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takadasaiko · 10 months

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Thirty-Five Years (a Top Gun fic)

Summary: When Rooster is forced to eject from his fighter, things don't go as planned.

FFN II AO3

While their deployments had collectively gotten shorter once the United States Navy had decided to keep the Dagger Squadron together, the stakes for each mission that they went on had become significantly higher. Why else would they send the best of their best in if any man would do?

And it was a good thing they did, too, because not just anyone could maneuver their way through the situation that they found themselves in. It was supposed to be a covert mission. Four F-18s. Four Daggers. Rooster led in as Dagger One, Phoenix and Bob following up as Dagger Two, Hangman was Three, and Coyote Four. The plan was to get in and out before anyone ever saw them coming. Or leaving, so they'd hoped. Not that things ever went quite as planned.

Shouts sounded off over the radio system coordinating between the four aircrafts to avoid missiles and bullets and enemy aircraft that just about clipped Phoenix's nose clear off her Hornet. Voices overlapped, yet all five pilots knew exactly how to communicate with one another. This wasn't their first rodeo. Hell, they'd all thought they were good before they'd bombed the facility in Iran. If you asked any one of them, they'd only gotten better since. They'd certainly learned to become a better team.

"Smoke in the air!" Coyote yelled out. "Dagger Three, break right!"

Rooster risked the quickest glance he could manage over to where a missile was aimed directly at Hangman. It never made it to him, though. He broke right, just as Coyote had shouted, but then he pulled back and throttled upward, nose pointed at the sun high in the sky to disorient the fighter gaining on his tail. He loosed a round of flares that struck the missile and it exploded in the air where he'd been moments before.

The shouts continued and Rooster broke hard to the left, shaking what might have turned into a tail as the other craft sped right by him. They might be the best the Navy had to offer in a dogfight, but they were across enemy lines and that same enemy would wisen up and launch more fighters if they didn't end this now. He was team leader. It was his call. They needed to finish this and get home. "I got a path!" he shouted. "Goin' in!"

"I've got your wing," Hangman answered and Rooster bit back a snarky retort. Time and place, Bradshaw. Time and place.

The two fighters swung around to where the weapons depot was tucked away at the edge of the cliffs, snug and hard to get to from the low altitude that they'd been forced into. Missles launched, cutting off the intended path and driving both Hornets out a little further to the left and the right than originally intended. Rooster ground out a low curse. "I've lost my angle."

"I've got it," Hangman answered and shifted into position. And just like that, Rooster was the wingman. Funny, it wasn't long ago that neither of them would have found themselves quite so flexible when it came to the kill shot.

Hangman was barreling ahead even as Rooster's alert systems started to scream. He took a quick look around through the canopy, searching for the source. There. A hanger built into the side of the mountain and a next gen fighter on its way towards them. This could be a problem. "Dagger Three, tally one, ten o'clock high!"

He received a grunt of acknowledgement as Hangman stayed on target. Rooster swallowed his argument. They had a mission to complete, and if Hangman had the shot, he'd make sure he didn't get his ass blown to hell while taking it.

The fighter sped out and Rooster broke far enough off to engage, but never quite leaving Hangman's wing. The other pilot was fast, but inexperienced. Whatever training the locals had been promised to accompany their shiny new toys clearly hadn't been completed. This guy was all power, but little skill. Rooster feigned left, broke right, and got a lock. Missiles away he veered even further back, just in time to see Hangman's own missile drop hit home, the weapons depot that had gone against every treaty signed in the last fifty years exploding into the air.

And kept exploding.

The fire built on itself, whatever was stored down there a ton more powerful than their intel had indicated to them. The celebratory cheers were quickly cut off as the flames leapt up towards both Rooster and Hangman's Hornets, the two aviators cutting off towards the ocean to escape the bursts of fire and shrapnel. Rooster jolted forward, his fighter's warning systems screaming at him and he stared at it for half a second longer than he should have. Shit. nothing like literally having your tail on fire.

But things could always get worse.

A second fighter swooped out of the plumes of smoke and into his line of sight. Bullets scattered across Hangman's Hornet and the other man loosed a curse out over the radio, dodging and releasing a burst of flares that only bought him a few seconds. "I'm out!" he shouted.

Every warning system was screaming at Rooster. He was losing his fighter, the damage spreading and no matter what he did he couldn't extinguish the flames. It was a goner, but the problem was that no one else was close enough to get the enemy fighter off of Hangman. He might make it. He was a talented pilot, but he was outgunned, if not out manned. It was a risk a team leader shouldn't take. It was a risk Rooster wasn't willing to take.

It all happened in what felt like a fraction of a second. He punched it, using speed that only fueled the flames on his own fighter to shift into alignment, loosing his last missile at the enemy fighter and seeing it strike before it could take Hangman out of the air. Alarms blared and he grabbed the ejection handle between his legs and pulled hard. The canopy shattered, he was jettisoned upward, and his fighter exploded beneath him.

Everything went black.

---

As with all dogfights, it had all happened so fast. He couldn't even say that he had gotten an air-to-air kill in, no matter how hard he'd tried to flip the script on the next gen fighter that had been on his tail. He was fast. Too fast. And Hangman had been running low on every type of ammo.

But his wingman had come through. And then Rooster's fighter had just… exploded. Phoenix screamed his name over the open radio and Hangman immediately swung his fighter around. "I've got chute!" he shouted, catching sight of it between the falling debris and flames. He just couldn't see what shape the other aviator was in, even as he descended through the heavy smoke and towards the ocean below.

The base was destroyed, what was left of the personnel and pilots that had been held up there had bugged out, and the only relief found in the orders to return to the carrier was that they were sending search and rescue for Rooster. Not that the daggers could do anything for him in their F-18s. All they could do was return and wait.

Debrief came and went, the four remaining pilots stiff and silent when they weren't giving their report to the admiral that had overseen the mission. None of them had known him prior to shipping out and he didn't appear to be the sharing type. Hangman recounted the details as he'd seen them, and somehow his missing squad mate made the truth a little easier to ground out than it might have been if they were all celebrating on the deck together: Rooster had saved his life.

The helicopter was landing as they made their way back to the deck after being dismissed. Jake risked a glance to his right to see Phoenix looking like she was coiled and ready to spring forward. Anyone less disciplined might have as they waited for the doors to slide open to see if Rooster strutted out on his own with all the luck he clearly had picked up from his godfather or….

"He's gonna be okay," Bob shouted over the sound of the rotors powering down.

The door slid open and a Navy medic was the first out, taking the end of an occupied stretcher. Already hooked up to some sort of IV bag was the prone form of their squad mate and Hangman squinted against the sun that was starting its downward dip for the day. Blood caked Rooster's face that hadn't been washed off by the waves. His flightsuit was a mess, simultaneously soaked through and burned in places. The medics had peeled it away from his shoulders and removed his undershirt, likely to get a better look at his injuries. It looked like there was a temporary bandage lining his ribcage, blood seeping through. Hangman couldn't hear it with the sounds of the carrier all around them, but he saw the injured aviator grimace as the second medic eased out, jolting the stretcher. Behind the two medics came another man with a familiar red helmet in his hand.

"Shit," Phoenix managed.

"He's alive. And conscious," Coyote pointed out.

"Not sure the last one is a plus right this second," Hangman muttered and tilted his head towards the far end of the deck that would lead them around the long way to the medical bay. If they moved fast enough, they might be able to catch someone with some answers without getting in their way.

—

Bob's surprised shout at seeing Rooster's fighter's tail on fire had been what had drawn Phoenix's attention away from her pursuit of the fleeing enemy craft, but the explosion had kept it. The sparks from the raging fire trying to drag the Hornet out of the sky had mixed with the controlled explosion that kept Rooster from ejecting directly into his canopy, but even though he'd clearly punched out, he didn't get enough space between him and the fighter before the explosion had thrown him. She'd watched it happen. She'd seen the pressure slam into him, ripping his chute outward towards the ocean - a saving grace. The cliff side probably would have killed him - and had known that shrapnel and burning debris was following, even as he'd dipped down beneath the plumes of smoke that had made it impossible to see exactly where he hit the water below.

But it hadn't killed him. That much they knew on deck and saw a bit closer up, even if the medics had shoved all four of them out into the corridor. She'd locked eyes with him - bruises already starting to form around them, showing signs of a broken nose - and he'd offered her a struggling smile that barely tilted his lips and a weak thumbs up to prove he was with them. As they were ushered out, Phoenix had sunk down against the wall.

While the medics weren't keen on updates, at least no one forced them to leave their doorway vigil. Bob went and got coffee and water for them all, and at one point Coyote had to step away for a brief moment, but mostly they just waited in silence. The five spares that had been waiting on deck in case they needed to join the first wave of Dagger Squadron dropped by to check in, but the narrow corridor had become too crowded far too fast and the four that had been out there with him had been given preferential standing space as long as they swore to let the others know when they got an update.

So they waited, the three men leaning against the wall with Phoenix on the floor, a half finished and very cold cup of coffee held loosely in her hands. "Did you know it'll be thirty-five years in a few days?"

She could practically feel three sets of eyes turn on her at the first words spoken between them in at least an hour. "Since what?" Coyote asked, shifting against the wall.

Phoenix looked up, dark eyes flickering between her squad mates. She knew him the best out of all of them. Moments like this reminded her of that. "Since his dad died."

Hangman actually winced at that. "Bad ejection, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"But he's okay," Bob said quickly and Phoenix shrugged.

"He's alive," she corrected.

The words had barely left her mouth when the door they'd practically been guarding for hours now opened, revealing a very tired looking doctor. To her credit, she didn't look startled even though all four aviators were immediately on her, firing off questions that overlapped. She held up her hand. "He's stable. And awake, but he needs to rest. I'm recommending we send him home ahead of the carrier, but that won't be until tomorrow."

"Can we see him?" Phoenix asked, trying to get a look past the taller woman and into the room. All she saw was medical equipment.

"Keep it brief. Not all at once."

She moved past them, likely to give her report to the admiral. Bob - closest to the door - took an intentional step back and nodded at Phoenix. Coyote echoed the movement.

"I'll be in in a sec," Hangman offered, the unspoken understanding that she should be the first in shared among them. Well, she did know him best, even if she, Rooster, and Hangman had all met at Pensacola.

Phoenix slipped into the room and stepped around a medic that was cleaning up. She spotted Rooster on the far side of the room, a curtain only partially pulled for the privacy that none of them really expected when they were out to sea. His eyes were closed and a nasal cannula rested on his mustache, pushing a little extra oxygen into him. They'd cleaned the blood off his face and she could see a collection of cuts and the beginning of some bruises along his hairline and around his eyes. Dressing was wrapped up and around his left shoulder and down his chest. How far down, she couldn't tell with the sheets pulled up. Another bandage was wrapped around his left forearm, two fingers on the opposite hand taped together. She glanced up at the monitor next to the bed, assessing his vitals there.

"Hey," he croaked, startling her attention back to him. The smile he offered her this time was a little more real than it had been when they'd first brought him below deck, albeit even more tired now.

"I'd ask how you're feeling, but it looks like they're giving you all the good drugs," she teased.

"Oh yeah," he managed with a weak chuckle and struggled to clear his throat. "I don't know what day it is."

"It'll be a hell of a story once you're back on your feet."

He hummed a soft agreement, but something caused his lulling eyelids to pop back open, only fractionally clearer than a moment before. "Please tell me no one's told Mav."

"Not that I know of. Bob, Hangman, Coyote, and I've all been waiting on you since they brought you in. I don't know if Admiral Hale knows the connection." She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Doc said they're sending you home ahead of the carrier. Pretty sure he'll notice something's up."

"That bad, huh?"

"You kind of look like you got blown up."

Rooster snorted at that, but seemed to relax a little. "Just don't want him to worry."

"Bad time of year for this, huh?"

"Is there a good time with him?" Rooster countered, and sighed. "But yeah. Bad time of year. I just wanna make sure he sees I'm okay, you know?"

"Are you?"

"What?"

"Okay?"

To his credit, he seemed to think about that for a moment. "I will be."

There was a long moment, those soft brown eyes of his catching her own darker ones and Phoenix tried for a lighter smile. "Better be, Bradshaw."

The door opened and it was enough to break the moment. Rooster loosed a breath, shifting his gaze away and Phoenix looked over to see Hangman standing in the doorway. If he had something to say, he kept it to himself. Apparently saving his life bought a little bit of good will. Or at least neutral. "So do you and the old timer share the nine lives, or so you each get a set of your own?"

Rooster snorted a laugh and then coughed, grimacing as he settled a little further back onto the cot. "It was close."

"No shit. How're you feeling?"

"Tired."

And that was their cue. Phoenix reached over and gave his hand a gentle squeeze, careful to avoid his broken fingers. "Get some rest."

He was already fading, even as he mumbled an affirmative and Phoenix started ushering Hangman back towards the door. "Any more news in about sending him home?"

"Yeah. They're flying him out tomorrow morning. I volunteered to go with him."

Phoenix's eyes narrowed at that. "Why?"

Hangman feigned insult, but sobered up just as quickly as he glanced past her at their sleeping squad mate. "I was out of ammo and in a tight spot. Bradshaw saved my life. Least I can do."

She nodded slowly. "Just… try to be a little less of an asshole to him?"

That shit-eating grin returned. "Where's the fun in that?"

She rolled her eyes as they moved back to the corridor. She didn't want to go. If there weren't a report to file and work to be done, she might have settled herself down in the chair next to his bed for a little while. In fact, she might just bring the reports back down to do just that.

—

Everything from punching out on had been something of a blur. He had snippets of memories. Fire and what had to have been pieces of his exploding fighter slamming into him and, the next thing he knew, Rooster had been underwater. He'd pulled in a breath and found only saltwater before his training had kicked in and, despite the spiking pain, had kicked hard to help the flotation device in his flightsuit to get him to the surface.

He was in and out and on the helicopter before he'd come fully around again. Lights in his eyes, questions barked at him, and the rattling of his dog tags around his neck. At least it was his people that had found him, even if he hadn't known any of them.

They were supposed to leave out first thing that next morning, but it was nearly thirty-six hours after the crash before he and Hangman boarded a helicopter that would take them to shore where they'd be loaded onto a larger Navy plane for transport. Somewhere along the way Hangman popped off about getting them there in a fraction of the time if he'd been flying. The medic didn't find that funny. Rooster might have if everything didn't hurt so damn much.

He had a laundry list of injuries. Broken nose, concussion, and something torn in his shoulder that made a cringe-worthy popping noise every time he moved wrong, even with his arm firmly fit into the sling they'd provided. He'd cracked two ribs and had taken some shrapnel. And then there were the burns that were starting to pull, reminding him of the fireball his Hornet had been when he'd ejected. He'd nearly argued when they'd brought the wheelchair, but had had to swallow his pride at the thought of crashing immediately to the floor if he tried to walk. Well, at least the painkillers took the edge off the irritation too.

Surprisingly enough, Hangman didn't give him as much hell as he would have expected. Rooster had anticipated the same rounds of jabbing snark that they usually tossed at each other, but if this was his brand of gratitude or he just wasn't going to be as entertained if Rooster couldn't give as good as he got, only Hangman knew. His wingman didn't leave his side as they made their way to shore, at the hospital as they looked him over a little more thoroughly, or as they boarded the transport.

Rooster surfaced from one of the many rounds of light, drug-induced dozes his body kept slipping into on the flight stateside. He shifted, stiff and uncomfortable and more than a little frustrated with his lack of mobility and general awareness. He tried to focus through the fog that had saturated his brain since he'd woken up in the medical bay on the carrier. It took a moment, but he finally picked apart Hangman's voice from the low rumble of the engines. He strained, trying to decide if he was talking to a medic or one of the pilots that had come back here for a few minutes of shut eye. His voice grew louder, though, and the words more distinct as he circled around into Rooster's line of vision and he spotted a sat phone in his hand. "Yeah, just woke up. You wanna talk to him?"

There was a beat and then another before Hangman handed the phone over. Rooster took it, careful of the fingers taped together, and struggling to remember if he should know who was on the other side of the call. It'd be just his luck to croak out a hello? only to have it be Admiral Simpson berating him on destroying the second multimillion dollar jet in as many years. No, he opted for a safer option. "Bradshaw."

"Bradley," Maverick's relieved voice sounded from the other end. "You okay?"

Well, that answered the question on if Mav knew or not. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." He pointedly ignored the skeptical look Hangman shot him. "They call you?"

"Apparently you still have me as next of kin," Mav answered.

"Never took you off." He'd thought about it. Hell, he'd started to fill out the paperwork more times than he could count, but every time the thought of something happening to him and Maverick hearing about it some handful of years later had stopped him. Not that he'd ever been willing to admit it at the time. It was just a hassle and who was he going to put on there anyway?

Mav made a small, startled sound. "You either," he acknowledged softly.

"Probably should have snagged a computer on the carrier. Just…. Didn't want to worry you." He let his head thump back softly, squeezing his eyes shut. Especially not now. Not this time of year.

There was a long stretch of static and for a moment Rooster thought he'd lost the connection. Finally, Mav sighed, and he thought maybe the Old Man was just trying to feel out where the boundaries were so he didn't catapult across them. "Just get home safe, Rooster. I'll see you on the tarmac."

A small smile tilted his lips. "See you when we get home, Mav." He ended the call and handed the phone back to Hangman. As the other aviator turned, Rooster cleared his throat. "Hey. What's the date? Got kinda lost in the fog."

"Depends where we are," Hangman answered with a shrug. "We're due in on base at 0800 on the twenty-ninth."

Well shit.

Hangman shifted uncomfortably. "Phoenix mentioned…."

"Yeah."

"Thirty-five years, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Probably good you talked to him."

Rooster nodded, feeling it through his shoulder. "Yeah," he said softly and let his eyes drift closed again. He needed sleep. Real sleep, not just catnaps between struggling to stay awake. He wasn't going to be better by the time they made it there, but he could at least make sure he was conscious when they got to base.

—

In the years following Goose's death, Carole had always made sure Maverick found his way to their house on the anniversary. Sure, some years he was deployed, but if he was stateside, he knew where he'd be: with the only people who mourned Goose as much as he did.

Then Carole had gotten sick and she'd died. Mav and Bradley - because the kid hadn't gotten his own callsign yet - and had spent that July 29th together just the two of them. The next year Bradley had been away at college, but by the next he'd found out that Mav had pulled his papers from the Naval Academy and had cut him entirely out of his life. Year after year, Maverick had secluded himself on that day. He mourned alone. He suffered alone. Until last year. The Dagger Squadron had received a permanent base on North Island to be sent out on missions as the Navy saw fit, and Maverick and Rooster had spent the day together. They'd gone to the graves and then they'd gone flying. That night the two of them had had one or three too many at the Hard Deck, but it'd been more smiles than tears as they'd goofed off and sung Goose's favourite song, his son on the piano and holding a hell of a better tune than Maverick.

Mav had hoped they'd wrap the mission and be home by the twenty-ninth this year. He just hadn't expected it to be this way.

The call had come in the middle of the night. Those were never good. During the mission, Lt Bradley Bradshaw had been forced to eject. There'd been an issue and search and rescue was underway. Captain Mitchell would be updated as soon as they knew more. Penny had had to pry the phone from his numb fingers, even as the dial tone could be heard from the other end. He couldn't breathe. He hadn't been able to think about anything other than the fact that just a few days shy of the thirty-fifth anniversary of Goose's death, Rooster was…. He hadn't known. Bad ejection, over water, search and rescue…. He hadn't slept the rest of the night.

Then the next call came with the sun. They'd found him. He was alive. He was with the medics to assess his injuries and Captain Mitchell would be updated as soon as they knew more. He'd tried to sleep that night, but found himself in the Pacific Ocean holding onto a lifeless body, but even as Goose's name slipped from his lips, he turned him over to see Rooster's face. So much for sleep.

The next update of any detail came from Hangman once Maverick had exhausted every favour owed and finally got connected to the sat phone on the transport bringing them home. He got the full story and felt the panic that had gripped his nightmares flare back up with a vengeance. It wasn't until Hangman offered to put Rooster on the phone that Maverick had slowed back down, keeping his voice as measured as he could. He'd sounded tired, but he was alive. He was alive and he was coming home.

So at 0800 on July 29, 2021 - thirty five years after one of the worst days of his life - Pete "Maverick" Mitchell stood on the tarmac, watching the transport that Goose's son was on taxi in. The transport came to rest, the engines were shut off, and the ramp was lowered out the back. Inside, as if both ready and willing to make their exit as quickly as possible, were Hangman and Rooster. Rooster sat in a wheelchair, glaring up at his wingman's cocky grin, and he rolled his eyes at whatever the other man had said. He was beaten and bruised - likely more than Mav could even see - but he was alive. And he was home.

He met the boys at the base of the ramp and Rooster started to try to push himself to his feet. Maverick waved him back down. "Take it easy."

"I'm fine," Rooster huffed as he sunk back down into the chair and Mav snorted. The younger man bobbed his head back and forth a little, a noncommittal sound escaping him as he considered his next words, before he looked up to meet Maverick's eyes. "I'm gonna be fine."

"I know," Mav breathed. It was going to be alright. He was going to be alright.

—

He'd argued. And argued and argued and he'd lost the argument. Mostly because he couldn't drive himself at the moment and Mav made the decision for him. It definitely wasn't because he had a three flight walk up to his apartment that he never would have made in his current state. Nope. Not that at all. And it could have been worse. Medical could have sent him straight to the hospital once they were done checking him over, but instead they ordered him home and to bed rest. Mav had just taken it on himself to choose his home rather than Rooster's.

Penny had the guest room set up by the time they arrived. It was small, usually used for storage, but the bed was a whole lot more comfortable than the med bay back on the carrier, the hospital bed during their brief layover, and definitely better than the cot on the transport plane. By the time Rooster took a seat on the edge, the last round of pain meds had already kicked in and Mav eased him back into the pillows, careful to avoid his injured shoulder.

He must have slept most of the day, waking up here and there, mostly when Mav roused him to eat a little something or get some water down his throat. When he finally woke up on his own, the sun looked like it was on its way down and he risked a glance over at the digital clock. 18:15. It was quiet - Penny likely out at the bar - but a soft snore drew his attention around to where Mav was slumped down in a chair, feet propped up on a side table, and an afghan tucked around him. Rooster studied his sleeping face for a long moment. It was funny, a couple years before he'd tossed the fact that Mav didn't have a wife or kids to mourn him if he burned in, and while he had been pointing to the fact his father had had both, he could have just as easily been talking about himself in those days. Maybe he should have called. Let him know he didn't have one more Bradshaw to mourn. He was still getting used to this too.

Mav jerked a little in his sleep and Rooster shifted, trying to get a better line of sight. He wasn't awake, but looked like he was dreaming. Or having a nightmare. Then his dad's callsign left Mav's lips in a strangled whisper. Yep. Definitely a nightmare. "Hey, Mav," he called out softly.

The older aviator jolted upright. "Rooster!" he shouted, eyes wide and he seemed to be lost in the nightmare for a couple of seconds into consciousness. Finally he blinked, shook his head a little, and Rooster suddenly found those sharp blue eyes on him. "Rooster," his name left his godfather again, this time with more relief than panic.

"Hey." He shifted, grimaced, and then carefully rolled into a seated position, long legs dropping over the edge of the bed so that his bare feet rested against the floor. "You're gonna get a crick in your neck if you keep sleeping like that."

There was another beat of silence before Maverick scurried up to his feet, blanket falling away and he looked like he was going to push Rooster back down to the admittedly very comfy pillows. He held up a bandaged hand before Mav could get ahold of him and shook his head. "I'm gonna get stoved up too. How 'bout a change of rooms and a movie?"

"Sure," Mav managed and straightened where he stood. Now that he knew they were just switching locations, he offered Rooster a hand up and a shoulder to lean on as they made their way very carefully out into the living room.

It was quiet, with the evening light casting long shadows. Rooster let Mav help ease him down onto the couch, arm resting on the sofa's armrest in lieu of the sling for his shoulder. He watched Maverick fumble about with the controls, trying to find the right one to pull up one of the streaming services. Rooster snorted and motioned for him to pass it over, getting them where they needed to go in a few clicks. "You're getting old, Mav. The tech is outpacing you."

His godfather took a heavy seat next to him and damned he looked tired. Guilt weighed on the younger man and he reached, tapping the back of his hand against Maverick's arm. "I'm sorry."

A chuckle escaped him. "For what? You're not wrong."

"You know that's not what I mean. For not calling as soon as I was conscious."

"Hard to do from the middle of the ocean."

"For scaring you. For scaring you this time of year. I know…" He closed his eyes, feeling the emotions he hadn't expected to come bubbling up.

"Bradley. Bradley, stop. This is not your fault. You saved your wingman's life. You did your job. I'm not gonna blame you for that."

"I know, but I'm just saying… I know you miss him. Still. Always. I just want you to know I'm not going anywhere. Thirty-five years from now, we're both still gonna be here, you hear me?"

"You know I'm turning sixty next year?"

Rooster snorted, shoving him lightly. "No excuses, Old Man. Right here. You and me."

"You've got yourself a deal, Rooster," Maverick answered softly and finally seemed to relax a little. "What are we watching?"

"Airplane."

"What?"

Rooster grinned. "C'mon. Dad loved that one."

"And I hated it. How do you even remember that?" Mav sighed dramatically before shaking his head, a smile stretching into place. "Fine. For Goose."

Rooster's own grin broadened and they settled in, both men laughing and grimacing and finally falling asleep leaned up against each other. And in that place right before he dozed off, Rooster could have sworn he saw his dad smiling down at them both.

---

End.

Notes: I was rewatching Top Gun Maverick the other day for some inspiration for another story and sort of.... fell down the rabbit hole. I really love all of the relationships in this movie, especially Mav and Rooster. Hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

"Smoke in the air!" Coyote yelled out. "Dagger Three, break right!"

"I've got your wing," Hangman answered and Rooster bit back a snarky retort. Time and place, Bradshaw. Time and place.

And kept exploding.

But things could always get worse.

Everything went black.

---

"He's gonna be okay," Bob shouted over the sound of the rotors powering down.

"Shit," Phoenix managed.

"He's alive. And conscious," Coyote pointed out.

—

She could practically feel three sets of eyes turn on her at the first words spoken between them in at least an hour. "Since what?" Coyote asked, shifting against the wall.

Phoenix looked up, dark eyes flickering between her squad mates. She knew him the best out of all of them. Moments like this reminded her of that. "Since his dad died."

Hangman actually winced at that. "Bad ejection, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"But he's okay," Bob said quickly and Phoenix shrugged.

"He's alive," she corrected.

"Can we see him?" Phoenix asked, trying to get a look past the taller woman and into the room. All she saw was medical equipment.

"Keep it brief. Not all at once."

She moved past them, likely to give her report to the admiral. Bob - closest to the door - took an intentional step back and nodded at Phoenix. Coyote echoed the movement.

"I'd ask how you're feeling, but it looks like they're giving you all the good drugs," she teased.

"Oh yeah," he managed with a weak chuckle and struggled to clear his throat. "I don't know what day it is."

"It'll be a hell of a story once you're back on your feet."

He hummed a soft agreement, but something caused his lulling eyelids to pop back open, only fractionally clearer than a moment before. "Please tell me no one's told Mav."

"That bad, huh?"

"You kind of look like you got blown up."

Rooster snorted at that, but seemed to relax a little. "Just don't want him to worry."

"Bad time of year for this, huh?"

"Is there a good time with him?" Rooster countered, and sighed. "But yeah. Bad time of year. I just wanna make sure he sees I'm okay, you know?"

"Are you?"

"What?"

"Okay?"

To his credit, he seemed to think about that for a moment. "I will be."

There was a long moment, those soft brown eyes of his catching her own darker ones and Phoenix tried for a lighter smile. "Better be, Bradshaw."

Rooster snorted a laugh and then coughed, grimacing as he settled a little further back onto the cot. "It was close."

"No shit. How're you feeling?"

"Tired."

And that was their cue. Phoenix reached over and gave his hand a gentle squeeze, careful to avoid his broken fingers. "Get some rest."

He was already fading, even as he mumbled an affirmative and Phoenix started ushering Hangman back towards the door. "Any more news in about sending him home?"

"Yeah. They're flying him out tomorrow morning. I volunteered to go with him."

Phoenix's eyes narrowed at that. "Why?"

Hangman feigned insult, but sobered up just as quickly as he glanced past her at their sleeping squad mate. "I was out of ammo and in a tight spot. Bradshaw saved my life. Least I can do."

She nodded slowly. "Just… try to be a little less of an asshole to him?"

That shit-eating grin returned. "Where's the fun in that?"

—

"Bradley," Maverick's relieved voice sounded from the other end. "You okay?"

Well, that answered the question on if Mav knew or not. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." He pointedly ignored the skeptical look Hangman shot him. "They call you?"

"Apparently you still have me as next of kin," Mav answered.

Mav made a small, startled sound. "You either," he acknowledged softly.

"Probably should have snagged a computer on the carrier. Just…. Didn't want to worry you." He let his head thump back softly, squeezing his eyes shut. Especially not now. Not this time of year.

"Depends where we are," Hangman answered with a shrug. "We're due in on base at 0800 on the twenty-ninth."

Well shit.

Hangman shifted uncomfortably. "Phoenix mentioned…."

"Yeah."

"Thirty-five years, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Probably good you talked to him."

—

Mav had hoped they'd wrap the mission and be home by the twenty-ninth this year. He just hadn't expected it to be this way.

He met the boys at the base of the ramp and Rooster started to try to push himself to his feet. Maverick waved him back down. "Take it easy."

"I know," Mav breathed. It was going to be alright. He was going to be alright.

—

His godfather took a heavy seat next to him and damned he looked tired. Guilt weighed on the younger man and he reached, tapping the back of his hand against Maverick's arm. "I'm sorry."

A chuckle escaped him. "For what? You're not wrong."

"You know that's not what I mean. For not calling as soon as I was conscious."

"Hard to do from the middle of the ocean."

"For scaring you. For scaring you this time of year. I know…" He closed his eyes, feeling the emotions he hadn't expected to come bubbling up.

"Bradley. Bradley, stop. This is not your fault. You saved your wingman's life. You did your job. I'm not gonna blame you for that."

"I know, but I'm just saying… I know you miss him. Still. Always. I just want you to know I'm not going anywhere. Thirty-five years from now, we're both still gonna be here, you hear me?"

"You know I'm turning sixty next year?"

Rooster snorted, shoving him lightly. "No excuses, Old Man. Right here. You and me."

"You've got yourself a deal, Rooster," Maverick answered softly and finally seemed to relax a little. "What are we watching?"

"Airplane."

"What?"

Rooster grinned. "C'mon. Dad loved that one."

"And I hated it. How do you even remember that?" Mav sighed dramatically before shaking his head, a smile stretching into place. "Fine. For Goose."

---

End.

#Top Gun #Top Gun Maverick #Top Gun fanfic #Top Gun Fanfiction #Bradley Rooster Bradshaw #Pete Maverick Mitchell #Jake Hangman Seresin #Natasha Phoenix Trace #Javy Coyote Machado #Robert Bob Floyd #Nick Goose Bradshaw

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stormyoceans · 11 months

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monica monica monica, i just had a random thought about morkday and now i will be manifesting it to happen, or something like it, bc it would be So Good (at least i think so being an angst lover)

they have an argument of some sort and mork storms off. he doesnt show up to work the next day or two so day tries to go looking for him along the paths that they've walked together and he gets hurt some how, i don't know don't yell at me. night calls mork and he quite literally drops everything and straight up runs to the hospital and day instantly knows when he steps in the room bc he smells like the mechanic shop. enter: tearful apologies and "im okay"s and maybe hand holding that makes night realize just how much they care about each other?

anywayssss, it really last twilight brainrot hours 24/7 <3<3

IN A DEAD FAINT IN FRONT OF MY SCREEN AFTER EXPERIENCING THE EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT OF BEING FLUNG DIRECTLY INTO A BRICK WALL AT TOP SPEED AND HAVING AN HIGH ENERGY PROTON BEAM FROM A PARTICLE ACCELERATOR PASSING DIRECTLY THROUGH MY BRAIN CASSI THIS IS SOOOOO [SCREAMING SHAKING CRYING CHEWING MY WAY THROUGH KEVLAR]

NO BECAUSE THE THING IS!!!!!!! i can actually see this happening so well!!!!!!! like okay do you know that quick moment in the trailer where night is right outside day's room while mork is drying day's hair and night has this look on his face that just screams 'something is going on there and i don't like it'???? and then there's that scene where mork tells day's mom "i know the boundaries of my responsibility" and day hears it AND THEN right after that there's day's mom hugging him????? imagine night suspecting something is going on between mork and day and eventually sharing this suspicion with their mother because he feels protective over his brother and by doing so he confirms what she was already afraid of (because mork and day aren't subtle AT ALL) and for whatever reason she isn't happy with them getting too close (maybe because she thinks mork isn't sincere and she doesn't want day to get hurt, or maybe it's because of class prejudice) so she talks to mork to make sure he knows his place and this ends up making all of mork's self doubts flare up and gnaw at him, which means that when day confronts him about what he said to her, he just.. agrees with her. tells day they're too different and that this is just a job for him anyway

so they fight, like you said. and it's a very ugly fight, where they both say things they don't really mean. as bad as it gets, though, day still expects mork to show up the next day because mork ALWAYS shows up: even when day was actively trying to chase him away at the beginning, mork still kept coming. but he doesn't, now, not even the following day, or the one after that. day tries to reach out but he gets no reply and at some point his mom tells him that it's better like this, that it was gonna happen sooner or later and that they're gonna find someone else to take care of day and that day is gonna forget about mork soon. and day is just so damn tired of people telling him what's best for him and treating him like he can no longer decide for himself, so he says you know what fuck this and goes to look for mork

but then he gets hurt and night calls mork because he can tell his brother is suffering without him and mork runs to the hospital at the speed of light and at that point you couldn't separate them even if you tried (no one actually tries to, thankfully, because even day's mom can tell they love each other at this point)

ANYWAY I FEEL VERY MUCH LIKE THAT GIF OF A WOMAN TALKING TO HERSELF RN THIS IS SO GONNA ACTUALLY HAPPEN THANK YOU FOR THE DERANGEMENT CASSI IM GONNA WALK INTO TRAFFIC

#'day instantly knows when he steps into the room because he smells like the mechanic shop' not to sound dramatic but im about to kill myself #i ain't getting to this show with my sanity still intact IM TELLING YOU #THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING THIS WITH ME CASSI I FEEL SUICIDAL NOW #also haven't reread any of this so sorry if it's a mess ;;;;;;;;;#last twilight the series #morkday #m: ask #cassi 💙#knocking myself out i need to SHUT UP i need to sleep

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greatshell-rider · 2 years

Text

Jerry battered away the soldier’s sword and whipped his sword back, knocking the hilt into their jaw and stunning them. He kicked them in the chest, sending them stumbling back into their fellows. In this close-quarters fighting, even that created a brief opening, a moment of respite, for Jerry to wipe the sweat trickling into his eyes and back up a few paces, give him some space—

His back hit Radio’s leg, and both jumped apart—Jerry nearly landing himself directly into the swing of another soldier. He barely got his sword up in time, yet the blow still jarred nastily up his arm. A second soldier joined the first, attacking him in tandem. Teeth gritted, Jerry gave ground slowly, all his attention focused on keeping them away from the dragon. If Jerry fell and they got their hands on him . . .

“Back!” he shouted to Radio, who still cowered uncertainly. “Move, dammit!”

The dragon scrambled away, clambering over rocks and squeezing between foliage. Jerry followed, managing to dispatch one of the soldiers only for another to take their place. At least the uneven footing hindered them as much as it did Jerry—for now. Soon, their numbers would overpower him, unless he could get that damned lizard to do something.

Radio hesitated as the trail narrowed into a tunnel carved through the rock. Jerry couldn’t tell if it was big enough for the dragon, but—he exchanged a fierce flurry of blows with one soldier and dodged a stab to his stomach by another—there wasn’t a choice.

“Go!” he bellowed, gesturing wildly, and Radio plunged into the tunnel with Jerry close on his tail, the soldiers following after with angry shouts—but jammed briefly at the entrance before forced into single-file.

The tunnel was short. Radio had to squeeze through a tight spot, then burst out into a wider area. Jerry crouched and scooped a rock off the ground, chucked it at the head of the nearest soldier, then hurried out, head swiveling as he took in their situation. Radio stood a short distance away, head craned up, forced to stop as the canyon trail came to a dead-end, sheer rock walls preventing further retreat.

“Fuck,” Radio panted, his breath coming short and panicky. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He whirled a circle, eyes darting wildly, and a growl rumbled from his chest. “There’s no way out!” He instinctively flared his wings.

“Don’t!” Jerry yelled, but too late, the charm activated and magic crackled down Radio’s wings. Radio shrieked in pain, wings flopping uselessly down his sides, and he keened quietly, huddling against the wall.

Jerry cursed and started towards him, but checked himself, his training screaming at him not to turn his back on the soldiers racing down the tunnel. He jerked back around, scanning the tunnel exit, looking for anything he could do, could use, to slow their coming. On one side, a jumble of tight-packed dirt and rocks from a long-ago rockslide, with a crooked little tree growing sideways out of it, was his immediate best guess. But it was far too large for him to push over . . . for him.

“Radio, I’m sorry, but I need your help,” he yelled, running to the side of the rockslide and pressing his shoulder to the loosest-looking section. Radio staggered to his feet.

Pounding feet on stone.

“Radio!” The dragon threw himself over to Jerry’s side and roared, slamming his body against the rocks. His head snaked around and jaws opened to clamp down on the tree, ripping its roots free and throwing the whole of it down before the exit, bashing the head of the front soldier and forcing them to stumble back. A second later, the top half of the rockslide crumbled down, half-covering up the opening.

“Again!” Jerry threw his meager weight against the rest of the stones, Radio repositioned and did the same, and grunting and swearing, the two shoved more rocks and dirt over the opening, creating a shitty half-decent barrier that would give them a minute, two at best, before the soldiers managed to either climb over or dismantle it.

One minute to get out, or come up with another plan.

Jerry stumbled back, picking up his sword where he’d dropped it and wiping the blood and dust off it on the bottom of his tunic. He was jittery from nerves and excitement, and his head buzzed almost too much to think.

But he had to. “Okay,” he said aloud, forcing the words out, forcing the whirling thoughts in his head to assemble into something like order. “Okay. That was—that’s something.”

“It’s nothing,” Radio said. He sank slowly down on his haunches beside the remnants of the rockslide, staring at the barrier. “We’re stuck here.” He winced and clutched at his foreleg where it had gotten cut earlier, squeezing hard enough for blood to trickle down his green scales.

Jerry stepped forward. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Radio said shortly. He was shaking. The strange beetle-like device stuck stubbornly to his shoulder sparked, and a twitch shuddered down his wing. “I just don’t see how we can survive this.”

“We’ll get it off you, somehow,” Jerry said, reaching a hand towards the device. As his hand neared, the pupils of Radio’s eyes thinned to slits and he snapped at Jerry’s hand, narrowly missing his fingers before Jerry snatched his hand away.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Radio snarled, and Jerry stepped back, eyes wide. Then Radio blinked and dipped his head, immediately contrite. “Sorry. I don’t know why I—why I did that—”

But Jerry hadn’t been scared. His heart was racing, sure, but adrenaline burned through his blood already. “No, I’m impressed,” he blurted.

The soldiers in the tunnel had paused at the roar, but now they resumed digging in earnest. Radio tipped his head at Jerry skeptically.

Jerry said hurriedly, “I am! Radio, I know you don’t know how to fight—”

“I don’t want to fight,” the dragon corrected. “I don’t like it.”

Jerry huffed. “Right. But, Radio, look at what you just did!” He gestured to the barrier. “Admit it or not, you can help in a fight! You can be scary.”

Radio scowled at the barrier. Two of the soldiers had begun poking their swords out over the top of the barrier, waving them in the hopes of hitting something, Jerry guessed. Moodily, Radio reached a forefoot over and plucked one blade, then the other, free of their owners and tossed them over his shoulder, metal plinking unpleasantly against stone. The soldiers shouted and shuffled backwards, though Radio did nothing more.

Jerry gestured with his sword. “See?”

Radio snorted, smoke puffing from his nostrils, but turned reluctantly towards Jerry. “Fine. I guess . . . there’s no other choice, is there?” He gave the stone walls a critical look-over, and looked longingly to the sky, so cruelly wide and opening.

“This is their fault,” Jerry said, nodding to the charmed device. “The wizard put that on you. They sent these soldiers. They’re here to drag you back. Put more charms on you.”

Radio growled, lip curling back just enough to expose some teeth, and for more smoke to trickle out.

“There is a choice,” Jerry pushed. “Either we let them do that, or we fight.”

“And kill them.”

“And fucking kill these bastards.”

Radio tapped his claws in a rhythmic pattern. “I can get behind that. Very well. What do you want me to do?” He grimaced as he said it, and admitted, “I don’t know what I can do.”

Jerry laughed. If he hadn’t been holding his sword, he might’ve started rubbing his hands together. He felt like Lani right now. “What can you do?” he marveled. “Radio, you’re a fucking dragon. What can’t you do?”

“Would you like a list,” Radio said acidly, “or . . .”

Jerry shook his head and pointed at the barricaded exit. “Here, try this. Use that fire and burn them to a crisp.”

Radio got to his feet and shuffled over to stand in front of the barrier, lifting his head to peer down the gap at the top. “There’s only three of them up here at the front,” he said doubtfully. “I can’t get them all in one blast, the others will move out of the way . . .”

“Trust me,” Jerry said. “I’ll tell you what to do next.”

“Right, trust the human,” Radio muttered, then took a wide stance and breathed in deeply. Jerry couldn’t help grinning as a warm glow brightened against the scales of Radio’s belly, then arched up his chest and neck, for a stream of orange flames to surge out of Radio’s maw and crash down onto the soldiers’ heads.

They screamed, and the fire faltered, but Jerry eagerly stepped up beside Radio. “Keep going,” he encouraged, watching greedily. “When it’s done, don’t wait. Break the wall down.”

Radio rumbled in acknowledgement and moved closer as the flames began to slow, pushing the tail-end of them into the tunnel. Once the last flame flickered out, he reared up and slammed his forefeet down on the barrier, crumbling the stones. A few more swipes of his claws, and a sizable hole emerged.

Radio stumbled back. “Now what?” he panted.

Jerry marched past him. “Anything gets past me—” No, nothing was getting past him. No one was touching Radio again. “Just keep breathing fire whenever you can. Stay safe. I’ll take care of the rest.” Jerry stepped into the passage.

“Just keep breathing fire . . . Jerry? Jerry! You’re in there too!”

“Trust me!” Jerry yelled without turning. He kicked aside an ashen corpse and sliced through the neck of a half-burnt soldier slumped against the wall, then stalked deeper inside, lifting his sword in greeting as the recuperating soldiers rushed him. In the tunnel, they were forced to come at him one at a time.

Where before Jerry had fought defensively, desperately, now he moved without fear. He smashed through the front soldier’s clumsy guard and jabbed up underneath their arm in a gap in their armor, then shoved them into their fellows. Listening to the growing hiss behind him, Jerry quickly backed away, passing the burned corpses from before. The soldier next in line swore and pushed past the one crying in pain, darting for Jerry right as—

Jerry ducked, pressing himself against a corner of the tunnel and ruined barrier a heartbeat before another blast of fire shot from Radio’s gullet, missing Jerry’s head by a hair and bathing the pursuing soldier in flames. This time, Jerry got a close-up view of the barbeque, and he sucked the stench of it down his throat and bared his teeth.

The screams ended before the fire-breath did, so there was that. Jerry was on his feet the moment it was clear again, and marching down the tunnel once again. Radio was right. He’d been lucky the same trick had worked even a second time, and only because that soldier had been too pissed off to think straight, but the rest would be cautious now. Even out of range of Radio’s fire-breath, his continued blasts would keep the enemy wary.

They were scared now.

Jerry sneered as he brought up his blade.

Good.

#Lani & Jerry #(minus lani and plus radio!)#my writing #in which: jerry teaches a dragon how to kill #poor radio is going THROUGH it right now. much of it behind-scenes cuz this snippet shows only yeah a snippet of wider events #but trust me on this one ;D #'wider events' i say as if i've planned anything and didn't just come up with random context as i was writing [whistles innocently]

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smp-live · 3 years

Text

The apocalypse happened a few years ago. And- it's vague, the apocalypse. It's not some big earth-shattering moment. It's confused tv reports and impulse decisions and little growing bits of tension until the pot boils over.

The details are fuzzy; it all happened so quickly that many civilians were left unaware of what exactly went down. One day, they were living, and the next, most weren't.

Nukes, EMPs, solar flares - the survivors find it doesn't matter. One way or another, the world ended, millions died, and everything’s different. Hostile. Harsh. Unforgiving. The sun is bright and searing, and radiation burns skin not covered head-to-toe.

People are cruel and will take advantage of anything they can. If you're not a part of an already-existing group, good luck.

Somehow, two men end up on a wooden pallet floating in the middle of the ocean. Maybe it was a plane crash, one of the few still running downed by a stray shot; maybe a boat capsized, embrittled by the radiation. Same as the apocalypse, it doesn't matter. What does is that now they’re surrounded by debris and a shark thirsting for blood and there’s one thing they both know: trust no-one.

So they don’t. Names hold power, as they’ve learnt over the past few years; names imply trust. When it becomes apparent they’re stuck together and the time comes to introduce themselves, the elder of the two stares out to sea and says, “Call me...” And that phrase brings back memories of a book he’d read long ago, in the Before Days, and so he finishes, “Ishmael.”

The younger panics and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: “I’m Gunk.”

‘Ishmael’ raises a skeptical eyebrow, clearly amused. “Gunk,” he repeats. And ‘Gunk’ nods, crosses his arms.

“Yeah, bitch. It’s...” his mind blanks, “Russian.”

Ishmael’s brow climbs further, and he looks on the verge of laughing, lips twisting ever-so-slightly upward. “Last name?”

“Uh,” Gunk wracks his brain, and something from a history class, years ago, stands out. Nearly forgotten amongst all the useless information - what he calls anything that doesn’t directly contribute to survival, nowadays - and only clinging on through his brain classifying it as ‘important’ for God-knows-why. “Gorbachov.”

“Like... Michael Gorbachov?” There’s a hint of laughter in Ishmael’s tone now, the first in a while. He tries not to let that thought depress him.

Gunk nods, relieved at the reminder of the rest of the name, even if he still can’t place it. “Yeah. He was my father.”

“Michael Gorbachov, eighth and final leader of Soviet Russia, was your father,” Ishmael deadpans, and, frustrated at having been outplayed, Gunk scowls.

“What of it?” he challenges, which makes Ishmael laugh, throwing his head back to the blistering sun high above.

“Okay, Gunk,” he says, and yet it doesn’t feel patronizing.

They both know the other is lying, that much is obvious from the constant teasing and jokes about Gunk’s ‘father.’ But it doesn’t matter, because in the slow turning of the days, they grow close. After all, there’s not much to do on a makeshift raft in the middle of the ocean, other than chat.

Ishmael is handy, and the main reason for their survival. He knows how to purify water and fillet a fish, how to add on to their raft without nails and swim against the ocean current. Gunk wonders where he picked all that up, but never asks.

(A survivalist father and paranoid brother, whom Ishmael hasn’t seen in half a decade. The thought that they’re probably still alive brings him comfort.)

Gunk, on the other hand, does most of the grunt work. Fishing in debris that floats by, diving down for rocks when they briefly dock, and the ever-important duty of keeping the shark they named Clive from destroying their miserly raft. He keeps up a steady stream of chatter through it all, and Ishmael thinks that’s what makes the monumental effort to go on worth it. Then, he wonders when he let himself get attached.

(It was a week or so in, when Gunk had fashioned himself a shelf out of the bottom of a storage bin and some planks, and proclaimed it his ‘comfort shelf.’ Gunk felt the same when Ishmael didn’t tell him to dismantle it, only pushed it aside, even though they were supposed to use that wood to repair Clive’s last attack.)

They survive, they grow closer, they hesitantly trust, and yet, they don’t pry. They don’t share their real names. Not until one day.

Ishmael goes swimming out to a nearby island to scavenge for food and chop down a few trees, if he can manage. Gunk stays on the ship - an anchor is next on their to-do list, and so he’s responsible for keeping it from drifting off with his tiny paddle. Except it’s not well-crafted, and grey jaws reach up to snap at the wood he’s standing on so he uses it to stab Clive, and the tip breaks off. The raft starts drifting away.

“Ishmael!” he calls, then again, louder, “Ishmael! Fuck, man!” But he’s nowhere to be seen, and the current is dragging Gunk awfully far out from the island.

He keeps calling, shouting, screaming, increasingly panicked at leaving his friend, the man who’d helped him survive for months, now, behind. Until his voice grows hoarse the way it never did from rambling for hours on end, and a little speck appears on the beach of the island.

Ishmael waves widely at him, and he must be shouting but Gunk can’t hear it over the lapping of the waves. So he assumes what was said, hollers, “I can’t fuckin’ come back, arsehole!” and raises the remains of the paddle over his head to clarify.

The speck stills, then bursts into motion, tossing everything he’s holding aside and shucking his shoes. Gunk can practically hear him mutter about what an “ridiculous child” he is, because although they’ve never shared their ages Ishmael’s decided he’s the elder of the two, which obviously means Gunk is a child.

And then Ishmael dives into the water, and he’s closing the distance between himself and the raft with each stroke. He cuts a straight line through the waves, until he suddenly swerves to the left. Gunk is confused a moment, before he notices - a grey fin jutting out of the water next to him.

Clive goes in for another pass, then another, and Ishmael jukes him out both times. He’s maybe five meters away, now, but the shark is coming back so Gunk screams. But Ishmael’s head is underwater, and he doesn’t hear. Just keeps going, towards safety he won't make it to.

Clive barrels into him. Ishmael vanishes underwater.

He doesn’t come back up.

Gunk is diving in before he can properly think, pushing past the cold shock of the sea, as he uses his self-taught skills to bring him to where he guesses Ishmael last was. Then, he takes a deep breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and goes under.

After a nervewracking few moments, his elbow bumps into something and he latches on, desperately dragging it upwards. They break the surface and he gasps for breath, Ishmael limp against him.

The trip back is agonizing. Ishmael is deadweight, their clothes are waterlogged, and Gunk has never been the best swimmer. But Clive is still lurking, and he refuses to drown after all this time, so he manages to drag them both back to the raft through pure willpower and spite.

Gunk collapses next to where he’d heaved Ishmael onto the planks, taking a second to compose himself. Shivering violently, he curls into a ball - he'll have to go for a spare change of clothes. His eyes drift shut. In a moment.

Then, panic seizes his heart as he becomes aware of how still Ishmael is. He jerks up, staring at him, searching for any sign of life, anything-

But a moment later he relaxes, when Ishmael rolls over and starts heaving out saltwater. Gunk reaches over and pats him on the back until it subsides, and he falls back onto the wood.

“You,” Ishmael says, letting his eyes flutter shut, “are so stupid.”

Gunk feels a burst of indignation. “Hey, what the fuck! I just saved your dumbass, Ish-ma-el.” He scowls at Ishmael’s placid little twist of the lips.

“Wilbur,” he murmurs, hands folded over his chest.

“What?”

“My name is Wilbur.”

Oh.

“I’m Tommy,” he says after a moment of silence where it sinks in, what he’d just been told, the trust laid on him, and then lays down next to Ishmael - Wilbur, now.

Wilbur just hums and wraps an arm under his shoulders, tugging him close - which is new; they’re really going all-in with this trust thing, huh? - then says, “So, so stupid.”

“Oi,” Tommy protests, but leans in closer.

Things aren’t really visibly different, after that. They still bicker, still do the same daily tasks, still slip up and call each other ‘Ishmael’ and ‘Gunk’ - though it becomes less and less common, other than with a teasing tone. They finally get their anchor, which means Tommy has the chance to go on land; though he quickly grows to dislike it after an incident with a particularly pissed-off boar.

To an outsider, everything remains the same. But to the inhabitants of the raft, it feels different. More homely. Warmer.

Once, after Wilbur chides Tommy over something or another, Tommy rolls his eyes and says, “You know, we really are like brothers.” He tries to keep his tone joking, and to not let himself hope for the words to be true.

Wilbur freezes. “Don’t say that; I’ll cry.” He blinks once to keep the tears at bay, and tries to push down the warmth in his chest.

(They both fail.)

About four months in, a light appears in the distance, at night. They angle their sail towards it and the dark shadow on the horizon. A few days later, it becomes apparent what it is: a lighthouse.

Inhabited land. Civilization.

They gather their meagre supplies once they dock, then ditch the raft in favour of climbing the lighthouse. And, from the top, off over a hill, Wilbur spots it first, points it out to his brother, who squints-

A Dome.

#wilbur soot #tommyinnit #Fic #enderspeak #sbi rust #crimeboys #Love how we all saw that stream and went #''Yes. Those are the Rust boys.''#Also I can't write anymore apparently. Pain

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gotnofucks · 3 years

Text

No One’s Bitch

Pairing: dark!Steve x Reader

Summary: If Steve thought you’ll bend to his will, he was dead wrong. This kitty has some claws.

Words: 1.5k

Warning: Non-con/Dub-con, smut, kinda hate fuck?, kidnapping, language, breeding kink, 18+ ONLY

A/N: This is my Happy Hoelentine’s Day gift to @mariahthelioness29 . Hope you enjoy this love, wishing you a very orgasmfull Valentines! This amazing challenge was hosted by the very talented @amythedvdhoarder @drabblewithfrannybarnes and @chrissquares. You girls are amazing!

“We need an ultrasound!” Steve shouted, carrying you into Bruce’s office and dumping you on a stretcher. Your hands beat at his shoulder in protest, a snarl ripping from you as he finally let go.

“I told you I can walk!” You scream at him and he scowls at your tone.

Bruce blinked at you two for a minute before sighing, wheeling out his ultrasound machine next to you and motioning you to pull up your top.

“Did you finally get her pregnant?” He asked in an almost bored voice and you wrinkled your nose at him in disgust. The nerve of everyone in this goddamn tower!

“No, he didn’t, and if I have it my way he never will.” You huff, earning a disapproving look from both males. Bruce squeezed some cold gel onto his probe and put it on your stomach, gliding it along your stomach and abdomen, eyes trained on the screen.

“Don’t be too sure about it. I’ll like to see you try to escape once I put a baby inside you.” Steve growled and your nostrils flared in anger. You flipped him off, uncaring of his strength and threats. When he kidnapped you and claimed you months ago, Steve didn’t expect you to fight this long. He thought he’d be able to extinguish your fire, force you into a loving relationship and be with him. Well, the jokes on him. You’re no one’s bitch. Not even Captain America’s.

You looked at the monitor too, biting your lip nervously as Bruce pressed the probe deeper, making you hiss.

“What the fuck?” He sputtered, raising his brows at you and Steve. You rolled your eyes, relaxing a little. Thank fuck its not stuck in your throat. “Is that a ring in your stomach?”

Steve slumped on the stool beside you, sighing deep.

“She swallowed it.” He simply said and you sat up quickly, pointing an accusing finger at him.

“Blond fucker’s a liar” You snap, “Who the fuck hides a ring in food anymore? Can you get anymore cliché?”

Steve slams his hands on the stretcher beside you, caging you in as he pressed in close to touch his nose to yours. The musky scent of his aftershave wafted over to you and clung to your pores, making you want to sneeze.

“I was trying to be romantic.” He said. “It’s valentine’s day tomorrow. I wanted to spend it as fiancés.”

You breathed out a disbelieving laugh, still surprised at how normal everyone treated this absurdity of your relationship with Steve. If it could even be called that.

“You thought that snatching me away from my family and life was romantic? You thought that taking me against me will and fucking me unconscious every night was romantic. What does a man like you know of romance and love, Mr. Rogers?” You sneer in his face.

Even as his hand came to fist your hair and pull, you don’t cry out in pain. You’ve trained yourself well enough to somehow keep the tears in your eyes and not have them spill over.

“Don’t sit here pretending you don’t come on my dick like a slut, darling” Steve said, his voice low and deep. You barely registered Bruce clearing his throat and walking away, too busy focusing on the rapidly darkening blue in Steve’s eyes.

“If we’re being honest here Steve, then your meaty cum-gun is the only redeemable part about you.” You sweetly said to him and whined as you were roughly push on your back, Steve’s body covering yours.

His lips descended on yours in a frenzy, hands frantic as they pulled at your pants. Months ago, you’d have been embarrassed by the moans that spilled from your parted mouth, but when it became clear that earth shattering orgasms was the only reward for you in this shitshow of an arrangement, you decided to make the best of it.

You pulled on Steve’s hair, biting his lip roughly when he pulled out his hard length and slapped it against your glistening folds, lubing himself in your juices. He growled against you, two fingering unceremoniously thrust into your opening that had you arching your back with pain and pleasure.

“Pathetic” Steve spat, “Only have to touch you and you become a whiny cumslut.”

You groan, wrapping your legs around his huge body to urge him closer. Heels dug into his back and you raked your nails across his scalp and back, leaving bite marks across his shoulder that had him pushing inside you with one hard thrust. You threw your head back, a choked sound howled directly in Steve’s mouth as he hips became flush with yours.

“Look at you, my greedy girl” He mocked, pulling back until only his tip was inside before plunging back inside. “Can’t get enough of daddy’s cock, can you?”

The fragile stretcher threatened to give out under the force of you both, squeaking dangerously as Steve powered into you, sweat and spit mixing on your skin and leaving you damp.

“Is that all you got, Captain?” You challenged, “Can’t make me stay even with a magic cock, can you?”

Steve’s hands took yours and pinned them beside your head, hips almost a blur as he went in and out of you, hitting so deep he seemed to move your womb.

“Fucking bitch, I’ll have you round with my seed. We’ll see how well this mouth runs when it’s too busy sucking my cock and singing lullabies to our brat” He said.

Your brows knit together as he hit a spot inside you that had you mewling, breath coming out in broken pants. You put your lips at Steve’s eyes, licking his earlobe before pulling on it.

“Can’t even get me pregnant. Maybe you should get Bucky to help.”

That was the last straw and Steve’s growl was almost animalist as he ripped away your top, sucking greedily on your hardened nipples while his dick speared you open. You screamed as the stretcher finally snapped, you and Steve tumbling to the floor, still fucking like animals in heat.

The coil inside you wound up tighter the harder Steve went, his tongue swirling inside your mouth and not letting you speak. Your eyes were locked with his furious ones, hips coming up to meet every thrust of his with your own, your juices dripping down your thighs and making a mess.

“I’ll fuck you ten time a day, I’ll spread you open and fuck you in front of everyone until the only thing you’re capable to thinking and saying is my name. You think you won, but no baby, I can do this all day!” He hissed at you and pinched your clit harshly. You snapped, a powerful orgasm tearing through you and making your world turn upside down. You howled, an agonized scream of pure, unadulterated, sinful pleasure echoing around the room.

Steve fucked you through your high, almost close to his own release when you used all your strength to turn him over, straddling him and bouncing on his cock. His eyes widened, his dick going deeper as you took hold of his shoulders and sank down on him with a moan.

“Come inside me then, Captain. Come, fill me up. Let’s see if you manage to fuck a brat inside me today after all.” You provoked and Steve grunted, huge arms holding you close as he twitched inside you, his cum painting your insides.

You collapsed on him, sweaty and spent, breath laboured. He wasn’t much better, the broken stretcher digging into his back as he pulled you closer, nuzzling his nose in your neck. You tried to jerk away, rejecting his affections but he only held tighter, forcing a sweet, almost innocent kiss on your pursed lips.

“One day, I’ll fuck you so good you’ll fall in love with me.” Steve promised and your eyes narrowed. Covered in his scent and essence, you were as marked by him as a tree peed on by a dog.

“One day, you’ll wake up with a dagger inside your chest and you’ll only have yourself to blame.” You remarked. Steve lazily chuckled, bringing you even closer. You wondered if he planned to fall asleep on the floor with you when Bruce came in, resolutely looking at the ceiling.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The doctor bemoaned and you sarcastically smiled at him despite him still looking away.

“What, haven’t you ever witnessed a good shag?” You ask and Steve’s chest rumbled beneath you. “And you, let go. I need to get that fucking ring out of me.”

Steve sighed, reluctantly releasing you and sitting up. He gave you his t-shirt to wear, your own laying in tatters on the floor.

“Will I need a surgery?” You asked Bruce who was grimacing at the mess in his small office.

“No, it should come out naturally in a few days.” He said. When you just looked at him dumbstruck, he wrinkled his nose, a little amused. “You’ll have to pass it out.”

Steve’s eyes met yours and you resisted the urge to throw something at him.

“I’ll get you a new one.” He said dismissively and you stomped your feet, fixing yourself the best you could and moved towards the door.

“I am not marrying you!” You shout over your shoulder, pushing open the door and not sparing a glance behind.

“We’ll see.” Steve said, a smile on his lips.

#happyhoelentinesday2021 #dark!steve rogers x reader #dark!steve x reader #steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #dark!steve rogers #dark!steve x you

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nocturne-overtures · 3 years

Text

Kinktober Day 5-Bad Influences

Pairing: Lee Minhyuk (BTOB)/Lee Felix

Prompt: Daddy Kink, Spanking, Cumming From Punishment

WC: 2k+

Genre(s)/AU(s): Smut, Idolverse, Fluff

TWs: Swearing

SWs: Daddy Kink, Pet Names, Spanking (Hand and Paddle), Marking (Imprints), Bratty Sub, Teasing, Semi-Public, Sexual Punishment, Stoplight System, Dominant Idol, Submissive Idol, BDSM Overtones, Praise Kink, Pain Kink, Crying, Aftercare

Everything here is Safe, Sane, and Consensual as always, folks

A/N: I also have the tagged folks according to your preferences so if you’re someone who asked to be tagged in btob works, skz works, or both and included member x member works, then beep boop you’re gettin tagged. Also this is set during Kingdom filming

AO3

New! taglist moved to the bottom of the work. if you’d like to be added to the taglist for this or my other works, feel free to fill out the form here after reading the full post. ©Nocturne-Overtures. do not repost, translate, or use my works.

Kinktober 2021 Masterlist

Day 4 Day 6

Network Pings: @kdiarynet @kwritersworld @kpopscape

Minhyuk was many things.

Easily riled up, was not one of them.

No, he was a very meticulous man. Took his time analyzing situations with a deceptive smile on his face, feigning aloofness while he sorted his thoughts.

Think, before you act. Always.

It was a lesson Felix hadn’t quite grasped yet, deciding he was going to follow after his friends’ footsteps and try provoking Minhyuk into action.

Had he been learning bad behaviours from Wooyoung, Sanghyuk, and Sunwoo? Definitely.

Unfortunately for Felix, Minhyuk had the benefit of age and experience on his side. He loved his boyfriend, no doubt, but he wasn’t so swooned and whipped that he’d crack like San. He wasn’t a switch in any capacity, so the tables didn’t get turned on him like with Youngbin. And he surely didn’t get flustered or caught out by misbehaviour like Sangyeon.

So when Felix took to subtly brushing against him as they passed backstage for filming, when he sent him suggestive photos while changing costumes, the times he’d appear at Cube, an innocent smile on his freckled face as he sat directly in Minhyuk’s lap, pouting and chattering about how much he wished he could have fun with Minhyuk whenever he wanted like the others-

Minhyuk only hummed, kissing the top of Felix’s head. Today they were in the older man’s home, resting before the upcoming field day event.

“We only have a few more weeks of filming. I’ll be sure to stop by more often.”

“I mean...we have time now so-”

Felix pouted and looked up, shifting beside him on the couch, his freckled cheeks slightly puffed out.

“Are you going to keep doing that?”

Minhyuk cocked a brow.

“Doing what?”

“Not…” Felix trailed off, making a small frustrated noise. Minhyuk cocked a brow, an amused noise leaving his lips.

“Not what, baby? Fucking you?”

Felix nodded and Minhyuk set the pen he had in his hand down, closing the notebook to the raps he was writing and humming.

“Why do you think I haven’t fucked you, Felix?”

“I don’t know! I’ve been trying and-” he cut himself off, lips pursing.

Minhyuk couldn’t help the chuckle that left his lips, a deep rumble resonating from his chest as he looked at Felix in amusement.

“C’mon to my room. I’ll tell you why it didn’t work.”

Felix perked and nodded eagerly, hustling after him, practically on Minhyuk’s heels.

How he ended up here, sprawled out across Minhyuk’s lap with the older man humming and rubbing his ass was another story. Felix blushed, looking up, expecting Minhyuk to finger him and prep him. Instead, he had his head lightly tilted up, looking into Felix’s eyes.

Instantly, the younger man realized-finally-that he may have been in trouble, eyes widening.

“Um-”

“Would you like to explain now? Or would you prefer to take your punishment as I explain to you what you did wrong?"

Felix shrunk a bit, cheeks flared.

“I can let you go and let you explain yourself. Or I can spank you and I tell you why you’re in trouble.”

Felix looked into his eyes. Minhyuk never moved his gaze from his. He was giving him a choice. He always did. Felix looked back, finding a small leather paddle sitting beside Minhyuk’s thigh while his large hand lie rested on Felix’s ass, unmoving for now.

He shied and nodded.

“I’m staying here.”

“Do you remember our system?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

Minhyuk nodded, a pleased sound leaving his lips.

“Good.”

He grabbed the paddle, rubbing Felix’s ass in circles before he brought the paddle down hard on his ass. Felix jolted and yelped, though Minhyuk kept him in his lap with his free hand wrapped securely around Felix’s waist.

“You don’t have to count this time. But Daddy wants you to know that following after the other Brats is why that pretty ass is in trouble.”

Felix yipped at the second, then third hit, cheeks flushing as he felt the leather rub over his sore cheek between Minhyuk’s talking.

“I j-just wanted you t-to….to…” He flushed and lowered his head. Minhyuk tapped his ass with the paddle.

“Lift your head. You wanted me to what?”

“F-fuck me. They...they said being bratty and teasing works all the time for them and-fuck!” He cursed and jolted when his untouched cheek was struck, Minhyuk’s grip still strong around his waist.

“There’s a difference between their Doms and Daddy, kitten.” he lightly scolded, his voice never going above the volume of his normal speaking tone. Felix bowed his head down.

“S-sorry, Daddy.” Minhyuk hummed and rubbed his ass.

“Are you?”

Felix nodded before whimpering and dropping his head once more when another hard spank fell to his ass. He could feel something on the paddle, like...an outline? Though the paddle was never pressed to his sore ass long enough for him to distinguish what it is. Minhyuk took care to rub him between spanks with the smooth end of the paddle.

“Pick your head up, baby.” Minhyuk reminded him. Felix shuddered and muttered a quick apology before Minhyuk paused.

“Are you alright?”

Felix nodded.

“What’s your color, baby?”

“Green.”

Minhyuk kissed his head before he continued.

“I’m not San, or Youngbin, I’m not Sangyeon either. Who am I?”

“Minhyuk-hyung.”

A light tap to his ass from the paddle had Felix’s hips jolt, anticipating a full hit before he blushed. He realized he was hard, his cock pressed fully against Minhyuk’s leg.

When had he gotten hard?

“Who am I, Felix?” He asked again.

“M-My Daddy.”

“Good. So Daddy is going to tell you, the best way to get him to fuck you, is to ask.” the paddle was discarded without a word, Minhyuk’s calloused hand squeezing and kneading both of Felix’s cheeks.

“I won’t reward you with my cock for being a brat, Felix.” he scolded him, his hand coming down on Felix’s left cheek. A scream of surprise left his mouth and he nearly scrambled out of Minhyuk’s lap, his cock jumping against the fabric of the older man’s gym shorts. Minhyuk loosened his grip, giving him the chance to get out of it if he wanted to.

Felix shook his head and settled back down, slightly panting as tears gathered in the corner of his eyes.

“Color?”

“G-Green.”

Minhyuk hummed, sitting in silence for a few minutes, just groping and kneading the heated skin under his hand. Felix kept his head up like asked, though his thighs shook from his position across Minhyuk’s lap. The older man took notice, pulling him forward a bit more, spreading his long legs so he could support Felix a bit better.

Once Felix had stopped shaking as much, Minhyuk continued.

“Do you want to be a brat, Felix?”

Felix shook his head, groaning at the next spank, the tears rolling down his cheek as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

“N-No, Daddy!”

“No? Not gonna try and be like Sunwoo and grind on me backstage like he does with Sangyeon?”

Felix shook his head quickly, his hair stuck to his face and neck from the sweat that began to build up on his body.

“What about sitting in my lap during meetings with the others? Mmm? Is it fair to tease Daddy like the others do? Do you think you should have my cock after being such a tease like that?” he inquired. Felix shook his head once more, biting his lip and all but thrusting against Minhyuk’s leg with the next jolt from his spank, his entire body flushed.

He’d gotten hard, painfully so. Part of him feared he’d cum just from this.

“D-Daddy-”

Minhyuk’s hand froze midair, attentive brown eyes looking down immediately.

“What is it, baby? Do you want to stop?”

“N-No I…M...maybe? I feel like I’m going to cum and I don’t wanna be bad.”

Minhyuk’s eyes twinkled with mirth.

“You’re gonna cum from your punishment?”

Felix shook his head quickly, embarrassed.

“Felix. Be honest baby.”

He flushed before nodding a moment later.

“Do you want to cum?”

He lifted his head, looking back at him with big eyes still teary from the pleasured pain thrumming through his cheeks.

“I was bad.”

“I think you learned your lesson, personally. So I’ll ask you again. Do you want to cum?”

Felix nodded.

“Yes, Daddy, please?”

“See? Those are the manners Daddy is looking for.” Minhyuk grabbed a few pillows, letting Felix rest his head on them before he resumed his spanking, growling between each strike.

“Your ass looks pretty like this, baby. The red makes your freckles stand out. Go ahead, you can cum for me.”

Felix could barely decipher his words between the sound of skin hitting skin and his own moaning and pleasured cries, his cock painfully hard between his legs. Minhyuk had growled something in particular, along the lines of Felix being his ‘cute pain slut’ before the younger man saw stars, cumming messily all over Minhyuk’s lap, his legs and thighs shaking as he nearly slipped to the floor from the force of it.

Minhyuk held him tighter, keeping him steady as he picked him up, laying with Felix settled in his arms.

He was careful, brushing Felix’s hair back and cooing sweet nothings to him as he sobbed against his chest.

“You’re alright, baby boy. You did well for me.”

“B-But I was a brat-”

“Mmm. You were. And you took your punishment well. So, you’re a good boy. Hey, look at me,” Minhyuk waited until Felix’s sniffles subsided into little hiccups, the pained pleasure an overwhelming first time feeling for him. Minhyuk wiped his cheeks and kissed him gently.

“You did so well. Let Daddy take care of you, okay?”

Felix nodded and held onto his arms as he stood, carrying him off to shower off. Minhyuk laughed and waved off the hasty apologies as Felix noticed him putting his shorts in the wash.

“Don’t apologize to me, baby boy.”

One magnolia scented, aloe-infused bath later, and Felix was on his stomach, eyes closed as Minhyuk gently massaged lotion over his cheeks.

He was careful of his strength and there was no skin broken, but Felix had noted-in sheer delight-that Minhyuk’s paddle actually did have indentations, and they actually were hearts. Now his freckled bottom sported not only Minhyuk’s handprint to the left and a row of hearts to the right.

“So...I think I have a spanking kink.” Felix mused tiredly as Minhyuk got him settled on his chest, putting on Deadpool for them to enjoy, since it had been one of Felix’s favorites. Minhyuk laughed and kissed him, holding his waist once he was sure Felix was warm and covered by the blanket.

“I noticed.”

-xoxo-

So the field day was a completely different experience.

Minhyuk felt a sense of pride as Felix waddled forward amongst the cheers that he had been voted as one of their top three visuals. The man looked around, pointing at himself through his slightly overgrown sweater and the older couldn’t hold back the happy exclamation of Felix’s name as he shuffled forward.

He genuinely was surprised when they announced him for the number one of their visual kings, but he took it nonetheless, catching Felix mimicking his showboating from the corner of his eye.

How cute.

“They ended up voting for each other!”

Minhyuk turned, pointing at Felix as the younger man bowed deeply, flustered at having been chosen.

He should have known Minhyuk would’ve chosen his baby boy above all else, but that’s beside the point.

“Hey Felix, good boy.”

Felix flushed and bowed again, and Minhyuk was approached later as they began to help staff clean up, the sun having gone down and the festivities over.

“Hyung?”

Minhyuk looked up at him, tilting his head.

“Yes, Felix-ah?” he inquired, glancing around. The others were busy hustling to help staff so they could all rest up, leaving the two relatively alone. Felix adjusted his pink sleeves and looked up at him.

“Uh...can I come over this weekend? For...um…’practice?’”

Minhyuk took it for what it was, a proud and knowing smirk tugging at his lips.

“Yeah, of course.”

Taglist----

@not-majestic-bluenicorn @kimnamshiks @atiny-dazzlinglight @queenofhimbos @daisyhwa @gettin-a-lil-hanse @yunhofingers @stormiestories @billboard-singer @sweetutopia @lovely-devil6 @babiebumm @jacksons-goddess-gaia @storytimedragon @netcookie @seomisaho

#fie writes #kinktober 2021 #kpopscape #kdiarynet #kwritersworldnet #minhyuk smut #minhyuk btob smut #felix smut #member x member #btob smut #stray kids smut #kpop smut

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hellofastudysession · 2 years

Text

[I.D.: Pixel scribbles. From top to bottom: in right corner, the Knight clinging to the edge of a cliff, reaching up. Below: the Pure Vessel, sharper and more angular than in the game, landing on the floor in a fighting stance with robes flared out and nail drawn. There are tiny sparkles drawn by its face. Next to them reads in the game's font, "Pure Vessel".

To the right: the Hollow Knight, bound in the Black Egg, with orange scribbles and infection winding through its bindings. The Hollow Knight's face is contorted with comcentration and anger as they struggle, and "NO" is screamed over and over on the edge of the screen. Next to it reads, "The Hollow Knight".

Below are tinier Hollows; one with them running forward with "baby" written next to them as a directly nonchalant contrast to their earlier titles; and one with them on their knees in front of the Knight, void bubbling and floating off them both. Both their nails are drawn in challenge. End I.D.]

instructions unclear; idea instilled

#thank you fran!!!!!#described #personal #hollow knight

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nastybuckybarnes · 3 years

Text

In a Heartbeat - Seven

Pairing: Fireman!Bucky X Reader

Summary: You’ve always been careful with your heart. With your condition, you don’t exactly have any other choice. The last time you let someone in, you paid the price. A price you don’t plan on paying again. Until Bucky comes in and shatters your carefully crafted world.

Warnings: Angst, Language, Injuries, Fluff, Fluff, FLUFF

Word Count: 4.1K

A/n: Here she is! Part seven! I’m gonna write a little epilogue but the fic can very well end here! I love this series with my whole heart and soul omg

Series Masterlist

~*~

He’s numb.

So damn numb.

Nothing even matters. His ears are ringing, the bright lights bouncing off the linoleum floors are fucking with his eyes but he doesn’t care because you’ve been in the operating room for hours and all he wants is to see you, to make sure you’re okay.

No one’s said a single thing to him about whether or not you’re okay, and it’s taking all of his self-control not to break down that door and see for himself.

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder, jolting him from his thoughts and bringing him back to the loud sounds of the waiting room.

He furrows his brows at Steve, confused out of his mind until he sees Tommy in his other arm, head resting against his father's shoulder and a casted arm hanging limply at his side.

“Hey Tommy, how you feeling?” The brunet asks, his voice rough and hoarse with lack of use.

The six-year-old only whimpers softly in response, burrowing further into his father’s neck.

“He’s okay. Doctor’s got him on some painkillers. Said it was a clean break from pounding on that window.” Bucky stands up, rubbing his nephew on the back. “You’re a hero, buddy. Just like your daddy.” Tommy sniffles and nods, the sight breaking the man’s heart.

“You should head home for the night, Buck. Shower, rest, then come back in the morning.” He clenches his jaw and swallows hard, shaking his head.

“I-I can’t, Steve. What if... what if she comes out and I’m not here? Or what if...” He trails off, not even wanting to entertain the idea of the other option.

“I saw Nat on her way down here. Ask her for an update and then go home. You’ve had a long day. And when she’s out of surgery she's gonna be upset to see that you’ve exhausted yourself out here in the waiting room.” Steve has a point. Both men are still in their fire gear, having rushed to the hospital directly from the fire.

It’s after midnight now.

“I’m taking Tommy home. Take care of yourself tonight, Buck. If not for you, then for her.” He nods, eyes on the floor as the blond leaves, his son curled up against his side.

“Barnes? You’re still here?” He looks up at the sound of Natasha’s voice, desperation evident on his face as she walks over to him.

“I’ve got no update other than she’s unstable and that they’re doing everything they can. It’ll be another few hours before she’s out of surgery and even then, she’s going straight to the ICU and won’t be awake for at least a day or so.” He lets out a terribly shaky breath but nods, rubbing his eyes then pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Y-you’ll call if there are any updates, right? I’m just gonna pop home and shower and sleep for a few hours but I'll be back first thing in the morning.” She nods, taking his hand and squeezing tightly.

“I’m off for the rest of the night, so I’ll be sticking around bugging the nurses for updates whenever I can. Might even bribe an intern with good coffee, not this hospital shit.” Bucky chuckles softly, shaking his head.

“Okay.” He takes a step towards the exit then hesitates, looking back at the redhead for a. moment. “Do you think she’s gonna make it?” He asks, his voice soft and broken and nearly lost among the sea of people.

Natasha swallows hard and avoids his eyes, taking a deep breath before answering.

“The doctors are doing everything they can.” A rehearsed answer. An answer she gives to relatives to let them know that they shouldn’t expect much.

He says nothing, only gives her a firm nod, then turns and leaves the hospital.

Hot droplets of water rain down on him, washing away the stench of smoke and the physical reminder of the events of the day. But no heat and no water pressure will wash away the sorrow in his soul. The absolute unadulterated fear that grips his bones and seeps into his bloodstream. That is something that won’t be washed away by any amount of water and suds.

His movements are mechanical, scrub, rinse, dry, dress.

The sleep that finds him is restless and fitful, filled with nightmares that will haunt him for nights to come. Every thought, both waking and otherwise, are occupied by you. Your face, your smile, your laugh, and the thought that he may never experience any of them again.

He's back at the hospital at six-thirty, coffee in his metal hand because his flesh one is shaking too much.

Just as he’s walking to the reception desk, he sees Natasha walking towards the waiting room. Her face is unreadable when she sees him, but he notices her take a deep breath.

“What is it?” He asks, not bothering with pleasantries.

“She’s out of surgery. She’s still unstable, hasn’t woken up yet, but she’s been out for about three hours. She probably won’t wake up until this evening.” He takes a few deep breaths then nods, a bubble of relief hugging him tenderly.

“Where is she?” Nat sighs and turns on her heel, leading him towards your room.

“James, I’m not going to sugar coat this for you. She’s not doing well. There’s still a fair chance that she won’t wake up.” She stops, looking up at him with vulnerability in her eyes, tears brimming.

“What is it?” He’s nervous, his heart feels like it’s going to explode.

“They’re saying she needs a transplant. That her heart won’t last for much longer and if she wants any hope of surviving more than a couple years, she’ll need a new heart.”

The air leaves his lungs in a whoosh, almost as if someone punched him in the gut. He stumbles back a step, coffee dropped and hands coming to the tops of his thighs as he hunches over, trying to catch his breath.

“That’s a best-case scenario. Worst case is she... well... we should’ve said our goodbyes. But she’s strong. She’ll pull through. She has to pull through.” That last part is whispered so softly that the brunet almost misses it.

“Nat,” his voice breaks, it cracks and splinters and shatters in pieces on the linoleum that he doesn’t have the energy to pick up. He can’t pick himself back up. Not if you might not wake up. He just can’t.

“Sit down, c’mon.” She helps him lean back against the wall, sliding down until he’s seated, arms draped over his knees and his head hanging heavily between them.

He can’t breathe.

A sick voice in his head screams that this is what you must’ve been feeling, this terrible tightness in your chest, this inability to draw in a single damn breath. It’s unbearable and for just a moment he realizes he wouldn’t blame you if you gave up, if you just let it take you. But he shakes that thought from his head and instead focuses on you fighting. You need to fight. If you can pull through, then they can find you a new heart and you’ll be okay.

You’re going to be okay.

You have to be okay.

~*~

Everything feels still. Dry. Bland.

If you could pin it to a colour, that colour would be beige.

Everything feels beige.

You’ve been awake for a little while now, gathering your bearings and trying to remember what happened. The last thing you remember is the fire bell... Wanda telling you not to go... and then running back into the building to find Tommy.

Tommy.

Your heart picks up in speed, pain flaring through your chest at the action, and an alarm starts beeping rapidly.

It takes only seconds for the door to open, nurses and doctors flooding into the room and checking the various machines around you while you grab at the front of your hospital gown uselessly, trying to alleviate the pain.

“(Y/n), I need you to take a big breath with me, okay?” A doctor says, her brown eyes focused on yours. You nod, inhaling with her for a moment then exhaling. You do this a few times and the machine gradually stops, your heart slowing as whatever they injected into your bloodstream takes effect.

Nurses slowly trickle out, leaving just you and the doctor.

“Well, you sure know how to make an entrance,” she says with a smile, looking over your chart.

“What can I say, Doc? I’ve got a flair for the dramatic.” Your voice is weak, far weaker than it should be, and that alone scares you.

She chuckles softly, smiling at your words before tucking the chart under her arm and looking at you straight on.

“You being alive right now is an absolute miracle,” she says softly, taking a step towards the bed then motioning to the chair beside it, asking wordlessly if she can take a seat.

You nod, taking a few deep breaths as you prepare to hear whatever news she has for you.

“Your heart stopped twice on the way to the hospital, and the second time we almost couldn’t get it going again. Your heart is weak, and what you endured nearly ruptured your left atrium and you had severe lacerations of your ventricles. It is most comparable to a very severe heart attack, and you’re lucky to have survived.”

She doesn’t look like she’s delivering good news. No, she should be happy if you’re lucky to have survived. That fact alone puts you on edge.

“What is it? What... what’s wrong with my heart now?” You know it can’t be good judging only by the look on her face. It’s a look you’ve seen far too many times.

“With the rate you’re going, your heart will give out completely in three or four years. And it won’t be a pleasant process. You’ll be in pain, bedridden and hospitalized because you won’t be able to move. The only alternative is a transplant.” The world around you shifts from beige to grey, the clouds dark and the room sorrowful.

Your ears start ringing, loud and painfully and it takes everything in you not to rip them right off.

“S-so that’s it then? I’m gonna die in three years if I’m lucky? I’ve only got three years left?” She sighs and looks down at her hands, “the only other option would be to put you on a waiting list for a new heart, but we cannot guarantee that you’ll get it in time, but it’s worth a shot.” You shake your head, tears falling from your eyes and splattering on the ugly blue hospital blanket.

“I don’t want a new heart! I don’t want to go through a process and get my hopes up over something that I won’t get in time.” You sniffle and shove your face in your hands, the steady beeping of the machine next to you making you want to cry even harder.

“I’ll give you some time, (Y/n).” The doctor gets up and leaves, a sad look on her face as she turns to the pair waiting anxiously outside your door.

Natasha pushes herself to her feet, her eyes wide with curiosity and desperation.

“I recommend you give her space. She’s... processing everything,” Doctor Palmer says softly, giving Natasha a sad smile before walking away to handle her other patients.

Nat exchanges looks with Bucky then slowly walks to the door.

“Just give me a minute to see how she’s doing, okay? I’ll tell her you’re out here waiting, I just wanna see if she needs anything.” He takes a deep breath but nods, understanding that Natasha would be able to tell, if only from a medical standpoint, what you need.

You keep your face in your hands, tears wetting your palms, as the door opens again.

“Beans?” Nat’s voice makes you stiffen, sniffling and wiping your eyes before peeking up at her.

Her heart shatters in her chest at the sight of you.

Skin dull, eyes heavy and sunken. She’s seen a lot of sick people before but never would she have put you in the same category as them. Now though? Now, you look the part.

“I uh... I heard the news. Bugged the nurses for updates and they finally caved.”

Your bottom lip wobbles and then a sob bubbles out of your chest.

Nat’s face falls and she slides onto the bed beside you, pulling you into a tight embrace while you sob.

“Oh beans,” she whispers, smoothing your hair away from your face.

“I don’t want a new heart!” You cry, tears soaking her shirt. She hugs you, holds you tightly while you cry out your frustrations, your sorrows.

It’s agony.

She has so many questions, so much she wants to say, but she knows better.

She holds her tongue, wanting you to be in a better headspace before she talks to you about your options. It’s too soon. The wound is too fresh.

Bucky sits impatiently outside of the room the whole time, leg bouncing and flesh fingers trembling.

Natasha comes out of your room a short while later, sniffling and wiping at her cheeks.

“What’s happening? Is she okay?” The redhead nods, taking a few deep breaths.

“I’ve seen a lot of sick people, Barnes. A lot of them. But seeing her... seeing my friend so weak and tiny...” She shakes her head, looking up at him with glossy eyes.

“I’m scared, Buck.” Bucky pulls her into a hug, his own breaths shaking.

“It's okay. It’s gonna be okay.” She sniffles again then speaks, “she’s asleep again. She should be good to see you the next time she wakes up though. I’m sure she misses you.” He squeezes his eyes shut but nods, trying to mentally prepare himself to see you in such a fragile state.

~*~

Bucky doesn’t know how to feel.

He doesn’t even want to feel.

Helpless.

That’s the word that sums it up the best.

Seeing you on that hospital bed, tubes attached to your face, arms, and chest, he feels absolutely helpless.

“Hey,” he murmurs, smiling gently when you look up from your book.

“Bucky... Hi.” Your voice is raspy and hoarse, and he has to take a few shaky breaths to stop from crying.

“You mind if I sit?” You shake your head, motioning to the chair beside your bed.

He takes a seat and looks at you closely, his eyes welling up with tears.

“How ya feelin, pretty girl?” You huff a breath out through your nose then shrug, trying your hardest to stay strong in front of him.

“I uh... I’ve been better, I gotta say.” He chuckles weakly then nods, sniffling and dropping his gaze for a moment.

“Nat uh... Nat told me what the doctors said. About your heart and stuff. That’s... intense.” It’s not the best word but it’s the only one he can find.

You blow a breath out through your mouth and nod.

“It’s scary,” you whisper, not looking up from your hands even when he takes them in his.

“I’m scared. I don’t want to be put on a waiting list only to not get one in time. And there are people who need a new heart more than I do. People who want one more than I do.” He furrows his brows and cocks his head to the side in confusion.

“What do you mean, you don’t want a new heart? Why wouldn’t you want one?”

You sigh heavily, “because, James. This is my heart. It’s the heart that I’ve lived with for my whole life. I don’t want a new one because this one is mine. This is the one that’s dealt with heartbreaks and betrayals. This is the one that’s gotten me through the bad days and the good. And this is the one that chose you. I don’t want a different one. I wanna keep this one. And don’t you dare tell me that my days are numbered if I keep this one because my days are numbered regardless.”

You finally look up at him, fire in your eyes as you express everything that’s been going on in your mind.

“We’re all gonna die someday, and it may not be the way we expect or the way we want, and we won’t ever be fully ready for it. But it’s gonna happen. I’d much rather know that I spent my life doing what I wanted on my terms. If my days are numbered, I'd rather enjoy them than spend them waiting for a heart I may never get. My heart’s still got a few years left in it. Careful years, yeah, but years no less.”

Tears stain his cheeks and he nods, sniffling twice then pressing a kiss to your hands.

“I’m not going to try and change your mind, Doll. The choice is completely yours and no matter what you decide to do, I’ll stay by your side through all of it, I promise. You’re my girl, my best girl, my only girl, and I want you to do what’s best for you.” You squeeze your eyes shut, having mentally prepared yourself for him to put up a fight, not for him to be so supportive of your decision.

“I love you, (Y/n). And I’m gonna cherish every fucking moment that you let me spend with you because I love you. I thought,” he pauses, pulling a hand back to scrub the tears off of his cheeks only for more to fall.

“I thought I’d lose you before getting a chance to truly tell you. But I’m not gonna waste any more time because life is a precious gift. I love you, (Y/n). So much. To the fucking ends of the Earth. I love you and I don't want a day to go by where you don’t know just how much I love you.”

You whimper, his confession making warmth spread through your body and tears rain down your cheeks.

“I-I love you too, James. With every ounce of my heart, I love you. And I don't want to let you down and I never want to hurt you.” He closes his eyes, content to bask in the weight of your words for a moment longer, a private, intimate moment.

He eventually settles his head on the bed next to your hip, and your fingers find their way into his luscious brown locks, twirling the thick strands around mindlessly.

“When are you getting discharged?” He asks, his voice muffled by the bed.

“I’m not sure yet. Doctor Palmer said she wants to keep me here for at least another week or so to monitor my heart and take me off the medication, and then maybe some more time after that depending on how weak I am.” He nods, nuzzling against you some more.

“I’m not going back to work ‘till you’re out,” he says matter-of-factly.

You only giggle, shaking your head.

“James, that’s not even plausible. You’ve got bills to pay. Besides, you’ll get tired of being here. I’m gonna spend most of my time sleeping or bugging the nurses for some real food.” He lifts his head, eyes full of vulnerability.

“I just don't wanna leave you and then...” He trails off but you understand his concern.

“I’m gonna be okay. Doctor Palmer says I’m doing okay. I’m sure Nat will continue bugging her for updates and she’ll let you know if there’s anything concerning happening. But I’m gonna be fine, I swear.” He watches you for a moment longer before nodding and pressing his head against your thigh.

A thought bubbles into your mind and you tug gently on his hair to get his attention.

“What happened to Tommy?” You ask, voice tight and filled with apprehension.

Bucky only smiles gently.

“Lil guy’s a hero. He busted that window open, that’s how we found you two. Broke his arm but he’s okay. Says he looks like me so he likes it.” A smile finds its way onto your face at the idea of Tommy looking up to his uncle so much.

“He’s already gotten everyone at the firehouse to sign it, and I’m sure when he’s back to school he’ll get everyone there to sign it too. But the lil guy’s a hero. Gonna make a good firefighter.” You nod, mind flashing back to those last few moments in the school.

“I was so scared, James. I-I couldn’t protect him and I didn’t know what to do.” He reaches up and strokes your cheek gently, shushing you softly.

“It’s okay, pretty girl. It’s okay. Everyone’s okay.” You take a few deep breaths and nod, trying to calm down before your heart rate picks up too much.

“You need to worry about yourself, and not everyone else. Focus on getting better, okay? And then, when you’re ready, I’m gonna take you out on a date and show you just how much you can enjoy life, okay?”

You nod, smiling at him.

“Okay.”

~*~

“Miss (Y/l/n)!” Tommy runs at you full speed, nearly knocking you over when he barrels into your legs.

Bucky’s quick to steady you, opening his mouth to reprimand his nephew but you stop him, raising a hand to cut him off.

“Hey, Tommy! How’s my little superhero feeling?” He pulls back and smiles up at you.

“I got another cast so now my arm looks just like uncle Bucky’s!” You glance at the new blue cast and smile brightly.

“Look at that! And you’re a hero just like him too, huh?” He nods excitedly then digs around in his pocket for a moment.

“Here!” He hands you a sharpie then points to a blank space on his cast.

“I made sure to leave room for you to sign it!” Your face softens and you crouch down in front of him, signing your name and drawing a small picture.

“Thank you, Tommy.” He nods, glancing over his shoulder as his dad calls his name.

“C’mon Tommy! You gonna help us move or are you gonna help miss (Y/l/n) get organized?” He looks between you and his dad then runs over to the moving truck, excitedly grabbing whatever his little arms can carry then bringing them into the house.

Bucky wraps an arm around your waist and presses a soft kiss to your temple.

“You ready?” You look up at your new house, then over at him, nodding without hesitation.

“Absolutely.”

The moving process is long and tedious, and after seven hours of lifting, unboxing, cleaning, and organizing, you’re about ready to call it a day.

“Pizza’s on its way, and Nat ran out to grab some beers,” Bucky says, coming up into the master bedroom. Concern immediately colours his features as he sees the way you’re sitting. You’re on the bed, hunched over with one hand on your mouth and the other on your lower abdomen.

“(Y/n)?” He asks, coming to a crouch in front of you and trying to get a look at your face.

You take a few deep breaths then nod, opening your eyes and offering him a weak smile.

“You okay?” You nod again but he seems unconvinced.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” You take a deep breath and reach for his hand, squeezing it gently.

“I uh.. not really. I wanted to tell you in a better way but I guess this is as good as it’s going to get.” His heart is in his throat, absolutely terrified of what you’re going to tell him.

You’ve been going to the doctor a lot more frequently, and your energy levels have plummeted.

He knew you didn’t have time left but it hasn’t even been six months since the fire.

You pull his hand to your stomach and rest it there gently, eyes finding his as you wait for it to click.

He stares at his hand in confusion, that confusion melting away as he realizes what you’re telling him.

“Wait, are you...?” His eyes are wide, eyebrows raised and heart pounding.

You only nod, tears welling up in your eyes as he launches up and wraps his arms around your frame.

“Oh my god. Oh my god! I’m gonna be a dad!” You giggle wetly, tears of joy falling and getting soaked up by his shirt.

“We’re gonna have a baby.” He pulls back, hands on your small baby bump.

“How far along are you?” He asks, cradling the bump delicately between his hands.

“About three months. And the doctor said that they’ve already got a birth plan ready, and different pills for me to take to calm my heart.” His glossy eyes look up at you, so full of love and adoration.

“I can’t believe it. I...” he stops, leaning in the gently kiss your lips then pulls you into another tight embrace.

“Thank you, (Y/n). Thank you.”

316 notes · View notes

l4verq · 3 years

Text

fight back | b.b

bucky barnes x enhanced!reader

in which bucky won’t lay a hand on you no matter what :(

tags : a little brawl, fluff cause icanthelpmyself, mentions of blood, john walker (idk if we're supposed to like him now ??) bucky is a cat lady okk

fic : one shot

a/n : inspired by that scene in the final ep of tfatws when karli is screaming at sam to fight back lol😳

|| gif by @unearthlydust ||

one world, one people.

you repeat it in your head one more time, when he comes into view, vibranium gleaming onyx with loops of gold.

you know that he knows you’re here, back to the wall a few feet away, peeking at him.

he doesn’t know that you let him know.

doesn’t know that you laid out a trap and just like the foolish mouse, he walked right into the lion’s den.

although you’re not sure who the fool actually is, when you meet his eyes, knees almost buckling at the sight just cause of how long it’s been without them.

“y/n.” he breathes out, almost in disbelief.

it’s been fourteen months since he woke up to an empty bed and a handwritten goodbye letter folded in a clean white envelope, tucked under a pillow still marked by the soft indentation of your head.

fourteen months since you took off in the dead of night, pulling your- his hood over your head, the cold wind nipping at your skin, almost like it was punishing you.

maybe, it saw what you did.

oh, but fred definitely saw what you did, that damn cat always followed you two around even though it’s owner was the blonde next door. her name wasn’t even fred, bucky came up with it after the third time it snuck into the apartment.

he swore he hated it but always seemed to have a treat lying around in case it did come.

and it did, a lot. neglected by it’s owner, it chose to seek comfort in the couple next door, and sometimes a meal or two.

“sorry, no treat today bub.”

fred scowled - honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if an actual human was living in it - mewling as it came up to you for the usual chin rubs and cooes.

you sighed, caving into it’s antics, squatting to pet it.

cradling it’s head into your palm, she was purring, a very uncommon sight. fred doesn’t purr, she scratches and hisses at anything and everything that moves.

“you’re particularly nice today.” you commented, getting up. it mewled even louder this time but you turned on your heels and headed for the stairs.

you were already late.

your legs picked up pace quickly, easily crossing multiple blocks over in a few long strides owing to the blue serum coursing through your veins.

though your mind remained stationary, fixated on a single face, how it’d crumble at the sight of the letter, how he’d probably end up hating you.

“took you long enough.”

her auburn locks were tied into a loose braid that curved around her neck, the tip sat just below her collarbone, a piss poor job held together by a thin maroon colored band.

it was quintessentially her, the lack of utter patience to spend two minutes looping three knots of hair one over the other.

you jogged over to the other side of the black suv, noticing a stark white rectangle where a liscence plate should be.

“he’s knocked out cold,” you asked as soon as you grabbed the door handle open, “how?”

lazropthalein.

it came in the mail in a brown package, no return address. bucky wasn’t home, he had a scheduled therapy session down the block.

just a pinch is enough.

the text from the unknown number read.

it had no odour, a clean, white colour to it that blended in seamlessly with the flour.

“you baked without me?” bucky gasped, dramatically, hand covering his gaping mouth. his other hand carried two plastic bags, filled to the brim, a purple razor was poking out the top.

he even had to drop the poor bags on the floor, just to emphasize the utter shock he felt.

“i got bored.” you giggled, wiping the countertop with a wet cloth, remnants of flour on the sleek marble turning goopy under it.

“traitor.”

“it’s just cupcakes.”

“still a cake.”

you sighed, “you’re a five year old.”

he huffed, trudging towards the living room, shoulders hunched to really hone in on just how devastating this was for him.

“don’t i get a hug?” you held your arms out, making grabby hands, following him.

apparently, the devastation was to the point where he had to bring out the big guns, the sad baby blues.

the act lasted for another minute? at best. hours later, he was happily munching away.

“i know why it tastes so good.” he moaned, smacking his lips.

your smile faltered a little, did he kn- no, there’s no way he could have known. you burned that little plastic bag as soon as you dumped a pinch in.

“yea?”

he grinned, popping the last bit left in “it was made with your love.”

“how did it work?” your voice rose several octaves higher, amplified further by the cool, silent night.

drugs and sedatives don’t work on supersoldiers yet a certain blue eyed one was back home, unmoving even if you screamed right into his ears.

“dr wilfred, he invented it. the power broker wanted something to balance out our,” she flared her hands at both of you, “super-soldierness, so that we don’t have an upper hand when all’s said and done.”

would the either of you even be alive when all was said and done?

“look, i know you didn’t want to do this but james, he won’t understand. he’s not one o-..”

“yea, can we jus- let’s just get out of here.” you get in beside her, whipping the seatbelt over your torso.

the car was stuffy, felt like a choke around your neck that only seemed to tighten more and more.

“if we go now, there’s no coming back.” she glances at you, hand curled over the gearstick ready to position it in place.

she was giving you an out, one last chance. karli was a lot of things and having a heart inside that cold, bitchy exterior was one.

“i know.”

you sunk deeper into your seat, the hoodie had a faint smell of burnt toast and that cologne which was on sale, almost half off if you cut out the taxes.

it smelled like him, too much like him.

until it didn’t after a few days. but you still slept with it, just outright refusing to wash it despite karli’s snarky remarks about hygiene.

hygiene could go fuck herself, for all you know.

compared to the motels and basements you guys shifted around in, that hoodie was a doctor’s scrubs.

when the moon hung low on the black sky, you tried not to think about him too much. the silence didn’t help, you needed something to drown out your thoughts. that’s when the ‘socialising’ with the other flag smashers started. they were nice.

nice cause you were the leader’s little sister. but also a huge fucking liability because of a certain supersoldier hot on their heels in search of you, ruining every goddamn plan so their niceness was.. limited.

karli was a natural when it came to it, all of it. the talking, rallying of supporters - fuck, she just had a way with words. she could make you believe she hung up the stars in the sky.

probably how she convinced you that holding a room chock full of council members hostage right smack in the middle of nyc was a good idea.

the only idea, more precisely.

you guys had the upper hand, more than a handful supersoldiers at your disposal, capable of taking down the entire military force if you so pleased.

the only playing card they had was one supersoldier, who was better off distracted, kept off the field.

so who better to send to do the deed than the love of his life.

“fred had a baby. multiple babies, spawn of the devil if you ask me. always running around, thrashing the place up.” he takes small steps towards you, slow and calculated, as if a lion stalking around a prey.

“you shouldn’t be here.” you lie through your teeth, a tiny white compared to the ones that’ve rolled off your tongue before.

“i think the neighbours call me a cat lady now,” his eyes shift around and he leans in to whisper, “they haven’t even seen my knitting skills yet.”

“stop.” you think you said it or much rather whispered it, your voice was failing you. he’s getting close, too close for your liking so why aren’t you backing away from him?

“fred misses you, you know. she wonders where you went.” he smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

the hairs on your neck shoot up, a slight twitch of your brow. the way bucky’s ear perk up, you realise it’s not just you and him here anymore.

someone else has arrived.

“i’ve got it handled, john.” bucky turns around, plants him directly infront of you, blocking john’s view of you.

sure enough, it’s john limping in, a nasty gash across his chest.

your blood runs cold because this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

john isn’t supposed to be here, he’s supposed to be fighting.. oh god. you notice the various splatters of blood on his cowl, on his boot, on his shield.

it’s too much blood from a guy who’s barely bleeding.

“really? i was thinking you should do more than just talk.” he spits on the ground and wipes his mouth.

you notice, the spit’s all blood too.

“i’m giving you a chance to walk away, right now.”

john snorts, leaning sideways to get a view of you, neck craned out.

“and leave this prize all to yourself?” he grins, “i’d be an idiot.”

“you have a death wish then.” you lift your chin a little higher, praying your quickening heartbeat doesn’t give away your calm exterior.

john whistles, grimacing as he straightens, “so, she does talk.”

you scowl, crossing your arms.

he’s in bad shape. he has no chance, not that he ever did even in his best shape. he knows that too yet he’s still here. that sends a chill up your spine.

“go, i got this.” bucky tips his head, glancing at you.

“i don’t need you to save me.” you hiss at him, which comes out a little harsher than you intended. an apology dies in your throat as he flinches just the slightest.

“trouble in paradise?” john’s barely finished saying it before he’s reached behind his back and swinging the vibranium

you hear it before you see it stopped mid air by a gloved hand. then you charge.

it’s all a hazy mix of blue and red until your fist connects with his jaw, sound of something breaking ringing in your ear.

something pulls your waist back, a grip far too strong to be just flesh.

“go, i’ll ta-..” bucky’s barely said anything before an upward cut from john connects to his neck, violent coughs ensuing.

you grip john’s arm before he’s even retracted it back, jump up his back, settling around his neck and twist until you hear a crack and a bloodcurling scream following suit.

he whips his head back right into your stomach, seizes that moment when the wind knocks out of you to pull you by your hair off him.

“i told you to go.” bucky growls, kicking john right in the shin that makes him kneel and you almost fall off but you keep your fingers tightly looped around john’s hair, pulling as hard you can.

but he’s relentless.

your head hits something hard and you realise you’re on the ground now, legs loosely around john’s shoulders, him also on the ground.

it’s like the both of you realise at the same time but you’re quicker. your legs tighten around his neck, against the spot where a thick neck muscle throbs. he claws desperately around, straining for oxygen

soon, his hands lull down, the dull thud on the ground confirming his unconsciousness.

“are you hurt?” bucky’s hovering over you, seemingly unfazed by john’s neck in a chokehold by your legs right now.

you reject his hand he extends and push yourself off the gravelly concrete on to your feet.

“this was a mistake.” you trail off, saying it more to your own self.

you weren’t the lion, you were the stupid fox who thought it was.

stupid enough to believe you were over bucky and that everything wouldn’t come rushing back as soon as you laid eyes on him.

he whips you around by your hand and before you know it, he’s already caught your other fist heading for his sternum. you barely feel the grip, it’s soft, just so incredibly soft and fits so right.

you hate it.

rage bubbles inside you, mostly at yourself. partly at him because he’s not screaming at you or slamming you against the wall or jus- anything.

you wrench your hand away, land a swing which he does nothing to block. his grip on your other hand loosens and he still does nothing when another hit to the jaw leaves him staggering,

instead, he looks at you softly as if resigning himself to your anger, to let it simmer off.

“fight back!” you scream, outstretched palms pushing him back.

he stumbles a few steps back, hands reaching out to yours resting on his chest, fingers intertwining yours tightly.

“stop.” it’s a soft plead, tears spiking the corners of his eyes.

“hit me!” you’re practically begging at this point, thrashing your arms around.

his hands grapple at your shoulders, bringing you to his chest, “it’s okay.”

he smells so sweet, just so sweet that you almost believe him.

“i drugged you and i left you and i-,” you inhale sharply, “i killed so many people, bucky.”

the last fourteen months had escalated quickly from doing what’s right to doing what’s needed, lines blurred between moral ethics and survival.

“it’s okay.” he repeats, hand patting your hair, gentle and soothing. your body betrays you, sinking into his touch, his warmth.

“you should hate me.” you whimper.

you wouldn’t blame him if he did. you doubt he could hate you more than you already did yourself.

he pulls back, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, “i couldn’t if i tried.”

god, why does he have to be so.. bucky?

frustated, you spit out, “this? this was a distraction to separate you and sam.”

you don’t say it but it’s understood, understood that you wouldn’t have met him if not for it.

the inner corners of his brows angle up slightly, a ghost of a smile on his lips, “i know.”

your breath hitches, if he knows then wh-

“then, why..?”

you finally look up at him, vision blurry because of the stupid tears pooling at your eyes.

his thumb wipes away a tear dribbling down your cheek, the coldness of the metal a clear contrast to the warm moisture, “you know why.”

a/n : this one’s been sitting pretty, collecting cobwebs in my drafts so thought i’d take it out lol, also haven’t been posting fics in a whileeee cause im dumb and i’ve been working on multiple things all at once lol yea this is me rambling and also i just wanna say that i. love. folklore. sm. that whole album has me crying and sad and just :((

#bucky barnes #bucky #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky fic #james bucky barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky imagine #fatws bucky #fatws #flag smashers #marvel #mcu

231 notes · View notes

echo-of-sounds · 3 years

Text

cock and ball worship pt.2

Small smut drabbles of cock and ball worship with Toshinori, Hizashi, and Fatgum.

Don’t like/Don’t read: ball worship (obviously), rimming, and (slight) deepthroating

Yagi Toshinori

“All you need to do is stand here,” you hummed, kissing between Toshinori’s shoulder blades, then peeked past his arm to the mirror. Blue eyes focused on the bureau’s top. Red painted across his cheeks. It was cute. And concerning. “Hey, if you’re too nervous, we don’t have to.”

He met your eyes and smiled, relieving the worry. “I’ve never, um-” He cleared his throat, making your excitement skyrocket. But you hid your giant grin by kissing his arm while he retried, “I guess I am nervous. Noone’s ever done this to me before. ”

“It’ll be new, but it’ll feel good.” You rubbed his sides, snaking your hands to his front. The light blond trail tickled your fingers. “Do you still want to?”

“... Yes.”

“Lean on the bureau.” Toshi’s back tilted forward, pushing his ass out just a bit. Running your hands down his sides, feeling over his ribs and scars, then stroking his cheeks, fondling his delicate sacrum, you lowered to your knees. You nudged the inside of his thighs and advised, “Spread your legs a little, honey.”

Slowly and hesitantly, he did, exposing himself and giving you room to settle between them. You coddled the beating half-erection and began leisurely pumping him. The simple touch was enough for him to moan. A kiss to his balls made him buck into your hold, already grown stiff.

You pushed his leg out some more. It revealed all of him: tan, near hairless, and quivering. While you kept up the gentle pumping, your mouth fixated his balls, sucking on his left, loving the salted bitterness. It tried tensing up, ascending closer to his body, but your lips trapped it and refused to release. Weight increased behind it. Loose skin caught your teeth. All the flavors turned your salivary glands on, causing excess saliva to drivel down your chin.

Because of the lustful hissing and humping, you let go. Though you did it agonizingly lazy: firming your lips and drawing them off, grazing your teeth over the pocket, nipping the final bit, stretching it as far as it could go until it snapped back, arousing a groan and inflaming his erection to bob, dotting the drawers with precum.

Toshi groaned your name rather needily. You didn’t grant him a break, jacking him off and engulfing his right ball. It shifted around in your mouth. Your nose pressed against him. Drool leaked. Tinges of sharp salt grew. The palate burst when you popped him out and licked up his perineum to his rim.

“Oh!” he gasped, grinding backward. As legs spread, more opened to you, providing your tongue entry. He gasped deeper, ground harder, working himself all over you, letting his taste sink into you and your tongue to thrust into him.

Wanting to try something, you stopped jerking him off. He groaned from the loss but carried on while you solely used your mouth to pleasure him, seeing if he could orgasm from that alone. You moaned, feeling all his muscles tighten. Your nails dug into his thighs.

Desperate fingers held your head motionless. He humped your tongue, groaning aloud, clenching, wetly and lewdly from the overkill of saliva.

After the waves died, and his legs were about to give, he unlocked from your hair. You wiped your mouth and laughed at the drawers splattered with cum. You rubbed his back, kissed his blush-covered shoulder, and asked, “Did you like it?”

“Very much so,” Toshi croaked.

You brushed the hair sticking to his forehead away. “Then I’ll do it anytime you like.”

Yamada Hizashi

“Hizashi…” you sighed, placing your hands on his knees.

“In the mood?”

“Not for me.” You kneeled and grabbed the band of his sweatpants. He lifted his hips so you could pull them and his underwear off. Once freed, his thighs spread, and he flopped flimsily between them.

“Scoot forward,” you partially whined, settling on your knees. Hizashi didn’t question your needs. He just did as you said, shifting to the edge of the seat. Your mouth met him halfway, latching on, nursing the soft limpness. Since it was flaccid, you easily took all inside, able to touch your nose to his hair.

A hand rested on the back of your neck. His fingers rubbed in circles, stopping to grab there when your attention aimed at his glans. Your tongue gingerly stroked the small opening, careful of being too rough on his delicate skin. Salt trickled out. You fed off of what little spilled before suckling on his entire head, now cleared of foreskin, and waved your firm lips around his corona, adoring the immediate groans. Teasing there never failed to evoke them.

You took his hard length in, unable to taste all, then slipped him out, dripping saliva to the couch. Hizashi traced your lips with his thumb, lifting it to his mouth for a taste. He sang, “What’s got you all riled up?”

“Dunno.” You shrugged. You leaned closer and refilled your mouth, then your throat as you pushed yourself. You bobbed on him, winding your tongue around, slurping up any drops that ooze past your lips.

“Come here,” Hizashi grunt. You fussed, wanting him to stay where it was warm and wet. “Come on. Let me see your mouth.”

You slowly withdrew him. Fingers traced your sopping jaw. His thumb hooked and pulled down, holding it agape, letting saliva drip all over again while he repositioned. “Here you go, baby.”

With his thighs lounging wide, you had access to his balls. You latched on to one, breathing through your nose to smell the musk, snuggling up between his legs, cradling the other in your hand, frisking all around it. Your tongue pushed and prodded the sac, occasionally lapping under for the sour, over-salted flavor. A moan gushed out at the heat.

“God, you’re so fucking precious, sucking me off like this.”

His compliment fluttered your chest, intensifying your indulgence. You nestled as close as possible. And even with your cheeks turning sore, you continued supping, swallowing, and nipping. Your head lazed on his thigh as you fed. You tasted lower, pecking his perineum with your tongue. Spit flowed downward.

Hizashi bucked at the liquid. A blush tinted his cheeks. You stared directly into the eyes while he jerked himself off. He returned the gesture, gaping at you and your lips. Your teeth started clamping on the lax skin, feasting on the entire oval inside.

“Fuck!” he howled. “Fuck, you thirsty?”

You nodded.

“C’mere.” Hizashi directed you to draw him in, holding your head steady while he calmly yet hurriedly thrust into your mouth, forcing a gag every other insertion. Saliva and salt built until cum joined, stuffing your throat, leaving you wallowing in it as his grip knotted in your hair. Thighs went rigid. He praised through his orgasm, “Fuck- Just like that, baby. God, you- Fuck, just like that.”

Hearing you choke, he guided you off, and he flopped out, flimsy once again. You wiped your chin on his sweatpants. But instead of getting up, you cleaned him, licking the semen and spit away.

Hizashi patted your shoulder, breathless. “Thank you.”

Toyomitsu Taishiro

You blew raspberries on Taishiro’s stomach. He didn’t react in the slightest- not even a twitch of his lips. “Really?”

“I told you, I’m not ticklish.”

“Whatever,” you mumbled to yourself as you kissed his lower tummy, following the dark stretch marks down, passed the tuft of hair, to his penis. He rested flaccid, his foreskin practically screaming your name. Numerous veins raised the skin. They flattened under your tongue, pricking up after you washed by.

You supported him, watching his soft foreskin smooth over his glans when you tentatively moved it lower. The opening fit snug, unable to retract beyond his corona. You kissed the rim through the layer of thin skin and ran your tongue along it, feeling it shudder from the warmth.

“Use your tongue properly and lick inside, baby,” Tai hummed.

You answered with a moan, slipping into the tight opening, tasting the unseen skin. Salt sopped your tastebuds. It drizzled into the back of your throat, more and more the harder you sipped. He fattened in your hold. The middle swelled the plumpest, heaviest, followed by his glans flaring, producing thick precum. Moan thoughtlessly escaped.

“You like how I taste, don’t you?”

“Mmhmm.” His head poked your cheek, ballooning it out, causing a bit of drool to fall from your lips.

“That’s good, baby. I’m glad. Now, why don’t you take care of my balls for me?”

Your tongue withdrew, saturated in the tart taste. You tauntingly-yet-carefully stretched the loose skin between your teeth, unveiling the rim of his head. It was dark red, swollen, beating, and covered in saliva. Letting go, it was covered again. You kissed and sweetly sucked his tip. It drummed wonderfully against your palm and in your lips. Each pulse spurt just a little precum out for you to eat.

All of a sudden, amid your enjoyment, it was removed. Tai held himself, playfully noting, “You must really like how I taste.”

“I love it.” You kissed his balls next like he asked. The dusting of near-invisible hair didn’t bother you as you sucked one in, pumping with your mouth. It rolled with your tongue, bloated from arousal. The relaxed skin tightened around them. You wondered if he was close or if he was bigger than you remembered.

Not dwelling on it, you released with a nice pop, then repeated the affection on his other one. He grunted and humped with his hand. You nursed harder, almost biting, before popping that one out too.

“Keep doing that,” Tai groaned as he worked himself. A flush coated his face. His gaze locked onto yours. “Your mouth is perfect. You know how to use it so well.”

You whimpered around him. Saliva messed your jaw when you detached, sticking to both of you.

“Don’t worry about that, baby. Just focus on me. I’m almost there.” The husk in his voice drove shivers down your back and made you press firmly to him. You lapped between his balls, switching from sucking to nipping to pulling to kissing, then finally back to licking, abusing the scrotal skin red and randy. You moaned with your tasting, taking in all the bitterness and musk, nurturing all the more scents to flourish.

He cursed repeatedly, running his hand up and down his length, jerking into his hold and your mouth. His balls tensed and rose. You kept drinking them in, humming while he groaned and praised, cumming onto his stomach in rich strands. Only when they lolled did you release, ending it in a charming kiss.

You crawled up to Tai and brushed his bangs back. You nuzzled against his cheek, kissing and whispering praises back to him.

#all might #all might x reader #yagi toshinori #toshinori x reader #present mic #present mic x reader #yamada hizashi #hizashi x reader #fatgum #fatgum x reader #taishiro toyomitsu #taishiro toyomitsu x reader #bnha smut #bnha x reader #bnha

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too-lit-for-fanfic · 3 years

Text

A Traitor In Our Midst

PART III OF III

PART I

PART II

PART III

And it’s done! What a wait! And for that we are very sorry. For a long time we just couldn’t finish this closing chapter in a way that felt right or akin to the characters and their little story so it has undergone several re-writes. This final part isn’t as long as those previous, or as technical, but we hope you enjoy! There’s fluff, so hopefully that makes up for it! Thank you everyone who has supported this little series! As always, constructive criticism is appreciated!

Summary: Cal Kestis x ex-Galactic Empire!OC, but can be treated like an x reader, ugly secrets from her past are resurfaced. In light of the truth Cal and crew no longer feel as if they can trust the newest member to the trio. Tempers flare, sacrifices are made, and the truth finally comes out.

Warnings: Torture is featured/referenced in this chapter so be warned. Angst, Blood, Violence, Swearing, Torture, Interrogation tactics, Emotional Manipulation, PTSD, Trauma

“...just to protect those who would never do the same for you?”

It had been two weeks since Aylin and BD had been trapped on the Star Destroyer, Cal and crew in the middle of negotiating with Saw Gerrera to organise a rescue mission, the stubborn man finally agreeing once it had been revealed BD had failed to return, the ship the duo had commandeered having been seized by the Empire. Cal, Cere and Greez huddled around the small monitor in the centre of the hull, deathly quiet as they listened to the conversation taking place between Second Sister and their former crewmate. On their rounds of the ship, BD had managed to return just in time to spot Trilla entering the prison cell, and now they waited anxiously, hidden under a series of shelves in the outward corridor. All three members of the crew looked positively sick, Cal in particular turning a ghastly pale as he held his breath, dreading the events to unfold.

“Oh isn't that just sweet.” Trilla’s shrill voice mocked lowly, eerily echoing down the corridor. “You really did care about them didn't you? Isn’t it a pity how they’ve left you here to die?”

“Fuck you.” Cal had to strain to hear Aylin’s response. She sounded weak, worryingly so, the venom in her words sounding as if it pained her to push it past her lips.

“You’re not denying it.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“That pretty red-head might have come to save you once, even I can tell you were very important to him-”

Cal involuntarily lurched at his mention, his muscles twitching so as to distance himself from the screen, an icy grip encasing his heart.

“Not anymore.”

Cal physically felt his heart whither in his chest, his knuckles turning white.

“Not anymore.” The sick woman almost sounded joyful. “All because you were born on the wrong side of the war. How ironic, an unforgiving Jedi.”

‘oh force...’ Cal withdrew, his heart plummeting to his stomach as the words echoed around his skull. Greez’s clawed hand landed on his elbow in comfort but the redhead payed him no mind. ‘please say something’ he silently begged, desperate to know that Aylin didn’t really think the same of him.

She never responded.

“I can’t watch this.” The red-head made an effort to move away from the screen, fully intent on hiding in the shadows of the cockpit. The entire conversation felt like a knife to his heart, and it only became worse when he realised anything could have been happening behind those closed doors, and he was powerless.

“And Cere, she wouldn’t even come to save me.” - A muffled ugly gasp - “Why are you protecting those who would sell you to the order for far less?”

Silence followed, and the trio held their breaths. A strangled cry abruptly cut-off, Cal very nearly almost throwing up as a strangled chocking gasp broke the silence, the sounds of boots scraping and struggling against a metallic surface drowning out the conversation.

A sickening thud.

Murmurs.

Screams.

Another bang.

“No- PLEASE!” Shrill blood-curdling screams assaulted their senses, Cal flinching away from the screen. The trio waited a moment, Cal’s hands covering his mouth, agape with horror - the begging screams didn’t stop.

“We have to do something!” Cal burst, a red hue overtaking his sickly complexion, flinching again at a particularly desperate yell.

“What do you suppose?” Cere bit back harshly, the stress and helplessness of the situation fraying all of their nerves.

“Something! - Anything!” Cal racked his brain for a solution, the echoing screams resonating from the monitor throwing his thoughts into a frenzy. “We need to get Trilla out of the room. We need to get her away from her!”

“And how are we-”

“BD!” Cal lurches towards the screen, shaking hands frantically typing a message to the small BD-unit. “If we can just get her into the main hull of the ship, it would be perfectly reasonable for the trooper who requested her presence to have moved to a different location in the ship.”

“Cal, think about this-”

His hand hovers over the ‘enter’ button on the holopad. His wide bloodshot eyes searing a hole directly into Cere’s skull.

“What is there to think about?” As if on queue, another scream wafted through the monitor. That solidified his resolve, hitting the key before Cere or Greez could even blink, BD immediately setting into motion.

The cell doors opened with a resounding hiss as BD finished inputting the code, the little droid rolling to the side to enter the cell. The sight that greeted the crew was worse than they could have possibly imagined. The young woman strapped to the table in the centre of the room resembled a corpse more so than the confident and head-strong blonde that had departed from their ship only two weeks prior. Her imperial jacket barely hung to her beaten and bloodied frame, the torn and tattered fabric had been roughly tugged from her torso, wound into a crumpled heap around her waist and elbows, bony shoulders jutting up through the ruins of a once white tank top, now stained crimson. With every breath her ribcage shuddered, ribs pressing against her beaten and sullied skin, protruding almost painfully with every twist and struggle, skin taught. Any part of her not covered in crimson was mottled in varying shades of black and purple, the angry discolouration winding around her ribs and disappearing behind the remnants of her undershirt.

Cal felt positively sick. Anger bloomed in his chest as despair gnawed at his stomach, bloodshot eyes transfixed on the image before him, the sound of blood rushing through his ears, and Aylin’s screams echoing through his mind drowning out the conversation taking place. A muscle in his jaw twitched and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the table ledge with all the might his exhausted muscles would allow, his breath clogging his throat and chest as he forgets himself, his one and only concern the one person in the entire galaxy who he couldn't reach.

Trilla hovers over her diminished frame, elbow harshly dug into the blonde’s exposed ribs, gloved hand wrapped languidly around a blade buried to its hilt, fresh crimson pooling along Aylin’s collarbone, spilling onto the table and then onto the cement floor, glistening sickeningly in the overhead lighting. Noteful of BD’s presence, his frantic panicked beeps finally reaching her ears amongst the screams, Trilla leans back, still leant heavily on Aylin as her cold amber gaze lands on the small BB unit, anger and frustration etched across her face. A sickening thud echoes around the metallic room as the blonde’s head falls back pathetically, unaware of the cause of the interruption. She looked barely conscious, beginning to dance across the line of life to death, who’s arms were already open and willing to hold her in their cold embrace.

With all the languidity of a senator, Trilla leisurely pulls the blade from Aylin’s exposed shoulder, leisurely wiping the blood covered blade on her tattered jacket, a cruel smile adorning her features all the while. Aylin barely moves, eyes half lidded and body slack, the only indication of life the erratic yet shallow rise and fall of her chest.

Her head tilts to expose more of her hollowed features, Cal’s horrified gaze locking onto her own, the breath he had been holding escaping his lungs and his shoulders falling with the guilt that clawed its way up from his stomach, a tangible trepidation reverberating throughout the force. What little fat she had possessed had surely withered away, her cheekbones appearing almost sharp underneath her taught and sunken complexion, ivory skin now pale and shining a ghastly yellow under the blaring overhead lights, a stark contrast to the maroon-dried blood coating her temple and jaw. Her bloodshot and sunken eyes blearily gaze towards the ceiling, no sign of the life that had once illuminated their honeyed depths, the life that had spilled from her being in abundance no longer to be found.

Cal’s focus finally turns back to the conversation at hand, breaths shallow, BD beckoned from the room with an indignant “Droid.”, the tall figure of the second sister glowering at them from the entrance of the cell, evidently annoyed at the intrusion. With one final glance BD reluctantly turns to leave the room, following the second sister dutifully in their search for the non-existent trooper in the main hanger.

Cal collapses onto a sofa across the room from the monitor, the horrific image of Aylin strapped to a metal table, looking closer to death than life, and drenched in her own blood, permanently burnt into his retinas. A sight to haunt him for a lifetime.

“Fuck Saw, we’re getting them both, tomorrow.”

----------

With little convincing Greez had quickly succumbed to Cal’s persuasion, the two men - after much deliberation and heated debate - had also successfully convinced Cere of their plan. Truthfully, Cal had been conjuring ways to coordination a rescue ever since Aylin and BD had been captured on the Star Dreadnaught, and as he prepared for the events of the day, no doubt entered his mind that their two companions would be with the crew by the end of the day. Companion - Cal almost scoffed to himself - the two were far more than that: BD, in many ways, had become a best friend to Cal in the past few years, the companionable little droid with a taste for adventure never failing to offer a sense of comfort and joy, even in some of Cal’s darkest times, in many ways resembling a younger sibling Cal had never before had the pleasure of having. Aylin, on the other hand, in the time the pair had known one another, had somehow wormed her way into the isolated Jedi’s heart, always offering her support in his times of need, encouraging him with his training through her self-proclaimed ‘tough-love’, becoming a source of confident resolve and rationality - a sense of stability in the ever changing galaxy.

Cal remembered their many nights spent on some unknown planet, the pair sat beneath the many stars and moons of the galaxy, sharing tales long into the night. Cal had never had a relationship with anyone like the relationship he had formed with the stubborn blonde: heatedly sparring before patching one another’s wounds from the scuffle; longing glances spared with every tranquil moment, hidden behind excuses of exhaustion or a poorly constructed insult; grins and soft smiles shared over meal time or upon their own hidden adventures exploring new planets; a hand reaching out for the others in a busied market or times of comfort; an eye searching for the other in a crowded room; simply basking in one another's presence in the quiet hours of the morning, relishing every moment where they could just be. Cal knew he was a fool, a disgrace to the Jedi code he had spent his entire youth obeying like a holy script, he knew he was a fool the first time the enigmatic blonde had saved his life in her third month of joining the crew, standing over his tired and weary frame with a cocky smirk and a calloused hand outstretched, making some smart-arsed comment as she hauled him to his feet.

Attachments were forbidden, Jedi were trained from birth to let go of everything they were afraid to lose. And Cal? He was terrified to lose her - he had already broken his sacred vows, he had become attached, and he would be damned before he sacrificed one of the only things he was afraid to lose. He would never be a Jedi, yet perhaps that was okay, perhaps there was something more to this world that he had only realised upon stumbling across the Mantis and her crew.

He had never been that dutiful of a Padawan anyway.

The point seemed ever more poignant as his cerulean eyes stared conflictingly at the reflection in his mirror. No longer did he adorn the trusty combat trousers, baggy shirt, chest brace, not even his trusting poncho that seemed to make up his daily attire. Instead, a version of himself he had spent endless nights battling against stared back at him, the ironed and pressed midnight coloured uniform clinging to his lean frame. After a pit stop or two he had successfully acquired a knock-off Imperial General’s uniform, a notable fake with the lack of an aura emitting from the otherwise haunting apparel. Tugging harshly at the collar that bit into the skin of his neck, a habit he had seen Aylin recount numerous times in her preparation for the mission, his tired eyes trail over his figure, hoping to all of the stars and force wielders in the galaxy that his Master couldn’t see him now.

He clears his throat to relieve some of the tightness that had gathered in his chest before he leaves his sleeping quarters, rolling his stiff shoulders as he makes his way into the main hull, lightsaber already hidden beneath his newly acquired jacket.

“So,” The red-head steps before Greez and Cere - already equipped in her own better-fitting storm trooper armour - who had been typing away to BD on the small holopad in the main hull. “How do I look?”

The pair glance up at the young man, Greez’s beady little eyes widening considerably, a good natured grin enveloping his face.

“Kid-” Humour laced his tone, his dark eyes taking in the sight before him. “Let’s just hope you won’t be on that ship for too long.” In comparison to how Aylin’s uniform had fit her frame, Cal’s uniform may have well as swamped him, the thick fabric creasing at his waist, his belt fastened at the smallest capacity and yet somehow still too big, sitting notably lower on his waist than it should have, polished and barely scuffed boots a size too large, the one thing that actually fit being the pair of leather gloves over his shaking hands.

Everything just seemed slightly wrong, just a little bit askew, just a little bit... fake.

By all respects, Cal had certainly gone to the effort of impersonating an Imperial soldier, skin scrubbed clean of the dirt and grime of the galaxy, hair slicked back under a hat slightly too large for his head, he had even cracked into Aylin’s limited makeup supply and attempted to conceal the many scars he had gained through his years, as well as the stress-induced darkening bags under his eyes. The Empire wasn't him, and it was painfully obvious to all who spared him a second glance.

“Say all you want, old man.” Cal jibes light heatedly, beginning to head towards the cockpit. “Have you forgotten your own disguise?” The redhead sends a pointed look in the direction of the shell of a modified astromech droid, the humour in Greez’s eyes quickly dying as his gaze lands on his ingenious costume.

“If I have to come and rescue you all in that thing.” Greez stares uneasily at his heavy, small costume. “You owe me a spa day.”

----------

After commandeering a small transport shuttle from a neighbouring planet with a rather small Imperial presence, Cal and Cere bid farewell to Greez, who was to remain with the Mantis and communicate with them through BD and the data pad.

“Be careful.” Cere warns, arms wrapped around herself as she watches Greez fiddle with some mechanisms on the inside of the ship with dull eyes. “We won’t be able to come and rescue you if you get caught.”

He waves her concern off with dismissal.

Cal appears next to her, materialising from the bowls of the Mantis, smoothing his jacket out once again. The older woman turns to the young man, barely out of adolescence, and feels the corners of her mouth tug down. This could go wrong, this could go horribly, horrendously, atrociously wrong, and with Cal’s loosening grip on his emotions, his anxiety rolling from him in waves through the force, chances of failure were ever high. Cal was only young, having grown up during some of the darkest known times of the galaxy, his future destroyed by a war begun before his birth, and now he was to be thrust into the heart of the conflict, into the home of those responsible for all of his suffering. Cal was a victim, just like all those who had lived during the raising of the Empire, his body and mind more marred and scarred than most, but he was a survivor, scorning and mocking the Empire with every day lived. Cere hoped he continued to be a survivor, one of the few specks of light in an ever darkening galaxy, yet this rescue mission threatened to snuff his light out for good.

Her mind wondered at the cause of the young man’s anxiety as she watched his hands tremble as he straightened his leather belt, surveying the pasty sheen of his skin and the poorly-concealed bags under his flitting eyes. As harsh as she had been on Aylin when her past had been revealed, it was undeniable that the two women had held a close bond, and secretly, even if she wouldn’t admit it to herself, Cere had missed the girl terribly, her own guilty conscious gnawing away at the edges of her conscious whenever she tried to rest. Last night had been particularly bad after the events that she had witnessed unfold on the small data pad yesterday afternoon, the image of her companion, beaten and bloody, a mere fragment of how she remembered the blonde girl on her departure. The image haunted her whenever her eyes had finally agreed to close - as obviously was the case with the redhead stood next to her, exhaustion palpable on his features underneath the mounting anxiety and adrenaline - the added guilt, knowing similar treatment would have faced Trilla due to her own selfishness, depriving her mind of rest, gnawing at her innards and haunting every fibre of her being.

She hoped desperately for her crew to return, all of them safe, once again, in their home, the Mantis.

“Cal,” She turns to the tall red-head, hands gripping her arms more firmly, “I know what your goal is, I know how badly you want to bring her home.” The red-head watches her with steady eyes, shoulders raising in defence. “I want them home too, but- but please remember yourself. I can’t loose all of you.”

The sounds of the local wildlife and fauna fill the steady silence as Cal mulled over her words, hand running over the saber tucked into his side.

“Don’t worry Cere,” Cal begins heading down the ramp, taking long purposeful strides towards the Imperial ship, Cere’s more tentative steps following in his wake. “I’m going to make it back, and I’m bringing everyone with me.”

Cal didn’t know where the certainty had come from, his voice didn’t waver and his steps didn’t falter. He would do this. He would bring his two best friends back home, and one day he would make the Empire pay.

----------

“We’re here.” Cere slips out of the pilot seat, allowing for Cal to take her place, grasping her blaster in a vice-like grip as she sits stiffly towards the back of the shuttle. She watches as Cal heads to the front of the ship, manning the controls for their landing, frown deepening behind her helmet as the star destroyer encroaches, fear clawing at her throat with every memory resurfaced from the devastation following Order 66.

“We head out the Western exit of the docking bay when we land.” Cal rattles off, flipping some switches as their small vessel is pulled towards the star destroyer. “BD should meet us somewhere in one of the closest corridors and we follow them to the cell, remember to stay behind me, if you don’t they’ll know something’s wrong straight away.”

Cere watches as Cal’s grip tightens around the steering controls, leather gloves straining taught over his knuckles, a muscle in his jaw twitching as his eyes stare unblinking towards the star destroyer.

“Are you ready?” Her voice is stern - shocking her with how it echoes back to her within the suffocating helmet - echoing around the small hull, yet Cal nearly doesn’t hear her, distracted with the storm brewing in his mind, consumed by a rising tidal wave of anxiety, determination and fear.

His eyes finally dart away from the destroyer, turning to glance at his companion over his shoulder, his blue irises red-rimmed and owlish in the overhead lights. The uncanny figure of a storm-trooper greats him, black visor reflecting his own distorted expression back to him from an impenetrable mask of white.

He nods lightly, determination sparking in his weary eyes, the collar of his jacket rubbing uncomfortably against his nape. There was no going back now, he couldn't go back.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

----------

Cal squints as he exist the transport shuttle, the overbearing overhead lights bearing down on his frigid frame, the jelled hair peaking form underneath his hat shining with every tilt of his head. The first foot fall on the metal floor seems to resonate throughout the entire hanger, vibrations wracking the bones in his leg, tremors coursing throughout his body and echoing in his ears as several troopers’ heads turn towards the new arrival. His breath catches in his throat and the courage in his stomach withers as he takes another feigned purposeful stride away from the comfort and security of the shuttle, and in towards those waging a war on the galaxy. With every feigned purposeful step shockwaves scatter throughout his tense body, the tension in the air threatening to suffocate him, his heart hammering restlessly against his ribcage and lungs struggling for breath as if he had just ran through the last twelve parsecs. His cerulean eyes lock on his exit from the hanger, offering him a brief solace from the white masks that consumed every corner of his vision, Cere’s steady footsteps behind him offering a further sense of comfort.

By the time the pair finally exit the hanger Cal can practically feel the sweat that had broken out across his body, swiping his forehead to rid of any precipitation that had gathered. His shoulders and spine ached with the effort he had put into maintaining his posture - much in the way he had watched Aylin enter the hanger only several weeks prior - and he couldn’t quite seem to catch his breath. Although on the outside he may have appeared like ay other Imperial General, cold, unpleasant, perhaps even bored or apathetic to all events that seemed to have been happening around him, inside he had never felt so rattled, his mind a muddled mess, his blood coursing with fear and anxiety which only seemed to mount with every passing second. The panic within thinly veiled with calculated disgust.

Almost as soon as Cal and Cere enter an adjacent corridor to the main hanger, BD comes scuttling around the corner, the pair not recognising the droid in its new round body - Cere’s gloved fingers wrapping dangerously around the hilt of her blaster - until its excited little beeps reach their ears.

“Buddy!” Cal’s facade cracks, grinning down at the little droid as he fights the urge to reach down and give them a hug, worried incase someone should see. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

The little droid, on the other hand, is positively ecstatic, practically vibrating on the spot in both glee at being rescued and frustration that they couldn’t jump straight into Cal’s arms. Truth be told BD had deeply missed their old body during their time stranded on the Dreadnaught. Not waisting any time the little droid rolls behind Cal’s trouser clad legs, ramming into his calves in an attempt to nudge him in the direction of Aylin’s cell and whirring heatedly.

“I know, I know.” Cal steps forward, resolute stature returning to his pale features as he prepares to round another corner. “We’re all going home.”

----------

Within minutes that felt like an eternity the three rebels found themselves amongst the holding cells, BD finally taking the lead to guide them to Aylin’s cell, his happy chirps long silenced as the three grew nearer, all three dreading the sight to await them. Much like when they first arrived, Cal felt suffocated by the pristine atmosphere that seemed to cling to his clothes and hair, dirtying his skin and clogging his throat. It felt fake... the whites and slanted greys, the cleanliness and order, the peace and harmony. The presented image of purity and order, worked into the very steel framework itself, felt so wrong and dirty with the suffering taking place throughout the galaxy at the hands of those that inhabited the ship. Cal could feel the misery and terror that emanated from the dreadnaught itself, seeping into him through the walls and floors, mixed into a terrible concoction with the pride and honour from the officials that walked those very corridors.

It was beloathed, and yet prideful.

Uncomfortably, it reminded him of Aylin.

The red-head tugged at the collar of his jacket as BD came to an abrupt halt at a large durasteel cell door, his mind thrust back to the present. His breath catches in his throat as BD scuttles forward to open the cell door, gloved hand wrapping around the hidden saber at his hip, listening for any approaching footsteps down the corridor. Truthfully, he felt a nervous wreck, the beads of sweat forming along his brow and his greying pallor more so linked to his worry for Aylin than anything else. He could fight if they were caught, and chances are, with both himself and Cere combined, they could easily commandeer an escape shuttle, but he wasn’t certain if he could recover Aylin from the state he had seen her in on the small holopad. At the very moment he couldn’t be sure, and a part of him, a cowardly disdainful part of his conscience, feared opening the cell door to confirm his worry, feared being faced with the broken shell of a woman he couldn’t save. Another person he had failed, a person who had saved him more times than he could count.

Perhaps it was love - his worry at knowing the truth, his fear of seeing the situation first-hand. Cal was ashamed to think such a way.

The cell door hisses open, cool air caressing his feverish skin as he steps through the threshold, the overpowering scent of antiseptic hitting him full force, yet the familiar metallic stench of blood followed. His breath remains in his chest as he takes in the sight before him. Bright eyes widening as they flit about the empty room, landing uneasily on Aylin’s still figure. Cal holds his breath, silently begging her to move, for her head to tilt in his direction, for her closed eyes to open, begging her to do anything at all.

“Aylin?” The word echoes around the room, Cal’s voice shaky and cracking around the word, his mouth parched like the deserts of Tatooine. Somehow his palms become even more clammy, and he tosses his gloves to the side without a second thought, small crescents visible in the palms of his hands from how he had clenched them on their short journey. He takes a small step closer.

She doesn’t move.

Cere watches him carefully from behind her helmet as he calls Aylin’s name again and steps further into the room, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. BD, clearly unsure of what to do, hovers around Cere’s ankles, little camera flickering between Cal and Aylin, a barely audible humming even sting from the little droid. She turns to the closed cell door, blaster gripped tightly to her chest, wary of an intrusion.

Things had barely changed from the last time Cal had seen the room through BD’s holopad projection and he was thankful to note that it didn’t look as if Aylin had sustained any more injuries from the day prior, however, that was hard to determine with the crimson that coated her body, undoubtedly hiding wounds from view. Cal stops next to the metal table, peering down at her sullen features, her sunken maroon-bagged eyes closed to the world, chapped lips barely parted. The holopad had failed to pick up many of the finer details, and Cal was horrified to see the blossoms of purple and magenta that littered her face and neck, a particularly worrisome lashing of purple winding around her throat - Cal noting with disgust it’s resemblance to a handprint. Her blonde hair appeared dull and lifeless, slicked back from her face and coated in sweat and blood, a small lesion at her temple and brow trickling into her hairline, pooling in the rivets of her angular features. Blood - darker, older - had been smeared across her cheeks and jaw, cracking along the lines of her face and flaking from her skin, leaving it stained red underneath.

“What did they do to you?” Cal questions softly, not expecting an answer. Gingerly he places his hand on her shoulder, careful to avoid any hidden wounds.

His heart almost lurches from his chest when she flinches from his touch.

“Aylin!” He almost cheers, glee coating his voice as he leans closer, a smile cracking his features. Slowly, weakly, her eyes flutter open, familiar hazel eyes squinting up at him through all the blood and gore. She looked exhausted, eyes red rimmed and bloodshot, her left eye only partially open. “Aylin, oh my force, it’s me. It’s Cal.” Lost in his own elation Cal fails to spot the weariness to her features, nor the way her gaze turns to the ceiling, vacant and unseeing. He reaches for the cuff around her wrist, but her hand jerks away from his touch. He pauses, forehead creasing. “Aylin, come on, its me, and Cere, we’re getting you home.”

Her eyes flicker to his for the briefest of moments, brightened under the harsh lighting. “Trilla,” Her voice is hoarse and weak, a husky whisper of what it once was, lined with guilt and exhaustion. She tilts her head away from the red-heads confused gaze, something awful gnawing at her stomach. “leave me alone.”

Silence consumes the room, Cal’s gaze landing on Cere who simply shrugs her shoulders in response. He reaches for her again, swiping a strand of hair from her face, hand retreating just as quickly when her eyes snap open in alarm.

“Aylin, its me, come on-”

“You’re not here.” She was trying to convince herself, not daring to allow her hopes to rise. She was in pain, she was beyond exhausted, and she was dangerously close to giving up, hoping for death as some sort of escape. “You’re not real.” She glances down to his hand that rests against her exposed forearm, mind barely registering the warm pads of his fingers pressing against her pulse. “Trilla, we’ve done this before. You’re a cruel woman.”

She glances away as pity overtakes his features, staring blankly at the ceiling, body slack against the tabletop. ‘We’ve done this before.’ Had Trilla done this before? How many times had versions of himself and the crew attempted to rescue her? How guarded had she had to be, not even trusting her own dreams for fear of revealing what she had tried to keep from those who sought to harm them. He was furious - the anger that had lapped up his throat all week rising like a tidal wave - and he would make them pay, but first he had to get everyone back.

“No, no, it’s us, it’s me. I promise it’s me.” He tries, attempting to scrub the makeup from his face, scars glossy under the harsh white light. He catches BD out of the corner of his eye. “Look!- We’ve got BD, we’re all going home.”

Finally she picks her head up, wincing at the effort. Her wide eyes land on the little droid across the room, mouth agape as the air leaves her lungs and her shoulder slump. Terror and disappointment gnaw away at her conscience, the familiar feeling of helplessness returning full force. “They found BD.” She mutters to herself, defeats palpable in her voice as she allows her head to fall back against the table, eyes glossy with unshed tears.

Cal, in a stressed panic, and unsure of what to do, reaches out through the force, attempting to project his memories, something no one else could possess. But, as he pressed forward a force stops him in his tracks, Aylin’s body tensing at a presence surrounding her mind. “I can show you, just let me- let me in.”

“No! No, no, no-” Cal had never seen so much fear in her eyes, and he withdraws, hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay, I won’t, I won’t.” He quickly retreats as her panic rises, cuffs clanking against the table as she feebly squirms, force signature returning to his own aura, yet outstretched and welcoming, more than willing for Aylin to make the first move. He wracks his tired and frantic brain for a solution, her panic feeding into his own, not expecting her to have such doubts. They needed to be quick, he knew, but there was no way they could coax her out of the room in the state she was in. “I know you. I know things about you the Empire- that Trilla would never know. Do you remember that time on Hoth when I ripped a glove and almost caught frostbite, I’ve only still got ten fingers because you managed to skin that little creature. What about that time I accidentally singed some of your hair off with my saber when I tried to use it as a torch, I had to pay for you’re haircut afterwards and you got the most expensive treatment just to prove a point. I know you have two sugars in your tea but only every other day; I know you always insist on playing with your knives no matter how many times I ask you to stop; I know that you’re favourite game to play is blackjack because you can count cards and know how to cheat, like that time you scammed me for half a brownie.” He was getting emotional now, the stress and turmoil of the past few days causing unshed tears to gather, his knuckles turning white as he wrings his hands together. “I promise you it’s me.”

They’re in you head. Her conscience echoes, the blonde fighting back tears at her own failure. They know, they know everything. Trilla’s playing, she’s already got what she wants.

“You can’t be here.” He voice cracks and wavers, throat scratchy from misuse, her mounting emotions not helping. She wished he was here, with every fibre of her being she wished Cal actually stood before her, frown on his face and eyebrows knitted together in concern. It couldn’t be true. If he was truly here she might’ve cried, and if this was all another elaborate hallucination created by Trilla then she’d probably cry even harder. She so desperately wanted to go home.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to believe me, you don’t have to do anything.” Cal reaches again for the cuffs binding her hands to the table, one hand reaching for the saber at his hip. “But please let me help you.”

She doesn’t say anything as his hand wraps around her thin wrist, saber igniting and casting blue light across the room. Within seconds both cuffs are cut from her wrist, falling against the table with a thud. She rubs her wrists gingerly, wincing at the cuts she has sustained during her stay. Grasping her forearm in a delicate grip, other hand sliding behind her shoulder blade, Cal eases her up, wincing at every gasp that leaves her lips. A jaw in his muscle ticks with every sound from her mouth, pity and fury blooming in his chest.

“Agh-” She grimaces at the pain enveloping her side, ribs protesting against the movement, healing wounds reopening with every twist of her muscle.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Cal urges her on, arm sliding underneath her legs and behind her back, drawing her to his chest as he rises to his full height. Aylin’s head lolls against his shoulder, scared to hope any of this was real but revelling in the familiar warm comfort seeping from the redheads chest.

With a nod shared between `Cal and Cere they depart, deadly silent as they leave the cell, not a trace of their presence left behind. Cal glances down at the woman in his arms, beyond grateful to have her back within arms reach, satisfied with the knowledge no one would be able to harm her now. He had her and he wasn’t letting go.

Cere freezes in front of him, BD rolling into the back of her legs, and Cal’s heart stops in his chest. She urges him back, but as they’re retreating two troops round the corner, halting in surprise. Both troops helmets slowly turn towards the blonde nestled in Cal’s arms, and their blasters raise, shouting commands. Cal ducks as Cere fires, shielding Aylin as well as he could, BD taking refuge behind Cere’s legs.

Within moments the corridor plunges into silence again, two dead troops lain before the four rebels. Cere glances back to Cal, charging her blaster.

“Tell me if you need me to slow down.” And she runs, sprinting in the direction of the escape shuttles - just to the left of the hanger - with BD trailing behind, Cal sprinting to keep up. Rounding another corner he almost crashes into Cere who doubles back, the pair just managing to dodge out of the way of oncoming blaster fire as they disappear around another corner, the slap of their boots against the metal floor drowned out by the shouts of troops on their tail.

“We’re not far.’ Cere calls, throwing her helmet to the side as she gaps for breath, Cal only a few paces behind her. The pair, plus BD, emerge in a small hanger, smaller, more compact escape shuttles lined on either wall, a squad of five stormtroopers ready and waiting.

Cal’s eyes widen as he watches all five troops raise their weapons, heart plummeting to his stomach. There was nothing he could do, he just hoped they granted them death instead of subjecting them to the fate Aylin had been forced to endure. Cere reaches back deftly and grasps his saber from his belt, igniting the blade mere moments before the first blaster fires. She works in a blur, deflecting shot after shot, blue light cast across her features as she steps closer to the enemy, Cal and BD close behind. It wasn’t often the redhead was able to see Cere in combat, usually taking missions with the girl in his arms, and the skill she displayed, surely a product of the wisdom she had amassed over her years, was awe-inspiring. Every movement is precise, each twist and flick of her wrist purposeful, the weight of the saber in her hand appearing little more than a feather with the ease she displays. She deflects and a troop falls, killed by their own shot.

Slowly but surely the trio make their way towards the closest shuttle, Cal and BD baking away into the ship whilst Cere remains on the defensive, deflecting shot after shot, a bead of sweat running from her brow. Cal places Aylin down on a small cot in the corner of the cramped shuttle, instructing BD to stay behind whilst he collects Cere, running to the boarding ramp, the sounds of blaster shots once again reaching his ears.

“Cere!” He shouts, hanging out of the shuttles door, unable to do much without a weapon. “Cere!”

The older woman retreats slowly, continuing to deflect as she backs up the ramp, the red-head scuttling to the front of the shuttle and switching the engines on, awaiting the sound of the door hissing shut before doing anything drastic.

“Go!” Cere calls and he immediately sets into action, flicking a switch to his right and grasping the steering in both hands, sighing in relief as the shuttle lifts from the floor, paying no mind to the blaster shots that ricocheted off the steelwork around him. Cere appears, clambering into the co-pilots seat, saber grasped tightly in her hand as the ship lurches forward, charging full speed out of the small hanger, Cal frantically inputting the necessary codes for hyperspace, hands flitting about the dashboard in a blur.

With one final lurch the shuttle departs, the red head sighing and collapsing back into the pilots seat, chest rising and falling as he revels in the safety of hyperspace, stars dancing across his vision and illuminating his weary features, the stresses of the day lifting from his shoulders as he watches galaxies stream past. But the day was far from over, and in moments he’s clambering out of his seat, mind once again consumed by the blonde that hadn’t left his thoughts for an eternity.

Leaving Cere in control of their heading Cal retreats into the cramped hull, making a beeline for the blonde huddled atop a thin casket, BD dutifully waiting by her side, camera trained on her intensely, and rolling anxiously from side to side. Cere stares after him, wanting to offer her services, but ultimately deciding to remain in the cockpit, radioing Greez back on the Mantis, knowing that the redhead needed some time with Aylin, alone.

“I’m back.” Cal announces, sitting on the edge of the small cot, dropping a small medkit onto his lap the he had found in a compartment. His eyes land on the blonde’s pale face, eyes softening at the worry etched across her features, eyebrows knitted together in both pain and concern. He opens his mouth to speak, protruding a set of stims from the cluttered medkit. “I’m going to patch you up and then we’re going home. You’re safe, Trilla can’t get to you anymore.”

Aylin hums, head tilting to the side as she finally makes eye contact with the red head, looking as if she was only truly seeing him for the first time. Her eyes widen and her chapped lips part, a shaking hand reaching out to rest against his own, testing her own reality. Cal smiles softly as she watches him with curious eyes, shallow breaths parting her lips.

“Cal?”

“Yes,” his voice breaks as she finally looks at him, truly looks at him, hazel eyes brightening with every second, fighting back against heavy lids. “yes it’s Cal. We’re going home.”

A small smile fights its way onto her lips, although the joyous moment is broken abruptly, the smile quickly twisting into a grimace as her body finally begins to acknowledge the trauma it had endured, old and new wounds reopened in the frenzy to escape. Her eyes flicker, hand beginning to feel slack against his own. Cal pales, hurriedly uncapping the stim in his grasp.

“You stay awake, you hear?” He jabs the stim into her bicep, preparing the other one in his grasp. He had her, he couldn’t lose her now.

“It hurts.” Her voice is strained, a pathetic replica of her true nature.

“I know, I know it does. I’m going to make it stop, I just need you to stay here, stay with me.” Her eyes flutter again, and Cal is grasping at straws, digging through the medkit for something, anything that could work. The stims hadn't worked as he hoped and now he wasn’t sure what to do.

“Hey- hey! You keep those eyes open. Don’t you dare-” Fear grips him like a vice. His blood running cold as he leans closer, both hands grasping her shoulders, uncaring for the blood that caked them. He felt helpless, utterly, hopelessly helpless. It had been bad when he had been forced to endure being trapped behind a screen, but oh, this was so much worse. She was right here, he could touch her, talk to her, feel her weak heart beating underneath his very own fingertips, and yet he couldn't do anything. “Look at me. Look. At. Me. I want to see your eyes. Come on.”

Try as she might, her body was beginning to fail and with every passing moment the darkness that had clouded her peripheral for the past few days encroached, the lights in the hull dimming and dimming, until all she could see was Cal’s hazy face staring down at her, his hands clasping either side of her face. “Please.” She couldn’t, her walls finally falling and mind succumbing to the rest it so desperately needed.

“Cere-!”

He sounded desperate. He sounded scared. And for the briefest of moments, Aylin felt guilty.

And then the darkness consumed her.

----------

Cal drifts in and out of sleep, dozing comfortably with his head propped atop a familiar cot in a familiar ship, hand delicately grasping another's with his legs curled under the old chair he had stolen, the hazy figure of Aylin comforting him in his peripheral. It had been a few hours since himself, Cere and BD had returned to the Mantis, patching up Aylin to the best of their ability before tucking her away in her room, on course to the rebel base in order to take up Saw’s offer of medical assistance once word had reached him of their rescue mission. Although Cal had arrived back to the Mantis full of energy, spurred on by his panic and worry for the girl who had practically collapsed in his arms, the hours and hours of stress had worn him down, the young red-head finally agreeing to catch some rest, but refusing to allow Aylin to leave his sight.

In his half-conscious state, he fails to notice the way the blonde’s lips twitch and eyelids flutter, barely registering the way her fingers flex against his own as the darkness finally releases her, mind and body returning. Aylin stirs quietly, every muscle and joint aching, the soft fabric against her skin a welcome change from the metal table she had called home for force-knows how long. With every passing second her mind returns, cogs turning as the days events come back to her full force, the sight of Cal’s worried gaze seared into the back of her eyelids, her lips parting in a gasp and her body lurching up out of slumber. Her eyes snap open, crazed and panicked as they dart around the dimly lit room, a groan parting her lips as her ribs protest, the gaping wound at her side, now haphazardly wound in fresh bandages, protesting heavily agains the sudden movement.

Cal is startled awake, almost falling from his chair at Aylin’s abrupt movement hazy eyes fighting for clarity amongst his foggy thoughts. “Hey,” He mutters groggily, mind desperately fighting against the sleep that had consumed him only moment before, hands reaching out to grab Aylin’s shoulders. “hey, hey, hey. It’s me, Aylin it’s me.” Finally, the frantic woman’s eyes meet his own, her body relaxing into his touch as he gently guides her back down, the pads of his fingers digging into the exposed flesh of her shoulders. “It’s alright, you’re safe. I’ve got you.” She takes in a shuddering breath as Cal gently sweeps her messy bangs from her eyes, palm resting against her forehead a moment too long, simply savouring that she was here, she was back, she was safe.

Cal sits back in his chair once he makes sure she was okay and settled, fretting like a mother and readjusting her pillows and pulling the thin sheets back up to her chest, fingers smoothing out the white tank top she had been changed into. His cerulean eyes, still slightly blurry with sleep, never leave her figure.

“What happened?” Her voice was quiet, a mere murmer whisked away on the wind. She runs a hand along the bandages freshly wrapped around her shoulder, noting the wraps of gauze around each of her wrists.

“We got you. Cere and I, we went and got you. You were pretty beat up.” His voice cracks and he quickly clears his throat. Aylin pays it no mind, wide owlish eyes staring at him from underneath a pair of heavy lids. “We’ve fixed you up the best we could, Saw’s offered some rebel facilities if we need them.” The small room plunges into silence, neither of them glancing away, Cal’s thumb unknowingly rubbing circles into the back of Aylin’s hand. As an after thought he adds. “We’re at the other end of the galaxy, there’s no way they can find us here. You’re safe, you can get some rest.”

As if she had suddenly remembered, Aylin reveals her force signature, the walls that she had held around her mind - and that she had habitually rebuilt when she awakened - coming crumbling down. Cal watches her shoulders visibly relax as the final remnants of tension leave her body, allowing his own force signature to branch out, enticed yet apprehensive of the new presence.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” She mutters, eyes falling from his gaze.

“I get it.” He smiles softly, thumb continuing to run soothing circles on the back of her hand. As much as he may have been hurt that she hadn’t told him, he couldn’t deny that he understood why, the events of the last two weeks evidence enough of the consequences. “We can talk about it later, you need some rest.”

Silence envelopes the room, the pair simply content with one another's presence. Cal rests his head on the palm of his hand, eyes beginning to close once again, happy that they had a second chance. Undoubtedly the pair had much to talk about, the crew had to figure out how to move forward, but at least they had that chance. For a long time Cal had feared he would never get that chance and now that he had it, he was not going to let it go to waste.

Things weren’t perfect, not by any stretch of the word, but the universe had given them the opportunity to try and make things right.

Suddenly, Aylin stirs again, wincing as she attempts to sit up, eyes wide and unblinking as they flit about the room. Cal’s hands shoot out again to stop her. “Where’s BD?” The urgency to her voice was hard to miss, resembling its older self. “Is he alright? Did you find him? I saw-”

“It’s okay, we’re all back. BD’ll be over the moon to know you’re awake, they’ve been peaking into your room every chance they get.” Cal coaxes her back down, more concerned with her reopening any of the wounds the crew had spent a painstaking amount of time trying to patch up than anything else. “And we managed to extract the information you both collected. It’s really going to make a difference.” He pauses, unsure of his next words, wondering how inappropriate they might be, unsure of how the blonde felt about him after her departure. “Thank you.”

Aylin smiles fondly at his worry, allowing him to secure her back in place, delighted that her earlier assumptions hadn’t been true, that Trilla wasn’t just playing some sick mind game, that BD was safe and sound, on the Mantis where they belonged. Then, the words fully register, and her forehead creases in confusion. “For what?”

Cal leans back in his chair, hands running through his disheveled hair, the bags under his eyes more visible with the guilt festering in his chest. “You didn’t have to do that. You could’ve let anyone go and collect the data, and anyone else probably wouldn’t have been in the same danger as you.” His bright eyes drift to the bandages wrapped around her shoulder, flitting across the many bruises visible just from her neck up. “But you did and I- thank you. Thank you for doing this and I know-” He was rambling now, his hands running through his hair as Aylin watches him, a small smile tugging at her chapped lips. “I know I acted like a bit of an ass before you left- and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He hesitates again, reaching forward to intertwine their hands, seeking comfort in knowing she was here, that he hadn’t failed her as he had done his master all those years ago. “I heard some of the things Trilla said to you, and I’m sorry you ever thought I wouldn’t come to get you. It was all I could think about since they caught you. Truthfully I don’t know what I’d do if I hadn’t gotten you back.”

The room plunges into silence once again, uncomfortable and stifling, Cal feeling overwhelmed at the emotions that echoed around him through the force, not daring to reach out to the blonde before him, fearful of what he might discover, fearful of heartbreak. Aylin gazes at the red head from under heavy lashes, weary eyes begging to close. The poor boy looked as exhausted as she felt, deep dark bags under his eyes, skin as pale as snow causing his scars to look red and glossy, highlighting the greyness to his pallor, his hair a dishevelled mess atop his head, tufts sticking out in every direction from the endless amount of times he had ran his fingers through his hair, tugging harshly at the roots in frustration. He had changed since she last saw him, donning a pair of cargo trousers and a comfortable sweater she had suggested he buy form a marker stall once, the navy material bunched up to his elbows, creased and crinkled from the stresses of the day. As tired as he looked and as rough as she felt, she doubted she had ever before been so ecstatic to see him, to see that he cared, even despite the truth of her history. Warmth spread from everywhere he touched, his soft touches and gentle caresses a stark contrast to anything she had felt before; it was everything she had hoped it could be.

“I remember seeing you in that uniform.” Aylin whispers, daring to break the silence, exhausted yet hopeful eyes boring into Cal’s own. “I’m surprised they didn’t realise you weren't one of them sooner.”

He was taken aback at the abrupt shift in conversation, cerulean eyes boring into Aylin’s own hazel pair with curiosity, his mind reeling at the exhaustingly dazzling smile she sent his way.

“And why’s that?” He questions softly, thumb unknowingly continuing to rub gentle circles on the back of her hand.

“Your eyes.” Cal’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, beginning to wonder if she had been able to understand his words in her drugged state. “They’re too kind.”

A moments pause. Cal could feel the familiar bloom of heat along his cheeks spreading to his ears, he dreaded to think how flushed he must look.

“They didn’t match the uniform at all.”

“You’re obviously delirious,” he deflects jokingly, voice just as soft, warmth spreading through his cheeks and neck. “the uniform didn’t even fit-”

“The eyes are the window to the soul.” She mutters defiantly, determined even despite her dazed and exhausted state. “I’ve seen the eyes of some of the cruelest men and women in the galaxy. You’re too good for them Cal, you’re too good for us, you’re too good for me. I don’t know why you came to save me, but I can’t thank you enough. I never thought I would get to see your eyes again.”

Because I love you. He wanted to say, yet his mind wouldn’t let him, forcing partial truth from his lips.

“I was worried I’d never get to see you again.” Cal admits, leaning forward in his chair. “You have no idea how worried I was. You’ll be the death of me one day.”

His eyes study her face; the softness of her cheeks, the angularity of her jaw, the curve of her lips. His eyes flicker from her eyes to her lips and then back again, watching a small smile carve its way across her small lips. He felt like a boy again, unsure and uncertain, inexperienced and insecure. He had felt like this many times around the blonde, but this time, he wouldn’t shy away. She was a shining star in an ever darkening galaxy, and he’d be dead before he let her fall from his grasp again. Mustering all the courage in the galaxy, his lips part. “I was worried I’d never get to do this.”

Some part of him, the part that remembered his time with the Jedi before the end to it all, the end of an era, stirred fear in his heart; fear of attachments, fear of loss, fear of love. A life of solitude and harmony he had practiced like a mantra, and that in every step of the way, when it came to the blonde in front of him, he had failed, time and time again. He remembers how he had felt when she had been captured, the way his heart had seized and his world had stopped, how his life since than had been nothing but worry and hurt, nothing but pain for what could have been and what might never be, the pain of loving someone and not being able to do anything about it, not being able to protect those he cares for more than anything else in the galaxy.

He had never been that dutiful of a Padawan anyway.

He leans closer, impossibly so, watching the grin grow on Aylin’s face as her eyes flutter shut. His lips connect with her own, melding together in an innocent affair, a hand coming up to cradle the side of her jaw, the other tightening its grip on her hand. He presses forward, heart hammering out of his chest and blood rushing through his ears as she kisses back, her free hand coming up to tentatively grasp the back of his neck, drawing him down to her; the girl he had been so close to losing, the boy she had been so close to forgetting. It was brief and uncertain, testing new waters both had been too scared to explore, but every emotion they had kept bottled for so long came bubbling to the surface; the hurt, the pain, the helplessness, the love. In moments that felt like an eternity Cal pulls back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, wide uncertain eyes locked with her own with haggard breaths falling from his lips.

“Took you long enough.” She grins from underneath the sheets, her own heart ready to explode from her chest.

“Get some rest.” He mutters behind a laugh, pulling back to sit back in his chair, arms crossing to prop his head on the corner of the bed, one hand outstretched to hold her own in his strong grip. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

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sergeantsporks · 3 years

Note

Ultimate whump idea - For whatever reason, Luz is unable to get to Hunter to wake him up, and Hunter wakes up from the Latissa crash just in time for the hand dragon to find him.

Ultimate whump idea indeed, I like your brain.

Falling

Where’s my staff, where is it?!

Stupid human doomed us both.

Wind whipped past Hunter’s face as the blimp plummeted towards the ground. He ripped his helmet off for better visibility, frantically pulling on levers to try and slow the fall. Pieces of the blimp swung around violently, whipped around by the wind.

Wham

Something slammed into the back of his head, and Hunter slumped forward over the blimp controls.

Stupid… human…

Something cold and slimy touched his face, and Hunter started awake, staring directly into the gaping maw of the demon that had attacked them. Hunter yelped, kicking it in the face and rolling backwards.

Staff, staff, staff, where is my staff?!

He could see the human passed out a bit away, still tied up. He scrambled towards her, but a barbed tongue snaked around his ankle, squeezing tight. Hunter yelped as its tongue cut through his boots and dug into his skin, burning and itching like it was coated in acid.

The creature dragged him backwards, and he kicked at the tongue fruitlessly, his mind whirling through strategies, discarding most of them as they came up.

The creature growled, squeezing his leg tighter. Hunter screamed as he heard a crack, blinking stars out of his vision.

Don’t panic.

The creature tossed him up, as if trying to throw him into its mouth. Hunter twisted in the air, using the momentum of his fall to swing his good leg into the demon’s face. He thudded to the ground as the demon yelped, shaking itself. Hunter scooted away, wincing as the movement jostled his broken ankle.

I’m not getting far like this.

Hunter scooted behind a tree, taking in a deep breath. Okay. Okay, think.

With a crack and a splinter, the top of the tree he was hiding behind was broken away as the demon crunched through it. Before Hunter could react, it pounced, its jaws closing around the back of his neck, its acidic spit burning his skin. It whipped its head back and forth violently, and his world went white with pain.

And then, more terrifyingly, his whole body went numb.

The demon dropped him, nudging him. Hunter’s fingers twitched, but he couldn’t focus, couldn’t move, his head fuzzy with pain. The demon sank its claws into his back, starting to lift off. Hunter’s vision started to go dark, and then he was falling, collapsing bonelessly to the ground. A purplish-blue blur was swinging his staff at the demon, driving it back. It hissed, and then it was gone.

The blur knelt next to him. “Hey—whoa, stay awake!”

A bright dart of pain from his face snapped his eyes open. His head throbbed and ached, but he couldn’t feel anything below his neck.

Did it break my spine?!

Panic shot through him, warring with a dazed, glazed-over feeling.

If I can’t move—I’m deadweight

The human flipped him over. “Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy, you look really bad.”

Hunter groaned. Understatement… of the year… The human tugged his cape and armor off. “Yikes. Looks like your armor protected you from most of the claws, but… not completely.”

Hunter’s eyes started to drift shut, and she smacked him again, making his head flare up in protest. “Don’t fall asleep! No dying on me! Why does Kikimora want you dead?”

“Cuzzzzzz she… sucks…” he managed.

“Very helpful, thank you.”

“Goooooo awayyyyy.”

“And leave you to die? No way. You’re a horrible person, but I’m too nice to let Kikimora kill you. Can you move?”

Hunter closed his eyes again. “Mrgh.”

“Ooookay.” The human pulled him up, staggering under his weight. “Whoof. Okay, here we go!”

She dragged him along, and Hunter felt a bright flare of pain from his broken ankle as it dragged on the ground. He yelped, squeezing his eyes shut tighter.

Wait.

That’s good, I can feel my leg.

Move.

Hunter managed to twitch his fingers again, but nothing else seemed to be responding. His whole body ached and throbbed dully, and the world started to fade away, the human’s voice distant and tinny-sounding.

Xxx

“Hey! Somebody help!” Luz dragged the unconscious golden guard towards the glimmering lights of the city. Murmuring swept up from a few people and finally, finally one of those centaur eye-chest guys cantered over, gingerly taking him from her.

“What happened?!”

“Demon attack—” Oh! The palisman! She needed to get them back before Kikimora got them to Belos! She hopped from one foot to the other. “Please get him to a healer, I need to go… find someone who knows him, thanks, bye!”

She dashed off, clutching the golden guard’s staff tightly while Lil Rascal fluttered behind her.

I’m coming.

Xxx

“Hngh…” Hunter stared groggily at the ceiling above him, then jolted up. “What—ow.”

He fell back as his head swam, and his limbs went heavy.

“You had a nasty bunch of wounds,” someone said from the side. Hunter turned his head, wincing as the movement made his head throb. A healer. How had he gotten…? The human. The palisman! He swung his legs out of the bed, forcing himself up. But the moment he put weight on his injured foot, jolts of pain went up his spine, and he crumbled to the ground.

The healer hurried forward, helping him back into bed. “Whoa, now! Your ankle’s broken and… well, that demon had a serious acid problem, half of your skin is burned off. And you have a really bad concussion. And you’ve got some nasty wounds in your back. And your spine suffered severe stress, you’re lucky your back didn’t break. Basically what I’m saying is… don’t move too much, you need to take it easy. Who are your parents? The girl who brought you to town said she’d look for them, but she hasn’t come back.”

“I can’t take it easy, I have to—”

The healer pushed him back down. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

“No, I—” Hunter tried to sit up again, and then fell back. “I don’t have time—”

The healer shook her head. “Unfortunately, you can’t be going anywhere right now. You’re going to have to make time—healing, rehab, the whole deal. You can’t just walk injuries like these off.”

Hunter’s heart thudded in his chest at the thought—he needed to get back to the coven, he needed to report back, to expose Kikimora—

But he’d lost the palisman.

He’d lost his staff.

He’d gotten beaten by a wild animal.

He’d been captured by public enemy number one.

Forget rehab.

I’m dead anyway.

#toh #the owl house #toh fanfiction #toh hunter #the golden guard #my writing #writing requests #asks #he'll be fine

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amiedala · 3 years

Text

Something More (the mandalorian x reader)

CHAPTER 4: Protectors

Rated: Explicit (we’re FINALLY getting to the actual explicit stuff y’all!)

Warnings: descriptions of violence, mentions of stalking/hunting, descriptions of sexual activity

Summary: “Too bad,” you manage, finally, hoping that your voice doesn’t break, “you protect me, I protect you, give and take, Mando, that’s how this works—”

And then you stop because his hands are on you. So fast. Lightning quick. One grabs at your side, thumb pressing lightly against where your scar bottoms out on the left of your abdomen, the other on the right side of your face, fingers tangled in the mess of your hair. You gasp, shudder, and breathe out as he grabs you. As easily as he squeezes, though, his grip detracts to barely there at all, and he slowly pushes you back against the wall. Every nerve on your body is on fire. You breathe, uneven and desperate, as his grip on your hip trails up your side until he has both big hands cupped against your face.

He’s eclipsing you. All you can see in your line of vision is him, and, peripherally, the distorted reflection of your heaving chest pressed up against the cool beskar, everything swallowed up by him. It’s devastating. It’s everything. You can barely breathe.

You dream about him that night.

Well, you’ve dreamed of him every night. It started when you fell asleep face to face, and now he lives in your head. You think some crucial part of it has been wiped clean simply for the sheer space of memory that’s just him. You don’t even know his name. You don’t know how old he is. You don’t know anything about him except that he’s a Mandalorian, he seems to have had adopted the child, and that he has thrown himself directly in harm’s way for you twice now.

Thoughts like that live on while you sleep. Vibrantly so. Sometimes, the dream changes and you’re on top of him, or those huge hands are inside you, or you hear him gritting out your name through the modulator as he—

Somehow, you always seem to wake up before anything in the dream can finish. It’s maddening, to say the very least. Everything with him seems to overlap until it doesn’t.

It’s been a handful of days since your narrow escape on Coruscant, and both of you have healed from your injuries on the planet’s surface. You haven’t been as close to Mando since you slept face to face that night, his head slipped down on your shoulder. When you had woken in the morning, he was gone, and you frantically searched the entirety of the bottom half of the ship for any trace of him leaving before you heard him playing with the baby up the ladder, and when you ascended into the cockpit, you were back in hyperspace.

You’d been in the air for the most part, only stopping briefly down on planets to refuel and replenish whatever stock of food the three of you needed on the ship. You weren’t sure where you were going next. You don’t even remember asking him where the next planet was, just that you knew you were going somewhere. The two tracking fobs he had left to complete before returning the bounties to the Guild blinked from the dashboard, stuttering out of rhythm ever so slightly. You watched them in the dark, sometimes, when you slept upstairs in the cockpit and tried your best to not let your mind wander to the man sleeping a level below you.

Sometimes, more often than not now, your hands would slip absentmindedly into your pants and you’d find yourself conjuring up the gruffness of the Mandalorian’s voice when you touched yourself. Twice now, you’ve finished to the memory of him saying, “where did he hurt you”, and it’s an instinct so natural you don’t even realize that you’re getting yourself off to the rhythm of his words until you’re done. Once, he climbed the ladder almost immediately after you finished, and you had to wipe the warm slick off your fingers on your pants when he asked you to hold the baby. They’re still stained, and the thought of him noticing it—or walking in on you while you’re in the act—has occupied almost all of your waking hours.

It’s better on ruminating on how narrowly you escaped getting hurt by the thug a few weeks back, or on your mind reliving every single memory of how badly you handled being alone on Coruscant the last time you were there—two thoughts that you tried very hard to push away—until the Mandalorian brings it up, almost a full week later.

“You did good,” he says, and you have no idea what he means. For a split second, you think he’s talking about you touching yourself last night, and you have to stifle a yelp when you ask him what he means. “Back on Coruscant. The ship doesn’t handle easy.”

“Oh,” you say, “thank you. I think the Crest has something against me.”

He doesn’t laugh, but you almost think you’re hearing a lighter voice coming through the modulator. “It’s old.”

“As old as me?”

He looks back at you, and you swear you can feel his gaze locked on you again. “How old are you?”

You swallow. “Twenty-five.”

The Mandalorian keeps his visor on you for a second, and then turns back to the front, focusing on the space you’re hurtling through.

“The ship is older than you,” he confirms.

“Explains why it’s so cranky.”

He looks back at you, and you giggle. A few moments pass, and he says, “so am I.”

You don’t know what you’re supposed to do with that information, quite honestly. Are you supposed to ask him how old he is? Maybe he’s seventy under the armor. Until you saw his stomach back on Coruscant, you often wondered if he looked exactly like the baby under there, or if he was a Quarren or a Gungan or something else entirely alien.

It takes you a minute, but you finally ask, “Are you younger than the ship?”

“No.”

“Are you twice the ship’s age?”

The Mandalorian looks back at you again, and if you weren’t hurtling through hyperspace and the Razor Crest wasn’t mostly running on autopilot, you would have cracked a joke about distracted driving.

“No.”

“But you’re older than the baby,” you joke.

He pauses again. “The kid is fifty.”

“What?” you shriek, and turn, betrayed, to the little green child hovering innocently in his egg next to you. He coos. You look back and forth between them, incredulous, and then a laugh filters out of the modulator.

“I don’t know how he ages. But he’s definitely still a baby.”

“Maker,” you say, still flummoxed. “Baby, you don’t look a day over thirty.” He coos at you, and you grin, folding your knees up to your chest in the chair.

“The kid is older than me,” Mando says, and then all attention is on him again.

“Well,” you manage, “then we’re working with a gap of twenty-five years.”

It seems the conversation is over, and you’ve been preoccupied with the kid, when Mando finally speaks again.

“I don’t know,” he says, and you look at him, curious, confused, “how old I am exactly.”

You’re about to ask what he means when the ship lurches again, and both of you are thrown sideways. You had strapped yourself in this time. You didn’t want a repeat of Coruscant, in any capacity. The way the Crest handled was atrocious. It was an old, cantankerous piece of junk, and it seemed to defy every other order either of you gave it. It also decided to blindside you out of nowhere, which was… well, it was like both your dirty subconscious and your conversations with Mando that teetered on something more, right before you hit the impact. Mando hauled the navigation drive up, and suddenly you were all right side up again.

“What was that?” You manage, blowing rogue hair out of your face.

He pointed. “Asteroid field.”

You squinted out the window. “Where are we?”

The Mandalorian was silent for a minute, and you didn’t push him. You weren’t in any rush for him to leave again, if you were being quite honest with yourself, and were soaking in all the tiny moments of the two of you cohabitating the ship for as long as you possibly could.

“Jakku.”

You hadn’t ever been on Jakku. You knew that it was a dry, hot wasteland like Tatooine, but that all the Rebel connections here had dried up over the years, and it had lots of small outposts where scavengers could bring practically anything dug up from the sand to make a little money. It was also worlds away from Coruscant, which was probably why it had taken so long to get here. Truthfully, it sounded dangerous in ways that you’d always feared the heat for, and your stomach flipped over a little in the recognition that he was probably going to leave again. You had been so spoiled with the last few missions—they had taken hours, and not one had swallowed up a full day, let alone weeks. He had warned you when you first joined that he could be gone for a week if he were tracking someone particularly difficult to locate, and the small sadness that pained in your gut when you barely knew Mando was a blip compared to the wrench you felt whenever he left your line of sight now. Seeing him get hurt, having to pull him back from that—you hated it. You hated knowing that he wasn’t infallible, regardless of that big shiny armor and the combination of his stealth and quickness. You wanted to tell him it, sometimes, that you hated seeing him leave, but there was still that anxious twang that came attached to how deeply you felt every single interaction, how you make things out of nothing, and you don’t think you could take it if he ever rejected you.

“Is the bounty…difficult?”

Mando seems to deliberately not hear your question, and something flares deep inside you, allowing you to pretend his resistance is because he doesn’t want to admit he doesn’t want to leave you, either, but you swallow and try to be patient.

“Not as difficult as the last one.”

“How dangerous is he?”

Mando takes a second with that one, too, and you aren’t prepared for him to turn towards you. His visor pauses on you, just for a moment, and you offer up a half smile. You have no idea if he’s reciprocating under the mask, when he finally answers.

“She’s nothing I can’t handle.”

She? That tiny, betrayed part of your mind screams, and you have to fight the urge to physically kick away your jealousy. He’s hunting her. Hunting her down, whoever she is, and bringing her back to the ship in shackles. Stop it, you chastise yourself, what, do you want him to hunt you down? Get it together.

Yes, your traitorous, primal possessiveness taunts. Yes, you want him to hunt you.

Maker. You were going to have to square up with this needy, animalistic part of yourself the second Mando left. You were going to kick its ass, because this was absolutely ridiculous—you still hadn’t responded to his last comment.

“You’re objectively…better than her, right?”

He looks back at you. “Expand.”

“You aren’t going to get shot again?”

Mando’s gaze fixates on you yet again. You swallow dry air.

“A blaster’s not really her speed.”

What did that mean?

The baby babbles. He’s reaching out his tiny green fingers for the ball that rests, perennially unscrewed, on top of one of the levers. Absentmindedly, Mando pops it off and hands it to him. The baby coos as he plays with it, trying to teethe on its smooth metal surface. You watch him as he finds so much joy from one small object, not paying attention to how quickly the Crest is dropping onto Jakku’s wasteland surface.

You don’t say much. Mando doesn’t say anything. If you try hard, really hard, you can imagine that he’s regretting leaving you and the kid as much as you’re dreading it. You don’t know why you can’t voice any of this out loud. It should be easy, by now, you’ve pretty much become a permanent fixture here. He fell asleep with his head on your shoulder, your fingers intertwined, a few nights ago. He’s offering voluntary information about himself to you now, which is a complete 180 from how stoic in his silence he was when he first brought you on board. He offered up safe delivery out of Nevarro and then refused to let you leave the ship anywhere dangerous. He let you fix a wound on his bare skin—something you know goes against the rumored Mandalorian creed. There’s all these signs, blinking and humming in the back of your mind, that the way you feel around him—something earned, something real, something more—is mutual. You know you attach big stakes to everything, that you think the galaxy has been leaving you signs, when there’s no higher power orienting you to some elevated purpose. But the way the air burns around him, how right you feel with Mando and the baby…you’d bet your life that he felt it too.

Even just a fraction. Even just in the back of his mind.

When you make your landing, the ship stubbornly creaks into the uneven sand, and you’re glad you’re still strapped in. The Crest had it out for you. You loved it in the way you’d love an old house—broken and creaky around the edges, but warm enough to still call home. The Mandalorian didn’t ask you to follow him down the ladder this time, but you did anyway, out of some habit you’re trying to force. The baby toddles around the lower deck as he flings himself to his father’s shoes, and you scrunch up your lips to the side, a sore attempt at mimicking his expression. You can’t ask Mando not to leave. This is his job. You’re lucky he didn’t let you get taken out by either of the men that tried to hurt you, or leave you for dead on Nevarro, or kick you out on Coruscant.

But stars, you want to.

Somehow, he breaks the silence first. “I’ll be back within a few days.”

Your heart sinks. “Days?”

He looks at you, the visor suddenly impenetrable. “She’s dodgy. I’m not expecting to be gone more than three.”

“What if you are?”

Silence swells up in the air around you both. Your amateur handling of the Razor Crest on the last planet was only possible because you barely had to get anywhere. Jakku was huge, and incredibly desolate, and you didn’t trust yourself enough to figure out exactly where Mando was if there was a dire emergency. And he’d never told you what kind of quarry he was tracking before, which gave you a sinking suspicion that he wasn’t confident that he’d come back completely unscathed.

“Here,” he says, finally. His voice is softer through the modulator. He hands you the commlink again, and you wrap it around your wrist, intentional. “Remember—”

“Only for emergencies?” you interrupt, and give him a soft smile. You can be lenient. You can pretend that you won’t be staring at it for days on end, waiting for his deep voice to crackle across the stars to you.

“Good girl.”

He turns, quickly, like ripping off a bandage, which is probably for the best, because you don’t want him to see your knees going weak at his two words, or how that heat he gives you rushed deep down in between your thighs, warm and wet enough to line your underwear. You stand there, mouth open, just gaping at his retreating figure as he walks out into the sand.

The baby pulls at your leg, and it takes you an embarrassingly long time to yank your jaw off the floor and pay attention to him. He’s started begging for lullabies now, with his big bug eyes, and so you oblige, singing past the devastation and tingling that the Mandalorian has left behind in his wake until the kid is finally asleep. You think he does it so much to self-soothe when his daddy leaves, because he’s usually always awake in his presence. You usually don’t like when the little guy fades off when it’s just the two of you, because at least while he’s awake you can talk out loud to him and not feel like you’re going crazy being cooped up inside the ship, but right now…right now, you have other priorities.

You make sure that the kid is sleeping soundly, and you walk up the ladder as quietly as you can, trying to get snug under your blankets in the makeshift bed you’ve made in the corner, and when you finally get yourself comfortable, you play the words good girl over and over again in your mind while you slip your fingers down your pants and into the slick between your legs. You try to picture him in your mind, the way he looks under that mask, his eyes trained on you—what color were they?—and rub tight little circles to the sound of his voice, etched in your memory.

Nothing comes. You can feel it building inside you, that gold rush that sends sparks down your body when you usually orgasm, but right now, it’s like you’re teetering right on the edge. You throw your head back in desperation, in frustration, and you remove your shaking hand for just a second to refocus on him, and when your fingers return to your clit you think this is it, this has to be it—Nothing.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” you exclaim, pressing both hands to your eyes as if the stars to explode there instead. You can feel it building, still, even while there’s absolutely nothing in the way, and no matter what happens, you can’t cum.

You’re frustrated. You’re very frustrated. In every version of the word. You huff, yanking up your pants too roughly and pacing around the ship’s dark hull. This is all you’ve wanted for days, this small moment of release, and he just gave you the words to get yourself off by just thinking about it, and…nothing? Really?

You pace and then slide back down the ladder. Maybe you can get outside, just for a few seconds, feel the heat on your face, and maybe that’ll force it to come somewhere else, and you’re tiptoeing past the baby and getting your blaster from the armory, and then you pass the alcove where Mando’s cot is hidden away in, and you’re about to open the airlock—

Wait. Mando’s bed.

Your heart catches in your chest, skips a couple beats. This is not good. This is wrong. This is a horrible, dirty, depraved, very bad idea.

But before you can stop yourself, you’ve pressed your trembling fingers to the button that reveals his bed, and the doors fly open. You throw yourself in quickly, as if that’ll lessen the impact, and you throw yourself down on your back, looking at the ceiling.

It’s so dark in here. It smells like him. It’s like his soap has scrubbed down the bed, the way it’s wafting through the air. In here, it’s like a holding chamber. If you close your eyes hard enough, you can imagine he’s right there with you, his body large and uncloaked of armor, his skin exposed everywhere but the helmet, his hands on your hips while you’re straddling him like you did the other day to patch up his wound, him saying good girl as he moves inside you—

Well. Your fingers didn’t even have to slip back into your pants for you to cum this time.

You bite down on the back of your hand as it ripples through you, your ears absolutely deafened by the way your body vibrates like static. You clap your other hand over the one you’ve sunk your teeth into to simply drown out the sound in hopes that it’ll recede.

It takes probably five minutes. You sit there, in complete darkness, shell-shocked. The embarrassment and the shame you feel of getting off in someone else’s bed doesn’t even compare to the feeling of doing it. Maker, you’re going to bad places when you die. Bad, dark, awful places. The internal chastising you’re trying valiantly to give yourself fades off into the background as you relive it over and over, imagining him telling you you’re a good girl again, back in this bed, wearing considerably less, when he comes back to you. Visions of him telling he’ll never leave you again dance through your head when, suddenly, you fade off into nothing.

You didn’t mean to fall asleep. You don’t remember doing it.

But you wake up, and you’re still in Mando’s bed. You’ve pulled his blanket up around your shoulders, and it’s rough and tattered compared to yours, but you don’t even care. Your skin easily irritates when it’s against fabric that hurts, but you’ll take on the rash for this. You are so snug, so warm, and then it hits you that you’re sleeping in his bed, the same bed that you came all over last night, and you sit up in a panic.

You check the sheets, and there’s no mess. You haven’t really disturbed the bed at all, really, come to think of it. You lay back down, still groggy with sleep. He said he was going to take a few days. There’s no reason why you couldn’t sleep here tonight, too, maybe you’d even take the baby in here with you—

The baby. You shoot back up in a panic, suddenly completely awake. When you throw open the door, and launch yourself out of the bed, you find him toddling around on the floor, with that little silver ball he loves so much in his adorable stubby fingers.

“Baby.”

He turns to look at you, making noises of recognition when you fall out of his father’s bed, and you pick him up, swinging his tiny green body through the air.

He coos at you, pulling on the blanket that is somehow still around your shoulders. Dank ferrik. That wasn’t supposed to come with you. You gingerly pry it from his grip. He looks at you, back at the blanket that’s been put back into the alcove, and then his big eyes well up and he starts to cry.

“No,” you whisper, and then, louder, “no, it’s okay, baby! You don’t need to cry! I’ll—here, I’ll sing you some nice little tunes, and we can dance—”

At this, he wails even harder, and you wipe away the array of tears with your free hand. He claws towards something, and you pull him into your chest before you realize he wants the blanket. You pull it back out and drape it around his tiny body. “Hey, bug, it’s okay.” You swaddle him the best you can, and then he wipes his tiny nose against the tattered thing, and you try to pull it away before you realize he’s not wiping his nose. He’s sniffing the blanket. The blanket that smells like his dad. And, more recently, you.

“It’s okay,” you say, soothingly, swinging him from side to side, bringing those big eyes in towards the crook of your shoulder. He clings to it, just a little, but it’s enough to know he wants to stay nestled up there. “You miss your daddy, huh, sweetness?”

He coos, muffled, against your neck.

“Me too,” you admit, with no one but the kid and the dark hull of the Crest to hear you.

Another day passes. Then another. You’re starting to go a little stir crazy. If Jakku didn’t scare you, you would have gone outside and taken the baby for a little walk, but you’re still nervous, jumpy leftovers from the last man who had boarded the ship, not to mention that it’s a desert, foreboding wasteland everywhere you could possibly go. You bring him outside at least once a day, though, not even fully on the ground, just down the gangplank, so that you can both have some fresh air and touch something that isn’t shiny metal or whatever scraps of food you’ve been feeding to you both.

You like the baby. Love him. He rocks. He’s the cutest thing in the entire world. You had sworn off starting a family back when your parents died, because missing them hurt too much and you didn’t want another possibility to make that hurt permanent, but you would sign adoption papers tomorrow if you meant you got to care for the little one forever. His dad was just the bonus, you’d almost convinced yourself, to satiate that hungry, aching, nervous pit in your stomach that grows bigger and bigger every hour Mando’s still not back.

You’ve cleaned the interior of the ship. Three times. Yesterday, you used the fresher twice, simply for the acoustics of that room, so you could sing and pretend you were giving a show at a cantina, and okay, maybe a little bit for the smell of Mando’s soap on your skin.

His bed is much more uncomfortable than the nest you’d been sleeping in on the floor, but it smells like him, and it’s warm, and if you close your eyes and push up against the wall, you can imagine it’s him in the beskar enough to get you to sleep. Worry aside, you’ve slept better the past two nights than you have in what feels like years. It’s partly because you’re imagining he’s there, partly because you know you’re safe in here, and partly because this place feels more like home than any other one you’ve ever belonged to.

You’re starting to get worried, though. You know he insisted that the commlink was only for emergencies, and you didn’t want to distract him on his mission. Or bother him, more likely, the Mandalorian wasn’t a man who got distracted easily, but still, you thought about it. Distracting him. The baby wakes up sometimes, and you pretend to be completely engrossed in attending to his every need, because when he falls asleep or shows more interest in his ball than you, the silence and fear creeps back in.

Another day passes before you’ve gone on long enough without hearing word.

“Hey,” you whisper into the commlink. You’re in his bed. Again. You’re not proud of it, but you can’t pry yourself from it. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but—it’s been four days, and she’s dangerous, and I—the baby misses you.”

You press the button. You hope that’s sufficient. You just sit there, staring at the artificial light in the darkness, tummy flipping over every second that passes where you don’t hear from him.

It’s been full minutes, and you lay back down. You pull his itchy blanket up to your shoulder, huddle on your side. You’ll keep your wrist next to you in sleep, so he can talk in your ear and wake you up if he needs to—

“Are you there?”

His voice is quiet. Through the modulator and the link, you have to strain your ears in the vibrating nothingness to make out the shape of his words.

“I’m here,” you answer. It spills out of you, too fast.

“No emergencies,” he says, and you can feel your cheeks flush with the reprimand before you realize it sounds more like reassurance.

“No emergencies here either,” you manage. “The baby is still as cute as ever. You parked near a good radio station. I’ve been singing to him—”

“Careful,” he warns, and your heartbeat quickens before you can ask what. “The first word that comes out of his mouth is going to be sung, not spoken.”

You giggle, the air cutting through the darkness. “Would that be so bad?”

He’s silent for a minute, and you relax back into his pillow, the commlink pressed up against your face.

“I don’t think I could handle having both of you singing,” he says, and his voice rumbles through you in a way you can’t place until you remember the baby is fifty and hasn’t even spoken his first word yet. The Mandalorian is signing on for years with you, then, maybe full-on decades, maybe for life, with how slowly the kid progresses—you have to bite down on your lip.

“Maybe I’ll shut up when he starts.”

You can hear him shifting. He’s still so quiet. You wonder where he is. You wonder if he’s gotten close to his bounty yet, if she’s anywhere near him—that unfairly jealous part of you roils in your belly, and you push your fist into it as if to shove back the unreasonable thought.

“That’d be a shame,” he finally says.

“Do you like my singing?”

He’s quiet again. You listen through the silence. He speaks so sporadically, it shouldn’t surprise you, but being in anticipation of what comes next is almost as good as the words themselves. “I like your voice.”

Your voice. That could mean anything. That could mean your singing in the shower or the questions you ask him or the way he makes you giggle or the way you’d moan out his name, if you were ever lucky enough to learn it—you realize you haven’t spoken. “I like yours, too.”

He’s quiet. He doesn’t speak again. You know how late it is. “Have you slept?” you ask, quietly, just in case he’s fallen asleep.

“A bit.” You can hear him adjusting. “I’m close to town. I tracked her here.”

You nod, forgetting he can’t see you. “When do you think you’ll be ba—will have completed the mission?” you ask. You bite your lip in the surrounding silence.

“By sunrise,” he says. “You better fall asleep. I want you both awake when I return to the ship.”

Your stomach flips over in excitement, then in dread. “Do I have to hide from her?”

He’s silent. You slide your thumbnail between your teeth, breath bated in anticipation of his answer.

“Just be ready,” he finally says. “Don’t hide unless I tell you to.”

“I’ll anticipate it,” you counter. “I’ll be awake at sunrise.”

“Set an alarm.” His voice is quick, but you can feel the lightness to it. “Or three.”

“I’ll have you know,” you say sleepily, “that I can be wide awake at the first alarm when I need to be—”

“And,” he adds, interrupting you, “stay near my bed in case you do need to hide.”

Before you can say anything in response to that, the link clicks off. You’re in the darkness, again, that swell in your legs, the buzzing in your ears, the excitement in your heart. The last thing you remember before you fall back asleep is, he’s coming home.

Your name comes from seemingly nowhere, and you jolt up from where you’ve been sleeping. Very comfortably. You wipe sleep from your eyes as you fumble around from the source of it.

It’s the commlink. Of course.

“I’m here,” you manage, through your very groggy morning voice.

“I’m almost back.”

You dig a heel of your hand into your eye before all the moving parts click together in your mind. That’s Mando’s voice, and it must be close to sunrise, because if he’s heading back, he’s definitely got the bounty.

“I—where should I go?”

You don’t hear anything for a long moment, and you hurriedly slide out of his bed, trying to arrange the blanket and pillow in the same formation that it was before you defiled it, and can’t remember enough what it looked like almost five days before but you hope that Mando’s memory has been distracted enough by his hunt that he won’t notice. You find the baby, place him back in his egg, and shake your head firmly when he gives you his big eyes pleading to get down.

“Where are you?”

You sleepily survey your surroundings. “I am against the wall.”

He sighs. “Which wall?”

“The one across from the fresher. Near your bed.” You feel your cheeks flush with that admission, even though he can’t possibly know that you’ve holed up in there since he’s been gone.

“And the baby?”

“He’s beside me.” You pull your gun out, too, and loosely holster it in the belt around your leg. “And I have my blaster.”

“Good,” he says, and no girl follows it, and despite the circumstances, you feel a twang of sadness.

“How close are you?”

The link goes silent. Again. It’s become his modus operandi to just leave you in the lurch, right when you’re on the edge of the conversation, and while it’s hard to get frustrated with him when that pull of sureness inside you is always tuned to the highest frequency, you want to whine about it.

You cut yourself off. Nope. He’s bringing back a bounty. You cannot get distracted, not now, no matter how bad you want him. Not the time. On a whim, you run into the fresher and you splash water on your face, enough to wake you up and keep you alert.

There’s a noise outside the ship, and you immediately push the baby’s floating cradle behind you, fingers on your blaster. You could handle whatever was happening. You actually had your fingers on something tangible, and you were a good shot when it came down to it.

It turns out, the reason why the Mandalorian didn’t tell you how soon he’d be coming back because he was already pretty much there. You tense, then relax upon the first glimpse of the beskar on his helmet you got, and then tens again when the gangplank is lowered down to the hot sand of Jakku.

She…looks dangerous. She’s a Twi’lek. Long, and slim, a very dangerous shade of purple. The first thing you notice isn’t how alien she looks in comparison to the sand around the gangplank, or how she moves with a confident, seductive swagger, but the way her tongue dances in circles around her teeth. Her canines are sharp, pointed, hungry.

You didn’t scare easily. You had worked hundreds of jobs with people who had every intention to double-cross and discard you. You faced off against the intruder on the ship with your only instinct to protect the baby in mind, not your own safety. That’s why Mando had brought you aboard.

But you look at her, and you’re scared. It’s her teeth and the way her eyes lock onto you, immediately, dangerously, like she knows she could intimidate you. And then probably flog you within an inch of your life and leave you for dead. You’d been there before. You knew how it looked.

“What do we have here?” she purrs, turning around to face Mando. He shoves her, once, roughly, and she steps forward so that his blow won’t hit as hard, tongue tracing the outline of her teeth. “You got yourself a little pet.”

Your eyes glance in fear to the baby, but the way he looks back at you makes you realize that she was talking about you, not the kid. You thumb your blaster, stepping forward, trying to remain impervious.

“Hello, there,” she whispers, and you could feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You didn’t want to look away from her—you can just tell, instinctually, that she could strike instantaneously, just lying in wait for a moment of weakness—but you can’t help it. You look at Mando, hoping your raised eyebrow signals your fear and your level of discomfort, and the way his visor locks on you is enough to know he had calculated the risk and knew he could beat her. His hand is still outstretched, slightly, as she meanders over to you.

“Look, Mando,” she hisses, pointing back and forth between the two of you. Instinctually, you push the baby’s cradle back even further, putting your full hand on your blaster. You glance up at him again, and then catch a flash in the low light of the ship, and realize she’s handcuffed. Even shackled, though, you can see how her sharp teeth glint, how her eyes hold venom you’d never even seen. “Have you taken your helmet off for her yet?”

He stands there. You have absolutely no idea what you were in the middle of, but suddenly, it felt like you were the outsider here, not her. Your stomach flipped over with the possibilities. Had he taken his helmet off for the bounty? Had he betrayed his creed for her? You swallow, grit your teeth, loading your tongue behind them just in case whatever she gave you next could be responded to.

“She’s pretty,” she appraises, tongue finding her canine, and before you can react, she lunges close to your face, close enough that you can feel the hot wash of air, clicking her teeth menacingly right in front of your nose. You don’t jump, but the flinch of closing your eyes felt bad enough. You knew it was the wrong move the second your eyes squeezed shut. “Aw, look at that.” She sniffs. You don’t move. “She scares like a little Ewok, Mando, is that why you keep her locked away on the ship—"

Suddenly, a flash of beskar moves through the air between you two, and the Twi’lek is snapped back, recoiling and hissing at how hard he hit her.

“I don’t need to remind you that I have no issue bringing you in cold.”

You recoil at that, how detached and distorted his voice seems. You know that the modulator evens it out, for the most part, and that you tend to imagine his voice comes out softer and warmer to you than anyone else. But right now? Right now, his voice is stone cold. He sounds murderous. Dangerous. Scary. The kind of threat that scared off the man on Nevarro. The kind of threat that you know he gives to his bounties. The kind of threat he’s never once showed to you.

You swallow.

“I dare you,” the Twi’lek says, and she turns from you, just for a second, to slide up to him. So much of her skin is reflected in the beskar that it’s turning the entirety of the interior of the Crest purple. “Try to kill me. We both know you need me, whether you like it or not, that I’m still the best you’ve ever had—”

Before you can react, before you can do anything, the Mandalorian has a knife against her throat. You have no idea where it comes from. You want to react, to say something, to not sit there bumbling like a faulty droid, but you’ve got nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

“Slice me with my knife,” she whispers, taunting him. “Do it. Put on a show for your little weakling girlfriend behind me and kill me. We both know you can’t—”

You unfreeze, suddenly, so quickly that you don’t realize what you’re doing, until you yank her slender shoulder back away from the knife Mando has in his grip and shove her headfirst into the carbonite chamber. She howls, but you press the button—that’s your one move, slamming your hands against things and miraculously making them work in the moment of truth—and her terrifying, hungry face gets swallowed up in the gas. You shove her backwards—well, the block of her—so that it slams into the other bounties that have been frozen in time in between your last trip to Nevarro, and it’s only when you’re sure she’s completely immobilized that you finally exhale, hands on your knees, chest heaving. The world around you is spinning. You check your arms and throat frantically, just to make sure she didn’t nick you with something sharp while you were frozen.

When your breathing regulates, and all your bumps and bruises only tally up evenly to the ones you had before today, you look up at Mando. He’s seemingly stuck, too, the sharp knife still in his gloved hand, completely immobile. You tap his outstretched hand to be sure you didn’t accidentally catch him with your fairly heroic carbonite rescue, and he only becomes responsive to your touch on his gloved one.

“Hey,” you say, softly, to not startle him anymore, “I’m okay—are you? Are you okay?”

“Thank you,” he says, gruffly, his fingers still clenched tight around the knife that came out of nowhere, and you just know that underneath his glove, his knuckles are white. You can hear it in his voice.

“What—oh. You’re welcome. I’m sorry I didn’t react sooner, that I let her go on like that—”

“I was going to kill her.” Even through the modulator, you can hear there’s something complicating his voice. You move forward, gently, trying to pry his fingers off the knife. Your body is so close to his, your neck straining as you look up from his hand to his helmet. You don’t know why this is so difficult for him to reconcile, when you’ve seen him take out at least twenty people, easily, since you came aboard. You don’t like the killing, but you understand his necessity, sometimes, and his disconnect from it. It’s what he does, it’s his job, his survival. You don’t know why this one was so different. “If you didn’t—I was going to slit her throat.”

You’re the one who’s silent, now. You have absolutely no idea what to say, especially considering that him needing solace over the thought of killing someone—not even actually killing them—is completely foreign to you. You inhale, exhale, and then take a half-step closer, moving his last finger off the knife. “You didn’t,” you whisper, earnest, slipping the knife out of his grip and reaching in closely behind him to put it safely in the armory. “You didn’t.”

He looks at you. Up and down. It’s dark in here, but you can track his visor. You have absolutely no idea what’s going on behind it. Despite all of this, despite the way you had both been moving in sync lately, despite how you felt the magnetic pull of the universe with him, he just went radio silent. None of this seemed in character. For the first time since you met him, you felt like you were in over your head.

“I was going to,” he repeats, and you nod, slowly. “She’s not worth anything to the Guild dead, but I would have done it in a second—”

“—You didn’t,” you interrupt, enunciating each syllable, “it’s okay, you can turn her in frozen like that, and we can get far away from her, you don’t have to be—”

“—to protect you.”

You come to a full stop, breath catching in your throat.

“I would have spilled her guts all over the floor in front of you—in front of my kid—to protect you. And then you protected me instead.”

You can feel your mouth falling open in shock. The baby, funnily enough, has decided to move his floating egg upstairs, and you’re glad he’s getting out of the line of fire. You swallow, looking back at Mando. “I did.”

“That’s not your job.”

You have whiplash. His voice has gone from detached to emotional to brash. You have no idea what you’re supposed to say to that, to say to any of this. You feel a familiar, dizzying rush, the beginnings of tears pinpricking at the corners of your eyes.

“Too bad,” you manage, finally, hoping that your voice doesn’t break, “you protect me, I protect you, give and take, Mando, that’s how this works—”

“That’s not your job,” he repeats, but now his voice is almost as ragged as yours is, and so you nod.

His helmet comes forward, slightly, and he presses it into your forehead. “What is my job?” you squeak out, trying to not go cross-eyed as you try to catch any glimpse of his eyes under the visor. You can’t, so you close yours, in desperate anticipation.

He removes his helmet from against your forehead, and you sway forward, already missing his grip against you, until, suddenly, his head is in the hollow of your neck. Your breathing hitches again. You try your very best to not imagine what his voice would sound like without the modulator, what his lips would feel like pressed up against your skin, when his hand drops from your chin and trails back down your body, past your scar, past the bruises on your belly, and then it pauses.

“To take mine,” he grits out, his voice swelling up against the skin of your ear, and then your body slumps against the wall, and before you can beg for it, for anything, his hand rises, meeting you in the middle, fingers fitting perfectly between your thighs.

***

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CHAPTER 5 COMING SATURDAY JANUARY 23RD EST!!!! i hope y’all enjoy!!!

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