#i got a lot to apologize to a lot of people for | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yeonzzzn · 5 hours

Note

HIIIIII I've been thinking a lot these last few days.... heeseung being an angel (could be a fallen angel or something) falling in love with a mortal, but they can't be together because angels and human beings together are completely prohibited... a totally hot and forbidden love

— 🐇💨

I am so in love with this concept. the minute this popped up in my askbox I knew I had to write it asap. I apologize for this being so long idk what happened my fingers just wouldn’t stop typing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

fallen angel: lee heeseung

pairing: heeseung x afab!reader word count: 7.6k

Heeseung never sinned. Ever. Never once said anything bad about anyone, never once cursed, never once gossiped, kept his emotions in check, never had a single terrible thought about someone else, never committed any crimes, and always—always—had a pure heart.

That was until you.

Heeseung was God's most prized angel. He did anything and everything that was asked of him. Never once defying God’s wishes or commands. His pure heart is the whole reason that when he well, died, he was the first one selected to be God’s second hand. Heeseung lived his whole life dedicated to his church and doing nothing but good.

But you? Oh, you. You were the first temptation Heeseung ever got.

“I have a job for you, my angel,” God spoke to him.

Heeseung knelt down on one knee with one hand over his chest, bowing his head, “Anything for you, my savior.”

“We have a family that needs a blessing, a pure angel to take away their worries. They are struggling hard. Go down to land and help this family. I trust you with this one, Heeseung. Please.”

Heeseung didn’t hesitate. Nodding and accepting the job God had to offer him.

Heeseung stretched his wings, preparing for his flight down to the mortal lands. The trip didn’t take long and the minute the tips of his shoes touched solid land, his whole outfit changed and his wings were hidden. From the bright white robes and dress shoes to tanned brown boots, light blue jeans, and a black button-up dress shirt. It was one of Heeseung’s favorite outfits to wear when he came to the mortal lands.

He looked around the city he landed in, watching as the mortals passed by him and crossed over the street. The sounds of cars honking and people yelling filled his ears along with the smells of the city. Heeseung smiled, remembering his time as a mortal and seeing how much had changed over the thousand years he’d been away.

Pushing away the memories of the past, Heeseung starts his walk in the direction God told him this family would be. He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, smiling brightly as he walked past the mortals, none of them paying him any mind as they went about their normal lives.

“Fuck!”

Heeseung chuckled at the curse, shaking his head. He wasn’t used to hearing such vulgar language. His eyes searched the sea of people around him to see where I came from, his curiosity taking over him.

You were running down the street, hairtye in your mouth as you pulled back your long hair back into a ponytail, quickly pulling the band from your mouth and twisting it in your hair. With how you were rushing, Heeseung knew you were the one he heard the curse come from. You looked down at your watch, letting more curses escape your lips, “I am going to be so fucking late! Holy fucking shit.”

Heeseung raised his brows at the language, “Jeez…mortals never change.” He wasn’t judging, he understood life as a mortal wasn’t the easiest and everyone had their roles to play. It wasn’t his job to judge anyway, he left that up to God.

But you kept pushing along, pulling your phone from your pocket and dialing a number, “Pick up, please for the love of fucking God pick up!”

You were so focused on getting to your destination that you didn’t even realize you ran into Heeseung, smacking your shoulder into his. Heeseung didn’t move an inch at your touch, but you nearly fell to your knees. Heeseung stopped to face you, making sure you were okay but seeing you catch your balance before tumbling over, looking back over your shoulder and snarling at him, “Asshole…” you mumbled under your breath as you still pushed along down the street.

Heeseung blankly stared at you then shoved his hands back in his pockets and continued to his destination, saying a small prayer for you.

It didn’t take much longer for Heeseung to reach the small house right outside the city. He took a deep breath and smiled wide, knocking on the door.

A man opened the door, his eyes puffy and red from crying and now full of confusion looking at Heeseung, “Can I help you?”

Heeseung smiled even more, “I am here to help you.”

The man gave him an even more confused look, “Excuse me?”

A small cough could be heard within the house and soft sobs followed after it.

Heeseung peeked into the house, “Your child, they’re sick,” the man looked down to the ground, putting his lips into a thin line, “I can help. I was sent here to do so.”

The man flicked his eyes back up at Heeseung, studying him, “Are you the angel we asked God to send?”

Heeseung gently nodded.

He was led into the home and to their child’s bedroom. The mother was hovering over her child, who looked to be about eight. His eyes were tightly closed and his breathing was uneven. He was going to die soon, Heeseung could sense it, could see it. The poor boy still had so much life left to live, and that’s why God sent Heeseung here. To heal this child.

Heeseung placed a gentle hand on the mother, her pleading eyes staring up at him. Once she realized who he was, she reached for his hand, “Dear angel, save my baby boy.”

Heeseung held her hand tight and nodded. With his free hand, he placed it against the boy's chest, sending a small ounce of healing power to him, reciting a prayer. The boy's mother and father joined him in the prayer, their cries slowly fading out as the heartbeat and breathing of their child became steady.

The family thanked Heeseung more times than he could count. His face hurt from the amount of smiling he did during those hours he sat in their home. They even cooked him dinner as a thanks. Once Heeseung walked out of the home, he understood why God chose this family. The boy had much life to give, and his parents were good and pure souls.

Heeseung walked back into the city, hands behind his back as he stared at the nightlife. Loving all the lights that lit up the city perfectly. The hustling life of mortals laughing with friends and family as they head out for dinner or to even party.

Hopefully, God won’t mind that I take a small walk before heading back.

Heeseung walked as far as he could, finally deciding it was time to head back to the golden gates.

That was until he saw you.

Heeseung stood at a crosswalk, cars flying by and the wind blowing his silver hair and clothes in all directions. You popped up to his right, your phone once again was in your hands, thumbs pressing away at the screen.

Time seemed to slow down then. The red hand that illuminated the crosswalk to not cross flashed its light. The cars fast-paced slowed. Heeseung turned his head to look at you, watching as you continued to step from the sidewalk and into the street, not paying any attention.

His heart raced faster, eyes widening as he looked to his left, seeing a car passing into the next lane without using a blinker and showing no signs of slowing down or even honking their horn at you to show they were there.

Heeseung acted fast, stepping down from the curb, hands reaching out to grab your shoulders and pull you back against him. Heeseung released his wings, wrapping them around you and twirling you around and back to the sidewalk.

Time went back to normal, and your heart nearly jumped out of your chest. How stupid could you be to walk out into the street in the middle of rush hour while on your phone? You could have died. That’s when you noticed the white wings wrapped over you along with the strong arms that held you tightly.

You looked up, resting your head against his chest, seeing it was the man you ran into earlier, seeing him staring back down at you. His chest raised and fell quickly, his warm breath touching your face. He’s an angel. An actual, real-life angel. Ones you’ve only been told about from stories as a child.

Heeseung pulled his wings back behind him and hid them from the human eye once again. Seeing the other mortals around didn’t take any notice. He continued to stare into your eyes, “You silly little thing.”

The longer the two of you looked at each other, the more your heart wanted to rip from your chest. He was beautiful. Breathtaking. You felt safe in his arms and without knowing you leaned more against him, Heeseung, as if on instinct, held you tighter against him.

“Thank you,” you finally managed to say, your cold hands touching his where they sat against your forearms, “For saving me.”

Feeling your cold touch brought Heeseung back to reality. He smiled and released his arms from you, “Try and pay better attention next time, okay?”

You turned to fully face him. Every fiber of your being wanted to cling to him. Your heart is calling for him.

Heeseung kept his smile, giving you a small nod, and prepared to turn away.

“Wait!” you quickly shouted, your hands now grasping at the back of his shirt. Heeseung looked over his shoulder at you, “Let me make it up to you, for saving me. And to apologize for calling you an asshole earlier.”

Heeseung chuckled, “Being nice to an angel won’t get you into heaven, silly mortal.”

You bit at the skin on your lip, “I really just want to thank you.”

Heeseung looked up to the sky and then shrugged. God can wait for a bit longer.

He followed close behind you until you stood in front of your apartment door and with shaky hands you unlocked the door and went inside, Heeseung trialing in.

He held his hands behind his back, looking over every inch of your studio apartment.

“I’m sorry it’s so small…” you whispered, closing the door behind you.

Heeseung turned to face you, his smile still on his face, “It’s not my place to judge what you do or do not have. Your space is perfect if you make it perfect.”

Right. You forgot he’s an angel. You kicked out of your shoes, reaching your hands up to unzip your jacket, noticing how quickly he turned around to look away from you.

You drop your hands to your sides, “Want anything to eat or drink?” you ask quickly walking to your kitchen, “I am not sure what angels eat?”

Heeseung chuckled, slowly turning to face you, “You don’t seem to be questioning what I am.”

You gave him a small smile as you pulled two water bottles from your fridge, “I always believed. Believed we humans had someone looking after us, whether that was a God or angels or anything else.”

Heeseung tilted his head, “What if I was anything else? You let me into your home so willingly.”

You swallowed, not even taking into conversation that the man in front of you could be the other type of angel. One that was meant to draw you in and kill you, “Are you going to hurt me?”

Heeseung took a few steps towards you, “I would never.”

You slowly nodded at him and handed him his water bottle, “I am YN, by the way.”

Heeseung gently took the water from you, his fingers brushing over yours, “Heeseung. Second hand to God.”

You widen your eyes, you weren’t just dealing with an angel, but you were dealing with God’s TOP angel.

Heeseung stared at you, “Something wrong, YN?”

You shook your head, “You’re just…beautiful.” you didn’t know where that came from or why you even spoke those words from your mouth.

His heart picked up its pace, and his ears started to burn red. He took steps away from you and finally took sips of his water.

Heeseung thought you were beautiful too, a little silly mortal, but beautiful nevertheless. His heart was pulling to you and he needed to leave soon and quickly.

He cleared his throat, “You wanted to thank me, but that’s not necessary. I was simply doing my job.”

You set your water down on the table, “You saved my life, I need to thank you somehow.”

Heeseung looked at your water bottle, watching how the droplet fell down the plastic and touched the wood of the table. He sat his bottle down beside yours, “Tell me your thanks then, I must return soon.”

You didn’t know what came over you or what you were even thinking. All you knew was you were now standing before Heeseung, looking up into his brown eyes.

Heeseung stared back down into your eyes, loving the way their color shined under the light of your kitchen. You stood on your tiptoes, placing your hands on his shoulders.

“YN,” he whispered, his hands now on your biceps, pulling your feet back flat to the floor, “I can’t accept that.”

“Just one,” you whisper back, once again standing on your tiptoes, becoming inches away from his face.

Heeseung’s lips parted, frozen in place as he watched you move closer. You brushed your nose against him, slowly closing your eyes as your lips touched together.

Heeseung kept still as you held your lips to his, his heart threatening to rip from his chest. But once you pulled away, he was pulling you back.

His hands moved from your biceps to your face, keeping you in place as he kissed you back. Lips moved together as if he’d never kissed someone before.

Heeseung had his fair share of kisses when he was mortal, but none of them felt like yours do. Tasting so sweet and addicting. You kissed him back with the same amount of passion he was giving you, roaming your hands from his shoulders to his neck, fingers tangling in the silver strands of his hair.

You don’t know if it was you or Heeseung who deepened the kiss, all concepts of time and the world around you were out the window at his touch. At the way his hands slid from your face to your hips. At how your body was pressed so close to his and how you were now pressed against the wall of your apartment.

It was just kissing. You two were just making out and nothing else. But you wanted more, so much more. Heeseung too, wanted more of you. He couldn’t get enough. He rocked his hips against yours, his growing hard cock rubbing you just in the right way that your lips released from his to softly moan.

Heeseung was off you within seconds of hearing that lewd, sweet sound come from your mouth.

He pressed his back against the door, palming the door in hopes of getting his hands to stop shaking as he pants to catch his breath.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, “I’m sorry.”

Heeseung glances up at you, his pupils blown out and filled with the want he has for you. You wanted to run to him, pull him back into you. But the moment his wings, his oh-so-beautiful wings, appeared from behind him, you knew your time with him was over.

“We can’t see each other again,” Heeseung quickly says, turning and reaching for the door handle.

“Why?!” you quickly asked, pushing yourself off the wall, “I want to see you again.”

Heeseung flung the door open and rushed to the railing, “I can’t sin. You’re too tempting.” You stood in the doorway, watching as he climbed the railing, stretching his wings out. He glanced behind him, taking one last long look at you, feeling his heartbreaking, “Goodbye, silly mortal.”

And then he was gone. He shot into the sky so far and fast you didn’t have time to blink, “Goodbye, Heeseung.”

—

Heeseung kneeled at the altar, bringing his hands together, and doing his daily prayers and offerings. Pushing every thought of you out of his mind.

It’s been days since he left you. Days since he felt the warmth of your body against his. How your lips tasted and moved against his own. How you made his body feel. The things he wanted to do to you…the thoughts that ran through his head about you.

Heeseung squeezed his eyes, doing everything he could to shove the thought of you down and away. To forget about you and what had happened. He couldn’t have you no matter what. Angels and mortals can’t be together anyway. It was forbidden. Angels' jobs are to protect, provide guidance, to watch over, and ensure the safety of the mortals. To not intervene and only to do so when it’s necessary. Everything about you was against the rules. He couldn’t have relationships with you.

Heeseung stood from the altar, turning to see his brothers standing behind him, “My apologies,” he said to the six of them, “I took a bit longer this morning. Please take your turn.”

He stepped aside, watching as the youngest and newest angel in their ranks took to the alter first.

“What took you so long to return the other night, brother?” Niki, the youngest, asked as he placed his hands together and knelt, “We missed you at dinner.”

Heeseung placed his hands behind his back, “I was sent on a job. The family I helped offered me food as a thanks.”

Sunoo and Sunghoon knelt down beside Niki, copying the prayers.

Jay and Jake kept their eyes on Heeseung, their eyes telling Heeseung everything he needed to know: that they knew where he was that night.

Jungwon gave Heeseung a dimpled smile as he knelt beside the others, “It was very nice of them to return their thanks in dinner for you. Make sure to keep contact with them. It would be the right thing to do.”

Heeseung nodded at the younger, “Of course. Already plan to.”

He looked back at Jay and Jake, giving them a small nod and walking past them.

“We know,” was all Jay said in a whisper only he, Jake, and Heeseung could hear.

Heeseung stopped a few steps behind them, keeping his hands behind his back and head held high, “I know.”

“Only Jay and I,” Jake added, his Aussie accent coming out in a hushed tone, “You know the rules.”

“I know,” Heeseung said again, “I saved her life and she thanked me the way she felt fit.”

“That’s not what we are worried about though,” Jay sighed, keeping his eyes locked on the younger ones in front of him, folding his wings tightly to his back.

Heeseung knew the two of them were being nosey. That they peeked down onto the mortal lands and saw everything that happened.

“Will you tell on me?” Heeseung asked, keeping himself held high.

Jake chuckled, “Of course not,” he finally turned to look at Heeseung, staring at the back of his head, “You just have to promise to never see her again.”

Heeseung closed his eyes, “I know the rules. I appreciate you two looking after me, but I am the eldest angel, the most trusted, and I wouldn’t break that trust. Not to God, or you six.”

“We want you to promise,” Jay mumbled, “Say you promise.”

“I promise.”

Jay and Jake nodded, joining their brothers at the alter, leaving Heeseung standing alone. He walked out of the chapel and into the garden. He hated having to make that promise, but knowing it was necessary to make. Not just for his brother's peace of mind, but also his own.

The day went on like normal with his normal scheduled things. It was enough to distract him away from the conversation that morning with Jay and Jake. Enough to keep his mind off and away from you.

That was until night fell and he returned to his room with his back pressed to his shower wall, head leaned over, and letting the water slip down his head and face.

Heeseung reached his fingers up to his lips, rubbing the pads over them, remembering the way your lips felt pressed against him. He ran his hands from the back of his neck to his shoulders, touching every inch of his upper half that your hands touched.

Heeseung started to pant, his heart beating faster at the memories of you pressed against him. The moan that left your vulgar mouth. The pulsing pressure Heessung felt on his lower half was making him shake. He wrapped his hand around himself, slowly stroking up and back down. Biting his lips to keep any noise from coming out.

This wasn’t like Heeseung. This wasn’t his normal behavior. And if he got found out…it would be over for him. It would have been over for him a long time ago if he was caught with you that night. Or if he continued any further. The moment Heeseung would have touched you inappropriately, or slid himself inside you…

Heeseung’s breath hitched, his thumb circling the tip. His eyes were glued to how red and angry it looked, how badly he wanted to feel your hand in place of his.

He quickly let go of himself, turning the warm water from hot to cold, his body shivering from the new temperature and removing his thoughts about you.

Even after his shower and now lying in bed, his thoughts trailed to you and the small time he spent with you. His heart ached, begging to hear your voice one more time. He forced himself to sleep. Forced himself to wake up that next morning and go about his normal schedule. To go back to bed and repeat over and over.

Heeseung broke the minute he landed back in the city, sneaking out of heaven for the night and landing himself at your front door. His shaky hands banging on your door.

You jolted awake, angrily stomping your way to the front door, “What the fuck do you want it’s almost two in the morning!” you snapped pulling the door open to see Heeseung standing before you, his wings quickly pulled tightly to his back as he pushed himself inside, his hands immediately cupping your face and lips attaching to yours.

“Hee—Heeseung,” you said his name in between kisses, eventually pressing your hands to his chest and pushing him. Heeseung pulled back, looking at you with so much worry, “What are you doing here?” You asked.

Heeseung slid his hands from your face to your arms, thumbs rubbing at your skin, “Do you want me to go?”

“No!” you said a bit too hastily, fingers gripping at the fabric of his dark blue shirt, “I’ve missed you so much please don’t go.”

It was true, you missed him more than you wanted to admit and the weeks you spent away from him were torture. You barely knew him, knew next to nothing about him actually. But something about him pulled you in. The moment you felt his arms and wings wrap around you, your heart was his for the taking.

You did enough research after he left about why he couldn’t stay with you. Why he couldn’t be doing this with you. He’s breaking enough rules as it is to be here with you right now.

Heeseung kissed you again, letting his wings drop to the floor, “I’ve missed you so much,” he said between each kiss, “You’re so darn tempting.”

You giggled at his words, wrapping your arms around his neck, “I thought you couldn’t sin,” you teased him.

Heeseung left your lips to kiss down your neck, “Kissing isn’t a sin. As long as I don’t touch you or have sex with you…” he brushed his lips back up to your jaw, “Just don’t tempt me to do anything but kiss you.”

You did as the angel told you. Doing nothing but letting him kiss you and keeping your hands to yourself even if it was killing you to not touch him. Heeseung kept his hands on your face, thumbs gently rubbing back and forth across your jawline, slowly walking you to your bed and laying you down. Heeseung climbed in over you, gently laying his body down on top of yours, wanting to be as close as legally possible for him to be.

He didn’t move, no matter how hard he got. He didn’t touch you anywhere but your arms and face, even if his hands were screaming to touch every inch of you. All he did was keep his lips connected to yours, kissing you so gently and softly until both of yours and his lips were swollen.

You fell asleep in his arms but awoke to an empty apartment but a handwritten letter was on your kitchen table, Heeseung telling you he would be back when he could.

And Heeseung kept true to his word. He always came back to you. He always held you close in his arms and kissed you gently. Heeseung fell hard in love with you. No amount of time spent with you was ever enough, not when he had to go back to Heaven before anyone noticed he was gone. Do his normal duties and schedule, wait a couple of days, then crash land back at your door.

Each time was harder than the last. You became his every thought and wish. And Heeseung was slowly starting to lose himself when it came to you. His immortal life started to become more mortal again being with you. Mostly with how much your existence was starting to tempt him more and more.

Heeseung was slowly starting to break the rules even more than he already was. Brushing his hands over your breasts slowly, tangling his fingers in your hair, rubbing his cock against your heat, and shoving his tongue down your throat. He would undress you, undress himself, leaving you in nothing but your bra and panties and him in his boxers, trying so hard to keep his eyes on your face and not trace every inch of your almost bare body.

You were the devil that sat on his shoulder, breaking him away from who he really was. Never once in his life, before he died and after, was he ever faced with temptation like this.

You made it so hard for him to behave. Not when he’d hear your sweet moans fill his ears as you buck your hips against his to feel his length and run your hands down every inch of his body.

Heeseung nearly lost his mind when your hand wrapped around him for the first time, feeling how your fingers pumped him so slowly and oh so so good.

“Angels don’t act like this, darling,” Heeseung whispered in your ear as your hand squeezed him, “You’re such a devil to me.”

You kissed his neck, stroking his cock a bit faster, “I’m just a devil in disguise,” you teased him, knowing full well Heeseung was loving this banter.

“I love you,” he kissed your ear, rocking himself in your hand, “I love you so much.”

Heeseung had you stop before things got too out of control. Redressing himself and you before giving you a final kiss goodnight and leaving.

You always hated to watch him go. To watch as your angel flew away into the night and having to count down the days until you could see him again.

—

Heeseung stood before the altar, his six brothers surrounding behind him along with the other angels of heaven. He kept his hands pressed behind his back, “You called for me, my savior?”

God hummed, “We have a lot to discuss, my angel.”

Heeseung glanced around at his brothers, taking note of their facial expressions. Then looked at the other angels, they wore the same looks, just not as hurt as his brothers.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what this was about. Heeseung knew. His luck ran out.

“What would you like to discuss?” Heeseung asked, giving a smile.

“About your wrongdoings.”

Heeseung’s smile faded, dropping his kind and happy act. He had to admit, he no longer was happy being here in heaven. Not when his heart was on mortal lands. Heaven was back on Earth. Not in these clouds. Not anymore.

“Are you wanting me to confess my sins, my lord?” Heeseung kept his head lifted, straightening up his posture.

“Yes,” God said with a sigh, “And why you betrayed me.”

Heeseung pulled his wings tighter to his back, squeezing his hands together, “I am in love with her.”

His six brothers closed their eyes tightly, tilting their heads down towards the white morale floor, hands in fists. The other angels gasped at the confession.

“State the rest of your sins, Lee Heeseung.”

Heeseung lifted his head up higher, “I’ve touched her. Let her touch me. Slept beside her and held her in my arms. Rubbed my body against hers until she was moaning.”

The gasps of the other angels grew louder, their chattering voices echoing across the chapel.

“But you never slept with her, have you?”

Heeseung smirked, “No, I haven’t had sex with her. But I want to.”

More gasps filled the chapel. Jay now appearing at Heeseung’s side, his hand gripping his shoulder, “Stop talking man!”

Heeseung shook his brother off him, “Go and stand back where you were, Jay.”

“Jongseong,” God said quickly, “Please.”

Jay slowly walked back, standing close to Jake.

“What has she done to you? My angel? Why did you fall into her temptation when she’s a devil.”

Heeseung tensed his face and body. Wings pulled even tighter against him to keep them from shaking out of pure anger, “She’s a human being. Nothing even close to those damned demons.”

More gasps from the other angels.

“You will watch your mouth when speaking to me.”

Heeseung chuckled, looking down to the floor, “My apologies.”

Heeseung thinned his lips in a line. He was filled with so much conflict. This place wasn’t his home, not when you were down below waiting for him. Heeseung loved his time here, loved helping mortals who needed him, and loved his six brothers and even the jobs and duties he had here. Spending time with you did change him, making him want more out of his immortal life than to just exist. He wanted to live. He wanted to love. He wanted life with you.

Heeseung held his head high again, relaxing his body, “I confess to all my sins. My thoughts I’ve had of her, the things I want to do to and with her and I confess to betraying you and your trust, my savior.”

God sighed, silence filling the room. Heeseung knew what was next. His punishment.

“Jay, Jake, Sungoon, Sunoo, Jungwon, and Niki,” God called for them, “Stand by Heeseung.”

Heeseung watched his six brothers stand closer to him, seeing the looks on their faces as God spoke to them one one-on-one in their minds, telling them exactly what they needed to do.

Niki and Jungwon held his legs down, while Sunghoon and Sunoo stretched his arms out and held a death grip on them.

Heeseung’s body shook, pure fear covering his face when he felt Jay’s and Jake’s hands touch his wings, “No,” Heeseung whispered, fighting as much as he could to pull his wings back, “Not my wings.”

Jay gritted his teeth as he forced Heeseung’s left wing out, stretching it out to its full span. Jake did the same, biting down hard on his lip and breaking the skin.

“This is your punishment, Lee Heeseung,” God said with a stern voice, “You lose your place here. And I’m taking back your wings I granted you.”

Heeseung pushed and pulled at his brothers, doing anything he could to get them off him but their grips held hard.

“Heeseung, please,” Sunghoon begged as he gripped his wrist harder, “Stop.”

“Hyung please,” Sunoo begged.

But Heeseung kept fighting to break free.

“ENOUGH!”

Everyone stood still as the room shook with God’s shout. Sweat rolled down Heessung’s face, his eyes piercing through everyone surrounding him.

“Take his wings. Now.”

Heeseung smirked, “To hell with all this,” he whispered.

Jay and Jake looked at each other, their tears swelling up in their eyes as God whispered in their minds to take Heeseung’s wings. To rip them from his body.

They pulled and Heeseung shouted. His voice echoed off the walls as Jay and Jake pulled with their full strength. Sunghoon and Sunoo kept their grips on his wrists tight and same with Jungwon and Niki at his legs, holding on for dear life.

It was killing Jay to have to do this, to watch his own hands pull his older brother's wing right out of his body. He could only imagine the pain Heeseung was feeling. And Jake? He was in tears. He could feel inch by inch of Heeseung’s right wing stripping from his back. He could already see the blood spilling onto his white robes and onto the floor. Seeing Heeseung fling his head back and forth in a rage as his voice bounced off the walls and echoed throughout the whole chapel. The pained faces his other six brothers had at having to witness this.

Jake wished he could turn back time, wished he could have stopped Heeseung from sneaking out. Stopped the angel who caught Heeseung dropping down to the mortal lands and kept him from getting nosey and running his mouth to God. But it was all too late. Heeseung would get his wings stripped from him and pushed down to the Earth to fall. All Jake could do now was pray he survived long enough to make it to you.

Heeseung clenched his jaw as the last bit of his wings was stripped from his body, his back spilling blood and muscles aching from the loss of where his wings once were. His beautiful white feathered wings lost all their life and slumped in Jay’s and Jake’s hands, blood dripping down them.

His brothers stepped away from him, watching as Heeseung fell to the floor, too dizzy from the blood loss.

“You will now fall,” God sighed, “You will be stripped of your immortality and fall to Earth. You will crawl to your lover and show her where her sins got you.”

Heeseung weakly smirked, eyes closing, “Gladly.”

Heeseung didn’t know who picked him up by his arms and dragged him out of the chapel, he just knew it wasn’t any of his brothers. The grip the other two angles had on him was proof enough that it wasn’t any of the ones he loved.

The six of them stood in the chapel still, eyes locked on Heeseung's wingless back, watching the blood pool from the wounds and stain his white robes and the marble floor.

They watched helplessly as Heeseung was pushed off the edge.

—

You heard a faint knocking on your door. At first, you thought you might have gone crazy and heard things. But once the knocking kept happening and then you heard something fall, you quickly rushed to the door, opening it to find Heeseung still in his white-stained robes. His back was pressed against the railing and his skin was pale.

“Heeseung, oh my god!” you dropped down to his side, cupping your hands to his face, “What happened?!”

Heeseung was barely able to hold his eyes open, “My wings…they stripped my wings from me.”

You bit at the skin on your cheek, quickly standing back to your feet and pulling him up with all the strength you had, pulling his arm over your shoulders and gripping your arm around his waist, pulling him inside your apartment.

Heeseung barely made it a couple of steps in before falling to his knees, you losing your grip on him and your eyes finally landing on the holes in his robes and the blood that still continued to push out.

“Heeseung,” you fell back to his side, “You need to get to a hospital.”

“And tell them what?” he breathed out, fingers gripping the carpet as he pants, “That I am a fallen angel who got their wings forcefully torn from his body?”

Heeseung wasn’t trying to be snappy or rude, truly. The pain was just so immense he couldn’t control anything.

You sat back on your heels, watching the love of your life suffer. This was your fault. It was all your fault. You’re the one who asked him to come home with you that fateful day. You’re the one who kissed him. Who tempted him. You pulled him in and touched him. You did this to him.

Heeseung could practically hear your brain turning over and over. He pushed himself to his side, reaching his hand up to grip your chin, forcing you to look at him, “This is not your fault, you hear me? Not even close.”

The tears swelled in your eyes now, falling into his touch as he cupped his hand to your cheek, “Heeseung…”

“Baby,” he whispered, “I need you to do as I say, okay? My immortality hasn’t been taken from me yet, I will heal a bit fast but I need my wounds covered and taken care of, can you do that for me?”

You nodded, placing a kiss on his palm. Heeseung told you exactly what you needed to do. Starting with tearing his robes off his body and ripping it into a big enough strand to be wrapped around him. Then using any medical alcohol you had in the apartment and pour it onto his wounds and hold a towel to them. It killed you having to press the towels to his wounds, feeling the massive hole where his beautiful wings once were…the pain Heeseung must be feeling…

But you took care of him. Doctoring his wounds to the best of your ability and doing as he instructed you. You wrapped the pieces of what was left of his robe around his chest and back, tying it as tightly as you could.

You helped him to your bed, steadying him up as he sat down. Heeseung wasn’t as pale as earlier, but you could still see the pained expression.

“Hey,” He whispered, cupping your face, “Stop thinking whatever it is.”

You looked away from him, “I caused this. I tempted you.”

Heeseung shook his head, “Baby, look at me,” you looked up at him, “I did this of my own free will,” he slid his hands from your face and down to your waist, “I knew the consequences, and did it anyway,” he squeezed your waist, “I love you. I gave up heaven for you.”

You wanted to fight him, to yell in his face about giving up eternity for you. But you also couldn’t help but feel so loved at this moment. That this angel found love with you and was willing to give up everything for you.

Heeseung kissed you, pulling you between his legs, and deepening the kiss.

“Heeseung,” you said, pulling away from him, “You’re injured, you need to rest.”

“No,” he shook his head, pulling you down into the bed and towering over you, “I’ve waited,” he said, his eyes growing lustful and his fingers tearing into your shirt and ripping it in half, pulling it off your body, “so damn long,” sliding his hands down to your shorts, looping his fingers in and pulling them down, taking your panties down with, “to have you like this.”

Heeseung kicked your legs apart with his knees, leaning up straight to unbutton and unzip his black slacks, wiggling them off his body, leaving him in his boxers. You pulled yourself up on your elbows, opening your mouth to protest that this could wait. But Heeseung wasn’t having any of it. He connected his lips back to yours, his hands cupping your breasts and loving the way you moaned into his mouth.

“Oh hell baby,” he said between kisses, “I love how these feel between my fingers.”

You kept your lips attached to his as if your life depended on it, bucking your hips up onto his.

Heeseung trailed his lips down to your neck, squeezing your breasts then sliding them behind to unhook your bra, sending the fabric off somewhere in the apartment.

Heeseung lifted himself back up, tearing down at your bare body. So perfect. So beautiful. So his.

“You’re so perfect,” he whispered, connecting his forehead to yours, tracing his fingertips down your body and stopping at your cunt, slowly pushing his fingers in, “So wet,” he groaned, rubbing his hard cock against your thigh, “Hmm I can’t wait to feel your cunt wrapped around me.”

You giggled at him, “Angels don’t say such dirty things,” you teased.

“Yeah?” he smirked, plunging his fingers in and out faster, “Angels don’t finger this good, do they?”

You squirm underneath him, rolling your hips in sync with his fingers. Pushing your head back into your pillows and aches your back.

You gasped out at the loss of his fingers, watching as he pulled the remainder of his clothing off him. His hard cock was red and angry. Precum dripping from his tip.

Heeseung gripped both your thighs, pushing them to your chest, “Angels don’t do what I am fixing to do to you,” he smirked, lining his cock up to your entrance. With a deep breath, he pushed himself inside you. Heeseung’s moans fill the apartment along with your own.

His grip on your thighs tightened, his nails digging into the skin. He pulled his hips back and pushed forward. Picking up his pace and pounding into you like a madman. His pupils were blown out and his breaths were unsteady. This. This was what he gave up heaven for. To feel your cunt wrapped around his cock. This was the real heaven.

“See, darling,” he groans, throwing his head back, “Angels don’t fuc-fuck this good,” he looked back down at you, loving your fucked out expression and how your hands gripped your bedsheets. Mouth slack as sweet moans spill from your lips. It turned you on so bad hearing Heeseung talk this way. To feel him so balls deep in your pussy, “Thank god I am not an angel, huh?”

Heeseung was the definition of looks like an angel but fucks like a demon. With the way he pistoned into you, the grip on your thighs, the dirty words leaving his mouth that you’ve never heard him say before tonight…Heeseung was never meant to stay an angel.

You continued to moan out with each of his hard thrusts, your core growing tight and threatening to snap at any moment, “Fuck you feel so good,” he breathes, “Moan my name baby,” he snaked his fingers to your clit, rubbing it aggressively, “Cum around my cock, I know you want to.”

You bit your lip, arching your back more at his touch, jaw going slack as you chanted his name. Chanting his name as if he were god and you were his follower. Your core snapping, your orgasm releasing around him and onto your bedsheets, “Fuck yes, baby,” he smiles, pumping himself even faster inside you, “Can’t believe I’ve waited this long to fuck you. Should have done it the night we met. Should have fucked this cunt, should have ruined you. Claimed you as mine from the beginning. Oh fuck—“

Heeseung’s body shuddered, cock twitching, “I’m fixing to cum baby,” he bit his lip, looking down and watching how his cock slides in and out, in and out, “Oh dear god, I’m cumming. Oh fuck I’m cumming.”

He kept his eyes locked on your pussy as he came, watching how his seed leaked from your hole as he continued to pump inside of you, milking his cock between your walls.

Heeseung fell on top of your body, his head resting on your chest as he steadied himself and caught his breath, wrapping his arms underneath you.

Heeseung spent his whole life being good and doing good. Never once being selfish or doing any selfish acts. Until you. You pulled this high-ranking angel down to his knees. Making him for once, want to be selfish. To do something for himself. To live freely and be free. To love and fuck you with every ounce of his being.

He was so in love with you and you were so worth getting his wings taken away from him. It's so worth his immortality being stripped.

Heeseung looked up at you, “Want to know a secret?” You tilted your head at him, waiting for him to continue, “I knew it would happen eventually. I wasn’t truly happy up there. My brothers and God knew it too. It was a matter of time before I fucked up and got caught,” he leaned himself up on his elbows, “I wanted it to happen. Because I wanted to be with you so bad. I knew they’d strip my wings. Take my immortality. Yeah, I enjoyed my wings and being immortal, but I wanted you so much more than that.”

You cupped his face, “My fallen angel,”

He placed a kiss on your lips, “I love you, YN.” Heeseung wrapped your legs around his waist, slowly moving again, “And I so love fucking this pussy.”

You giggled, bracing your hands onto his biceps, “I love you too, even if you gave everything up for me.”

Heeseung rested his forehead on yours, slowly fucking into you, “And I’d do it over and over again, all for you.”

—perm taglist: @alvojake @ikeuverse @woniebae @shawnyle @kangnina @jwnghyuns @in-somnias-world @zyvlxqht @aaa-sia @wonniethepoo @addictedtohobi @eneiyri @sparklovespink @skzenhalove @fakeuwus @cherry-park @vousty @ladyartemesia @criminalyun @cmoundiamante @enhaverse713586 @wondipity @lhsvibez @belowbun @jaeyunq @rikizm @kaykay11sworld @pockettwinzz @vixialuvs @seunghancore @enha-cafe @ohdeerhee @sunpov @zeeloveshee @hxxsxxng @moonrisearies @brownsugarbaybee

#yeonzzzn asks #— 🐇💨 anon #heeseunggie #heeseung #lee heeseung #heeseung x reader #reader x heeseung #heeseung smut #enhypen #enhypen x reader #reader x enhypen #enhypen fanfic #enhypen fanfiction #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios #enhypen smut #yeonzzzn writing

101 notes · View notes

azzibuckets · 17 hours

Text

Paper Rings [Part 3 | Paige Bueckers]

Paige Bueckers x fem!reader

Summary: part 3 of the paper rings series! some insight into paige and reader’s friendship before everything happened

A/N: some fluff and fillers before the angst gets real 💔💔

word count: 1.9k

masterlist | [part 1] | [part 2] | [part 4]

FLASHBACK: 1 YEAR AGO

“Is this yours?”

You had been rummaging through Paige’s closet, looking for a clean oversized shirt to wear to sleep. You two often slept over at each other’s place, to the point where your clothes were so mixed up you guys basically shared the same wardrobe. Unfortunately, Paige wasn’t the most organized person, so you were huffing and puffing as you hunted through the piles in the drawers.

The shirt you were holding up had LVN Volleyball Camp splayed across the front, so you knew it definitely wasn’t Paige’s. It was really big though, so you were curious as to whose it was. Just to know if you could wear it or not, you convinced yourself. Not because you were trying to confirm your fears - that this was another girl who Paige had held that wasn’t you.

Paige didn’t look up from her phone when you asked your question, so you crumpled the shirt up into a ball and tossed it at her head. You were no basketball player, but the balled up shirt smacked her on target, right in the face, and you fought back a self satisfied smile.

Paige finally looked up, giving you one of her soft smiles that tugged at your heartstrings. You loved when Paige looked at you like that, all gentle and affectionate, with half of her mouth turned up into a close mouthed grin that you knew so well.

“The shirt,” you gestured at it.

“Oh.” She looked down, unfolding the shirt and studying it before giving out a laugh. “Shit, sorry, that’s Stacy’s. I don’t know how it ended up in my closet. She was just here yesterday.” She folded the shirt into a neat little square and placed it next to her on the bed. “We must’ve been getting a little bit too wild,” she smirked, waggling her eyebrows at me.

Your heart sunk. Yesterday? You mean, you knew Paige talked to a lot of people, but she usually didn’t talk much about it, probably because she knows you get grossed out with too many details. Your chest stinging, you went to sit on the bed next to her. You didn’t wanna find a shirt anymore. All you wanted to do was go to sleep after a long day.

“What’s up? What’s got you being so emo?” Paige got down to lie her head in your lap, looking up at you with her bright blue eyes. Her was nose scrunched slightly, in the way that she does when she’s happy, and she reached up to play with the ends of your hair, twirling the strands between her fingers.

“Nothing. Just tired and moody,” you lied. You drummed your fingers against your thigh.

Paige smirked. “You really need to get laid, Y/N,” she laughed.

You managed to muster out a weak half smile in response to her words, trying to shove down the itchy pain that rose in your heart. “Shut up, Bueckers.”

“Make me.”

You rolled my eyes at her senseless teasing. “You’re such a flirt,” you groaned. Pushing her off your lap, you got up to look for your charger. You could feel Paige’s eyes on you as you moved about her room. Her legs were splayed out, and she was slumped on the bed. You hated when she did that, just looked at you. It felt like she was studying you all bare under a microscope.

The dynamic between the two of you had definitely shifted since last month, ever the drunken incident on the Big East championship night. You had mumbled apologies the morning after, when she had swung by before practice to make sure you were alright. She didn’t really listen to them, shoving you in that good natured way and assuring you that you guys were “chill like that” and that she could never be really mad at you.

But ever since then, there’d been a tension between the two of you. It spiked in moments like this, where she would start shamelessly flirting with you, trying to get a rise out of you. You didn’t mind much, per se, until you really thought about it and realized there was no meaning behind her flirting. But that was a disappointing reality you were trying to ignore.

“Come back to bed,” Paige called out. This time, you couldn’t tell if she’d meant for it to sound so sexual, but you crawled back into the bed where Paige was bundled up under the sheets.

“You look like a kid,” you giggled, “all wrapped up like a burrito.”

Paige rolled her eyes, a small smile playing at her lips. You felt her grab your waist and pull you closer so now you were both under the mountain of blankets and pillows she had formed. “You’re so warm,” she mumbled sleepily, pressing her forehead against your shoulder.

Both of you knew this was not how normal best friends slept together have a sleepover. But neither of you cared. This was where you felt most comfortable in the world, with Paige’s arm slung across your chest and one of her legs intertwined between yours. Her face was buried in your neck now, and her hair tickled your cheeks.

You could get used to this forever, you thought as you went to sleep.

——————————

Your heart thrummed with anticipation. Today was the day UConn would face off against Louisville in the Final Four of March Madness. You missed Paige; the last time you saw her was when you slept over two days ago. Ever since then, she’d be busy, understandably so. Basketball was her life, and she dedicated all of herself to the sport in times of competition like this.

Paige had gotten you a court-side ticket using one of the family spots allotted to her. Only her dad, step-mom, and Drew could make it to the game; her mom’s side of the family were on a vacation in Spain. On one side of you was Drew, who was happily bouncing in his seat, wearing one of his sister’s jerseys that was adorably big for him, and on the other side was Kayla, who’d gotten this game off but still wanted to watch anyways to support the girls.

As you watched the game, you oscillated between moments of pure joy and happiness when Paige sunk one of her 3s, moments of anger when one of the girls got fouled on without getting any calls for it, and moments of uncertainty when Louisville scored another point and the UConn girls tried to fight off their dejection from showing on their faces.

But you started to stay in the realm of uncertainty once Louisville started gaining, leading by 12 at the end of the third quarter.

“Are they gonna lose, Y/N?” Drew turned to you with a hopeful look in his eyes. You swallowed the knot in your throat. Basketball was everything to this team, and they’d worked so hard to get here. They didn’t deserve to lose, not when they were this close to the national championship.

“I hope not, buddy,” you responded quietly, and ruffled his hair. For the last quarter, Drew gripped your hand, swinging his legs anxiously as the game unfolded.

Despite the team’s best efforts, UConn fell to Louisville, 75-66, and the girls walked off the court, pain fresh in their eyes, their necks steeped with sweat and jerseys sticking damp to their chest. They moved tiredly, some of them being collected for brief post-game interviews while all of the others headed back to the locker rooms.

You made eye contact with Paige, and she pursed her lips, shaking her head sadly before slinging a towel around her neck and following the rest of the girls out.

“She looks so sad,” Drew’s voice was quiet next to you. You could tell he was upset too.

“It’s okay, buddy,” you assured him. “You know what? I bet they’re still selling the pretzels outside. Wanna come with me and see if they have any more churro bites?” Drew’s face lit up at that, and he eagerly shot up from his seat and grabbed your hand.

Paige’s dad, Bob, shot you a grateful smile. “We’ll find Paige, talk to her. You guys join us after, alright?”

You nodded, leading Drew out. To your luck, the pretzel stand had one more scoop of churro bites left that the man gave to you for free since they were closing down.

“Good, Drew?” You reached around him and stole one of the churro bites, popping one in your mouth.

“Y/N!” He groaned, sending me a fake glare. “Now you owe me.”

“I brought you all the way over here for pretzels and I owe you?” You gasped in offense, folding your arms and sending him a fake glare back.

He nodded solemnly. “Yeah. Now you owe me a piggy back ride.”

You laughed. “Okay, hop on,” you agreed, bending down. Drew cheered and jumped on your back, causing you to stumble forward. Both of you giggled as you straightened yourself, and you carried Drew all the way down to the locker rooms.

A security guard stood in the entrance to the hall of the locker rooms, a bored look in his eyes. As you tried to pass, he raised a hand. “Sorry miss,” he stated in a monotonous voice. “Players only.”

“It’s alright, she’s with me,” a voice called out. You looked up to see Paige at the end of the hall, her hair wet and tied up in a loose bun. Even after having just played a tough game, she looked unbelievably gorgeous, her cheeks rosy from the exertment from earlier.

“Paigey!” Drew clambered off my back and barreled into Paige, squeezing his little arms around her waist. Paige, ever the big sister, managed to push aside her feelings from the Final Four loss and look happy for Drew, whom she hadn’t seen in months.

“Hey, bud,” she said quietly, bending down to give him a proper hug. “I missed you.”

They talked in low tones for a moment, Paige smiling fondly at her little brother, before Azzi came along from the locker rooms and stole Drew away to meet the other girls.

Now it was just you and Paige in the hall. She stood up, and you moved to her. Before you knew it, she was in your arms, hugging you so tight you could barely breathe. You wrapped your arms around her, one hand coming up to play with the baby hairs at the nape of her neck, an effort to do whatever possible to comfort her.

“Hey,” you turned your head so your mouth was next to her ear. You whispered in her ear gently, “It’s not your fault.”

Paige drew back, her eyes glassy. Breathing shakily, she said, “All those 3s that I missed. Geno was counting on me. He said I had to step up since Azzi was injured, but I didn’t step up. I missed so many.”

I gripped her waist. “Look at me,” I said firmly. When she looked up to made eye contact, I brought my hands up to hold her face so that she couldn’t look away. “What about all the points that you did make? And all the plays you set up for your teammates? I don’t know much basketball, but I watched you out there, and you played with so much fierceness and grit. You played so goddamn good. Don’t be ashamed. At all.”

Paige reluctantly nodded, before pulling me into another hug. We stood there silently, her face buried in my neck and my arms hooked around her waist, until one of the UConn team assistants came bounding the hall.

“Uh,” he scratched his neck nervously as his eyes flitted between the two of us. “Sorry to interrupt, but it’s time for Paige to do press.”

Paige groaned. She stepped back, separating our bodies. “Come over later?” She whispered. “Please?” Her eyes searched mine, all hopeful. She was hurting, and hurting bad.

“Of course, P.” I squeezed her hand before stepping back too, letting the assistant shuffle her away to the press hall.

#paige bueckers #paige bueckers x you #uconnwbb #wbb #wcbb #fluff #enemiestolovers #friends to lovers

88 notes · View notes

eva-stator · 10 hours

Note

I think I can try to answer anons questions about the characterizations. Apologies in advance because this is LOOOOOONG.

First things first, to be in the SAS means more than just being a soldier. The British SAS are the literal top of the top, cream of the crop of their special forces. They are compared a lot with DEVGRU (seals) and Delta Force. Less than 1% of armed forces members can pass selection and complete their training. They are all, in their own ways, very hardened individuals. They’re all extremely intelligent in several skills, and equally competent. (This isn’t to stroke off the special forces. They are not superhuman and are never immune to dying from their own mistakes or pure bad luck. It’s extremely dangerous to be in counter terrorism or do raids like they do, and a not insignificant amount die of dumb mistakes or unavoidable circumstances. But they’re not to be fucked with either)

Soap is sniper, demolitions expert. These require math skills and chemical knowledge. He’s intelligent, stoic sometimes but more spirited. He wants to help. He gets angry when bad things happen, and he seems to really care about civilians. He’s got a strong sense of right and wrong, and voices his opinions always. He pushes buttons and boundaries, but he’s no braggart. Equally, he is intense. His humour is actually kinda dry and teasing, banter style humour. He’s not actually very silly.

Ghost is more ambiguous. He’s more rugged and detached. More introverted. He only starts joking with soap in alone, more than halfway through the game, so his trust is gained through time and effort. His humour is dry, sometimes dad jokes and sometimes fucked up jokes. Overall, he’s emotionally detached and goal oriented. He’s got a bit of the sillies though, just a taste.

Gaz is an extremely important main character. He was vital in all games, including the first mw reboot game in 2019, his character was made before soap and ghosts were. (Which is why his deliberate exclusion is a goddamn travesty). He’s spirited and strong, his skills of resistance to interrogation, escape and evasion, as well as VIP protection means he’s an intelligent independent mind. While injustices anger him, he’s got a level head and can cede to reason and keep that anger supressed, as well as be an important voice of reason. He can also be sympathetic and guiding, as seen in the mission where he guides a civilian through an extremely dangerous situation to safety.

Captain price is a staple character for the series. He’s confident but also slightly unhinged. He’s experienced, maybe a bit detached, he doesn’t give a god damn about consequences unless he gets what he wants or completes his goal. He will throw every law out the window. He will abandon basic morals and principles. He’s extremely dangerous and not to be fucked with or questioned. Hes called John “war crimes” price by the fandom for a reason. He has his more gentle side, but it’s rare and he will only show it to people he seems worthy of it, like Farah Karim or Kate laswell. He saves people but he does it roughly, he never seems to handle civilians with kid gloves, and he’s kinda rough and detached from them. He’ll save your life, but he’ll probably break your arm in the process and definitely won’t apologize for it. It’s important to note he knows what he does is fucked up. He knows people don’t like it. He gives people a way out, lets them choose if they really want to fully jump in the mud with him. He also smokes cigars with car windows rolled up. Absolutely evil action. He’s also my favourite and I love him in a way that you love a grizzly bear.

Obligatory Kate mention. Kate is a cia agent who is basically the leash that keeps John from acting out too hard. She reins them in, keeps them informed. She’s level headed and a quick thinker. She knows how the game of war is played, when and how to play by and within the rules and keeps everyone from breaking them in ways that could spiral out of control. She also knows when to let them do shady shit, and how to get them out of the messes they get themselves into. She is a very strong character, mainly in mind but also in body, and will get her hands dirty if she has to.

TLDR these are deceptively complicated characters, as in, it’s easy to mistake them as pretty surface level. They’re also easy to mistake with their fanon characterizations, which while fun, are often headcanons that the fandom has taken and run with. They’re also, not always very accurate depictions of the characters. If you wanna write them right, you gotta watch and listen to their mission dialogue.

These are generally simplified introductions based on what I observed playing the games.

Tip and trick, if you’re writing a dialogue line, imagine the characters voice saying it out loud. Say it out loud yourself. If you can fully hear the character saying the line, it’s probably a great line. If you can’t picture them saying it, tweak it until you can. This helps me a lot.

Thank you :)

Also love the kate mention

80 notes · View notes

steviewashere · 19 hours

Text

Balls in Laundry Baskets: An Apology

Rating: Teen and Up CW: Bitchy/Mean Steve Harrington, Mean Eddie Munson (Both Briefly and For Good Reason) Tags: Post Season 4, Post Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Steve Harrington & Lucas Sinclair Friendship, Eddie Munson Gets Put in His Place, Lucas Sinclair is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Protective Steve Harrington, Emotionally Hurt Lucas Sinclair, Emotionally Hurt Steve Harrington, Established Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Means Well He's Just Defensive, Hurt People Hurt Others

This is chapter one, which also includes the first two pages that I already posted. Please keep your expectations low, as I'm still working on the second and final chapter.

Read on AO3

🏀—————🏀 “So, you and Eddie, huh?”

Steve startles at the sound of a voice, deep and hushed, from where he’s been waiting in Hawkins High’s parking lot. Hellfire was supposed to be out by now—6:50pm if his watch is correct—it’s their first time back since March and it would be cordial. But it seems that only Lucas got that memo.

“Jesus Christ, Sinclair!” He yelps. Holds his right palm flat against his chest, trying his best to rescind the spike of panic that is crawling through him. “I thought I told you to quit doing that,” he harshly whispers, rubbing his palm against his shirt. The scratchy material of his polo a balm against his nerves.

“Sorry,” Lucas sheepishly murmurs. Speaking at a normal volume, he asks again, “So, you and Eddie?”

He rolls his eyes. “What about me and Eddie? Can’t I just hang out with the guy without being pestered?”

Lucas shrugs. “You can do whatever you want,” he states, but Steve can already tell there’s somehow more. “But I didn’t think you two would be…buddies. Considering how he feels about, y’know, sports and whatever.”

For a moment, Steve considers Lucas’s approach. His fidgeting hands and his slightly closed off eyes. The hunch to his shoulders and the general unease that accompanies talking about Eddie. Which, that’s particularly odd. Aren’t they buddies, Steve questions himself. Wrapped up in the Hellfire club, their mutual interest in Dungeons & Dragons, the ragtag group of nerds that they are—all of that is perfect for their oddball friendship, at least Steve thought so.

“What’s wrong with you and Eddie?” Steve asks, beating around the bush. He doesn’t do cryptic. And he especially doesn’t do it with somebody like Lucas, a kid already smarter than him by several margins.

There isn’t an answer right away. But Lucas’s shoulders drop. His eyes go from frustrated to…sad. “Remember my championship game?” He asks, though it seems a bit much of a topic change. What does this have to do with Eddie, Steve has to wonder.

“Well, yeah,” he answers instead, “I was there. Had a pathetic date with a girl I hardly enjoyed being around. Mocked Tammy Thompson with Robin. Watched you get that winning shot. It was a, genuinely, awesome championship game.” And that’s the truth. It’s the best one he’s ever witnessed. Which is saying something, considering he’d played several championship games. All of them, though, were major losses. He’ll take those to the grave with him, with how often his previous basketball teams teased him.

Lucas gives a harsh single nod, a small smile that whisks away as soon as it appears. “Right,” he mutters, “I remember.” He leans against the Beemer’s bumper, shoulder brushing with Steve’s. Looks forlorn towards the high school’s doors, where Eddie and the rest of the Hellfire bunch should be spilling out any moment now. Steve looks on with him. Listens as Lucas’s voice drops low, nearly angry, fully spiteful, “I begged Dustin and Mike to talk to Eddie about my game. To see if the Hellfire campaign—which would be happening the same night—could be moved. And I, look, I understand that D&D means a lot to all of them, it means something to me, too. But I was really hoping to see my friends there. If not my friends, then at least Erica.

“They didn’t move the campaign,” he states so bitter, Steve tastes the words on his own tongue, “apparently a game where you’re shooting ‘balls into laundry baskets’ is too…mainstream and norm-ie for Eddie. He refused to move his precious game. Then, get this, instead of getting some random kid to play, they egged Erica in.” Lucas drags his eyes away from the school, head turning slow to look at Steve. He follows suit, eyeing Lucas back. His stomach churns with the vitriol painting itself unsubtly across Lucas’s face. “Color me surprised, I guess, that he’s going out with a jock,” he states, voice carefully blank of anything.

Steve stares on at him. He didn’t know this was the case at all. Remembers getting the phone call about Dustin wanting him to play, but he figured that had something to do with him bugging Steve for the millionth time. Because that was something Dustin wanted. For Steve to play. And, granted, Steve refused because it was too nerdy—unimportant and embarrassing. Yet, now he’s looking into Lucas’s face. Where hurt etches itself like solid lines of chiseled marble. Being told, instead, that Eddie’s holding his own bias.

Maybe he hasn’t removed his biases towards high school nerds, not completely. But he’s coming undone from that mentality. Considering Nancy and Robin and Eddie—Dustin and Mike and Lucas—even Max, they’re all big nerds. They all have some sort of interest with Dungeons & Dragons or theater or video games and math. And he loves them all. Though, Steve’s never stopped to think about the opposite side of the coin. Tail-side, where balls in laundry baskets is considered taboo.

After a deep silence when Steve finally digests this information, his eyebrows furrow on their own accord. Mouth downturning into a harsh frown, one that he feels to the bottoms of his feet. He stops himself in time from balling his hands into fists, but the urge to do so snarls in him like a newly unmuzzled, wild dog. A dog, he thought, that he trained obedient away from his anger. But it seems like once the teeth are bared, they never truly hide away.

“That ass,” Steve snarks. “What—so I have to reconsider all my biases surrounding nerds, reconstruct how I view everybody around me, and realize how awesome it is. And—what—Eddie can just get away with that…bullshit? That’s…What the hell?” There’s a little bit more of a bite to his words than he had anticipated. But it really isn’t fair. The table turns and he’s better for it, sure, but Eddie just…That’s not fair. The dog growls louder, drool burbling in its chops, a bark forming in the back of its throat.

“That’s what I thought,” Lucas says, “and I know, I know, that Dustin and Mike tried everything in their power. And that Eddie was the one to, y’know, be the asshole. But I thought that maybe my friends would be on my side. That they’d skip the game, show Eddie up. Not get my little sister involved or have fun without me or…I don’t know.” And the way he says those last three words stings something acidic inside of Steve. Corrosion and battery acid hot and alive in his stomach. Anger reaching the surface of his skin, words crawling and resonating in his mouth.

The doors to the school open distantly and Lucas suddenly perks back up, blossoming from where he was wilted against Steve’s car. “Doesn’t matter,” he chirps, though it’s all fake, “at least I can play with them now, which is awesome.”

But before he can stride away, to where his bike is parked and locked up, Steve snakes a hand onto Lucas’s wrist. They lock eyes again. “I’ll talk to him,” Steve swears, “he’ll apologize.”

“Steve, you don’t—“

“You used sports as a means to fit in, right? Granted, popularity’s not all that cool and you know that especially now. But it was a…a—“ He snaps his fingers, searching for the word. “—A cover, something to find security in. And you had that. And that’s what the D&D game is to Eddie. Sports is my D&D, too.” He loosens his grip on Lucas’s arm. Neither make any sort of move. “Just because you were trying to find your people doesn’t mean you can be…” He chooses his next words carefully. “Ostracized or outcast by those who you found safety with before. Especially when those guys orbit around each other for the same reason. I’ll talk to him,” he urges, “and he will apologize, or else.”

Lucas gives him a softened look. “Thanks, Steve,” he mutters, “I wasn’t looking to start anything, but I appreciate you having my back. It really means a lot.” And then he shuffles away, towards his bicycle, small chat starting up with Mike and Dustin.

When Steve turns back towards the school, Eddie is sauntering towards him. Eyes wide. Smile big and easy. Yet, his soft features are all too nauseating to Steve’s chest right now. His heart aches. If Eddie thinks of Lucas’s interests that way, what does he think of mine?

He tamps down his annoyance and anger. Because Eddie takes his hand and is looking at him as if the world belongs to the two of them. But that hurt on Lucas’s face is like a dagger impaled in his brain when Eddie greets nice and low, “Hi, baby. Been thinking about you the entire time I was in there.”

Steve smiles, though it may come off as more of a grimace with how Eddie falters. “Been thinking about you, too,” he echoes. Though, thinking positively isn’t what he’s been doing, as far as anybody’s concerned. Beat around the bush, he tells himself. He takes a steadying breath, posture straightening, demeanor changing. Says with a sour tone, “I, uh, I think we need to have a little talk in the car, if that’s okay? It’s not a breakup thing, but it might make you…somebody might get mad and I don’t want to cage you in at my house.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathes. His eyes go distant very briefly. When he refocuses on Steve, something has hardened in his features. Steve’s throat goes tight. “It can’t wait until after our date night?” There’s a low amount of ire in his words already and Steve is momentarily caught in it. Until he lets his eyebrows scrunch down his face again, giving in to that tightness in his throat.

He sighs, annoyed already. “No, Eddie,” he bites without meaning to. “I need to talk to you now. I’m already upset about it and it’s not going to do me any good to just brush it off.” His hand releases from Eddie’s grip, falling heavy against his side. He turns towards his driver’s side door and stares back at where Eddie is rooted. “Come on,” he states lowly, “you were the one to tell me to talk about the shit that’s bothering me. Can’t ignore it just because it has to do with you.”

Bitchy is probably not the best approach to all of this, but Steve is already cornered out of options. He pulls his door open with more force than necessary. Slides into his seat, key into the ignition, and honks once at Eddie. Jarringly gestures at the passenger seat. Thankfully, there’s nobody else to witness the potential torrential fire that’s brewing in him. It’ll be just the two of them; though that realization stirs something sickly in Steve’s stomach.

Eddie gets in silently. Places his school bag in the footwell. And keeps his face pointed out the windshield. “What’s wrong?” He asks, though his voice is devoid and edging on irritated.

Steve rolls his eyes, though Eddie can’t see him. He sets his hands firmly on his steering wheel. Squeezes the leather for comfort, an instinct. And heaves a sigh, urging himself to be calmer about this. “I had a talk with Lucas,” he starts. “About, uh, about his championship game back in March.”

Next to him, Eddie immediately tenses.

He continues without acknowledgement. Keeps himself as leveled as possible. “He told me that you refused to move your game for his. That he was looking forward to having his friends, which I’m assuming includes you, watch him play. And I—I know how important that championship game was to him. Y’know, it’s one of the bigger—“

“Are you mad because I didn’t want to sit at some jock event?” Eddie interrupts, question clipped. Though there’s also mild amusement in his tone, as if Steve being upset is poposterous. He continues without any regard for Steve. “In a room full of, mind you, people who hate me?”

Steve tenses more than Eddie had. His shoulders hiking and his stomach knotting impossibly more. Finally lets the dog bark, gives in to whatever it wants. “You know what, Eddie?” He bitches back. “I am mad at you. In fact, I…I…I’m so fucking angry that you…you make this whole deal about ‘lost sheep’ and herding them in to play your game. You concern yourself with making a community for people who are lost to the crowd of cliques in that school. And it’s just—Lucas is one of those kids! He is, even if that means he wants to play basketball!”

The passenger seat squeaks. Clothes rustling as Eddie turns toward him. But Steve doesn’t rip his eyes from the windshield. If anything, he leans more towards the left, creating a deeper, larger space between them. His hands instinctively tighten on the steering wheel again.

“Yeah, I do pride myself on that,” Eddie spits. “I do. Which is why, honestly, it irks me that Lucas would pick a crowd full of assholes. A bunch of people who would never give him the time of day.”

Steve goes rigid at that. He was an asshole, too. He knows that. Eddie especially knows that. The Munson Doctrine wouldn’t exist without the inclusion of asshole jocks, Steve being near the top of the list. He tries to tell himself that Eddie doesn’t think of him that way, but it’s hard considering himself. Who he used to be. Instead, he takes another breath, this one longer and hopefully more steadying than the other ones have been.

“He went out for basketball for a sense of security,” Steve states slowly, verging on impatient. “To find somewhere to belong to. That’s all a freshman looks for—a group to be somebody with. And, you know, considering that he’s already sort of singled out for being one of a few black kids at the school…Belonging is kind of important to him.” He settles back into his seat, arms still stretched to their full length in front of him. His stomach is turning and his heart is racing. And why won’t Eddie just get this? “Even if the basketball team has a bunch of assholes, he still wanted to do it. He was celebrated for his skills, who he is—even if it was for a moment. Playing was, and probably still is, important to him. And you—“ Steve finally turns his head towards Eddie. Knows his eyes are shooting daggers, can see where they lodge themselves between Eddie’s ribs. He raises a finger and accuses, “—you made his game feel unimportant. None of his best friends came because they were toopreoccupied with your game.” His face grows unusually hot as his voice drags passionately. The words just tumbling, splattering between them. But he carries on like a fire fed, “They even got his little sister to play yourgame. And, you know what really hurt to hear? Lucas wanted at least Erica to watch. And she wasn’t there. She wasn’t there because of your game, Eddie. How do you think that looks to him?”

Eddie has the audacity to look cowed, appalled. His mouth agape and his eyes as two large craters on his face. And for the first time, probably ever, he is stunned into silence.

Steve looks away. Bitter. All that festers in him now is hurt, ache, sadness. He chews on his lip, inhales softly through his nose, and opens his mouth with a silent word. Finally, he murmurs, “When I came to the high school as a freshman, I did the exact same thing as Lucas did. I joined the basketball team. Not because I was good. Or because my dad forced me to, like everybody seems to think. It’s because I wanted to fit in.”

His eyes are stinging. Cheeks flushing even more with overwhelming, consuming emotion. Continues, “And, though I let the feeling eat away at me, it felt good to be protected by a camaraderie like that. Outside of the nerdy friend group I had in middle school, going into high school. It felt good. And—It’s not the same as why Lucas joined, I know that, but I can understand.

“On top of that, I never had friends or family members show up for me at my games. So, for me to know the hurt Lucas feels, that would be an understatement. What’s important to note, though, is that he had people in his life to be there for him and they didn’t show. They didn’t.”

The fight is draining out of him, but he has to solidify his point. Has to finish this or else. Thinks briefly that maybe he should quit while he’s ahead, but he can’t make himself do that. The ferocity engulfing him from the inside out all too much to ignore. He’s been beaten down before for Lucas, literally—oh so literally—but he’d do it again and again and again for that kid to find his footing. Including this…spat? One sided argument? This argument with his boyfriend.

“Even I was there,” he says, hollowly, “cheering him on. It just would’ve been nice, for him, to have more than just some washed up, ex-jock, nobody be there. Right? I’m sure you get where I’m coming from. You can understand what I’m saying.” He glances forlorn out his window. Can’t even muster the courage to look over at Eddie. He’s basically drained himself. Being vulnerable isn’t his forte, but he can be for the people around him. Even if it’s at the expense of his own well being. “Well, I thought you’d understand. Wanting to have a community, people to lean on, to make something of yourself. No matter the means. I just didn’t think you’d be part of the reason that Lucas feels so…so singular.”

He takes a deep breath, ignoring how nasally it is to his ears. And mutters, a final thing, “I didn’t think you viewed something that Lucas and I are into as so…nothing. I try my best to be better about what you like, but it seems that you don’t make that same effort. That’s not fair, Eddie. You should know that.”

Without much else to say and with Eddie’s eerie silence, he starts the car. Puts it into drive. And peels away into the silence of the long and stretching road.

Briefly, he thinks about turning on the radio or cranking down the window, but the air is too thick to move through. Even the slight turns of his steering wheel is enough to make him feel sick. He’s sick with how disgustingly to-the-point he had to be. Though, there’s no other way that Eddie would’ve listened. Not with how defensive he immediately got.

The original date night plan had been to go to his house, but he finds himself pulling into Forest Hills’ driveway. Past the dimly lit trailers and the striking quietness of Max’s home. He parks in the vacant spot next to Eddie’s van. Which, the van is broken down right now—the main reason Steve is even driving Eddie around. But, now what? Is Eddie mad at how mad Steve was? Is he going to realize that he doesn’t like Steve because of his interests, who he is? Is this it?

A gentle anxious thrum runs through Steve like the very blood he needs to exist.

He silences the car. And just sits with his hands in his lap. Looking blankly at Eddie’s front door.

“Your stop,” Steve murmurs.

Eddie takes a deep breath and sighs heavily through his nose. But he doesn’t make a move to open his door. To step out. To walk away from…all that Steve is and has been.

Steve turns to him, gestures loosely at the Munson’s. “Your stop,” he reiterates.

“I—“ Eddie musters, voice croaking and rough. “I didn’t realize that…I didn’t know Lucas was mad about that. I didn’t think it…mattered.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Steve bitterly states, “It’s not like you actually cared.”

“But I do,” Eddie insists, “I care so much about Lucas. And I care so much about you. I swear!” He finally moves, tossing himself in the seat to face Steve, flailing. His face a mournful thing, downturned and sad. Skin pale and his hands desperate and his voice urgent. “There’s no excuse, I know. But I just…The reason I look at jocks so awfully is because they’ve always turned on me, you know? They always downplay my interests and mock me and tease me for what I like. Which is why I have to show myself as the bigger guy, that I can take it. I just didn’t realize that I was doing it, too.”

Slowly, Steve crosses his arms over his chest. Fingers tightening over his biceps. “Real life and your friends are more important than biases, Eddie.”

“I see that now.”

“And I think that you…you love me? And that you like Lucas. But it’s just hard to feel that, for either of us, when you adamantly refuse to involve yourself in our interests. Even if it means attending some jock event. Even if it means sitting in a room full of people that hate you. Which, by the way, that isn’t true because Lucas and I both like you—I love you, even.” He faces Eddie again. His face a sure thing of great ache, based on Eddie’s own crestfallen eyes. “Maybe just…give us space for a couple days? Think about this. Apologize once you’ve given it some thought. I understand where the whole hating jocks thing comes from, but just think about how that hurts, too.”

Eddie takes a gasping breath. “But I’m sorry now, Stevie,” he swears, “I am. I’m so sorry.”

There’s part of those words that soothe Steve like aloe to a sunburn, but he can’t accept them. Knows that the sure sting of the burn will still be there if he lets Eddie do this now. So he collects himself, mulls the words, and defends himself—for once. “I’ll accept that when it doesn’t feel like you’re saying it just to make me feel better. I want you to mean it. And I want you to apologize to Lucas first.”

He watches Eddie nod fervently, sharply. His hands twisting together in his lap and his eyes wetting, shoved harshly to the side. “Yeah, okay,” his voice trembles, “okay, I’ll fix this.”

Carefully, Steve takes Eddie’s hands. Tugs them until Eddie looks at him. Involuntarily, he makes a soft, sympathetic noise. It’s clear in the wetness of Eddie’s eyes that he’s determined to change this, to make this better. It’s clear that he didn’t mean to hurt this severely. He presses deep into the back of Eddie’s hands, tethering himself down to the earth, away from the cloud of anger that threatens to swallow him whole.

“Hey,” he murmurs, “listen to me, baby. I know that you’re sorry. I know, okay? But Lucas won’t know that, he’ll probably think you’re saying it to get on his good side. And…maybe you are, a bit, but it’ll be better if you really mean it. Trust me.” He swipes his thumbs over Eddie’s knuckles, massages them to ease the tension. “I still love you. I’m still learning, too, to love your interests with my full heart. And I know that it’s hard to let go of stupid biases, but you’ll be better for it. You will, Eds, and you’ll find you actually feel good.” Steve runs his hands up Eddie’s arms, to his shoulders, the sides of his neck.

Gently, he cups Eddie’s face between his hands. Presses his thumbs underneath Eddie’s eyes.

Eddie softens, loosening. Breathes slowly onto Steve’s wrists. “I’ll make this right, Steve,” he promises quietly, “I want to love both of you guys right.”

“I believe you,” he whispers in turn, “you’re a good guy, Eddie. You’ve got a good soul and a good heart. But you just need to relearn some things, baby.” He leans in, softly pecks the soft tissue of Eddie’s facial scar, and pulls away. Reaches up and runs a hand through the wiry ends of Eddie’s curls. Finds that he does mean the softness in his words, even with the bitter edge in his chest. He murmurs, “Let’s cool off tonight, because I know we’re both upset. And we’ll reconvene in a couple days, after my shift. I’ll help you come up with a good apology, promise.”

“Okay,” Eddie mutters, sniffling.

“I love you,” he feels the need to remind.

“I love you, too, Stevie. And I mean that. I really do.”

🏀—————🏀

Taglist (Open For Chapter Two): @wonderland-girl143-blog @tinyplanet95 @sharingisntkaren @ghostquer @practicallybegging

#stranger things #Steve Harrington & Lucas Sinclair #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #lucas sinclair #angst and hurt/comfort #Eddie Munson & Lucas Sinclair

60 notes · View notes

raapija · 3 days

Note

Need to know how you think Lance would respond to being mistaken for one of Fernando’s many kids-like would he be embarrassed or pissed-would Lando be like oh that’s my other dad 💀-I feel like they’d all love using it to mess with people 😭

Okay, this is hilarious, so I'll give you some fun scenarios of this happening...

Three short stories under the cut ! 💚

In 2018, Oscar was 17 and looking for his first own apartment in London. He had made plans to go view one flat and needed an adult to accompany him, so Lance agreed to go with him.

"Hello! I'm William, I'll be showing you the apartment." a chipper estate agent greeted them at a downstairs door to a small apartment building. They all shook hands and then made their way inside and up the stairs.

"This is a really nice flat. Everything is recently renovated and they also put in new kitchen equipment." the estate agent fumbled with a big bundle of keys as they stopped at one of the apartment doors. "Just a short walk to the nearest shops, the bus leaves right from the street down there and it's a really quiet building all in all."

The estate agent finally found the right key and opened the door for Lance and Oscar to step in. It was pretty; all new surfaces and a sparkling new oven and dishwasher. And no weird smells, it was all fresh.

"Looks good, right?" Lance asked after a little tour around the flat. They were all standing in a small living area attached to the kitchen. "Small, but not too small."

"Perfect for a young lad like you!" the estate agent pointed out and Oscar nodded along.

"It okay." Oscar said. "I think I'll need to ask dad or pops to come see it, too, though."

"Oh, you boys have two dads?" the estate agent chirped in. He looked at Lance and Oscar and then the two of them looked at each other.

"Uh, we're not brothers." Lance said and the man got a bit flustered.

"No?"

"He has two dads. I'm dating one of them." Lance explained. The estate agent blushed.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry!" he hurried to apologize. Oscar had to turn away to hold in a laugh and Lance rubbed his eyebrow to do the same.

"No, it's okay. We get that a lot." Lance said to make the man feel less bad. "Anyway, we think we'll be in touch with you. Right, Osc?"

"Right." Oscar replied and the real estate agent handed them his card.

"Of course! I'd be happy to show this to you and your father again, if you'd like. Both of them! Or... You? Or... I'm sorry." he dug himself into a hole with that one.

"Yeah, thanks." Lance chuckled.

One night, Lance and Lando were at a gay bar in Montréal. Lando liked going to gay bars, because he didn't have to pay for any of his drinks the whole night. Everyone thought he was just adorable... And Lance was big enough that he could fight back any potential creeps.

They were sat at a booth, when a man approached them and sat down on the opposite side of their table.

"Hi, sweeties." the stranger said and Lance and Lando giggled.

"Hi." Lando said back and batted his eyes. Free drinks incoming.

"You two are really cute together." the man said and the pair erupted into laughter. The guy was a little taken aback. "What? You're not together?"

"No," Lance said between laughing. "I'm his step-dad."

The man leaned back, visibly confused. It didn't take him long to smirk again. "Oh? Kinky. I like it."

Lance and Lando glanced at each other, holding back another big rumble of laughter.

"Uh, no, we really are father and son." Lance continued. "I'm married to his dad."

"So, no fun for us tonight?" the man sounded glum.

"No, I'm afraid. And he's straight. Wait, are you straight?" Lance turned back to Lando, who was already giggling.

"I dunno." the younger man shrugged his shoulders. Lance laughed again, and the man was even more confused.

"You two are insane." he groaned and stood up. Lance and Lando waved him goodbye and kept on laughing, leaning into each other and probably looking absolutely unhinged with the state of blissful drunkenness they were in.

When Carlos and Charles were having their baby, Fernando and Lance rushed to the hospital and then to the receptionist to find out where they were. The woman working there looked at them a bit amused, because Fernando was fully freaking out and out of breath while Lance was calmly standing by his side.

"Sainz! And, uh, Leclerc! Un bebé! Uhm...I'm grand-dad!" Fernando blurted out, his English more broken than usual.

"Uh-huh... and him?" the receptionist pointed at Lance with a raised eyebrow.

"He's grand-dad. Also."

"Hi." Lance smiled and gave her a small wave. The receptionist looked back and forth between them, cogs turning in her head as she assessed the situation.

"Right..." she said and then turned to her computer to find where Carlos and Charles were. "Did you say Sainz?"

"Sí, uh... Yes. Carlos Sainz."

"And your name?"

"Fernando Alonso. Díaz! Alonso Díaz."

"And you?"

"Lance Stroll Díaz. S-T-R-O-L-L." Lance spelled out for her.

"Huh, you all have different last names?" she looked at Fernando a little confused.

"Yes." Fernando answered and she turned back to her computer, blowing out a breath of air as she typed all their names into the system. Fernando was struggling to stay in place, and Lance put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

"Okay..." the receptionist handed them a piece of paper. "I'll just need your signature here. They're in waiting room 21, just follow the yellow line on the floor and you'll find there."

"Gracias." Fernando said and hastily scribbled his name on the paper and then charged off. Lance chuckled after him and shook his head. He then carefully wrote his own name down, handing the paper back to the woman.

"Sorry. He's a bit extreme."

"Grandparents often are. Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you."

#ask #short fic #pookie au #nando and his mcnuggets #strollonso #lance stroll #fernando alonso #oscar piastri #lando norris #carlos sainz jr.#charles leclerc #charlos #im tagging all of them SUE ME

58 notes · View notes

orcatstra · 12 hours

Text

Dave is not an idiot! [DSaF Rant/Short Essay]

This is gonna be a bit of a yap fest, so if you don’t want to read my entire rant and just want the tldr, then here’s a summary in image form:

I don’t have a complete idea if how I’m going to format or construct this rant, so.. yeah… my bad if it’s kind of messy. I will warn you now, a lot of this information is from memory or obtained from my friend [who knows DSaF info way more/better than me lmao], so I apologize for lack of evidence, but I PROMISE this stuff is able to be proven or agreed upon.

One of my biggest pet peeves in the DSaF fandom, aside from the abundance of employee x boss ships, people making fun of Henry’s body/drawing him skinny, people babying Jack + Dave, and people changing characters’ confirmed/implied sexualities? Oh, you bet your ass it’s when people act like Dave is stupid, dumb, an idiot, and so on. Sometimes I wonder if the people who portray him as such or agree with such portrayals have ever even played the games or paid attention to his character! Of course, I’d probably understand if you just haven’t finished all the games, maybe missed a few routes, some bits and pieces of dialogue, or just saw fan-made content of him being painted as an idiot before you really got to know his character and went into the fandom thinking those were accurate to him! I get that, I understand where you’re coming from if that’s your case! But alas, I am a fan who occupies that rage of a thousand suns when such a complex, three-dimensional, well-written character is watered down to an “uwu yaoi soft boy who doesn’t know anything”.

I’d also like to add before I get to my points that … saying Dave is “dumb” for believing Henry’s lies and manipulation is.. kind of victim-blaming, innit? Even before Henry lobotomized Dave, Henry intentionally planted into Dave’s head the idea that they’re “family”, and family sticks together! Henry took advantage of Dave’s desperation for a family, a father-figure, for his own gain and amusement. Just letting you know! Don’t say Dave’s stupid for being manipulated!!

First of all, Dave is trilingual; He can fluently/decently speak English, Russian, and German! Hell, he might even speak FOUR languages, with his use of French in DSaF 2 (this is referring to when he says “Au revoir, babe!” to Jack)! I don’t know if you know this, but being able to decently/fluently speak several languages is quite difficult and takes a long while to learn!!!! It’s not clearly stated which is Dave’s first language, but i’d assume it’s maybe english or russian. In DSaF 1-2, Dave is forty-two years old, and is approximately seventy-eight in DSaF 3 — If one were to assume that he only spoke English and a bit of French in DSaF 1-2, he’d have 30-40ish years to learn Russian and German.. but you have to take into account that learning new languages is more difficult the older you are.. ok that last part is mainly just hypothetical/speculations, but you get where I’m coming from.. I doubt a homeless child with purple skin/nonhuman traits [features of him that were deemed undesirable and caused him to get kicked out of the orphanage — so i assume people just wanted to avoid him in general] and little-to-no education had the resources needed to learn a new language, let alone multiple… but that’s just my thoughts!

My second point, as you can see in the image, refers to when Dave knew how to play instruments (or an instrument? The trombone is definitely one of them) when he was younger and living on the streets. Again, learning instruments is difficult, but learning on your OWN?? WITHOUT HAVING PROPER EDUCATION?? Yeah man.. that boy’s wise… Also, I’ve been told by my awesome cool friend [ribena59p] that one of the songs that Dave learned BY HIMSELF [on trombone] is “Singing In The Rain”. I don’t have much to say on this point because I think it is pretty self-explanatory/clear.

Third, and I cannot believe people manage to forget this detail [unless they haven’t played DSaF 3 / The Evil Route]; The Fazbunker… You know,,, the bunker Dave built himself under Fredbear’s Family Diner that has several monitors connected to cameras in Jack’s house that STILL work in DSaF 3 [assuming they were initially installed in DSaF 1-2], and has a path to the inside of Jack’s house… yeah!

To add onto point 3; When in his little underground enclosure, Dave also mentions the advanced animatronics he built by himself. The robots in question are clearly meant to be the Funtime animatronics, as they’re described to be chrome, and one specifically was made to scare a Phone Guy who was afraid of clowns [meaning, the specific animatronic in question is Circus Baby]. There was also a brief allusion to the scooper, or of a person hired to be there, and the fact that Jack was possibly the person in question… but this post isn’t about Jack, so I don’t care.

To expand on this… God, he loves tinkering. Dave even says this himself… Like, verbatim! Two of the best examples off the top of my head is when Dave modifies Foxy — One instance is for the purpose of tormenting/horrifying Peter, the other was with the intention of … Jack fucking it. How considerate of Dave! This can also be applied to the previous two points, him creating the Fazbunker and Funtime animatronics, but I felt like it was an honorable mention that deserves its own section!!

Sixth of all, and this section is going to be brief as well [since it’s a bit difficult to get an exact instance of this], but.. yeah, Dave has a great vocabulary! This alone doesn’t mean he’s highly intelligent or whatever, but it DOES point to the fact that even after missing out on a significant amount education as a child, he is still somewhat book-smart!! I mean, compared to Jack’s vocabulary [which mainly consists of more casual and memey words/phrases/tones, prominently in DSaF 1-2], Dave’s is … better. I mean,,, the dude says “adversaries”,,, who the hell says that regularly??

My next point is .. incredibly obvious. You know, Dave being able to get away with several counts of serial child murder, and taking the identity of Henry’s son. I feel like this shouldn’t even have to be explained, because identity theft and getting away with murder SEVERAL TIMES is definitely going to require amounts of advanced thinking and planning ahead of time. Sneaky lil’ bastard. I don’t know how he gets away with faking his identity, but.. you go girl! Steal that dead baby’s name!

Hell, there might even be MORE evidence that backs up my claim, but as of right now I’m just listing things from my memory! I’d like to add that, yes, at some points Dave can act foolish and stupid, but that doesn’t mean he IS stupid. If you were to pick between Dave and Jack on who’s less intelligent, it should.. be Jack, actually. There’s a possibility I will add onto or edit this in the future, but these are just my thoughts as of now!! I got that DOG in me..

But hey, that’s just a theory rant, a GAME THEORY RANT! Thanks for reading!

#dsaf #dayshift at freddy's #dsaf dave #dave dsaf #dave miller dsaf #dsaf dave miller

51 notes · View notes

i-am-a-fan · 11 hours

Text

I saw a post talking about how there’s a deep mischaracterization of Mk in the fandom specifically about his monkey form and I’m here to dissect it. (WIth doodles!)

Tldr: Will Mk end up hurting his family in season 5 due to his new Monkey form? Most likely no, but it is possible that he indirectly hurts them by not understanding the limits of his power.

First things first let’s collect a list of attributes that we know Mk has from past seasons. This will serve as a spine or checklist to see if certain actions are possible. A thing to keep in mind though is the ranking of each attribute as the writers of LMK wrote there are characters as complex and sometimes abandon certain character values if their center value is threatened.

Mk’s character value list (in my opinion) is as follows:

-Family

-Strength

-Freedom

-Dependability

with family and strength being so close to each other, so sometimes strength ends up as Mk’s main concern. Of course, all of these end up mixing at times and in the first seasons we see the mixing of these values gets him in trouble

Desiring the freedom of choice over listening to Wukong (Pig Pong Panic). Wanting to be dependable but overestimating his strength (Duplication). Wanting to be strong but forgets his family in the process (shadow play). Eventually, he gets his priorities in check and has ended up sticking to this list for most of seasons 3 and 4.

Now his flaws (in no particular order):

Impulsivity

Forgetfulness

Stubbornness

Blind devotion

He’s overcome a lot of these when he was forced to learn them in season 3. His stubbornness to not tell anyone what was happening with the LBD got people hurt. His impulsivity with his actions ended up crashing the ship, and almost sold his family to a goldfish demon.

(Text: Mk's Fault, Good Intentions, Trying mentor)

So he’s had to come up with methods of working around that. Mk’s blind devotion to Wukong almost got Mei killed, and we see how he changes because of it. At the end of season 3, Mk doesn’t explicitly say that he sees Wukong in a new light but he heavily implies it with the metaphor of a bowl of noodles.

So… Will Mk go crazy and end up hurting his friends?

I highly doubt it. While I toyed with the idea, Mk is a lot smarter than the fandom usually gives him credit for. He knows Wukong is flawed, and he still trusts in him because he knows Wukong is trying. Mk has faith in Wukong’s strength and the fact that Wukong also heavily values family, even if his isolation makes it a lot harder for him to do so. Just rewatch the ending of season 3 where Wukong apologizes to Mk and watch as Mk comes to the realization that Wukong is trying so hard to make up for his past. (They also drive this point home in season 4 with how disappointed Wukong sounds at himself for not finding Mk in the scroll in the season finale.)

(Text: He's flawed and trying, Has to accept harsh reality, Dissociating Coping mechanism)

So what about Mk’s impulsivity? I doubt that’d be something that directly harms his friends. He’s worked on his impulsivity by working with others (Redson in season 3 and Mei’s planning in season 4) to help fill in the gaps in his plans. In order for his impulsivity to harm others, you’d have to break that family value first or raise that value of strength and freedom. Most likely this flaw can manifest in Mk overdoing his Monkey form ™ and sending a shockwave that accidentally hurts the people around him. Probably manifesting either in training or while having fun with Mei (think about how Mk was in the Bad Weather episode).

Okay, what if Mk is tricked into it like he was in Season 4 (back to the flaw of blind devotion)? Mk has spent every season backstabbed by someone he trusted. We see him snap at Azure after he finds out that he was going to keep Wukong in the scroll. He snaps at Macaque in season 4. It’s safe to say that he’s learned, at least partially, to not trust others so blindly. Mk is also supposed to have gotten the “skill of self-reflection” in “Revenge of the Spider Queen” but his reflecting has mostly just impacted the other flaws.

(Text: Side note, Monkey Mk doesn't have a nose)

But there is one possibility I toy with, bottled up emotions. Mk has extremely big emotions but hates showing any emotion that can be seen as negative. He loves being happy and he’s not afraid to show it, but as soon as those emotions turn to doubt, anger, or sadness he bottles them up fast. He knows he can rely on his family, but he’s stubborn and thinks that his emotions aren’t worth that hassle. Take the ending of season 3 where Mk states that “he tries not to think too hard” about his own place in the universe, which could be due to a fear of losing the value of freedom if he has a specific role to play in the universe.

(Text: Guys He's so avoidant, forced to think about his identity, 18-early 20's and Identity crisis)

It’s worsened by the fact that every. other. character. avoids. their. emotions. No other characters in this series are open about their emotions except Tang and Sandy. And from season 3 (and a bit of season 4) we know that Mk doesn’t view Tang in an extremely positive light.

Not exactly negative, but his admiration lies more on the rest of the team. Macaque points this out in season 2 stating in “Shadow Play” that Mk should talk out his insecurities, but no one else does that.

That being said Mk isn’t entirely forgetful either. Macaque was a season 1 villain with his betrayal going through season 3. Mk’s high value of family, and flaw of blind devotion, make him want to give him a chance as Macaque’s past is connected with Wukong’s. HOWEVER, Mk is also stubborn and hasn’t forgiven Macaque’s actions. That’s why he snaps, plus the fact that Macaque is terrible at direct communication. Like I said before, Mk won’t directly hurt anyone he cares about, but if his monkey form is highly connected with his emotions (as most magic tends to be) having those bottled-up insecurities might accidentally cause Mk to unleash more power than he means to.

(Text: Normal, Fed up Meter, rage (on jar))

I have no idea where season 5 is going to go, but I’m so excited about the possibilities.

(Text: Terrified of his actions hurting his family. UNSTABLE!!!)

#lmk #lego monkie kid #speck rambles #lmk analysis #lmk mk #monkie kid #lmk qi xiaotian #My analysis isn't perfect but i agree that most of the fandom paints Mk as this dumb overly trusting kid #when hes closer to a painfully optimistic adult who falls on bad coping mechanisms such as naivety and avoidance #He's smart yall. He can learn and adapt faster than most people in the show #He just has big emotions that pass off as childish moments and as a neurodivergent person I can relate too strongly ... anyways

52 notes · View notes

save-a-forest-ride-a-bear · 1 day

Note

Can I request general dating headcanons for Haarlep, Dammon, Rolan, and Zevlor with gender neutral s/o?

🗒꒰⸝⸝₊ General Dating Headcanons ❛ ✧

Featuring: Haarlep, Dammon, Rolan & Zevlor

# Notes: using they/them pronouns for haarlep bc we deserve a gnc icon

🌿┊HAARLEP

Surprisingly very romantic. Which romance language is their main one, you ask? The answer is all of the above. Physical touch? Please, they're an incubus, it goes without saying they'll have their hands all over you all the time. Words of affirmation? They know how to put together a compliment, your name sounds like a lyric on their tongue. Gift giving? They're very keen on jewellery, always surprising you with a golden necklace or bracelet. Acts of service? This motherfucker is a giver, ask and ye shall receive. Quality time? The day they're not at your heels is the day the nine hells freeze over.

Clingy and needy. Will pout and complain every second they're not receiving attention, not above throwing tantrums either. What could possibly be more important than lavishing them with affection? Nothing, that's what. So put that book down, they demand cuddles.

Was definitely not expecting to fall in love. Love is such a sweet and pure concept and they're... Well, them. It just didn't seem compatible with their nature. So when they realized they were beginning to like you more and more, they felt a bit frightened. It was such an unusual feeling, but they grew to welcome it with time.

Definitely gets a bit spoiled just being around you. Tenderness is hard to come by in the hells, so now that they've tasted it, they want more more more. Also talks back to Raphael a lot more now — they deserve the best treatment they can receive, the devil can shove it.

Service top in and out of bed. Again, they're a total giver, always tending to your needs. Had a hard day? They got your favourite food and ran you a bath, go ahead and enjoy it, they'll be there for cuddles once you're nice and dry.

🌿┊DAMMON

Has no control over his tail whatsoever, it will be wagging whenever you're near or wrapping around you to keep you from leaving. He always blushes and apologizes profusely — it has a mind of its own, he says.

He's a bit of a workaholic. Will spend way too long cooped away in his forge. However, he doesn't resist or complain if or when you try to drag him away from there. He knows he needs it, and to be honest he's kind of a simp, will do almost anything you ask of him.

Super attention starved. He won't outright ask for affection, but that look in his eyes isn't fooling nobody. He absolutely melts when you hold or kiss him, he's such a sweetie.

Even before you start dating, he's super affectionate. He just likes letting the people around him know he cares for them. it's almost difficult to tell if he has a crush on you or not because of this little habit, but again, the tail doesn't lie.

Giddy whenever you're around. He's already a somewhat upbeat guy, but having his beloved close to him brings out the best in him (if that's even possible).

🌿┊ROLAN

I love this stupid fucking wizard so much.

Does not know how to flirt. I'm a firm believer he never even kissed anyone before you. Not with his behaviour and obsession with his studies, at least. (And with Cal and Lia constantly at his heel).

Somewhat easily jealous. He has this mix of confidence and insecurity that's... odd, to say the least. He trusts you and thinks he's more than capable of pleasing you. On the other hand, he knows he's a pain in the ass most of the time, so if he sees you enjoying a conversation with someone a bit too much, it will gnaw at him.

As mentioned, not the most experienced. Your first kiss will probably be messy, especially if it's your first as well. Clanking teeth, a bit of drool, all that cute stuff. He's just a little too eager, okay?

Awkward and smooth as fuck at the same time. Really good at teasing you, but will sulk and blush if you do it back — especially if his siblings are around. He'll never hear the end of it.

He makes up for awkwardness with sheer eagerness, most of the time. He's just so happy to be able to call you his, to hold you, kiss you — he's over the moon. And you're not going anywhere anytime soon.

🌿┊ZEVLOR

This dumbass paladin is such a romantic. He's more old-fashioned, of course — almost refuses to kiss you on the first date. Maybe even the second. He just wants to treat you right the best way he knows how, even if it can be a little frustrating at times.

Gets flustered easily, but never backs down. Like, he will blush and maybe stutter a little if you catch him off guard with a kiss or compliment, but will 100% reciprocate, maybe even make you blush in return.

Has some problems with inferiority and may think he doesn't deserve you at times. He sees himself as a coward and since he believes you deserve the best knight in shining armour you can get, he becomes a little insecure at times. Nothing some kisses won't solve.

Expect lots of communication. This is a man, not a boy. If something's wrong or bothering him, he will let you know and expects you to do the same. How else is the relationship supposed to flourish?

Not big on PDA. Again, he's old-fashioned. He believes affection like that should be kept behind closed doors, something for the couple and the couple only. But he won't say no to some hand-holding if you ask nicely.

#bg3 #bg3 x reader #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 x reader #bg3 headcanons #zevlor x reader #haarlep x reader #dammon x reader #rolan x reader

46 notes · View notes

bengiyo · 2 days

Text

Living With Him Ep 4 Stray Thoughts

Last week, we had one of my favorite episodes of BL ever. After an awkward moment around a proposed kiss, the boys got a break in the form of the Natsukawa family. Ryota's mom noticed something was up and checked on him in a tactful way that inspired Ryota to talk to Kazuhito properly. Kazuhito acknowledged the crush and admitted how serious his feelings are. Ryota apologized for playing with Kazuhito's feelings, and they were able to come to an understanding. Unsure what to do with all this, Ryota offered to do what he could, and so the two had a sleepover like when they were kids. We left at a half-asleep Ryota hugging Kazuhito to sleep.

I'm okay with starting back at the Big Talk.

Oh, Natsukawa, the delayed awkward response will hurt me.

Kazuhito choosing not to brush that leaf off Ryota's head was an attack upon me.

Yes, bring him to this party. This will help with the angst.

Haruna knows and is having a great time. I'm glad the friends meddle.

I wonder why Natsukawa uses Kazuhito's given name but Kazuhito uses Natsukawa's family name.

I like the choice to delay the awkwardness until the feelings were confessed.

"Don't cling to me. People will misunderstand." I'm suffering.

That scream was excellent.

They are both way too aware of each other physically now to be comfortable.

My poor boy Kazuhito is struggling.

Haruna is definitely antagonizing Kazuhito on purpose to get him to move forward. I appreciate the show confirming that.

I'm happy about the upcoming camping trip! I feel like we're owed one after Eternal Yesterday.

This was a lot of fun. I like how Kazuhito has lost a bit of his composure now that his feelings are out in the open. I like that he doesn't know what to do with this now. I also appreciate that this show continues to enforce progress with the supporting characters, because it's clear these guys would not move forward on their own.

#Ben watches #kare no iru seikatsu #living with him #japanese bl #bl series

28 notes · View notes

whositmcwhatsit · 20 hours

Text

Since this started out as a birthday fic, I really wanted to get Chapter 2 done in time for my birthday, but I missed my deadline by 4 days.

Never mind.

Thanks, as ever, to the cheerleading and alpha-reading of @thatbanditqueen, who bestowed the glowing critique of 'tolerable' to this labour of love.

Anyone needing to catch up, here is Chapter One

Chapter Two

For two weeks after the night Aurora barged into Elvis Presley’s house and somehow didn’t get chased out by security, the ladies at the hair salon would ask her every day if she had heard from him.

At first, when she told them no, they would smile gleefully and say it was going to happen any day, after all he must have asked for her number for a reason. Then, the smiles began to dim and they would start to make excuses to make her feel better. She felt like she was letting them down each time she had to answer in the negative. There was no space to feel her own disappointment because she was carrying enough for other people.

After that two weeks, it petered out into sympathetic looks and attempts to ‘cheer her up’. Honestly, Aurora didn’t need the cheering up, though of course she took all the free food and extra tips that were offered. It had been a strange, fun, surreal experience, but men like Elvis didn’t call back girls like her. She had already got way more than she deserved.

Joanne showed up just before closing one Thursday when even the sympathy was beginning to fade and Aurora was sadly eyeing the dip in her tips. Joanne threw herself into Aurora’s chair, studying her Farrah bangs with a critical eye in the mirror and trying to rake the volume back into them with her fingers.

Aurora nudged her legs out of the way with her hip as she swept under the vanity, feeling tired, hot and impatient after a long day. She was envisioning a cold shower and laying flat on the back porch with the noisy fan, maybe sneaking a beer from the ice box before her mama got home.

“You’ll never guess who I bumped into last night,” Joanne began.

“Probably not,” Aurora agreed, shoving the broom into the closet and going to collect her purse from the poky kitchen in the back.

“That guy Dave? Elvis Dave.” Aurora wondered how he would feel to know that he had that nickname while ignoring the way her stomach swooped at just the ‘e word’. “I was at the gas station with Beverly from work and he pulled up in that sweet ride of his and blocked me in.”

Aurora was trying to feign nonchalance as she felt Joanne’s eyes studying her intensely in the mirror.

“Why? Did he even call you after that night?”

“Nope, and I didn’t expect him to since I didn’t give him my number and we’re not in the book. You guys aren’t either, are you?”

“No, Mama thinks having a lady’s name in the phone book is like advertising that you’re easy pickings for creeps and weirdos.”

Joanne nodded, because they had known each other long enough that Aurora’s mama and her ‘interesting’ ideas were not a revelation.

“So, giving Elvis the wrong number, was that a brush-off?”

“What?”

“Dave said that the number you gave Elvis was for a store, a hardware place or paint… something like that.”

Trying to force her brain back through the hot sludge of the days since, Aurora was sure that she had written down the right number. Or had she? Her penmanship was not going to win any awards on a good day. At dawn after an eventful night…

“So, it was a mistake?” Joanne asked as they stepped out into the dripping heat of the late afternoon and walked across the parking lot to Aurora’s busted old Pontiac GTO. Aurora eyed the dented fender ruefully and ran her hand over the dusty hood as if in apology.

“Oh my God!” She covered her burning face with her hands, laughing slightly manically. “I’m such a loser!” What must he have thought of her?! Wait, he had called her! A dam had broken in her brain and all the thoughts were rushing and swirling around, taking out any sensible notions in their path.

“Well, that’s good, ‘cause I gave Dave the right one.”

“What?”

“You made a mistake giving him the wrong number?” Joanne was a smart girl. Street smart anyway, but that was probably the dumbest question she had ever asked.

“Yes!”

Despite the overly airy way Joanne said it, it hit Aurora like she had put force into it. The way her stomach swooped was unexpected since she had even been denying to herself that she was upset by the radio silence. For a brief, quavering moment she let herself get excited, maybe even a little bit hopeful, before practicality rammed down to crush those emotions into tiny specks. It was stupid, it was all so stupid: her jolting whenever the phone rang, the relief at realizing she had given him the wrong number and that he had tried to call her, the excitement that he might try again.

At no point in Aurora’s years on Earth had anyone or anything ever been cruel enough to lie to her about her station in life or what she should expect from it. No, God had been kind and straight with her from the get-go: His plan for her was basic, a very rough draft if you will, a couple of words scribbled on an old envelope.

“So, you gonna come out?” Joanne asked, fiddling with the fringe of her purse. “Or you thinking you’ll head home and wait by the phone?” Aurora rolled her eyes as she opened the creaking car door and dropped into the oven-like interior.

“I am gonna go home, take a cold shower and probably pass out in front of the tv,” she corrected.

“Sure you are.” Joanne leant in the window and poked her index finger against Aurora’s forehead, laughing as Aurora swatted it away. “Drive safe rushing home to wait by the phone.”

“Only thing I’m in danger of is cracking a headlight driving it into your smart ass!”

Joanne’s cackle traveled across the mainly deserted lot, the nail polish of her extended middle finger catching the light just beautifully. Aurora snorted as she turned over the car, praying through the warm-up grinding and growling.

“C’mon, baby, don’t let me down,” she murmured to the dash, patting the wheel appeasingly. “You can do it.”

It took a few more seconds of sweat sliding into uncomfortable places before the engine finally caught and the car revved. Aurora let out the warm, stale air she’d been holding in her lungs and peeled out, eager to catch the breeze through her open window.

The phone was ringing when she pulled up at the house.

Without thinking about it, she left the car in neutral and shot inside, leaving all the doors open between her and the receiver.

“Hello?” She was afraid that she might not be able to hear the caller because of the swirling whooshing sound of her blood pumping around her body and her heart pounding in her ears, but her grandma came through crisp and clear, complaining that her fan wasn’t working properly and that Aurora’s cousin Denny had promised to come round and take a look at it, but had not shown up yet. It was all Aurora could do to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

Tapping her fingers against the formica surface of the telephone table, Aurora willed Denny and his lazy ass to show up so that Grandma would get off the phone to yell at him instead, but of course that little shit was probably already out, fumigating some bar or disco with his Old Spice.

Biting down on a sigh, Aurora reached out with her leg and hooked a chair from the kitchen with her foot and dragged it over so that she could rest her weary legs as her grandma started talking about which of her friends had died, lost their husbands or bailed their grandkids out of jail this week.

Nearly an hour later, still cursing Denny, Grandma announced that she didn’t want to waste any more of Aurora’s time, because no one wants to hear a silly old woman prattling on, and Aurora of course told her she wasn’t silly or old and she loved her and loved talking to her, which earned her another thirty minutes on the phone before she finally managed to hang up. Her elbow ached, her hand was numb in patches and the hair around her ear was damp with sweat. And Elvis had probably called another girl by now, some beauty queen whose grandma never tied up her phone line.

Weary in every way, she trudged through the little one storey house, returning out front to grab her car keys out of the ignition and shut the door. Brian, who used to go to school with her brother, lifted his beer bottle up at her from where he was sitting on the steps of his front porch across the street and she threw up her hand as she turned to go back into the house.

Mama got home later, complaining about her manager and the new girl whose cash desk hadn’t come out even at the end of her shift.

“It’s not like she even has to add up the change in her little pea brain!” she ranted, leaning over the pot of spaghetti that Aurora had thrown together earlier. “Spaghetti, in this heat, Rora?”

“Nothing else,” Aurora shrugged. “I’ll pick up some groceries after work.” She fought very hard not to point out that her mother worked in a damn store the size of a warehouse full of food that she could easily buy after work, because that sort of back talk never ended well.

“I thought you’d be out tonight,” Mama said later, sipping from a beer as she pushed the congealing spaghetti around her plate on the little stand, eyes on Barnaby Jones on TV. “Betty was saying that Joanne was going to Ladies Night over at Sal’s. They got a new bartender that looks like that boy from… Lord, what was it, ‘Shazam’?”

“Yeah, maybe in the dark with your eyes closed!” Aurora snorted.

“Betty’s always had her work cut out for her with that one. Back in my day, her folk’s would’ve been hurrying to get her tied up with some nice boy before they ended up having to send her away to family in the country for a few months, if you get my drift.”

“Mama! She’s not that bad. You can’t tell me y’all didn’t go crazy about boys when you were kids. Aunt Margie told me about how you never sat out any dances when you were our age.”

“Yeah well, Marg should mind her own business and pay more attention to that son of hers. You know, he promised Grandma days ago that he’d take a look at her fan and she’s still waiting.”

“I know,” Aurora sighed. Boy, did she know.

Admitting defeat, Aurora finally climbed into bed just before midnight, checking the screen of her open window before settling down with a huff. Maybe she should have gone out with Joanne. As much as she knew that Thursday nights at Sal’s were a horror show, it didn’t stop that nagging feeling in her stomach that maybe she had let something slip away, and ignored possibilities. At the very least, she would have laughed until her sides hurt as she and Joanne danced to the jukebox.

Tomorrow night, she told herself as she drifted off, her blurring eyes fixed on the shard of moonlight that sliced into her dresser.

The moon had set by the time she startled awake a few hours later. Her mother was hunched over her, a silhouette of curlers and rounded shoulders, fingers tight against her shoulders.

“Rora, wake up!”

“What’shappeningisitbad,” she mumbled as the pieces of her conscious mind tried to converge and accidentally passed one another, blurring even further. She jolted as her mother shook her even harder.

“Wake up! There’s someone on the phone asking for you.”

“What? Why?” Aurora squinted at her mother who seemed flustered, fiddling with her headscarf and the neck of her nightgown over and over.

Trying to blink sleep from her eyes, Aurora let her feet drop heavily to the floor and shoved herself up into a seated position. With her eyes half closed, she shuffled out into the kitchen and picked up the receiver laying against the counter.

“Hmmmello?”

“Hi, is this… Aurora?” Whoever was on the phone said it like a substitute teacher trying to take attendance, not sure whether they were being played.

“Uh, hmm, yeah. Who’s this?”

“I’m gonna ask you to hold one for a minute.” There was fumbling, which she might have found intriguing if she hadn’t been sprawled with her cheek against the counter, eyes squeezed shut against the brutal overhead light.

More fumbling.

“You are one difficult chick to track down, Tiger, you know that?! Goddamn.”

“Elvis?” she said, even as her brain was processing the voice. At the same time, her mother prodded her sharply in the back, whether to get some sort of explanation or to make her stand up straight while having a conversation with the King, who knew, and Aurora was not about to pause the proceedings to find out.

“Yeah, Elvis,” he returned, miraculously making a drawl drip with sarcasm. “You were taking ‘seek and ye shall find’ a little too far, weren’t ya, sweetheart? Almost called out the US Marshals trying to track you down.”

It sounded like a fifty-fifty split on whether he found the mix-up amusing or annoying and she couldn’t help cringing into her hand yet again, but he was calling. He was calling!

“Not sure, early… or late, one of the two. Goddamn, I can’t believe I finally got you. I bet you didn’t think I’d be able to do it, right? I tell you, ain’t nobody won money betting against me, honey, really.”

“Hello?! Sonovabitch, d’I lose her again?” She giggled at his mumbling and quickly interjected:

“Hello! No, I’m just trying to wake up. What time is it?”

Aurora opened her mouth to explain that she hadn’t given him the wrong number on purpose, that she wasn’t the sort of girl that set a scavenger hunt for anyone wanting to call her, but he was talking fast and leaving no place to jump in.

“Anyhow, the reason I was really callin’ was to make sure you’re takin’ care of Cupcake. You looking after him, feeding him, petting him and all that?”

“You mean Muffin?” She glanced up over the counter at the large tiger ornament sitting in pride of place on top of the TV. “Course I am.”

“Hot damn, Muffin, that was it! Well, are you sure? I feel like maybe I should barge into your house in the middle of the night and find out for myself, you know?”

Aurora couldn’t force a laugh, couldn’t even inhale as her dismayed eyes surveyed the sagging couch and faded wallpaper. If Elvis Presley set eyes on her home he would know everything there was to know about her within ten seconds and lose interest.

“You don’t even know where I live,” she prodded with a shaky wheeze. “And even if you think you do, you’re wrong. I could bring him to you? You want to check on him so bad, I’ll send him on over to you.”

There was a long pause, Aurora’s turn to wonder whether she had lost him, and when he spoke again there was an odd intonation to his voice, a knowingness that made her feel flayed open for all to see.

“Yeah, you should come here, bring ole Cupmuffincake so I can check you’re treating him right. I’d send someone over to pick you up.” She heard murmuring and the edge of Elvis’ voice cutting through the muffled sound like he was having a conversation with his hand over the receiver, and it hit her what was happening.

“Hello? Elvis! Hello?!”

“Honey, I’m just-”

“I can’t come now. I’ve got work in the morning- soon!”

There was another long pause. Each time, she balanced on her toes, wondering if this was the time, this was the final straw and he would hang up, give up, and drop her.

“I- I understand, your- your job’s important.” He sounded like a bad actor at a table read. She suspected that he had long forgotten quite how important a job was if you wanted a roof to stop the rain falling on your head and food in the ice box to stop you starving to death. “What time d’you get off work, honey?”

“I can finish at five,” she replied, knowing she could reschedule her last appointment. “And I can drive over. You don’t need to send anyone. I know where you live after all.” She forced a little laugh, but his voice was subdued when he replied:

“Yeah, I guess you do. After five then? You’ll come straight over?”

“Sure, I’ll come straight there.” She was reassuring him, like she was doing him a favor by showing up at his mansion all sweaty and messed up after a day of work. She wasn’t sure how this situation had come about, but had no doubt that it was wrong. A man who has a wall with gates around his property and security guards, cameras and barbed wire on fences did not have to make anyone promise to come to his house.

Elvis then told her that he had been planning on going for a ride on his motorcycle. He asked if she had ever ridden one before and when she admitted that she had, because she sensed that he had wanted her to say no, he assured her that his was better than whatever souped up

bicycle she had tried before. He made her promise that she would come dressed for a motorcycle ride.

“You know, one time this one little girl showed up here in a cute little dress. Hair done up all pretty and everything, see, and-” He laughed to himself. “You should’ve seen her after we’d gone out on the hogs. She was all mad and I said to her, I said, I ain’t the kind of guy that just sits around, you know, having a damn tea party on a date. I gotta, I gotta be doing something, going somewhere, otherwise I’m gonna get bored.” He sighed loudly into the phone and Aurora half imagined she felt it against her cheek. She wondered if he was telling her this because he didn’t want her to think that she was visiting to sit on his bed and read books again, or to let her know that their night together had been a rare occurrence and she shouldn’t expect more of the same.

“Well, I promise not to wear a cute dress or make any effort with my hair.”

“You are trouble,” he laughed. “I knew it the moment I saw you, man. Trouble with a capital T! I’ll tell ‘em not to let you in, you see if I won’t.”

When they finally hung up, Aurora again had an aching elbow, stiff elbow and partially numb hand. She turned slightly and faced her mother, who had been walking in and out the kitchen throughout the whole conversation. She eyed her pointedly over a cup of coffee.

“I know he’s Elvis, but I think that means he owns a watch or two,” she remarked. “And some of us need to be getting up at a decent hour to get to work.”

“I know, Mama, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect it.”

“Just…” Her mother sighed, lowering the coffee cup from her mouth. “Just be careful, honey. Remember Memphis is chock full of girls that Elvis used to call at 3AM.”

“I know, Mama.”

Afterwards, Aurora would have no recollection of her day at work, and was surprised that she received no complaints about uneven bangs or stripey dye jobs. Her mind was definitely not on her tasks. She kept planning and replanning and unplanning what she was going to wear. What outfit would look like she had made some effort, but also wouldn’t have her showing her underwear to passing motorists on a motorcycle? She needed to look like she belonged with Elvis, but couldn't afford the time and money that would require.

Although, maybe that was the point? Maybe he was making a show of slumming it, maybe he wanted her to look ordinary? She couldn’t think why that would be, other than some sort of publicity strategy? She imagined herself, wide-eyed, her waves flattened after the heat of the salon, eyeliner caking in the creases of her eyes, staring out from the front page of the National Enquirer as it screamed: “Elvis drops his standards!”

When work finally ended, she sped home, ignoring the ringing phone and performing a hop, skip and jump into the shower that would have qualified her for the upcoming summer olympics. She brushed her teeth and blow dried her hair at the same time, shaving her legs and layering on the eyeliner like a motivated octopus.

She was pulling up at the gates of Graceland by 6.30, both annoyed and relieved that no one would ever know the heroic efforts she had made just to be there. She gave her name to the guard at the gate house, maintaining eye contact like a crazy person as if this would convince him that she wasn’t trying to sneak in without an invite. You know, like she technically had done a couple of weeks before.

When the gates started to swing open, she hesitated a little too long, not quite believing that it was for her, and also a little frightened that it was. The guard came back out and directed her up the right hand side of the drive as if she was unsure of where to go.

After Aurora pulled up in front of the famous portico in her grubby, dented Pontiac, she waited. She had no idea what she was supposed to do next. Ring on the doorbell like a nervous prom date? Ding dong, Avon calling? Hi, can my friend Elvis come out to play?

When she had come before, they had parked around the back of the house, but that seemed too familiar. She smiled as she thought of fans standing at the gates and glimpsing her rusty old lemon through the trees parked in front of a millionaire’s mansion. It just summed up this whole silly situation.

Finally, she climbed out of her car, grabbing her jacket and purse as she stared up at the looming fieldstone walls with their barred windows. The windows gave off a strange vibe, a sense of seeing and being seen, and she glanced away, the loser in the staring competition.

Aurora had barely rung the bell when the front door swung open and a short, older guy, who may or may not have been wearing eyeliner, stood beaming at her like they were best friends.

“Well now, you must be Aurora. Everyone said you were a pretty little thing. C’mon in, darlin’, don’t be shy. I’m Charlie.”

Aurora thought of herself as a pretty good judge of character, a skill hard won through bad experiences. And this Charlie made her think of the uncles you knew to avoid at family gatherings, especially once they had a few drinks in them. Something about the amount of teeth in his smile compared to the lack of warmth in his eyes. She trusted her gut and took a few steps away from the arm he had wrapped around her back.

“Well, Elvis is right upstairs. I think you know your way around up there, right, darlin’?” She forced a smile a second too late and they were stuck in a toothy standoff as Aurora wheeled round in a wide arc and headed for the stairs, her cheeks burning at Charlie’s insinuation. She wondered what Elvis had said to him.

As she climbed the stairs, Aurora’s mind was strobing with thoughts. The first, obviously, was marveling at how thick and soft the carpet was. It would be very difficult to have an argument and stomp down the stairs here. The second was that she was walking up to Elvis Presley’s bedroom, invited, and that would never stop being surreal. She caught sight of herself in the mirrored panels on the wall and checked her teeth for lipstick and wiped beneath her eyes.

Reaching the landing, she heard the resonating sound of an organ being played and she faltered, but reminded herself yet again that she had been invited.

When she reached the doorway of what she vaguely remembered being an office she had passed through last time, she caught sight of Elvis, just his back and side profile as he sat at the organ. Another man, slight and shorter, was standing by it as an audience of one.

It seemed rude to interrupt the intimate concert, so she waited in the doorway, listening as Elvis sang a hymn, putting in as much effort as she imagined he did when performing to thousands. It made the hair on her arms prickle the way his rich voice enveloped her and an odd stillness fell upon her, in spite of her nerves and the awkwardness of the situation. Somehow he managed to distract her into forgetting she was anxious without even being aware she was watching him.

With a grand flourish of his hands on the organ, Elvis brought the song to a close with a tremulous plink of the last key on the keyboard and then laughed quietly to himself and his one man audience, mumbling something only his friend could hear.

‘Go in!’ Aurora silently instructed her feet. ‘Just walk forward!’ They picked the worst time to launch a mutiny.

Sliding his fingers across the keys again, Elvis sang, “She thinks I don’t know she’s there” to the tune of the George Jones’ song ‘She Thinks I Still Care’. She could feel her cheeks heating up as he looked over his shoulder straight at her, a playful grin lifting and lighting up his face so that she was smiling before she could think.

“Look, there she is, Billy, the damn fugitive. Tell her- Tell Tiger what you said to me, man-”

As Billy went to open his mouth, Elvis gripped his shoulder while rising from the organ bench and spoke over him like a little kid who couldn’t wait to share the secret.

“See, man, I told you she was real! Y’all think I’m crazy- and I am- but not this time. Come in here, honey, come let us all have a real look at you.”

“I had him and some of my other guys searching high and low for this girl called Aurora, and after a while, ole Marble Eyes here says to me- Tell her what you said-” Billy managed to get one word out before they finished in unison:

“Elvis, I ain’t so sure this girl really exists!” The two men laughed, and Aurora was glad that the annoyance that had been dripping from his words on the phone seemed to have evaporated. Elvis slapped Billy in the chest with the back of his hand and gestured at her.

Apparently Aurora’s feet paid more attention to Elvis than to her, because they walked her right into the room like the traitorous traitors they were.

“See?” Elvis said to Billy in a low voice, seemingly settling an argument that extended beyond whether or not she really existed. Billy shrugged, a little grin on his face, but Aurora didn’t miss the way his eyes, though not as jarringly dissonant as Charlie’s, followed Elvis almost anxiously as he crossed the room to meet her.

Even though Aurora was wearing a thin jacket, she still thought she could feel the heat of Elvis’ touch as he squeezed her shoulders and leant in to lightly kiss her cheek. In fact, the temperature of the air around her seemed to shoot up as she breathed in his spicy citrus cologne and squinted slightly to stop him blurring around the edges.

“Yeah, you’re real alright,” he murmured, his hand sliding down her arm and his fingers tangling with her own as he stepped back and brazenly looked her up and down. It was a struggle not to recoil, attempt to cover herself or blush, but she sensed that this was what he was testing, pushing to see if she would crumble or curl up under the weight of scrutiny.

“Honey, I know you came after work and all, but don’t you think you could’ve dressed up a little?” His tone was teasing and he was smiling, but the question was clearly genuine. She looked down at her red cotton flares and then back at his baby blue leisure suit with the racquetball court logo on the chest. That was the moment the cushiony awe and anxiety wore through; she could almost hear the -pop- of the bubble and then it was just her.

“Watch your damn mouth,” he laughed. “Remember who pays all the bills around this goddamn place. Keep on and I’ll take that fucking trailer and give it to the dogs, man. Edmund’ll be pissing up the walls by next week!”

“You were the one who told me not to wear a dress!” she returned spiritedly, looking him square in the face for the first time. “You said we were going out for a ride and not to get too dressed up.” He paused, his expression uncharacteristically blank, and she almost started questioning herself, until Billy, who she had forgotten was still standing there by the organ, put in:

“Oh, hell, you don’t listen to what he says. There’s a reason we all call him Crazy, you know.” He had a soft, slightly country, soothing kind of voice and almost like magic, Elvis’ cloudy expression burst into radiant sunshine again as he feinted an attack on Billy.

Aurora stood stock still as Billy darted around her, jerking out of the way of a reckless and, judging by the way that Elvis grunted as he did it, forceful karate chop that cut through the air so close to the side of her head that her hair ruffled.

“Boys, no roughhousing in the house!” she said with forced playfulness.

They were all playing along, Aurora realized. Even she was acting out a script that she had not glimpsed, but had immediately started reading her lines and hitting her marks just as readily as Billy with his teasing words that masked worried eyes, and Charlie with the wide easy smile that tried to outshine something slightly twisted and angry beneath the surface. And Elvis? Either he was one of the greatest actors of all time, or this was him. It unnerved her the way that she couldn’t read him like she read most people, that he had no tell she could easily discern.

Billy edged backwards towards the door and Elvis slowly advanced on him. Aurora decided to choose self-preservation and step out of the way, but Elvis moved too and scooped her up against him, suddenly losing all interest in Billy. Aurora found herself with her face pressed against his shoulder, arms wrapped around his waist to stop herself from flailing backwards and one of his palms hard between her shoulder blades, while the fingers of his other hand gripped her hip.

“Oh, what do we have here,” he murmured in a soft little boy’s voice that should not have caused her to shiver and break out in goosebumps as his mouth brushed the shell of her ear. “Got myself a tiger by the tail.” His hands slid slowly down over the curve of her ass, thumbs kneading into the muscle and she took a sharp inhale, but then he started patting around frantically, practically spanking her. “Uh oh, no tail.”

Aurora threw back her head, almost choking on a laugh as his sideburns tickled against the line of her throat and he buried his face into the crook of her neck. When he pulled back, pink-faced with his hair all rumpled, she found herself reaching up to smooth it without hesitation, only pausing when her fingers were tangled in his inky black locks. They stared at each other in a freeze frame, her, wide-eyed and panicked at her over familiarity; him with his eyes sparkling and his cheeks brimming as his lips twisted into a little smirk. She dropped her hand awkwardly, though her other arm was still gripping his waist as she remained draped across his chest and stomach. To stop herself from falling, she reminded herself.

“I brought a dress,” she blurted. “For after we went for a ride.” His smile spread wider and she could almost feel it cracking her wide open even as all her defenses battened down the hatches.

“Well, we ain’t going for a ride right now, honey,” he informed her. After taking a momentary study of her face with his head tilted pensively, he added, “I’m gonna give you the tour.” He nodded to someone behind her and she twisted slightly to see Billy still leaning in the doorway. Elvis, it seemed, needed an audience to his flirting just as much as he needed one for his singing.

It would have seemed impossible to her a couple of weeks earlier, the thought of her being led by the hand around Elvis’ mansion by Elvis himself, listening and laughing as he swung between genuine pride and mocking himself.

“And this here is the whore house,” he announced as they stood in the archway looking over the living room. She took in the overabundance of red, gold and white, feathers, velvet and shag, glad that he had said that first. She was beginning to notice that about him, his ability to predict reactions and pre-empt them with a joke or a sly comment, like he was somehow with you as you viewed him, making it impossible to feel enough distance to gain proper perspective, or really any distance at all.

“Where are they?” she asked, since feeling predictable didn’t quite sit right with her. “All the ‘ladies’?” She made a show of looking around.

“Oh, honey, we don’t talk about that,” he replied, moving ahead and tugging her through the living room towards another doorway curtained in chintzy red and being guarded by glass peacocks. “All of this was white before that fateful night.”

The unexpected laugh exploded out of her and she yanked her hand away from the loose grip of his fingers to slap both of her hands across her mouth. Smirking again, that naughty little smile made her stomach try and wrench itself into ringlets, he glanced over at Billy, who was laughing. “Little Billy here still has nightmares.”

“You’re…” She scrambled for the words, silly, naughty, crude, funny, amazing, unpredictable, so much better than I would have thought. “Crazy. You’re just crazy.”

Through the music room, they passed through a hallway into what Elvis called the ‘Trophy Room’. Aurora was overwhelmed by all the items to look at. There were toys, clothing, paintings, ornaments, photos, plaques, citations, actual trophies and then the records, endless shiny metal discs with little plaques recording unimaginable achievements. Aurora slowly traversed the long room, peering into cases, lips moving as she read so many declarations of admiration and adoration.

Glancing up from a trophy that recognised him as ‘The World’s Greatest Entertainer of All Time’ from ‘The Loving You Fan Club of Murcia and Alicante’, she looked over to where he was talking quietly to Billy by the door. He glanced over too and winked as they locked eyes, so she had to turn and stare very intently at a creepy doll thankfully encased in a glass cabinet until she could feel the blush cooling from her cheeks.

“It’s like a whole museum of you,” she marveled, finally wandering back in their direction.

Elvis seemed to misunderstand, mumbling awkwardly about needing to have somewhere to store everything because someone took the time to give it to him, so she risked interrupting him.

“I mean, having this solid proof of everything you’ve done and how much you’re loved. It’s amazing, it must make you smile just walking in here. It’s unreal!”

The clouds that threatened to beset his mood drifted back and he shrugged diffidently, this little smile diametrically opposed to his naughty smirk. He looked positively bashful.

“It is unreal, man,” he murmured. “I keep waiting to wake up and find out this Elvis fella wants his life back.” He shrugged again and absently grabbed her chin with his fingers. “Well, we gotta make the most of it before he does.” He moved her head up and down, a strange little mime reflecting him back.

Aurora tried to ooh and aah in the right places as she was led through Elvis’ plush, sleek racquetball court. Having never even heard of the game before, Aurora mentioned that she had never played and he squinted at her cryptically and assured her that she would, sounding like a fortune teller who could foresee oddly specific destinies.

“I’m pretty good at pinball though,” she offered, eyeing up the machine with all its shiny chrome and flashing lights. No greasy fingerprints and rust to be seen, unlike the one at the bowling alley that she used to feed her lunch money when she was hiding out from spelling tests or book reports.

“Maybe later, Tiger,” Elvis murmured, ushering her past Billy and back out into the darkening night.

Aurora looked around as the inky shadows started to claim the white fences and golden fieldstone and let out an awed breath. Imagine having all of this at your fingertips, so much to look at, to entertain you, to enjoy just right there for the taking. It was just so titillating that she couldn’t even bring herself to feel any envy. It seemed an impossibly perfect existence, something too good to even yearn for.

“Over there’s the barn and the horses and so on,” Elvis said, waving his hand flippantly. “I’ll show you some time.” That, at least, she was glad to postpone since horses had frightened her since she was a kid. Her head was still on a swivel as they walked back along the little walkway to the house, her eyes desperately trying to drink everything in.

Ending up in the kitchen made Aurora smile, thinking back to her last visit. During the past couple of weeks she had been regretting how fast it had all happened and how little she had taken in. The next morning, she could barely answer the breathless, demanding questions of her customers as they quizzed her on what colors the carpets were and how many cars were in the carport. This time, she was determined that she was going to take note of everything, just in case it was her last opportunity.

“You got eyes as big as this ‘un here,” Elvis remarked, jerking a thumb at Billy, who shrugged and smiled good naturedly. “You've seen all this before.”

“No, you were distracting me too much before,” she returned. “I didn’t take it in.”

“Me distracting you?! That’s rich when you- you showed up in your little shorts with your legs and everything.”

“Oh, the shorts did it for you?” she smirked.

To her surprise, Elvis gave her an almost stern shake of his head, and she hesitated, finding herself on unstable ground. Brusquely, he informed Billy he would call him later, told the cook to send up some drinks, and then headed towards the stairs Aurora now knew led up to his bedroom. It was only when he turned and flashed her an impatient look that she realized he expected her to follow him.

As she trailed after his broad back, trying not to look at the way the chains hanging from the belt peeking from beneath the hem of his jacket were swaying and bouncing as he slowly climbed the staircase, she replayed their exchange in the kitchen, trying to understand what had made him switch so suddenly. He had started it with his comment about her shorts, she had only been repeating what he said.

They stepped back into the office and then through into the bedroom, where Elvis whirled round and kissed her. It happened so fast that she didn’t have time to prepare, nor get flustered. Instead, her body did what came naturally and melted like ice in a furnace. It was as if he enveloped her, the warmth of him, the smell of him, the feel of him all around her and, as his tongue lapped tentatively against her pliant lips, within her. Her forearms were just beginning to slide up his chest, hands scrambling to touch and grip, when he stepped back. It took her a while to register that he was talking, her eyes fixated on the sheen of his puffy, wet lips as he spoke.

“Been waiting to do that again for, what is it now, a month, two months?”

“Two weeks,” she corrected cautiously.

“Two weeks, shit. Every time I close my damn eyes, I keep seeing those itty bitty shorts and thinking-” He cut off as his eyes fell upon her mouth and his lips curled slightly. Leaning forward to nibble on her lower lip, he let out a small grunt at the back of his throat as he pushed in to deepen it. Aurora didn’t react. A long second passed.

“What’s the matter, honey?” He was so close that she could count individual eyelashes and examine the crease between his brows as he frowned. Her heart gave a weird flutter at the concern she saw in his face. “Are you okay? Did I-”

“No, it’s fine. I’m just… Did I do something? Before in the kitchen?”

He shook his head, trying to jostle away her confusion along with his own awkwardness as he replied:

“I don’t like to do that kind of thing in front of the staff, especially the ladies in the kitchen. It ain’t respectful.”

Aurora swallowed a giggle upon seeing the sincerity in his face, but somehow, again, he read her mind and gave her side a poke with a long finger.

“You think that’s kinda old fashioned and silly, huh,” he remarked, teeth clenched in a playful show of irritation. She jerked at the painful poke, but let out the laughter she had been trying to suppress.

“Not silly,” she soothed. “It’s cute.”

“I ain’t cute, goddamn it!” he snapped. “Get on the damn bed, woman! I’ll show you how cute I am!”

Aurora raised her eyebrows, but before she could scoop together the words, he clutched her waist and kissed her hard to the point where her lips were almost painfully jammed against her teeth. He could only seem to bear to do this for so long however before he adjusted, and his soft pillowy lips kneaded hers. His breath fell light upon her cheek as his hands reached up to cradle the sides of her face.

“Get up on the bed, baby,” he murmured gently this time. “Please.”

“Since you asked nicely.”

She used her feet to pry off her shoes and clambered up onto the center of the expansive bed, where she dropped onto her back with her arms and legs spread like a starfish. She noticed the two television screens mounted in the ceiling and rolled instinctively, hit by sudden claustrophobic dread that they were pushing down on her.

The roll was just in time to meet Elvis joining her on the bed, and he caught hold of her by the shoulder and hip and slid her closer to him with practiced ease.

How many girls had lay in this bed, she wondered, even as she succumbed to his embrace and flexed her fingers up into the fine, silky hair at the back of his head. Did he ever wake up and not remember who his companion was until he pulled back the blankets? Did his memory ever shuffle through them all like flicking the pages of a photo album?

She was thinking too much, she was definitely thinking too much. Here she was, laying pressed up against Elvis Presley, his tongue caressing hers while his fingertips stroked a path down her neck and into the opening of her shirt and she was imagining other more beautiful women spread out in her place.

WIth effort, she emptied her mind and smeared her lips across his round cheek and down to his jaw, scrunching up her nose at the tickling from his sideburn. She tasted the salt from his skin as her mouth journeyed down his warm neck, pressing kisses against the rough, burgeoning stubble and flickering pulse beneath.

He growled a little at the back of his throat and submitted. No, submitted was not the right word, because he was practically pushing his neck against her mouth, hungry for more, reveling in the caressing care of her lips and the teasing of her teeth nibbling beneath.

Aurora could feel sweat beginning to bead at the small of her back and across her chest pressed beneath the weighty, hot pressure of his torso still covered in layers of clothing.

Blind and dumb with eagerness, she pulled back slightly and reached for the zipper of his jacket, already halfway down, trying to gain further access and salivating at the thought of his chest that she had glimpsed through the deep open vee of his shirt, adorned with damp, curls of hair. He grabbed her bicep wordlessly and pushed it back, pressing it up onto the pillows at the side of her head. The weight of him followed and she felt her legs forced apart by the pressure of a solid thigh slotting between them and pushing against the tingling, eager nexus where she was nudging her hips to meet him.

Swollen and tingling, her lips nonetheless widened into a smile as she felt him pressing his neck and his cheek against her mouth, demanding her kisses, caresses and attention even as his hands grazed over her breasts, the edge of his thumb teasing over her cotton covered nipple.

Aurora clenched her jaw, biting down on a whining sigh as he thrust his hip with celebrated skill and nudged all the right places, sending a spidery web of tingling electricity deep down and along the inside of her thighs. Her toes curled appreciatively as she hooked her leg over the back of his, squeezing them both together to a duet of moaning.

“That’s it, let me hear you, baby,” he whispered in a direct line from her ear down to her aching, tingly core. She tried to wrap her arms around his shoulders, to pull him closer to cover the shivery coolness of her exposed decolletage, but he held fast to her arm, pinning the other down beneath his side.

Aurora’s brain was too foggy with pleasure and yearning to be embarrassed or self-conscious about the noises she was making, or was trying to make, since he kept forcing her lips to perform supplication and worship different parts of him. Her whines were muffled by the soft, fullness of his bottom lip as he tasted and teased her, then the salty, slightly metallic tang of the broad pad of his thumb as he pushed it against the flat of her tongue, and his body, heavy and hot, thrusting against every willing, needy inch of her.

Like an opera singer sliding up the scale, the way her body answered his nudging and rubbing began to heighten. A thousand icy vibrations resonated through her, building and building until all her nerves sang in the same, piercing crescendo, threatening to shatter her as she tensed, squeezed, curled into herself and then broke apart.

With a weary but satisfied sigh, he sank back onto his side, leaving her shivering and exposed despite the fact that she was still fully clothed. Listening to her own slightly labored breaths, she was finally able to lift up her arm from the pillow and she tugged at her rumpled, damp clothes, trying to make herself more comfortable and presentable.

Rolling onto her side, she let herself bathe in the warm, affectionate glow of his eyes as he smiled at her, reaching up to smooth her hair. She leant down and kissed him chastely on the lips, still delighted at the way he pushed back, eagerly taking what she was giving.

“Can I? Could I… Do you need me to-” Unable to bring herself to say it, she let her hand slide down his chest, over the curve of his stomach, past the hem of his jacket, where he hastily caught it and tugged it back up.

“Whoa, let’s hold fire on that, Tiger,” he said, lifting her fingers to his lips. “I wanna take my time with you.” She tried to hide her uncertainty as she smiled and nodded in response. “I- I tell you what we’ll do. How about you go put on that dress you wanna show me and we’ll get some food sent up. You want to watch a movie? You know who Peter Sellers is, honey?”

Floating on a cloud while still immersed in mists of uncertainty, Aurora took her bag into Elvis’ adjoining bathroom and marveled at the gold fixtures and the shine of everything. It took a lot of money to make everything look so effortlessly shiny.

When she caught sight of her hair reflected in the long mirror framed in lights, she gasped and brushed it vigorously. She considered rooting around in the cabinets for a hair dryer, but got distracted by all the products on the counter. It was as if a drug store had exploded; every minor ailment from indigestion to dry eyes to, oddly, nappy rash could have been cured with items on the counter.

There were quite a few amber pill bottles too, she noticed, though she didn’t recognise any of the long names nor know how to pronounce them. She could read, however, that some of the patient names were not Elvis. It struck her as odd that so many different people would keep their medicine in Elvis’ bathroom, but her brain stretched to understand it by wondering if maybe all these people worked at the mansion and needed it be kept somewhere safe while they were working.

When she finally emerged, now clad in a floaty, pale pink peasant dress with a bardot neckline that showed off her tanned shoulders and back, Billy was back and accompanied by a woman with dark hair parted in winged curtains, apparently his wife Jo.

“Yeah, that’s more like it,” Elvis nodded as Aurora stood awkwardly in front of the bed. “Turn around, honey, let us get a good look at you.”

“It’s the same at the back as it is in front,” she replied tightly.

Goosebumps were breaking out across her shoulders, both because of the icy air conditioning and the discomfort of being stared at by so many people. For some reason, having a woman sitting there looking at her, sizing her up, made her enthusiasm circle the drain.

“No, really, give us a twirl, baby,” Elvis instructed with a tone that did not encourage refusal.

Billy grinned and looked to his wife like he was trying to lessen some of the pressure, but Jo continued to watch her. Women were not fooled by hair and make-up tricks and they saw through the illusion of a good dress bought on sale. Jo likely knew exactly how much of an impostor Aurora was, and her knowing made it impossible to continue the charade. Aurora turned in place with all the grace and enthusiasm of a zombie, helplessly watching Elvis’ eyes narrow with annoyance.

He didn’t even look her way as she perched on the other side of the bed to the rest of them, instead talking to Billy about the pizza they had apparently ordered while she was in the bathroom. Elvis was complaining that he was hungry and it had better not take too long or he was going to take away someone’s new car. BIlly suggested they start the movie to help take their minds off being hungry while they waited.

It was while Aurora was watching Billy set up the betamax that she had a moment of clarity that it did not matter whether she was good enough to be there, the fact was that she had evidently tricked someone into thinking she was and that might not happen again, so she had to make the most of it. Besides, she thought back to the taste of him in her mouth, his touch on her skin and realized that acting like a sulky teenager was not going to get that back. She knew that she wanted, no, needed to get that back.

Leaning on the little information she had picked up about what Elvis liked, Aurora shuffled across the bed to where he was half-reclined against his pillows and tried to kiss him in apology. She timed it badly because he was taking a swig of water when she hurriedly smushed her lips into his cheek and he instinctively turned towards her, the water pouring onto him instead.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” She clasped her hands over her mouth, mentally preparing herself to be frogmarched to her car and escorted to the gate.

There was a pause, the other two people in the room seemed to go very quiet and even the sound of the television was muted, but eventually Elvis forced a weak chuckle and made a comment about being given a warning next time she wanted to start a water fight. He placed his glass down with a decisive bang on the nightstand and went into his bathroom to get changed.

Aurora cringed and shrugged sheepishly at Billy and Jo, already mentally editing all of this out of the story she would tell everyone of her one and only date with Elvis Presley.

The arrival of the pizza coincided with Elvis’ reappearance, now clad in navy blue pajamas and a gray robe, both of which were monogrammed in white. There was a beat when she reflected on how he had just made her dress up for him while he had decidedly dressed down for her and she wondered if this was a signal on how the date was going.

Thankfully, his mood picked up considerably as he ate his food and spoke along with most of the dialogue of the movie. He and Billy joined together in unison on their favorite lines and sometimes even Jo joined in. She tried not to feel too left out, smiling appreciatively whenever Elvis slipped her a sideways glance, his eyebrow slightly raised, like he was trying to be sneaky.

The appreciation dimmed when Elvis ordered the movie be started over from the beginning again once it was done. Aurora scanned the room for signs of a clock and cursed her poor decision making for removing her watch. Instead, she had to exaggeratedly stretch and fake a yawn.

“Gee, it must be getting pretty late,” she remarked. “I guess I should be going soon.”

If it had been a movie there would have been a loud record scratch, but she didn’t need a sound effect to know that she had messed up yet again. After a minute or two of loud silence, Elvis asked if he could speak to her in the bathroom and he retreated to find more privacy than he could get in his own bedroom.

At his request, Aurora closed the door behind her and watched him glare at himself in the mirror, before smoothing his hand down the lapel of his robe and turning to face her.

“How was your food?” he asked, glancing away again, this time out the window.

“It was good.” It had been a little greasy, but the view more than made up for it.

“Good… good.” He inhaled deeply and also quickly. “Well, you’re right, it’s getting real late and the streets can be dangerous, especially for a sweet little girl like you. I- I don’t like the thought of you driving around, sweetheart, you never know who could be traveling those roads at night, all kinds of weirdos and sick motherfuckers. I think you should stay here.”

“And how’d you like the movie?”

“It was great, really funny.” Especially the first time round, what little of the dialogue she could hear. Again, she couldn’t fault the view and the company.

“Stay?” The word yes surged into her brain, whizzing around her body like a pinball before finally emerging through her mouth as something completely different. “I don’t know.”

It was the old song and dance, sounding like the good girl she was supposed to be while acting like the girl she really was. She had to argue that she didn’t have anything to wear to bed or toiletries. He countered this by promising to find her everything she needed. She considered that her mother might worry if she didn't show up after her date, and Elvis volleyed this back by saying that she was welcome to call Mama to let her know what was happening. He even offered to speak to her mother himself. She finished the back and forth by reminding Elvis that she was a good girl that didn’t do this sort of thing normally, but she would make a reluctant exception.

And with that they went back to watch the rest of the movie, Aurora now nestled up against his chest, listening to the forceful thump of his heart caged up beneath. His voice rumbled through his body and into her ear, a steady stream of movie quotes, innuendo and cheeky, foul-mouthed asides about the film.

In what seemed like a blink of an eye later, she was sitting upright in bed with the bed covers draped across her legs. Elvis had already pulled the blankets back twice, a boyish little grin on his face as he peeked at her long, tanned legs. The silky pajama jacket he had tossed to her after she had brushed her teeth using a brand new toothbrush from the seemingly endless stock in his bathroom cabinet barely covered anything, the sleeves hanging limping from her hands while the hem brushed her ass.

Steve had brought Elvis a package about twenty minutes before, an awkward reunion, and Aurora had watched Elvis carefully take the pills that were contained within. He smiled at her, and for the first time, she spotted the charade, recognising a script. He explained that he took lots of vitamins and health supplements to keep him fit and healthy for all the touring he had to do and that accounted for most of the pills, but he also took a little sleeping medication because he found it difficult to get to sleep. Aurora had nodded, but it was not an Oscar worthy performance.

The medicine kicked in with a surprisingly sudden punch not long later when he was reading aloud from one of his books and pausing to check she understood and to clarify words. Both his breathing and his voice abruptly deepened as well as slowing down. She frowned as she watched his usually animated and expressive face fall slack and blank

“Elvis?” He took a long time to register her voice, even longer to respond, his slow smile following on after. “Are you okay?”

“Just tired,” he managed. Adorably, he pursed his lips and she realized that he was waiting for her to kiss him. She dipped down and pushed her lips against his, and she missed the way he pushed forward to meet her. He was too groggy for that. Instead, he mumbled:

“... Been looking for you for so long…” She didn’t know if he meant in the past two weeks or more generally. It was sweet either way.

With her mama far away and Elvis’ soft, pouting face restful and beautiful right next to her, Aurora sank down and lay her head against his chest, pretending that maybe, just maybe, she might be different. She might be special.

As his thick lashes dropped down onto his lower lids and he released a big sigh of an exhale, Aurora thought of her mama’s words:

“... Memphis is chock full of girls that Elvis used to call at 3AM.”

I really appreciate everyone who reads, likes, reblogs and comments. If you wish to be added to a tag list, or removed, let me know.

Tag List

@ellie-24, @be-my-ally, @vintageshanny, @missmaywemeetagain, @peskybedtime, @from-memphis-with-love @cskidjgsjaoaknayan52782, @wildhorseinkansas, @atleastpleasetelephone

#elvis presley #elvis fanfic #elvis x oc #big daddy elvis #70s elvis #elvis imagine #elvis presley fanfic #elvis fanfiction #whositmcwhatsit

24 notes · View notes

obsessedwithpedritoofc · 2 days

Text

Sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ Sᴛᴜᴘɪᴅ (Dɪɴ Dᴊᴀʀɪɴ)

ℙ𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘: Din Djarin × Male/GN Reader.

𝕎𝕠𝕣𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥: 4,8 k.

𝕊𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪: One week is what took him to gather the bravery to go and talk to you again. You didn't expect him to appear in your home out of the blue like that, much less if it wasn't to apologize for what he had done.

𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: spoilers for the mandalorian, angst (i guess), descriptions of pretty violent scenes, reader is mad at din and din is mad at reader, mentions of getting people killed, lots of arguments, fluff, teasy flirting, brief mentions of smut (if you squint), no physical descriptions of reader, no use of Y/N (reader is referred to as Lost). (lmk if i missed any).

𝔸/ℕ: STOP RIGHT THERE. this is the third part of a series, so if you havent read them go do it right now! ahem, i took my time with this one, didnt i? hope you enjoy it, i dont like it a lot but i couldnt find the way to make it better, also wanted to give this thing an ending. well, idk if this is the ending for real or if ill make a fourth part (itd be a short drabble anyway), ill tell you more when i know lmao. until then, i hope you enjoy this one <3

𝕡𝕥 𝕚 𝕓𝕒𝕓𝕪𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣

𝕡𝕥 𝕚𝕚 𝕨𝕖𝕒𝕜𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤

𝕡𝕥 𝕚𝕚𝕚 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

One week.

That is how long it took him to gather the bravery to go and talk to you again.

Truth be told, he wasn't even going to your place to apologize, or even to really talk to you. He was going back in search of your services. And he knew you would be mad at him, but to be honest, all he wanted at that very moment was to be a Mandalorian again.

"What troubles your thoughts this time, Din Djarin?", the voice of the Armorer resounded in the cave, her head not turned to look at the man, but focused on the hot beskar on her hands.

"I have removed my helmet. Voluntarily", he said bluntly. Only then did the Armorer turn to look at him.

"Again?", she sounded mad. But she just turned back to the piece of beskar, putting it into a bucket of water. "Then you already know, that makes you a Mandalorian no more".

"Yes", Din bent his head down. "I will beg for your forgiveness once more".

"Then, according to the Creed, you may only be redeemed in the Living Waters beneath the mines", she turned to look at him again. Din took a deep breath before nodding at her.

"This is the way", he said before practically running out of the cave and to the Razor Crest.

"This is the way", said the Armorer, more to herself than to the now gone Mandalorian-no-more.

Two days after that, he was back in Nevarro, with Grogu by his side as he stood at your door. He didn't know how to ask you a favor after the last time you saw each other. He did know he didn't have the right to do it after that, but he still hoped you would take care of his kid one last time. After almost dying in the mines and having taken Grogu with him, he didn't trust himself to take the child on a mission like that again.

So he pushed his pride aside and knocked at your door.

It took you every ounce of strength in your body to dry your tears and get up from your couch. You shouted at the door to make whoever was at the other side know that you were coming. And when you finally opened, it only made you want to go back inside and curl up in your couch to keep crying until you had no more tears left in you.

"What do you want?", you said with stern tone, nose crinkled and a deep frown on your eyebrows, all mixed in the most disgusted expression you could give him.

"I need you to take care of him", he looked down at Grogu. You swallowed, suddenly self-conscious of the way you had talked to his father.

"Didn't I say I didn't want to take care of him anymore?", you got on one knee, despite your words, and stroked the little one's head with a soft smile.

"You sure look like you don't", he said sarcastically. You looked up at him with your disgusted expression. "It doesn't matter. I'm going somewhere dangerous and I need him out of it".

"There's no one else?", you got up to look him straight in the eye —or as much in the eye as his helmet let you look into. "For real? Am I the only damned babysitter in all of Nevarro?".

"The only one I trust that is not busy", his hands went to his hips. "Look, I put my pride aside to come ask you this, can you do the same? This is not about me, it's about him and his safety", he pointed to Grogu again. "I don't want him to die in the place I'm going to", he took a deep breath. "So, please".

You looked back down at the kid, who was now lifting and moving his hands in hopes you would take him in your arms. Then you looked back at Din —you guessed he would have a pleading expression right now, though you couldn't see.

"How long will you be gone?".

"Two days, tops... If I make it", he muttered the last part.

You took Grogu in your arms, just like he was seeming to ask, and gave Din a stern look.

"Two days", you looked at the child to make sure he was comfortable in your arms. "Don't wanna have him making more messes than necessary".

"No, sure", he almost chuckled, relieved that you had accepted to take care of his kid. "Thanks", he cleared his throat. "I'll be here to get him as soon as I'm done".

"You. Better. If not, I'll go to whoever in town and leave him with them".

That made Din's heart jump scared. But he knew you wouldn't do that. Not to a kid. Not to Grogu. Or at least he hoped you wouldn't.

"Alright", he nodded and stepped away from your door, leaving you with his adoptive son. "Good luck", he turned around and walked to his ship. You got inside your house and closed the door.

It took you less than one hour to start feeling uneasy. You had heard him well: he was going somewhere dangerous, and would take two days tops if he made it. That couldn't mean anything good. And the worst part was that you were worried.

You sat beside Grogu on your couch. Somehow, you had managed to keep him distracted with a bowl that he had somehow not shattered into pieces yet. You caught the small ceramic mid-air and looked straight into the child's eyes.

"Here we go again", you whispered to yourself, crossing your legs, facing him. "Hey, little fella", you gave him the most sincere smile you could pull off. "Do you happen to, you know, by any casual... know where your dad went?".

Immediately after asking him, you regretted your words. You knew it was pointless. He didn't understand you and you couldn't get to him with words —the night you had spent with him a week before had proved that. But you couldn't give up. Not knowing that Din was risking himself so stupidly —you didn't even know what he was going to do, wherever he was going, but you knew it would probably be some dumb Mandalorian thing.

You tried your best to try and ask Grogu about his father's whereabouts in a nice way. And it took you some time, but you finally managed to make him understand what you were trying to say.

"Your...", you pointed at the kid. "Dad...", you drew a round, helmet-like shape around your head with your hands. "Where?", you pointed out all around yourself, then shrugged. Grogu looked at you and smiled with a squeal. Then he grabbed the insides of his robe and pushed them aside to open it, leaving a metallic piece be seen under it. You immediately recognized the animal engraved on it.

What the hell did you get yourself into, Din?

"You are one amazing kid, little guy", you grabbed Grogu in your hands and took him with you as you grabbed a small bag and ran to town.

It took you a while to figure out how to make Grogu fit on your ship, since it was thought to fit one passenger only —and it was a bit of a mess, to be honest. It made you ask yourself how you were going to make Din fit in there once you got him back. More so, it made you hope that his own ship hadn't gotten damaged. Then maybe you could get on yours and let him and his child go on their own way, and continue to be mad at Din after he was over that stupidity of his.

When you finally got the two of you to fit alright in your ship, you headed to Mandalore.

The entire way you spent it talking to yourself, sometimes looking at Grogu to see if he was listening or minding his own business —also making sure he wasn't making anything float or turning the ship more into a mess than it already was. Most of your talk was just cursing Din and asking yourself why the hell were you doing that, after how he ha treated you.

"Maybe I want an excuse to keep being mad at him. You know, I wouldn't want him to die right when I'm having a thousand thoughts of how he was an idiot to me. Damn, I don't wanna feel bad if he dies when I'm still mad at him! I don't want that thought tormenting me everyday, let's be honest", you looked back at Grogu. "Am I right?", you gave him a forced smile. He just stared at you with his usual expression. You let out a heavy sigh and went back to piloting. "Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. That womp rat couldn't stay in one place, no, he has to go and do something stupid. And of course, it's Lost who has to go save him", another sigh. "Why do I even bother?", you whispered to yourself. "He'll probably give me another one of his Mandalorian crappy faces and walk away without even saying thank you".

You kept going back and forth about it for the entire way. Until you got tired of hearing your own voice and proceeded to just think, also trying to not force Grogu to throw something at your head to make you shut up.

After some hours, you made it to Mandalore. At first sight, it looked like a messed up planet, grey, sad. Then you saw some ships going in and out, and it made you think it wasn't that bad. But then you also remembered how Din had said he was going somewhere dangerous and your thoughts were taking aback.

Focus, Lost, you shook your head.

You tried to keep a low profile as you approached the planet, avoiding areas where you saw many people. You flew low as well to try to stay out of any possible radars. The last thing you needed was to come across some Mandalorians and have them shoot you and keep you from going after Din. All those hours in light speed would not be for nothing.

You noticed your own communications system starting to fail. At first, you tried hitting the computers in hopes it was just static or interference given the stormy atmosphere you had just flown through, but you gave up when they didn't show any signs of having been fixed.

A squeal from the back of the ship made you turn your head in a sudden movement. You saw Grogu's eyes half closed and one of his hands extended out, as if wanting to touch something.

Here we are, you thought.

You drove the ship to the nearest secure area you could find, leaving it behind some huge spiky, glass-like stones. You looked around to make sure no one would see you or the ship in that position. Then you saw what you guessed was Din's ship not too far away from your spot. A heavy sigh left your mouth.

You looked back at Grogu, who was now looking at you with curiosity. He let out a squeal and shook his head. You sighed again.

"I know, little one", you looked around once more. "Doesn't look great, does it?", you said more to yourself than to him. "But you know this place, right? You've been here before?".

Grogu nodded, his face now showing worry. You took him in your arms and wrapped a blanket around both yours and his body to secure him against your torso. After making sure he wouldn't fall, you got out of the ship.

The child showed you to the entrance to a cave. You looked back at your ship and Din's one last time before walking inside.

You were left speechless at the sight of a city below you. Grogu didn't take long to put you out of your astonishment and point down to a dark abyss. You felt the energy immediately leave your body as you saw there was no way you could go down without bruising your hands. So, you went back to the ship, grabbed some knives and a rope and went back into the cave, not entirely ready to go all that way down.

You were tempted to lay down —despite the water beneath your feet— to take a break and tend to the cuts in your hands, but the strength Grogu was gripping your shirt with made your heart thump in fear.

You had taken him with you to a place that couldn't be good, and you were going to make sure he was making it home safe.

You kept walking in the direction the kid pointed to. The unsteadiness went back to your body when you looked down and saw pieces of droids and fallen ships on the ground. You grasped your knifes and unsecured your blaster.

Soon enough, you heard metallic noises and groans in the distance. You squeezed Grogu against your chest and started running towards the fuss.

A shot came out of your blaster as soon as you saw Din fighting a group of beings you had never seen before. Each of them four, green-eyed things were looking straight at you, and there were more than you were able to count when all of them came running in your direction. Another shot prevented a couple of them to strike you down as you tried to fight against what were left of them with your hand that wasn't grabbing Grogu.

"Are you out of your mind?", Din shouted, shooting his blaster towards another four-eyed thing. "Why did you bring him?".

"Could you shut up for a moment?", you yelled back as your knife pierced through the throat of one of them beings about to streak a hit to Din's head. "I'm trying not to get him killed!".

"You couldn't have thought about that before bringing him here?".

The conversation was interrupted by a loud clang, followed by a robot-like huge spider. You had no time to react as one of the smaller beings came at you before the bigger one's leg pierced through it and pinned it to the floor. Almost immediately, you grabbed Din's arm and ran away, your other hand keeping Grogu safe in his blanket.

"Hold on tight".

With no warning, Din grabbed you by the waist and pulled you flush against his body, then his jetpack shot the three of you up and back to the entrance to the cave. Then, you did lay down to take a break. Din sat next to you, not before taking Greg from the blanket you had put him in. He took a second to check on his kid, who smiled and squealed at him. Then, he spoke again.

"You shouldn't have come".

His words made you huff with sarcasm.

"And let you die down there? Because that's what it looks like you were doing, honestly", you sat upright. "And he was the only one who knew where you had gone, so...", you gave him an ironic smile. "You're welcome, and all".

"Thanks to you, I didn't get to where I was going".

You turned to see him with a deep frown.

"Does it even matter? You really wanna go back down there?", you let out an exasperated sigh. "You almost got killed, Din", you got up. "Does your Mandalorian dignity mean more to you than your son?".

He didn't say a word. He knew you were right. But he wouldn't leave the mines having almost lost his life without what he had gone there to get.

"Thank you for helping me, I'll take care from here", he turned around, ready to go back down.

"Wait, you're seriously doing it? Didn't you hear a word of what I just said?", you stepped in front of him. "I just came here to help you not get killed. I came with your child, who almost gets killed! And I told you your Mandalorian bullshit can't be more important than him, and you're still going back? With him?".

"This is my business", he replied with a stern voice. "I appreciate you came to help me, but I'm here for a reason and I'm not leaving—".

"Yes, you are", you crossed your arms. Your heart was pounding, and your patience was running out. "I'm not letting you go back down there. Or at least not without knowing what are you so determined to get you and your child killed for".

Din let out a heavy sigh, almost as if meaning to say how come you couldn't understand something as simple as the situation he was going through.

"I removed my helmet", was the only thing that came out of his mouth. "A Mandalorian never removes their helmet".

"Seriously?", you turned around for a second, laughing in disbelief. "As if kicking me out of your house after a whole day together wasn't enough, you're disappointed in yourself for failing to be Mandalorian enough!", you turned back to look at him. This time, though, instead of a smile you had an exasperated frown on your face. "And it was worth your own life?".

"I've been a Mandalorian my entire life. It's the only thing that keeps me going".

"What?", your frown deepened. "Are you talking seriously?", another huff let your lips. "I can't believe you came all the way to this planet, all the way down that death path, willing to leave your own son by himself with the excuse of being a good Mandalorian again because it's the only thing you have", you said the last part trying to mimic Din's voice. "There is absolutely no way you're so damn narcissistic and stupid to let yourself be blinded by what, the fact that someone else saw your face? And you forget about him completely?", you sighed. "You know what, I'm done trying to understand you", you walked towards him and leaned down to scratch Grogu's head. "Sorry I dragged you here, little fella", you smiled at him. "Hope I'll see you again sometime. Good luck out there".

And like that, you walked away from them and back to your ship. You did hope to see Grogu again sometime, though not his father.

You really hoped you would never have to deal with his Mandalorian bullshit ever again.

"No! Don't touch that!".

You ran towards one of three little twi'lek babies in your hut, who was about to put a knife inside his belly button. Right before he did, you reached the knife and slapped it away, taking the kid in your arms along with the one you already had.

A knock at your door made your heart skip a bit at the suddenness of it. You turned around, only to see the third baby somehow opening the door, her tiny hands holding onto the knob. You ran towards her and took her in your arms as well. You didn't get to turn back around before you saw the man standing at the other side of the door.

"Ugh, not you!", you shouted at Din. One of the small twi'leks got away from your grasp and crawled back to where he was before, probably to search for the knife again. "Do you want something?", you tried to make yourself be heard over the noise of the little baby girl crying in your arms.

"Err, I can wait", he said, then leaned against the doorframe. "Uhh, should I help?", he asked at the sight of you running to one of the children, the girl escaping from your arms as well.

"Is that a serious question?", you ran towards her. Din sighed and closed the door before joining you.

He helped you deal with the kids way better than you were doing on your own. You could see all the time of practice he'd had with Grogu be put to good use. It was almost as if he was effortlessly making them laugh and calming them down whenever you had too much of a problem. Every time he did, you looked at him with a mix of anger and admiration. Not even a cicle had gone by and it had been enough to make you forget how much you despised him.

Almost by nighttime, the three twi'lek babies were asleep and taken away by their parents. You and Din were left alone, exhausted, sitting on your couch. You didn't even have the energy to tell him to screw off until you had closed your eyes for a couple minutes. Then, you spoke to him.

"Where's Grogu?", you opened your eyes and tried not to look at him.

"I left it with a friend of mine, in another planet".

You immediately turned your head to look at him.

"What?!", you almost screamed. Din chuckled at your reaction.

"Don't be mad, we've been traveling for a long time and it was on my way here, so...", he shrugged. "I had to come talk to you alone".

You sat up straight, your arms crossed in your chest. You scanned him upside down for a moment before leaning on the backrest.

"Alright. Talk", you tried to keep a straight face. Din cleared his throat.

"I didn't go to the Living Waters", was the only thing he said.

"Uh, sorry, the what?".

"It's where... Well, the place I was going when I went to Mandalore", he swallowed. "It's where us Mandalorians go for redemption when we take our helmets off. Voluntarily", he sighed, then took a deep breath. "I didn't go, after you left".

Your mouth opened in a reflex action, but you stopped to think for a moment and process his words.

"You didn't?", was the only thing you managed to say.

"I didn't", he huffed, almost with a smile. "I was tempted but I didn't go".

"Why?".

"Well... You were right", he cleared his throat. "I thought about what you said, and I realized that you were right. I was... actually embarrassed that I was willing to leave Grogu alone just to earn back the right to call myself a Mandalorian", he let out a heavy sigh. You could almost feel how uncomfortable he felt telling you about his feelings, his mistakes. "And it is pretty stupid, because I wasn't doing it for that to be able to produce call myself a Mandalorian. I was doing it more to... free myself. From my feelings".

And just like that, it was as if the Din you had met the first time he had gone to leave Grogu with you. His humor, his kindness, was back all of a sudden. Realization made you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding.

"You were also right about that, I guess", he continued. "I let myself be blinded by how I felt about someone else seeing my face. Well... About you seeing my face", he looked away. "It's kind of difficult to say this—".

"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there before you say something you might regret", you got up.

"No, I'm here right because of that", he grabbed your hands. "Please. I will no regret it".

You looked at him for a second. Though you couldn't see his face, you could picture his puppy brown eyes staring into your soul pleadingly. An involuntary sigh left your mouth and you sat back with him, your expression showing your slight dissatisfaction. Still, he kept going.

"The night we...", he cleared his throat, not wanting to say it out loud. "I didn't feel good with myself. I mean, Mandalorians are supposed to never show their faces, and I showed you mine the night after the day we met. And I blamed it on the alcohol, but then you left and I had more time to think", another distorted sigh came from his direction. "At first I didn't want to admit it, I just wanted to act as if it hadn't happened. Then I remembered I had to go back to Mandalore to atone, but I didn't want to do it. I felt as if it was something I just had to do, not something I wanted to do", he let out an exasperated chuckle. "Then you came looking for me with Grogu. And I saw things clearly", he grabbed your hands again. "I don't want my feelings to be a weakness. Hells, they're not! I mean, they do make me weak for you, but—".

"Shut up, will you?", you stared into his eyes —well, his visor. "I just have one question for you".

He stayed still for a moment. As he saw you didn't elaborate, he nodded, as if giving you permission to proceed with the question.

"Is there any rule or whatsoever in the Mandalorian sacred books that establishes that having feelings for a fellow makes you weak?", you tried to hold back your smile. Din couldn't hold back his laugh.

"No, there's not. That was my paranoid reaction to feeling something for my fellow over here", the way he put it in words made you laugh as well.

"You're so stupid", you chuckled.

"You know, going to Mandalore with Grogu and putting you both in danger like that was something stupid".

"Oh, you wanna fight about who's been more stupid?", you crossed your arms. "I suggest you don't challenge me, I've got a long list".

"Fine, I'll stop".

You kept laughing for a while longer. Then, you both sat upright on the couch, looking at particularly nothing in front of you. You stayed in silence. It was not an uncomfortable silence, so you let it go on for a couple minutes, until you finally thought of something to say.

"So", you turned to look at him. "What are you gonna do with that thing of being a Mandalorian again? I mean, I don't exactly know how that goes, but...".

"I guess I'll have to figure something out to trick the Armorer", he chuckled. You didn't know what he was talking about, but you giggled back anyways. "Let's see how long this lasts", he took your hand. The sudden approach made both you and him blush, and you wished you had a helmet on like him to hide the way the heat was taking over your face.

"This is a thing?", you said as calmly as possible, your eyes fixed on your entangled hands.

"I mean, if you want it to be...", Din's voice was almost as hesitant as yours.

You moved your hand away from his. Then you grabbed his helmet. His first reaction was to reach up and stop you, but he stopped himself instead. You took it as a sign to keep going, and you removed his helmet.

Just like you had imagined, he was looking at you with his brown puppy eyes, his expression still a bit hesitant. His stubble and moustache were a bit longer than the last time you had seen them, but not enough as to cover his upper lip completely. His hair was also longer, and disheveled, making a fluffy helmet of its own. It made you smile.

You reached up to touch his face, like the first time you had seen him with no helmet on. As soon as your skin graced his, he closed his eyes and let out a soft sigh. Your smile grew wider. Then, you approached. He blushed, now unable to hide it behind an armor, and closed his eyes, his lips half-opened. Though, you stopped right before you got to kiss him.

"You are one stupid womp rat", you whispered. His eyes suddenly were wide open and staring right into yours. The blush on his face got darker.

"I thought we had stopped talking about that", the way his expression barely changed while speaking made you laugh. You slid your other hand to cup his face, then left a quick peck on his lips.

"We had", you gave him a sly smirk. "But I'm still mad at you".

Din let out a breathless chuckle.

"What can I do to make it up to you?", he stroked your shoulder all the way up your arm to your wrist, then entwined his fingers with yours. You both let out a sigh.

"Well, first of all, you're gonna have to help me with kids around here if you wanna be able to step into my home ever again", you grabbed his jaw. "As for that other thing... I can think of a couple ways you can make it up to me", another smirk appeared on your lips as you looked down at his.

Without wasting any more time, you pulled him closer and gave him the most passionate kiss you could pull off, and that you had ever given to anyone. Din answered with just as much desperation —not a heated desperation, but needing to show you his feelings, how much he regretted having pushed you away the way he had, how much he was willing to give so that you would forgive him, how much he wanted his feelings to not be a weakness. Having thought of that was something stupid of him, indeed.

But not as stupid as you made him feel that night, making such loud noises as you touched him in all the right places in just the right time.

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x male reader #pedro pascal characters #din djarin #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin fic #din djarin x reader #din djarin x male reader

17 notes · View notes