to me as an attempt to make friends, and because I was lonely.

luckily I wasn't the type to be hard to get, back in my days I was rather.. extremely kind. people didn't use that against me since I was the princess.. we talked for a while until our parents called us to go back downstairs. after that event we never saw each other again.

turns out, our parents were rivals. constantly trying to avoid each other so that once they interact, it wouldn't escalate to some conflict or maybe even war. sometimes we sneak out to see each other and talk for a little while, I realized that your father was my closest and one of my only friends. I then, fell in love.

his mother found out and got mad at him, she prevented him from exiting the kingdom and if he's required to go outside he usually has assistance. as for me, my parents were okay with it. they never had anything against your father. just his parents.

"go get him, we're not going to stop you. we're fine as long as we'll stop setting you up on dates with men that you'll probably never like."

so everything was going smoothly for me, the problem is your grandmother.. I can't do anything to contact him but every night, I prayed that he would be okay and we would meet once again.

after nights, and nights, and nights, our parents eventually came to the conclusion that their fighting was useless. ridiculous? and there you have it.

"our stories are similar to yours, I don't understand why he's going against you."

yujin seems to be shocked with the story of how his parents fell in love. his father was in the same position as him before, what's his deal? his mother gave him a bouquet full of baby's breaths.

"what's this for?"

yujin was confused, was this supposed to mean something? he didn't learn much about flower language after all.

"baby's breath means everlasting love, go ahead and give it to [name]."

"but how about the guards?"

"I already handled everything. they won't stop you, go on loverboy. I'll talk to your father about it again." yujin smiles.

"thank you, mothe- I mean mom."

it warms her heart whenever he calls her mom. it's a simple thing but it let's her know that yujin is comfortable around her and that he doesn't have to use such formal names. she smiles back at him.

but she knew about him sneaking out? and she even gave orders to the guards? whatever, he has no time to waste. he needs to go to you as fast as possible.

he's nearly running out of breath, so close. yujin couldn't care less if he trips over some rock in the way and get his ankle injured. he skipped the pathway to the abandoned park, he figures that you would've wandered off somewhere while waiting for him for a long time. but you wouldn't have went that far. you're not that stubborn anyways.

while running, he nearly steps on a body laying down on the ground. is that.. you? he kneels slowly, puts the bouquet down, and pokes you. oh, you're a deep sleeper. yujin continuously shakes you until you wake up. he then lowers his head to go near your ear to whisper something..

"the gods above has blessed you, you will now have unlimited food if you wake up.."

"I'M AWAKE!!"

yujin flinches when you gets up as fast as the speed of light. you look around for your surroundings for the unlimited food to see him.

"oh, it's you. hey I haven't seen you in a long time?"

you asked yujin while sitting down on the ground. sort of asking for the reason why he was so late for hangout day that he left you sleeping on literal grass for 2 hours waiting for him, no cover and stuff. but you had a very peaceful and refreshing slumber anyway.

"uh.. are you mad?"

yujin fidgets with his fingers staring at you worried, you're not that impatient and you don't have serious anger issues..

"mm no I'm not, you have a lot of duties as prince anyway. but you owe me a date with a whole all-you-can-eat buffet now.."

he sighs and rolls his eyes, either way he would accept your request so you couldn't care less about his complaining. you look at the bouquet of little white flowers, did he get this? or his mom?..

"is this for me?" yujin scoffs. "of course it is, who else would I give it to?" you think for a short while..

"uhm your mother?" you replied.

"why else would I be here then? don't be ridiculous, my mother has her own flowers anyway."

"oh.. right. agh, don't be so hard on me! I just woke up.." yujin chuckles.

you missed that smile of him, not the fake ones you see in events. the fake ones he's wearing just so he wouldn't make a fool and a bad impression of himself and his family. you missed seeing his genuine and bright smiles. the ones you would see often when you both talk about random drama happening in your life or what you heard from others, when you talked about random stuff, interests, just talking to you in general.

it was the entire reason you fell in love with him in the first place. before, you never understood the hype and why so many girls were falling in love with him. sure he's attractive, but you don't even bother admiring him knowing that you never even stood a chance. not until the both of you met each other near the river. you get all giddy just thinking about how everything started, how.. awkward it was. how special it is to you.

you take a glance at the bouquet with pretty little white flowers, wondering what the flowers mean. did yujin's mom tell him to give it to you?you knew that yujin's mother had an interest to plants and taking care of them is her hobby whenever she has nothing to do. she also learned about flower language because she had too much free time and she wanted to distract herself from the many problems that she had to handle as the queen.

you remember seeing a lot of interesting flowers and plants when yujin had a picnic date with you in the castle's secret garden that no one else but you, him, and his mom know. she was originally planning to grow more plants and take her husband on a date since both of them were too busy to even spend time with each other properly, mostly her husband.

yujin notices you spacing out while staring and the bouquet full of baby's breaths, he holds your cheek gently and turns your head to face his direction.

"did you miss me?"

he smirks knowing his effect on you, it grows even wider seeing your cheeks turn into a light shade of pink. you smile at him sweetly and peck his cheek gently.

"yeah, I did. I stayed here for so long waiting for you with nothing to do.."

yujin hugs your waist and lays his head in your shoulder, he seems to be really tired. in that case, you're exactly what he needs.

"I'm sorry, okay? something came up. it's father again, I'll make it up to you.."

you hug him back, arms wrapping around his waist as well and holding him like porcelain. your other hand goes up to play with his soft and fluffy hair.

"I see, you don't need to do anything. I'm already fine with you here."

yujin hugs you tighter, forget about his father. forget about ruling the kingdom. forget about everything. what matters is that you're here with him, safe and sound. he's fine with that. all of his problems fade away whenever he's with you. he just wants to enjoy this moment with you while it lasts.

"what happened to you.."

the atmosphere around the quite large bedroom with luxurious designs all scattered around the walls and the ceiling. yujin's mother sits on the king-sized bed with embroidered beddings trying to talk to his father and change his mind.

"enough."

yujin's father doesn't even bother turning to look at his wife. just facing the only window that isn't covered by the curtains, watching the kingdom in a high place. his wife stands up and walks rapidly to him.

"what do you mean enough?! you kept on scolding yujin that it almost happens daily, you even threatened to take the crown away from him? you're no different from your mother, juwon."

she was no longer afraid of facing juwon, she can't just watch yujin suffer anymore. juwon stopped looking outside the window and turned to his wife.

"yeona I said enough."

"NO!! you need to listen to me, yujin was just like you when you were young. why are you repeating your mother's actions? the difficulties you went through? the both of them are young anyways, we can train [name] if they're bound to be married to each other."

juwon tries to fight back, but hesitates. he clenches his fists and his teeth.

"we have so much to teach her, we don't even know if we have enough time. and our situation is different, you're already fit for queen. we don't even know if she's loyal?!"

how dare he make such accusations of you? he hasn't even met you personally? yeona rages with pure anger and furrows her eyebrows.

"how could you say that?! [name] was there for your own son when you weren't? and most of his problems are caused by you?? go ahead, take the throne away from our son! but don't take yujin's happiness away from him."

the room is filled with silence, juwon is unable to respond to yeona. upon seeing her teary eyes, he comes to realize that he was the reason yujin is suffering. that he failed his family.

she was right, he isn't any different from his mother. he remembers how disappointed his mother looked at him, how he tried so hard to convince her to let him be with yeona.

".. I'll think about it."

yeona is contented with his response. though it's not much, it's enough proof that juwon is considerate enough to think about his actions and listen to her words.

"fine.. I'll leave you alone to think."

yeona walks away and leaves the bedroom, leaving juwon to think about his decisions by himself. as soon as she closes the door, a young kid walks up to her upset and confused.

"mom, what happened with you and dad? why are you shouting?"

she is unable to respond to her son's question, yeona puts on a gentle smile and cover everything up with a white lie. he's a kid after all.

"nothing happened, we're just playing silly games. go play with mr. lee." the kid pouts and grips his teddy bear tightly.

"but I want to play with you!" yeona giggles and holds the kid's free hand.

"alright, alright. come with me then!"

"yujin, if we ever get married and become queen and king.. do you think I'll be a good queen?"

you ask a random question out of nowhere since the both of you had nothing to talk about. you two were in his bedroom, since the guards wouldn't stop him if he sneaked out he took advantage of this and brought you to the castle. he turns his head and stares at you as if you asked him the answer to 9 + 10.

"of course, me and my mother are there to assist you. they'll give you lessons too, the both of us are too young to become queen and king right away."

you still feel worried and insecure. his mother is fine, but will his father really approve of you? you don't deserve yujin at all. he's too good for you. he should've listened to his father when he told him to date some princess from another kingdom instead. at least she doesn't need lessons.

"but your dad, will he let us stay together? will we even get married?"

he furrows his eyebrows and frowns just by thinking about it. you look at him and felt anxious and guilty if you made him uncomfortable.

"sorry, nevermind. just forget that I even asked you that."

you and yujin hear a knock on the door, you quickly try to hide somewhere safe incase it's his father. you decided to hide under the bed, it's definitely common but the only place that isn't noticeable. yujin stands up to open the door and see who's behind it, he sees mr. lee.

"[name], come out."

you struggle as you attempt to leave your hiding spot, you sat on his incredibly soft bed. no wonder he's late to your hangouts sometimes.. yujin's let's mr. lee inside the room to hear his new announcement.

"what is it?" mr. lee sighs. "the king wants to see you in your parents' bedroom."

yujin turns his head to look at you, asking if it's okay to go without even saying a single word. you nod and give him a reassuring smile.

"alright then, I'll let you go to the room by yourself."

when he was about to exit his bedroom and close the door you got up from his bed and ran as fast as you can to the door to stop him.

"yujin can I.. go with you? I'll just be there behind the door, promise!!" he stares at you for a while and thinks if he should or he shouldn't.

"fine.. that way I don't have to explain everything that happened.. let's go."

yujin grabs your hand and drags you outside the room. he shuts the door then made his way to his parents' bedroom with his hand holding yours. because of this, he steals a few glances from the maids cleaning around the hallway.

the walk to the bedroom is a long way.. you stared at the walls in the hallway, it's full of portraits from different generations. the ceiling has different ornate chandeliers. oh, it seems that you both have finally reached his parents' bedroom. why is this castle so.. big? bigger than you thought it would be?

yujin let's go of your hand and uses his other one to grab the doorknob. he glances at you then twists the doorknob and enters the bedroom. you go closer to the wall to hear everything.

'yujin..' yeona stares at her son for a while, it seems that he had fun with his girlfriend. she turns her head and glances at juwon, hoping that he actually listened to her words and has made his choice wisely.

"oh, I might have forgotten to order mr. lee to ask you to bring your.. girlfriend." what the? why are you included in this.. family stuff? guess it's your signal to go inside.

you slowly open the door and finally see the king in person. up close. no wonder a lot of people had a crush on yujin.. including you.. the atmosphere feels awkward and tense until juwon started speaking.

"I.. made my decision. I have thought about this carefully."

yeona crosses her arms with a serious look, yujin felt his heart sink, you tried to predict the outcome of this situation. there's a high chance that it will turn out good, why else would you be here in the first place if he wanted to separate you two? or there's a chance that he's ruthless and wants to see you both suffer..

juwon takes a deep breath.. "I have decided to.. allow you to date her, yujin. it will take years until I let you take the throne, so we will do our best to assist both you and [name]. eh, you basically have no choice but to marry her since all those teachings will go to waste if otherwise."

yeona smiles widely, delighted that she was able to convince juwon and change his mind. the feeling of success and victory has never felt this.. euphoric. both you and yujin were left speechless, anyone can clearly see that you're over the moon. it's as if you won 5 million from the lottery. is this a dream?

you look over to yujin who's jaw is still wide open with his hands covering his mouth. his eyes start to get teary, he finally made it. juwon grins at the sight. he's never seen yujin this happy before. he truly made the right choice, guess you could say he's the king for a reason.

yeona walks up to her husband and pulls him in a warm embrace. "you truly made the right choice, juwon." his grin turns into a smirk as he chuckled.

"you married me for a reason, yeona. I'm not putting it to waste."

"and that's how we convinced your dad to let us be together.." you sighed, exhausted from the extremely long story. juwon tried to cover up his embarrassment with a smile, he was really stubborn like yeona said..

yujin's younger brother, yunseo, finally knew the story behind everything. you figured that since he was already in highschool, it would be the right time to explain everything. it had been 2 years since that happened. you feel arms wrapping around your waist, that familiar sense of warmth..

you turn around to see yujin smirking, "did you tell him already? everything?" you nod and kiss his cheek. yeona sighs upon seeing the sight of you and yujin, meanwhile yunseo cringes.

"ew, go get a room!" yunseo covers his eyes. yeona whispers to juwon.

"they're just like us when we were younger. yujin is just as stubborn and deeply in love like you!"

"how dare you, I wasn't that in love!" juwon gasped sarcastically, yeona giggles. ah, just like the old times.

"get a room, love birds!"

all this in 3 days... with practice and exams... 😔😔

#riyangiis #zb1 #zerobaseone #yura.writes !#yura.blooming !#han yujin #kpop #zb1 x reader #han yujin x reader #zb1 yujin

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l0t4n · 3 months

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WHAT IF THEY WERE. WALTER WHITE

a/n I have many wips and I am struggling to finish any of them so you get this for now. Also keep in mind I never actually finished the show and I didn't like it anyways I just think the idea is funny. Posting as a buffer for everyone who did not follow for nsfw bc I'm posting it 2nite regardless watch out

Contains TW drugs, references to violence. What it says. Would they do the shit Walter White did in Breaking Bad? The brothers + dateables. Gn mc mentioned once

LUCIFER

-Yeah.

-He would do absolutely all of it step by step, word for word

-Maybe he would not be as mean as Walter is, but he would absolutely give that “I AM. The danger, Skylar” speech

-Just to MC instead

-And Mammon is Jesse

MAMMON

-I think in his head he would like to think he would/could

-Definitely fucking can't though

-Doesn't understand the chemistry even if someone guided him, would definitely fuck up really bad

-Would be in it for the money, would brag about how he'd make an excellent drug kingpin, is lying

-The moment he needs to shoot someone he's running away

LEVIATHAN

-Not a chance bro

-The closest he would get would be filling in the role of Gale

-Even then, that's a stretch

-It's too scary :(( what if all the drug mules think he's cringe

-Yeah sure he did all those illegal things but the police probably wouldn't care so much if he was cooler

-Absolutely not suited for the meth-making lifestyle

SATAN

-Wouldn't do it if it was his life on the line. Would only do it to get back at someone else

-Ruining Lucifer’s reputation by selling illicit substances out of the HoL

-Probably the most suitable for drug manufacturing. Not anything else though

-Would be the most likely to be despised by everyone else in the distribution chain

-It's a high-stress environment and he takes out his anger on all of them

ASMODEUS

-Personal protective equipment is ugly and the meth business is a thankless one. There is no possibility for him to gain fame and attention doing that unless he also wants to go to prison

-Probably finds it kind of gross and messy too

-There are a number of illegal activities that are far better suited for a demon like him and he knows it

BEELZEBUB

-Eats the meth

-The end

BELPHEGOR

-Perhaps unsurprisingly, would likely have both the intelligence and personality to make it work

-But the meth-making process takes forever, and there are so many points where you can accidentally die, so I think he knows better

-Would accidentally fall asleep and melt his skin off his body

-Also has virtually no reason to do it in the first place; isn't hurting for cash like Mammon and doesn't really care about his reputation like Lucifer

DIAVOLO

-Would have trouble grasping the severity of drug manufacturing and dealing

-Might only get into the scheme if coaxed by the promise of friendship

-I do not put it above him to realize that it is also illegal, however

-Albeit he has had his moments of considering himself above the law, which, if anyone is, it's him, so maybe not

-Will bail the moment someone yells at him or pulls a gun on him, whatever happens first

BARBATOS

-Gus

-His moral alignment and motivations are too vague. Either his moral compass is too strong or he would be the best drug kingpin the devildom has ever seen. Maybe both at the same time

-Would get suitably angry if anyone else got involved though

-Money laundering pro. If nothing else is true I know this is canon

SIMEON

-Oh good heavens

-Deary me

-Maybe with his skills in baking he would do well, but you'd need to lie to him about what you're making

-Shocked and appalled when he finds out

-Most everyone else is nice to him though

SOLOMON

-Probably makes illicit substances for his funny evil wizard experiments

-Since it's a form of cooking though the batches always end up terrible

-Meth that makes all your bones turn to jelly and kills you in five days

-Since he is far removed from human matters of mortality and injury, he probably thinks it's funny

-Evil ass

#obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me barbatos #obey me diavolo #obey me simeon #obey me solomon #tw drugs #tw violence

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streets-in-paradise · 2 years

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Stranger Things Headcanons: Being Dustin’s older sister, a nerdy metalhead, and becoming closer with Eddie and Steve - Part 2

Masterlist

Word Count + 5 K (almost 6K)

Warnings: Jealous Eddie and a bit of idiots in love on all sides. The reader is a protective older sister who is very angry at Billy because of what he did to the kids in season 2. For so, he isn’t referenced in a good light. Cultural references to lord of the rings, hard rock bands and popular horror movies of the 80′s.

Pairings: Eddie Munson x (Fem) Henderson!Reader, Steve Harrington x (Fem) Henderson!Reader.

Notes: This is a direct continuation to a previous post, following some ideas that stayed out of it. Here i got the chance to include and even expand those.

Also, I have possibly usable material for 2 more parts. One continuing from the end of this one and going a bit more into the season 3 setting, then another one (that i can begin to think after watching the rest of it) for season 4.

Guide of references: Eru is the elvish name of the supreme deity in Tolkien lore.

For more information about my fixation with the concept of Steve and Bon Jovi, look at this early video of the band from a song of their first album.

Although the show already made for me the connection between Billy and Motley Crue, I don’t mind sharing you this anacronic video from a 1986 live version of “ Smokin’ In The Boy’s Room” Vince Neil sings with Jon Bon Jovi just because i feel like doing it to complete the introduction of vibes from both in order to show the contrast.

Tags: @losersclubisms @ph-oenix @bilesxbilinskixlahey @chalametnpeaches@beautifultypewriter-recommends @thatsonezesty13 @poppet05 @starkssnarks @tasmbestspdrman @shinycloudss @slut-for-bucky-barnes @rosecolorgardens @yourthebrokengirl @alexandraoonaghives

- One more interdimensional crisis afterwards, your brother had two new friends while an old one returned to stay.

- Strictly speaking, Max and El were the girlfriends of Lucas and Mike respectively, but you were excited the most about them being friends of Dustin. Seeing him forming bonds with girls from a young age meant a lot to you, it was a great sign showing that he wasn't going to repeat your story. You would always insist on showing him what a great thing it was because at first he used to feel bad about the overall reaction girls had to him. None wanted to dance with him at that dance his school organized, at least until Nancy saved the night. As his sister, you would have looked bad if you would try a similar trick, reason why you were very thankful to her for such a sweet gesture.

- It made him feel better that time, but it didn't completely erase his insecurities. Steve and you were working together to help him out, but from absolutely opposite fronts. While he would share with him his wisdom as an ex popular highschool heartthrob, you were trying to make Dustin understand that he wasn't failing for not having a girlfriend.

- " That is easy for you to say now that you are a groupie. " He shamelessly replicated once to one of your pieces of advice, making fun of your sneak outs to the shows of Eddie's band.

" That's not how it works, Dustin. I hang out with a bunch of guys who are in a band, and sometimes I go to their shows. That's all."

" Isn't that the definition of groupie?"

Your brother was a bit lost in the sexual implications of the term.

" Groupies get ... intimately involved with the band." You began to explain to him. " Some are smart enough to get money out of them, while others are dumb enough to fall for one of guys. Then, at the peak of the band's fame, he gets married to a respectable top model."

- Sexual implications of the term aside, you were like the dumb groupies in your explanation. The shows were an outlet for your feelings, behaving a bit like a fan was the safest way of expressing your crush on your talented friend.

- Once you confirmed his suspicions, Johnnatan became your best ally on the topic. He helped you into dealing with how you were feeling with a privileged understatement of the issue. He had been there back when Nancy and Steve were dating, the reason why he understood both sides of the situation you narrated to him: your crush on a friend and Eddie's own crush on a popular girl. It sucked, but he was supportive of your coping mechanisms and he even agreed to accompany you to the shows.

- In exchange for the help you would offer him to spend a few hours looking after Will, but you knew Johnny was going to do it anyway. He cared for you and wouldn't let you go alone to the shady places where Corroded Coffin usually played, places your mother would forbid you of stepping in if she knew where you were going.

- It was all fun and games between you both about your little adventures but, as soon as you would see Eddie on stage, your expression would transform. Objectively speaking, he was the best part of the band and his performance always would leave you in breathless amazement. You were a total fan of his music

- Through that strong admiration, you would set yourself free. For a while, you would self indulge in your illusions and he would go along with it, directing towards you some of his gestures of performative charisma. Logic would dictate that he was, at best, bragging his skill to you in a playful way. Yet, you were eager to toss any logic aside for a bit of comfort. ' A girl can dream.' you would tell yourself, in resignation.

- " Forget about that." Your brother replied to your quasi metaphorical explanation. " You are going to date a pop star and when the guitarist will see you with him at the next MTV VIdeo Music Awards, he is going to make a scandal that will make ratings skyrocket. "

You knew exactly what he meant.

" Steve is a friend and friendships are important. When you don't have friends, you become a socially awkward mess falling for the first person who says nice things about you. " Was your way of going back to the point you wanted to make. " Max is awesome, appreciate your friendship with her as you already do with El. Learn through your bonding with girls, now that you have the chance. I'm sure you will do so much better than me, you will see."

- Dustin simply wouldn't stop trying to sell you the idea of dating Steve as a solution to all your problems, even if it wasn't completely clear that he would want that. It only got worse since he found out that you were ocassionally making each other company at school, where he wasn't present.

- Steve was going through a hard time that coincided with his last months in school. All his fake friends were gone, most of his new friends were middle school kids and on top of that he had to watch his back from Hargrove. You didn't want him to go through all of that alone and you ended up becoming his main source of company of similar age at that moment, the main exception being when you were with the Hellfire Club.

- Whenever he would see you with them, he wouldn't even dare to glance at your direction. You guessed that it was because he knew he would feel out of place with them, especially given his recent past. Among the nerds there was no inclination towards seeing him and Hargrove as anything else but two different flavors of the same asshole. Even you used to be guilty of sharing that mindset.

- That was before getting to know him for real and before Hargrove showed the worst of him for you to realize that it was far superior to the worst of Steve. What he did to Lucas would have never been done by Steve, not even at the peak of his assholness. He targeted a whole group of middle school kids just for hanging out with his little step sister, but only one of them got the worst part. Dustin was there in the same position of Lucas bonding with Max while trying to control his crush. He could have tried to beat up your brother and surely, nothing would have stopped him from doing it, but he selectively chose to pick on Lucas first... As if daring to punch a kid wasn't horrible enough.

- It wouldn't matter how many times Max would try to tell you that he wasn't horrible all the time, or that his father was a real asshole. Billy Hargrove was a bully and he attacked your boys. Your thought process, proper of an older sister who loved her little brother as the center of her world, wouldn't care to consider anything else.

- Steve saved the kids not only from Billy, but also from a bunch of interdimensional monsters. Baby Demogorgons? Was that what those were? Whatever that crap that killed your cat and destroyed your storm cellar was, he handled the situation like a damn hero. Yet, no one else should hear the stories of his brave charges into battle because no one would believe any of you.

- Occasionally, you would get to hear some jokes about his fallen from grace in the popularity Olympus coming from your new group of nerd friends. Those pissed you off, but there was nothing you could tell them in order to explain why. You suddenly didn’t share anymore with them the common sense idea of considering him a prick of the same size as Billy, but you had only scratches of a confessable reason for that change. Whenever they would be joking about him, you simply refused to engage in their conversation. They didn’t seem to mind, too lost in their own laughter to see that you weren’t following it.

- Everyone else but Eddie, who was for some reason more attentive to your reactions.

“ Do you feel sorry for that jackass? He ain’t worthy, sweetheart. Harrington got what he deserved.” He said to you once, as if he was comforting you out of a naive idea. In the same action he wrapped an arm around you, overdramatically emphasizing the comfort aspect.

“ Perhaps… but it makes no sense making fun of him now that he is done. A real court jester has the balls to mock the current king, not just the predecessor.” You began to explain the most neutral sounding defense that you could come up with as Eddie’s attention was following your every word. “ Hargrove is a violent dick, we should be more worried about him. He is way worse than just a popular airhead stealing from our culture because it looks badass. As a bully, he is a brutal beast … my brother and his group of friends have been his targets. They are middle school kids, guys, children. He picked on them because they were seeing his step sister who is their classmate and he only stopped because Harrington intervened. “

Since you couldn’t tell anything about the beasts, you were giving Steve the full credit for the containment of the bullying situation.

“ You may not believe it, but he went full Boromir to save my hobbits... If it wouldn’t have been for him, if he wouldn’t have been there to protect them.” You stopped for a second, realizing that you were getting a bit emotional because you knew that the danger they truly faced was far worse than just Billy. To your audience, it was perceived as a bit of admiration for his acts. “ He took the punches for them. At least for that, Steve deserves my respect and I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

- Most of them remained silent, probably in disbelief with your words. Eddie spoke first and you were expecting he would make some harmless joke about missing the shitshow of jock on jock violence as if it was a fight of gladiators meant for entertainment. Instead, he got oddly defensive while remaining in his usual snarkiness.

“ Steve? He has first name privileges now? Do you honestly think that one good action is enough to redeem him from everything he has done? BUM, MAGIC, NOW HE IS A HERO!”

He got laughs from some of the others, sarcastic affirmations in favor of his stance, and proceeded to hug you tighter.

“ Sweet, innocent lass. Those shitheads never change.” Eddie concluded for you in a mix of modern and fantasy-esque speech to later kiss your forehead. “ Worry not, I shall protect you from that adorable optimism.”

- Suddenly, he was all about being close to you, energetically annoying whoever had the bad luck of being in the way, just to make himself noticed.

- Like in that time you were talking with Nancy and he scared the crap out of her by popping up from behind her just to make a creepy jumpscare that he knew would make you laugh.

- “ I’M YOUR BOYFRIEND NOW, NANCY!! “ He exclaimed in a deep, distorsionated voice that worked perfectly for both of his motives.

“ Sorry, Nance.” You apologized while failing to control your chuckles. “ It’s a legit quote from my newest favorite horror film.”

“ Don’t worry, I am not going to kill you.” Eddie said softly to her, his own gentle way of apologizing before heading his attention back at you. “ Did I get it right?”

While he was waiting for your reply his expression was of pure excitement and he looked so adorable.

“ You sound awesome as Freddy Krueger. “ Was your praiseful answer.” List him as a new character for your impersonations.”

- Interactions like that one kept happening pretty much around anyone and you thought that it was part of his way of protecting you as he said he would. Maybe he was worried because of your very personal problems with Hargrove and wanted to be around you all the time just to make sure you will be safe.

- Part of that assumption was correct, but because he didn’t like the idea of letting Steve Harrington be your only defense against your brother’s bully in case you needed one. Not only because he didn't believe in his change, but also due to how much he hated to hear you, his biggest fan, expressing admiration towards that douchebag. Comparing him to Boromir of Gondor was way too much, you sounded like his thankful damsel.

- The truth was that, even when he wouldn’t admit it, Eddie was jealous to the core. Not that an asshole like Harrington would see all the good in you and actively seek to date you, but just the idea of you developing a crush on him was unacceptable.

- It was a matter of time until he would see you with him, chatting at some corner of the school. In whatever you two were talking about, he was able to see that he was making you laugh. The cute, happy chuckles that he loved right from the very first time he caused those on you were being directed towards that basketball player. He knew he had no reason to interfere, you weren’t dating and it wasn’t his call. Yet, he couldn’t help himself.

- “ Look at who we have here! ” Eddie interrupted the conversation. “ Steve ‘ The Repentant’, the savior of children, the fear of bullies… Well, at least after years of being one himself.”

You weren't entirely surprised by his attitude, but you didn't want him to make Steve feel bad.

" Hi, Eds! Is everything alright?"

" I am wondering the exact same fucking thing ríght now. " He mocked you while subtly placing his arms around you once more. " Isn't this douchebag allergic to our kind or something?"

In his confusion, Steve still managed to reply.

" I am friends with her brother. "

Even when you understood the reason why avoiding introducing himself as your friend, you didn't want him to hide himself in a role reversal game making you be the one who was supposed to be ashamed of his friendship.

" Steve is a friend of the family. " You informed, showing pride on that claim before proceeding to explain the context for him. " I have told the guys about the real reasons for your fight with Hargrove, but they refuse to believe me... What you did for Lucas and Dustin was worthy of being told. "

With that last sentence, you were letting him know that you spoke only of the part about him defending them from the human menace of Max's stepbrother. However, your unaware interlocutor saw it as some sort of praiseful take and he showed to be very annoyed by it.

" I have the ríght to remain skeptical" Eddie followed you, in an opposite direction. "My friend over here seems very impressed by that little feat she attributes to you, but i know there are no heroes among orcs. When there is no one else to destroy, they simply attack each other. "

Steve looked at you as if he was asking for a translation.

" He thinks that you fought Billy only because you two were measuring dicks." You began to indulge his ask. " In Lord of the Rings, Orcs are a race of assholes that represent one of the most constant dangers in Middle Earth, but often fight each other for the dumbest reasons. The chain of command is just one of those, but they can start to fight each other for literally anything and that tends to help the protagonists escape from them when it is necessary. "

" Let me get it ríght. " He stopped you in order to share his own concluded interpretation and his clueless excitement while thinking he understood the comparison correctly got you a bit soft for him. " You have been saying to your friends that I am some sort of nerd protector hero, like one of the characters in that board game you all love so much."

Eddie rolled his eyes in absolute annoyance while listening : the dumbass was talking of Dungeons and Dragons.

"... But they think I am a fraud, unworthy of your trust, because they assume the kids just escaped while Hargrove and I got distracted by tearing each other apart like macho dickheads."

" Bingo!" Eddie cheered him, sarcastically. " What took you so long?"

You did your best to comfort Steve in the sweetest way you found.

" He may think that you are an orc, but to me you are like a captive elve. You escaped Mordor before becoming one of them and I am so proud of you. "

He had no idea of what you meant with that, but he got a bit of a blushy smile because he was almost sure that you were complimenting him in your own language.

" For Eru's sake! '' Eddie complained, at the peak of his annoyance. " If you could understand how sweet that was, you would get why you don't deserve it. "

- You weren't completely sure of what went wrong, but you hated to see him angry at you.

- Was it anger or disappointment? Why did it upset him so much that you were friends with the dude who saved your brother? Eddie wasn't a judgemental person. If there was one highschool nerd you imagined showing understandment towards Steve, it was him, so... What was his problem?

- Even if you didn't or couldn't understand what was happening with him you still wanted to cheer him up. Maybe through a sweet, selfless gesture showing your appreciation for him. If you could find a way to do it, you would even try to invent an excuse to get him a while of attention from the girl you thought he was crushing on.

- The next time Jason called Eddie a freak, you took the initiative leading the offensive of mocks against his insults.

- It actually leaded you into being very loud in your first outspoken, freakish monologue.

- " You, Jason, are the conservative dream crushing everyone else beneath. You like to go around this place like it is your hunting ground, punishing people for behaving in ways you dislike ... and let's not forget how freaking dull and constricted you are. Let people have fun, Vorhees!!!"

- You murdered him with words and a choir of ' Ki-Ki-Ki Ma-Ma-Ma' whispers coming from your very amused friends closed the deal. Eddie was smiling again and that was all you cared about.

- He was amazed by what you did because he knew better than anyone else there how hard it once was for you to come out of your shell, such a brave move was more meaningful coming from you. Among all his friends, you were the one who spoke up to scream some truths at Jason and you did it with such brilliance. A Jason Vorhees joke was hard to make without it sounding like an easy punchline and your punk phrasing not only avoided that, it made it sound like a rebellious satire.

- Eddie was so excited, surprised and generally overwhelmed by the awesomeness of what he witnessed that he only managed to react in one way. In some spontaneous explosion of happiness, he grabbed your cheeks with his hands and placed his lips over yours in a strong peck.

- You didn’t see it coming and your shock became greater than his. He didn’t explain himself afterwards and your face was on fire. Avoiding self combust out of shame was your priority, but you were so happy and confused. Your more imminent thought was wondering what the hell was that. Then, you realized something else.

- That was your first kiss. Through that weird accident, nothing like you would have imagined it before, Eddie kissed you in full unawareness of being the first guy to skim your lips. A part of you was going through a light panic that you stoically dissimulated and it took you a long while to ever bring up the topic again.

- It reemerged during a moment you both were spending alone in his trailer. It was a chill while listening to music as you were rambling to him about your next idea for a horror tale. It was going to be about a fictionalized parody of a glam metal band inspired by Motley Crue’s “ Shout at the Devil” controversy. The dudes in your story intended to follow that route so they could get free publicity scaring religious conservatives with the use of creepy looking symbology. For so, they would pick some random symbol they don’t actually understand and their ignorance would lead them to ruin when the collective energy in their shows, acting as a good replacement for worship, would end up awakening a real supernatural threat. The monster would later possess the singer, a Vince Neil parody that you heavily inspired on Billy Hargrove, to start a classical slasher rampage with a bit of Evil Dead style on the hotel where the band was staying. In a deliciously ironic trope subversion, it would be stopped by a groupie in the role of final girl.

- Eddie loved the concept because of how creepy yet hilariously crazy it was. The whole thing felt like something Sam Raimi could be directing, but there were also some cathartical aspects that you put into it. It was clear that you were using fiction as an outlet for your anger over that bully because you were such an overprotective older sister. Your stories were rarely inserted in the parodic subgenre and this one felt a bit like your joke of political satire of Jason as the homonymous Friday 13th villain.

- After reminding you of how much he enjoyed that one, you got into a bit of talking about it and you ended up explaining at least one of the many reasons why you were so ashamed when he kissed you.

- He was in authentic disbelief. It made sense, but it also didn’t. He never stopped to consider it.

- “ Really? Never ever before?” Eddie asked you, in sweet complicity. He was thinking of something else, over the lines of ‘ But you are so cute… How is that even possible? ‘

You nodded negatively with a playful expression intended to dissimulate your embarrassment.

“ Not even with Johnny when getting high on my weed? What kind of friend is he?” He joked, trying to help you feel less uncomfortable with the confession. “ … Not even with that douchebag basketball player?”

That last question sounded a little bit more like a tease. but he was trying to hide that it came from a genuine, jealousy based, interest in knowing if Steve ever got that close with you.

Your answer was negative again and part of him felt relieved.

“ Don’t worry, sweetheart. There is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s not your fault that the dudes close to you have been so rude. “

He made you laugh with that pretty odd claim and seeing that made him smile while staring at your face.

“ That wasn’t even a proper first kiss,I barely touched you. If you are counting that one, I have very bad news for you: you still haven’t been kissed.“ He pointed out, slightly doubtful because he didn’t want to make you feel more uncomfortable with what he was about to propose. “ … If you are up to it, I can give you a real one. “

- The expression in your face was talking for you, but you had to force yourself into giving a clear answer and he waited for it before crashing his lips against yours again. “ Walk All Over You '' by AC/DC was casually sounding in the background as he was giving you a mind blowing kiss, caresses of all sorts included. With anyone else it wouldn’t feel as romantic as you felt it with him. Perhaps because he wanted to compensate you, he was making you feel romanced through the whole experience. Even if you didn’t know if he meant it to feel that way, you sensed it like his own definition of romance.

- “ Do you want more?” He teased you afterwards, noticing your blissful state. “ We can have as many as you want. I really don’t mind, I am a freak.”

That was, in fact, his way of hiding that he couldn’t get enough of it.

- You still wouldn't allow yourself high hopes after that. Eddie stated that he just wanted to help a friend into a nice first experience, the jokes he made about Johnnatan and Steve implied that. Not like that would stop you from revisiting the moment in your mind and daydreaming about it, but you got that more in control than what you expected. Your friendship seemed to have survived that romantical experiment unharmed.

- He even stopped freaking out about your friendship with Steve. Of course, you had no idea that it happened because he got the jealousy in control. Despite how adorable you were in your interactions with him, Harrington wasn't as close to you as he feared he could become.

- However, Eddie didn't know that Steve counted with the unconditional support of a certain wannabe matchmaker child. You never got into telling him about the very special topic of the hero worshiping your brother would usually make of his older friend.

- Dustin was ready to try anything to make it happen. Sometimes he was very obvious, like whenever he would make you sit next to each other for movie nights to later put the longest film he could pick and wait to see who would end up resting their head in the other's shoulder.

- That was how Steve was exposed to the Star Wars franchise and he happily freaked out little bit on that one time you were very tired and ended up being the one doing it.

- On family dinners with your mother, Dustin would always help him look as the nicest, best behaved boy in order to instalate the idea of making her wish Steve would be your boyfriend.

- " That is your brand. You are Jon Bon Jovi: highschool girls want to date you and their mothers don't wait until that happens to start calling you their son." He secretly explained the strategy to his friend the very first time he made him put it in practice. " Your better established competition is Eddie Van Halen. He is a freaking god playing guitar who manages to captivate hard rock, metal and pop audiences because he is talented as fuck and looks awesome in posters. Do you know why he hasn't defeated you yet? Because you know your brand better than anyone else in the market and that is making you climb to the top very fast with just one studio album in your discography."

" I don't understand you, Henderson! Can you please go slow... and maybe avoid confusing me even more?"

" Be the sweetest, most charming young man to my mom. Make her wish you would be joining us for dinner as my sister's boyfriend."

- As the school year was reaching its end Steve began to worry more about prom that of the upcoming exams. Not a weird attitude for someone who still didn’t got rid completely of the popularity mindset, but you would try to remind him of keeping his priorities in order.

- Dustin followed you on that most times, but he was also busy on his own plan trying to convince him of taking you as his date to prom. Steve was reluctant about the idea, giving a new set of excuses every time he would be asked about it.

- “ She is great, that is not in question… but she just joined the freaks’ club!” Was the last, desperate, excuse on the long list. “ That is social suicide, is worst than being in band. I would love to, but I can't show up there with your sister. “

“ Bullshit, you are just scared of rejectment.” Dustin straightfoldy replicated against it. “ What are you waiting for? It is a flawless plan: you ask it as a friend who is about to graduate and has no one else to take, then give her the most romantical night of her life. It is the premise of Carrie, but turned upside down. She is going to love it.”

- The kid was right in at least one thing: Steve was terrified of asking that to you because he was about 75% sure you were going to say no. The concept of prom as a popularity shitfest wouldn’t help to convince you, but he was scared of facing rejectment at a personal level. Not just because you hated the concept of the date, but because you wouldn’t want to date him.

- His conjectures could be wrong because most of your friends were weirdos, but there was something about your so-called friendship with Munson that you either didn’t realize or were hiding on purpose. The dude was into you, there was no other explanation for some of his attitudes. Plus, you seemed to be very close with him and he was pretty much into the very same shit you were. The chances were there, even when there was no direct confirmation of it. Asking his ex’s former boyfriend for advice and information was too awkward to be taken in consideration, so all Steve had about it was you as source. He wasn’t as convinced as you were of your theory about Chrissy, but that wasn’t the main aspect that gave him a bit of hope through your conversation about it.

- “ Steve, she is absolutely adorable. If you were a girl, you would be just like her. There is no way I am wrong, I know what I saw and it makes sense. It wouldn’t be the first time that one of my freaky counterparts crushes on the cute girlfriend of some jock he hates. No offense but, what happened between you and Johnny is the dream of many… Why wouldn’t it be Eddie’s too?”

“ Do you outcast girls never dream of dating the cute girl’s boyfriend?” He asked in reply, following your own terminology without daring to point out how you indirectly described him as adorable. “ It seems like a thing that can go both ways.”

“ I would prefer to drown in Crystal Lake before going on a date with that poor girl’s boyfriend.” You joked before providing a more compelling answer. “ That being said, it can be a fantasy for freak girls to … just not as recurrent because, in my humble opinion, when you are a girl you have to get a certain suspension of disbelief to get into it. The ‘ loser gets the popular love interest’ concept may be everywhere in some stuff we consume, like comic books, but that doesn’t go both ways. It’s only for the boys, we are not used to being spoon feeded that fantasy.. Do you know what is the closest thing to that we have? ‘Carrie’.. a bloody nightmare of shame and revenge that begins out of pity. “

- The likeness in which yours and your brother’s mind would think was somehow amazing and a bit scary to notice, precisely given the exactitude it was capable of reaching. His doubts didn’t vanish completely after hearing you reference the very same thing Dustin did, but he began to think that it could be a good idea. Besides, your way of presenting the situation made him think that you were more in the pole of unawareness and not hiding a secret relationship with the nerd club leader.

- Steve began to think that maybe, despite how different you two were, you could crush on a guy like him if you would allow yourself to think of it as a possibility. For as much as you denied it in speech, claiming that it wasn’t for you even in fantasy, evidence presented by your brother showed that you had a bit of a secret fangirl thing for the less threatening looking heartthrob among rockstars.

- Taking a risk and asking you to accompany him was worth trying, but the challenge was finding a proper opportunity to do it. It had to be at school, so it wouldn’t feel monitored by your little brother, but it didn’t have to happen near your friends because Munson could surely ruin it.For so, he simply chose to wait until the topic would reappear again between you.

- It’s not like you haven’t asked him before about his obsession with prom. You did, even at that time right after he was trying to get information about Eddie out of you to speculate in your availability. It was a bit of a naive comeback that you threw, in unawareness, following your horror reference like a punchline. You used to think that it was about Nancy, since it was pretty much possible that he would have priorly imagined himself there with her back when they were together. For what you have heard of him saying, he practically had a full fantasy developed of how prom night with his girlfriend was going to be.

- It was beautiful, you couldn’t help rooting for him and you would have lied if you would have denied to feel a bit of wishfulness while listening. Even from outside of the relationship he still sounded like the sweetest boyfriend and everything that was coming out of him sounded so dreamy. It may be overly romantic and a bit of a teen rom com dream but, deep down… who wouldn’t want that? Just listening to it was making you smile. His heartbreak was also relatable to you, even if that one at least came from an actual relationship.

- When this sweet dork finally asked you to be his date for his prom night party, your immediate guess was thinking that he needed an understanding friend that would be aware of the hurtful aspects and wouldn’t question it. An emotional support company, not an actual prom date that could criticize him for thinking of his ex while slow dancing.

- “ I know that you hate this sort of stuff, but it would be very important if you could come with me.”

Steve was way too nervous and you couldn’t understand why, so you rushed to give an emphatic affirmative response.

“ Of course, silly! You don’t have to deal with that alone, us losers have community spirit. “

He was listening to you with such a happy expression.

“ REALLY??” He asked again, a dorkish yell full of excitement. “ That would be so amazing. I promise that you will not regret it, I will do my best so you can have a good time.”

“ Steve, is alright.” You calmly cutted him off. “ We always do shit I like to do, you end up being indirectly forced to stand whatever nerdy crap Dustin and I are into at any given moment. For once, we can do something that is more you and there is nothing wrong with that, even if it’s just between you and me.”

He hugged you tightly, an outlet for his happy cheer, and you found yourself caught by the sweetness of the moment.

- You had no idea of how you were going to explain to the guys of Hellfire, before they could eventually find out from external sources, that you were the prom date of Steve Harrington with all the implications in that sentence.

#stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson #steve harrington #eddie munson x reader #steve harrington x reader #joseph quinn #joe keery #stranger things headcanons #henderson!reader #eddie munson x henderson!reader #steve harrington x henderson!reader

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thebardisabird · 1 year

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Thoughts on matsunos dating a reader that’s a famous youtuber? I can only imagine what the fans must think of them 😭

Oh god lol...okay okay, I got you. Under the cut cause it's a little long:

Osomatsu - He's positively ecstatic to be dating someone famous. Not only for the money aspect, but the cool shit they can do with that money and brand sponsorships, etc. - Will want to do prank videos if you'll allow that on your channel! - Is definitely cool with being public about your relationship as he cares very little what people think and will protect you to the best of his ability. What do the fans think? Very 50/50 on him - they either hate him because he's obnoxious or love him because he's charismatic. Your views literally vary video to video.

Karamatsu - A supportive force as soon as he knew about it! He loves what you do, and he actually finds it fun to see you honing your passion to provide entertainment to others. - Likes to give you ideas to use as material, will help you with set up or anything else you may need to get your video underway. - Would like to be public with your relationship if you're comfortable, but completely understands if you'd rather not make a ton of mention of it. As long as he can feel you love him, he's happy with whatever decision you make. What do the fans think? If they know about him, their opinion doesn't swing one way or another as their focus really is more or less on you. They do appreciate that he makes you happy though!

Choromatsu - Now I can see Choro being with either like a famous twitch streamer or an MUA believe it or not. Someone who's cute and painted up often for their fans. - Is your NUMBER ONE fan. But will also help you on a business perspective. He thinks more on the analytical side and does his research so brand deals, merch sales, appearances/collabs? All his ball game. - Actually would prefer to keep your relationship a secret; he knows how the idol industry works and kind of equates that here. Though if you truly did not care about what your relationship being public could do your fame, then he'd consider it. What do the fans think? Most likely won't know he exists. But if they do, they feel he's a little stiff. Choromatsu is a tad bit camera shy when he realizes how many people watch you so he clams up a tad and it shows.

Ichimatsu - You definitely have an ASMR channel and he is over the moon about it. All the things you get to tap on, play with or whisper into the mic, he's all about it. - Will help you with prop setups and brainstorm ideas with you if asked. Does not mind being included in videos if you ask him, because the genuine enjoyment he gets from participating in ASMR supersedes his awkwardness. - Doesn't care one way or another if you decide to make your relationship public or not. Would probably be super casual about it on camera; but is SCARY protective of you when it comes to "superfans". What do the fans think? They love all of his comfy outfits and how he seems to be enjoying the ASMR you two make together. Some fans are a little afraid of him because of how angry he can get in the comments when people are rude though.

Jyushimatsu - I can imagine you being either like...a hot tub streamer or a daily vlogger. He loves being in videos with you and loves what you do! Whether it's splashing around in the nice hot tub in your backyard or going to try a new restaurant, he enjoys doing just about anything with you. - Is about as hyperactive on camera as he is off. His endless energy helps motivate you to push out content though! - Your relationship is public! Solely because there was no way you'd have been able to keep him a secret (and neither would have you wanted to!) What do the fans think? They either love him because of his bright smile and energy and they love that for you or they feel that he can be a bit too much and needs to tone it down (he won't and you don't ask him to lol).

Todomatsu - This is his as close to his dream come true as he's gonna get. He cannot believe he's actually made it in life to be with someone who is famous on Youtube/Twitch/etc. - He won't ask to be in your videos, but if you do ask him he'd be happy to participate! Just not too much camera time on him, lest his head get swollen lol - Your relationship is definitely public, because he's your social media manager! So any cute pics on your instagram? All him! Engagement with your fans? Same, all him! What do the fans think? They positively adore him and they think he's cute! Of course they don't know about the little monster he can be - but he plays up the cutesy boyfriend tenfold when it comes to handling your social media presence and your relationship.

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triplexdoublex · 1 month

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technically yes nobody can save you but I agree that hearing your fav saying that they’ve been through the same stuff that u have is very comforting especially when dealing with mental illness cause it can be a very isolating experience. But it is your choice and decision to get better, your fav person can show u that they also went to therapy and how it has helped them and that can influence you to go and try it out but that’s still up to u. With Kells I think he’s struggling a lot even if he tries not to show it to not worry us that much, and from what I’ve seen I don’t think he feels deserving of our love and devotion to him or that his mind wants to believe that we will turn on him and he’ll end up alone as he was most of his life. The line “who am I when the music stops” imo kind of shows that he’s scared all the love and support will leave when he’s not singing no more, and that maybe everyone who hated will come out in support of him only when he’s dead, cause that’s what’s happened to a lot of artists who have passed (like he mentioned in his line “thinkin maybe the hate’ll finally go away if I’m not alive”). He definitely knows we love him through the support we give him on music and project but I think he’s scared to even through music really be honest with us cause he’ll be scrutinised for it. He’s got so many eyes on him now and I think he’s scared to lose the fame and publicity he so badly wanted for so long. I believe with “don’t let me go” he even said that it was a song he usually wouldn’t put out if he had more time to sit on it or something. and I think that’s why he’s also holding onto Megan. She helped him get the fame he worked so hard for years to get, he finally got the recognition that he so badly fought for and I think if he loses her he's afraid he’ll also lose that part of fame and the awards and such, not saying he didn’t get awards before Megan but she definitely helped him get to another level of fame and publicity. And I think if he loses Megan he’ll be made fun of in the media. At the start everyone was so out of their minds on how a guy like him could get the world loved hottie Megan Fox and if it comes out saying that they aren’t together anymore, even tho all the people who saw the relationship as toxic or weird will be happy, he’ll still be laughed at for managing to lose the “most beautiful women”. Like they made fun of him after the em disses, he’ll also be made fun of if he loses Megan.

TW// Suicide ideation

Yes technically you’re saving yourself by making the decisions needed to better your mental health but sometimes you need that spark of hope to get you started and kells is that spark for a lot of people. I’ve had many sparks along my mental health journey one of them actually being song lyrics from the song “Self Conclusion” by The Spill Canvas. I was driving home from work thinking about ending it all, I already knew how I was gonna do it — I had recently had my wisdom teeth removed and this was back when they would give you prescription pain meds for literally anything (which is how how the opioid crisis started) They gave me Percocet even though I said that I didn’t want them because I was afraid of getting addicted (addiction runs in my family) He insisted I would NEED them. But I didn’t they sat in my cabinet full and unused, and I was planning to take the bottle. I had just pulled into my driveway when the song started playing , a song I’d heard a million times before but the lyrics “we all flirt with the tiniest notion of self conclusion in one simplified motion, the trick is your never supposed to act on it, no matter how unbearable this misery gets” hit different in that moment and felt like a sign to me to stay and get help. I sat in the car and sobbed for what felt like fovever , then went inside and got rid of the pills. And did start therapy shortly after. Yearsss later when I met the lead singer I thanked him for SAVING me! Of course I was the one who decided not to go through with it and to start going to therapy , but what if I never heard that song at the exact moment I needed it , would I even be here having this conversation… there’s a good chance I wouldn’t. So yes I believe I was saved by their music!

Kells definitely gets a lot underserved hate , he has shared many times that he worries about not being appreciated until his dead. Another lyric that comes to mind is “everybody hates, but can anybody love me, guess they’ll wait until my face is on the mural” i think he finally did get a little taste of being taken more seriously when Tickets to my downfall and Mainstream sellout both went number one and her acquired a bunch of new fans . But it must be so hard to know that pretty much everyone outside of the fanbase hates him.

I don’t believe Megan helped kells to rise to fame , if anything he boosted her non existent acting career ( when was the last time you heard about Megan Fox before they got together … maybe 2007ish ) Kells gained more fame for revitalizing the pop-punk scene, but I do agree that he will be dragged for ‘loosing Megan’ I’ve already seen evidence of it in social media comments

#machine gun kelly #mgk #colson baker #megan fox #tw// suicide

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tokuvivor · 1 year

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DuckTales Character Songs! (Part 1)

I’ve been trying to come up with something unique to do here on Tumblr. And it always sorta came back to this. A couple reasons. 1. I had my own radio show in college, so I already know what it’s like to try and nail songs down for what you want to convey. 2. Last year, I did a bunch of playlists for Weblena Week, and I’d say it worked out pretty well.

So, I give to you: my list of DuckTales character songs! Now, I’m going to be sticking to one song per character, ones that I feel suit them very well. I’m going to start out here with the 9 principal characters, then major recurring characters from each of the seasons, totaling out to 4 parts in all.

Of course, I can’t take all the credit here. I’ve done a fair amount of brainstorming on this before with @glowyjellyfish. That said, let’s get started!

Scrooge McDuck

Money (That’s What I Want) by Barrett Strong

The song is kinda self-explanatory. Scrooge is one of the richest ducks in the world. He has an entire building for all of his savings. Plus, this sums up his mindset at the beginning of the series really well, before he really let himself open back up to his family. And this version of the song just has the right swaggering vibe to it. Also, RIP Barrett Strong.

Huey Duck

Surface Pressure by Jessica Darrow from Encanto

Just like Luisa Madrigal, Huey has all of this pressure on his shoulders as the oldest sibling. Trying to live up to expectations. He wants to show Dewey and Louie that he has it all together, but sometimes, he just doesn’t. It all builds up until it’s ready to blow.

Dewey Duck

Hall of Fame by The Script feat. will.i.am

Dewey is a very grandiose character. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was his daily mantra or something. “You could be the greatest, you can be the best, you can be the King Kong banging on your chest.” He wants to be seen. He wants to be a legend.

Louie Duck

Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears

Louie is ambitious. He wants to climb to the top of the food chain. He wants to rule the world. He knows it’s not going to be easy, he’ll have a lot of competition, but he won’t let it stop him.

Webby Vanderquack

Roar by Katy Perry

This one has definitely struck me as a Webby-ish song for some time. Seeing this song from her point of view, I’d say she’s kinda facing her past (“You held me down, but I got up”). She’s been sheltered for most of her life, and now that she has all these new opportunities, she’s going to break out and take them.

Donald Duck

Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra

This song is appropriate for Donald in two ways. One, the fact that he was stuck on the moon during the second half of Season 2. And two, his relationship with Daisy. After all, it is kind of a love song, too. Plus, I can totally see Daisy envisioning Donald singing like Sinatra, considering that one scene in Louie’s Eleven!

Bentina Beakley

Have You Got It in You? by Imogen Heap

At least in my opinion, it’s tough to find songs that really fit Mrs. Beakley. But I think this song definitely works for her. A lot of the time, Beakley tries to keep everything together, but she has to deal with a ton of bullshit on the daily, so it can be hard. I think the line “Let me have it all, let me have a battle on. Easy target, look, can we just, just get it over with?” suits her because of her spy background, and the fact that sometimes, all she probably wants to do is snap on somebody, get it out of the way, and get back to her task at hand.

Launchpad McQuack

Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra

I think the title is very appropriate, considering that Launchpad is a pilot. I think the tone of the song, as well as a few of the lyrics, very much suit his carefree personality. Even though he doesn’t always keep his eye ahead, Launchpad likes flying or driving around without a care in the world. Especially with Mr. Blue Sky out and about.

Della Duck

Got to Fly by Marian Call

This song perfectly sums up Della’s desire to go to the stars, then being stuck on the moon, having the consequences of what she did hit her all at once, and then having her mind racing at 1,000 miles an hour over all the things she needs to do, especially after she gets back home (ADHD struggles).

So that’s it for now! Next time around, I’ll be doing major recurring characters initially from Season 1. In the meantime, let me know what you think of these!

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abiiors · 2 months

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okay so while we’re on the topic… i’m a newer fan of the boys, i actually got tickets to one of their concerts back in october when they were touring in america from my aunt even though i had never really been a fan of them (her heart was in the right place 😭😭 bc i do listen to a lot of music that’s like in their sphere ig?? and i’ve been to festivals that they’ve performed at so i can see why she would’ve thought to get me those tickets, i just never really listened to their music before) but i went to the show regardless bc hello free concert tickets?? would have been a sin to let them go to waste tbh and oh my god am i so glad i did, it was actually one of the best shows i’ve ever been too!! especially considering i only really knew their popular songs?? like robbers, somebody else, aaaand it’s not living if it’s not with you

ANYWAYS that being said, since i had never really followed them before i always pretty much ignored anything i saw about them on twitter and stuff, mainly the negative things said abt matty bc not my faves, not my business?? but i gotta ask someone who’s been a fan of them for a lot longer than i have, what iiiis the deal with all the “matty healy racist” “matty healy homophobic” “matty healy [insert smth hateful here]” rhetoric??? bc from what i’ve seen of him after getting to know more abt the band he doesn’t appear that way at all?? like were there things he said that were taken out of context??? what’s up with the nazi accusations??? also homophobic??? is twt not aware of what he did in malaysia?? also straight men that are homophobic would never have the kind of close male friendships that the band have with one another… it seems like he’s twitter’s scapegoat tbh but idk i’m simply so confused and anything i find online trying to explain it all seems very biased based off the language they use so if you can/would like to… pls help 😭

okay first of all, welcome to the fandom!! i'm so glad you're here and i'm so glad you got to see them live!! they genuinely are so so incredible <33

now onto the questions!

i won't say matty's a saint. he's definitely done things in the past that are disappointing (to me at least, as well as to many others on here). last year he went on a podcast called the adam friedland show where many tasteless jokes were made about japanese people, the porn website ghetto gaggers, ice spice as well as countless other tastelss things were said.

now i really really want to clarify that matty never made those jokes but he did laugh along to them which is also a shitty fucking thing to do. he's since said that he was advised not to go on the podcast by people close to him and he still did it. however, he's also publicly apologised to ice spice and she's also said that the 1975 are one of her fav artists.

in may of 2023 he started allegedly dating taylor swift (i still don't believe it, i still think they either just made music or they just fucked or both) which exposed him to a whole new level of fame that was unprecedented. and the swifties are... rabid, to say the least. they made fun of his appearance, his past addiction issues, hoped he would have a relapse and die, all sorts of horrendous stuff. they discovered the podcast which was pretty fresh at the time and the whole thing spiralled into him being labelled a racist, homophobe, transphobe, pedophile, nazi, you name it, he was being called it.

however literally NONE of it was backed by evidence (but i don't expect people whose sole source of information is twt to realise that)

they have clearly never learned what a nazi is. i'm not even going to try to debunk that here because i feel like it would be insulting to your intelligence

he's not homophobic or transphobic, he's literally an ally to the point of being a fruity lil shit. he's been banned from 2 countries (dubai and malaysia) for openly supporting queer rights. they were also briefly jailed in malaysia for the stunt they pulled and had a lawsuit filed against them. he's even won ally of the year at the diva awards in 2019

literally every single fan who's ever met him has had nothing but amazing things to say about him. he's been incredibly kind and sweet to people

the band has always been openly political and vocal about their beliefs

you're absolutely right about him being the twitter scapegoat because unfortunately that's exactly what it is </3

i hope that clears things up tho, i'm sorry this is so long!!

#✉️#matty healy #tw: may 2023 #i feel like i should add that 💀

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masterwords · 1 year

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standing still

Summary: Hotch & Reid travel to Connecticut for a custodial interview with Chester Hardwick before he's put to death. Their trip does not go smoothly. (ASD!Hotch & ASD!Reid, plus some Hotchgan.) (Coda to 3x14 - Damaged)

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan (but Derek is barely in the story)

Warnings: vomit, meltdown, food, depression, anxiety, divorce, canon-typical mention of crime/murder

Words: 6k

Notes: Ah, well, an idea on a whim yesterday produced 6k words overnight. Where did it come from? I don't know. But it's here. And it puts me over 50k words posted for the month of January which is pretty fucking cool.

The hotel is haunted.

Supposedly.

Hotch has heard the stories enough times, he's stayed there plenty over the years. Back when custodial interviews were more common and the jet wasn't an option, and he was the new guy on the block drawing the short straw. Never experienced a ghost that he's aware of, but if he has, they're very hospitable. He likes this hotel. The beds are comfortable, the continental breakfast is simple and predictable, the water pressure in the showers is strong. Not blast your skin clean off of your body strong but pounding those knots out of your muscles strong.

So, if it's haunted, he really doesn't care. But Reid has been doing some digging and he's excited to talk to locals about it. He doesn't believe in ghosts, per se, but he loves to collect stories. So, the hotel is haunted, and people say the prison is too. One of the cell blocks, anyway. He wants to ask the Warden about it in the morning. Connecticut is rife with stories of hauntings that go all the way back to the Headless Horseman.

“Have you heard about the prison? They say it's haunted by a former inmate who was killed by a group of guards. I guess the guards got to a point where they wouldn't go on that cell block, so they turned it into a storage facility. Funny, too, that a prison that still conducts executions is so focused on one death. You would think the whole place would be crawling with the souls of the dead prisoners.”

“I've heard,” Hotch replies quietly, staring at the road. He's lost in his mind. “But I haven't paid it much attention.”

“Well, I don't believe in ghosts but it's fascinating the way these stories take hold. The grip that they have on people, even rational people who say they don't believe, is powerful. People say they've seen file cabinets levitating and they hear moaning and screaming from that end of the prison at the full moon."

“A few minutes of fame can make someone say just about anything. We've seen it plenty of times during cases.”

He's not able to focus on the conversation for long. It comes in bits and pieces, scattered moments between the phone buzzing angrily at his thigh. It's Haley calling. Every fifteen minutes she calls, lets it ring and ring, then leaves a voicemail. That's 20 angry voicemails, give or take, by the time they get there if she keeps up at her current pace. 20 tirades that he has to listen to even though his gut tells him not to. Just delete them, he knows exactly what she wants.

She wants him to sign the papers. He's got them in his go bag. The plan is to read them again, really read them this time, but he doesn't want to and he's definitely putting it off. Derek already read them once. He went through them with a fine-tooth comb, because he's not emotionally involved...not like that anyway. He gave them his seal of approval. “It's all legit, man. She just wants to dissolve the marriage, let you guys manage the rest on your own. It's a good deal. You already gave her everything anyway...”

He's going to be sick if he doesn't eat something. It's a sudden realization, he's been ignoring that pang in his stomach so long that it's practically an emergency now. Up ahead is a roadside diner with a sign that's half lit up in bright yellow bulbs (the other half are in dire need of replacement but by the looks of it they have no real plans to do so). Hotch knows it's a gamble with Reid but it's one he's willing to take. The alternative is worse. Much worse.

“Let's get an early dinner here.” It's barely past lunch time, but he doesn't plan to eat again so that's just how it comes out. Aware that he sounds elderly, an old man after his early bird special, he smiles and tries to play it off casually but his stomach hurts so bad it's hard to hide. “They don't look busy, it'll be fast.”

“Diners aren't known for their cleanliness.”

“It's the only place around for miles. I'm sure we'll be okay.”

Inside, it's exactly what Hotch expects. Emerald green vinyl booths with silver plated tables, the look of every ice cream soda shop from the 1950s. Well, the idyllic version of that decade that mainstream media wants you to feel nostalgic for, anyway. There are framed movie posters on the wall with Ronald Reagan's face on some, Betty Boop on others. Reid looks around and frowns. He's not confident in this place but he walks inside anyway, stepping carefully around the bubble gum and sticker machines in the small entry. One quarter for a hard gumball that tastes like fruity plastic and threatens to chip your tooth until you can manage your way through the exterior. A dentist's worst nightmare. And they're not individually wrapped, just sitting there in the clear glass calling out to children who don't know any better. He shudders at the thought.

At the hostess station, he peers at the framed health department notices hung cockeyed on the wall in cheap frames, studying the dates of their last checks and whether they passed inspection. He eyeballs the kitchen, the greasy flat top, the cooks sweating and swearing and laughing over them. They both look relatively clean, but one has a beard and he's not wearing anything to cover it. It's not exactly a nightmare scenario, it's actually better than he'd anticipated, but he still would rather not eat here. He's got plenty of pre-packaged safe foods in his go bag.

The restaurant isn't busy, though it looks like they've just missed a rush by all of the full dish bins. They're between meal hours. That's a blessing, it affords them time and quiet, both things that Reid can tell Hotch needs. He's usually pretty reserved but today he's a whole new level of difficult.

Hotch slides into his side of the booth immediately, like he needs to sit down before he collapses. The cracked vinyl groans under his weight and he tries to find a spot that's comfortable. Reid reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of Lysol wipes, first getting his side of the table and then his side of the booth. Hotch pays no attention; he's already looking at the menu. Reid always wipes everything down first and it normally doesn't bother Hotch, he finds it endearing if not a little pointless considering the surroundings, but today everything that everyone is doing makes him feel itchy and like he's going to vibrate right out of his skin.

His stomach is bothering him. It's the stress. He can't stop thinking about the voicemails, wondering if he should go outside and listen to them. He could grab some Tums from his go bag while he's out there, kill two birds with one stone but he doesn't want to get back up. He's exhausted by the mere thought of it. Besides, the stomachache will turn into a headache in no time anyway and the Tums will be just as pointless as Reid's Lysol wipes.

“What are you going to order?” Reid asks absentmindedly, looking over the freshly cleaned menu. He's thinking about the cook and his beard, trying to figure out what he can order that's going to require the least amount of human interaction with his food. A piece of pie might be it; he saw them in the case already sliced and covered in plastic. He likes individual pre-packaged servings. It's doubtful they were baked here, he figures they're factory made and packaged by machines, the human part of it being minimal. He could probably get away with not thinking about who sliced it.

But then a slice of pie isn't dinner, and he is hungry.

“I don't know,” Hotch replies quietly, not at all hungry. But he's the one who decided to pull over so he's going to have to order something. He'd just wanted to stop driving, to catch his breath for a minute. Now he's got to come up with some food item that won't upset his stomach further, something that won't kill him when it comes back up later. He's already anticipating a rough night. “Maybe soup and some toast.”

“Did you know that in many restaurants, the soup of the day is made using whatever leftover ingredients are on the verge of needing to be thrown out as a way to curb waste? I saw that the soup of the day here was the tomato basil with garlic toast points, so...”

Hotch frowns behind his menu without looking up. “I suppose I'm doing my part to stop unnecessary waste, then. Tomato soup sounds nice.”

It isn't the response Spencer was hoping for, but he shrugs and turns back to his own menu. Pie. He's going to have pie and he'll snack on the food he brought later. He hails a waitress, not theirs, and asks which pies are made in house. She answers with pride that they make most of them in house, their baker comes in at 3am every day and even makes the crust herself. There are only two they have shipped because the ingredients are hard to keep on hand. When their waitress comes by, he orders one of the two kinds they don't make here. “Pecan, please.”

Hotch orders the tomato soup without a second thought. It comes in a large white bowl set on a little plate with saltine crackers, and the deep velvety velvety crimson of the tomato is a stark contrast to the bowl's brightness. In the center is a dash what looks like basil or parsley and a swirl of heavy cream on top.

“I read that they blend up old vegetables from the salads for tomato soup,” Reid mutters, wiping his fork on his pant leg. There are dishwasher spots on it. “It helps bulk it up, especially when the cost of tomatoes is so high. That soup is probably mostly lettuce and carrots.”

“Reid,” Hotch says quietly, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. There it is, the headache. “Less commentary about the food I'm about to eat would be appreciated.”

Reid smiles awkwardly, twirling his fork in his hands. “Sorry. Force of habit. I find the restaurant business simultaneously fascinating and horrifying.”

Hotch doesn't acknowledge Reid's statement; he just picks up his spoon and swirls it in the soup. Clockwise. He turns it in one big circle around the edge, dragging the spoon along the bowl, and then swoops inward to fold the cream into the red. The soup turns a vibrant peachy-orange and he smiles, the color looks serene and peaceful. He thinks about lettuce when he takes his first bite, but thankfully isn't able to taste it. After three bites he doesn't think about lettuce anymore. He thinks about being a child, about weekend lunches of canned condensed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Every Saturday. Predictable. Comforting.

“Hotch,” Reid interrupts, and when he looks up, he's looking at crime scenes. Spread out in front of them, all over the table, his plate of pie lost somewhere in the middle of the gore...he didn't even realize Reid brought the files inside. It isn't that much of a stretch; the team often does this. They talk loudly about horrific things around the general public because what choice do they have? None of them even flinch at the sight of these things anymore. But not here. Not now. There are children eating with their parents two booths away. Hotch frowns. “Is this everything? I thought there were more. Chester Hardwick killed -”

“Please put those away.” Hotch doesn't care what Reid is about to say, he just interrupts him. His skin goes electric.

“We need to...”

“Not here.” He's about to lose it, he really is. Reid gives him a strange look, almost defiant and definitely confused, but he starts sliding the photos back into their folders just before their waitress brings Hotch his plate of whole wheat toast. He didn't want the garlic toast; his special order took an extra minute and now she was paying dearly for it. Involuntarily, she makes a displeased sound, a surprised little gasp, and he glances up at her with apology written all over in his honey eyes.

“I'm sorry,” Hotch says. “Sometimes we forget where we are when we're working.”

“What um...what is it you fellas do exactly?” she asks, refilling Hotch's coffee with trembling hands. He's on his third cup, his hands are trembling a little too. The coffee isn't making his stomach feel any better but it'll help him finish the drive.

“We're with the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI,” Reid chimes in, closing the last of the folders. “We um, we catch serial killers. Today we're on our way to interview one before his scheduled execution.”

She stares, wide-eyed, and Hotch sighs. Under normal circumstances he would just let Reid do what he does. He's not doing anything wrong, and he knows without a doubt that all of the problems he's having are his entirely. He's overstimulated and extra prickly today. “Thank you for the coffee.” He doesn't mean it to sound as dismissive as it does and he's acutely aware as she turns and leaves the table that he's been rude. “Reid, she didn't need all of that information. A simple answer would have sufficed.”

“Sorry,” Reid chirps, digging at his pie. He picks the pecans off of the top first. “Force of habit.”

“So you've said.”

This is their first trip together, one on one. Sure, they've been all over the country as a group, but it's never just been the two of them and Hotch is certain now that he's not in the right frame of mind to handle it. He likes Reid, he enjoys him and his info-dumps. He always learns something new when he's with Reid. Besides, it's startlingly nice to be around another person who doesn't think the same as everyone else, who filters the world through a different operating system. Those were Garcia's words when she, very bluntly, asked if he was autistic. Reid always assumed it, but Garcia had no qualms about simply asking.

She had asked after running into him in the break room and watching him go through his very regimented steps to make his cup of coffee. Not that he did anything out of the ordinary, she explained, just that he didn't get his coffee from coffee stands like everyone else. He always insisted on making his own and he always did the same thing. Dump the filter, clean the pot, make one single cup using his own bag of grounds and a bottle of water brought from home because he didn't like what the filtration system in the building did to the flavor of his coffee. He kept his grounds in a small paper bag in the back of the freezer with his name on them, and his water bottle was labeled as well. All the years she'd known him, it was the same thing, and they disappeared at a very regimented pace. She claimed it was obvious. He knew there was more to it than that, she was just being nice and overly simplistic. He tried not to overthink it, dwell on it...he almost succeeded, too. But he did dwell a little, wondering how many other things he did that were just odd enough to tip her off.

Ultimately it didn't make any difference.

“I don't like my coffee to be a surprise,” he'd said quietly, a little defensive. “Sometimes with coffee shops, you'll get a different thing every day even with the same order. They'll try to surprise you with more of something or less of something, or they'll change the beans they use, or the strength of the brew. I prefer not to guess whether my coffee is what I want.”

“It's okay, sir, I understand completely. I go to the same bakery every time because they've been around for fifty years with the same recipes.”

“Trudeau's?” Hotch asked, smiling. She nodded.

“The one and only. You always know what you're going to get, and it's always going to be good.”

The problem Hotch runs into frequently is that his operating system, so to speak, isn't like Reid's. Or Garcia's. He's the odd man out even here where he thinks he should be able to relate. He knows it's a spectrum, of course he knows that, but it doesn't stop him feeling isolated. The discouragement that comes from knowing how separate he is makes it hard for him to find a way to communicate it.

So, he doesn't. He keeps his mouth shut and his head down and he just forges on.

That Derek learned his tells early on was a mixed blessing. He'd groaned about being profiled, unwritten team rules, but secretly he thought it was nice to be seen.

If Haley wasn't so angry with him, maybe he'd be better able to manage his own expectations and reactions in this situation which was really going quite well, all things considered. He was so skilled at masking and managing that these days when he was raw and vulnerable and completely unable to keep his shields up were few and far between...but since the divorce papers were served, he couldn't name a single day he felt totally in control. Derek helps when he can, where he can. Derek has been a life raft in a raging sea, but he can't fix everything. He's got problems and a life of his own. He's got mountains to climb and traumas to heal. Hotch is acutely aware that he takes more than he gives frequently and needs to do better. Derek would vehemently disagree with that. But it doesn't matter, he's sitting at the table mortified by how rude he'd been to the waitress and to Reid, wishing Derek were here to help him back to the path.

But Derek couldn't come, not this time. Someone had to stay behind and run the BAU while Hotch was away without cell reception in a prison. It puts them all in a vulnerable position and anymore, he preferred to be the one to do it. Which left his second in command to man the ship. Hotch couldn't think of anyone better to run the team, and the fact that Derek had chosen to love him on top of all of his needs, in spite of all of that, he still isn't sure how it happened. He sometimes forgets he's lovable at all.

Today he's completely out of control. It's just fitting, in some way, that his version of out of control still looks very subtle if you don't look too closely. No one can tell he's breaking. He just looks grouchy. He's sure he'll make it to the hotel before the cracks in his armor start becoming visible.

“We should get back on the road. I looked up the traffic reports and if we're not in city limits by 4pm, we're going to be stuck on the highway for an average of thirty to sixty minutes longer than necessary.”

“You've hardly eaten your pie,” Hotch says, poking at his own barely eaten toast. He plans to finish the meal if it kills him, traffic be damned. “I'm not concerned about the time, we don't have anywhere to be until tomorrow.”

They get to the hotel in a reasonable time, not exactly as good as they'd hoped but not as bad as Reid feared. It's possible Hotch might have been going a little over the posted limits in places, but Reid wasn't going to tell anyone. It's still better than Emily's driving. He suddenly understands why Derek always holds the door handle when he's in the passenger seat, though.

“One room?” Hotch asks the clerk, exasperated at the sight of the one key card. He should have known. “They only booked us one room? Would it be possible to get another?”

“I'm sorry sir, there's a convention and a concert here tonight, we're booked solid. I might be able to find you two rooms somewhere else if you'd like me to call around. You'll have better luck just outside the city.”

Hotch knew this hotel. Sure, a second room would be nice but a hotel he wasn't familiar with sounded just a bit too much for him right now. He and Reid have shared a room before. It isn't ideal, not by a longshot, but it works. “No, thank you. One room is fine. There are two beds, though?”

“Yes, sir. It's a double queen. Non-smoking. No pets.”

“We don't smoke or have pets.”

The room is small. That's the first thing that Hotch notices. He's always had a single room here and he thinks it's the same size but with an extra bed. And speaking of beds...the second thing he notices is that the beds are not, in fact, queen sized. They are full, a whole size smaller. He sets his bag neatly on top of the bed closest to the door while Reid goes for the one further in... that's always how they do it. Hotch stays closer to the point of entry, no matter who he rooms with. And then he puts the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. He doesn't care for people coming into his room, to clean or not.

“You can take the first shower,” he offers, pulling out his suit for the next morning and hanging it up. There are voices next door, muffled but clearly a man and some children. Paper thin walls, he can hear everything the man is saying to the children. Telling them to be quiet, to quit stomping, to turn the television down. Reid nods and heads right for the bathroom with his Ziplock bag of cleaning supplies. He always brings his own in order to sanitize the tub and shower head before he uses them, and Hotch, knowing this, always offers the first shower. The first time Reid did it after he showered, he felt filthy. Like Reid was cleaning him off of the tub. Never again.

He doesn't care about who gets the first shower, otherwise. He kicks his shoes off and sits on his bed, leaning back against the bleach scented pillows in their over-starched cases and closes his eyes. His head is throbbing.

Reid leaves the bathroom smelling like Lysol and bleach and Hotch watches as he strips his bed of the comforter. “Did you know they don't wash these?” he asks, dumping it into the corner like it disgusts him. “They wash the blankets and sheets with all sorts of harsh chemicals, they go scorched earth, but rarely the comforter. Not unless it's visibly soiled.”

“I had no idea,” Hotch lies. He does know, he just...once again...does not care. He can't care about everything and he's got more than enough on his plate right now. “I'll take yours, if you don't plan to use it. I get cold.” That's the damn truth. Reid sleeps with the air conditioner on no matter what the season. Hotch can't take it.

“It's all yours.” Reid barely hides the disgust in his features as he tosses the green and gold comforter toward his boss. Hotch doesn't notice the look; he just wads it up beside him and is satisfied knowing he's got a little extra protection against the cold air assault later.

He decides to take a walk down to the vending machine for some pretzels, and that's when he pulls out his phone and listens to the messages. One after another, terse and angry, Haley tells him to sign the papers, to call him, asks him why he won't just do it. Two of the messages are from Jessica calmly telling him to get his head out of his ass and call one of them back. “If you won't talk to her, fine. Talk to me. Just call one of us. Either that or I'm going to assume you've been injured in the line of duty and start calling your bosses...”

Jessica gets the call. He would have tried Haley but he just...he can't. It'll turn into a fight.

"It's about damn time," she says through clenched teeth and he closes his eyes.

“I'm on the road,” he says quietly. “I've been driving all day with Doctor Reid. The constant phone calls and threats are a little much, don't you think?”

“We were worried.”

“No, you were worried. She's only concerned about my signature.”

“Fair enough. Just get it over with. Sign the damn papers.”

“I haven't had any time to read them.”

“You of all people should know exactly what's in there, and besides, I know you already asked Derek to read them. You don't trust him? What's really stopping you?”

He sighs and pushes the button that reads B9 for the pretzels. They get stuck on the way down, jammed between the spiral and the window, and he thinks that's it. He's going to cry. That's all it takes, one single second of that crinkly blue bag of Rold Gold tiny twist pretzels getting stuck right there and the tears are burning tracks down his cheeks. “I need time.”

He's pacing back and forth in front of the vending machine now, wearing a track in the dingy red carpet. His mind loops. The papers. The drive. The soup. The photos. The pretzels. Repeat repeat. He worries the pads of his fingers over his nails until they nearly bleed and his breathing speeds up. Jessica can hear it, she knows exactly what this looks like, but she isn't gentle. He passed on gentle hours ago when he ignored her calls, she figures.

“Suck it up. Read the papers tonight, sign them tomorrow. Be done with it, Aaron. Move on. She already has.”

“I'll read the papers tonight.” He repeats the one part of what she said that he can manage. It makes her pause, re-calibrate her course before she sends him into a tailspin. She's dangerously close and she does feel bad. She understands, Haley has been at her throat all day today too.

“Just sign the papers and I promise it'll make everything better. Do it for Jack, so you two can get back on good terms. Jack needs you both to remember how much you mean to one another. And I know Derek would like it if you'd let it go...please. Sign the papers.”

He can't breathe. He's standing with his back against the wall and overcome with the feeling that his legs are about to give out, the world is about to go dark, he's about to lose whatever shred of control he still held. His body is giving him what little warning it can, and it isn't much. He's better at listening now than he used to be. “I'll call you tomorrow when I'm back in town.”

“Sign the papers Aaron!”

She hollers it into the phone, one last demand. He barely hears it before he hangs up and stumbles back to the room without his pretzels, someone else can have them. He makes his way immediately for the shower, shutting and locking the door behind him.

Reid barely notices, he's got Chester Hardwick's photos spread out all over his bed and he's deep in thought. “The hot water takes a minute,” he says absently, as if Hotch is right there.

It doesn't matter, anyway. He's not going for the shower yet. He almost doesn't make it to the toilet before he vomits. Reid can definitely hear that, and it startles him, but he assumes it's food poisoning and he isn't at all surprised. That damn soup. Lettuce is notorious for salmonella. Hotch is happy to let him think it's food poisoning too, it's a harmless lie. Better than the alternative.

His shower is anything but relaxing. He presses his forehead into the tile so hard it hurts while his stomach cramps and he's worried he's going to throw up again but the pressure he keeps on his forehead stills the nausea. For now. He's not exactly crying, it's sort of just miserable gasping for air while the shower washes away his tears. He can barely breathe. His hands are balled so tight his fingernails cut crescents in his palms and he can feel the small spots of blood pooling there. Sign the papers, Aaron. Sign the papers, Aaron. Uncontested, that's what she wants. He doesn't have a problem with that part of it. He'd willingly give her everything, keep nothing for himself. That isn't it, that isn't it at all. He doesn't want to sign it because signing it is permanent. Right now there is still hope. He still wears the ring. She hasn't worn hers in a long time, sometimes it's around her neck and other times it's nowhere in sight...but his is still firmly in place on his finger. Hope. Some shred, however minuscule, still exists and the minute his signature is on that page it's gone.

And he's alone.

What's he supposed to do with the bare skin where the ring once sat?

He cries harder. The walls are paper thin and if someone on the other side is in the bathroom, they can definitely hear his miserable moaning. Sobbing. He collapses slowly, crumples, his joints folding and his limbs contorting until he's sitting in the tub in a ball sobbing into his kneecaps. He hasn't had a meltdown like this in years, not since Adrian Bale and that bomb put him in charge of the BAU and left him just about as vulnerable as he'd ever been. But he'd had Derek then, and he pulled through. The one constant good was Derek.

“Hotch? Are you alright?”

“Fine,” he grunts with his wet lips in tear pools against his knees. He can't make himself sound fine, but he knows Reid isn't going to push further. He never does. They may not experience things in the same way, but Reid can recognize a meltdown when he sees it and he knows better than to try and intervene. The last thing Hotch needs is extra attention.

He goes about his business instead, glad to be sure now that Hotch's soup wasn't killing him. He prepares, rehearses, but still listens. A meltdown isn't going to hurt Hotch but falling in the shower might and he's more than a little concerned about that. Statistics are overwhelming when it comes to shower related injuries.

When Hotch walks out of the bathroom in sweatpants and a t-shirt with red-rimmed eyes glassy and dazed, Reid doesn't say a thing. Not at first. He notices, it would be impossible not to, but he can't find anything to say about it, so he asks the question that's on his mind.

“What time do we need to be at the prison? I'd like to set the alarm now.”

“7am. We'll be done and on the road by 9am.” That's it. Hotch spreads the second comforter over his bed and he burrows beneath the blankets. That's all he's got in him. Reid stays up pouring over files he's already memorized, full of nervous excitement. Custodials always put him into a frenzied mindset. He hasn't done too many of them and this is definitely the most excited he's been. Chester Hardwick doesn't talk to anyone, refused their requests repeatedly.

The meeting with Hardwick is something neither of them wants to discuss once they're out of the prison. Once they're back in the fresh air under the bright blue sky, not locked up in a cement room with a madman who thinks killing a couple of FEDs will earn him a stay of execution. Maybe it would have, but Reid managed to talk their way out of it. The very thing that Hotch loves about Reid, and the thing that has been getting under his skin for the last day, saved their lives. He's grateful. It isn't lost on him. But it didn't stop him from shedding his jacket and tie, squaring up, almost hoping that Hardwick would try. He could take a beating for thirteen minutes, and he could give it right back. No way Hardwick would have managed to kill both of them, but he still feels guilty. His foul mood, that electric feeling, it didn't go anywhere while he slept. It only got worse.

Chester Hardwick's threats were enough to settle him, to bring him back to the reality where he's in charge, where he's in control.

But he knows he probably owes Reid his life. He starts with an apology that burns his tight lungs, and then explains that Haley wants him to sign the divorce papers uncontested. No lawyers. It's faster that way, he says. And her constant hounding has been getting to him more than it should.

Reid's answer is simplistic and sweet. He doesn't understand the complication, the intricate balance and Hotch smiles sadly. He just asks what Hotch wants and isn't that funny...because it doesn't matter. This whole thing is moving along full steam ahead whether he wants it or not. “What I want, I can't have.”

Reid seems to understand that much. He knows Hotch doesn't want to lose his family; he also knows that his family is already gone. He has no idea what to say, how to respond, but the silence screams so loud it almost hurts. He has to fill it with something. Part of him wants to bring up a conversation he had with the Warden about the haunted cell block, but he refrains. Hangs out in more neutral territory.

“Derek and the team will be back from Indianapolis by the time we get home. He'll know what to do.”

Hotch smiles and nods. “You're probably right.”

“It's a good thing we have him around, huh?”

“Yes,” Hotch whispers, feeling his heart beating wildly against his chest in a different way. Untamed but not painful. “It is.”

"Do you want to stop for lunch? I did some research and there's a diner about fifty miles ahead that gets good reviews." It's clean, that's what he means. None of the reviews talk about food poisoning or flies in the windowsills.

Hotch smiles wearily and nods. "Lunch sounds nice."

When they return to Quantico, Derek is already at his desk finishing up a detailed report of the case for Hotch. All the papers Hotch would normally do, he's already deep in the thick of before it's even asked of him. He hates it so much. But after talking to Reid for a few minutes earlier, he knows it's better to anticipate this one and get ahead of it. They'll have to defend their choice to take the jet and follow Rossi into his cold case that wasn't even on the BAU's radar.

"How was your day?" Derek asks, flipping the page. Reid shrugs and sets his bag down.

"Ultimately uneventful." If only Derek knew. Maybe he'd tell him later, but not now.

Hotch passes through the bullpen without looking at anyone. He just heads directly to his office and shuts the door.

He's got papers to sign.

Derek has his doubts about how uneventful things were, at least given Hotch's icy demeanor. Usually he would at least have greeted them, asked how the case went, asked how the reports were coming so he had a clue about what happened. He did none of those things.

Later, when everyone has settled into the late afternoon workload, Derek enters Hotch's office without knocking. He doesn't do that anymore. Hasn't in a long time. In one hand he's got a mug of tea, steaming and hot, and the other he uses to shut the door behind him.

“Hotch,” he says, approaching the desk cautiously. The divorce papers are right there, signed and ready to be handed over. There are damp places where the tears soaked in, and his bright gold ring sits right at the top. Derek already knows the answer to the question he's about to ask, but it dances over his lips nonetheless. “You good?”

Hotch looks up at him from beneath thick, wet lashes and shakes his head. “No.”

#aaron hotchner #spencer reid #derek morgan #hotchgan #hotch x morgan #criminal minds #fanfiction #autistic hotch #autistic reid #autistic aaron hotchner

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