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kth1 · 1 year

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BR: Red Eyes (m) | KTH

Red Eyes [Taehyung x Reader]

⟶ Genre: Vampire Au | Smut | 18+ ⟶ WC: 20k+ ⟶ Warnings: slight sugar daddy taehyung, slight dom/sub themes, shower scene, soft massaging, featuring vamp!jin and vamp!jungkook, oral (f), fingering, biting, name-calling, descriptions of rough sex, blood warning, nipple play, creampie, semi aftercare, vamp blood can be used as a heal and could be a hallucinogen, etc ⟶ Summary: You begin to figure out that Taehyung is a man of his word. Slowly but surely you’re slipping further into the expanse of his expensive world. But are you willing to accept? ⟶ Beta: Thank you all for assisting me through this fic and pointing out the areas I need to work on. This has come a long way but I'm happy to get it out into the world! @amourtae @jeonjcngkook @caelesjjk ⟶ Author’s note: Surprise! Over a year and a half later after the release Black Ravens, I finally decided to dedicate myself to a series! I never stopped thinking about the what ifs with vampire Tae, especially the one I wrote. I hope people give love to this, I really do. If I forgot any warnings, please contact me.

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It’s dark beneath your eyelids, but you’re too lazy to open them.

Something — a distant noise of some sort — stirs you from your sleep.

The smell of burnt incense mixed with freshly turned earth fills your nostrils as you take in a heavy breath. Your head rolls to the side, landing on an even softer cool plush of — what feels like — a pillow crafted by the Gods themselves. It cradles your head delicately, like placing a newborn baby down in its crib for a sweet night.

Deep voices whisper about; hushed tones purposely low to avoid your ears. It all sounds faint, muffled from your hazy sleep-state. You couldn’t care less about what’s to be said. The bed you're residing in feels like it stretches for miles as it makes sure to hold you captive in its undeniable comfort anyways.

There’s no question how much your body is begging for rest; you can barely move to a new position without a strong ache protesting against your muscles. The comforter draped over your limp body is cool to the touch, a soft fur-like fabric cuddling every inch of your body. Thankfully, it hordes all your body heat underneath it.

But, who dares disturb your slumber at this time?

It’s hard to make out the words each voice speaks at first. Both are deep with respect, conducting a tune to your ears like a lullaby.

“Are you sure about this?”

“I’m positive.”

“She’s not going to be happy about her.”

You register the melodic tune of one of those voices. No doubt in your mind it sounds exactly like Taehyung. Oddly, with that knowledge of his presence you feel slightly more at ease. Ready to admit defeat to Mr. Sandman with no hesitation.

“Just… don’t worry about it. It’s my choice, not hers.”

There’s a pause between the two voices. It feels as if you caught yourself napping and missed out on the rest of their conversation. You beg your own body to get comfortable once again, clutching your arms needily around a nearby pillow as you hold it closer to your frame. The soreness of your muscles ache, body feeling beaten and ravaged. You feel the tightness of your neck and back grinding with the way you bend, objecting to any sudden or harsh movements.

The pain comes from the last thing you remember – being pinned down and clutched by a leeching vampire by the name of Taehyung.

A single palm comes resting against the top of your head, lengthy cool fingers pet away the stray hairs falling into your face. You feel frozen from the gesture, though the hand feels like it’s encouraging you.

With a voice that reaches straight to your bones, you hear the calming words, “Go back to sleep, kitten.”

You’re not positive when you fully come back to your senses. Blaming the sweltering heat rising from under the covers, you push off the fabrics piece by piece until only a thin sheet rests over your frame. The uncomfortable tightness in your lower abdomen constantly reminds you of an urgent need, begging for you to relieve the tension before it becomes too painful holding it in. Once your eyes flutter open, wiping away the hard crusts that formed, you begin to ponder your surroundings.

A burning fireplace sits at the far end of the room, crackling wood bends at the fire’s warmth. Ash gray walls surround you, hinted with intricate etchings on the baseboards and a collection of black and white paintings. A sheer black canopy falls loose off the top of the bed frame, draping down around the mattress of which you still lay.

Everything that you set your eyes upon just screams the word expensive.

You don’t recall a place as such, most definitely not your own room nor any from Black Ravens. As you start to search for answers, you twist your head to view a row of black blinds shut tight against a large window. Perhaps seeing outside would help, maybe you can recognize the area.

Slowly, you’re able to shift your body up the bed even though your pain argues against the actions. When your legs manage to hang off the side, seconds from your feet touching the darkened wood flooring, a soft noise startles you.

To your left, nearly blending in with the curtain of the bed, stares two copper eyes. The sound you hear is nothing but a soft meow from an observing cat batting its tail slowly. Its whiskers pucker as it sniffs the air just before it stands up, stretching its lengthy limbs and scooting itself off the covers. You watch the line of its path straight to the crack of a doorway as its paws pad softly against the flooring.

Through the opening crease, you notice the amenities of a bathroom. Instantly, it reminds you of how badly your body needs to be taken care of, and now with direction, you follow the innocent feline into the separate room.

You wince at the light that clicks on, blinding your sight momentarily and causing you to stumble into the side of the sink’s counter. You curse under your breath, hand covering your eyes until you bypass the cat which sits promptly up on a towel drawer until you find the seat of the toilet.

Surprisingly, you find that you aren’t wearing any underwear. Only an abnormally large plain shirt thrown on you, loose like a dress and drops low to accommodate your body and covering the important parts. You recognize it as one of Black Raven’s “cover up” shirts, mainly worn after a participant's clothes have been ruined. You hoist the fabric upon sitting down, ready to do your deed, until you lock eyes with the waiting cat.

“Are you just going to sit there and watch me?” Your poor fragile voice sounds more hoarse than you anticipated. Your vocal cords strain roughly.

You huff to yourself, shaking your head a little at the ridiculousness of questioning the animal. But as if it understands you, it turns its head away from you as if you’re not good enough for its attention.

Your eyes scan down and disapprove of all the markings left on your legs, wounds all pinched shut and coating over with fresh layers of scabs. One bite mark looks particularly angry, it hurts to the touch. As you lift the fabric on your body higher, you notice more.

“Taehyung really went to town on me…” you mumble to yourself.

Bruises litter your hip, even a scratch mark rakes down your waist. If you weren’t so into the pleasurable state of sex, you’re sure all these blemishes would have been more painful. More noticeable.

Pieces of your memory mold back together the more you wake up. Finishing yourself with the toilet, you find yourself staring far too long into the lengthy mirror above the sink. You study the discolored markings, how drained your face looks as it stares back at you in the reflection. The liveliness of your body looks as dull as ever, these grotesque markings are no help at all thanks to Taehyung.

Well… you remember three were from his elusive coven mate, Jimin.

The clear glass of the shower door calls your attention in the background of your scenery. What you would give to shove your entire face under the showerhead and watch the water swirl down the drainage pipe. To have the hot water cascade across your cold skin and to be engulfed by the steam hovering your own body.

However, those blissful thoughts snap in two when the cat meows at you once again.

It stands proudly, jumping down and out the door. When it doesn’t feel your presence following suit, it calls to you again.

So the cat is leading you around now, is it?

It paces quickly to another door hidden from the view of the bed and begins scratching at the bottom edge of the frame. The poor thing must have been locked inside of here with no way out, you think.

Ignoring the pains pricking at your muscles, you step up to the door to twist the crystalline knob and open it just enough for the feline to step through. The crack is just enough to give you a view of a lengthy hallway, endlessly trailing to God knows where.

You close the door as silently as possible before rushing yourself back to the bathroom for that heavenly shower you desperately need. Collecting all the materials you may want to use, mainly a few towels to wash and dry your body that you found in a nearby closet, you briskly twist the shower’s nozzle and test the temperature of the running water.

“You’re awake,” a deep voice comes out from behind you.

It nearly causes you to jump forward into the glass shower door, but luckily you catch yourself from being too dramatic.

“I… uh –”

“– Good evening,” Taehyung smiles. His eyes trail your figure, watching the way you hold the towels closer to your body the moment you look back at him. “How are you feeling, kitten?”

You nod slowly while you take a more casual stance as you face him. His gorgeous hazel eyes melt you like butter sitting in the sun for too long, turning liquidy the longer you stare back into those crisp irises.

“Not going to speak?” He lifts an eyebrow as he takes a step inside the bathroom. His foot kicks the door closed behind him as he begins to shrug out of the denim jacket he wears. The fabric collides with the tile floor below as he continues his actions with other pieces of his clothing. “It’s quite alright. Take your time warming up to me.”

“A–Are you going to take a shower?” You blink at him, trying to process the reason why one by one his clothes are being thrown off his body. He doesn’t hesitate at all, minding you no business as all you can do is watch him as you stand there stunned.

“We are,” he tosses you a toothy grin.

The second his underwear slinks down his lengthy legs you immediately shoot your eyes up to the ceiling. As if you have never seen this man naked before and that you owe him the decency of privacy. Or maybe, you are just too terribly nervous with how fast paced and nonchalant the situation turned into.

“We?” You repeat with a higher tone than anticipated.

He chuckles softly, combing his fingers through his hair to push back those curly strands before looking at you. He hums in approval as he steps in front of you, hands coming to touch along your arms. You smell a whiff of his woodsy aroma, a scent you can never pinpoint, but it is the only smell you associate this vampire with.

Unique to him and him alone.

There’s amusement on his face as he looks over you, pulling your body closer to his until you’re pressed against his front.

“Is someone worked up?” He quizzes you as one hand comes down to clasp the hem of the massively oversized shirt you’re wearing. “I can hear your heart racing. I bet you can hear it too.”

He’s swift at pulling the towels away from your arms, and even quicker with pulling up the material of your shirt even when you protest a second too late. It is up and over your head before you realize it, clasping your arms across your chest and immediately burying yourself into his frame to hide any inch of yourself that you can.

“Tae!” You screech. All your muscles yell back at you with all of the sudden movements your body makes. “Wait, no. Please!”

He places his large hand on the side of your head, tilting your face to look at his. The other palm soothes over your back and down your spine, pressing you softly into him as the two of you stand there completely bare.

“There, there, kitten. You’re safe with me,” he grins as he turns your head, hooking his thumb under your jaw. His eyes trail over the marks on your body, humming to himself every time he spots a discoloration to your skin. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You have been out for a while and I haven’t been able to properly wash you.”

Lightly, he places a kiss on your temple.

“What do you mean I’ve ‘been out for a while’?”

You watch through the corner of your eyes at the way his free hand opens the glass door and reaches in to twist the nozzle. Water comes rushing out of the top of the area, replicating a waterfall from a cluster of rocks. Matching tiling from the floor compliments the earthy coloring of the walls. A few eucalyptus plants hang from one small section right above a built-in slab that serves as a seat or placement for shower products.

“You’ve been asleep for about a day and a half,” he admits.

Taehyung inhales deeply against your hairline, placing one last peck to your head before moving the two of you into this extravagant shower. Surprisingly, the water didn’t need time to warm up – instantly being the perfect temperature to heat up your cold body. He allows you to step under first, letting you rinse off. The more your body intakes the new found warmth the more it loosens up your muscles.

“Really?” You chirp back with astonishment, voice cracking angrily at the force. “Wait, it’s Sunday now?”

Before you can step away, Taehyung holds you in place with his hands. He joins you under the falling water, dipping his face under the rushing liquid before whipping it away.

“Really.”

“Where are all my things? I’m not supposed to be here. I had plans for… Oh, he’s going to ki –”

Taehyung hushes you, using his hands to knead into your arms and up to your shoulders. “Don’t worry. All of your belongings are with me. I took care of your absence by replying to your friend and letting them know you weren’t feeling well. Besides,” he grins when your body twists in pain from the massage he is giving you, “I did a number on you and I told you I’m going to take care of you.”

His hands are like corrupting black magic, wielding you like a puppet. You’re not sure what to blame between the ache in your muscles or tiredness you continue to feel, but the sorcery of twists and turns his fingertips do to you makes you thaw completely into his palms. Making you forget how important your plans are and falling head over heels for the tall vampire before you.

You’ll deal with the consequences of your failed plans later.

“Where does it hurt?” He speaks softly as he tests out areas of your back and neck.

You respond in the same tone, fluttering your eyes whenever he flicks over a taut muscle, “Everywhere.”

He pulls you forward along with him, taking the opportunity to sit himself down on the stone slab and you sideways on his lap. Taehyung is faster than you, as usual; his quick movements allow him to snatch a loofah and bar of soap all while pressing a button on the side of the wall. It changes the location and direction of waterflow. He grips a metal faucet that hooks off from the wall, twisting it from its hinge and dragging the spray of water to aim across you.

Taehyung analyzes each bite wound on your body as the spongy loofa glides over them. If it were any other time, you’d begin to feel a nervous tension between the oddly domesticated silence the two of you share – but for now you bask in the attention. Savoring every small caring detail he gives you.

“Is this your home?” You question as your eyes are trained to the tiles below.

“One of many,” he responds.

“It’s nice…” you trail off.

You feel shy with the way his lengthy fingers flutter over your skin with the soap, washing away the surface scuffs and leaving suds in its path. He hums a ‘thank you’, chuckling at the way he places his face closer to yours on purpose to make you show your bashful side.

He notices how you still hover your midriff, already given up on hiding your breasts by placing your arms and hands strategically over areas of your body you’re not ready to expose just yet. Taehyung gives you your space, even though he’s infiltrated the majority of it.

“I’ve arranged for one of my servants to gather you some basic necessities, but within the month you’ll be brought out to shop for whatever you’d like. I’d advise you to rest well until you fully recover, take your time adjusting.”

“You… you didn’t need to do that for me,” you twist your head to finally look at him.

You don’t think you’ll ever get used to the way Taehyung looks, regardless of what setting or lighting he’s portrayed in. He always has been nothing but beautiful, drop dead gorgeous. But right now, he stares back at you with sincere eyes, wet curly locks that twist every which way, and beads of water trailing down the sides of his face. For a second, you completely forget about the conversation. Admiring only him and the glow of his perfectly sculpted features.

“What do you mean by ‘adjusting’?”

Slowly, your body starts leaning closer to the vampire. Your eyes are set on his parted lips, pretty and round. He allows you to inch closer, seeing how blindly you wish to kiss him.

“Your life,” his voice drops an octave. Even his Adam’s apple bobs with the way he speaks. He’s nothing but serious, eyes scanning down your face to your neck and collarbones. “You’re mine now. Your current life needs to change to be with me,” he grins.

“I… What? Tae, I can’t just do something so drastic like that,” you scrunch your eyebrows together. “I have so much going on, you don’t have a single clue.”

“But I do,” he hushes you with a kiss. It catches you off guard with how warm his lips feel against yours. “I’ve known about you for a while now, kitten. Your records at Black Ravens only told me so much. I had to do some studying.” Taehyung’s hand sneaks up to the back of your neck, lightly tugging on your skull to tilt your head back. He takes the handheld showerhead to wash over your hair, damping it in preparation for shampoo and conditioner. “You’ll adjust well, I believe. I have everything you could ever need.”

“Tae…”

“I care for you, Y/n. I really do,” he soothes over his words with the trickling water. “I’m sorry for taking you in on such short notice, but I would have never left you bleeding out on a Black Raven’s bed. I want you to know I had nothing but true and good intentions while I took you back to the comfort of my home. I apologize if this makes you uncomfortable in any way,” he speaks with sincerity and kindness. Taehyung’s voice remains soft as if he’s speaking to a worried child. “Please know that I wanted nothing more than to keep you safe.”

Taehyung doesn’t allow you to process much further because he twists you in your place, making you face forward and away from him. He lathers up your hair delicately as you remain quiet; you try processing what all has been said to you as he rinses and repeats the action with his shower products.

There’s something in the back of your mind that concerns you, sends you a word of caution the more you ponder over everything you have going on with your life. Family, friends, working towards your career, classes, and beautiful memories. Did you really just wish yourself away from all of those by accepting Taehyung?

As if he can read the stress levels radiating off of your body, Taehyung speaks up. “We can talk more about it later,” he soothes, petting your head. “Relax with me. Tell me, are you in any pain from these?” He references the array of bite marks as his finger lightly trails across them.

You shake your head no, not worried about the small blemishes compared to how fatigue your body feels. It’s not the first time you have had multiple wounds like this on your body.

“I’m okay. Just tired,” your eyes flicker down to your lap. The mark between your thighs still emits a dull pain. “Well, there’s this one.”

You feel Taehyung’s chin rest on your shoulder, peering down from behind you to see where your fingers point to. They lightly prod at the nasty scab that sticks out, softened by the water of the shower.

“Would you let me fix it for you?”

You’re confused with what he’s asking you, questioning him with how on earth he plans to fix your wound. He snakes his hand over your thigh, prying it apart from the other to view the full blemish. Briskly, he removes the crusts that cover the openings and rips open a faint batch of blood. You flinch with the action, seething between your teeth.

“It’ll be fine. You won’t feel a thing in a few seconds,” he laughs.

Taehyung then pricks his thumb on one of his fangs, drawing his own scarlet blood. It drips lazily down his finger as you watch him with awe. He places it over the bite mark, and like a miracle, you watch before your eyes how the small puncture wounds on your leg seal together in seconds.

“What the – How? Where did it go?”

Your hand scoots past Taehyung’s to press into the soft flesh of your thigh. The mark disappeared completely before your eyes. Even the litter of marks around the area tend to fade with each passing second.

“Give it a little bit and your body will be healed up. It was only a little bit, but it will still do its job.”

“Tae,” you begin with a shake of your head. “Tae, where did the bite mark go?”

He sighs as he cages his arms around your frame, hugging you from behind.

“A vampire’s blood gives us various abilities… and is our life essence. Healing is one of many things it can do for a human.”

“Can it save people too?”

Taehyung’s fingers find yours before interlocking them together. He allows the water to cascade down on the two of you, holding another in an embrace of comfort.

“Depends on your definition of saving. It’s not a known existence to the world. Many people are unaware of the abilities of a vampire’s blood and we try to keep it that way for several reasons,” he licks his lips between words, “How are you feeling?”

You breathe as you absentmindedly take in the information while staring at the steam collected on the shower’s door. Yes, your muscles seem to have untensed faster than you think they would have without this magic blood. But you remain skeptical about it.

“I’m alright,” you state.

Taehyung makes a disgruntled noise beside you as his thumbs run circles on the tops of your hands. You’re unaware of the shift in his mood but you soon discover his eyes roaming back to a few marks in the junction of your neck.

“I’m afraid to give you more,” he huffs. His lips come dangerously close to your outer ear as he continues to talk to you. “Too much vampire blood and it can cause several different effects. Even a small dose can heighten your senses,” he smirks as goosebumps grow on your skin, “increase ones strength,” he whispers as he squeezes you tighter in his hold, “and can even make sexual experience a lot more… intense.”

You swallow hard at his words. Each delectable syllable tingles your eardrums. The way his hands slide over your skin heats you up even further without doing much at all. Your body feels good, very good, with what tiny bit of blood was given to you. Denying its influence to your body is a foolish thing to think about.

Taehyung finds amusement as he watches you battle with whichever thoughts flood your mind. You feel as if you’re in a cloud of nothingness – or is that just the visible steam fogging up around you to blame? Each bead of water heightens those sensations radiating in your body. Your heart beats faster with each ticking moment.

“I do warn you, each person gets affected differently. It also depends on the dosage. Many humans take it as a drug to see hallucinations and to feel something, to feel more. It’s powerful, but it eventually dies down. Becomes addictive. Even taken in a large dose… the human can metaphysically or spiritually bond with the vampire they drink from. The vampire community has kept the healing properties a secret so it wouldn’t encourage humans to hunt vampires for their blood.”

Turning your head, you’re met with a pair of beautifully crafted hazel eyes. They stare deep into yours, catching your gaze and begging for you to not break it. Penetrating you in your spot. When Taehyung hears no response from you, he pushes the topic further while his eyes trail down to your lips.

“I can trust you, can’t I?”

You part your lips to speak, though nothing comes out. You’re nearly mesmerized by how Taehyung looks. A deep cardinal desire picks at your brain as your eyes can over his features, admiring the beauty before you. You feel sweltering hot as if your skin is threatening to melt off your bones.

Blinking hazily at his face, your hand comes up to cup his cheek. You can’t describe exactly what you are feeling; it’s like you are drunk and high at the same time but with no negative effects. Your mouth runs dry, parched from how thirsty you’ve become in the matter of minutes.

“Y/n?” Taehyung’s smooth baritone voice flutters your heart as he speaks your name.

“I won’t tell anyone,” you mutter under your breath.

Your fingers press firmly to pull his head closer to yours. Lips seeking him with no questions asked, planting them securely against his. There’s an eagerness scratching in the back of your head. You fight to twist your body on his lap, grounded by the two strong palms now resting on either side of your hips.

“Are you aroused, my little kitten?”

His mouth hovers yours, mere centimeters away. The accusation stirs you, how guilty you suddenly feel. You want nothing more than to tangle your tongue with his at this very moment. Your breath shudders when you inhale; it feels as if you were catching your breath after running a marathon.

You don’t need to answer Taehyung, your actions speak louder than any word that can come out of your groggy throat. Fluttering your eyes shut, you pull him to reconnect his lips to yours. Your tongue stretches into his mouth, licking past his teeth and meeting his with a warm greeting.

He hums a small laugh, his smirk unable to hide his high spirits.

“Kitten, I don’t want to use this against you. I was only trying to heal you up. Plus, aren’t you exhausted…” Taehyung takes a hand and travels it toward the apex of your thighs, “Down here?”

His thumb toys with the idea of running it along the bend of your thigh, edging it closer towards your crotch. The sensation feels otherworldly, magical. Heighted to a new extreme as the water trickling down above you feels like you’re under a waterfall.

Each physical sensation blesses your nerve endings, making them vibrate with mirth throughout your skin. A strangled moan escapes your mouth when you allow a curse to fall out of your lips.

“Fuck,” you breathe. Your chest rises and falls with desperation. “Fuck, don’t…”

Taehyung hums, his face pressing against yours and he nudges your head to lean back against his shoulder.

“Don’t what?” He whispers, halting his actions. “I won’t touch you –”

“Don’t stop,” you seethe through your teeth.

He witnesses the way your nipples stand erect. How the twitch of your legs help open them wider as if you’re welcoming his hand to slide further. Your heart pounds with every waking moment, beating hard on the inside of your ribcage as your body sends itself into a state of bliss. You can imagine yourself in a rainforest, hearing tropical birds chirping as the smells of fresh mulch and soil fill your nostrils. Sun rays beaming down bright against your skin as you lounge yourself atop a lily pad floating on a pond. Bold, vibrant colors paint the world around you, and the only thing pulling you back to reality is the man splitting your legs wider with his feet as he leans you back against his chest.

“What are you seeing?” He questions calmly, unable to read the blown out pupils of your eyes.

Taehyung uses one hand to grip your chin softly, tilting your head to look up at him. With the vampiric blood dancing in your system, his features look even more amplified. More gorgeous – and you’re unsure exactly how. Taehyung glows like how you imagine an angel might, ethereal and stunning. His eyes twinkle like a thousand little suns having a fiesta together.

“You,” you admit. “I only see you.”

Taehyung keeps his focus on you, wanting to give you the ultimate pleasure you deserve. He’s sure to keep slow and not push the limits; he is aware of the draw-backs of what happens with a human on vampire blood. He wants to show you how he intends on keeping his promise of taking care of you to all ends, even when he is ignoring his own hard-on pressing against your backside. Maybe one day he’ll experiment sex with his blood in your system, if you so wish it, but for now – he knows you only need the bare minimum of happiness.

Seeing as you can have everything and anything you want right now.

Taehyung’s hand drops down to collect your breast in his palm. He doesn’t even need to toy with it much at all before having you gasp out loud from the sensation. Your nipples remain painfully erect, calling to Taehyung to stroke over them one by one just to turn up your pleasure some more.

You groan with excitement and feel your body quake with shivers running down your spine. Your hands rush to grab at him, moaning out a plea for him to continue his actions.

“Touch me, please.”

He shushes you as his other hand reaches for the detachable showerhead. From underneath you, his feet hook around your ankles to spread your legs wider. The heat of the shower touches your exposed pussy, revealing the dampened mess between your folds. It doesn’t last long there, not with how Taehyung runs the showerhead over your body. Teasing your skin all over before centering it above your cunt.

The blasts of water jetting out of each rubber hole presses against your lower lips and clit. A constant pressure applied right to the place you needed it the most. Your grip tightens as you inhale a whine, swallowing harshly as your body undergoes the sudden and shocking impact. You shake in Taehyung’s hold while reaching down between your legs to grip his wrist. His strength holds you back as his other palm latches over your mouth, muffling your beautiful whines and keeping you pressed against his body.

He rubs the showerhead over you slowly at a deliciously dangerous pace. Taehyung’s lips kiss against the side of your neck while you strangle a moan that fails to escape.

“That’s it…” he coos. “Accept it. Let your body fall into it.”

You screw your eyes tight as the words laced into your ears hit you. Beckoning your orgasm to release instantaneously and rolling over you like a bulldozer. Taehyung supports your body no matter which way you convulse; he’ll make sure you ride it out with no worries.

The hand placed over your mouth catches all your weeps and sobs, muting you from the world. Your nails pierce into Taehyung’s wrist as you anchor yourself, holding onto him for dear life. It’s as if the waterfall you once were under sweeps you off your feet and drifts you out and over the rocky slopes of a river and into a bottomless pit of an ocean. Where those raging rapids of your orgasm begin to calm down and smooth out into slow luscious waves. Sailing you out into the void on the surface of the water.

“Kitten?”

You hear Taehyung’s voice echo in your head. It sounds beautiful and serene, his voice coaxing over your senses as if it’s the only thing able to ground you.

Your chest heaves as you catch your breath through the thick steam of the shower. Collapsing your head back against Taehyung’s shoulder, you relish in the pure bliss of everything around you. His hand slips from your mouth to guide your jaw towards him as he simultaneously removes the showerhead from between your legs and back to the hook nearby. A soft, yet playful smile, dresses his beautiful lips. Even his eyes flash delight and mirth.

“You’re so sexy when you enjoy yourself,” he comments.

Delicately, his lips press onto yours once again. His mouth feels possessive, like he’s ready to eat you entirely. Meanwhile, his hands cage around you, pressing into your skin and holding you flush against his front.

The compliment floods you with a wave of embarrassment. Vulnerable and under the penetrating gaze of a vampire who can literally do whatever he wants with you at any given moment.

“T-Thanks…” you hush your words against his plump lips.

“Anytime,” Taehyung smiles.

He allows you a moment's rest just to relax with him; he completely ignores his strong hard-on pinched between your two bodies. A malicious and violent being – from what you’ve grown to know – makes you skeptical on how such a tender and soft man Taehyung truly can be. Even when he has only displayed his dominating sides… seeing something like this throws your head into a spin of confusion.

It surprises you.

But you don’t question any of his actions. Taehyung shows no real threat, not now… now when you’re dripping wet and naked on top of him, shaking from a mouthwatering orgasm that took less than a minute to achieve under a new influence.

On top of that, you only had the smallest amount of his blood in your system. You can’t even imagine how more would affect you.

“Let’s finish cleaning the rest of you off,” he addresses as he grabs a conditioner bottle. “I’m sure by now my servant has fixed you with some food and something to wear.”

Taehyung takes his time with you, holding you close every step of the way. He caters to you as if you are a broken doll. Careful to not break you further, but graceful enough to make you feel his compassion with every tender touch.

He whips you away with his spoiling behavior. Washes you from head to toe; peppering affectionate kisses across your skin.

Perhaps this is his way of apologizing.

When the two of you finally exit the bathroom, disregarding the trail of wet feet marks that follow you out the door, you’re welcomed with newly found clothes on a properly made bed. A small tray of juice and small food sits on a small desk. You stroll towards the mattress, happy to not feel your body aching with every movement. You plop down on the side of the bed as your eyes scan the laid out clothing, still wrapped up in your towel.

Taehyung moves steadily over to his closet. His robe hugs around his frame as his arms search aimlessly through his drawers and hung up clothing. You can see him shuffling through fabric after fabric, analyzing and processing which colors to coordinate with another.

“I’m afraid I have some business to attend to tonight,” he drones out. He sounds less than enthused about whatever it is he has to do. “I’ll be back before dawn. Feel free to wander the house. I’ll entrust you with Jin.”

You blink over at him, giving Taehyung a puzzled face when he catches your wandering gaze.

“Wait, what? Hold on, I have a few questions before you disappear on me.”

The tone in your voice shows how concerned you are feeling. Disorientated feels like an understatement.

Taehyung walks out of his closet with a pair of dress shoes and suit pieces hanging off of a few hangers in his hands. A camel tan jacket and matching pants paired up with a white button up long sleeve and black gucci shoes. He tosses them on the bed beside you as he hums.

“What questions do you have for me, kitten?”

He tilts his head as his eyes find yours. He raises his eyebrows with all attention on you. He stands at the foot of the bed, legs spread in a stance to make him look wider. Like he’s making a statement without having said it. Crude humor you think, especially when his long lengthy fingers begin tightening around the band holding his robe together. He toys with the idea of teasing you by pulling it out of its knot and allowing the material to lax naturally. Opening a slit that reveals his skin from chest all the way down to between his legs.

You stare at him with determination and a bit of fear. Because you’d be damned if you admired the view of his hanging appendage that he shamelessly gives opportunity for you to see.

“I… I – You’re coming back when?” You stumble over your words momentarily.

“Dawn.”

The audacity of his whole demeanor spills out confidence and carelessness all at the same time. He smirks when you finally direct your line of sight to something far away from him. It’s the only way you know how to talk with him without feeling some kind of way.

In your peripheral you can see Taehyung shrugging off the material of his robe and allowing it to drop down to the ground. He stands there naked and you’re well aware of it. You tighten your grip on your towel involuntarily as you concentrate on your speech.

“What time is it now?”

“Sometime after the sunset.”

“That’s… not helpful. Where’s my phone? All of my belongings that I had at Black Ravens. They’re not here? I also need to go back home.”

Taehyung huffs a laugh as he slips up his trousers and buttons them securely. The humor laced in his voice throws you off as you try to stay serious on the matter.

“It means it’s sometime at night,” he grins. His hands run through his hair, brushing out the damped tendrils away from his face. “Your belongings are with me. No need to worry about them right now, kitten.”

He’s dismissive. You also notice the way he ignores the last thing you said, which twists your curiosity even more.

“Tae. I need my phone,” you state.

Slowly, he rounds about the bed to your side. Taehyung steps in your line of sight and moves closer to you. He’s sliding an arm through the sleeve of his button up as he fixes his stance before you. His finger comes out to tap under your chin, beckoning you to look up to him.

Your eyes scan across the sliver of his stomach all the way up towards his sharp collar bones. His neck looks desirable, kissable. But when you meet his hooded eyes, you feel heat strike your nerves. His face shows no signs of that playful humor lingering in his voice as he stares down at you.

“I’ll tell you what. Be a good kitten for me and stay here until I get back. Then I’ll give back your phone and bring you home.”

You hesitate to respond to him. The scowl that covers your face shows your displeasure and frustration. The split second you go to twist your head out of Taehyung’s finger, he grips your jaw.

Taehyung levels himself with you, bending down to look you straight into your eyes. His eyes look hazed over with some sort of clouded anger as they bore into yours.

“Y/n. I need you to stay here for me,” his voice drops to a stern ring. It shakes you all the way to the core. “Do you understand?”

You shake your head slowly as you accept his request. There are no words that can describe the things Taehyung’s presence does to you, let alone his words alone. The way it always feels like he has a claim over you. The way he can boss and control you with just a simple snap of his finger if he demands it.

A creeping smirk grows on Taehyung’s pleased face. The importance of subordination and lack of patience is something you note in the back of your head.

“Good girl,” he praises. Taehyung leans in more to place one last kiss to your lips, humming satisfaction as he gets his way. “Now, behave,” he warns as he removes himself from you.

“Why don’t you go choose a necklace for me from one of the valet boxes I have in the closet,” he insists as he sits himself down to focus on slipping into his shoes.

You remain propped right in your spot on his bed as you clutch the cloth of the towel surrounding you. Watching the back of Taehyung’s head, you find yourself frozen in place from wanting to move.

“Who’s Jin?”

Visibly, you can see the way Taehyung’s shoulders shrug as if he’s letting out a sigh. He shakes his head to himself as he finishes putting on the last piece of his clothing – his jacket – and adjusts the cufflinks.

“My eldest brother.”

After Taehyung leaves you alone in his bedroom, you sit for a while before wanting to actually make yourself presentable. You feel sluggish, whether it be from tiredness or the lazy state your body settles in after having that mind-blowing orgasm from a showerhead. Of course, you take your time moving around his room. You even take a few more bathroom visits to finalize your look with whatever toiletries you manage to find.

You grow bored of the bedroom surroundings just how you grow bored of the lack of social interaction. Placed in an area that you are completely unknown to, the only person you’ve managed to see is Taehyung. Even when he claims there is a servant on-hand, they’ve yet to come back to the room at all. Leaving you curious about what lies outside of the bedroom door… and hungry with the need for food.

The door opens gracefully, it doesn’t even creak at the hinges when it swings. You’re met with an empty hall, only simplistic flower paintings hang in an orderly fashion along the length of the wall. You take a look up and down the expanse, seeing as you’re smackdab right in the middle of the hall.

From the right, it looks to be a dead end. A lonely black counter sits at the far end wall with one singular clear vase set in the middle and a mirror secured to the wall. To your left, there’s an opening far beyond you can see.

Your feet step haphazardly as you trail down the wooden flooring. It smells like any other normal house would, just with a hint of cleaning solution lingering in the air. Nothing seems out of place, everything perfectly set in alignment. Not even a speck of dust flies in the air throughout the illumination of the bright lights above.

Eventually, you creep further into the house. You find yourself walking into an empty entranceway, the front door completely black in color with a golden handle. All the windows are boarded up, seal tight. The reminder of Taehyung’s request echoes in your mind, telling you not to leave.

That he needs you here.

You stare at the door for longer than you admit, mind racing with interest. But you're drawn to a muffle noise that resounds in the air. It snaps your attention to another direction. As if the house itself is your usher, the walls guide you away from the front door and down the next corridor.

Emerging around a corner, you instantly see a countertop with a display of utensils laid out. The closer you step, the more of the kitchen is presented to your eyes. An island sink and stove, refrigerator, and at least two tall cabinets that are presumably filled with food.

Your mouth begins to water with the ideas of something fresh, something delicious. Maybe a set of snacks are waiting for you just inside those doors.

However, you still aren’t forgetting the strange noises you hear that continue to grow as you step into the kitchen.

You come faced with a window in the wall above a section in the kitchen. It peaks into some sort of gathering area, like a living room you guess. But what you see isn’t anything you expect.

The muffled noises are from people. They are in front of a fireplace, lit to a bright flame, yet they’re either half or completely naked. A woman is on her knees right before a male standing tall. His hands are mangled within her auburn locks, guiding her head vigorously into his pelvis. The noises you heard, are nonother than two people fucking – face-fucking. Their moans and aggressive groans amplify the longer you stare.

His backside mainly faces you; you can barely make the features of these two strangers. His sharp calves flex through his tight jeans as he balances himself, so does his marvelous thighs. The elastic band around his thin waist hangs enough to expose his member, plunging deep into the willing woman’s mouth.

But the scene itself makes you fumble over your footing as you back away. You accidentally slap your arm against the countertop as you try to anchor yourself from falling over, knocking into the array of utensils and causing a ruckus.

It surely gains the male’s attention as you watch his head look over his shoulder abruptly. Dark locks hang over his ruby red eyes as a piercing gaze penetrates you where you feebly stand. Blood smears across his parted mouth, sharp teeth bearing themselves to you.

Like a deer caught in headlights, your eyes look back at him. Widened and scared.

His hips continue to roll into the woman’s face while his hands keep guiding the head of the woman onto his cock. You can’t see it, but you can surely hear the way the woman gags around something several times. It’s rough, you can tell with the type of savagery the male puts into his thrusts. But she sucks it in like she's drunk on lust; bite marks littering her flesh.

“I-I, uh –” you stutter as you hoist yourself up into a normal stance. Your hands scurry across the countertop to gather the utensils in a haste as the leering gaze of the male glares at you.

“I am so sorry!” you blurt out.

The second you look down, you feel a gust of wind beside you. To your right, a bare chest enters your peripheral view. A masculine hand slaps itself down on top of yours, pinning you to the countertop. Even with a quick yank, you cannot move a single centimeter away from the weighting pressure on top of your hand.

You scream out a yelp of pain before your eyes snap to the man who leans in beside you. Bright scarlet eyes stare at you like a dagger ready to pierce skin. Blood dribbles down his chin and drops to his smooth chest as he smiles a devilish smile down at you. He doesn’t even have the decency to cover up his hardened cock, it stands out of his pant’s zipper as they lay low on his dainty waist. You’re embarrassed to even take in the sight of the sculpted abdomen of the male, let alone the proud dickhead pointing right at you.

Quickly, he makes his way around your frame to corner you against the island countertop. Both his arms cage you in, barricading your body against two hard places.

Fear strikes all your nerves, quickening your heart rate and causing a panic.

“J-Jin?”

The name comes out shaky, just like how your limbs begin to do. You quiver between the male and the countertop. He leans in, grinning to himself as his eyes scan up and down your body. He presses himself closer, even brushing his hardened dick against your front.

“I can be Jin if you want me to, baby,” his voice comes out deadly and smooth. It curls your insides, sends red alert noises in your brain.

Instantly, it tells you that his identity must not be Taehyung's eldest brother. Now, you’re concerned with who exactly this other vampire is.

Taehyung never mentioned someone else.

“Stop!”

You try to squirm out of the male’s hold. You’re being violated in so many ways by this unwanted presence. Even the fist you form with your free hand does nothing to the side of the male’s face. It only creates a loud smacking sound as your knuckles contact his jaw.

The man tilts his head back to level it with yours. Any sign of amusement he has completely vanishes. His nose scrunches as he inhales deeply.

“You’re going to regret –”

“– Jungkook!”

A voice cracks through the intense male before you. His gaze fades out momentarily as he listens to the call of his name. His shoulders rise with irritation and aggression.

Another male’s hand comes to grab Jungkook’s forearm before ripping it away from surrounding you. He easily pushes the attacker off, giving a few feet space between the two of you.

“Don’t,” the newest male warns as he stares back at the other.

The male’s back is away from you, but you can tell he’s taller in stance. He, too, has dark hair – at least it looks styled. His body is lathered in a light blue silk shirt that’s tucked into black dress pants and a thin belt. He radiates authority with the way he stands.

“Jungkook,” he warns as he senses the vampire getting agitated. “I command you to not lay a single finger on her. You’re not allowed to harm her in any way.”

They exchange a heated stare with another. However, to your surprise, you notice Jungkook standing straighter. Submission. A cocky, yet pissed off look, suits his face as he uses the opportunity to tuck himself back inside his pants and zip his zipper.

His eyes glance over to you, frozen and unable to move from your spot, while he expresses his annoyance towards you.

“With all those little noises I heard earlier, I expected you to be another whore.”

The male in the blue shirt swiftly and fluidly backhands Jungkook in a blink of an eye. The power alone splits Jungkook’s cheek open, blood spraying out with the movement of Jungkook’s head.

You stare in shock, tears brimming in your eyes. Slowly, you are able to edge your body away from the counter and back the way you come. But you’re halted in your tracks by the male in the blue shirt.

“Stay, Y/n,” he calls out.

It’s the first time he faces you, turning in his spot as he adjusts the sleeve of his shirt. You’re met with another gorgeous looking male, almost too serene. You can peg Taehyung for ethereal, but this man seems to outstand any words you can form.

He looks at you with serious and determined eyes. They’re a delicious brown pecan color, kind to look at.

“I’m Jin,” he begins to explain as he looks back at Jungkook. “I apologize for the rudeness from my progeny. He is still a child. I assure you, he won’t bother you again.”

You look back at Jin worriedly. Afraid to look over at the blood-covered Jungkook and afraid to go against Jin’s request.

“Jungkook,” the elder male cocks his head to the side. “Go clean up your mess in the living room. Clean yourself up while you’re at it. She’s our company.”

As Jungkook goes to turn on his heel without a second thought, Jin speaks to him again.

“But first,” his tone lingers in the air above everyone’s heads, “Apologize to Y/n. After all, she isn’t a whore like you assumed.”

You can tell the resistance on Jungkook’s face when he turns back. Those scarlet eyes that once penetrated your soul dwell down to a sterling gray color. They’re clouded with uncertainty and anger, but if you look past all his chiseled nakedness and gruesome bloodstains across his body he doesn’t look quite as scary.

Very handsome matter of fact; yet his actions alone already painted him in such a dull light that you’re completely comfortable not exploring any more details about him.

Jungkook stares at you through the corner of his eye, fueled with displeasure as he’s forced to obey Jin.

“Sorry.”

The apology comes out dry, you’re aware it’s definitely not sincere. You say nothing in response. But from the smug grin Jin has on his face, you can tell he’s enjoying the control.

“Now, carry on,” Jin waves with his hand. He takes a step towards you as he continues to talk to Jungkook. “The one in the living room leaves the house alive, Jungkook,” he reminds. “We don’t want any mistakes like last time.”

You watch as Jungkook disappears from the kitchen and returns to the auburn haired woman who has collapsed on the floor. If you look through the opened wall window you will be able to see the way Jungkook lazily picks up the fallen woman.

Jin steps around the kitchen to look throughout some of the cabinets and shelving units. He hums to himself while he searches.

“I admit, you had me thinking you’d stay cooped up in that room all night for a second there. You must be hungry, hm? I’m sure we have something in here for you.”

He peaks over at you, who is still lingering in the same stunned spot, and gives you a pained expression.

“You can come closer. It may be hard, with what you just witnessed, but try to get comfortable. I’m not going to do anything to you.”

You swallow thickly while your eyes flicker over from Jungkook to Jin. You’re uncertain, as you should be, but the moments you just endured still feels very much real for you. It shakes your core.

“What about him?” You nod towards Jungkook’s direction.

There’s a small pleased grin that creeps up on Jungkook’s face at your question while he hoists the woman up and over his shoulder. She mumbles words you cannot understand, whether it be another language or a very thick accent. But Jungkook never looks back to you, his mind is on other things now.

“He won’t hurt you,” Jin exhales. He gathers together some eggs from inside the fridge and a few pieces of meat. “I’ve commanded him. So even if he wanted to, he’s bound to listen to my order.”

You take a step in to lean against the nearest wall. Though you see Jin wave you on towards a stool sitting across from where he settled to cook at. Slowly, you tip-toe over to where Jin’s pointed look guides you.

“Because you ‘commanded’ him?”

Jin works around the built-in electric stove with a few pans on the heated plates. He cracks open an egg, then two.

“I am his maker. I have that ability over him,” he says. “Jungkook is still a newborn. Doesn’t have much control over everything just yet. Incredible strength… insufferable lack of tolerance to the rules of the world though. It’s a bit of a challenge but he has much more training to do.”

“What do you mean you’re his maker?”

The eggs sizzle in the pan as Jin continues to add random pieces of food to it. Some form of omelet from the looks of it. It already smells appetizing and it’s not even fully cooked yet.

“I turned him into a vampire,” he says nonchalantly.

Jin softly smiles as he flips over the egg to fry the other side. He gathers you a glass of water, but tells you that there are options of juice in the refrigerator. The cup clinks down on the countertop right next to a plate Jin grabs.

“There’s forks in the drawer beside you,” Jin voices. “Now tell me how our little Taehyung came to find you.”

The neatly made omelet slides out of the pan and onto your plate before you. Jin hands over salt and pepper shakers as well as a napkin for you. After he turns off the stove and briefly cleans up the area he works at, he rests back on the opposite counter with crossed arms. He waits for you to happily take your food while waiting for your response.

You feel your stomach twist in eagerness, starving to taste the deliciously made food. With your fork, you cut into the omelet before stabbing the first piece and placing the appetizing egg into your mouth.

“Black Ravens,” you state in between bites.

“Ah –,” Jin smiles. “Interesting.”

Jin watches you, analyzes you. His haunting beauty would normally make you nervous, kind of like how it is when you first got to learn about Taehyung. You can’t place your finger on it, but somehow you feel the needed trust your mind wants to be reassured you are in good hands.

“How long?”

You stop chewing your food as you look at Jin. A puzzled look begins to carve itself on your face.

“How long have you worked at Black Ravens?” He clarifies.

You’re nearly done with your plate of food by now. Even the glass of water beside you sits half empty as you straighten your posture in the seat you sit at.

“A few months…” you ponder more to yourself as you recollect the memories.

“Resorting to a job like that… my curiosity is getting the better of me,” Jin hums again. Suddenly, you see a flash of something black run across the floor before it hops up on the counter beside Jin. He smiles warmly, petting the frisky feline that stares back with its round eyes. “Did you join Black Ravens for money or pleasure? Or perhaps… it turned into a bit of both?”

You don’t answer the question, seeing as Jin gives you a knowing look as he looks you up and down. He already knows. The question is deemed rhetorical. You shouldn’t be here if it is strictly for money… Now would you?

“Is that your cat?”

“Her name is Stella,” Jin affirms as he gives the feline soft scratches under her chin. “I’m sure she kept you company while you were asleep, she enjoys Taehyung’s room for whatever reason.”

You nod briefly, smiling to yourself. Stella had kept you accompanied more than just at your bedside. But she is friendly in the end.

“She did,” you admit. You admire the stark black shorthair who purrs into Jin’s palm. Thoroughly enjoying the pets and love he shows her.

Gracefully, Stella hops from counter to counter. Jumping towards you as she sniffs the air. She inspects the residue on your plate as she steps closer to you. Leisurely, Stella makes her own room on the island by laying down just in front of you. Her tale wags with sass as she stares back at Jin across the kitchen.

You lightly pet her from head to tail. Making sure not to offend her with any temping tummy rubs.

Jin grins from ear to ear as he reads the house cat language. He’s entertained with the attitude, it gives Stella characterization.

“She enjoys you,” he comments. “Lucky for you.”

“Maybe it’s because I work with animals…” you trail off.

“Do you now?”

“I work in a vet’s office. Started as a receptionist then wanted to become a veterinary technician. Now I want to be a veterinarian.”

“So a stable job and you still work at Black Ravens?”

“I needed the money. College funds here aren’t cheap… and I'm barely getting by with my position at the vet's office. Not with the cost of living and bills to pay.”

Jin nods agreeably.

“So he agreed to pay for you. In return for…?”

“Who? Taehyung? No. It’s not like that,” you furrow your brows.

“You came here with several bite marks on you. I’m surprised to see they’re all gone,” Jin comments on your appearance. “You must mean something for Taehyung to willingly shed blood.”

You’re all washed up and clothed. You can’t imagine the state of your body after collapsing in the Black Raven’s feeding room, but you’re sure it wasn’t a pretty sight. With Jin’s perception, you assume that maybe he was the other person in the room when you were barely awake in Taehyung’s bed.

“I don’t know what he wants with me,” you state. “I barely know him. He is just a regular at Black Ravens. Last night…last night was the first time he really opened up. And it wasn’t much. I knew he was an expensive client, but I didn’t know he was the owner.”

“The coven owns Black Ravens. Not just him. It’s in fact under my name,” Jin smiles. He scoffs as he finally takes your used dishware and places it in the sink. He runs the faucet water and adds a dab of soap before shutting the water off. “This kid… he’s something else. I’m sorry if Taehyung did anything unpleasant towards you.”

“I don’t think anything was necessarily unpleasant. I think he brought me back here because of the other vampire. He was more… more determined with his –”

“– There’s another?”

Jin’s hands rest on the edges of the countertop as he leans in towards you. His interest spikes and you can see it on his face.

You sigh to yourself as you continue to pet Stella, “Yeah. His name is Jimin? Taehyung interrupted the feeding.”

“Ah,” Jin laughs. His eyebrows raise to his hairline as the man chuckles lightly. “Oh, Jimin. Well I can understand why Taehyung brought you here now. Those two seem to always be at it.”

“I could tell Taehyung wasn’t happy with him,” you half-laugh with him.

“He’s never happy with him,” Jin exaggerates. Though with the glint in his eye, you feel like he's telling you he’s serious.

“Can I ask why?”

There’s a moment of silence that passes between you and Jin. The only noise you hear is the constant purring of Stella as she lounges her lengthy body across the counter space. You see the way Jin’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, giving you the hint to not press anymore on the topic.

“When you feel comfortable, I’d advise you to ask Taehyung himself. It’s not my business to spread,” Jin quickly looks down at the watch on his wrist to gauge the time. “He should return sometime in the next two hours, before daybreak.”

Jin walks himself around the island you sit at, his palm facing up toward you to take. He steps beside you with a duchenne smile; he nearly looks like a charmed prince giving you his blessing. Excitement is evident, and you fall for his swift persuasion.

“Now before then, let me accompany you around the mansion. I imagine you’ll be here more often than you think. I promise to steer you away from Jungkook.”

After a tour around the neo-gothic styled modern mansion from Jin, the two of you entertained each other until you settled yourself on one of the expensive couches in the family room. You listened and talked with Jin, shared some small enlightening topics but nothing too detailed. Throughout your walkthrough you managed to meet a few of the house servants, one of which delivered you some clothes to change into. You truly must be so tired, because during the midst of conversation you have dozed off; being just a mere human would explain it.

You remember rising from your slumber with a few taps to your nose. Your vision is blurred at first until it adjusts to the figure before you.

In front of you, you’re met by the toothy smile of Taehyung – bent by the knees to level his body with yours. His hazel eyes greet you with mirth as he raises his eyebrows.

“Good morning, kitten,” his deep baritone voice rings in your ears. His palm cradles the underside of your chin, thumb rubbing softly along the edge of your jaw. “Still tired?”

It warms your heart and flutters the wings of the butterflies that fly in your stomach. Seeing him instantly makes you want to leap across an ocean to hug him, but you catch yourself from doing anything.

Because you’re not sure why you’re feeling the strong desire to touch him. How his presence feels all too familiar and safe.

You blink at him, taking in the beautiful features across his ageless face. What excites you even more is how Taehyung seems completely delighted to see you once again.

“Just a little,” you admit.

It’s subtle in the way he licks his lips. He brushes his fingers past your ear to sway strands of your hair away from your neck. Taehyung senses your brief fit of worry but assures you that he is only just checking as a precaution.

“Let me get you back home,” he states coolly. Holding up your cellphone with his other hand, he dangles the near-dead device in front of your face. “I keep my promises.”

A sting of anger zaps through your body as you recall Taehyung holding your electronic hostage all this time – along with all your valuables you had carried with you to Black Ravens. With vigilance, you grip the phone from his lengthy fingers. You tap on the screen to see the battery life of the device, but you fear opening it up near him.

“Come,” he requests with a wiggle of his forefinger.

He stands up as he straightens out the wrinkles in the jacket you saw him leave in. Taehyung grabs hold of a set of keys left on a glass end table as his heels click on the floor below him. He practically drips pure gold with the weight of each stride. Lavished in the finest clothes, you appreciate the view of Taehyung walking away from you.

You make sure to apologize to Jin about falling asleep as you walk out the door after Taehyung. He doesn’t seem like he minds, even though he watches you leave with caution in his eyes.

The dark chilly early morning greets you as well as a gust of brisk wind. Small puddles cover the walkway from a fresh drizzle of rain. The sun hasn’t even peaked itself through the sky yet but it leaves a pretty view; a deep blue melting into the beginnings of a soft peach orange. A perfect crescent moon floats right above the layout of trees surrounding the thicket of woods with roaming dark clouds. A guarantee of scattered storms for the oncoming day.

You appreciate the outside of the house as you step behind Taehyung’s long strides. Abstract designs correspond and compliment another in colors of black, browns, and beiges. The windows show clean glass but continue to be boarded up for the forthcoming sunlight. Hidden in nothing but dense forest, you’re led to ponder how deep you are from the city you live in.

Taehyung ushers you over to the passenger side of a matte black Mercedes AMG GT coupe. Each window is tinted, shutting out any light. His eyes watch you as you place your foot through the door, but his hand grabs your arm before you can descend down into the seat.

“Hey,” his voice is low. Taehyung draws your attention to him, his eyes leer down through his long lashes. “Are you feeling better?”

You swallow while nodding your head. The wind wisps the loose waves of Taehyung’s black hair in front of his forehead. It exposes his eyes more, makes you fall in love with how asymmetric they are to another. One monolid and the other a double eyelid; giving his overall appearance a striking aura.

“I do,” you softly smile.

Taehyung’s eyes trail down to the curve of your lips. They linger there while silence skirts around the two of you; the only noises are of early birds chirping and the breeze running through the leaves overhead.

You can feel the intensity radiating from him. Yet, Taehyung does nothing about it. He releases his grip on your arm to let you into the car, pushing the door shut after you settle in.

Taehyung enters through the driver’s side, fitting comfortably in as his fingers begin toying with the screen on the dashboard and glowing widgets on the center console. The interior is smooth, a cool black color surrounds you entirely. He starts the engine up with a press of a button.

“What’s your address?”

He looks over to you as one arm reaches towards the steering wheel while the other hovers towards the screen of the dashboard. Taehyung tilts his head towards you, a creeping smile plays at the corners of his lips. One eyebrow quirks your way and you instantly feel captivated by him.

Taehyung’s vehicle takes you through aimless roads among more aimless roads until you find yourself nearing a familiar area. The highway takes you closer towards exit signs that welcome you. Numbers flash overhead, warning you as you approach your turnoff as you admire the view of the beautiful sky. Light rain trickles on the windshield the deeper Taehyung drives you into your residential city. It’s only one exit off from the notorious Black Ravens; roughly a 25 minute drive from place to place without traffic in the way.

The directions call out to Taehyung as the two of you sit in comfortable silence. Your head leans on the headrest as you stare out the window. Taehyung’s palm comfortably resting on your bare thigh; hardly covered by the overlength tee shirt you were dressed in.

“Can I ask how you were able to talk to my friend?” You look down at your phone clutched in your palm. You hesitate to open the device, having half a mind to think Taehyung already went through the contents. “Did he call?”

Taehyung’s features never change in the slightest while humming to a tune. Even his thumb taps lightly over the steering wheel while the vehicle cruises down the lengthy road.

“Your phone recognized your face when you were asleep which then unlocked the screen,” he says calmly. “He did not call. I only responded through text about your absence.”

You sigh while adjusting yourself in your seat. Hands fidgeting with the cellular device, but you choose not to look. Afraid to read the disappointment – if any – that may be messaged in the thread you share with your friend.

Even when you contemplate with yourself, Taehyung is attentive to you. Analyzing and watching the way your body language speaks.

“What’s got you so worried? Is the guy someone you’re involved with?”

You scrunch your eyebrows together at the thought. Immediately, you follow with a curt response – diminishing any existence of that being an idea for you.

“Not at all. He’s my best friend.”

Taehyung remains quiet, but you thank him for not entertaining the idea further. You also express your gratitude for letting your friend know you aren’t around.

Shortly, you arrive at your destination as rain begins to pour. Taehyung parks on the curb of the street in front of your apartment; his car sticking out like a sore thumb among the rest of the inexpensive cars around. It looks and feels completely out of place. But at least he has a car, unlike you who’s become accustomed to your local bus stops.

Before you can even reach your handle, Taehyung turns off the ignition and is out of the driver’s side. Stepping around the front of the car to approach your door. The weather doesn’t phase him one bit.

“Mademoiselle,” he smirks as he assists you exiting his car. He’s even kind enough to shut the door behind you and gather a bag of your belongings from the trunk of his vehicle.

You can’t help but smile to yourself from the pampering. Little do you know, this is only the beginnings of his hospitality and generosity.

Fishing out your set of keys out of a side pocket of your canvas bag, you fumble between the metals before finding the appropriate one to slide through the lock of your door. Taehyung stands ideally behind you, but his presence is very much evident. The tension back at the mansion carried all the way here, to the entrance of your home.

He stands closer in your proximity, you feel as if he’s practically breathing down your neck. But in reality, upon turning to look at him after twisting your door handle, he’s further away than you expect. Taehyung’s eyes scan the darkness of your house through the crack of your door.

“I, um…” you begin. You turn more to face Taehyung, tightening your hold on your bag.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” you whisper.

Taehyung’s eyes flick over to you, those hazel irises drip so wickedly. They’re unmatched and unfair; you have never seen anything quite like them before. There’s something magical about them.

“I told you I’ll take care of you, kitten,” he half-laughs.

His deep voice shakes your core, makes you feel smaller in the spot you stand. Taehyung’s fingers grip your jaw before you can turn away from his gaze.

“No need to thank me,” his eyes stare down to your lips as you aimlessly blink at him. “What do you want next?”

Your breath hitches, “What do you mean?”

Taehyung’s tongue comes to swipe over his lips before biting back a smile. He stops himself from rolling his eyes, but instead he takes his thumb and lightly pulls down your bottom lip.

“You look at me with these desperate eyes sometimes, and whenever you do – I can’t stop myself from thinking about them. So, what do you want me to do next? Are we just going to stand here under the cold rain or are you going to invite me inside?”

He sighs when he senses the way your heart rate paces even faster. Taehyung steps closer to you, eyes narrowing through his pretty long eyelashes. You would give anything and everything for him to kiss you right then and there. Plant his delicious soft lips straight onto yours and eat you up. You’re unsure what you are to Taehyung, and it feels weird seeing him in a different setting other than Black Ravens… but it doesn’t take him much persuasion to get what he wants.

Because simply… it is the same thing you want as well. Whether you like to admit it or not.

You nod your head softly while your hand pushes your door open wider. He allows you the opportunity to walk into your apartment, giving you three steps into the hall before he clears his throat. Turning on your foot, you notice he’s still at the door frame – unable to step through.

“You need to invite me,” he raises his eyebrows.

You scrunch yours in return, unable to process why you need to say it. You thought your body language already let him know he’s accepted to come inside.

“Why?”

“It’s a weird thing with vampires. We need to be invited in when a house is privately owned by a human. And seeing as you are a tenant, you technically are signed onto a portion of this house. Making you a partial owner.”

Taehyung leans against the doorframe with his hands as he speaks with you. The gloomy darkness of the weather trickles around him, giving his aura a more sinful look. His soft curls in his hair begin to lose their volume as rain soaks up portions of his locks. But you do not miss the flash of red that beats in his eyes under the blanket of his bangs.

You should be scared; that’s what all the world tells you when it comes to vampires. A selfish, devious, and vicious creature of the night. They take what they want, live how they wish. If they really wanted to, you’re positive they could corrupt the entire planet with their virus.

But when you stare back at Taehyung with a pounding beat to your heart, your fear is nothing but full of excitement. The dread of knowing and not knowing what comes next with him electrifies you. How somehow, in some way, this nightly beast has already tainted you.

Staring back, you swallow thickly before your mouth opens up with an open invitation.

“Please come inside.”

Within a blink of an eye, Taehyung moves himself in front of you, dropping your bag of belongings with a thud. His arms envelop your body as one of his hands snake along the back of your neck. The tips of his fingers graze over your scalp softly, drawing goosebumps in their wake. Taehyung smiles to himself as he presses your body against his, ripping the breath right from your lungs with a salivary kiss.

He comes with such force that it nearly knocks you off of your feet, but Taehyung is there to hold you. His wicked tongue presses through the seam of your lips and past your teeth, tasting you as much as he can as his body backs you up deeper into your apartment. It’s small, comfortable and affordable for one living person to stay in. So it doesn’t take very long for Taehyung to figure out the placement of your bedroom the second his eyes scan over the living room that sits only a two-seat couch and entertainment center with a television propped on it. One lone entryway shows signs of counter space and a fridge whereas the single door adjacent to there remains cracked open.

Taehyung’s hands touch and grope along your body, squeezing at the necessary areas like your curves and thighs. You match the pace of his tongue with your own, devouring the taste of him as your feet stumble the more he pushes you through your living space.

“Ignore my apartment,” you meekly speak between breaths.

It’s slightly a mess and there is no way in hell you are expecting company this early in the morning.

“I’m not focusing on your apartment,” he bites – literally – as his teeth nip at your bottom lip.

Taehyung’s fingers toy with the hem of the tee shirt, raising it higher up to expose your bottom half. He places his palm along the side of your hip, nails scratching over your skin as he continues to escort you into your room.

“Tae –”

“– Mmf,” he mumbles as his lips press against the corner of your mouth.

Even in the darkness of your room, Taehyung expertly maneuvers the two of you around as if he’s been here before. Knowing the exact places to step and weave your bodies around until he’s able to support you onto your bed.

“Tae, wait!” You chirp the moment your thighs hit your mattress.

You sit down while Taehyung’s face follows, placing fluttering kisses along your jawline and pressing into the side of your neck. It sparks heat to your body, a sensitive spot you naturally go weak at. He shrugs off his jacket, tossing the expensive material to the side as if it isn’t worth anything to him.

“Let me have you,” he persuades with each tangible kiss of his lips. “I’m not making you nervous, am I?”

Your heart flutters as your mind fogs with ideas of pleasure and pain. Even in the short amount of time, you feel drunk on the idea of Taehyung bedding you once again. The idea of him being in your bed and not some rented out room feels more intimate.

More special.

“I just,” you stutter as you feel Taehyung’s teeth grind over your sensitive skin. His breath heats you up as it fans out of his mouth. “Usually, I’m more prepared for something like this.”

“Your body says otherwise,” he mocks lightly.

“No, not like that. I mean, this morning I was just so tired. I wasn’t… I didn’t pay attention,” you mumble to yourself more than to Taehyung. Creeping anxiety builds in your chest the more you ponder about your appearance.

“Kitten, are you scared about this?” Taehyung smirks against your neck when his hand forces your legs open enough to cup your pussy. His palm pressing firmly against it, the moistened arousal leaks gleefully onto him as he slowly rubs his entire hand up and down.

It’s abrasive, yet you love it. Your mouth drops open with a gasp, hands baring you upright as they shoot out to stop your body from falling backwards onto your bed. You shiver with the contact, breath hitched in your throat as warmth takes over your entire body.

“This will never bother me, kitten. Your sweet pussy will always be delicious regardless of how maintained you are here. But I am flattered with the thought of you wanting to please me,” he says truthfully.

Taehyung gathers your hands in his, linking them across another as his fingers grip your wrists tightly. He pulls out a small scarf from the pocket of his pants, placing the blue silk fabric over your skin.

“Hold still,” he speaks calmly.

He binds your wrists together, snuggly. It’s comfortable, but tight enough to keep you locked in. Unable to break free from the constraints.

Taehyung hoists your body up with him, ushering you completely to lay normally on your mattress. He eyes the small bars of your headboard with a grin plastered on his face.

He guides your hands above your head, “Hold it,” he commands.

Your hands grip a single metal bar, linking your fingers to keep hold of yourself. It feels like a usual practice between you and Taehyung. There isn’t a time you don’t remember when Taehyung hasn’t tied your limbs up before indulging himself on your body. Limiting your access to him even though he’s inches away from you. Frankly, you never thought too much into it – assuming he has a strong kink for bondage. You have no complaints because you’re guilty of experiencing some of your own while entwining your body with his.

You breathe deeply, chest rising and falling as you stare over Taehyung who kneels near the end of your bed. He edges closer to you, crawling his way up the length of your body as he drinks you in. Dim lighting and musical rain drops cascade on the windows as the air in your room thickens.

“I’m going to try something new,” he begins as his fingers skim up the side of your body. “I need you to trust me,” Taehyung coaxes with his baritone tune.

The moment you see Taehyung shift towards your bedside table, you begin to panic.

“Go easy on me,” you beg.

Taehyung quirks an eyebrow toward you, amusement evident in his features. He continues to grab hold of a small candle that sits comfortably on your table, dust collected on the top of it showing that you’ve hardly used the poor thing.

“Hm,” he fake ponders to himself. “Why? Was the last time too much for you?”

Taehyung lights the candle with a match set laying beside it, giving a warm comfortable glow to a small portion of your room. He laughs to himself, but assures you with a kind gesture of cuffing your cheek that he’ll be kinder to you.

“I’m only teasing,” he comments. Taehyung lowers himself level with you; his body slots itself between your thighs as he holds himself over your chest. Slowly, he lowers his face to meet yours; his eyes grow to a warm red. “I know what your body can handle. If I see you in any way uncomfortable, I’ll stop myself. I won’t push you like I did the other night.”

“I’m just sore,” you bite back a smile. “Even after the shower and after having some of your… When you gave me a bit of your blood.”

Taehyung hums in acknowledgement. “It was only a very small bit, if I had given you more then you’d probably be suited for a different type of night,” he winks, “But don’t worry, kitten, I’ll take good care of you if you let me have you.”

You nod your head as you swallow heavily. Instinctively, you grip the bar in your grasp tighter. Slowly, Taehyung connects his lips to yours once again. This time it’s softer, tentative. He feels like a cloud of smoke infiltrating your nostrils. Inflaming your lungs and airways all throughout your body.

As if you breathe him in as another source of life. Where oxygen cannot even compete.

“Can I hear you say it?”

You chase his mouth as he pulls away to look down at you. Your eyes are drawn to the sharp teeth that stand out in his mouth, how they protrude eagerly. Ready to draw blood.

“You can have me… On one condition,” you speak up.

“Oh?” Taehyung smiles. His palm drags from your thigh up to your lower stomach, moving your shirt up along your body. “You’re not really in a position to negotiate with me,” he smirks.

“You said we’d talk about what you meant by ‘adjusting’.”

“And you want to talk about that now?”

“Well,” you blink up at him, “We haven’t had the chance to yet.”

Taehyung sighs as his hand rests on your stomach, circling small traces into your skin with his fingertips. His eyes grow redder, more hungrier, the longer you hold him back.

“Kitten, I’m not sure you understand the severity of this situation. I don’t expect you to know. I can’t afford to lose you now that I finally have you,” he says while analyzing your face. “But for clarity, I need you to know that everything you see right now – your bed, this room, your apartment… You don’t need anymore if you just let me take care of you.”

Taehyung’s hand eventually slides up to cuff one of your breasts, drawing your clouded mind out from the worries that dwell in the deepest corners of your brain. He squeezes it firmly, earning a soft hum from you.

To seduce you further into the realms of sin, he raises the material of your shirt completely above your chest so he can begin placing soft and tender kisses to your cleavage. His mouth engulfs your flesh wherever it lands, sucking in pieces of your skin as his tongue slides around.

He latches himself on one of your nipples, biting the bud with his front teeth. Taehyung repeats his actions to your other boob, making sure to give the same loving treatment.

“You’re mine,” he states smoothly. “I’ll take care of everything for you. Treat you just how you need to be treated,” – he kisses your sternum – “I want you to be with me. But I won’t expect this to happen so soon,” – he kisses lower, down towards your stomach – “I’ll take my time with you.”

“Tae,” you breathe in with a gasp. His lips travel even more lower, tickling your stomach with promises of him moving down toward the apex of your thighs.

He looks up at the call of his name, his stunning red eyes shining in the low glow of the candle’s light. How do they do that? You’re not sure. But they reflect like a beautiful moonlight, tainted in a devious red. Taehyung’s tongue reaches out of his mouth to lick your stomach, swiping a long line of saliva across your skin.

Taehyung does nothing but entices you. Tempts you to crack under his ministrations like a good girl he knows you are. You’ve done it so many times already, it’s no surprise when you finally cave in.

Before Taehyung can descend down between your thighs, he leans back up to give you one last parting kiss.

His voice shakes your core when he speaks next. His control over you stimulates such a thrill in your entire being that you’re wiggling with anticipation while waiting for him to ravage you.

“I want you to forget your surroundings and only think of me,” his hands continue to pull the fabric of your shirt higher.

Taehyung continues to slide the length up your arms, nearly flipping the material inside-out – but it’s enough to cover your face entirely. Blocking your sight from seeing anything as it shields you. Your chest rises and falls with early signs of labored breath as the material creates a cone around your (thankfully your arms help keep it loose and not tight) around your head.

“Kitten, I want you to only focus on me. My touch, my voice, my smell,” he lists one right after another with the perfect level of desire.

“– Feel me.”

“Okay,” you breathe out, feeling the heat of your breath envelop your narrow space.

Keeping your eyes open or shut has no difference when you can’t see anything around you. You’re forced to use your other senses as if you’re in survival mode. Every other one heightens their abilities to accommodate the restricted one.

You feel Taehyung’s head move as his body shifts to lay flatter against you. His hands touch you tenderly, but possessively. Making sure that every inch of your undamaged skin gets the attention it deserves.

The chill of his cool fingers almost tickle you with how soft they are when they map their way around your body. Drawing lines and circles as if he’s sketching out his game plan. Rising goosebumps to your skin and hardening your nipples once he slithers his way towards your belly button.

Taehyung smiles to himself, watching the way your body reacts to his minuscule touches. His body slots nicely between your legs, spreading them and leaving your core open for his hand to slide down between you two. He teases the idea of touching you between your lips, using his fingertips to run around your lower region. But he doesn’t dive deeper for you, even when you voluntarily open your legs wider to give him the hint.

“You’re being so good right now,” he comments with a low chuckle. It makes you mewl on the inside, chest tightening at the small praise. Taehyung’s two fingers dip low enough to spread open your lower lips, exposing your pussy to his view. It’s leaking slightly with a shiny sheen of arousal.

“You smell so good right now too.”

Your breath hitches when you feel Taehyung grip your clit between his two fingers. It’s soft, but jolts your body nonetheless. Your hips jerk towards him, body rising as you twitch in your place.

“Shit,” you curse between your teeth.

“Easy,” he warns as he releases your clit, “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, kitten.”

Taehyung leans down as he laughs, lips kissing across the skin of your torso. Your arms twitch, something in you wanting to immediately wrap your arms around him but you know better not to. So you tighten your grip on your headboard’s bar, your nails threatening your skin to forewarn you to stay sane.

To stay alert.

Suddenly, you feel a hot sensation touch your chest. It stings and lingers there in a sparking burn. You twist your body, but Taehyung pins you down.

Another hot feeling hits your skin again, this time between your breasts, and you groan at the impact. You gasp as it trickles down towards your navel, cursing Taehyung’s name as you squirm.

“What is that?” You question through parted lips. Your breath creates a thick air under your shirt, making it harder to breathe comfortably. “Tae?”

“Just pouring some candle wax,” he announces as he drips some more across your left nipple.

You cough at the prickling pain, body begging to be soothed by a cool touch. When the candle wax hardens after it chills, it sticks to your skin as if it belongs there.

Taehyung’s thumb runs across your skin to pluck the dried wax off of you, only to repeat dripping some more in the same areas.

“How does it feel, kitten?” He questions curiously. Taehyung places the candle back down on the table beside the bed, “Do you like it better than my mouth?”

“It’s nice,” you admit as you breathe heavier. Your body feels like it’s under the summer’s sun at its highest point in the sky, melting in the heat of its raging light.

“It’s different,” you add.

Taehyung’s lips skim over your skin, outline the edges of your body as he creeps closer to your neck. His free hand runs over the curves of your side while the other makes its way back down to the junction of your thighs.

You swallow thickly when you feel Taehyung’s head press against your shoulder and neck, inserting himself so he can breathe against the material that separates the two of you.

“And my mouth?” He repeats with a hint of annoyance.

His fingers slide further down, finding the dip of your pussy to swivel his fingertips across the entrance into your vagina. He teases and torments you with the possibility of plunging them straight into your core, but he’s waiting for your response.

“I love your mouth,” you sigh.

Your pussy clenches around nothing yet, just greedy to gain pleasure. Taehyung hums his acknowledgement, smirking into your skin as he applies further pressure with his fingers.

He groans softly while he lays his head against your chest, listening to your rapid beating heart. You’re worked up, being winded tight like a gear cranking to its last knot.

“You better,” he purrs as he finally dips his two fingers into your pussy, “Because you’re making me quite thirsty.”

A moan escapes your mouth when you feel his digits vanish inside of you, touching you against your wet velvet walls. They glide effortlessly, sinking straight to the knuckles before pressing up.

“Fuck,” you slur like an person intoxicated. You haven’t had a lick of alcohol yet you feel the dizzy spins as if you had. It’s just your body trying to comprehend reality.

Taehyung turns his head, shoving his face against your chest to find one of your tits. He mouths the mound, flicking his tongue around your nipple while simultaneously thrusting his digits into you. He pumps slowly, gathering your dripping juice around the base of his fingers while wetting your breast to tease your body.

You moan with pleasure. Trying to battle your inner needs of wanting to move. Needing to follow his guide whichever way he desires to have you. Taehyung sucks in your nipple, twisting it lightly with his teeth and taunting the idea of his fangs piercing you. You keel over, even when pinned down, at the contact. Your shirt becomes like a hot-box of heat; your face tingles with nerves and light traces of sweat. You feel Taehyung as much as he truly wants you to. Exactly how he expects you to.

His palm slides hard into your cunt, knocking your body with the force and waking up your neglected clit. You choke out a moan of pleasure and huff a laugh at yourself.

“Can I taste you?” He smiles against your skin. You know what he’s requesting, and you gladly want to give it to him. “Right here?” He emphasizes with a kiss on the thicker side of your breast.

He also persuades you with the slow rubbing of his fingers pressing into your vaginal canal. It’s enticing, beckoning you to surrender to him.

“Please,” you chuckle. You toss your head to the side, hoping to find an airway that gives you fresher air. “Please bite me.”

Upon request, he takes no chances in wasting time. His teeth sink delicately into your flesh, poking open two puncture wounds to access your warm blood. He groans when the flavor touches his tongue, nearly animalistic at first. Though Taehyung controls that beastly side of him, never losing his focus on getting what he wants all the while he pleasures you to the extreme.

You’d be lying if you said his noises of indulging in your blood scares you. In some way, it fuels your mind that you’re desirable and tasty. At least, it confirms that he’s relying on you at this very moment. That you are needed and wanted.

And knowing this, you smile with the pain. Smirking as creases in your forehead form with anguish from the throbbing wound surrounded by Taehyung’s mouth. He pushes his fingers further in you, using his palm to roll flat against your clit as he sucks in your bleeding blood.

He can hear the way your breath begins to pick up and he likes it. Taehyung continues to bite into another section of your tit without notice, dragging out more blood from you.

“Delicious,” he comments while his tongue laps up a small trail of blood that escapes.

The obvious sucking of your skin slowly bruises from his lavishing lips. But he pulls away momentarily to admire the small grotesque scene.

Your hips roll into the pace of his fingers, cunt clutching with a vise grip. You can feel a coil deep inside of you twisting tighter the more he fingers you. The bed below you shifts as you feel Taehyung move his body to lay between your legs. His lips kiss your hips before descending closer to your pussy as he keeps his fingers lodged in you.

“Is this what you want too?” His voice comes out gravelly as he draws attention to your engorged clit. Blowing softly against it.

You pinch your legs together as much as you can given the fact Taehyung is placed between them. A small whine, very low, comes out of your nose. How your pussy practically sucks his fingers in further, he doesn’t need to hear the words of affirmation to know how badly your body wants him.

“Yes,” you breathe out, “I want it!”

“You want my mouth here?” He asks, annoying you and leading you on at the same time with his teasing.

Taehyung continues to move his fingers at an agonizingly slow pace, but the tiny contact of the tip of his tongue touching your clit for a second – and only one second – has you rolling up into him with fever.

“Yes!” You peep up louder, voice gruff as you practically pant under the fabric of your shirt.

You thrash your head around, trying your damn hardest to obey his silent no touching rule. You huff when you begin to feel his lips on your inner thigh, away from the place you really want him.

“Tae, please put your mouth on me,” you whisper as you jerk your hips towards him.

He giggles to himself when his mouth hovers over the soft flesh of your thigh, using his hand to prop your leg up. You feel the cool lick of his tongue as he tastes your skin again, running his lips over the area as he prepares for his meal.

“Oh, I will,” he says with a smile.

With that, he takes a bite into your thigh. It’s not as rough as the last time, but still, it stings the same. The more you struggle, releasing a sharp yelp from your mouth, the worse the pain becomes. It not only shocks you, but you find yourself immediately shooting your tied hands down towards the area of the prickling burn. Your shirt moves with you, releasing your face into the fresh air of your room and granting you the chance to breathe freely. Your body thrusts up; a call to Taehyung has your eyes watering for a split second until you see the sharp daggers of his blunt red eyes looking up from where he’s latched onto you.

Your hands are centimeters away from his head before you stop yourself from nearly touching him. He startles you with a single look, daring you to defy his command.

Slowly, he releases his mouth from your thigh and his eyes never leave yours. He doesn’t even bother to blink when he withdraws his fingers from you as well. Though you stay there, sitting up in your spot on the bed as Taehyung takes his leisure time to level his head with yours. You feel small pieces of your hair sticking to the sides of your face and back of your neck, but from the way the vampire glares at you – you are sure the rest of the hair on your body sticks straight up.

Blood dribbles down the corner of his parted mouth as Taehyung leans closer to you. If it were any other time you would be admiring the way his luscious black locks have been pushed back from his forehead, exposing his full beauty even in the dimly lit room. But for now you feel like a prey being stalked by its apex predator – cornered with nowhere left to run.

Frozen in place, you muster the courage to blurt out a cracked, “I-I’m sorry!”

Taehyung cups your jaw abruptly, forcing your mouth open with how he places his fingers. The two digits he put inside of your pussy now presses past your teeth and down on your tongue. Forcing you to taste your own flavor.

“I know you are, kitten,” he expresses with a cracked smile. “You just want so much right now, don’t you? But,” Taehyung uses his hold on your head to lean you back down to the pillows, “You’re not allowed to.”

You nod your head as you understand his words. He’s right after all. You practically want everything when it comes to him, don’t you? With the record list between the two of you, it's always Taehyung who has ultimate control.

“Now,” – he grabs your bounded hands once again and lifts them above your head – “I will litter your skin with my bite if you even think about breaking my rule. I will not clean you up. I will not heal you like I did earlier. You’ll be left looking like a mutilated mess. Do you understand me?”

Fucking Hell… You do! You completely and entirely understand him. And you most certainly believe every word spoken.

Why is it that he can say such things and place such control over you and get away with it all? While not one other person in your life can make you break like this… Or make you feel so down and dirty?

“Yes,” you manage to speak with two fingers pressing onto your tongue, “I won’t do it.”

“That’s my good girl,” he coos, removing his fingers from your mouth. “You know when you behave, I give you more.”

“And I like that…” you confess, heat rising to your cheeks.

Taehyung lifts your leg by the underside of your knee to hook around his shoulder. He grins from ear to ear with how you own up to enjoying his treatments. His eyes peer down to the leaking blood from his bite mark, watching how it smears against anything it touches.

“You’ve sedated me for now, my little kitten, but I’ll be coming back for more. That is a promise,” he whispers in his low baritone voice.

He freely removes the button from his pants before sliding his bottoms down enough to release himself. His cock hangs from his body, proud and erect. The length alone can tell anyone that it’s a heavy appendage. His free hand wraps around the base to begin stroking himself as he looks over your naked body. You’re so far beyond distracted that you don’t notice how he stares at you watching him touch himself. Lost in the appreciation of how he touches himself with you in his mind.

You mentally prepare yourself for having his cock impale you. Clenching erratically the more you ponder the way his dick will stretch your pussy open.

“Do you want this?” He quips up the question with a smug smile.

The more he pumps himself, squeezing tightly at the head of his dick, the more his breath begins to match yours. He leans himself closer, bending your leg with his advance toward you. His cock inches away from your cunt makes you wring your hands together.

“Fuck, yes! Yes I do,” you express with passion.

Taehyung slaps the underside of his cock against your spread pussy, tapping it in a taunting manner. He even pushes it roughly against you, mushing his hardened dick on top of your clit and rubbing himself against you.

Your body is so desperate that you’re arching your back and hips to accommodate the angles you need to try and get Taehyung to slip right into your entrance. A poor attempt at getting what you want, even though you’ve clearly stated the obvious.

“Taehyung, please!” you nearly yell at him.

Who cares about your neighbors? Who cares what time it is right now? All you care about is having Taehyung fulfill your carnal desires by plugging you up with his lengthy cock.

A harsh slap hits your asscheek. You whine at the contact while Taehyung groans.

“So eager,” he comments as he angles his cockhead against your entrance. “What happened to being my good girl?” he snorts. “I’ll leave you high and dry. I can make sure you won't finish yourself off either. Is that what you want?”

“No!” you drone. Tossing your head to the side, you purposely expose more of your neck toward him. “I’m just so ready to go – to cum. You can do anything, just please let me cum.”

Taehyung leans down enough to meet your face, his lips brushing against your cheek as he stretches your leg. You can feel the tension of his cock resting right at your hole, hardly enough to break open your wall and slide itself inside. But he gives it to you, just how you want it.

With one tiny push of his hips, Taehyung enters you. Stretching your elastic walls open and diving into your wetness.

“So generous,” he judges. His mouth kisses down your jawline and meets the column of your neck. Blood rushes through your vein that protrudes out enough for him to kiss. “Offering me your neck so freely?” Your heart skips a beat thinking he’ll take the bait and sink his fangs into you, but Taehyung does no such thing. Instead, he softly kisses you right above your pulsepoint. Sucking your skin in a delicate caress as his cock plunges to the hilt.

He fills you up so nicely, so fully. Sometimes it even feels like it’s too much – although right now it feels just right. He feels incredibly right.

You gasp out loud, even stutter a moan as you adjust to his cock. Your nails dig into your palms with the tension built up inside of you. With one single thrust, Taehyung already has your body feeling like it’s levitating. Primed to lift itself all the way to rapturous pleasure.

“Fuck –” you curse with a cloudy brain, “– you feel so good.”

“Mmm,” Taehyung hums as he drags his cock out of you. He waits a moment before sliding himself back in – in one easy stride for his hips to slap into you.

You tighten each and every time he does. Pacing himself to his own beat as his mouth caresses the side of your neck. You’re forced to tense your body with anticipation. Strained like how your vocal cords were the other night when he showed you no mercy.

There’s a particular thrust that has your body jerking toward Taehyung to meet his cock. Whether it be the angle he adjusted himself with or your body finally calling the shots on its own behalf, you’re unsure.

But you do feel the knot building deep inside your abdomen winding itself tighter and tighter. Hardening the longer and harder Taehyung pushes himself up in you, seconds from combusting.

“Do you feel me?” Taehyung quizzes.

His question feels completely stupid… of course you can feel him. How could you possibly not at a time like this?

Taehyung’s hand snakes up to touch your tit, squeezing the round of it and swiping away the trickling bloodspill.

“Yeah, I do…” you groan.

“Good.”

Taehyung leans himself up to get a better look at your body once again. His knees hold his body upright as your leg dangles over his shoulder while the other rests open toward the other side of his body. He grips one hand around your thigh as the other hovers over your lower abdomen. He slants his palm so that his thumb can reach your clit while the rest of his hand can push down against you.

He’s slow and sensual about it while applying pressure to make it feel tighter for you. You dare to peek over at how he looks hovering above you. The candle’s flame does nothing but illuminate his beautiful features in a sexy light. His mouth hangs open as he breathes out short breaths while his hips swing into you naturally.

You can feel yourself losing your vision the closer you’re pushed to the edge of your release. With all the help Taehyung gives you, there are no complications to reaching that divine orgasm.

“I’m gonna – I’m gonna!” you warn with every last bit of rationality inside of you.

Your nails scratch hard into your clenching fists as you’re hit with a wave of tingly delight. Thumping sensations blast through your nerves while heat floods your entire body. You tighten your body as it tries to figure out how to correspond to the sensations, wriggling in your spot as Taehyung holds you firm.

Taehyung’s name leaves your lips in a moan as your body shakes. You sweat and pant while he fucks you through your orgasm, smiling down at your writhing body while he continues to impale you with his cock.

“It’s so lovely to see you enjoying yourself,” he praises. But even he is holding himself back on indulging himself further and from tearing another orgasm out of you. He'll do one right after another if your body will allow it, but he knows you're in no shape for that. Taehyung can feel how you feel.

He slows his strokes as he witnesses streaks of cum dress his thick shaft. Taehyung pulls out only halfway for his palm to wrap around his base to stroke himself.

“W-Why’d you stop?” You turn to look at him with concern.

“You’re tight against me,” he comments as he slightly nudges his cock into you again. “If I pry you open again, it’ll hurt.”

“I can handle it!” You retort. “It’s ok, we’ve done it before!”

Taehyung huffs as his hand continues to jerk the rest of his cock. He stares into your eyes when he recites the word ‘no’ to you. You can feel how his fist smacks lightly into your cunt as he flicks his wrist along his shaft.

“Next time,” he declares in a low tone. You can sense that he’s drawing near to his own climax from the pace of his tugs. “But for right now just lay here and look pretty for me.”

It doesn’t take much longer for Taehyung’s breath to catch up to speed. For his orgasm to roll into him and his semen to spill inside and over your cunt as he pulls out. His short-winded noises breeze into the air around you as he presses his cockhead against his cum, rubbing it messily around the folds of your pussy.

Your pet name drips softly out of his parted lips with a deep groan. Taehyung stares down at the junction of your thighs, admiring the lewd painting he’s created with the mess of you two.

A hand cradles your face while the other begins to untie the scarf around your wrists. He softly strokes your cheek with his thumb, basking in the warmth of your body.

“Do you have anything you can eat in your kitchen? Any natural juices? I’ll grab some while I look around for something to clean you up with.”

The sun begins to beam just a tad through the blinds in your room. The cloudy sky keeps most of the rays at bay, but it serves as a reminder to Taehyung that he must find coverage away from the scorching light when it decides to shine.

“I don’t have much, I usually purchase things from the local convenience store down the road.”

You watch as Taehyung redresses himself as he shuffles around your room. He analyzes his surroundings, peeks at some of your looming decorations and unkept closet and dresser. While he makes himself presentable once again, all you can manage is swiftly pulling the oversized shirt back down your body and ignoring the slippery mess that’s mushed between your thighs.

“Stay,” he orders. His finger points to you.

“Tae, I’m fine. I can walk,” you reassure as you lean up, letting your legs hang off the edge of the bed.

Globs of cum spread more between your thighs the more you move around. But your independence is a hard trait to shake down when you’re used to doing most things on your own.

The second you push up and off the mattress, a swift hand lands on your shoulder to hold you down. Firmly, Taehyung holds you in your sitting position, eyes which turn back to their normal state drills his demand into yours.

“Just… stay. I’ll be back in two seconds.”

Frustration fuels you momentarily. Within a flash, you witness how Taehyung’s body nearly vanishes with unimaginable speed. Your bedroom door swings with the wind once he returns.

A small cup filled with cool water, topped with two ice cubes, is presented before you. One small towel from your bathroom sink is clutched in his other hand. With a pointed look, you take the generous liquid from him as he maneuvers his body closer to you.

“Sip on that for now,” he requests. “And spread your legs so I can clean you up.”

Taehyung is already pushing your thighs apart before you can reject him. Cloth delicately running over your skin and whipping up what remains he’s left on you. The sensitivity that runs through your lower region makes you wince slightly from the pressure of his hand. You tip the glass to your lips, taking a few sips of icy water to cool you down.

It’s weird. Having someone do nearly everything for you. It almost makes you feel useless or unskilled. But that’s the stubborn mindset you’ve gained within your years of growth; adjusting to your world and what experiences you had to endure. The individuality of yourself is what makes you feel important; you never really enjoyed depending on others as guilt washed over you. So you learned to take care of yourself – for the most part. Figuring out life how most try to do, and keep trying to do.

But as you stare at the way Taehyung, a man you are slowly getting to know – someone who is completely willing to sweep you off your feet and treat you like you’re untouchable to everyone but him, takes care of you… You begin to feel the slightest of ease when you allow him to take control. Not allowing you to lift a single finger.

“All clean,” Taehyung comments with his soothing voice. He inspects the wound on your thigh, tracing the outline of his bite with his forefinger. “I hope you don’t mind me leaving these here. It’ll be a nice reminder for you.”

You feel heat prick at your cheeks from his statement. A flush of embarrassment creeping out from within.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” you murmur under your breath.

He cracks a smile at that, surely pleased with himself. Taehyung gently tosses the used towel towards a pile of laundry you’ve yet to wash while returning his attention back toward you.

“I want to give you something,” he begins. His hand slips through a pocket in his jacket to pull out his wallet. He flips through the folds until his fingers land on a plastic card, yanking it out and handing it over to you. “Take this and treat yourself while I’m gone. Whatever you want or need.”

You stare at the credit card with a dumbfounded look to your face. With a quick shake of your head, you automatically decline the offer.

“I don’t need that,” you state.

As your hand pushes him away, somehow, Taehyung fiddles his fingers with yours. Managing to slip the card from his grasp and into yours. He squeezes your palm around the thin card, not taking rejection for an answer.

“Keep it, you need to get yourself some proper groceries. Unless you want me to send over a servant to do it for you. Your choice.”

“... This doesn’t feel much like a choice.”

Taehyung huffs a laugh, patting your head with amusement. His smile could light up the night sky when he’s like this; getting his way that is.

“Tae, I really can’t take this –”

“– Kitten, I want you to have this,” he reasons. His hand slides down the side of your face and cups your jaw. “I won’t be around for the next few days. But consider this as a part of your ‘adjusting’. Get used to me wanting to pamper you and please, let me take care of you.”

You blink up into Taehyung’s eyes that flicker in the dim candle light left on your bedside table. The softening sun rays glow in your room as light rain trickles against the windows. Taehyung looks not only handsome but he also looks more real. Especially when the shadows on his face somehow add warmth to his complexion and his beautiful eyes soften with genuinity.

There’s a feeling in your heart that strains against giving in to such a proposal. Even though the idea of having everything done for you sounds pleasing, wouldn’t it become boring to have no reason? To not do something on your own? Would the constant displays of service become not enough and unsatisfying for you in the end?

Any normal person would say this is something too good to be true. To take up on the offer. But there is something blocking you from fully accepting Taehyung.

You’re not ready yet.

Taehyung sighs out of his nostrils when you remain mute. He straightens his posture and retracts his hand from your jawline.

“It’s there if you need it,” he references to the card still in your hand. “I placed my contact information in your phone also.” Taehyung turns to leave your room, talking over his shoulder to you as he departs.

Something pulls against your heart as you see his back fade further away from you.

“Wait!” You frantically stand up. You take nearly three steps until you run into the back of Taehyung who freezes in his spot, twisting his head to look down at you. Your fist manages to grab a hold of the sleeve to his jacket, alerting him with a quick tug. “I’m sorry!” – you begin with uncertainty in your voice – “I just… I just don’t know what’s happening. What could happen. I don’t know what this all means or what will come of this.”

“Kitten,” Taehyung quietly speaks. “I’ve already told you. I’ll give you whatever you want. I can see you need to process it more and I won’t rush you. Sadly, I must head out. The day isn’t a vampire’s friend. But do know, little kitten,” he takes a finger and dances it along the length of your arm and down towards your wrist. Taehyung lifts the back of your hand to his mouth, placing an everlasting kiss to your skin. “You’re already mine.”

Moodboard inspiration and credits fully to @caelesjjk

#black ravens #red eyes #bangtansorciere #dailydaegu #armysource #networkbangtan #taehyung fanfic #taehyung smut #taehyung x reader #vampire taehyung #bts smut #vampire!au #kth1 #kim taehyung fanfic #kim taehyung smut #btsdreamcourt #thebtswritersclub #br: red eyes #black ravens red eyes

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eleanorawritesfantasy · 2 years

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🍃 Questions for Writers: Hozier Song Titles Edition 🍃

Work Song — What does your ideal day of writing look like? What’s the set up?

To Be Alone — What do you think is the thing that most makes your writing stand out?

Sunlight — What about your writing makes you smile?

Nina Cried Power — Do you make social commentary through your writing? If so, how?

My Love Will Never Die — What do you think makes a good fictional romance? What sort of tropes?

In A Week — How do you deal with procrastination?

From Eden — What sort of world have you built? Utopian/dystopian/in-between?

Foreigner’s God — Does religion play a role in your narrative? If so, how?

In the Woods Somewhere — Have you created any monsters or cryptids for your story? If so, what are they?

Arsonist’s Lullaby — What do you do when you get the feeling to tear it all up and start again?

Talk — Does all your dialogue serve a narrative purpose or do you sometimes just have characters chatting for other reasons (or for no reason at all)?

No Plan — How do you plan your work, if you do at all?

It Will Come Back — Is there a theme, trope, or something else that reoccurs in your work?

NFWMB — What sort of antagonists do you like to write? Is the conflict in your story even driven by an antagonistic character?

Someone New — How do you create your characters?

Like Real People Do — How do you make your story sound realistic, even if the world you have built is anything but?

Dinner & Diatribes — If you could go to a restaurant with any one of your characters, who would it be?

#eleanora speaks #ask game #writeblr #writing community #writers of tumblr

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blues-valentine · 1 year

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A debated opinion but I wouldn’t mind if Can I Have This Dance is a full group song with each couple having their own part, preferentially during Homecoming/Prom because that would be so cute, that if Rina gets Right Here Right Now and I Just Wanna Be With You because it’s more meaningful since it fits their whole arc.

In fact, High School Musical 3 as the school production for the season Rina is a couple and Ricky is a senior is perfect. Look at those lyrics:

Everything about Rina has been about change.

Ricky's fear of change and Gina's life constantly changing so she dosn't allow herself to think too far ahead but Ricky is been her yes. So for Right Here Right Now, if Rina’s arc for S4 is like I predict it will with them feeling unsure about their future because is Ricky's last year at East High and now their whole public relationship with everyone inserting themselves into it then the lyrics fit just right: "I'd wish this moment was ours to own it and that it would never leave" and then with being afraid of the future and linking it to Gina’s speech about her life being all about maybe and holding onto the present and the journey: "Right here, I promise you somehow that tomorrow can wait for some other day to be, but right now there's you and me". Ricky’s senior year/decisions approaching: "We know it's coming and it's coming fast (but right now, there's you and me) so let's make every second last". And we back again with the theme of change: "A bend in the universe is gonna make everything in our whole world change (it's changing) and you know that where we are will never be the same". It’s prefect for a moment when they're feeling like nothing is going like they want it to because of their fame and time is running out.

Then there’s Just Wanna Be With You: "You know how life can be. It changes over night. It's sunny then raining but it's alright. A friend like you, always make it easy. I know that you get me every time. Through every up. Through every down. You know I'll always be around. Through anything you can count on me." I mean, "I thought we sort of got each other" is pretty self explanatory for them and it really highlights the rollercoaster that has been their journey though out all these four seasons.

Actually, I can see this song being sang by two different couples (the full song does), the first part for Ryan and Kelsey on the piano (could be Seblos) and Rina taking it off from where Troy and Gabriella start since it’s the part that fits their relationship and most of it till the end kind of like in the movie version (the rehearsal, not the actual show). I can see that song being Rina focused but with the other couples as backup.

And even Gabriella's solo Walk Away is so Gina coded and it mentions change. This song is when Gabriella had to leave East High earlier because she got an early admission into college. "I guess I should've known better to believe that my luck had changed. I let my heart and forever. Finally learn each other's name. I tell myself this time is different, no goodbyes 'cause I can bear to say it. I'll never survive the ones that's coming if I stay. Just walk away and don't look back 'cause if my heart breaks it's gonna hurt so bad. You know I'm strong but I can't take that." And I just remember Kristoff Lullaby: "You light the world for me. You live life fearlessly, braver than the braver of us do" and Ricky’s “Gina’s a fighter and she’ll come back for opening night” Like, Gina is Gabriella. I'm sorry, she's so her coded.

And we know there's only one person that can sing Scream and that's Ricky Bowen and the line: "Yeah, the clock's running down, hear the crowd getting loud. I'm consumed by the sound. Is it her? Is it love? Can the music ever be enough?" that's Ricky Bowen coded. I can imagine him singing this when he is feeling overwhelmed about having to make decisions about his future, about music, about having to be away from Gina. Josh would eat this bad.

CIHTD is aesthetically iconic but the lyrics can apply to every couple on the show so I wouldn’t mind that one being a group song with all the pairings together singing some parts because it would look pretty cute on a big scale dance. “A Night To Remember” needs to happen too. Like, it’s basically a need for them to do this.

#hsmtmts #gina porter #ricky x gina #rina #ricky bowen #text post #hsmtmts season 4 #rina hsmtmts #high school musical the musical the series #seblos #jetney #madlyn

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peacekeeperangel · 9 months

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So I Got Bored and Made a Mermaid's Tale Soundtrack

I tend to do this when I wanna chew on stories (See all my original universe ideas) So I'm going to throw out all the songs I found on Youtube that I found works really well for the story/characters. Essentially future Music Videos I play in my brain. Save this entry I'm probably going to come back and edit/add to it as my Whims suit me- also feel free to add your own Fathoms Below : Little Mermaid OST Imagined for: General Overview of the Gem Mermaids/Tearcrown

Yeah this one was just a daily life overview. I mean what would be better right? (and I'm avoiding the 2023 Little Mermaid Nuts to that I haven't entertained Disney's balloney yet and I won't start now)

Amhrán Na Farraige- Song of the Sea Imagined For: Any serious talk with Almighty Sea Again just sort of noodling I genuinely have no clue for this one but it jived with the overall sea theme I had when chosing this playlist sometime it's just feelings you know? Davy Jones- as Performed by Anna Lapwood Imagined for: Black Pearl Cookie

Okay there's no Davy Jones Locker in the Cookie run Universe so my brain automatically keyed that Black Pearl Cookie is now EarthBread's "Davy Jones" your welcome. and specifically as played here because it adds a lot of Royal gravitas having anything played on an Organ and to be honest it just sounds cool and I wanna gush. Mine Mine Mine- Pocahantas OST Imagined for: Lord Oyster Cookie & Abalone Cookie This... Mildly pisses me off because I like watching @cosmicwhoreo's Blackaviar stuff and their OC version of Abalone gave me such Judge Claude Frollo feelings. But Now after listening to this I just... Canon Abalone Cookie is Governor Radcliffe and I don't know how to feel about this alright?! Ok Carrying on Crossing The Line- Tangled the Animated Series OST Imagined for: White Pearl Cookie & Frilled Jellyfish Cookie

;w; Frilled Jellyfish just wanted her to be happy uwwweehhh TT_TT Nothing Left to Lose- Tangled the Animated Series OST Imagined for: Lord Oyster Cookie & Black Pearl Cookie Yeah everyone picks this one, but it kind of fits in this case. low hanging fruit I do admit. Tour of the Kingdom-Little Mermaid OST Imagined for: Overview of the Creme Republic

This was a bit of a surprise but I figure if Tearcrown gets an overview so does the Republic. The Curse- The Longest Johns Imagined for: A Senior Lord Oyster Cookie I actually just found this and it sounds actually really good for a Lord Oyster going back in memory and realizing everything he did to screw things up. Maybe an older wiser Lord would be cursing himself? Maybe Abalone Cookie? Hmmm Akiisu's Music Box- One Piece OST Imagined for: White Pearl Cookie&Lord Oyster Cookie/ Any Quiet Moment Along with being one of my favourite songs in the One Piece Soundtrack it felt perfect for those sweet quiet moments before everything went so horribly wrong (There's another one I want to recomend but for the life of me I can't find the title sorry) Lullaby for a Princess- Ponyphonic Imagined For: Red Coral & Black Pearl Cookie Okay before y'all scream "EW BRONY!" Calm yer collective chest parts and listen to the song. a Sister lamenting the fall of her sibling into darkness with heavy themes regarding the moon? Sound Familiar? Never Love An Anchor- The Crane Wives Imagined For: Captain Caviar/Lord Oyster& Black Pearl Cookie Okay I ended seeing a picture referencing this song- @artforinfinity you are very smart and I'm sticking the song you referenced in the playlist. It works perfectly for every relationship BPC has with a land cookie and not just for Lord Oyster.

Wading In Deeper- Katzenjammer (WARNING: Song Referencing Un-Aliving proceed at your own risk!) Imagined for: Black Pearl Cookie Frilled Jellyfish Cookie/ the Mermaid Siblings Okay I like going a bit dark. I thought though this song is perfect for all those awful things that turned White Pearl Cookie into the hot tempered sea-queen she is today.

Good Grief there's a lot of Disney in here. Eeeh nothing to worry about I'd say. I think if I add more I'll just reblog at this point

#peacemusickeeper #black pearl cookie #abalone cookie #lord oyster cookie #playlists for stories

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fanfic-lover-girl · 4 months

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Druna AU Outline

I have had this idea swimming in my head so I want to write it down. Draco is OOC here but I can't control my imagination :)

Draco Malfoy

His middle name is 'Catus' instead of 'Lucius'. When Draco was born, Lucius decided to give him this name because of his curious eyes.

He has a pet runt opaleye dragon named 'Galacticus'

He was born brain-damaged or with a neurodivergence making him less socially inclined

Sorted into Ravenclaw

Loves to style his hair. Began growing it out in Hogwarts. Usually keeps it braided or in a ponytail style

Top student in the year (eat dirt Hermione!). Of course, Hermione and others beat him in some subjects.

Cold and aloof with people except those he cares about (like Luna and his dormmates)

Has disdain for the golden trio and shows said disdain by ignoring their existence

Snape is his godfather, like a second dad to him

Very artistic. Good at drawing and music.

Prodigy at potions and spell making. Snape offers to tutor his godson when he recognizes Draco's potential.

Luna Lovegood

Not much different from canon except she befriends Draco in her first year

Not as close to the golden trio due to spending more time with Draco and other Ravenclaw students. But she is still good friends with Ginny and Neville.

Druna headcanons

When Luna says something that sounds weird, instead of mocking her, Draco grills her about it and goes on a research frenzy to discover if her claim is true (sometimes Luna purposely says crazy things to rile Draco up).

They first met on Luna's sorting night. Luna wanted to touch Draco's hair and he shoved his wand in her face. Luna responded by offering to make him a butterbeer necklace so his hair would not be stolen by Nargles.

Their friendship really begins when students begin to call Luna 'Looney'.

When their friendship began, Luna had to learn how to decipher the care behind Draco's tactless and insensitive words. While Draco had to learn how to handle Luna's out-of-the-box ideas.

At the beginning of Draco's 3rd year and Luna's 2nd, Draco gives Luna an expensive necklace that he bought because it reminded him of her.

They begin dating in Draco's 6th year.

For Luna's 16th birthday, Draco takes her on a boat ride and lights the sky with lanterns (like in Tangled). And serenades her with 'Yellow' (by Coldplay) that he wrote.

Luna and Draco are very physically affectionate. Hugs, hand-holding, cuddles etc.

Draco proposes to Luna after her graduation. He plans an elaborate, romantic dinner and walk around the Malfoy gardens. Just as he works up the nerve to begin his proposal speech, Luna says bluntly that she will marry him. He glares at her cheeky grin. So much for his proposal.

They are engaged for about two years while Luna does her studies to become a Magizoologist.

They have their wedding at Malfoy Manor.

They have a 'moon and stars' themed wedding. Luna wears a sparkling midnight blue dress with a white and gold train. On her dress is the Draco constellation. Draco wears black and white robes with buttons that look like the moon. He also wears a crescent-shaped hair clip.

They have their first child about a year later.

Druna children

Scorpius Lucius Malfoy

First borne child

Looks like Draco but has Luna's curly hair

Sorted into Slytherin making his paternal grandparents very proud

Very social and extroverted. Imagine canon Draco but with less classist and bigoted views. Class clown personality.

When Scorpius was born, Draco wrote 'You'll be in My Heart' for his son and he sang it as a lullaby. It was a song he used for all of his kids.

Pluto Pandor Malfoy

Two years younger than Scorpius

Looks more like Luna but has Draco's straight hair

Sorted into Ravenclaw like his parents

Has a more reserved personality, and is very curious and loves learning.

Likes to spend time with Lucius in his study

Triplets: Nebula Lotus, Nova Violet, Leo Severus

Born three years after Pluto

Nebula and Nova are identical twins (Narcissa loves having granddaughters so much)

The girls were named after their grandmothers' favourite flowers: lotuses for Narcissa and violets for Pandora.

The triplet's birth was stressful for Luna and the healer recommended that she have no more kids

Lucius and Narcissa share an emotional moment. They struggled so badly to have Draco and now their child has given them five grandchildren. They could not be prouder.

Nebula Lotus Malfoy

Sorted into Slytherin

Daddy's girl

More feminine and girly compared to her twin

Likes to spend time with her grandmother

Nova Violet Malfoy

Sorted into Gryffindor.

Tomboyish personality.

Loves to explore

Likes to spend time with her maternal granddad

Leo Severus Malfoy

Youngest child

Sorted into Hufflepuff

Quiet and shy, a mama's boy

Named after Snape because Draco was reminded of his godfather on a spiritual level when he saw Leo. When Luna mentions Harry named his son Albus after Snape already, Draco sniffs and coldly states Snape was his godfather and not Potter's.

Leo often creeps into his father's lab to watch his father work, similar to what Draco did with Snape.

#druna #draco/luna #draco x luna #luna lovegood #draco malfoy #druna headcanons #druna au #druna children #harry potter druna au #lucius malfoy #narcissa malfoy #harry potter fanfiction

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no-psi-nan · 2 years

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A while ago, a friend suggested writing Saikechi with ASMR as the theme, and I started on a lil one-shot but then stopped when I realized I'd have to write a truly big huge-long Akechi monologue to do it the way I'd planned. So instead I put that headcanon into Intimate Variety lol.

But I did write 1k of it, and it seems a shame to just delete it, so I'm gonna post it here for anyone who wants to read what there is of it, plus my notes on what was going to happen next. I'd say it's T-rated, basically just talking lol.

ASMR Sleepover Time

"Chiyopipi, Chiyopipi… Here's the bottom line: if ya wouldn't do it with your momma, it sure af ain't platonic."

"Well, I've heard people say that massages are a romantic thing, but isn't giving your mom a massage pretty normal??"

"I mean, yeah, platonic affection is a hella gray zone and it's different for like almost everybody. But purposely making somebody feel intense physical pleasure ain't it, chief– that's where I think most people gotta draw the line."

"I don't know, Miko-chan, I still think it can be platonic! There's nothing weird about whispering in someone's ear or petting their hair, right? Whether it happens to be an ASMR trigger has nothing to do with it!"

"Babygirl, would it be platonic to rub your buddy's feet if you knew they had a foot fetish?"

"That's different!! That's a– you know! Totally different from ASMR!"

[You guys sure like to discuss weird topics, good grief.]

"Oh hey Kusuo~! Wait, maybe you can settle this debate, babe–"

[I am not getting involved in this conversation.]

"Did I hear someone mention a debate? Oh, hello Kusuo-kun, Miko-chan, and Yumehara-san! My apologies, I couldn't help but overhear some sort of stirring discussion on this corner, though I haven't yet cottoned on to the particular topic under consideration. Would you be so amenable as to restate it for me?"

(Akechi admits to having experienced ASMR before but immediately changes the topic to some of the research on the subject. Saiki thinks to himself that ASMR sounds like a lot of weird bullshit and doesn't really have any interest in the matter, especially since it probably can't affect him.)

[Akechi Touma.]

[Why the hell are you calling my house this late at night?]

"Oh, hello Kusuo-kun! What a pleasure to hear your voice, I fully expected that you'd immediately hang up immediately upon being handed the phone before even discovering the purpose of my call!"

[I still might. What a pain… I was seriously climbing into bed right now.]

"Kusuo-kun, by any chance, are you using your telepathy right now? It's only that I'm hearing your voice in my head quite perfectly without any of the mild audio distortion typical of cellular networks!"

[ …Maybe.]

[Never mind that. Why are you whispering?]

"To be perfectly honest, it is actually my de facto bedtime right now as well! As my mother has settled in to sleep in the room next door, I thought it would be prudent to maintain a more discrete volume of speech so as to not disturb her slumber."

[Again: why the hell are you calling my house this late at night?]

"Oh Kusuo-kun, it is simply that I currently find myself well-situated under a set of lovely clean sheets and my favorite weighted blanket, accompanied of course by a choice selection of stuffed animals. With the enforced darkness of my blackout curtains and the pleasantly cool temperature of my bedroom, these are indeed optimal sleeping conditions. And yet despite all this, I find myself unable to succumb to Morpheus' grip."

[ … ]

[Good grief, what do you expect me to do about that?]

[I don't have any special powers that can put people to sleep. The best I can do is play a lullaby through telepathy.]

"While I will be the first to admit that a telepathic lullaby does sound quite relaxing, it isn't particularly what I had in mind as the aim of this phone call. Now, I'm sure you are quite impatient to discover the objective of this communication, and I am happy to inform you that my motivation is twofold. First, I have lately been concerned about the quality of rest you've been enjoying lately, ever since your powers were temporarily deleted and summarily restored. And I am very certain that you are currently rolling your eyes and are about to rebuke me for interrupting that very sleep, but please allow me to elaborate. It is my understanding that the range of your telepathy has increased somewhat, causing you to hear more peripheral mental voices than before. This, in turn, must be creating more difficulties in winding down to an appropriate relaxation state for restorative sleep. The seemingly obvious solution would be to wear your germanium ring to bed, forestalling the thoughts of your neighbors and family. However, both you and I are aware that completely cancelling your telepathy is the source of great anxiety for you, due to your learned hypervigilance. Despite logically knowing that no enemies are in pursuit, no amount of reasoning will allow you to relax when you are experiencing nothing but your thoughts in the lonely darkness of your room. This is why I propose this late-night conversation. I expect it will be more comforting and familiar for you to hear at least one other voice while wearing the germanium ring, hopefully easing your anxiety to the point where you can more easily drop into a restorative sleep. If this experiment is successful, it could prove to be a simple method for alleviating your fatigue."

[ … ]

[And the second reason?]

" … …Well. It is simply that I would like to talk with you, Kusuo-kun. You are my very best friend, and yet we rarely have opportunities to 'chit-chat' one-on-one, due to our schooling, your rather large social circle, and your tendency towards introversion. I hypothesize and hope that this hour and method may serve as an effective way to catch up and enjoy each other's company."

[ … ]

"I have seen evidence of happiness in you when we share space, however reluctant you may be to organize such occasions yourself. In fact, it is quite fortuitous that your friends are so familiar with your reclusive nature that they do not take offense at your distaste of initiating encounters. Less understanding companions might truly believe that you do not desire their presence."

[ … ]

[You have a point. What a pain… ]

[Maybe I should ask my friends to hang out sometimes. Instead of waiting to be strung along.]

"Indeed! You may even discover that being the organizer enables you to select the time, setting, and duration of each encounter to your preference, instead of remaining at the mercy of whoever roped you into the encounter."

[Alright, alright. I get it.]

[We can talk for a little while. See if your idea works.]

[I could seriously use more sleep… ]

"Marvelous! I am always delighted in your willingness to challenge yourself for the benefit of your loved ones. Such an admirable trait~"

[ … ]

"But I digress!

(Akechi calls Saiki on the phone because he knows clairvoyance can be tiring, especially if Saiki also has to use his telepathy long distance. Saiki is annoyed at first because he had just been about to go to bed and get some rest, but Akechi suggests that he use his germanium ring since he's going to be awake anyways, and rest a bit that way. Saiki agrees, possibly because Akechi's whispers pique his interest, and quickly realizes that having only Akechi's whispering voice in his head feels really really nice. The silence of the ring is usually too complete for his comfort, so having Akechi affectionately talk his ear off gives the perfect level of noise. Saiki finds himself experiencing ASMR and shivering with delight, actually humming out loud to let Akechi know he was listening or to respond to a prompt, and taking a while to respond to more complex questions because he's so relaxed and drifty.

Akechi catches on quickly and makes sure to minimize the audience participation part of his rant, monitoring Saiki's state of relaxation by the amount of time between breaths and the tone of his hums. When he notices Saiki drifting off to sleep, he smiles and his topic drifts to how much he loves and appreciates his best friend and that he hopes Saiki has sweet dreams, though he avoids using Saiki's name so as to not wake him up. When he hears Saiki's deeply asleep, he lets his voice trail off, then he places the phone on speaker next to his pillow and hugs a teddy bear and falls asleep, both of them comforted by each other's quiet breaths.

Akechi wakes when Saiki does, wishing him a good morning and yawning. He says he slept better than usual and hopes Saiki did too. Saiki grudgingly admits that he slept very well, and that maybe Akechi's phone call was a good thing after all. Akechi tries to fish for more info to see if his ASMR theory is correct, but Saiki dodges his attempts. However, Saiki does say that he wouldn't mind having another "sleepover" and Akechi immediately jumps on the opportunity, getting him to agree to a real sleepover quite soon. During the sleepover, Saiki gets to enjoy Akechi's whispers close up, along with the gentle touch of his hand combing through his hair. And then Akechi admits that hearing Saiki's voice in his head often gives him a similar ASMR experience, so Saiki later [reads] him a book while they snuggle, and Akechi shivers delightedly against Saiki's side. )

#nopsi fic #saikechi #akechi touma

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cinnabar-music · 1 year

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All of the references in Almost (Sweet Music) by Hozier

youtube

First id just like to say this song is amazing in so many ways and there's a lot to talk about.

“The song kind of references, yknow, a lot of what memory tends to do to music when we listen to it.”

I love the almost immediate syncopation in the guitar, it sounds like it shouldn't fit but it fits perfectly to create this incredibly satisfying, very classically jazz rhythm. The bass also follows this rhythm a few octaves lower reinforcing it. I especially like that it doesnt really feel like jazz. Its heavily inspired by jazz but its not jazz, because lets be honest sometimes jazz is a bit much. This song has a very warm, sunshiny feel to it that makes you really want to think of happy memories, which fits perfectly with the theme of the song being memories.

The percussion is made up of clapping and tap dancing which i think is a really nice touch, Since the song has a lot to do with memory. A big part of music is the community built around it. In the music video so many of the memories you see of different people playing music involve playing music with other people. The clapping and snapping and dancing, along with a chorus of different voices singing different parts in the background; it all makes this song feel like a whole room of strangers singing along to the same song. Which, by the way, is a very magical experience. Music has a way of tying people together and making memories that last a lifetime and I think this song demonstrates that perfectly.

The song has references to so many important artists in jazz. “The kind of narrative of it is made up of jazz standards, so its this kind of stream of consciousness sort of idea.”

In the very first verse we get the line “Played from the bedside is ‘Stella by Starlight,' That was my heart, the drums that start off ‘Night and Day.”

“Stella by starlight” is a song written in 1944 for the movie “The Uninvited,” and was later covered by many famous musicians like Miles Davis, Ray Charles and Robert Glasper. While “Night and Day” is a famous jazz song originally written by Cole Porter, and sung by both Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.

In verse 2 theres references to Duke Ellington and Chet Baker, two pivotal musicians in the jazz genre and in music in general.

And in the 3rd verse alone we get several great references.

First we get “The very thought of you and am I blue?” which is a reference to “Am I Blue?" a blues standard that was written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke in 1929.

Then comes “A love supreme seems far removed” which references “A Love Supreme” an album (considered by many to be the best jazz album) by John Coltrane, an American jazz saxophonist.

Next “I get along without you very well some other nights” which is a reference to chet bakers song “I Get Along Without You Very Well.”

“Reporting Russian lullabies” a reference to either Ella Fitzgerald’s “Russian Lullaby,“ OR John Coltrane jazz song also called “Russian Lullaby.“

“She'll turn to me awake and ask, "Is everything alright?" which references “It’s All Right With Me,” originally written by Cole Porter

And we’re still not done cause in the chorus we get “Sweet music playing in the dark” which is a reference to “Slow Swing and ”Sweet Jazz Music" by Jelly Roll Morton and “Dancing In the Dark” by Duke Ellington. “Be still, my foolish heart” being a reference to “My Foolish Heart” a popular song and jazz standard published in 1949 by Victor Young and Ned Washington.

To end this, i dont think think ive ever said reference more times in my life and i dont think ill be saying it again for a while. This song has so much going on in it that all of this was only a small part of the song as a whole and i know this was probably way too long to read but i still think it was worth it.

youtube

[692]

#Youtube

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allthemusic · 7 months

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Week ending: 11 June 1953

Okay, I think this is actually coronation week, as we see the return of the coronation song we saw, in another version, and another new, relevant song. Also, another version of Terry's theme from Limelight, but that's less coronation-relevant and more just a thing that happened.

Coronation Rag - Winifred Atwell (peaked at No. 5)

So, this is basically the same song as the last Winifred Atwell offering, Britannia Rag. A medley of vaguely patriotic songs, all done in a ragtime sort of style.

It's maybe quicker? I certainly can appreciate the raw skill involved in playing quite that many notes that quickly. But otherwise, I've not much new to add.

The "pub" style piano gets grating very quickly, but there is a bit where it lends the lower notes a sort of fuzz that sounds like a swarm of bees. Not necessarily intentional, but slightly cool.

In desperation for something to say, I googled this song to see if there were any interesting stories about it and found only one rather sad BBC Radio 2 write-up, that even says that "Truth be told, Coronation Rag isn’t a spectacular piece of music or even one of Winifred’s best-loved tunes." Which just about sums up Coronation Rag.

I guess I said it last time, but it's cool that one of the big hits celebrating the Queen's coronation was from a Trinidadian black woman who'd moved to Britain - the Commonwealth taking a starring role in the post-Windrush fifties! That surely says something about Britain's changing national identity and values, right?

In a Golden Coach (There's a Heart of Gold) - Dickie Valentine (7)

And we're back to this song, this time by Dickie Valentine. I think I quite liked his last outing, but I'm not sure he can save this song, which is, like last time, historically interesting, but musically quite dull.

Dickie's version is slicker, and has been jazzed up with more instruments, which I like. It feels a higher-quality affair, with some vaguely patriotic brass, and some of the strings at the end that are really quite slick and smooth. There's also a fabulous bit of dreamy xylophone (celeste?) in the introduction, which was a fun surprise.

Unfortunately, you've also lost what made the last version interesting, which was the spoken-word introduction. Its loss makes the song feel a bit more modern, but much less interesting, at least to me. I don't always love spoken-word bits in songs - in fact, I often dislike them - but for this song, which is so tied to historical events, it felt right, like a newscaster offering commentary.

And when Dickie starts singing, I have to actively stifle a yawn. There's a reason I was so focussed on the instrumentation. Dickie sings so slowly, and enunciates so carefully, and I just can't get past it, especially when the lyrics are so safe and sugary. Yawn.

Actually, this would be a great lullaby, genuinely. I think if I had a baby in 1953, I would play this version to put them to sleep.

Terry's Theme from Limelight - Ron Goodwin (3)

This repeat appearance, on the other hand, is probably an improvement on Frank Chackfield's cover.

I said on that song that it felt familiar, like something I might have heard on Classic FM in the background - I suspect, hearing this version, that I might have just been recognising Ron Goodwin's version, which is, compared to Frank's version, a much higher-quality affair.

Whereas Frank's cover came from the hazy world of light music and orchestral easy listening, Ron's has some genuine classical heft to it. I couldn't say why this is the case, except that it just feels like it has more textural variation, with the quieter bits hitting less hard and the louder bits hitting harder, so that the theme, when it comes back in after the quiet bits, feels genuinely magnificent.

It also gives more individual instruments moments to shine. I can hear individual violins making a break for it with the counterpart while the cellos take up the theme, or flutes going off on a little fanciful twiddly bit, or a harp plinging away as some oboes cut across and the horns prop it all up. I like it, the orchestra feels like an orchestra should, all individual personalities and quirks!

I assumed, given all this, that Ron Goodwin's version might be the original, but no. Neither Ron nor Frank were the originators of this song. Which means I can legitimately play the "who did it better" game - and while Frank's version wasn't bad, per se, I do think Ron's is superior.

Well, that was a repetitive collection of hits. We had Winifred Atwell's repeat of her previous hit, then a cover of an already dull song, then a cover of an instrumental. At least they were all reasonably different, I guess, but I can't say I was thrilled when I realised what I had lined up today. Still, my favourite is pretty clear, at least in my mind...

Favourite song of the bunch: Terry's Theme from Limelight

#uk charts #1953 #winifred atwell #dickie valentine #ron goodwin

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glambots · 2 years

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Romantic headcanons about Sundrop, Moondrop, and Glamrock Freddy with gender neutral human reader?

🎩Glamrock-Freddy + Romantic HCs: 🎩

⭐No matter where you are in a crowd, he can always find you immediately. And the second he does, his whole face lights up, and he always gives you the biggest, happiest wave. It's equal parts adorable and embarrassing, because you just know you're both gonna get teased about it later. He's even done it while on stage! Monty has yet to let you live that one down.

⭐His favorite way to relax is sitting on the couch in his green room, with you in his lap. He doesn't mind what you do while you sit there: you can read, play games, whatever you'd like! He just likes holding you, arms wrapped around your waist with his head resting atop yours. He finds it even cuter when you fall asleep on him like that--until he realizes that he's trapped. (Well! This is his life now.)

⭐One of your favorite memories was the time you gave him a kiss on his nose and it made a squeaky-toy noise. And his ears were wiggling?? There are times when he can be so damn cute that it's dangerous. (Just know that you're the only person he'll let squeak his nose like that.) You two are so smitten with each other that it's downright sickening. Good!

☀️Sunnydrop + Romantic HCs:☀️

⭐His primary love language is 100% physical affection. He's always looking for excuses to touch you in whatever ways he can--giving you hugs, putting an arm around your shoulders or waist, holding your hand (he likes doing that cute arm-swingy thing), etc, etc. Sun doesn't care if you're in front of the kids, staff, whoever. He'll hang all over you if you let him! (And he'll pout if you don't.)

⭐He also really loves giving you gifts. Especially if it's something he's made himself. Friendship bracelets, drawings and paintings, hand-made cards--and if you ever made him anything? Let's just say, if he had the ability to cry, he'd be sobbing like a baby. He keeps every single thing you've ever given him safely tucked away in his room, in a spot where only he (and Moon) know about.

⭐Pet-names go straight to his heart. "Sunny," of course, is one of his personal favorites, but he absolutely melts when you call him things like: sweetheart, honey, baby, darling, etc, etc. His nicknames for you are more around the lines of: sun-shine/light/beam, dewdrop, and honeydew! They're cute, sappy, and (mostly) themed after himself. (Because it's more sentimental that way!)

🌙Moondrop + Romantic HCs:🌙

⭐The man is like a cat in that he likes to leave you gifts on your "doorstep" (i.e.: outside your office, on your desk, and other similar places). Mostly his own merch, because he's a possessive little shit, but also snacks, drinks, medicine--anything he thinks you might like or want. After all, he keeps watch over you, so he knows when and what you might be in need of.

⭐Cuddling is very rare, but once you manage to wrangle him into it, he's not letting you go, no matter how badly you have to pee. He'll wrap his whole body around you, tangling his legs with yours and carding his fingers through your hair while he hums lullabies. The amount of times you've fallen asleep like that is...a little embarrassing. But it's really hard not to, when he makes it so easy!

⭐He's got a low-key high-key weakness for listening to your heart-beat. Something about the sound of it is just so...soothing to him. A little reminder that you're actually there with him, and not just a figment of his imagination, or some sort of dream. That, and he thinks the way your pulse flutters whenever he so much as looks at you is adorable. Such a precious little thing~...

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the-scythes-pen · 2 years

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Warnings: dark themes, yandere behaviour, blood and wounds, psychological manipulation, Lucifer being a demon

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

He seemed like the perfect gentleman.

Well mannered, well read, smart, polite, and not to mention- tall, dark and handsome. He really was all too perfect to be what he seemed.

You should have seen it coming. You should have trusted your gut- your instincts that told you to run from his perfect gaze; the question in the back of your head that wondered if his eyes really were the colour of a blood-soaked rose.

His voice was so alluring.... deep, commanding, arousing. The way he spoke low in to your ear as he guided you away from the crowds, hands on your shoulders as if guiding a child away from danger had you falling even harder for the man you didn't even know the name of; not bothering to listen to the voice in your head that told you not to trust him.

But you should have listened.

His voice even now still soothed you- as if the notes of his hum carried with them some sort of spell or magic to reduce your pain. Some sort of soft, sweet song carried through the air of the dark and cold dungeon, emitted from the man who had only passively gave you his name moments prior:

Lucifer.

You didn't know how or why you could tell, but the song sounded old- very old, as if it was an ancient lullaby of love.

Despite your situation, your heartbeat was normal- you were calm, composed, and focused solely on your captor's broad back. Not even a drop of sweat had formed on your brow.

The melody slightly grew in volume as the man turned back towards you, seemingly done with whatever it was he had been doing as be sauntered over to you, a gloveless hand moving to stroke your cheek.

His face was in yours, his eyes holding you with such affection that you almost couldn't believe that you were trapped here with him.

....were you really tied here to this chair? Or was it just that you didn't want to leave?

His fingertips were soft as they brushed over your cheekbone right below your eye, and your own hand hesitantly came up to cup his own that held you so tenderly in his grasp.

Your own fingertips were still somewhat damp with your blood, faint streaks of red appearing on the back of the man's pale hand. He moved his hand in a flourish- away from your face to capture your wrist instead, pulling the heel of your palm to his lips. His eyes never left yours as your breath hitched, seeing the sharp point of fangs tauntingly graze your skin.

His tongue was swift to lap up the blood that seeped from your palm, pulled down by gravity and threatening to make a mess if you were held in place for too long.

It stung. But it wasn't as bad as when he had dragged the blade through your flesh- in fact, this action was almost soothing to you.

His lips had turned crimson from the blood he devoured- as if he was a man starved and dehydrated. The faint candlelight only proved to cause his reddened lips to shine, your eyes falling to them before he captured your own.

The tang of iron was striking against the taste of his lips on your own, his tongue easily meeting yours through parted lips as if to share the taste of your life with you. Past the metallic tang, the man had tasted so, so sweet. You felt like you couldn't get enough of him.

Even if your brain had become little more then decoration for the moment, the demon knew that eventually you would come around- you would realize the mark engraved into your palm was something otherworldly. You would realize that the man who called himself Lucifer seemed a little too much like the real deal- and soon enough, you'd see him in his full glory; ebony wings splayed in a show of power, fully proving to you that you no longer belonged to yourself.

No... because from the moment he had seen you, so lost and confused and scared, deep within the nightmares of your own sleep- you were his. You invited him in, and he was going to stay for a long, long time.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me swd #reader insert #otome games #obey me x reader #obey me lucifer #lucifer morningstar

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citrinesparkles · 3 years

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and so, my heart sings.

batkids x gender neutral reader. 849 words. notes: i just really love the sound of people singing. warnings: n/a.

♡ dick hummed softly to himself, leaning against the bed and folding one of your t-shirts before glancing up to meet your eyes with a warm smile. "hey, babe."

"hey yourself." you came to the opposite side of the bed, reaching for another shirt- it was soft and well worn with a faded superman logo on the front, and you'd long since forgotten which of you it actually belonged to- joining him in his task. "what was that you were humming?"

"hm- oh, this?" he ran through a quicker version of the melody, offkey and goofy.

you nodded.

"that song from cinderella. y'know, 'so this is love, hm hm hmm hm'?" he half-spoke, half-sang, wiggling his fingers midair in a dreamy motion.

you hummed playfully. "not sure it's ringing any bells. how's the next part go?"

his eyes narrowed slightly, smile never slipping as he dropped the socks he had been sorting and gracefully circled the bed. "so this is what makes life divine?" he sang quietly, scooping one of your hands up in his own, "i'm all aglow, and now i know..."

you giggled, lacing your fingers through his. "still not quite sure i know it. sing a little more for me?"

he kissed your knuckles with a grin, bright blue eyes meeting yours without hesitation as his spare hand found your waist, nudging you into a gentle sway as his warm voice filled your ears.

♡ the bass of jason's voice carried out of the bathroom, mixing with the steam from his shower.

the sound, loose and quiet and melodious, called you towards it.

you resisted, not daring to break the spell.

instead, you stood in the living room. you were frozen in time, listening to the rare sound of him singing.

it was an old song, one you knew the words to but couldn't quite name. one that had swing and jazzy piano and an easy magic to it.

his acapella performance held a different magic. even muffled by the door separating you, it felt like a cup of hot chocolate or a soft blanket on a rainy day. the sound of him there, comfortable, at ease, it warmed you from the inside out.

and when his volume increased ever so slightly, just enough for you to catch the words 'love' and 'you' as clear as day, you knew it sounded like home.

♡ "i see you scooby doo, the trail leads back to you, what's new scooby doo?"

you followed tim's goofy, half-zoned-out warbling to find him hanging upside down on the couch. "having a good time?"

his gaze slid from the television to you, sleepy eyes meeting yours. "it's scooby time."

you laughed, settling onto the floor next to him. "scooby time, huh?"

he nodded, returning to his offkey singalong.

the theme song ended. you applauded playfully, leaning forward to kiss his now-pink cheek. "beautiful, truly."

"shh," his hand came down to gently push your face away, "don't mock me until after scooby time. i might miss a clue."

you laughed, catching his hand in your own and twisting it to kiss his knuckles. "i'm not mocking you, i enjoyed it. you should sing more often, you sounded happy."

he groaned, face now fully red. "shh, it's-"

"scooby time, fine. but when i start asking for lullabies-"

he cut you off with a whine of your name.

♡ you came home to loud bass and a louder steph.

she bounced around the living room, singing- or, more accurately, shouting- along to the song echoing off the walls.

"i just can't look, it's killing me!" she wailed. "and taking control!"

you leaned against the doorframe, grinning at her enthusiastic air guitar.

"should i be worried?" you called over the noise, immediately capturing her attention.

"i dunno, are you calling a cab?"

you laughed at her cheeky comment, shaking your head. "not today, no."

"then no, hot stuff, no worries required."

a few lines later, she spun back dramatically, locking eyes with you once more. "come sing back-up!"

and who were you to tell her no?

♡ duke sat across from you, studying some file. his fingers drummed absently on the table, inadvertently drawing your attention away from your own work; tugging your eyes to him, and your ears to the music filling the room.

it was a song you had sent him just the night before, and sound of him singing along made you smile.

"liked it, huh?" you asked smugly with a nod to the speaker.

"yeah, especially the chorus." he leaned back in his chair, dropping the paper in his hand and shooting you a playful grin. "or maybe i just like you."

you groaned quietly, rolling your eyes at him. "oh what ever, casanova."

"hey, i couldn't hear your voice, your music was the next best thing. it reminded me of you."

your nose crinkled, a weak attempt to hide how his words made your heart flutter. "what a sap."

"only for you." he said it confidently, teasingly, but with a genuine affection in his eyes that nearly melted you in place.

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haruchyio · 3 years

Text

09:55 PM 🖇️ haruchiyo sanzu x reader

— theme. suggestive, smut (minors dni)

— note. this is the first time i wrote something like this im so embarassed HAHAHHSHDHD

people ruin people; and those kinds, don't let them touch you. somewhere in the back of your mind, the words of your mother's warning rings, but her voice melts into a puddle when pleasure took over your mind. besides, it was already kind of late for that, don't you think?

the bonten executive captures your lips under a feverish kiss. you could taste the expensive liquere he downed a few minutes ago, the sweet scent of the grape-flavored alcohol ravished your senses as you sing breathlessly underneath him. his hands, warm to the touch, scaled every inch of your body with so much gentleness that you thought he would never be able to possess. the way his slender fingers slide down your skin, touching everything you had to offer, made you shiver in all the right reasons.

sanzu buries you in the warmth of his embrace, his cotton-candy pink locks tickling your collarbone as he dips down to give you another kiss—and your hands find themselves entangling within his hair, tugging ever so gently, happily consuming the soft groans of delight that would escape his lips whenever he pulls away for a quick breath of air.

his eyes, bottomless and stunningly blue, shines brightly under the shimmer of the moonlight. he stares into your own orbs, not once had he looked away in order to burn the beautiful image of you behind his eyelids so he wouldn't ever forget. he whispers a promise to your ear, blowing a puff of air to get rid of the tension on your shoulders, the playful act so painfully out of place—"you're beautiful," he says. and it was a promise to please you, because sanzu wordlessly loves everything's that beautiful.

sanzu explores your body cleverly as if it was an uncharted island, drinking in the lullabies that would leave your lips whenever he touched a place that your body seemed to love. he worships your body with everything he's got, offering himself to you beyond redemption, making you feel what no other man could.

"god—" sanzu bites down on your flesh, leaving traces of his teeth on your neck that forced you to sing more loudly. his tongue lapping at the purple-bruise that formed, proud of his accomplishment like it was some sort of trophy.

"i'm no god," he whispers. his breath tickles the sensitive spot of your skin tht made you breathless. "so only say my name."

liar, you wanted to say, if he isn't a god, then what was the heaven you tasted on his lips? the paradise he creates behind your eyes as his body molds with yours?

"haru—" you moaned, eyes rolling back as the bed creaks beneath his movements but the loudness of your heartbeat overwrote the annoying squeaks of the sheets. his movements were quite slow though it never ceased, afterall, what sanzu wanted was to please you.

slow, as if he was in peace, but then it rises with violent amorous. the lust for love becomes sublime, the sound of his name leaving your lips made his heart ache to hear more of your sinful cries.

"more," he begs as the rhythmic impact of your skin meeting his made his cheeks flush red.

sanzu touches your nakedness with his own, creating the most humane moment and suspended it higher than the stars where human beings had no right to be. he kissed you while your body meets in bareness, transcending humanity, and in your most unforgettable pleasure, you feel completely free.

people ruin people, that much may hold some bit of truth—but you don't mind the chaos if it's sanzu who holds you like this under the sheets.

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tellerluna-stories · 2 years

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tellerluna-tunes: living treasure!

A/N: since i'm quite busy these days, I thought I'd post a few of the songs I listened to while writing living treasure, or music that I thought suited the story! it's well past the one-year anniversary of living treasure but consider this as an anniversary post HAHA

if you're new to this blog and have no idea what fanfic I'm talking about, you can read living treasure here! don't worry because I also forget about it and I need @x-zho to remind me that I even wrote it in the first place HAHAHA

TITLE TRACK: exist for love by aurora

if ily3000 is what started the ball rolling, this song in particular carried the whole story. I love this song to bits and I really wanted to capture that sort of feeling of being in love for eternity, no matter how many years fly by. and also my peachblossom best friend loves this song almost as much as she loves zhongli so Y NAT COCONAT

NOW PLAYING:

i love you 3000 by stephanie poetri ft. jackson wang

this song was what inspired me to write the original version of living treasure aka 'to wish upon a lantern,' simply because,,,, jackson wang lowkey sounded like zhongli. yep this song started it all HAHAHA

nangangamba by zack tabudlo

i listened to this song bc if you look at the english translation, it fits zhongli and reader's dynamic very well! that sort of sense of mutual pining is what i wanted to capture, especially in chapter 2. hehe ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

planetarium from la la land

now this is what I listened to while writing the moon-gazing scene in chapter 2!!! la la land is forever one of my favourite movies and the planetarium scene is what I took inspiration from because I loved it sm <33

my love and... from the king: eternal monarch

this song was played on loop as I struggled to figure out how to write angst for the first time in a very long while HAHAHHAA. especially when it came to chapters 1 and 3 JJSJSD

still with you by jungkook

listen, I love this song, so I just had to work it in somehow while writing. also if you read the lyrics translation, it really helps with visualising that particular sense of yearning that the two main characters have, especially in chapter 3.

lovers' oath by hoyo-mix

i actually don't remember if this song was released back when I wrote this or if it was still known as guizhong's lullaby, but either way it fits the theme of the story well!! I won't spoil too much but the title certainly suits the ending of the story :DD

can i have the day with you by sam ock

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!! I listened to this while writing the epilogue because I thought it suited the soft-spoken but stable love that the main couple had. they're too old for all the shenanigans of the youth, but they still are very very much in love with each other. if I remember correctly I almost shed a tear while writing the epilogue and I felt like such a third-wheel even though I'm the author HAHAHA

HIDDEN TRACKS:

dora the explorer theme (party mix)

fancy by twice

chapter 4 of living treasure (aka the angstiest chapter in the whole fic and the most difficult for me to write) would've never been completed without me listening to these two songs on loop till I finished writing. ten ur gonna hate me for this but IT HAD TO BE DONE

#tellerluna.tales: living treasure #zhongli #zhongli x reader #genshin impact #genshin

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t-o-m-hollands · 3 years

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Chapter eight

Summery: Tom is part of the Firm, a fearless London gang. You knew each other as children, before everything changed. Now your paths cross again.

Pairing: Tom and female reader.

Themes: Mob!Tom, Peaky Blinders inspired, period piece – this is set in 1961, London.

Warnings: Violence, kidnapping, one hit to the head. Smut. I mean, it’s a mob!AU so generally just a lot of talking of murder, fighting and violence. THIS IS A +18 STORY.

Word count: 5k. Sorry, but this is an eventful chapter so got a bit long. I didn’t want it to end in a cliffhanger so I sort of had to go on a bit

An absolute massive thank you to @plantlungs for being an amazing editor and for having the patient of a saint and correct all my misplaced commas and confused word choices.

READ PREVIOUS CHAPTERS HERE

Recap of the story so far: Tom is part of and working himself up in the Firm; the feared London gang. Its leader is a certain Fabien Towner. After an attack on Harrison it’s clear that they have a traitor in their midst who is also working for the rival gang created by a man called Jack Flanagan. While Tom is trying to bring the attacker in for questioning he meets you; his old school love (and unfortunately for him, the daughter of the home secretary who has spent most of his career trying to put an end to organized crime). After an interesting night where you end up as a witness for a murder Tom essentially has to kidnap you until he knows what to do with you. Ending up deciding to let you live, and in doing so risking his own life, he lies to Fabien about there being no witness to the crime.

Some time later you and Tom meet again at the club Romantique, as Tom has gone there to negotiate with Jack Flanagan. You go home with Tom that night and the two of you begin an affair. Fabien, finding out about the affair and of who your father is, is delighted, thinking that he can use you as leverage to the home secretary.

Not many days later Tom is attacked by Flanagan’s gang, and he flees to your house where you patch him up. He tells you of Fabien’s plan, and asks you to work with him in order to bring the traitor in – the only thing that can possibly distract the Firm’s leader from you. You agree to help him.

***

All you have is your fire

And the place you need to reach

Don't you ever tame your demons

But always keep 'em on a leash

arsonist's lullaby - hozier

***

You wake with a kiss to your forehead. Opening your heavy eyelids, you’re met with a smile, and a pair of sparkling brown eyes.

“Morning” Tom says quietly. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, already dressed for the day in his usual suit, hair fixed and the outlining of a gun showing underneath his suit jacket.

“Good morning,” you respond, voice soft and full of sleep. Sitting up in the soft bed and pulling the sheets around you, you lean closer towards him. Gently you place your hand on his cheek, stroking his skin you feel the faint trace of stubble. He smells of his lemon and cedar soap and faintly of cigarettes. Pressing your lips softly against his other cheek, and then on his jawline, you whisper against his skin, “Do you really have to go?”

You can tell he’s focusing on his breathing, and as you lean back his dark eyes, glossed over and pupils dilated, are focused on your lips. His own mouth is slightly opened, and he’s leaning in towards you. Just as he’s about to press his lips against yours he murmurs, “Afraid so, darling.” He leans back and winks at you, a devilish smile on his lips.

“Don’t worry, angel, I’ll give you everything you want soon enough.”He stands up and moves towards the door. “I’ll be back before you know it, just doing some collecting today; shouldn’t be more than an hour. I’ll come back and we’ll have lunch, yeah?”

He’s leaned against the doorway, hands in suit pockets, the stolen Rolex on his wrist glistening in the early morning light coming in through the window. He’s all wicked smiles and dimples and his eyes are gleaming as he looks at you; sitting in the middle of the bed, white sheets pulled around you and hair loose, your skin kissed by the sun streaming in.

You smile back at him and letting go of the sheets you let them fall around you. Leaning back against your elbows you slowly spread your bent legs; looking at him all the while. He’s got his dark eyes fixated on where your spread legs meet. Slowly walking towards you, like a hunter approaching its prey. Reaching the bed he leans over it, grabs hold of your thighs, and pulls you towards him until he’s pressed up against your naked crotch. Leaning over you, hands resting on either side of your face, he whispers in a low voice against your lips, “Such a devious little temptress, aren’t you?”

He leans back and falls down on his knees. Kissing the soft inside of your thigh he bites the sensitive skin, leaving a wet and burning spot, he blows cold air on it and you shiver. He looks up at you, wicked smile in place and eyes sparkling with pleasure. “You could tempt a saint you know?” he says, voice thick with bewildered wonder as he presses his soft lips against your cunt, before licking up your slit, eagerly. “How’s a poor devil like me supposed to stand a chance?”

***

There’s a flickering light above your head and the hallway smells of something rotten. The dark medallion wallpaper and crimson-coloured carpet make it feel like the room is spinning slightly around you.

You’re just about to carefully lock the door to Tom’s apartment, having decided to go home and change before lunch, when you hear a creaking on the floor behind you. Something like alarm bells go off in your head, and you turn around only to be hit with something heavy and sharp right by your mouth.

A ringing in your ear, and the whole room seems to change perspective, turn on its side somehow. It takes you a second to realize that it isn’t the room that has fallen; it is you. Something above you moves, but you can’t see clearly, just the outlines of a blurred shadow coming closer and closer and a smell you can’t place but is stronger than the rotten smell of the hallway. And then a wet cloth covers your mouth.

Memories of when you were a child, swimming in the municipal pool, flash before your eyes and you can’t understand why.

Only, just before everything turns dark, does it hit you.

Chloroform.

***

The first thing your mind registers as you wake is a sore neck. A sore neck and a stinging nose and a back that feels uncomfortably stiff. You try to open your eyes but find the world just as dark as when you had them closed. Trying to move your hands you realize that they have been tied behind the uncomfortable chair you’ve been placed in.

Panic rises like bile in your throat and you want to scream, but the sound refuses to leave your lips, as if the panic itself is blocking it from leaving. Trying to kick your legs you realize that they too have been bound.

“She’s awake,” someone mutters behind you and you freeze, heart beating so hard in your chest that it’s hard to hear anything but the blood rushing through your system. “Go tell Jack,” the voice orders, and a pair of heavy footsteps move across the floor and soon a door opens and shuts.

Laying all your focus on your breathing, trying not to hyperventilate, you try to keep in control of yourself, though you can feel sweat begin to form on your forehead. You feel hyper- aware of your own body, of the rope digging into the fragile skin of your wrists, of the hard chair underneath you, of your own mortality and the dangerous situation you are in. You had been in a situation like this before, in a now very familiar apartment in Mile’s End. But even though you had been frightened then, it is nothing compared to the terror that grips hold of you now.

Soon a door opens, and footsteps move across the floor again.

“Now boys, is this the way you treat a lady?” A deep voice roars in an Irish brogue. “Have I taught you no manners?” The footsteps move closer and closer until they’re standing behind you.

“You big lads so scared of a girl you need to tie her up?” You hear how the man fiddles with something, only to realise that he’s untying the rope around your legs. Soon you feel the rope loose; but you are too frightened to even try to move them out of their uncomfortable position.

“Now unless you think this tied- up wench will overpower me, I suggest you get a fucking move on, yeah?” the man continues, as he frees your wrists as well.

No verbal answer follows, just the sound of a dozen of boots moving across the floor until eventually, the door shuts; leaving the room in silence apart from your ragged breaths and rabbit heart; pounding so hard in your chest you’re sure it’s clear for anyone to hear.

Then there’s a sudden movement by your head and then – you can see again.

Disoriented you blink into the light. The man, Jack you presume, pulls a chair across the floor, the scraping noise almost alarmingly loud to your panicked senses, and he sits down opposite you. Carefully you move your stiff hands from their position behind your back, slowly moving them to your front and placing them on your knees.

“There we go,” Jack says in a low, gruff voice that tells of years of smoking.

He’s probably in his early fifties, with blond hair that has begun to turn white and a neatly trimmed beard. A long scar is etched across his cheek. Wearing a rather worn grey suit he’s leaned back in his chair, looking relaxed and comfortable; the very opposite to how you are feeling. There’s something both harmless and, at the same time, absolutely terrifying about him. He’s almost disarming in his lack of threats, his slow, low way of talking and the patient, curious way he’s looking at you. You can’t get a read of the man, and that frightens you.

The room you’re in doesn’t help to make you feel more comfortable. It looks like an abandoned old apartment, wallpapers half torn down and a broken chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It’s dark outside the dirty window, and you wonder for how long you’ve been unconscious. An entire day must have passed since this morning.

“Now girl, you and I are gonna have a little chat about an old friend of mine,” he starts.

You don’t respond, waiting for him to reveal his hand before you make up your mind about how to play your cards with this unknown man.

“Now, child,” he continues, “what do you know of Fabien Towner?”

You’re taken aback at that. Somehow, subconsciously, you must have assumed that this kidnapping by this evident gangster had something to do with your father and his work as home secretary. That you had been picked out to provide information about a man you had never as much as laid eyes on had not occurred to you.

“All I know is what’s written in the newspapers.” You answer, only somewhat truthfully, since Tom has told you a few things about the feared London mobster as well.

“Sweetheart,” he chuckles, a deep, throaty sound, “do I look like the sort of man who reads the papers?” He’s smiling at you, though it seems malignant. You are reminded of a cat, playing with its food before it eats it. “I know better than to believe a word that's written in them,” he adds and grins, “after all, they write that I’m a bad man.”

“But alright then, let’s play that game,” he snaps, and the sudden change from almost playful to deadly serious has your heart faltering in your chest. “What do you know of a young mister Tom Holland, hm?”

If your heart was faltering in your chest before, it positively stops beating now. Your first instinct is to deny your knowledge of Tom’s existence. To say you’ve never heard that name. But you must keep your head cold, be calm and clever. This man knows very well that you know who Tom is, you were after all attacked when leaving his apartment.

“Not much,” you say, and your voice is frailer than you’d hoped. “He’s just a man I’ve been seeing”.

Jack’s hard, blue eyes are fixed on yours. He observes you for a while before saying, “You seemed very cozy with him at Romantique. I’m the owner of that club, I damn well know who frequents it, and what they get up to in it.”

It hits you then, and you want to groan at how slow you’ve been. This is Jack, the Jack Flanagan, the owner of club Romantique and Fabien’s sworn enemy, who has infiltrated the Firm with a traitor.

“Yes, I met Tom there, but I don’t know anything about Fabien Towner.”

Jack keeps his intense eyes fixed on you, as if he’s trying to read any slight change in your face. He scratches the roughened skin of his scarred cheek almost absentmindedly. “Come on now, I know how young men work when they’re trying to impress a pretty girl. They boast about how big and bad and ballsy they are. He’s told you about his,” and there’s a slight pause and a wicked grin before he continues, “profession, I presume?”

“All I know is he’s part of the Firm,” you say and sniff, “do you think he’d tell me anything? I’m just some girl he fucks. I don’t think he cares at all about me.” Your voice breaks as you speak, and two tears fall down your cheeks as you lie. They aren’t hard to fabricate in your current state of mind. You need to make him believe that Tom would never spill any secrets to you, because if this man in front of you,; his entire aura shouting of danger, finds any hint of the secrets stuck in your throat he’s bound to beat them out of you.

“Now that’s not a very nice thing to do,” Jack says in a low voice, and a smile spreads over his lips. “How would you like some revenge?”

Fear holds such a hard grip on your heart then that you are sure it’s bound to stop beating altogether. “What do you mean?” you ask, trying to hide your terror.

Jack smiles even wider, and something like a shiver moves up your spine. “You see,” he starts in his broad brogue, “old Fabien is not a man of many weaknesses. He’s a, well, I guess you can say a friend of mine. I know him well. I know what makes him tick.” He leans forward, resting his arms on his widespread legs, his intense eyes still fixed on yours. “Now I want him to stop ticking.”

Trying to swallow down the panic you answer in a cool voice, “and how could I possibly help with that?”

“Like I said, Fabien is not a man of many weaknesses. But he’s got a blind spot when it comes to that lad. I’ve heard the rumours; the Devil’s Boy, that’s what they call him, and that’s the way Fabien sees him. I’ve met Tom, on the night you danced with him in my nightclub in fact. And he's brought up by the devil alright,” he pauses, a grim smile on his face. “In order to get to Fabien, I need to get to the boy. And that’s where you come in, miss. See, Tom is Fabien’s weakness, so I’m gonna need you to become Tom’s weakness.”

“And how do you expect me to achieve that?” you ask, voice shaking slightly despite all your efforts to keep it under control. You feel like you’re trembling all over, like your very soul is rattling inside of you. Nothing seems real, nothing in this nightmarish scenario or in this strange room; nothing except for those bleak, intense eyes looking at you, and that low, gruff voice speaking of betrayal of the worst kind.

“You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you? Like a little bird. I’m sure you could convince him to stick around, to open up; to trust you. Then all this little bird needs to do is fly to me and sing her song, and I shall see to the rest, and you will have your revenge.”

You feel ice-cold all over, as if the blood itself in your veins have frozen. “And what kind of song does the bird sing? What is it that you need to know from me?”

“For now, I just need you to make him trust you. When the time is right, when everything is ready to be set in motion, I shall tell you the plan. What do you say?”

You don’t know if he’s honestly offering you a choice or not, if he’d even let you live if you refused him, but slowly you nod your head, and the smile grows bigger on his face, and his cold, blue eyes sparkle.

“Good,” he says, and rises from his chair. “Now it’s time for this little bird to be set free.”

***

Your legs feel unsteady and unsure underneath you as you make your way up the familiar steps to your house. You can hear the car that dropped you off drive away, but you don’t look back, you don’t ever want to look back again but it feels like you will spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder after this. You feel heavy all over, every limb slowly moving forward underneath the weight, burdened with a terrible secret.

Letting yourself in, you quietly make your way through the hall, wanting to avoid seeing anyone since that would mean you’d have to explain your split lip and your sore wrists. The skin of your lip pulses uncomfortably. You must have attained the injury this morning as you got attacked outside of Tom’s apartment.

With quiet feet you move up the stairs to your bedroom, needing only to change your clothes and leave a message for your father to let him know you will be sleeping at a friend’s house for a night or two. You jot the message down in spidery letters, so unlike your normally neat handwriting; your hands refusing to collaborate with you as they keep shaking. You leave the message on your desk, knowing that Mason will find it later and pass the information on to your father.

You fill the bathtub with water and scented oil, needing to wash the reminders of today off of you before you are ready to face Tom. Quickly ridding yourself out of your dirty dress, you step into the lukewarm water and start the process of scrubbing your skin clean. After having washed up, you change into another dress, feeling great relief in feeling the freshly washed fabric against your skin.

Looking at yourself in the mirror you cannot help but be taken aback at the sight. You have a split and swollen lip, your hair is a mess and your eyes seem bigger than normal; as if you are a frightened animal. Knowing there is nothing to do about the lip you try to smooth your hair, before giving up, deciding instead to pin it up into something a little more respectable.

In your new dress and hair, you look a little more put together, though your eyes remain frightened.

Packing a small bag with some essential clothes and hygiene products you creep out of the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind you. Your father’s voice booms out from the library, as he’s speaking on the telephone with someone. Passing the door on your tiptoes, as not to make a sound, a name caught your attention.

“Yes, Fabien’s boy.”

You stop dead in your tracks, listening carefully as your father goes on. “He’s been causing uproar in all the underworld. He set fire to a pub in Camden this afternoon, one of Flanagan’s places, and he’s been involved in a dozen fights all over the East End.”

Your breath hitches, but you force yourself to be quiet as your father keeps talking. “No, apparently he’s looking for some woman. A kidnapping they say.” Your father listens as the voice on the other side of the phone speaks before he keeps going. “Yes, of course, but if this means we have another gang war on our hands there needs to be readjustments.

You walk away, as quickly and quietly as you can, and step back out into the night. Never have you been in such a hurry to find a taxi in your life.

***

After having paid the driver, you rush up to Tom’s apartment, all four stairs, never slowing for a moment. You’re not sure of what you’re about to meet in the apartment but as you push the door open and rush inside you are relieved to see the figure of a man standing there.

Only to soon realise that it is not Tom.

The man is blond, and about the same age as Tom and dressed much the same in a dark suit. One of his arms is wrapped up in bandages. You recognize him as the man who came to pick Tom up the morning after you spent your first night at his place. A friend then, and not a foe.

He stands up from the sofa when he sees you, and smiles, seemingly relieved. “Thank fuck,” he mutters, moving closer. Standing in front of you, impressive in his length and stature, he observes your wounded face with a frown.

“Any other injuries?” He asks, voice collected but underneath his calm stature, you think you can sense a wave of anger.

You shake your head, unsure of what to say.

He nods, takes a gentle hand on your arm and leads your numb body to the sofa, gesturing for you to sit down. After you have done so he moves across the floor to the phone, his long legs taking wide strides. Dialing in a number he stands there, leaning against the wall, still observing you as he waits for the number to go through.

“Yeah, Harry? It’s Haz,” he says into the phone. “She’s here.”

There’s a loud voice on the other end of the line but you can’t make out what it is saying. “Yeah, yeah, well you need to let him know then, don’t you? Before he causes any more damage.” More silence as he listens to the other man. “No, apart from a split lip she’s unharmed,” and he looks over you again as he speaks, “she looks pretty fucking shaken though so get a fucking move on, yeah?” He hangs up.

In your wild haze of suffocating numbness, it strikes you how unlike Tom this Haz is, despite your first confusion. His accent is polished and posh despite his attempts to hide it. His back is almost impossibly straight as he’s holding himself upright and his young face looks taut. You wonder how a young man like this ended up within the ranks of the Firm.

He crouches down in front of you as you sit on the sofa, his knees bent until you are at eye level. “Have you had anything to eat?” He asks in a soft voice that takes you with surprise.

“No,” you mumble, only realizing now that it’s the case. But you’ve been so full of terror the entire day you’ve hardly even noticed. Haz has a frown on his face and a worried look in his eyes as he scans you over.

“Alright,” he sighs and gets up, moving across the room to the kitchen. You keep your eyes ahead, fixated on faded wallpaper in front of you, as you hear clattering and muttered swears coming from the kitchen.

Some while later Haz is back, a plate of sandwiches in one hand and a steaming mug of tea in the other. “Sorry,” he says, placing it down on the table in front of you, “fucker hasn’t got any milk.”

You tell him you don’t mind, and thank him for his kindness, before tucking in. Only after having nearly devoured the first sandwich do you fully realize how hungry you’ve been. Haz sits down on the worn leather armchair, leaned forward and resting his elbows on his thighs, hands clasped in his lap. It is as if he’s ready to jump into action on the first sign of danger. He watches as you eat.

“Hungry, ey?” He asks with a smile, as you swallow the last of your sandwich, reaching for the tea.

“Famished,” you confess.

For a few moments everything is silent in the darkened room, only lit up by the dim light coming from the kitchen. Outside you hear a car drive by.

“How did he know of the abduction?” You ask in the end.

Haz’s mouth tightens into a grimace, as if remembering something unpleasant. “The landlady saw as they carried you out to the car. She recognized you as Tom’s girl and let him know as soon as he came back.”

“How did he take it?” you ask, with reluctance.

Haz looks away from you, avoids your eyes; the frown on his face growing deeper. “Let’s just say the boy’s got a talent for destruction when he puts his mind to it.”

“Where is he now?”

“Well, last I heard he was,” he pauses, edits himself in the search for the right word, “he was interrogating someone in Hackney, trying to find a lead of where they took you,” he sighs. And then in a bitter tone, he adds, “I would have gone with him,” another sigh, “but out of combat, unfortunately. So I was put to stay here and wait to see if you’d return. Harry was placed in the pub, much to his indignation; ever the boy of action, while Fabien made Sam and a few others go after Tom. To try and reel him in a little.”

A bang, and then Tom comes crashing through the door. Harrison is on his feet, almost before you’ve registered the sound of the door slamming against the wall, gun in hand and aiming at the man in the hall. When he sees who it is he lowers the weapon and breathes out.

Your eyes remain fixed on the man striding over to you. It’s like he’s unable to look away from you and as soon as you get within an arm's reach he pulls you towards him. With a hand carefully cupping your chin, he inspects your face, eyes glued to your split lip, a deep frown on his face.

He turns to Harrison, who just nods at him; the taut frown relaxing and a smile pulling at his lips. “Alright, that’s me done for the night.”

“Harry’s sulking at the pub if you feel like cheering him up,” Tom tells him, still holding onto you.

Harrison moves to the door, snorts loudly, and says in a voice that sounds done for, “You fucking Holland boys and your goddamn sulking.” And then he’s out, the door closing behind him.

Tom rests his forehead against yours, breathing slowly. “Hi,” he says, voice a quiet whisper. His fingers don’t stop stroking your cheek for a second. Then, “I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.” It’s a savage kind of remorse, real like a physical presence in the room. To think that on this very morning you had laid in bed, wordlessly tempting him into staying there with you for a while.

You should have stayed in that bed forever with him.

“Is it not your fault,” you tell him, knowing that it’s useless, and true enough, he shakes his head at the idea.

A deep sigh escapes him, as if he’s letting out a breath he’s been holding for a long time. You breathe him in, the familiar lemon and cedar soap; the faint trace of smoke.

“Tonight I’m going to take care of you,” he says, stroking your cheek with his long, ring- clad finger, “gonna make sure that you’re alright.” He presses his lips softly against your temple. “And tomorrow,” he continues, voice hardened steel now, “tomorrow I’m going to take care of him.”

“No,” you say softly, looking at the floor.

Dead silence wills the room for several heartbeats. Then, voice bewildered, “What?”

He’s leaning away from you, though his big hands are still covering your jawline, your throat. “You can’t go after him,” you say, taking a slow breath, staring at his shoes. Slowly you take in Tom’s appearance for the first time. When he had crashed into the apartment all your attention had been on his face, but now, now you see the state of him. The once white dress shirt he wore this morning is stained with blood and dirt and the sleeve on his jacket has a burn mark.

Tom pushes your face up to meet his eyes. Reluctantly your eyes follow. “And why can’t I do that?” he asks slowly, through gritted teeth.

“Because I’m working for him now,” you say, forcing yourself to meet his eyes. For a moment he goes completely still and before he can react you keep going. “He is going after Fabien, he wants to bring him down. He thinks you are Fabien’s weakness, so he’s hired me to become your weakness. He wants to use you against Fabien, and use me against you. I told him yes.”

Tom lets go of you, takes a step away from you, looks at you with big, wounded eyes. “What have you done?” he asks, sounding almost defeated.

“I could play this to our advantage, we could -” but he interrupts you with a roar.

“Have you lost your fucking mind? You don’t know these men! You don’t understand what they’re capable of. They’d enjoy murdering you if it comes to that. Jack Flanagan’s the sort of man that would kill over an insult, do you have any fucking idea how badly he’d take a betrayal?”

“Don’t you understand?” I am working for him now, just as the traitor does. I can find out who it is and once we know, Fabian will kill the traitor and once he is gone he can go after Jack with full force. We can play them against each other, don’t you get it?”

Tom is stunned silent for a moment, thinking over what you’ve said with a horrified expression on his face. “Does he know, does Jack know who your father is?”

You are silent for a long time, biting your lip in worry. “I don’t know. But I think so. I didn’t have to leave my name or address and they still knew where to drop me off.”

Tom looks pale. His eyes big and glossy as he looks at you, shoulders tense as he’s holding himself together. “I see,” he says, trying to remain calm, “so the two most dangerous men in London are aware of your relation to your father and are both more than capable at using that as leverage if needed.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” you whisper.

And he’s in front of you again, holding onto your face, his body pressed tightly against yours, and maybe it’s imagination, but you think you can feel the drumming of his heartbeat underneath his chest; can feel your heart drum back to the beat of his. He’s breathing hard, slowly in and out, and his strong body is rigid, every nerve tense. You know that he’s trying to calm himself down; trying to get a hold of himself and all his fear and anger. Can feel it radiating off his body in waves.

“I can do this, I can play them against each other.” You don’t know why you are whispering, except that maybe you want to make something in this whole situation gentle, in any way you know how.

“I don’t like this, angel,” he says, his voice also a whisper, as he breathes slowly through his nose. “I really fucking hate this.”

You know that the road you have begun walking is a dangerous one, no doubt full of menace and doom. But you have chosen your road. “I know,” you whisper back, “but it’s the best shot we’ve got.”

You know, as you stroke his cheek, that you would do anything for him. Because it turns out that you are made up of the kind of never yielding devotion that is bound to end in tragedy, but as you look into his sad, brown eyes, tender as they look at you, you wonder if he isn’t made of the same.

#tom holland #mob!tom #tom holland smut #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland imagine

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beskarberry · 3 years

Text

The Roar of Thunder

Bargaining with Beskar, Chapter 12, Book Two Finale

(The Mandalorian x f!reader) (+18)

He couldn’t console Grogu, or even get him to eat most days, and that made him just as worthless as Imp scum. The last bounty lay at the end of the wormhole, a pathetic bail jumper that should take no time at all to capture, and once that was complete and the credits collected maybe…

Maybe he should take Grogu home.

<- Previous

Rating: Extra Explicit

Word count: 24.2k SORRY

Content warnings: *deep breath* Dark themes, self loathing, depression, thoughts of suicide, implied parental abuse, drug induced abductions, use of needles, auditory and visual hallucinations, extremely graphic descriptions of violence, blood and gore, stupid amounts of murder. Oh, and smut! Yay!

A/N: THE EPIC CONCLUSION (???) OF BARGAINING WITH BESKAR! Holy shit I can't believe we've made it this far! I know those tags are super fucking intimidating but there is a light at the end of this tunnel, it's just a very long, dark ass tunnel and you're gonna have to work to get there! THANK YOU ALL so much for joining me on this wildass ride that I already said I was finished with once before lol. There's a lot that I'm leaving off with so there's a very good chance I'll come back to this story in the future, but for now, enjoy!

The Crest had been silent before, for years actually, but never like this.

When it had only been him aboard the old gunship, long before the child and much longer before you, silence had been the Mandalorian’s only companion. In the wake of betrayal, the eerie quiet of hyperspace had returned like a plague; creeping in on innumerable, chitinous legs through the Razor’s solid walls, taking up space like something alive.

Or maybe something dead.

Silence was heavy, viscous and rotting in Mando’s ears. It slithered through his ear canals and down his throat, seeping over his heart like melted tar. It hurt, the silence. Somehow both burning like acid and freezing like ice in his chest and it hurt. It made his bones ache. It made his ears ring in place of the lack of noise, the lack of life and love that he had grown so fond of.

But the silence was better, a hundred, thousand times better than the crying.

Grogu wailed whenever he was awake, sobbing and choking on the tears that streaked down from his cosmic eyes and stopped up his teensy tinsey nose with snot. The little terror never made so much noise in all his life, and he would frequently cry so hard he would tire himself out and fall into a fretful, restless sleep. Din would try everything he could think of, holding the baby, rocking him and shushing him as sweetly as a mountain of metal could; but the child only cried harder for his efforts.

The child wouldn’t eat, barely slept, and wept relentlessly. Din’s shattered heart broke a thousand more times with each fitful sob that tore it’s way out of the tiny toothy mouth of his adopted son, and every day that it continued he thought the agony would kill him.

He knew why Grogu was so heartbroken, though he refused to accept it, still tasting the bitterness of betrayal on his tongue. Dirty Imp. He wanted to be so angry, he still was, but the exhaustion of trying to comfort his son drained every ounce of fight from the mighty warrior’s body. Din’s decision was final, even if it was starting to feel like the worst decision he’d ever made in his entire life. He wasn’t going to let any goddamn Imps near his son, no matter how lovely they were, how beautiful… how wonderful.

Grogu was just going to have to get over it.

But...what if he never does?

Din was cradling the child against his bare shoulder, trying, and failing, for the thousandth time that week to get Grogu to calm down. The Mandalorian rocked slowly, holding the child’s head to his shoulder and petting him softly, running his thumbs over his ears in the way that used to make the little beastie coo and hum. Made him close his eyes and sleep. If… if he could just get the child to sleep, to relax, maybe he could think straight.

When she was here, what would she do? Din didn’t want to think about the monster that he had let into his life, let into his heart, but he couldn’t stop the train of thought as it left his mental station. She would sing. She would sing him a lullaby and he would conk right out. They were his favorite. He groaned, blinking up at the hazy cabin lights as if the Maker was up there with better answers.

They were my favorite, too.

Din sighed heavily against the weeping creature he loved so dearly, then started to hum one of the songs he thought he remembered. Low and slow, a deep, rumbling baritone that once was as warm as honey, but now felt cold, lifeless and dull.

There was the briefest of respites in the child’s crying, only to pick back up with a vengeance at the memory of his lost buir’s lullabies. Assaulted by the uptick in the wailing, Din wracked his brain for the words to those songs. Stars, there were so many, but there was one that sort of… stuck.

“Hey, womp rat, let me see you.” Din pulled the soggy baby from his shoulder, fishing the edge of his cloak around to wipe the child’s flooded eyes. “There he is. Um, how does it go… I have sailed the… no that’s not… I went sailing in the midnight sea, something something…navigator... wait, please don’t cry. Fuck.”

Singing wasn’t one of his strong points, no matter how many times you had told him he had a lovely voice, soft and dark and velvety. No, it was you whose voice was spun from gold, not his. You had brought music into his world, that very first day, sitting in the passenger seat with the child in your lap you had broken into a star-shanty that dissolved every barrier the Mandalorian had erected around his heart and sang love into his world.

Your voice wasn’t just powerful, it was a siege weapon.

Nothing had ever had that kind of power over him, made him want to rip his helmet from his skull and throw it overboard just to hear your voice as it was meant to be heard in all its glory. And then when he had gotten to hear it clear and true, without the modulation of his audio intake processors, he knew he would never hear anything more beautiful again in his entire life.

His Starsong.

Din tried to bring himself back to the very first song, something about a navigator, guiding a mighty ship through the stars. So long ago, when Grogu had fallen asleep from your lullaby and you were just humming the last verses, you had caught Din staring at you and abruptly cut the song short; thinking that the Mandalorian was ready to slit your throat for being so close to his precious cargo. It wasn’t until later, after a victorious but near-fatal hunt that you had been asked to finish it.

You were cradled against his side, tucked into the crook of his arm with your head on his chest, tired and breathless from critical bloodloss and a foolish bout of lovemaking. You had nearly died, and his son had saved your life, given you back to him like a precious keepsake. Din had felt your breathing slow way down, watched your eyes close from behind his visor, and suddenly he just had to know.

How does the song end?

Mmm? Why, do you need a lullaby too?

No, just curious. When you leave, my foundling might ask me about it.

Din stopped rocking the child, struck fast by the memory. Grogu was starting to tire himself out, but the tears still flowed, dampening the flack under his squishy baby face.

When you leave.

He had made a deal with you, one hunt and you were off the hook, spared from carbonite and the Guild’s vengeance; but everything about you enchanted him so much that he nearly broke his own Creed just to feel your body against his, feel your lips on his face, your hands in his hair. Even before he heard your singing his ears had fallen in love with your voice. Maker, the sounds that you had made; the soft little pants, the choked cries, the moans. He had to have you.

He had to hear you.

Ensorcelled by your siren tongue he took you for himself, gave himself to you in the sacred way his Creed demanded should have come after riduurok, but he didn’t care. The first time he filled you was heaven, an addiction more fixing than spice. In that moment he was too far gone to try to explain to you that The Way dictated he was bound to you now as your protector, but would have understood if you had told him no. Told him to leave you alone, let you get back to your life. But you had only sunk your claws deeper, given yourself more, entwining yourself with him more closely than the beskar that had been forged around him.

When you leave.

You’d become protective and caring and dangerous, a weaponized testament to the love you’d grown for your two boys. You hunted with the fury of thunderstorms, defended your kin with your own life, loved them like no one else ever had and it was beautiful. Din’s foundling became your foundling, and soon you’d become the foundling’s buir, bound to his little clan by the sacred ceremony of riddurok. Indivisible, inseparable. A pack, a clan, a family.

A lie.

A dirty, filthy, soul crushing lie.

A fucking Imp had been right under his nose, in his fucking bed, whispering in his ear that he was loved, that he meant something. Anger burned behind his eyes at the memories that he once cherished, making their corners sting. Grogu picked up on it instantly, his almost-closed eyes flying back open with another shriek. Din gave up. He couldn’t take it anymore. The child was gently lowered to his pram, still sniveling but at least tired enough that maybe he would fall asleep soon.

With squinty, flooded eyes the baby glared up at his adopted father, his ears nearly falling off his head with how droopy they were. He sank his adorable little talons into the fabric of Din’s wrist, keeping him hostage so the tiny green terror could break his fathers heart just one more time.

“Bubu?”

“Yes?”

Grogu grumbled with a scowl, looking away from Din’s exhausted face, trying to find somebody else. “Bubu.”

Din had heard the baby use the shorthand of buir for the first time when he was storming up the Crest’s ladder after abandoning you on Elgon Station, hatred and disgust deafening him to the sound of his son's first almost-word. When he was blasting away from the sudden starcruiser, he had heard the baby shouting the sweet phrase over and over and over again, his little voice choked with desperation; and he knew that it wasn’t meant for him.

It was meant for you.

Din shook his head, unhooking Grogu from his sleeve. ”Sorry kid, It’s just me now.” Fighting the mist forming in his eyes, he closed the lid, sealing the pram with an ugly hiss at yet another betrayal. Sorry kid.

For everything.

Exhausted and broken, Din flopped down in the little sleeping nook that he had once shared with you, sinking into the bedroll. The Tatooinian bed roll. You had picked up the soft, plush foam mattress on your shopping excursion through the desert bazaar, spitting fire about the quality of the bed he had grown used to.

It was your bed roll.

Din was too tired to yank the thing off and shred it like he had been meaning to, at least that’s what he had been telling himself for the last few cycles. The reality was that it still smelled faintly of you, a scent that was losing its strength with each passing jump through hyperspace. Sleep made him just as restless as his son usually was now, often waking him up in a flop sweat that was slowly replacing the scent in the mattress with wallowing anguish.

Not even an hour after he had laid down he woke up in one such panic, sweat turning to ice on his brow and down the expanse of his chest, and on instinct he reached for you.

But you weren’t there.

When you leave… her. You left her, Djarin. You left her behind. Left her to die. It’s your own fault.

Agony and despair and guilt were his only bedfellows now, grinding against his ribs and chewing through the lining of his stomach. He reached up for one of the thin, utilitarian blankets that he kept in the mesh netting high above his head, maybe more to wipe the sweat off than for comfort. Comfort had tricked him and told him lies. Comfort had made him weak, made him blind to the insurgence that laid next to him at night. Comfort was not something he deserved.

The threadbare blanket fell down from its spot, bringing something else down with it.

Bantha wool.

Growling, Did made to throw the fleecy thing away, hoping it would take his painful memories with it, but the smell of you was all over it. Strong as if you were right there with him, as if he held you in his arms again.

He stopped fighting, hugging the desert fabric to his chest and burying his face in it, breathing in the scent of you as if without it he would suffocate and die. He held the air in, feeling it flow through the serrated hole where his heart used to be. The breath in his lungs let itself out, ragged and broken and threatening.

Alone in his little bunk, the best hunter in the parsec swallowed his sobs down, terrified of waking the baby. The scent of you brought him back to that moment, the moment that he’d snapped. You’d been trying to tell him something, but he had been consumed by his anger, blinded by his hatred of the Empire and the threat that it posed to his son and the memories of what it had done to his people. The Empire that you served.

His body shook at the memory of your confession, I am not an Imp! That’s not who I am anymore! You’d shouted, no, roared, concealing the usage of some kind of… interference device that must have been hidden on your person. His visor had flickered and his audio processors blew, nearly deafening him with feedback. The damage done to his helmet was extensive, and like nothing he’d ever seen, the wires and microchips crushed by some phantasmal force. It took days for him to repair, but it was a welcome distraction from his painful memories.

That’s not who I am any more.

Din chewed his lip so hard he tasted blood, sucking it back down as not to stain the cherished blanket. Did I make a mistake? No. An Imp doesn’t change its plasticast… does it? Even… even one as strong and beautiful as her. He breathed the scent of you in deep, curling up on his cot until his knees touched the wall, digging up yet another tainted memory.

The memory of him kneeling before you, of him asking for your hand.

You don’t know me! You’d sobbed, waving around a sword of pure beskar inches from his throat. You don’t know where I’ve been, what I’ve done!

You’d told him right then and there that you weren’t to be trusted, but... it was too late.

He was in love.

Bedazzled in a pair of opalized fangs far too lavish for such a warrior, he’d sank to his knees at your feet, asking for your hand, or your judgement.

You may now ask him to swear his oaths, and should they please you, you may remove his helmet. However, should he dishonor you, you may remove his head.

It was almost unfair, such an ultimatum of love or death.

You broke every single vow you swore to her, Djarin. How are you any better than an Imp? She loved you, and you threw her out like garbage. You purged that love from your life, forsaking the one that you called ner jate’kara, your guiding star. Without her, you will die in the darkness that you have brought upon yourself.

Without love there was only death left for him, though there wasn’t a single being in this parsec that would be capable of killing him…

Except-

Himself.

The brakes had long gone out on his mental trains, and horrifying clarity wrenched his eyes open in the darkness of the bunk. Maybe death would feel better than the heartbreak he was suffering from now. Maybe giving himself up to the cold embrace of the void would feel less damning, less crushing.

To leave this universe on his own volition, and not on the valorous battlefield, was considered the lowest form of dishonor a Mandalorian could endure. Dar’manda. But… that’s what he was. An honorless cur, an oathbreaker. Though his bond to you had been rendered completely fucking worthless, he was still bound to the baby as his father.

Though...maybe…

Maybe he shouldn’t be.

Maybe he should take Grogu home.

To his people, his real people like he was supposed to do eons ago.

What is it?

It is a foundling. And by Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father.

Din had taken that last line to heart. The last memory he had of his own father still haunted his nightmares, the image of his parent’s eyes glassy with frightened tears as they closed the bunker door over him right before the droid army took their lives.

Decades later an opportunity had been presented to him, an opportunity to give this child a father to grow up with; though the child would likely live for centuries after Din died from either old age or, more likely, a bullet hole. His unknown people had not been good enough to protect the baby, to keep him out of harm's way and out of the grasp of the Empire, but a Mandalorian would be.

Or, so he had told himself.

Somewhere out in the vastness of space were potentially more little green creatures that were missing one of their own, and he had selfishly stolen Grogu away from them to live out his fantasy of being a father.

No.

It wasn’t right, it hadn’t been from the start.

And now he was being punished for it.

One more hunt, one last credit haul to fuel his ship up, and he would return the baby to his people, giving Grogu’s real parents every cent he had left in the most desperate hope that they would forgive him. Forgive him for stealing a child.

And then.

Then it would be over.

There would be nothing left for him.

As if there was anything left for him now.

It took a couple of cycles to convince yourself that it wasn’t a nightmare, and even longer to come to terms with your waking reality. Your wayward journey through the stars was over just as quickly as it had begun, and you were right back at square one where you had started.

Inside of you a dull, constant ache had settled in the spot where your heart used to be, bitter and stinging against the anger that was growing in your ribs and the nausea festering in your guts. You couldn’t close your eyes without seeing the rage-twisted face of the man you had thought you loved, thought you trusted; the image worse than any nightmare. You ran through the scenario over and over and over until it drove you to silent, secretive tears.

Years of learning to track, hunt, and kill quarry was only a blip on your mental radar compared to the memories you had made with the Mandalorian and his son during the short time you had known them. You wanted to remember the good things, like the sweet laughter of the child or even the funny, gross-ish noises that Din made when he ate. Anything but those furious, hateful eyes and bared teeth, but that was all you saw whenever you so much as blinked.

Behind your closed eyes was the face of rage, but when your eyes were open it was even harder to convince yourself this was your reality, because you kept seeing… something. A flicker here, a flash of blue there. The feeling that someone was standing next to you when you were in an empty room, as rare as that was now that you were back under the ever-watchful eye of the Admiral.

Though your eyes were playing tricks on you, that wasn’t the strangest thing you’d noticed about the old dragon. Aside from the Admiral there wasn’t a single member of the skeletal crew that you recognized, though almost all of them wore some form of duraplast covering their faces. Every bilgerat you had grown up with had vanished, as well as most of the officers that you’d actually grown to like, including Chief Wellers, the engineering deck staffed with more droids now than people.

It was strange to say the least, and lonely, being left with only one recognizable face that you loathed. The unfamiliar officers glared at you while you were being led up the Wyvern’s wide entryway days ago, making judgemental passes at your hunt-fucked attire. To better match the remaining crew you were stripped of your gear and weapons and given a fresh, beige-and-black uniform that rode up under your arms and chaffed your thighs. And to add insult to injury you had even been given a stupid little hat to top it off. You hated it, but at least it had pockets. Pockets full of secrets.

Wrapped up in the red silk kerchief that you had stolen on Canto Bight, the pair of beloved fossils weighed heavy against your thigh, a piercing reminder of another life. Why are you keeping them? He left you, dumbass. He’s not coming back. True as that may be, you weren’t ready to let go, the wound was still too fresh, too recent. You missed those strange boys from the stars, and the tiny collection of trinkets was all you had left of a life that had actually meant something to you.

A set of beskar ear cuffs, a red pocket square, and a pair of krayt’s teeth.

An entire lifetime sitting in the palms of your hands.

You had one in your hand now, the opalized bone glittering under fluorescent lights while you used it to pick at the undersides of your nails, the priceless gemstones reduced to cleaning tools. Glancing up at the ship's clock you calculated how long you had before Forescythe would come around to ‘wake you’, as if you’d slept at all in the last three days.

The Wyvern’s Tongue was surprisingly still docked at the station you had been abandoned on, a scorching reminder of your trauma every time you passed a porthole or walked the bridge, stuck to the Admiral’s side like he had you on a leash. It was difficult to tell what they were loading the ship up with, but every time you saw the station you caught another massive skiff-load of something with the word HAZARDOUS in big yellow letters being hauled aboard from one of the other starships that had docked nearby.

You heard footsteps outside your spartan quarters, getting closer then fading away. Stormtrooper. Though you weren’t being kept prisoner, exactly, the constant vigil between the Admiral and the troopers left you little-to-no privacy, with only the smallests gaps in their overlaps. The rotation of the guards through the hallways was militant with its timing, and it wouldn’t be much longer before you had all of their routes memorized.

The long-strided gait of the Admiral echoed far down the hallway, and you snuck your fangs into your pockets so you could make yourself presentable. Oh-seven-hundred, on the dot. Barely a courtesy knock was given before the detestable man was letting himself into your room, running through the day’s itinerary after a hastily given ‘Good morning, Sparrow.’

Sparrow. Your deadname was dropped frequently, scalding your steeled ears each time, though rarely was it said with anything short of admiration. You almost wanted to be scolded, and you should have been for dissenting for as long as you did, but the way the Admiral talked to you was friendly, dangerously friendly; and the sweet-talking only made you resent him more.

“Today is the last day we will be docked at Elgon, we’ve nearly finished loading up on the...supplies, and will be in hyperspace soon. This old girl’s been fitted with an updated hyperdrive, so we’ll make the trip to our destination in good time.” You nodded, avoiding conversation. It was best that you spoke to him as little as possible to perpetuate the lie that you had become tone deaf, and you could tell that it drove him insane. Good, fuck your shit to hell. He gestured for you to follow him on his rounds, walking alongside him like an obedient puppy. “Come along, little bird, there is much for us to do today.”

“Yessir.”

He froze and turned back at you, a pouty face stretched grossly across his gaunt features. “Now now, Sparrow, I know you’re upset that you’re not my comms officer anymore, but you’re home again, you can drop the formalities when we’re in private.” He crossed the short distance to you, placing his hands on your shoulder and digging his thumbs into the deep-set bruises that he couldn’t see. “You don’t have to call me sir.”

You wished you could vomit on command, spew acid like a voxyn and melt the Admiral's face clean off, peel his smile right off of his skull. You knew what he wanted, but you would rather cut off your own tongue than give it to him. But you knew what would happen if he didn’t get what he wanted, your skin crawling at repressed memories. He left you no choice.

“Yes… father.”

“There, doesn’t that sound better? Almost makes me feel like you never even left.”

No it wasn’t better, it was horrid. You forced your face to stay neutral, but behind your eyes you were seething. It must have been the anger welling up inside you that made you see something flicker over the Admiral’s shoulder. Something that definitely wasn’t there.

You were going to get off of this ship if it fucking killed you.

Of course it had to be Tatooine.

The dirtball of a planet lit up the viewport in front of Din, bathing the cockpit in sickly, lemon-yellow light. The Crest slid easily through the thin atmosphere on well-tuned wings, coasting over the infinitely stretching desert until the familiar skyline of Mos Eisley rose into view.

Mando took the old gunship in with rehearsed accuracy, alighting gracefully on the landing pad in the center of hangar 3-5, though not even the roar of the Razor’s engines could drown out the high pitched argument already echoing around the circular space.

“You gotta lotta nerve showing up here again, Mando!” Peli barked, tapping her foot like a disgruntled hare when the Mandalorian started down the ramp. She took a big breath to really launch into a tirade when she saw the foundling, with his huge sad eyes and limply drooping ears. “What… what’s wrong with the baby? Is’ee sick or somethin’?” Din started to hand her the child, but she raised her arms defensively. “Look, he’s cute’n all but I-I don’t need a sick kid on my hands.”

“He’s not sick, he’s... fine.” Din said in a low, level voice, devoid of almost all emotion. Somewhat reluctantly the mechanic took Grogu from him, and the little green baby curled up in a ball of sadness, hiding his head under her chin.

“Alright, if you say so. I don’t mind watchin’ him as long as he don’t upchuck on my jumpsuit.” She glanced past the iron giant’s shoulders, her eyebrows raised almost comically. “Where’s the other one? You get rid of her finally?” Din was still for a moment, then gave a single, slow nod. “Good. Bout time someone turned that Imp in. I’m tellin’ ya, she cheated at sabbac like-”

“How did you know she was an Imp?” Mando asked, suddenly alive.

“I have my ways.” She chided. Din cocked his head vehemently above stiffened shoulders. “Alright alright don’t look at me like that, geez. When she showed up here it was in a Shimian pleasure cruiser, y’know one of those fancy, expensive lookin’ ones. Obviously stolen. She wanted me to take it, even offered to pay me just to take it off’er hands, but I wasn’t gonna fall for that. She had alotta credits too, almost enough to talk me into it, almost! That’s when she pulled out an Imperial officer’s insignia, pure aurodium and easily worth a fortune.”

Peli paused to adjust Grogu, smoothing a wayward ear out of her face. “If she’d’a picked it off a corpse there’s no way she would’a kept it. Nuh-uh, would’a sold that baby the first chance she got. Nah, it meant something to her once, or maybe it was just the last bargaining chip she had, I don’t know.”

The mechanic shrugged. “Either way, I took the token an’ fenced the ship, made alotta cash that day. If she didn’t cheat at sabacc so damn much I’d invite her over more often!” The mechanic snorted a laugh, then a serious look crossed her face. “Hey, um, Mando… you weren’t… you weren’t too rough with her, were ya? When you turned her in? She wasn’t a bad egg, y’know. Bit snarky but- ”

Leather fists creaked at the end of armored wrists, trying to strangle the pain that was constricting his heart. “Can you watch the child or not?”

Surprised by his harsh tone, Peli nodded quickly and watched the Mandalorian spin around on his heel and storm back up the ramp into the Crest without another word. The confused mechanic looked down to Grogu with a playful scowl. “What’s his deal, huh, womp rat?” The child cooed sadly, hiding his face. “Oh, that bad, huh? Wanna tell me about it over some bantha burgers? They’re fresh! C’mon, you look like you’re wasting away, dad not feeding you right?”

“Pa..tu...”

With the child’s care secured, Din started his preparations for the hunt. Dressing-down was second nature to him, and going through the motions helped him clear his mind, tune him into his natural state of being. At the armory, he popped fresh cartridges into his blasters, refilled the slug-strap that crossed his chest, and picked out a handful of vibroblades.

He reached into the bottom of the locker, trying to dig out a whetstone when he heard the sweet ringing of ironsong where his wrist armor chimed against a beskar mask. He’d stashed the engagement present as far down in the armory as he could, somewhere that it would remain hidden, somewhere that it couldn’t stare back at him; the eyeless visage glaring daggers of judgement straight through his skull.

Oathbreaker.

Growling, he shoved the slab of steel out of the way, knocking it into something else in the bottom of the armory: Imp guns.

He stopped digging for a moment, cocking his helmet at the collection of grimey, rust-ridden armaments that were dirtying up the bottom of the cabinet. Din pulled one of the standard-issue blasters up into the slanted daylight coming in from the open door, turning it over in his hands. The guns had been collected on Nevarro from a decrepit squad of stormtroopers caught harassing townspeople for information on the missing mandos.

Stormtroopers that you had killed.

Imps killing Imps? That… doesn’t make sense. Why would she kill her own people? He shook his head. Why would they abduct children or blow up planets? Killing their own isn’t that far-fetched. He tossed the blaster back into the locker, covering the beskar faceplate with the rest of the Imp accessories until it was back out of sight.

Finished with arming himself, he took a deep breath and held it in his chest for as long as he could, letting it out slow and steady. He fished the singular bounty fob from his belt, the tracking light flashing with a rhythmic candor. Nearby, but not close. That means they’re probably in town.

This will be easy.

The hour was late, or as late as it could be in a place where ‘day’ and ‘night’ were only concepts represented by the arms of a clock, but it was perfect for what you needed to do. You were dressed and your pockets were stuffed, bag slung over your shoulder exactly as it had been the first time you’d ran away from home. Five fifteen, three minutes before the next pass of guards.

Your plan was flawless. The Wyvern’s labyrinthian hallways and service spaces would lead you to the hangar bay just as they had years ago, it was just a matter of doing so unseen. If you played your cards right you would miss each and every patrol until you could snag another interceptor and get the hell outta dodge. The Wyvern was scheduled to disembark Elgon at oh-seven-hundred, making this your last chance to escape before the ship was swallowed by the stars.

Five sixteen.

Patting your front pockets where your fangs were hidden, you paced the room, running through the pathway again and again. Straight down the hallway past the guard quarters, left at the galley. Unscrew the loose air vent at the end of the breezeway and take that to the main air shaft ‘til you reach the mid deck, then it’s a straight shot-

D̵̫͊o̷n̸’t̷ lea̸̒ve̷.

You stopped your pacing and blinked, glancing around the room for the source of the voice. When you saw no one, you sighed and rubbed your temples. Not this shit again. The incessant voice of your nightmares had stopped being scary and started being just downright annoying. You’d started to get good at ignoring the sound, though it just loved keeping you up at night.

Who needs sleep, anyway?

Five seventeen. Your shoulders crackled when you rolled them, trying to loosen the bruised tissue that the Mandalorian had put in their joints. Asshole. You were about to start counting seconds when you heard the troopers boots echoing faintly from down the hallway. Right on t-

D̷͊o̶n̵͗’̴̕t̷͛ ̵͔͘ḻ̷̛eav̵e!

“Fuck off, spooky.” You hissed to no one in particular. “I’m blowin’ this popsicle stand and ain’t no goddamn ghost gonna keep me here a minute longer.” The bootsteps got louder until they were right outside your door, then continued down the hallway.

Five eighteen on the dot. You waited until the footfalls disappeared entirely, then snuck your way out through the bulkhead door, careful not to make a sound. The long, low-lit corridors echoed with the whirring innards of the Wyvern, but nothing else. Not even your bootsteps.

Much quieter than the ghosts that haunted your dreams, you slinked down the hallway, past the closed door of the guard quarters, hugging the wall by the galley until the five twenty-one patrol passed, then flew to the air vent on the far side of the kitchen.

A knife would have worked better, but a fossil fang was good enough to undo the corner screws that kept the grate in place. You slipped down the air duct right before the five-twenty-three patrol rounded the far corner. Waiting until they passed so they wouldn’t hear you, you belly-crawled down the narrow shaft until you dropped into the main air supply.

Wind rushed around you, delivering precious oxygen to every corner of the ship, but even over the near-howling gales you could still hear Spooky giving you a ration of crap.

Yo̷u̵ ca̴n̷̎not le̸̪̕a̵ve! ̵͒S̷tay̴ ̸̔st̷͐ay ̴s̷t̵̂a̷y̵̾ s̷͂ta̵̍y

“You fucking suck!” You spat, hobbling through the just-too-short-to-stand-up ventilation. “Keep your damn pie hole shut unless you have something useful to-”

H̴e’̴̓s ̴̉c̶̍oming.

You hit the brakes, possibly sacrificing precious time. “Who, Forescythe? He’s gotta get his beauty rest, that old fuck’ll be down at least til-”

N̵͒ò̶, n̴o̸t̶ ̴̓hi̵m, Din.

Ice coagulated in your veins before it was replaced with molten rage. “Oh. Oh ho HO.” You laughed, barely keeping your voice down. “Now… now you’ve done it, Spook. Now I know you’re not real, and I’m just completely batshit! Off my rocker!” You soldiered on, a manic grin on your face. “He is definetly not fucking coming. And if you’d been paying attention you’d know that too.”

H̴e’̴̓s ̴̉c̶̍oming!

“Blow me.” You hustled through the ductwork until you were above the entryway to the hangar. The interceptor bay was on its own air supply in case a magcon failed and vacuumed all the air out, a separate system from the one you were in now. That way the rest of the ship would still have precious oxygen in the event of catastrophe, all you had to do now was get through the door.

The five-thirty-five trooper plodded sleepily along, tilting his egghead back to sip at a steaming mug of caf. What is the point of having a guard rotation if they’re not even awake. Once he’d rounded the corner you set to work on the air vent, quickly spinning the threaded ends of the screws around between your fingers until they clattered to the floor far below.

Carefully you moved the grate out of the way and dropped to the decking in front of the hangar door. Bingo! You dashed to the access panel, slapping your hand on the wide palm reader. Go go go go! The blue laser light slid back and forth, back and forth, lazily reading your fingerprints. Come on!!!

The panel went red. ENTRY DENIED.

“Cocksucker!” You slapped the screen, demanding it take another reading, but instead it flashed another line of text: SPW-7042 PRE-EXISTING MEDICAL CONDITION DETECTED, ENTRY BARRED DUE TO HAZARDOUS RHYDONIUM EXPOSURE.

“‘Scuse me?!” you poked at the screen like an geriatric Gungan, “The hell do you mean rhydonium? What fucking lunatic loads a starship up with rhydonium?! Whatever, fuck your rhydonium nonsense you big goddamn hunk of junk, let me through!”

A third line of text ticked across the screen: CONDITION: PREGNANT.

You BARKED you laughed so hard. “Wooooow, that starfuel must be fuckin’ with your circuits, shitscraps, I’ve been chipped since I was thirteen. Ain’t nobody home.” Loud footsteps echoed further down the hallway, times up. Cursing silently, you poked at the screen until the faulty reading cleared, then booked it in the opposite direction of the incoming trooper. Your plan to escape had been thwarted by the Wyvern’s garbage security protocols, and without another way through you were stuck until the ship made it out of hyperspace.

In a week.

Somebody had once equated Mos Eisley to a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and the description couldn’t possibly be more on the nose. A multitude of shady market-goers hustled and bustled down the desert streets, kicking up sand and dust as they went. The Tatooinian bazaar was one of the few places that the Mandalorian blended in, amid the multitude of colorful characters the armored hunter was practically invisible.

Din ambled through the streets, not even trying to be sneaky, though behind his beskar he was suspicious of everyone that passed him by. He wasn’t too concerned about his last bounty, almost nonchalantly making his way to the cantina where the bail jumper would certainly be at with their nose buried in either a deck of cards or a shot of spotchka. Or both.

It was easy to follow the street signs to the local dive bar, making him feel almost lazy with how little effort this would take. Feeling bored almost to the point of pessimism, he took a deep breath, the filtered air bringing with it the smell of street food.

He stopped, holding the air in his lungs before forcing it out quickly, taking another handful of deep sniffs. Though he wasn’t eating much these days, or sleeping, or anything else that humans needed to do in order to function properly, the aroma of whatever was being cooked distracted him until it had his full, undivided attention.

Din followed his nose off of the path he was taking to the cantina, his helmet tilting back slightly with each strong inhalation, taking him down the busy main street until he spotted the source of the familiar spice.

Over a large fire a spit was turning with what looked like oversized root vegetables, slathered in herbs and spices and grilled to perfection. Mando cocked his bucket at the rotisserie, ignoring the chef that was trying to hassle him into buying something, trying to figure out what was so familiar about it.

Then it hit him.

You.

Many moons ago, he’d watched you book it out of the safety of the hangar and dash towards the delicious street food while the Mandalorian began picking off the hunters that were still chasing you. You’d barely even looked up from your meal as the bounty hunter dragged a squirming Trandoshan down an alleyway and slit it’s scaly throat. It wasn’t until a whole drop through hyperspace later that Din had found out that you had bought him one of the grilled veggies as well. Before you even knew his name.

Mando, you never ate your breakfast.

You… got me breakfast?

Yes? I said I would.

Thank you… you’re very kind.

And don’t you forget it!

The memory flooded his synapses with forgotten joy before being replaced with scalding fury. He shook his head, storming off down the busy main road, dead set now on finding his quarry. How dare you let that fucking Imp continue to distract you. Get to work.

The doors to the cantina nearly broke off when the living locomotive plowed through them, barging his way through the sleazy patrons towards the bar. Lively music and inhalant smoke hung heavy in the air, shrouding the far corners of the saloon and the secrets they may have kept hidden.

Din was too annoyed with himself to properly check his surroundings, but whatever, it’s just Mos Eisley, he could whip every fucko in this joint with his hands tied behind his back if it struck his fancy. He strode up to the bartender with an air of disgruntled confidence so strong it rivaled the smoky atmosphere with its potency. The Mandalorian fished the final bounty puck out of his many pockets and slammed it down on the counter, its holoprojection wavering in the heady smog.

“Have you seen this man?” Din snapped at the bartender, pointing at the weasley-looking face of the bail jumper shining above the counter.

The barkeep, a shaggy-looking Toydarian with a torn wing, eyed the beskar clad warrior suspiciously. “Hmm. Can’ta’ say’a have.'' he huffed, clearly lying.

“Are you sure?” Din asked, sliding a couple of credits over the counter. “Maybe this will jog your memory.” The Toydarian snatched the coins off the counter with shovel-clawed fingers, stowing them away on his belt.

He leaned forward, the acrid smell of alcohol and rotting teeth quickly overpowering the stench of tobacco. “Maybe I see’s ‘im, maybes I don’t…” Another couple of credits clinked to the counter and immediately vanished from view. “Ya, I see’s ‘im.” He stroked his thickly bristled chin, seemingly deep in thought. “You know what? You’a seem’a like a good guy, why don’t’a I take’a you to ‘im, hmm? Come come come.”

The creature’s wings flapped unevenly as he rose off the stepstool he was using behind the bar, floating through the cantina towards a door obscured by an ornate drapery. Din started to follow, but stopped, feeling his hackles rise on the back of his neck. Should I actually follow this guy? Maybe it’s a trap. He pulled the fob out from his belt just enough that he could see the blinking light flashing quicker than before. I’ll be fine, let’s just get this over with.

The Toydarian opened the door behind the curtain, and immediately the reek of Spice wafted up from the hidden cellar. Drug den, great. That would make sense, what better way to spend your bail money than Huttese Spice, wasting away in the dark. Cautiously he made his way down the stone steps, the light of the cantina fading away as the door started to close behind him. Before it shut, he knew he heard the barkeep mutter something under his breath.

“Coo ya maya stupa…” You weak minded fool.

Din whirled at the insult, but the door had already slammed shut, echoing loudly through the hollow passageway. Cursing, Mando continued down the stairs into the spice den, the aroma of the coveted drug growing stronger with each step until it was making him nauseous. At the foot of the stairs was a low, poorly lit room, the stucco ceiling strung over with dark purple lanterns that steeped the den in near-darkness. Strewn about the floor, the inebriated lounged on pillows or rugs, or even the bare stone, plumes of narcotic smoke dancing over their shadowy faces, obscuring most from view.

Pulling the fob out again, he hovered the tracking device over each intoxicated body, waiting for the light to change green. His search took him further and further into the basement until he had to switch on his headlamp just to be able to see. At the farthest end of the room the last possible person was slumped against the wall, and the hunter crossed the remaining distance to the limp figure, grabbing them roughly by the shoulder and hauling them into the light.

The dead man’s withered head snapped from its twiggy neck and rolled away into the dark, making Din nearly throw the corpse to the ground, the body rattling in the manacles that chained it to the wall. Startled, he backed away quickly, too quickly, backing into something sharp. He tried to whirl around on his sudden assailant, but the stabbing pain of an addict’s needle immediately pierced through the thick layers of his duraweave and into his flesh.

Reacting on fear more than training, he lashed out wildly, firing his blaster with one hand and his flame thrower with the other. The wall of fire lit the cellar up brighter than daylight, illuminating the alien faces of the falsely-inebriated attackers that had been lying in wait for the barkeep to send another fool into their trap. Fearing for his life, for his son, Din battled his way through the many hands grabbing at him, but even in his fury he started to feel his pulse slowing down, reacting to the heavy dose of Spice he had been pricked with.

The room began to spin, his eyes began to lose sight, and it wasn’t until his skull cracked against the dirty floor that he realized his helmet had been removed in the fray, damning him forever in the eyes of his Creed. As the world began to fade away he felt himself get kicked over onto his face and a pair of cuffs locked around his wrists.

“Skocha-kloonkee, the Imps’a gonna pay’a lot’sa money for you, mister bucket man. Hehehe, should’a known better than’a to go into a spicehole alone.”

Before Din lost consciousness entirely, his spiked mind conjured up an image of you, lounging in the passenger seat with Grogu seated on your lap, watching the stars streak by overhead. He tried to reach you, his arms straining weakly against his fetters, trying to touch the memory of you one last time. You turned to him and smiled, holding the baby’s fat little paw up and waving it at him.

“Beans, say bye-bye to papa.”

The hour was still early, but you were already dressed in your stupid little monkey suit, ears clad in your empty beskar cuffs, pockets full of fabric and fangs; backpack abandoned entirely to avoid suspicion. Today you would be finding out where the Wyvern was destined for when she left port, but you didn’t really care. All that mattered was that the hangar doors would be open during the myriad of activities.

Today was your chance to escape.

*Beep!* Dropping from hyperspace in: one hour.

The navigational warning chimed throughout the expansive corridors of the Wyvern, echoing pragmatically in your spartan room, and you danced a little jig with excitement. Toodle-oo, fuckos! Consider this popsicle stand: blown!

In your abysmally small quarters the fresher area left much to be desired, but the Admiral had at least done you the decency of giving you a private room with it’s own washing space, as tiny as it was. The shower, sink, and potty all shared the same square footage, and the mirror on the wall was barely big enough to fit your face.

You were working on your appearance now, making yourself presentable before father dearest came around. The more you looked like you had accepted your position as crewmate, the less likely he was to notice you go missing when you slipped away. You combed your hair with your fingers, brushing it back as to more easily seat the dumb little hat on your head. Turning away from the mirror, you picked the hat up off the sink and started to put it on, but nearly jumped out of your skin when you saw someone else's eyes staring back at you.

Yo̷u̵ ca̴n̷̎not le̸̪̕a̵ve.

Angrily you stomped your foot, startled by the flickering, faceless apparition that wasn’t physically there when you turned around. “Shit balls of motherfucking hell! I can’t get off‘a this ship fast enough! I can’t get away from you fast enough!” You smushed your hat on your head, glaring at the bluish, indeterminate figure.

H̴e’̴̓s ̴̉c̶̍oming.

“Listen here, you ectoplasmic bitch.” You hissed with fury, stabbing your pointer finger at the warped image in the aluminum. “I don’t know who you are, or where you’re getting your ‘information’ from, but he ain’t coming!” The deep-cut wounds of heartbreak that had started to scar over split open again, spilling fresh sorrow down over your ribs. “I-I don’t need him anyway. I can handle this myself.”

He n̵ee̵d̶s y̵ó̴̧u̶.

“Bullshit!” You stormed away from the mirror while the Wyvern’s antique wiring faulted overhead, making the fluorescent lights flicker and allowing the shadows to reveal the space where the phantom was standing; casting a faint, ghastly aura on the corners of the room. Snatching a fang from your pocket you whirled on the void, brandishing the pointy end at where a throat might be. “Who’d’ya think you are, anyway, huh? Acting like you know what’s best for me? Telling me that Din’s gonna come back? Ain’t no knight-in-shining-beskar coming for me and I’m sick of you telling me otherwise!”

H̴e’̴̓s ̴̉c̶̍oming.

“That’s it! I’ve had it with your games! Your lies! Show yourself, you spookyass motherfucker! Show me who you really are!”

Sweat began to bead on your brow, anger and heartbreak and venom coursing hotly through your veins until it was pulsating behind your eyes. You grabbed the second fang, ready to sink your teeth into the incessant phantom, their edges cutting into the marks they had already put on your palms once before. To any onlookers you would have appeared like a madwoman, brandishing glittering fossils at empty space, your lips pulled back in a snarl, ready to strike.

“I said show yourself!”

Out went the lights.

And in came the ghosts.

Though the bulbs overhead had blacked out completely, the room was radiating with the light of the sudden crowd, the masses of shimmering specters appearing to go on endlessly throughout a space bigger than your room, bigger even than the Wyvern herself, stretching well beyond the edges of infinity. Farther and farther and farther until your eyes couldn’t distinguish them anymore.

There. Were. Billions.

You blinked fast, your breath catching in your lungs until you were nearly hyperventilating, feeling claustrophobic amid the incorporeal congregation. The sweat on your brow turned to ice, your eyes darting between every face, every person, every body, seeing them clearly for the first time.

Some of them wore elaborate robes, some of them were dressed like peasants, and even more distressing were a collection of beskar plated warriors, their visors glowing with otherworldly light. There were species you were familiar with, and many many more that you weren’t. Some of them were even wearing white duraplast, their eggshells cracked to reveal the glowing eyes underneath.

Some of them you recognized.

“We are the victims of the Empire. The citizens of Alderaan, of Jedha, Scarif, Mandalore and countless others. The Republic we once served turned its back on us, and then its weapons, eradicating the very people that brought it into being.”

Many voices spoke at once, the cacophony of it resonating in your skull until you were clawing at your ears, nearly dropping your impromptu daggers to protect yourself from the skull-splitting noise.

“You must stop it from happening again, but you can not do so alone. Only with your soulmate at your side will you save the people from the vindication of the Empire.”

Hot tears stung at your eyes, flooding out from a place of fear and anger. “Soulmate? SOULMATE?! Bullshit! Bullshit bulllshit bullshit! Din is not my soulmate, if he was then he wouldn’t have left me here rot! Dumped me on the Empire’s front fucking door like yesterday’s garbage! Not that I can even blame him anymore, who could ever love an Imp? We are monsters!”

“You are not an Imp, Tra’laar. You are something far greater than they will ever be.”

The sound of your gifted name hurt in your chest more than the broiling hatred that bubbled underneath your broken heart, taking you down to your knees. In front of you, a pair of specters knelt down to your level, a man and a woman in intricately embroidered red robes. The woman’s eyes were warm and adoring, and the way her cheeks rolled high almost made you feel calm, maybe even loved. The man’s aquiline nose stood out beautifully above his radiant smile, giving you the impression that this was a man who would go to the ends of the galaxy for those he loved.

They looked hauntingly familiar.

The woman reached for your hand, and you felt her. You felt her holding you, as if she were really there, her dainty fingers brushing over where the fang was biting into your skin, fading away the pain. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she was still smiling, looking at you like someone seeing the stars for the very first time.

“You are Hope Incarnate.”

You bolted upright from your little cot, gasping for air until your throat was so dry it felt like fire. Sweat streaked over your brow and down the dip of your spine, soaking the sheets under you. With wild, bloodshot eyes you searched around your closet-sized room for any trace of the phantoms, but even in the dim night light you could tell you were alone. Angry with yourself, you slammed a fist into the steel wall, furious that you had been duped by hyperspace yet again.

The pain of striking the unforgiving hull stung more than you thought it should. Flipping on the lights, you gasped when you looked at your palms, the healed krayt bites red with fresh blood. It had been days since you sliced your palms on their edges, pounding on the bottom of the Razor Crests ramp, and the skin had long since closed up. But now it was as fresh as the day they had been cut, weeping crimson.

I have got to get off of this ship.

It took the remainder of the hour to compose yourself, getting out of your sweat-soaked pajamas and tending to your wounds; but at least Spooky and Friends let you be. Your mind replayed the omen on repeat until you were certain that you had completely lost your mind. No such thing as ghosts. You are tired, you are stressed, and you are completely absolutely one hundred percent bonkers. Fuck this entire noise.

Dressed in your stupid little outfit, for real this time, you sat at the edge of your bed until the the Wyvern’s navigational warning sounded again, giving you only a moment before the ship was dropped out of hyperspace. Eager to get the fuck out, you ran out of your room so quickly that you nearly smashed into the Admiral as he was coming around. “Ah, good morning, Sparrow. I see you’re eager to start the day. Come, I need you on the bridge.”

Obediently you followed along behind Forescythe without a word, letting the imposing captain carve a swath through the multitude of scurrying crewmates as you made your way to the flight deck. When the blast doors opened on the wide, triangular space, your eyes went right over the heads of the officers and out the window to the bright yellow world hanging beneath the ship.

“Is that… Is that Tatooine?”

“How very observant of you. Yes, it is indeed, though it won’t be for much longer.”

Whispers hissed at your eardrums, you must stop it from happening again. “What do you mean?”

The Admiral chuckled, the sound grating like nails on chalkboard. “It’s been hard keeping this secret from you, little bird, but you know how much I love surprises! Oh, look, here comes the rest of the fleet.” He nodded towards the transparisteel as another, smaller starcruiser came into view. Then another, and another, and another until there were at least a dozen titanium daggers hovering in a semi-circle that spanned out on either side of the Wyvern like wings.

“The Empire has been busy since you left,” he scolded, folding his arms behind his back like some kind of skeletal vulture. “The Death Star is obsolete, though the mere idea of a supermassive planet destroyer was folly from the beginning, taking decades to build and almost as long to fire. No more, now we can vaporize an entire world with just one single ship.” He gestured with a flourish, blind to the color draining from your face. “The Wyvern will be at the forefront of the Empire’s destructive capabilities, and lucky you, you will have the honor of a front row seat. What a pity it is that you cannot serenade Tatooine’s demise with one of your songs.”

Stinging bile crept up your throat, threatening to send you into a panic. “Th-there’s people down there. How can you justify killing so many innocents?”

Forecythe scoffed, “Innocents?! On that dirtball of a planet? Inconceivable. The Maker will thank us for wiping it off of the face-” His monologue was interrupted by a hailing beacon lighting up on the communication officer's holodeck. The officer in your old seat answered the incoming transmission, talking to whoever was on the other line through their headset.

“Sir, they’ve located the target.”

“Excellent! And on Tatooine, no less. How ironic. Have the target transported to the receiving hangar so we may make their acquaintance.”

You’d long since become numb to the Admiral’s prattling, your mind racing to find a way to stop Tatooine from being wiped off the map. The ugly little hunk of rock had done you no favors, but that wasn’t an excuse to add more names to the list of dead. You were startled when you were addressed again.

“Come along, little bird, I have a gift for you.” Forescythe said with a crooked smile. If he was trying to be genuine, the effect was entirely lost upon you, his gummy smile reminding you of the forgotten captain’s corpse you’d discovered on Endor. I don’t want anything from you, monster. You flashed him a pair of raised eyebrows in response, and he turned on his heel, waving for you to follow. Whatever the distraction was would at least buy you some time.

You dutifully walked alongside the Admiral through the ship towards the balcony that oversaw the receiving bay. The hangar was swarming with troopers and officers alike, eagerly anticipating the transport unit that was easing itself through the magcon field. The bloated tick of a ship billowed with steam as its landing gear deployed, and soon the short access ramp was angling to the ground. Out first stepped a pair of troopers, their guns drawn on the open door.

Then, out stepped a man.

He was cuffed with his arms behind his back, escorted by another pair of troopers manhandling him down the ramp. Blood poured freely from a wound on his scalp, matting his dark brown curls and pooling in the exposed recess of his eyes. His gait was unsteady, though he was still futilely trying to wrest himself free of the troopers as they marched him through the hangar. You nearly puked your heart out at the sight.

Din.

The Admiral laughed proudly, “They’ve caught that damned mando that everyone’s been on about, though I’m not entirely sure why Moff Gideon struggled so much to catch him, or even what he wanted from such a loathsome creature. There’s nothing of value on him except maybe his armor.” A vile glint sparked in the man’s eyes. “It will be so much fun to peel it off.”

You barely heard his words over the sound of your heartbeat thundering violently through your ears. No.. no no no no no. Another egghead disembarked from the transport, carrying Din’s helmet like an empty garbage can. You swallowed around the cotton growing in your mouth, fumbling for words. “They took his helmet off...”

“Indeed. Being uncrowned is the greatest dishonor you can inflict on one of those wretched things, it renders them worse than dead in the eyes of their cult. After we remove Tatooine from the sky we should-”

“Before.” You interrupted, your voice cold and level, far cry from the hurricane of turmoil you were choking down. “Before we attack Tatooine. I want... I want to tear his armor off, and then I want him to watch. As punishment for stealing my ship.”

The Admiral’s wicked grin sent shivers down your spine, and you knew your lie had taken root. “Very well! Oh Sparrow, it’s so good to have you back aboard. I’d always wondered if you’d taken after me.” Disgust welled up in your guts at the pride beaming off the vile man, but at least you were going to get close to Din.

And do… what, exactly?

The tall man leaned over the balcony railing, shouting down at the guards. “Take the prisoner to the bridge, and make him… comfortable. Wouldn’t want him to miss the show!” Behind you Forescythe turned on his heel and set off back towards the bridge, and you cast a wary glance down at the prisoner below. Din’s bloody head hung limpy, but when it swung your way his blackened eyes caught you, glaring daggers through your soul before one of the guards cold-clocked him between his shoulder blades.

If Din’s here then where’s Grogu? You watched the transport unit, scanning for signs of life, but it appeared to be empty. Ok, maybe they didn’t get him. Your already sickened heart did a violent backflip in your chest, or maybe they did and took him somewhere else, or worse, left him for dead. Din and the guards disappeared through a sliding bulkhead, and you sprang to life to hurry in the Admiral’s footsteps.

When you arrived at the bridge, the stormtroopers had already magnetized Din’s cuffed wrists to the wall, dangling him just far enough off the floor that he couldn’t support his weight properly with his legs. The blood clouding his eyes dripped down the length of his nose and over his lips, staining his teeth crimson. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, hinting at a broken rib or two; but worst of all were his eyes. Bared for all to see, violating his Creed with every Imperial gaze that fell on his uncovered face, and yet the pools of bloodied earth were locked to only one other pair.

Yours.

“Looks like he remembers you.” Forescythe said with a villainous laugh, striding slowly over to the manacled Mandalorian. “My my, would you look at him, he is quite impressive, or at least he was”. The Admiral hovered just out of Din’s kicking range, cocking his head like a raptor eyeing a weak little mouse. “See this marking?” he said, pointing a bony finger at the mudhorn on Din’s pauldron. “They only get these when they become clan leaders. This one’s probably got a whole nest somewhere, breeding like rats. Is that what Moff Gideon was after, hmm? The rest of your bucket headed zealots?”

Din growled, the timbre of it so low and threatening you felt a chill run down your spine. He shouldn’t be here. Though you were still furious with him for what he did to you, you knew this wasn’t a fate that he deserved. Doesn’t he though? Doesn’t he deserve exactly what he did to me? Bile burned in the back of your throat. No, nobody deserves this, not even him.

Forescythe chuckled darkly at the Mandalorian’s weak show of bravado. “I was there, you know, when they gave the order to eviscerate that pathetic excuse for a planet.” Yellowed teeth shined under cold, soulless eyes in a smile that could freeze blood. “I was one of the first commanders to get to… test out the kyber crystal technology that eventually led to the creation of the Death Star. They made me a captain for it, commissioned a Corellian ship for me and everything.” He leaned in close to Din, grinning wickedly at the warrior’s seething anger. “Doesn’t Mandalore look so pretty now, all turned to glass?”

“Demagolka!”

The admiral scoffed at the searing insult, nodding to one of the guards. An electric prod crackled to life in the trooper’s grip before it was being stabbed into Din’s unarmored side, making him cry out in pain.

“No!” You shrieked, immediately covering your incriminating piehole. Fuck.

-flicker flick-

Forescythe glanced up at the sputtering lights, then slowly, maliciously down to you. He scrutinized you a moment, then readdressed the guard, not taking his eyes away from your failing facade.

“Again.”

-czzt cRaCK cRAcK CRACK!!-

You ground your molars into paste trying to keep yourself from screaming, but tears pricking in the corners of your eyes gave away your distress, and when the Admiral signaled the guard a third time it became unbearable.

“Stop it!” You roared through snarling teeth, ignoring the faulty lighting and the feel of the ship quake underneath you.

Forescythe’s eyes lit up like fireworks. “I knew it.” he hissed, his lips curling upwards in a serpentis sneer. “I knew that voice of yours was special, but I never realized you needed a catalyst in order to unlock your potential. Does this... upset you?” He snapped his fingers at the guard, sending another bolt of electricity through Din’s body and bringing more angry tears to your eyes.

“Stop hurting him! I’ll.. I’ll do whatever you want just let him go!” You yanked the cuffs off of your ears and cast them on the floor, the sound of beskar on durasteel jingling like loose change. “I’ll… I’ll sing. Whatever you want, just stop hurting him!”

“Oh, no... we’re well past that now, little bird.” Forescythe loomed over you, an evil glint in his eye. “Now that I know I didn’t waste all those years training your voice, we’re going to take it for a little spin.”

Little miss well-behaved evaporated from your roster of characters, replaced with the big bad bitch you knew and loved. “I’m not doing a goddamn thing. I don’t know what you’re on about, you old shitbag, but you don’t control me. I’m not afraid of you!” you growled, snarling like a rabid nexu.

“That’s no way to talk to your superior officer, bilgerat.” Boney fingers snatched you by the collar of your uniform. “You think I pulled you from the scuppers because of your pretty little songs? No, Sparrow, I knew there was more to you than that. I knew it when I heard your voice through three whole decks of durasteel, and I knew it when you tried to rip your own ears off after we blew up Alderaan.” Forescythe hauled you to him, breathing gross old-man breath in your face. “You didn’t just watch it get erased from the maps, you felt it die. You felt it through the Force.”

You spat in his face, earning yourself a stinging backhand. “Ungrateful brat. I made you, I can unmake you.” The ship quaked again beneath your feet, and the lights in the helm went off, turning the wide, triangular space red under the emergency lights. “That’s it, you feel it again now, don’t you?” The dark crimson lights sank shadows under the Admiral’s eyes, highlighting the bones of his skull, confronting you with the grinning face of death.

From behind the collection of stormtroopers a weak, grating voice called out. “L-let… let her… go…” Din called weakly before he was electrocuted again.

“I said stop hurting him!” You barked, your words so steeped in anger they almost weren’t your own, like someone else was speaking through you.

Forescythe laughed, villainous and wicked. “There it is! Yes! Does that mando mean something to you, girl?”

“Go t̶o he̵ll!” Your voice no longer belonged to you, it was the voice of your nightmares, many tongues speaking at once, spewing toxically from your throat. Around you the air became thick with energy, making the hair on your arms stand on end.

“Now now, Sparrow, is that any way to talk to your father?”

“You are n̸͈͆ȏ̷̪ť̶ my FÀ̷̜TH̵E̴͘R!” The energy in the air became palpable, tangible, burning through your veins and setting your fingertips ablaze with crackling firepower. The Admiral reeled from the burn, dropping your collar and backing away from you with confused, frightened eyes. You clenched your fists so hard your nails dug into the skin of your palms, drawing blood from the marks of the krayt’s teeth. “And that is n̸͈͆ȏ̷̪t my n̶a̷m̸e̵.”

Fear was replaced with undeserving pride, spreading a pearly grin across Forescythe’s gaunt, haunting visage. “That’s it! That’s it, Sparrow! Look at yourself! Look at your hands!” he screamed, pointing at the blisters that were starting to form along your arms. “There is power within you! Let me help you discover it! Help you use it to raise the Empire to its former glory!” He stretched a claw-like hand to you, “Join me, Sparrow, and together we will rule the entire galaxy!”

“THAT IS N̴̻̑O̶T̵̒ ̶M̸̆Y̴ N̷À̷̜M̶E̵!” You screamed, the fury of a thousand voices knocking Forescythe and the guards down to the unsteady ground and sending the officers running for cover. The burning in your fingertips turned to raw power, sparking lightning from your hands. Electricity danced over the metal decking, snapping at the Admiral’s frantic heels like vicious, bloodthirsty dogs. You didn’t see the firepower you were generating, your eyes burning with hateful tears.

You crossed the room on vengeful steps to where the Wyvern’s captain was scrambling to find his footing, snaps of plasmatic energy crackling underfoot with each stride. You hefted the vile man up the wall by his neck until his feet were off the ground, choking and squirming in your grip.

“What’s wrong, captain?” You purred with as much benevolence as an abused circus tiger. “Are you trying to sing for me? I bet your voice sounds so prĕ̴tty̵͝. Go on then, sing me a song.” Terror shined in the whites of his eyes, blood oozing from their corners and out of his ears, dripping hotly over where your fists closed around his throat.

“You can not hide who you are, Sparrow, you’ll always be a worthless scupperbrat without my help. You need me.”

You thrashed Forescythe against one of the consoles, crushing his windpipe under your voltaic claws. “I'm not going to TELL YOU Ā̷̡̲̤̊͒G̶̓A̶̛̫I̶N̵̳̓̋!!.” You could feel his pulse under your fingertips, quick like a frightened rabbit caught in the claws of a mighty, savage beast.

And it felt good.

Energy crackled over his skin where your hands met his flesh, making him writhe in pain from the scorching burn. Under your cataclysmic deathgrip you felt the man laugh, ugly, strained belts of air that made the boiling in your blood rage like molten lava. “Pray tell then, bilgerat, who do you think you are?”

You bared your teeth and smiled, dangerous and threatening. You inhaled, bringing every ounce of air in the room into your tormented lungs, ready to breathe dragonfire.

“I

TR̸̻̰̮̘͘A̷͎̜͔̭͋̽’̸̯͙͖͍̟̾̿̆͐̐͠͝LḀ̵̞̈́́̂̕͝ͅA̶̧̧̠̪͝A̶͎̝̠͖̿̀̇̅̈͜Ă̵͙͎̰̪̿͘A̸̼̥̰̙̱̭̗͆Ȧ̸͙͕̺̫̂̚R̴̨̻̉̊̒́R̷̡̛͕̮̋͊̉͝R̸̫̗̹̻̈̋̃!̴̼͖͕̯̟̖͐̐̽!̴͚͐́͛̂!̵̘̺̮̔͌͊̌̀̓͜ͅ!̶̟̱̹͙͎̀”̵͇̖͙̌̈͠͝

Hate and anger flowed through you in a pyroclast of scorn, erupting from your wicked maw in a firestorm of blinding energy. Your banshee screech overpowered Forescythe’s own terrified screams, but his terror was short lived as the force of your rage started to make the flesh of his face quiver, ripple, and tear until it was peeling off, revealing meat, then bone.

When only a ghastly skull was staring back at you did you silence your scream, dropping the Admiral’s faceless corpse to the floor. You wheeled back around in time for one of the rising stormtroopers to goad you with the electric prod, making you wail. The pained cry tore at the raw meat of your throat until your voice evaporated entirely, taking your siren strength with it. You stole a krayt fang from your pocket and drove it upwards into the soft spot at the edge of the trooper’s helmet, carving downward and splitting their jugular wide open.

Finding the other fang you lashed out with reckless fury, sinking your teeth into the meat of the second guard, blood splashing out over your hands. The third guard didn’t stand a chance as they were caught in your whirlwind of carnage, their blood spilling to the floor with that of their crewmates.

Surrounded by your kills, breath heaving in your chest, you turned your enraged eyes on the man still chained to the wall. Din’s bootheels scooted out from under him, struggling to get away from the blood splattered banshee that was glaring him down.

He looked so helpless, so… vulnerable. You remembered his hateful words, his malicious actions, the heartbreak that was still so fresh and stinging in your chest.

The coppery tang of blood hung heavy in the air, burning in your nose and fueling the rage that surged through your veins. He left you. He left you for dead. He took everything from you. He took your heart and your home…

And your son.

“Where is he?” You seethed, numb to the hot splashes of blood pouring over your hands, from both your killstreak and the charred gashes that streaked down the length of your forearms where the meat of your flesh had melded with the duraweave of your uniform.

“S-safe. He’s safe.” Din stammered, “What… what are you?” His bloodied brow furrowed, “What’s wrong with your eyes?!”

Confused, you glanced at his chestplate where two white-blue lights were shining back at you, and realized with horror that it was your own reflection. The world around you finally started to sink in: the dark red lights, the still-warm corpses, the splatter of viscera on the console that had once been the Admiral’s face.

The klaxon blaring overhead.

Whatever phantom force you wielded dissipated like mist, nearly taking you to your knees as it left. You fell more than leaned over Din to his cuffs, fumbling with the unlocking mechanism until he was freed. “Don’t think this m-means that… that I… woo, that I forgive you, ya big fuckin’ jerk.” You were starting to feel woozy, making you wonder if this was how Grogu felt whenever he used his funky baby powers. “The ships got… got some kinda weapon on it, ‘nother planet popper. I gotta fi-fi-find some way to… to stop it.”

“The hell do you mean ‘popper’?

You flailed your arms around in a grand gesture, sending droplets of scarlet flying “Kaboom!”

“Fuck! Grogu’s down there! Millions of people are down there!”

“Yeah, no shit.”

Din tried to wipe the blood that had pooled around his eyes with the back of one armored hand, but the beskar did little to help clear it away. You grumbled and scooted closer on your knees, trading the fangs for the red silk cloth in your pocket and going right for his orbits. He recoiled from your touch, and instinctively you hissed at him to hold still. Reluctantly, he obeyed, watching you with distrust until he spotted what was in your hand.

“You kept that?”

Shrugging, you dabbed harshly around his eyes until they were as clear as you could get them. “Kept a lotta things.” The talking and the cleaning was making you exhausted, and you sank back on your haunches, nearly falling over into the sprawling pool of blood.

Din caught you before you fell, holding you gently, but even his careful touch burned like acid on your rendered flesh. In the corner of your eye you caught his brows fly high when he clocked your wounds, his breath catching when he saw the whitish tint of bone. “You need bacta...”

You ignored him, glancing around the room for a solution to your predicament when one presented itself to you. Under the smear of gore that had been belittling you just moments prior, the ruined console of the main power controls flashed a desperate warning:

WARNING, RHYDONIUM COOLING CELLS OFFLINE. DANGER! UNSTABLE TEMPERATURES DETECTED!

Oh the irony. Sparks danced from the shattered screen, raining down over the bloodied skull of the murdered captain and catching in his empty sockets, glaring back at you. You forced a laugh. “That’s what you get for tryna mess with me, you sick fuck! Gonna blow your own ratsnest sky high!” Your laughter knocked you off your haunches and into Din’s arms, leaning on him heavily.

Looking up at him you smiled, though his face was a disaster, fear and blood etched into his handsome features. It befuddled you that you could still see his face. “Where’s your bucket?”

Din scoffed, “This entire ship saw me without it, not to mention the shitheads on Tatooine that sold me out. I can’t put it back on.”

“There won’t be anyone left alive to remember your face after the ship blows. How’s that for a loophole, eh?” He scrutinized you a moment, swallowed hard, then nodded. It took a great deal of effort for him to pull both himself and your boneless body up from the floor, and even more strength to stumble over to where his helmet had been stashed, sinking the metal over his head and pocketing the beskar cuffs that laid close by.

The impenetrable beskar slid into place not a moment too soon, his visor flickering to life right as the blast doors to the bridge slid wide, opening on a platoon of troopers.

The eggheads fired with reckless abandon into the delicate consoles of the bridge, aiming for the malnourished Mandalorian and his bloodrending banshee. Even in such a sad state, Din was still faster, whirling you behind his blaster-proof body and setting off the salvo of whistling birds from his vambrace; obliterating each and every Imp in sight.

Hugged to his chest, you blinked at the pile of corpses, then glared at the one who had slain them. “Why don’t you use that fucker more often?”

Din ignored you and blasted the door controls apart, locking the two of you in before dragging you both over to one of the escape pods that dotted the prow. Behind your fleeing duo the console was flashing even faster:

WARNING, RHYDONIUM COOLING CELLS OFFLINE. EXPLOSION IMMINENT! DANGER!

Din set you carefully on your own two feet so he could pry the door to the escape hatch open. The little, single-seated pod was just barely big enough to fit the Mandalorian as he backed into it, his arms outstretched to take you.

You started to squeeze in with him when something out the window caught your eye, and your heart sank through your boots at the harsh reminder that Forescythe had been named Admiral because he now controlled a fleet. The dozen or so starships hovered ominously on either side of the Wyvern, their points aimed right towards Tatooine, poised to make the killing blow.

Din growled at you “Come on, you’ll fit. We gotta go before this damn thing blows!”

You turned up to him slowly with glassy eyes. “I… can’t. The other ships…”

“Fuck’em!”

“No!!” you screamed, dimming the lights. “If I don’t do something about them then Tatooine is still lost!” You pushed away from him and stumbled back through the bridge, your eyes going from console to console until you spotted the flashing light on the comms station. Hand-over-hand you dragged yourself over to your once-prestigious seat, flopping down in the familiar chair and slamming the frequency wide open.

“Come in Wyvern, this is Jabberwocky, what’s your emergency, over?”

“The weapon’s unstable! I repeat! The weapon is unstable! Abort mission! Abort mission! Scramble all ships! I repeat! Scramble all ships!!”

“Who the hell are you? You’re not the Admiral!”

“The Admiral is dead, the damn rhydonium has been leaking radiation into the water supply and the fuel lines! The damn thing’s gonna blow! Save yourselves!”

“Seriously?! I mean, roger! Aborting mission!” You watched with a big, shit-eating grin on your face as the surrounding ships winked out of existence, disappearing into hyperspace. The rhydonium’s warning screen was flashing faster than a bounty fob now, and it wouldn’t be long before it blew the old dragon sky high.

“Ok, let’s go, please!” Din pleaded, trying to urge you to the escape pod. You leaned back heavily in the officer’s chair, the edges of your sight going dark as exsanguination took its toll. Raising your arm, you watched with a silly look on your face while you flexed your fingers, the tendons squirming over your exposed bones beneath what was left of your char broiled flesh. Most disgustingly of all was the shiny piece of metal on your palm, the Admiral’s aurodium insignia lodged in the sundered krayt bite, fused to your flesh from the heat of your rage.

Haha, gross.

“Why… why are you even still here? Go on, escape!” You sneered at him, still angry.

“I’m not going to make the same mistake twice,” he said, crossing the room with his hand stuffed under his ribs, trying to hold himself together. “I’m not leaving you behind again.”

You strained a laugh, the noise grating in your shriveled throat. “Y’don’t need me, y’made that perfectly fuckin’ clear. Leave me to die with the rest of the scum. Besides.” You chuckled, raising your withered hand so the emergency lights danced over the gold plating your palm. “I’m the captain now, and the captain should go down with the ship.”

There was nothing left for you outside of the Wyvern anyway, maybe it was time for you to join Spooky and Friends for good. The Empire would surely hunt you down for your crimes, an even more vehement organization than the Guild, and that would only put Din and Grogu in even more danger than they had been when they still called you family. On a dragon you had risen to the stars, how fitting it would be that on a dragon would you leave them. Poetic, really.

Din cast a worried glance at the rhydonium thermometer. “I’ll carry you if I have to.”

Tilting your head back until your skull met the headrest, you relaxed and closed your eyes, feeling the hot drip drip drip of blood running down your arms and pooling at your feet. “Why bother? Why do you even care what happens to me?”

With enormous difficulty he pulled his helmet back off, leaning in close to you. You flinched when two armor plated hands came up under your face, gently lifting you by your chin until you were met with his eyes. Even in the crimson-soaked lights his enormous honeywells shined with more depth than any ocean, glittering with stars.

“Because I still lo-”

*kaBOOM!!!*

Somewhere in the bowels of the ship the overheated ore blew its top, shearing the ship in twain. Din was nearly thrown to the ground from the force of the explosion, nearly dropping his helmet to hold on tightly to the arm rests of your chair. He threw the bucket haphazardly back over his head and scooped you into his arms, roaring in your ears about how stubborn you were sometimes. Under his boots the dying dragon began to angle towards the planet below, starting her final journey to meet the ground.

Din hustled to the escape pod, backing into it and hugging you to his chest, pressing you against the hexagonal divot in his beskar that you missed so much. The little hatch slid closed, sliding over your backside and squishing you up against the Mandalorian. Your guts did a nasty flip-flop as you were launched into space, dropping you towards the planet below.

Before you lost consciousness, whether from the blood loss or the inertia, or just plain old exhaustion, you squinted out the tiny transparisteel window at the ship you’d left behind. The front half of the Wyvern’s Tongue was just starting to break the atmosphere, a colossal blade pointed straight at Tatooine's sprawling desert landscape, breaking apart as it lost the battle with the desert planet’s robust sky.

Breaking the sound barrier, dragonfire erupted around its bow as it tore through the dusty air, sending tendrils of flame fanning in its wake. It was falling fast, but the sheer size of it made it appear to be sinking in slow motion, almost like a dream.

Maybe it was a dream, you thought as you felt the plated arms of your podmate tighten around you, his gloved hands burying into your hair as you plummeted towards terra firma. There was a good chance you wouldn’t survive landing, it was an Imperial built shuttle after all, but at least you wouldn’t die alone.

The roar of atmospheric reentry drowned out any words you may have said to each other, any last words of wisdom or heartfelt apologies would be forever lost to the winds of time, so you wrapped your arms around his waist and hugged him back; a final act of forgiveness before the darkness took you.

Far away from the sinking ship, the tiny capsule skittered over the sand dunes like one would skip a stone over a lake, bouncing over the sand until it lodged itself in the side of a hill. The hatch door launched off, sliding away from the two bodies it had protected. Raising his bucket, Din watched as the Wyvern met the ground, the enormous beast of the ship blocking out the suns as it crumpled into the dunes. Dragonfire erupted around the monstrosity, consuming it in a column of flame and ash that whipped up a sandstorm to rival any fallout.

Against his chest plate you laid limply, making it difficult for the Mandalorian to roll you underneath his body. He boxed you in with his arms and legs, putting himself between you and the oncoming sandstorm as it bore down on your pod. Gritting his teeth behind the visor, he curled over top of you while the deadly storm roared overhead, determined to keep you safe if it was the last thing he did.

The desert sands whipped over his back, flinging superheated shrapnel and massive chunks of durasteel flying as if they were toys. Din held your body to his, just waiting for the fallout to crush you both dead, or the sands to blow you away; but an eternity later the storm passed, leaving you both unharmed. Exhausted and in agony, the Mandalorian shook the sand from his back and hauled your near-lifeless body from the newly carved dune, brushing the dirt from your face. “Tra’laar? Are you ok? Can you hear me?”

No answer.

He tugged a glove off and stuffed his fingers up under your jaw, hunting for a pulse. Your heartbeat was weak, but steadfast, and he sighed heavily with relief. “This is all my fault. I never should have left you behind, cyare! Please… please wake up!” Kneeling over you, he ran his hand down your face, gently brushing away the grit stuck to your skin. When you still didn’t respond he dug his arms under you and hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the feel of his broken ribs grinding together. With you in his arms for what he knew could be the last time, he set off across the dunes towards the city on the horizon.

A warm desert breeze passed softly over you, the first herald of the Tatooinian dawn coming up over the mountains to burn away the mist that hung in the air. It felt nice on your skin, gentle and promising as the new day. It would be so nice to lie like this forever, eyes closed, stretched out and comfortable, basking in the double sunlight. Your eyelids were so heavy, but as much as you would like to laze about til the stars fell down, you knew you had slept long enough.

Slowly, achingly slowly you started to pry your lids open, the world around you blurry and faded. Turning your head was a chore, and was accomplished more through the aid of gravity than muscle. At your side you saw two blurry figures, their features distorted by the haze behind your eyes, but to you they looked like a man and a woman, both wearing intricate red robes like the people in your premonitions.

The familiar lady leaned over you, gently brushing a stray lock of hair from your sticky brow. Her radiant smile shined with love and adoration, rivaling the warmth of the twin suns themselves. When she spoke, her voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, as if it was already in your ears.

It’s time to wake up now, Starsong. He’s waiting for you.

The stranger smiled and glanced over at the man who was sitting down in a little chair next to whatever you were laying on. You followed his eyes to where he was holding your hand, quizzically furrowing your brow at his forwardness and giving yourself a headache that made you squeeze your eyes shut.

When you opened them again, the man in the chair was replaced by a different character, this one dressed head to toe in beskar and bandoliers, his helmeted head tilted forward until it was resting on his chest plate, slowly rising and falling in time with his breath. Even in his sleep he was drawing languid circles on your palm with his thumb, his fingers twitching slightly to hold yours closer.

“...Din?”

The fingers on the back of your hand squeezed tight as he bolted upright, nearly jumping out of his seat and frightening the attending nurse droid. “Hey, you’re awake! Are you alright? How are you feeling?” The Mandalorian asked frantically, taking your bandaged hand in both of his and clutching it to his chest.

“What… what’dya mean how am I fe- oh.” You looked down at yourself, finding the long glowing tubes of bacta needles sticking from your other arm between long strips of gauze, making you immediately nauseous. A leather gloved hand came up and caught your face, pulling you back over to meet his infinitely black visor.

“It’s ok, cyar’ika, nothing’s missing, just keep your eyes on me. You were in bad shape when I got you here, but the infirmary had e-bacta infusions on hand. You’re healing up well! They were able to remove the metal piece from your hand and debride the duraweave from your burns, and most of the skin on your arms has already grown-”

“Ok ok ok enough!” you grumbled, starting to feel sick. You leaned back against the cot, relaxing into the feel of a gentle hand brushing over your cheek and down the side of your neck. Din’s caresses made you hum from his comfort, but your hums soon turned to growls. “Din, why am I still alive? I should have gone down with the ship.”

The hands withdrew immediately back to the lap of their owner. “I… I couldn’t let you.”

Your lips pulled back to bare your teeth, adding fresh agony to your growing migraine. “Fuck do you mean couldn’t let me, You don’t get to ‘let me’ do anything! How dare you act like you care!” You hissed with a sting in your voice. “Why do you even give a shit what happens to me?”

“Because!” He barked, fidgeting with his gloves, watching his own yellow tips go round while he twiddled his thumbs, searching for the right words to say. “Because I… because Grogu would never forgive me if I had let you die.”

Something about that last line made your heart ache, maybe it was the reminder of losing your son, or maybe it was the way that Din was clearly trying to hide deeper feelings. “I’m surprised he’s not in here, wouldn’t have to waste credits on bacta then.”

“He tried to heal you, but something about your wounds wouldn’t let him. I-I can’t explain it but… but he tried.” Din’s helmet snapped away from you, fixating on something of interest on the bare stucco wall. “He tried and tried until he passed out, then woke up and tried again. It was too much for him, I-I c-couldn’t keep letting him run himself dry.” Din sighed, letting his shoulders droop. “...He misses you.”

Sorrow and fury nearly broke the circuits of the heart monitor, summoning the nurse droid to come check your lines. You ignored the fussing robot to interrogate the Mandalorian further. “Why? Didn’t you tell him I’m a traitor? Didn’t you explain to him that I’m a lying, filthy Imp?” Your teeth flashed in a snarl. “Didn’t you tell him I’m not part of your clan anymore?”

Din’s laugh startled you, “The day that boy listens to me is the day the universe collapses in on itself. You’re the only one he ever listened to.” Fidgety hands toyed with the strap that crossed over the widest plate of beskar, fingers stopping at each slug to set them perfectly in line as if they weren’t already. “I can’t get him to eat, or sleep, it’s almost like I’m not even there. He… he cries nonstop, especially when he’s looking for you...”

You blinked at the itching in the corners of your eyes, your tear ducts having long since dried out. Though he was talking about Grogu, you knew by the guilt that steeped his words that the little green terror wasn’t the only one suffering from the Mandalorian’s decision to abandon you.

“He… he needs you…” Din trailed off, slowly tilting his visor over at you again, his hands stilling. “I…”

Din paused, letting the unspoken words hang heavily in the air, bringing with them a silence that would rival the infinite void of space. The nurse droid seemed to fade away, followed shortly by the beeping heart monitor, then the walls, then all of Mos Eisley, consumed by the roar of silence.

You could hear it though, the sound of those three little words that would change everything. Three tiny, insignificant words that even ghosts knew how to use. Powerful in their simplicity. You stared at where his eyes should be, imagining his furrowed brows, his tear-streaked cheeks, the corners of his lips twitching as they fought the floodgates that threatened to burst.

Just say it, Din, say what you need to say. Fix what you have broken.

“I...I’ll go get him.” Swallowing around your dry tongue, you nodded, dropping your gaze to the floor. So close. Din stood and brushed imaginary dirt from his clothes, “There’s someone else who wants to meet you as well, if it’s alright.”

“Who?” There wasn’t a single living being in all the galaxy that you wanted to see right now besides Grogu, plus you doubted there was anyone you knew who would want to see you anyway.

“Um… someone who’s been looking for him. His… people.”

You felt your heavy heart sink right out through your spine, dropping like a slab of raw meat onto the dusty hospital floor. “His… h-his people? Does… does that mean he’s going ho-”

“Just hang on, ok?” Din rose hastily and sped from the room, leaving a thick aura of unanswered questions in his wake. When he returned, he gestured to someone behind him, indicating that it was safe to enter your room. A young man with tousled blond hair and long black robes crossed the threshold to the medbay, but you couldn’t care less about who he was or what he looked like, because your eyes were locked to the little green baby he was carrying.

“Bubu!!!” Grogu cried, flailing in the man's arms until he was brought closer.

“BEANS!” you reached out with your good arm to take the squirming little monster, hugging him to your chest while he sobbed.

“Bububububububu…” He babbled, tears streaking down from his cosmic eyes while he patted your cheeks and dug claws into your skin. You curled up on your side and hugged the baby close to your chest, ignoring the dampening fabric beneath you as your own tears trickled down onto the threadbare sheets. You tried to comfort him by kissing his wrinkly head between choked sobs and carefully smoothing his ears, but the joy of having your baby back only made you cry even harder.

“Boo-boo? Wh-what… what’s he trying..?”

“Buir.” Din answered, his voice strong with reverence. “He is trying to say buir.” You burrowed your face against the shaky baby and reached out towards Din’s voice until you found his hand.

“Thank you.” You whispered between tears. “I thought I’d never see him again.” You pried your flooded eyes away from Grogu to glance up at the stranger standing politely in the corner, remembering what Din had said about Grogu’s people. “Who’s mister sunshine over there with the cute boots?”

The young man smiled and bowed slightly. “My name is Luke Skywalker, I came to investigate a disturbance in the Force that led me here. When I met Grogu I thought it may have been him reaching out to me, but now that I am standing in the same room as you, I realize that you are the source of the shockwave that I felt.”

You cradled Grogu against your chest, “The Force? Isn’t that just a saying the New Republic uses? Live long and prosper, may the force be with you, to infinity and beyond, blah blah blah...”

Luke laughed, “It is, but the Force is very real. It is the life energy that flows through all living things, even after they have passed on.” The young man crossed the room to your little trio, his robes and cape swishing dramatically with each step. “Tell me what happened to the ship that crashed out on the dunes, something tells me you were involved?”

You recounted your tale, from your hyperspace premonitions to your whispering nightmares, describing the ghosts you’ve seen and heard. You held up your arms for him to look at the damage the lightning had done, and pointed to your throat when you told him how you shouted the admiral apart. He listened intently and without interruption until you were telling him about the rhydonium bomb that blew the ship to smithereens. “And then I woke up here.”

“That’s fascinating, I’ve only read about Thunderfuries in the ancient texts, I never thought I'd meet one in real life, they’re exceptionally rare. Some scholars have even described them as mythological. Their charismatic voices have been described as ‘more powerful than a siren's song and a thousand times more deadly, able to lull insomniacs to sleep or shout the stars down from the sky.’”

You kissed Grogu’s head and propped yourself up on your elbow. “How come it's only manifesting now? I mean, I’ve had some weird shit happen in my life but never like that.”

“You’ve probably used it before without realizing it. Have you ever been so mad your voice changed? Or convinced someone with an unbelievable lie? Maybe even called someone back from the brink of death?” You nodded at each of his questions, feeling the color drain from your face. “Your powers may become more volatile when you’re threatened, or when someone important to you is in danger, a catalyst, if you will. May I have your permission to touch you?”

You shrugged, not really caring, but Din stiffened visibly at your side before backing away to let the man through. Luke placed his left hand on your forehead and closed his eyes, concentrating. “Yes, the Force is strong with you.” He moved down to your throat, touching your larynx softly. “Even stronger here, I’m willing to bet that the midi-chlorian count around this area is where it is highest, but I still feel something else.” He palpated your sternum though your ratty hospital gown, then your stomach, and finally the bottom of your belly, making you flinch. “Here. There is something here as well. It’s faint but-”

“No…”

“Your youngling…”

“NO.” You shouted, making the man recoil from the energy you gave off. “Not you too! First that damn robot and now this dude. I am not pregnant, I'm chipped! I’ve been chipped since I was a teenager. Get that damn nurse droid over here and I’ll prove it!” You barked at the droid organizing the bacta. “C’mere and scan me!”

The animatronic healer rolled over to you, a long scanner unfolding from it’s chassis. A hologenic light flickered over you, scanning up and down your body, making an extra pass over your abdomen that beeped when it had completed its investigation. “I-am-sorry-miss, but-your-chip-appears-to-be-missing.”

“MISSING?! The hell do you mean…” You trailed off, too many thoughts hitting you at once until one of them struck you like a bell. “Hoth. I probably left it on Hoth. Fan fucking tastic.” Oblivious to the needles in your skin you squished your eyeballs under your palms and slid your fingers into your hair, trying to yank it out.

When you opened your eyes back up you flinched from the collection of boys staring at you. Luke looked respectfully embarrassed, Grogu’s eyes were full of stars, but Din looked like he’d been frozen in time, not even breathing. He managed to croak out a single word: “Ch-chip?”

“Yeah, my standard-issue contraceptive implant’s probably sitting in a pile of goo in that fucky cave. You must be packin’ some pretty potent spunk to have already knocked me up.”

“Con... con-con-con… c-con..tra-”

“Din?”

“C-con…” Din short circuited and fell silent, his mental cogwheels grinding to a halt. A heavy silence filled the small infirmary for a time before he was moving with agonizing slowness. He brought one hand up and set it so gently on your tummy that it was almost non-existent. “...Mine?”

You rolled your eyes so hard they almost fell out of your skull. “Yeah bucket boy, ain’t nobody else got to tap this.” You shimmied in a terrible attempt at seduction, bobbing your bacta lines more than your boobies. He nodded solemnly, still trying to reboot, but the silence gave the poor sidelined Skywalker a chance to speak.

“Congratulations, I think. If it’s alright I would like to speak frankly.” You shrugged and nodded, not waiting for Din.exe to come back online. “Yours and Grogu’s Force powers are very special, but also very dangerous. While it shows that you both have extraordinary talent, without training that talent will go to waste, or worse, could fall into the wrong hands. With your permission I would like to take you both to the Jedi Temple where you can learn to master your abilities.”

You started to try to sit up, struggling against the pain that still permeated your body, but Din sprang to life, helping to ease you comfortably to a seated position with Grogu on your knee. Setting your hand on your collar bone you rubbed at your throat. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. I dunno jack shit about this Force whatsit, but it was pretty cool to melt Forescythe's face like that. If I go with you, will you teach me how to do that without burning my arms off?”

“The lightning is a byproduct of the Dark Side of the force, it is only manifested through hatred and anger. The more you use it, the more it will destroy you.”

“Oh...”

“I will teach you how to use the Light Side, which is achieved through patience and dedication.” He laughed, “And also won’t burn your arms off.”

“What’d’ya think, Beans, you wanna go to school?” Grogu chirped sweetly in your arms, rubbing at his eyes with fat little paws, then yawned. “I’ll take that as a yes. Alright, sunshine, it’s a deal, ain’t nowhere else for me to go anyways.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Once you have made a full recovery we will be on our way. It was nice to meet you as well, Mandalorian. May the Force be with you always.” The nice young man bowed slightly before turning on his heel and heading out the door, his cape billowing behind him as he went.

Grogu curled into a ball on your lap and fell asleep faster than you’d ever seen, and carefully you brushed your hand over his ears. “Poor baby, so sleepy. You rest now, you’ve earned it.” A heavy silence filled the room, punctuated only by tiny snores. When you looked up from the sweet little baby you were surprised to see Din’s visor locked on you from where he sat, frozen solid. “Well, bucketboy? You gonna say something?”

Wordlessly he started digging into the pouches on his belt, fishing around until he pulled the remains of a microchip out into the dusty sunlight. Although it was nearly crushed beyond recognition, you knew by its broken legs and shattered insignia that it was all that was left of your contraceptive implant. Fresh, scalding rage bubbled in your chest at the sight. “Din… Why do you have that?”

“I found it that night on the Sunskate when you sent me to find you some soap. It was in the canister we used to capture the egg-pod-thing. I should have told you about right away but… but I was worried that maybe the pirates planted it there. Then I got it into my head that it had come from you and… and…”

“And what?!”

“And I’m sorry!” He cried in a strained whisper, careful not to wake the blessedly sleeping baby. “I don’t expect your forgiveness, nor do I deserve it, but… but I’m sorry.” His modulated voice cracked with something, maybe faulty wiring, maybe tears. “If… if I’d just asked you about it from the start none of this would have happened.” He gestured vaguely at all of you, sitting at the end of the cot in your shabby gown, your bare feet swinging freely. “I’m sorry for how I acted and what I said. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

“You’re only saying that because you stuck a bun in my oven.”

“No, what I did was wrong, it was cowardly.” his visor snapped up to meet your eyes, “I have dishonored you and myself. I broke every vow I made to you without giving you a chance to explain. I shot at you, I shot at my wife.” His voice faded away, weighed down by shame. “I am a monster.” His helmet tilted away from you towards the ground, studying his boots.

You thought for a moment, watching the warrior coming to terms with his own judgement. Licking your dry lips, you asked him coldly: “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Try to shoot me.”

He turned away from you shamefully, “Because you were… b-because I decided that you were a threat.”

“A threat to who? To you?”

“No.” he paused, his breath hitching in his lungs. “A threat to… to Grogu.”

“That’s what I thought.” You chided, cocking a brow at him when he turned to face you again. “You saw a threat to your son and you acted, though maybe you could have, oh I dunno, listened to me before you went off your rocker.” His hands twiddled with the edges of his legplates, his eyes avoiding your gaze. You readjusted the bundle on your lap, tucking his goofy potato sack robe under his butt. “If I thought you were a threat, I would’a shot you too.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No, it doesn't, though I probably shouldn’t have been keeping secrets from you.” Now it was your turn to look away, turning your gaze up to the stucco ceiling where maybe the Maker was watching you. “However, if you hadn’t broken my heart and dumped me on the Empire’s doorstep then I’m guessing Tatooine wouldn’t be here anymore, or whatever planet they decided to fuck over. So I guess…”

“You don’t need to justify it. What I did was wrong and hateful.” He scootched the little chair closer to your side until his knees bumped against the cot’s edge, barely inches away from your own. “If you never want to see me again, I- I would... understand. I wish you and Grogu the best with your training. And the youngling too if… if you decide to keep it.”

His visor sank back to the floor before he was pulling himself to his feet, making to leave you and take his guilty conscience with him, but you caught his hand before he got too far. He whirled around, gawking at you with that big metal bird impression that he does so well.

“What do you mean if? Why wouldn’t I keep it?”

You heard something rattle behind his modulator, accompanied by the strained quake in his shoulders. “I can’t force you to, or even ask you to. I know you said you w-weren’t ready for children, and to have to raise one alone would be-”

“What makes you think I would be alone?” You squeezed his captured hand, running your thumb over his knuckles. Din cautiously stepped closer, brushing his hand over Grogu’s wrinkly little head.

“I’m sorry, you’re right. You’ll have Grogu and Luke to look after you. The boy seems trustworthy enough, and once you master your powers-.”

“That’s not what I mean, Din.” You tugged on his hand, scrounging up the courage to find out the truth, even if you had to use a crowbar to get it. “What… what were you going to say to me, before the rhydonium blew?”

His armored shoulders rose with a sudden intake of breath, going stiff while the air stuck in his lungs. His response came out slowly. “Does... does it matter?”

“If it didn’t, would I be asking?”

Yellowed fingertips flashed in the fresh dawnlight filtering in through the infirmary window, fidgeting on the ends of armored wrists. Din squared his shoulders and stood straight and proud, his modulated voice giving away his timidness. “I...”

“Yes..?”

“I…” he took your hand in both of his, careful not to upset the bacta lines growing from your flesh or the precious bundle swaddled on your lap. “I… I still love you.”

You cocked your ear at him and waggled your brows. “What? I didn’t-”

“I still love you!” Din fell to his knees in front of you with a mighty racket of metal and munitions that shockingly didn’t wake Grogu. “I love you, cyare, I need you! I love the sound of your voice and the warmth of your smile. I love the way you laugh, the way you cry. I love that you terrify me like no one ever has. I love the way you feel, the way you smell, the way your fingers used to tangle in my hair when we slept together.” He carefully lifted your hand until your knuckles rested on the brow of his helmet, “I miss you, beautiful creature of the stars. I would give anything to have you back again.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

You pondered a moment, letting him wallow in his guilt until you could hear his breath getting ragged from the suspense. “Alright, give me your ears.”

“You... want me to cut them off?”

“Pfft, no, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.” You said with a laugh. “I want you to listen.” You pulled your hand away from the cool metal of his forehead to pick at the bacta tubes on your other arm. “I was an Imp, but not because I wanted to be. When I was a child I was stowed away on the Wyvern before it left Corellia’s port, which happened often enough on that skughole of a planet that there was a name for us. We were called bilgerats.” You met his visor, watching the way his head cocked to the side. “The Empire adopted me, I didn’t have a choice.”

“Like… like a foundling?”

“Mmhmm. When the captain decided that I had potential, or apparently magic, he gave me a name and a real job, but it was never my choice. I chose to leave them behind. I chose to become a hunter. I chose…” You paused, flitting your eyes between the corners of his visor where you knew his eyes were, wishing that you could see them for yourself. “I chose to love you.”

A broken sob rattled his helmet as his composure started to break down, his hands coming up to caress gently at your cheek. You held your hand over the back of his, leaning into his palm. He took a series of deep, desperate breaths before he found his voice again. “C-could you e-ever love me again?”

“Only if you promise to never dump my ass over stupid misunderstandings again, think you could do that for me?” He couldn’t speak, he just nodded so fast his helmet almost flew off. Laughing, you stretched your arm out to him, careful not to lose the foundling on your lap. Din clambered up from the floor so fast his boots nearly went out from under him, plowing into your chest with a hug so fierce you felt your ribs creak. “I sure hope so, tinman, because I still love you too.”

Not even the dry desert air could stop your tears anymore, and you let them flow freely into the fabric of Din’s cowl, burying your face between his shoulder and the edge of his helmet while he hugged you like his life depended on it. The sharp metal cut your skin and made you frustrated that he even still had the damn bucket on. “Din can you take your helmet off? There’s nobody here but the droid. I want to see you.” He shook his head ‘no’, dragging his palms over your back, his leather gloves snagging on the ties that held your gown closed. “Can we go somewhere you can take it off? Maybe… maybe somewhere more comfortable?”

“You’re in no shape to move.”

“Please?”

He hated it when you begged, or maybe he fucking loved it, either way he was nodding and rising to his feet, stuffing your collection of trinkets into his many pouches. He cast a suspicious glance at the nursebot before helping you pull the bacta lines free. Immediately the attending droid started to protest, but was met with the business end of a blaster. Din cocked his helmet arrogantly, a mused laugh sneaking through his modulator.

“We’re checking out.”

You were giggling like a schoolgirl as you were carried up the ramp into the Crest by the Mandalorian, cradling Mr. Sleepy against your chest. The armored warrior set you down gently on the edge of the bed, jabbing at his vambrace to close the ramp. You sniffed the musty air, crinkling your nose. “Holy shit what is that smell?! No wonder the kid can’t sleep, It stinks in here! Open a window!” The singular transparisteel viewport didn’t ‘open’, but the ventilation did, and soon slightly-less-stinky desert breezes circulated through the cabin. “That’s better, now off with your damn head!”

“Alright alright.” Din chided, fishing for the edge of his helmet and pulling the offending beskar away, setting it down gently on a nearby crate. Though the blood had been washed from his hair days ago, a crudely placed cauterizer burn still shined red with swelling, but that was only the start of his worrying features. His hair was unkempt and ratty, his eyes sunken and hollow, even more than they had been when you’d seen him uncrowned aboard the Wyvern. His shaggy facial hair did a poor job of hiding his pale, nearly translucent skin.

But his smile, his adorable, lopsided smile was exactly as you remembered it, rolling the swells of his cheeks right up into his deep brown eyes. Dazzling canines caught the hazy cabin light while he beamed at you sheepishly, his eyes glancing at your face then bashfully away, aware that he must look terrible.

Carefully you set the foundling down on the bed by your side, brushing a wayward ear from his face before reaching out to the baby’s father. Gloveless hands found your cheeks, his touch more cautious than if he were handling porcelain, pulling you into a long awaited kiss.

Din kissed you like it was the very first time, chapped lips brushing yours softly, tentatively, like he was afraid that touching you would wake him from this dream. The dream of having you in his arms again. You slid your bandaged hands up his armored shoulders until you were at his scruffy jaw, pulling him closer.

At the feel of gauze on his skin he pulled away, worry etched into the creases around his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, maybe we should wait til-” Huffing, you dug your hands into his messy hair, dragging him back to you and kissing him so hard you felt your teeth knock together. He inhaled with surprise before melting into your hands, tilting his head to chase the taste of you deeper.

The bristles of his mustache tickled at your nose, but you were too lost in his love to notice, tangling your fingers in the curls that hung at the back of his neck. The hands at your cheeks glided down to your shoulders, then your sides, then around to your back, deftly picking apart the knots that held your ugly gown together. He pulled away from you again, “May I?”

You nodded and laughed, “Please, it’s itchy! Though I’m pretty sure half of Mos Eisley already saw my hooha flappin’ in the breeze today. Hey what happened to that cantina on the corner? They used to have the best spotchka…”

“No idea. Must have been a big fire though…” He laughed at his own poorly-veiled lie, kissing at your jawline while he tugged the last knot free. The ratty hospital gown fluttered to the floor unnoticed, the two of you lost in each other’s eyes. Though you were naked save for your bandages, he couldn’t take his off of your face, reverence stretched across his features. “Is… do you think what the nice man said is true? That you’re… um…”

His versatile hands that could snap necks like twigs or tear flesh asunder came up to settle gently on your belly, rubbing softly back and forth and sending scalding heat to your cheeks. You shied away from him, studying the cabin wall like the secrets of the universe were written there. Flustered, you found your voice, “I don’t know, maybe. Pretty early to tell, but he was right about everything else. Probably right about that, too.”

He caught your embarrassment and withdrew. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to… If you don’t… I’ll support any decision you-”

You silenced him with a finger on his lips. “No, I want to. I’m just… I’m scared.” You hugged yourself regardless of the warm desert breeze, fingertips fiddling with the edges of the gauze that rode up to your elbows. Nestled against your thigh you saw Grogu twitch in his sleep, half sunk into the smelly Tatooinian bed roll, his sweet little smile matching your own. “You’re such a good dad, Din, like you were made to be one. But…” You brushed your hand over the foundling's supersized ears, “But I don’t think I'd make a good mom.”

“You already are.” Din whispered with more conviction than you’d ever heard, his hand finding your chin to tilt your eyes back to him. “You always have been. From the day you met Grogu you’ve been his mother. You’re strong, and fearless, and terrifying.” He smiled when you laughed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear for you. “But you’re also loving, and sweet, and compassionate. And did I mention you’re the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life?”

You giggled again, rolling forward until your brow met with his. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I’m not. I think you’ll be amazing.” He kissed you again, stronger than before, breathing in deeply with the scent of you, of his mate. “I know you will.” You studied his face a moment and nodded, feeling your breath hitch threateningly in your throat. Din heard your hidden distress and backed away, tearing his remaining armor off and gently setting it next to his helmet until he was bare chested before you, a large bacta patch holding his broken bones together.

He dove towards you with passion, his chest pressed to yours, his kiss hungry but gentle. Though his flesh was warm and inviting against your own, your fingers quickly found where his ribs were showing through his sides, rippled like a washboard from not eating properly. You made a mental note to grab some of those roasted taters you liked so much later, but for now you let yourself get lost in the Mandalorian’s touch.

Though his hands were careful, you could tell that there was a hidden desperation behind his movements, his touches frantic to confirm that you were really here. His fingers slid up your back to tangle in your hair, holding you close while he experimentally licked his tongue into your mouth, eager to meet your own. A wide, calloused hand braced on your thigh, supporting his ever-growing weight over top of you. You hummed into his mouth and patted his chest, asking him to give you space.

He looked at you quizzically, but before he could start another long winded string of apologies you nodded down to where Grogu was sleeping peacefully. By the look on his little princely face it had been a long time since he’d slept so well, and though you knew he deserved his rest, he was very much in the way of what you and Din were after.

Maybe it was the bacta still flowing through your system, or maybe it was the fact that you’d survived yet another near-death experience. Or perhaps it was true what the ghosts in your visions had said, that the man before you really was your soulmate, destined to return to you again and again. Either way your body craved him, flooding your belly with heat at the sight of the robust warrior that would rather let himself waste away than live a day without you in it.

You needed him.

And he needed you.

Right now.

You scooched off the end of the bed, covered the baby with a thin blanket, and slid yourself into Din’s arms, kissing your way up his neck to the bottom of his jaw. He shivered under you, groaning with pleasure until you reached his ear, nipping at his earlobe where you whispered: “Do you remember the first time you made love to me?”

He growled, the low timbre of it making your skin prickle with goosebumps. “How could I forget?” His scruff brushed your cheek as he nuzzled you, dragging his teeth along the juncture of your neck and shoulder, his palms squeezing into your hips. You took a slow step backwards, luring him to follow until your knees bumped against a crate, a subtle laugh escaping your lips when you plopped down on it. Din fumbled for the sleeping cubby controls until he found the button that closed the protective door, shielding the foundling from your erotic courtship dance.

Not an inch of space remained between the two of you when he pressed his body to you again, slotting his mouth to yours, hands gripping the stubborn crate to support his slow, demanding ruts against your heat. You wrapped your legs around his waist, catching your heels in the pockets of his duraweave pants, trying to kick them off. His rich laugh rumbled against your chest, reverberating in the warmth flooding in your heart, and pussy. “Please, riddur’ika, let me take care of you.”

Lost in the kisses that he was planting down the length of your chest, he didn’t see your brows furrow at him. “Do… do you still get to call me that?”

He froze, his lips poised just above your pebbled nipple, so close to getting a taste of you. He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “That...that is your choice to make.” His pleading eyes looked up to you, so big and full of sadness you almost cried. “I would… I would like to again, but only if-”

“Yes.” you pleaded, running your fingers through his hair, skimming the long, jagged scar. “Yes, please, don’t ever stop calling me that.”

“Ner riddur.” He moaned, sucking the tip of your breast into his hot wet mouth, arms coiling around your waist. The hastily renewed vow tumbled from his lips in between each languid roll of his tongue, mumbled like a prayer to your altar of forgiveness. You sighed and arched your back into his affections, gasping when one of his nimble hands snaked around your front and sank into your folds.

Stars you’d missed this, you’d missed him. Missed the way his lips sought every inch of your chest, missed the way his fingers curled perfectly against the spongy spot hidden in your walls, drawing beautiful gasps from your parted lips. You’d even missed the way he ran his mouth, spilling muffled praises against your skin between greedy laps of his tongue.

He released your swollen bud with a pop of his lips, kissing down the softness of your tummy. You leaned back until the cool metal of the crate met your spine, offering yourself to him fully. Din’s whiskered kisses ticked at your sensitive middle, each one slower and more deliberate than the last until he was just below your belly button. The fingers buried inside you slowed, rubbing careful circles that couldn’t distract you from the loving way his lips met your skin, his kisses lingering.

“Mine.” he whispered with a secretive giggle, his unoccupied arm scooping under the small of your back, holding you steady. He kissed you once more, then pressed his entire face into your belly, rubbing his scruff over the tender flesh, almost like he was scenting you.

Still speared on his fingers, legs flung wide to accommodate him, you lifted your head to get a better look at his foolishness. “Tinman…?”

“I’m sorry, I just.” He planted his chin on your pubic bone, slipping his fingers out and smiling up at you with adoration in his eyes. “I just… I can’t believe it.”

“Really? After all the times you said you wanted to breed me, you’re flummoxed that you’ve actually gotten me pregnant?”

Din popped up like a whack-a-mole at the magic word, a hundred emotions spread across his face. “S-say that again.”

“Breed me?”

“No!”

“Flummoxed?” His brows sank with frustration over his lust-blown eyes, making you laugh. “Fine fine. Din.” You propped yourself up fully, your knees hugging his chest where he was kneeling between your legs. With his head in your palms you brushed your thumbs over his cheeks, reveling in the way he was waiting on bated breath for your words. “Din, I’m pregnant.”

The joy that radiated off of this man could have knocked the suns from the sky if they were any closer, his laughter so full of hope and happiness you couldn’t help laughing along. This was how it should have been presented, not flickering across a screen or coming from a polite stranger. Just this, the two of you alone together, both of you looking like complete garbage and not even caring.

No, in that moment you were the two most beautiful creatures the Universe had ever made, painted so brightly in excitement and love that it was blinding. Din kissed your palms, his face already starting to bubble over with emotion. “I’m… I’m gonna be a dad?”

“Mhmm, now c’mere, give mama some sugar.” You hauled his beautifully wrecked face up to yours, kissing him deeply. His tongue was sloppy, needy, spearing into your mouth between groans of pleasure. You heard the fumble of buckles and zippers, then the flump of pants hitting the floor. His heavy cock bobbed against your belly, leaving kisses of precum above the womb it had filled. You rocked your hips, trying to notch him in your slick folds, but his fingers met your cunt again, scissoring you open.

“I said I wanted to take care of you, buir’ika.” He groaned into your mouth before disappearing down your body and burying his face between your legs. Din’s wicked tongue spun delicious circles around your engorged bean, slurping and sucking away as if it was the only thing he’d ever eat again. You were just starting to feel the knot tightening in your guts when his dutiful mouth slowed, licking experimentally into your cunt, humming curiously.

“Wh-what? What is it?” You panted, rocking your hips against him, trying to fuck yourself on his face.

“You taste different.” He caught your questioning groan and shook his head, the motion making you convulse with need. “Not bad different, just different. Sweeter.” There were a plethora of excuses you could have made, maybe it was that he’d just forgotten how you’d tasted, or maybe it was the fact that you’d been living on Imp food. It couldn’t possibly already be from your changing hormones.

Could it?

Nothing but cries of pleasure made their way past your lips when he dove back to his feast, pulsing his expert fingers against your core and spiraling you towards devastation. Locked to his face, you squirmed on his tongue until he brought you the stars, your pent-up orgasm soaking his scruff and dribbling down his chin. Greedily he lapped your arousal away, humming at the taste. You’d barely gotten a chance to catch your breath before he was rising to his feet, angling his throbbing cock up into you and stretching you full.

“Din!” You whined, your cries swallowed by his mouth on yours, letting you taste your own release. Shit he’s right, I do taste good! His kisses became messy, then lost all together, his head falling from yours to bury against the crook of your shoulder. His cock eased itself out, making you feel every ridge, every vein before it was slamming back into the cradle of your body, the sound of him fucking you resounding wetly throughout the hold.

“Riddur’ika” he moaned into your skin, sinking his sharp teeth into the meat of your neck to mark you as his once again; leaving a blooming patchwork of welts in his wake. With his teeth holding you in place he started giving you what you both so desperately needed, pounding deeply into your flooding cunt. Your walls clenched around him, making him groan and strain, his hips snapping with frantic, frenzied thrusts. It was all you could do to hold on.

Eyes closed, lips parted, head lolling back, you were consumed by his passion; digging your nails into the skin of his back and surely drawing blood. Under your fingertips his muscles coiled and bunched, rippling with each powerful thrust, his cock demanding to be swallowed whole.

Your weeping wellspring sucked up every inch of him, drawing him all the way inside to the gates of your precious womb. The head of his cock bumped haphazardly against your cervix, his length shifting the ring of muscle even deeper into your body, the delicious stretch making you obscenely wetter.

Releasing your captured throat, the Mandalorian leaned back from you, throwing your legs over his shoulders so that there was nothing to stop him from burying himself to the hilt. Each ragged thrust scraped his curls over your sensitive clit and sent his cock spearing into something devastating inside. You cried out from the force of it, your muscles squeezing around his girth as you were catapulted towards ecstacy’s edge.

“That’s it, mesh’la, soak my cock. Claim me as yours!” His oaken voice sent you spinning, obeying his command and drenching his swollen member in your divine nectar. He groaned at your fluttering muscles, your silken folds caressing him and drawing his own gushing orgasm from him. Under your calves you could feel him straining to keep from shouting the heavens down, his face contorted almost painfully while he painted your insides with rope after rope of hot, potent baby batter.

Broken panting echoed in the tiny space of the Razor Crest’s interior, carried by the wisps of desert air breezing in through the ventilation. Din fell heavily forward, his sweat-streaked chest just inches from your heaving breasts, barely giving you room to breathe. Slowly he sank further down, the skin of his abdomen sticking to your belly, then your chest, sealing you together. His hands found your face, brushing the hair from your sticky brow and planting a kiss there, paving the way for him to rest his forehead against yours in sacred unity.

Hot breath mingled in the space between your mouths, bringing with it the spice of lovers bodies, a mix of lust and sweat and adoration, flooding your synapses like an addiction. Though he would happily let himself melt into your body the threat of crushing you underneath him made his exhausted arms shake, especially now that you were harboring precious cargo.

He butted his head against yours once more before pulling himself upright, offering a hand to you. You took his gentle gesture, but the shift in gravity made your soaked cunt gush with your combined cum, oozing down the side of the crate and pooling on the floor. Din couldn’t help himself, his agile fingers sneaking down to your wrecked pussy, stretching it around his fingertips and watching his pearly conquest slip out of you.

Humming with adoration, Din took you by your elbows, careful not to upset your bandages, and hugged you close. The Mandalorian felt like a furnace pressed against you, trailing his fingers up and down your spine and giving you conflicting goosebumps. “You’re so beautiful, mesh’la.” He purred, nuzzling into your neck. “There can be no other as beautiful as you.”

“Yet.” You chided, turning to meet his confused eyes. Stealing one of his hands you pushed his palm to your belly, laughing when he put your puzzle together.

“Our baby…” He cooed, still mystified by the concept. “Our baby will be beautiful, and terrifying if their mother is anything to go by.”

“Rude.” you barked, tugging playfully on his ear. He chuckled, splaying his wide palms over your belly, rubbing tenderly and no doubt imagining you all full and round with his warriors, your breasts heavy with milk, your skin glowing. His spent cock twitched between you, making him flush red. You laughed at his thoughts clearly plastered across his face. “I wonder what they’ll be like, the child of an Imp and a Mand-”

“You are not an Imp.” He retorted with ruinous conviction. “That’s not who you are anymore. You proved that when you sank an entire star destroyer to protect the people of Tatooine.” His hands cupped your face, holding you where his big beautiful eyes could see you, really see you. “I’m sorry that I let your past blind me to how much I love you, but now I see you for who you really are.” He kissed your forehead again, a slow, meaningful kiss that conveyed all the words he couldn’t find. Stars glittered in his lashes when he met your eyes again. “You’re not an Imp, cyare, you are a Mandalorian.”

Some kind of noise busted its way out your throat, maybe a laugh, maybe a sob. Either way you were shaking your head. “Thank you, but I’m not a Mandalorian either according to the Jedi boy.”

“I don’t see why you can’t be both a Mandalorian and a Jedi. Your son is a gremlin and your husband is an ass. I think you can be whatever you want. What was it that he called you?”

“A Thunderfury!”

“A Thunderfury!” He waved his hand dramatically, his eyes shining bright. You snickered at his antics, the melodic sound inviting him to spin you around in his arms, your thighs slicking with lovespunk as you danced. Instantly you wanted the fresher, but your heels knocked against his belt on the floor, making something in the pockets jingle. Bending down, you rifled through the many pouches until you found the one that had your things: two krayt teeth, one blood-stained rag, a pair of beskar cuffs, and surprisingly one other item.

An aurodium insignia.

“This was the Admirals.” You groaned, turning the half-melted token over in the light. Disgust overwhelmed you, and for a moment you considered opening the ramp door and chucking the emblem out into the hangar. Peli could probably find a buyer for it, but another thought snuck its way into your frontal lobe, spreading a grin over your face. “How much beskar do you think this will buy me?”

Din’s brows nearly shot off into space. “The insignia of a high ranking Imperial officer that you slaughtered? As much as you want, a full set even, but what about the Jedi? He’s supposed to take you-”

“But daaaaaad, I need a new outfit for the first day of school! Besides, I can't show up saying I’m a mando when I don’t have any beskar! Also I think the scary sewer queen would kill you if you didn’t tell her we’re expecting.”

“You’re absolutely right, but you do have some beskar.” Din padded over to the armory, throwing munitions and gear out of the way until your faceplate was brought into the light. “I think this belongs to you.”

You took the beloved slab of steel gingerly, turning it over in your hands. Din found the beskar cuffs and lovingly set them over each of your ears. When you set the armor on your face, the visor automatically flashed to life, presenting you with a fireball of a man standing before you, his chest and cheeks burning scarlet. Rolling the iron to your crown, you grabbed the krayt fangs from the pile and handed them to him. “And these belong to you.”

The opalescent Impkillers looked tiny in his wide hands, their whitish shimmer almost glowing in the cabin light. He nodded and thanked you, sniffling back his emotions, trying to remain steadfast as though you couldn’t see right through him. His fingers tightened over the sharp teeth, their edges creasing his callouses. “I’m going to miss you while you’re away.”

Just like that your beautiful, illustrious moment was cast in a dark, cold shadow. “Away? You’re going with me, right?”

“I don’t know if I can. I’m not a sorcerer like you or Grogu, and I’ll have to do something to earn credits for the baby. You go to school, grow our child. I’ll find work, there’s always bount-”

“Woah woah woah. Abso-fuckin-lutely not! You’re coming with us! I’m not going through this pregnancy or my forcefuckery without you.”

“The boy flew an X-wing here, there’s not exactly room-”

“Then we’ll get the coordinates for the school and just… meet him there? You said you’re never leaving me behind again, well I’m not leaving you behind either, ya big fuckin’ jerk.”

“I don’t think he’s going to just give you that information. What makes you think you can convince him?”

“First of all, something tells me he’s desperate, and secondly,” You planted your feet wide, ignoring your sticky, cumsoaked thighs and jabbing your fists to your hips, beskar crown glittering like royalty and making Din realize that one of these days he was going to have to tell you that as an Alor’s wife, you were technically were.

“I’m Tra’laar, the Thunderfury!” You roared, channeling your Force power to make the Crest shake on it’s fat little legs. Dins wide eyes were a stark contrast to your beaming smile, but the sound of scratching and chirping caught your ears before either of you could say something.

The sleeping cubby’s drophatch slid out of the way, revealing the disheveled little baby. Grogu glared at the two of you, rubbing his squinty eyes and squeaking on about how you’d interrupted his beauty sleep. Giggling, you took the baby in your arms and sat down on the bed, cradling him against your bare chest. “Aw I’m sorry, Booger, I got carried away.”

Snuggling the child, you were surprised when Din came over to you with a warm washcloth, offering to clean his mess from your thighs. You held Grogu close so his eyes were covered while Din tended to your needs, gently wiping the evidence of your reforged bond away.

When you were as clean as he could get you, you thanked him and scooted back up the bed, resting your weary head on the bunched-up bantha wool at the back of the cubby. You cooed at the fussing baby. “Do you need a lullaby, sweetie? I need to practice before bucket-baby comes. Would that be ok?” Grogu’s enormous eyes seemed to light up even in the dark recess of the alcove, his little head bobbing with a nod.

“He’s missed your songs, cyare.” Din hummed, crawling into the bed with you, laying so that he faced you and his son. You shot him a cynical glance, but he didn’t shy away. “I’ve missed your songs as well. I-if your voice hurts too much, it’s fine, we can-”

“I’ve missed singing to you as well, and to your son.”

“Our son. Just like it will be our baby. I’ll never make that mistake again, you have my word, and should I ever break it again I want you to put a bullet in my skull.” You were about to protest that last line, but his stern glare told you he wasn’t joking, so you nodded, agreeing to his terms.

“Anything in particular you want me to sing for you, husband?”

He smiled, running his hand over your bandages until his fingers tangled with your own, dancing lightly over the foundling’s forehead. “There was one a long time ago, it was the very first one you ever sang to Grogu, before he even had a name. Something about a navigator?”

“Of course.” You played with his fingers and cleared your throat, dropping your voice into a low whisper like you’d done a hundred times before.

“Oh, I have sailed the midnight sea from Hoth to Arvala-5.

Seen the Cloudshape Falls of Alderaan, met rocks that were alive.

But soon I came to realize as world to world I roamed,

That nowhere in the galaxy could really be my home.”

Across from you Din’s eyes fluttered, fighting the pull of sleep so he could listen to you for as long as possible. You nestled closer to him until your foreheads bumped together, your faces curled towards the child that was already starting to drift back into his afternoon nap.

“So call the navigator, set the course and go!

We’ve stars and planets to explore, my wild heart tells me so.

Beneath the metal decking I can hear the engine sigh

And all I need is a mighty ship and a staaaa-aarr to guide her by.”

Neither of your boys made it to the last line, so overcome with stress-induced exhaustion that they were both sailing off to dreamland on the words of your song. Later you could find Mr. Sunshine and sort this whole Jedi nonsense out, but regardless of what the stranger wanted you weren’t going anywhere if Din couldn’t be by your side, the two of you having already suffered enough apart, missing your soulmates.

No, come what may, your clan of three, soon four, would not be splitting up again. Come hell or high water, you were in this together.

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#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x f!reader #din djarin #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #bargaining with beskar #bwb

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