#cmo reader

[unstoppableforcce]

going home

CHAPTER ONE: a bomb

“we all make mistakes and we all pay the price”

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a/n: this has been in my drafts for over a year but fuck it, here we go

“It feels like…”

There was a storm brewing in his chest. Violent, turbulent, rough and rugged. A white-water rapid smacking against the sharp and jagged shore that lined the inside of his ribs, tearing at his beating heart with each and every rapid beat, threatening to thump right out of his sore and worn chest.

But he couldn’t get the rest of his words out, the sour silence echoing out around the small room.

He didn’t even mind silence normally, not when he was with you. The two of you certainly had enough moments of it when the days stretched longer and the nights became almost nonexistent. It was a more than necessary reprieve from the day, just holding you in his arms as the two of you laid wrapped around each other beneath the scratchy, standard-issue sheets, delirious, and teetering on the edge of sleep. It was stolen minutes beside you in the refresher as the two of you slowed your rush, equally desperate for both a few more seconds together and to get out the door to begin the long day you each had ahead of you. It was silent meals slipped into your schedules just so you had a chance to see each other, even if all you did was stuff your faces and read the lengthy data files stacked in your laps.

Comfortable silences with you had a silent love to them, words left unspoken because they didn’t need to be said. His chest bloomed and blossomed with an incomparable heat, more than that of the deadly sands of Jakku, more than the bubbling lava pits of Mustafar. He loved those stolen moments of silence.

This wasn’t that. This was a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, destructive silence, left in the open, plain and vulnerable as the words caught on his tongue.

And you noticed.

Your stare had lifted to his briefly as he stepped out of refresher, lingering for just a second on the droplets of water that trailed down his chest to the towel hung loose around his hips, then darting quickly back to the datapad resting in front of you where your back hunched over the desk. Even when he started talking, the first few words of his thought dripping from his lips, he didn’t catch your complete attention, not until the thought fizzled out on his tongue and the room fell silent again.

It felt like the first real attention he had gotten from you in days.

“Poe…?”

The pads of your fingertips tapped mindlessly along the metallic table top as you waited, the hesitance on your lips prompting him to continue but he still couldn’t find the breath he needed.

He could see the confusion laced into your disposition, he could see the hesitation holding in your shoulders, he could see your breath caught in your throat in much the same way that his was caught in his own. He didn’t know how to say what he needed to, and you had no clue what to expect, he just opened the refresher door and offered you three words and froze.

“It feels like what, Poe?”

Another two seconds and you just gave up, offering up an almost silent huff and turning back to your somewhat endless stream of medical files. The silence settled too easily back over the two of you, easily enough to send a shiver down his soaked spine, but he still didn’t have the breath or the words. Not yet.

He only had the first three words. “It feels like…”

Maybe it was because he didn’t want to say it. He knew exactly what he wanted to say and he knew it needed to be said, but something inside of him was still catching him up, holding him back as the weak voice quietly murmuring in his head argued otherwise. Maybe he just didn’t want to say it.

“It just feels like…”

“You know, it feels like you’re almost going to get there.” There wasn’t anywhere close to a hint of amusement in your voice, it was pure, unadulterated annoyance, and you didn’t even bother to bite back on it. It came out, full force, slicing him up where he stood with every dripping ounce of sarcasm you had to offer him.

He hated it. He hated your attitude, he hated the shift he had seen in you the past, long and exhausting week, and he absolutely hated what it sparked in him. Maybe if he had gotten more sleep the last few nights, maybe if he hadn’t been worked to the bone out in the pouring D’Qar rain for over nine hours that day alone and at least 10 the day before, maybe if he hadn’t been putting up with this attitude for nearly a week at this point… maybe, maybe he wouldn’t have snapped.

Maybe just wasn’t enough.

Any words, any half-finished thought or hesitation on his part faded away, and the words left on his tongue rushed out, flowing free like an unbridled river, directly out from his stormy chest.

“It feels like you’re a bomb,” he nearly choked around the words, like his brain knew better than to let them out but they kept flowing anyway. “It feels like you’re a bomb that hasn’t gone off yet.”

Whatever reaction he had naively expected from you, he didn’t get. There wasn’t a hint of surprise on your face, not a moment of shock or horror or anything close to a visceral response equatable to what he deserved. There wasn’t a hint of a single emotion at all.

He didn’t think he had more to say, that was the lone thought that had held on his tongue but your stare didn’t move, it didn’t even waiver, so he stepped out of the refresher doorway, still slicked from his shower and found himself unable to stop himself. Your stare just coaxed more and more out of him.

“I don’t know what’s been happening, I don’t know if it’s work or if it’s me or if it’s something else entirely… but it’s something. All I know is what it feels like and it feels like you’re holding your breath, like there is a detonation timer that is going to go off somewhere and we’re just waiting for it… I can’t stand waiting for it.” His throat was tight now, constricting around every syllable as he felt his cheeks heat up and eyes begin to burn, but he couldn’t stop. It wasn’t a flood, it was an avalanche, filling the room with an icy chill that shook him to his core, and it just kept coming. “I need you to talk to me, because I can’t-- I-- I don’t know what to do. Something’s wrong and… and I can’t take it anymore.”

He could feel the words trembling as they left his lips, quivering as they hung in the air between the two of you, but your words didn’t tremble. They didn’t shake, they didn’t shiver. Laced with a quiet, muted rage, they left your mouth in a firm tone, not wavering for a second.

It was a tone he had never heard you take before, not with him, not ever.

“You think I’m a bomb?”

He couldn’t recoil from it fast enough. “Maybe not the right choice of words--”

“You think I’m going to explode, knock out a few cities, maybe obliterate a population? A bomb, Poe?”

“That’s not--”

“I’m not a bomb.” There was the first hint of a break. Not a real break, but a crack, a sliver of real emotion peeking through your cold, emotionless exterior as you stared him down with more heat than even his burning shower could offer.

And it was so easy to think about what he needed to do, what he should have done.

He should have leveled himself out, taken a deep breath and recovered. He should have thought about his words, he should have silenced every emotion bubbling in his chest, and he should have responded back with a clear head, so that when the words came out of his mouth, they were words that he meant, words that he needed to say and not just words that came out first. He should have… He didn’t.

“Yeah, and you’re clearly not exploding on me--”

The sarcasm came out hot and fast, but your scoff came out even hotter and much, much faster.

It echoed around the room before he could even finish his thought, not that he had much more to contribute, but it was curt, and abrupt, stopping him right in his tracks. Then came the screech of the chair, kicked back as you stood up and turned your datapad off with an easy click.

He tried to reach out, he tried to stand in your way, to catch your attention back for even a second in hopes of you leveling out enough to talk to him but there was already a determined fury in your step, one he knew better than to stand in the way of even if he was the one who caused it. Especially given he was the one who caused it.

“Babe--” his choked voice tried out as you moved to step past him for the shared set of drawers on the back wall, but again, you cut him off before the last traces of the word even left his tongue.

“Don’t fucking ‘babe’ me, Poe.”

You grabbed the first thing you could get your hand on, opening up the top drawer and grabbing the first set without second thought. Maybe it was your shirt, maybe it was his, maybe those were his shorts, maybe they were actually yours, it didn’t matter. Blinded by the red that laced the edges of your vision, whatever you could grab was good enough.

And as he tried his luck again, you took the clothes you grabbed and pushed past him yet again.

“Please, babe-- Fuck, I mean, please--” The door to the refresher slid shut in his face before he could even come any closer, cold, hard steel two inches from his face instead of you and your angry stare. But even as he knocked, he got nothing in response. “Fuck…”

His forehead fell forward against the cool metal, his sopping curls still clinging to his skin, now stuck between him and the door now and over and over again as he hit his head a few times to knock again.

“That isn’t what I meant, it was a poor choice of words but…” he was in the thick of it now, why not dig the grave a little deeper. “But I’m not wrong, babe, please. Something is going on and you have to talk to me, if it’s something I did or if I can help… just… open the door babe, please.”

He waited a second with useless hope coursing through his veins, then the shower turned on and the last of any kind of hope fled his system in a hurry.

He wasn’t wrong though.

Day in and day out, he poured his heart and soul, every ounce of energy that he had to offer, into work. Whether he was in the pilot seat, putting his life on the line again and again, or behind a strategy desk, discussing the lives of the soldiers and civilians who entrusted him with everything they had to offer, it took it all out of him. And he still did it, day in and day out, because that was the job he signed up for and it was hell but he could do it. Or, he should have been able to do it.

But you weren’t sleeping. When your schedules aligned the way they had the past week, he was back in the room with you nearly every night after his shift, spare the occasional med bay emergency, and that meant he got to fall asleep with you beside him, or at least, it meant that hypothetically. He’d get cleaned up, steal a short kiss from you and dance through the daily rundown of questions and updates before climbing into bed, waiting for you to get ready and do the same and you just… wouldn’t. You’d sit at the lone desk in your small, shared room, scanning through page after page of your medical files and never finish.

He was able to go about three days like that, tossing and turning and barely catching as much sleep as he needed to function, but then he needed to bring it up. That got him a curt dismissal of the usual ‘I’m fine’ which no one who was actually fine ever needed to say as defensively as you did.

You came to bed every night after that, but you still didn’t sleep. Your eyes would close and you’d even cuddle into his side some after he switched the lights off, but you wouldn’t sleep. He had been sleeping in the same bed as you for a while, for a while longer than he ever had with anyone else before, he could tell when you were asleep, and you never were.

Something was wrong. Something had to be wrong.

He was wrong to phrase it the way that he did, but he wasn’t wrong.

And after he changed into a pair of sweats and pulled on a loose hoodie, he sat his back down to the refresher door and repeated the exact same sentiment to you again, whether you could hear him over the running water or not.

“I’m sorry… that wasn't how I wanted it to come out, I didn’t mean… it’s… fuck… something is wrong, and I don’t know what it is and I’m not sleeping because you’re not sleeping and I’m sorry but I can’t keep going like this, locked in this silence with you… I can’t.” The back of his head fell back against the door, a sigh more exhausted than anything he had ever released before managing it’s way out of his lips. “I want to help, and I can’t when you don’t talk to me, and then we both get like this and I’m tired… I’ve never been this tired…”

The water stopped running, but still, no word from you.

Not until one of the datapads on the table began to beep with an alert.

His knees ached and groaned as he pushed himself up from the cold, concrete floor of the room, and with just a few steps, he found himself at the desk, tapping the screens on both pads, his and yours, to see where the beep came from. It was yours, in the middle of the night, it almost always was.

“Is it mine?” You hummed, pulling his attention back to find you stood in the doorway of the refresher with your skin still damp and the casual amalgamation of clothes covering your form.

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “looks like an appointment for tomorrow got moved, nothing urgent.”

The silence was back. Deafening. Turbulent.

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” The heat of your words had washed away into something much softer, something much more vulnerable as your arms cradled around your body, holding yourself in a tight and defensive protection. Something you had never needed with him, not here, not in the bedroom the two of you shared.

His stare fell to the floor beneath his bare feet, his toes curling against the cold as his tongue darted out to lick hesitantly over his lower lip. “I didn’t say there was… or I didn’t mean that there was, I just… Something is wrong, something is going on and we have to talk about it, I can’t keep waiting…”

“Nothing is--”

His stare snapped back up in an instant. “Yeah, babe, something is. This isn’t something you can ‘I’m fine’ your way out of anymore. I need sleep and you do too…”

“I’m not a bomb.”

“I’m sorry.” He sighed, huffing out another breath as you still held yourself tight where you stood. “I’m tired, I just… I’m sorry.”

You nodded weakly, you knew that, of course you knew that… but that didn’t make it any easier. Because he wasn’t wrong, and you knew it, you just couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“It’s the… it’s not… it’s not you.”

He didn’t think it was.

Collapsing back onto the edge of the bed, he couldn’t help but rub his hand over the bottom half of his face, scruffing his own hand with the roughness of the two day old growth settled there. If he looked anything like you did, it was pretty obvious he hadn’t slept well in far too long, bags under his eyes and a weakness in his stature. He could barely even hold himself up as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. Exhaustion had gone by days ago, there weren’t even words to describe just how sleep-deprived he was. He wanted to sleep, he wanted you to sleep. If he was suffering this much, you must have been feeling so much worse.

He just wanted to help.

“Is there anything I can do, I mean, do you want to talk about it—“

Your answer was quick. “I don’t want to talk.”

His hands lifted into a gentle surrender, “okay, we don’t have to talk about it… I just, stars babe, we can’t keep going like this.”

“I don’t mean to.”

He huffed another sigh as he watched your defenses slowly find their way back up. “I know you don’t, I know… I just don’t know what to do.”

“And you think I do?” You fought back with a shake of your head, scratching at your collarbone beneath the stretched-out collar of the shirt you wore. His shirt.

“I think you know what’s wrong.” It sounded like an accusation, he hadn’t meant for it to but it came out as one nonetheless. “I think you know what’s wrong and pretending like you don’t isn’t going to fix anything.”

The silence was back. Cold, painful silence. Stabbing him in the chest would have hurt less at this point.

“Okay… ” It was such a slow plunge, a knife thrust deep into his heart as the cut of your voice returned. “That’s it.”

It didn’t matter how badly his legs screamed, his tired muscles pleading to stay seated, he found his way back to his feet. Taking a step towards you was as if he were carefully finding his way out onto a frozen lake, unsteady and cracking as his weight shifted forward, freezing as he caught the icy chill of your stare. “Babe--”

Your hand extended to keep him where he stood. “I don’t want to talk to you right now. Just go to bed.”

“Just go to bed…” He couldn’t hold back his scoff, and it echoed with the furious heat yours had when he first started this conversation. There was no taking any of this back now. “You think I can go to bed? Are you serious? I haven’t slept in a week and you think I’m going to be able to now--”

“I’m not doing this, go to bed or get out, Poe.”

“Well I’m not doing either of those.” His hands settled on his hips, the sturdy stance of a commander as his inescapable stubborn head grappled for any last taste of control. He tried. Stars, he really tried. But he was tired. He had never been this tired. “You don’t want to talk about why, that’s fine, but I can’t do this silent treatment anymore. We’re either fucking talking or you can be the one to fucking leave.”

Nine hours. Nine hours in the endless downpour of hot jungle rain, running drill after drill after drill, soldering damp wires, managing the tempers of every single soul under his command… His hands were wrinkly and his grip was weak and as you grabbed your boots and datapad and did exactly as he told you to, he was far too tired to reach for you.

By the time he found feeling in his fingertips, the door had closed with a deafening hiss and it was too late. Far too late.

Something was wrong. Something was truly wrong and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.

He collapsed back onto the bed and stayed awake until his alarm sounded for him in the morning.

#poe dameron x reader #star wars #poe dameron x female reader #how wonderful #how wonderful series #cmo reader

[paxny]

Currently on the hunt for some more Bones-centric fics, if anybody has some to recommend I’d owe you a bazillion marsh-melons <3 please and thank you :D

(For this round, I would prefer aos, but would still happily take tos. McSpirk or /OC or /reader would be best, but I’ll explore any pairing rn.)

#I love both versions of him desperately #but I’m trying to explore the aos portrayal a little more rn #leonard bones mccoy #bones mccoy #cmo McCoy #Star Trek #star trek fanfiction #star trek aos #star trek aos fanfic #star trek alternate original series #star trek tos #star trek the original series #star trek tos fanfic #mcspirk #leonard bones mccoy x reader #bones McCoy x original female character #fanfic reccomendation #fic rec

[angrycmo]

no one rly follows my main blog but its what comes up when i interact with stuff so i kinda just wanted to put out on the table that i identity as agender. as someone who's AFAB and lives in the southeastern US it's hard to express those kind of feelings or even really understand them. despite the fact ive always been raised female I've felt dysphoric all of my life (likely because of my name, I won't get into that) and dont necessarily feel like a male or a female. more or less making this post so some blogs i interact with that are like "if you identify as female pls don't interact" and i dont wanna get blocked bc at my core i really dont identify as female. i mostly just feel like a camera that's always recording stuff.

#cmo log #agender #status update #idk how to tag this #i just like male reader inserts and dont wanna get blocked by some good authors

[cattatoir]

Sure the love may be forbidden but there’s so many reasons to break those bonds, not bc they’re outdated and evil, but bc you love him and his…unbelievable anger where he gets literally spitting mad and yells about everything, unless he fully goes murderous, his constant controlling behavior, his refusal to respect your autonomy or be polite to any of your loved ones, his obsession with revenge against anyone he perceives to have harmed you or gotten to close even if you object,,,,oh and his even more abusive father but that’s ok bc he’s dead now and you also liked him!

#listen I’m not interested in shaming the readers #but why can’t you have someone who’s dangerous or whatever is sexy to you but isn’t abusive #I’ve seen people pull it off #cmo's log

[drvscarlett]

Let him cook

Charles Leclerc x Masterchef contestant!reader

Series Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

A/N: Got this idea because the masterchef trophy is similar to the Australian GP trophy. This is going to be a series

Charles_Leclerc posted a new photo

liked by CarlosSainz55, PierreGasly, and 365,000 others.

Charles_Leclerc Add professional chef to the list

User1 aint no way you cooked this

User2 nice try Charles but we all saw that pasta video

CarlosSainz55 mate drop the # of the private chef you hired, these look delicious

Charles_Leclerc I told you that I made this myself CarlosSainz55 Lies!!!!

PierreGasly since when did you learn how to make coq au vin???

Charles_Leclerc not you too PierreGasly you should invite me sometimes so I can judge your cooking

Y/NCooks posted a photo

YNCooks last date night before i enter masterchef australia. credits to the boyfriend for the lovely photos

Friend1 Y/N i know this is your dream for a while now. I hope you win. We will cheer for you our next masterchef australia!

YNCooks awww stop! ur making me cry

User1 OMG she is finally competing, goodluck Y/N!

User2 Y/N always talk about how its her dream to enter masterchef, I'm gonna watch it everyday and hope she wins it!

User3 Goodluck Y/N! I hope you become the next masterchef australia!!!

Mystery Box challenge episode

There was a building reputation in the kitchen that you are one of the strong homecooks of the season. After winning the past 2 mystery challenges, you were extremely determined to do well and seek for a third streak. The mystery box today was all about italian cooking, a cuisine that you have been comfortable due to the close ties of your boyfriend being signed to an Italian team.

"And what do we have here with you today Miss Y/N" Matt Preston asked as he approached the work table together with George Colambris "You seem rather comfortable and in your own zone. Its like an ordinary Tuesday date night"

You gave a small chuckle with that mention "That's actually pretty on point of you to say as Tuesday is my date night with the boyfriend"

"Ah so maybe that's why you are so inspired because you are in love"George teased.

"Well I have to admit that there is a little pressure to do well in this challenge or my boyfriend's family will get mad at me"you quipped back a reply.

The judges suddenly leaned a little interested to learn more about your personal life, "So your boyfriend is italian?"

"He is not but he might as well be. He spends a lot of time there"

"It must be hard to not see him a lot since you are here competing" Matt says

"It's a price we are willing to pay. He has been supportive of my dream as I am with him" you gave an encouraging smile as you continue to chop the sweet potatoes.

"We hope to meet that boyfriend of yours because he is one lucky man because that dish looks delicious!" George says before they left the station.

Somewhere in Bahrain, Charles Leclerc is grinning upon watching the replay of the episode. He was beyond proud of what you have achieved as a contestant in MasterChef. He wished that he could do more to express his support towards you but you have an agreement with him to keep things lowkey for the meantime. It was a reasonable decision as he didn't want to overshadow your career but it was nice to know that you two are a private thing but never a secret.

He was so engrossed to repeating the boyfriend clip that he didn't notice that Carlos snuck up beside him.

"What are you watching there?" Carlos asked his teammate

"Oh its nothing" Charles says as he immediately exited the Youtube app "I didn't notice you there, you scared me"

"If you weren't too into your phone then you would have noticed me calling you" Carlos explained "What are you watching on your phone that got you smiling like that?"

"Nothing, I just saw an ad"

"Hmm sure an ad" Carlos was pretty sure that Charles was watching MasterChef but he couldn't care anymore to ask which country because there was too many so he decided to just let it go "Cmon Fred is asking for us, were late for a meeting"

"Carlos! Why didn't you start with that?"

Cake challenge

You were exhausted because you spent the early hours of the morning watching the Jeddah GP. It was a thrilling race to see Charles bag his first podium of the season so you can say that its worth it. Besides, you were able to talk to him after the race so it sweetens the deal even more.

Filming begun for MasterChef and the judges brought out balloons for the mystery box challenge.

"Your challenge today is to make the most imaginative and creative birthday cake that you ever had" Gary explained "The pantry is filled with all the cake flavors you can ever imagine so be creative and show us what you've got"

Baking has never been your strongest suit. It was all about precision and measurements as small increments can make a huge difference. Today, you were determined to do well and you wanted to use the podium finish of Charles for the cake.

It was a struggle to bake the cake, cool it, and pipe it in under 60 minutes. You felt the pressure getting under your nerves as your hands started shaking when you were piping the cake details with 10 minutes left. There was a sigh of relief when you finished just 5 seconds away from the judges calling the time.

There were plenty of beautiful cakes in the room so it was a shocker for you that the judges called you in front to present your cake.

"Judges what I have for you today is a three layer cake with the raspberry,almond, and pistachio with chocolate to seperate the layers and a lemon buttercream frosting."

"You told us you can't bake, that seems like a lie" George says as he cuts through the cake "Look at that layers"

"The layers are actually inspired by the italian flag, its an homage to the boyfriend. Its actually a cake that I made thinking about him" you explained.

"That is simply gorgeous. The cake is very moist and the balance with the flavors is that its not too sweet or nothing overpowering. Your boyfriend is a lucky lucky lucky man to be baked a cake like this" George complimented.

"Does your boyfriend cook?"Matt asked as he took a bite

"Oh God no. I have to cook or else the kitchen will be on fire"you laughed "But I can't drive so maybe that's his payback"

"You seem to show the beautiful dynamics of your relationship when you cook something inspired by him. I wish you two the best" Matt's genuine comment was a heartwarming moment.

Its unfortunate that you didn't win this challenge but you were able to showcase your support for your boyfriend.

Melbourne GP meets MasterChef

This was another challenge as you were elected as a team captain for the second team challenge. You were extremely nervous when you were transported with your team mates from the blue kitchen to an unknown location. It was even more nerve-wracking after you've realized where you are.

"Welcome to the Albert Park where the Australian Grand Prix is underway for this weekend" Matt introduced "Your challenge is to prepare two dishes: a pasta and a fish dish to be served to the talented drivers in Formula 2"

There was a little sigh of relief as you were dealing with the Formula 2 drivers. It was a lot of weight on the shoulder if you will be serving food to your boyfriend.

"The practice sessions will be starting in a few minutes. You have 90 minutes to prepare your dish and an hour to serve them"

All you know was that you started organizing the team to put them in charge of the dishes that you will be making today. You cross your fingers that the color red brings luck to your team today.

Meanwhile, the paddock was buzzing with cameras and Charles immediately noticed that there were some new film crews around the Formula 2 drivers. His eyes did a double take after he recognized the face of three familiar judges he often sees on MasterChef Australia.

"What's going on? Isn't that MasterChef Australia judges?" Charles quizzed

"That's MasterChef Australia, they have this team challenges and they will be feeding the Formula 2 drivers" Silvia answered as she was informed earlier that morning about the extra exposure in the paddock today.

"Why Formula 2? Why not us?" Charles whined

"If you want then you could go ask Ollie for food" Silvia suggested

That sets a lightbulb moment for Charles as he excused himself to talk to the young driver. He will not miss the opportunity to taste the cooking of his secret girlfriend and support her in doing her craft.

It puzzled Ollie Bearman to see that Charles has been looking for him once the practice session was over. He was even more confused by his request.

"So you want me to get you food?" Ollie asked "Doesn't Ferrari have a catering?"

"Its not just food, its the MasterChef Australia food" Charles explained without giving out too much information "I just love the show okay?"

"You can come along, I'm sure they don't mind" Even better.

So here is why you were genuinely surprised to see that Charles Leclerc is walking inside the MasterChef tent with a red and blue plate in his hand. He was grinning wildly as if he was a kid on a sugar rush.

"Ohmygod we are serving food to Charles Leclerc!" one of your teammates whispered.

"Hi goodafternoon! What's the dish for today?" he asked politely.

"Well we have a pan fried cod with a pea puree and then some green grapes some fennel over there and then for the pasta lemon ricotta and beet tortellini" you answered as the team captain "We hope that its up your liking"

Charles gave you that smile that seems to light up the whole room, "I look forward to it, thanks!"

Its moments like this that you wish that you could reach out for him but you understand that its not yet the time. Its nice to see the support that you have for each other even though its all in private and away from the eyes of the media.

"Goodluck on your race Charles!"

There was a smile on both of your faces as you both continued to go chase your dreams.

#charles leclerc x reader #f1 imagine #formula 1 x reader

[ireadwithmyears]

address the letters: “to the holes in my butterfly wings”

pairing: Kix and GN padawan reader (platonic)

Word count, guys it’s basically 10 K 💀bc apparently I am in capable of writing anything short.

tags/warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, mentions of blood and injury, medical procedures

summary:

In which, the CMO of Torrent Company discovers that you, a Padawan under his care have been hiding injuries and skipping medical checks, and now must take care of you as you suffer the consequences of your actions.

Also known as

Why you should never hide an injury from Kix. he will find out, and he will drag you off to the medbay so that he can take care of whatever mess you’ve made of yourself, scolding you all the wile.

“Look what I found on my bunk.”

You’re interrupted from eating your sandwich in the Cantina when Fives plops down beside you at the table, setting down a tray of food and waving a pink slip of paper in your face.

You’re about to tell him that “Can’t you see that you’re eating and get this paper out of my face,” when your eyes catch on three words written in bold text across the top of the page.

Mandatory vaccination updates. 

The sandwich, that up until this point has been the absolute centre of your attention, listen, you’re fighting a war and you have to appreciate any opportunity that you get to eat food that isn’t bland ration bars, drops out of your suddenly limp hand as you snatch up the paper, now very interested in the contents.

“When did you get this?” you ask slowly, you’re voice distracted, beginning to chew on your lower lip, already feeling the nervous coil in your stomach.

“When I came back to my bunk after the debriefing we had this afternoon. Apparently everyone got one. I bet you 10 credits that your master is going to pretend that he didn’t see it, and try and avoid it until Kix has to tear apart the ship looking for him and drag him to the medbay.” Fives chuckles.

Master Skywalker’s reputation for trying to avoid the medbay at all costs is widely known throughout Torrent Company..

“Kix is going to have a field day. I’ll give it to general Skywalker, he has some creative hiding places,” he continues, eyes lighting up at the memory of Anakin, half hazardously crammed into a supply closet, folded in an impressive, yet uncomfortable looking position as he forced his unwitting tall limbs to fit in the cramped space.

Unfortunately for Kix, your masters habit of avoiding the medbay whenever possible has rubbed off on you, though, you don’t think it’s for the same reason. Your avoidance stems from a place of fear, and, okay, a stubborn insistence that you can take care of yourself, which yes, definitely like master, like apprentice.

But that also stems from a fear. You’re determined to prove yourself, especially being a young Padawan working with those who are much more experienced than you. You don’t want to risk being taken off the field because of some stupid injury, and letting those who rely on you down, especially your master, who’s always bouncing back and getting up and ready to take on whatever is next regardless of what kind of peril he’s just come out of. You want, you need, to prove that just because you’re a Padawan, you’re not a liability, but an asset. You can be strong and resilient like master Skywalker.

So, you avoid. You dodge and you ignore and you pretend not to notice when the routine medical check dates come and go without your attendance. You know it’s only a matter of time before Kix gets on your ass about it. You’re surprised that you’ve kept it up this long. But, this only bolsters your confidence in being able to avoid another successfully.

“I’ll be right back,” you say, trying to sound nonchalant, setting the paper back down on the table before you run off into the crowd.

*

Sure enough, there is an identical slip of paper that’s been placed on your bunk. But conveniently, Jedi master Aayla Secura is going on a diplomatic mission to amid rim planet in a last ditch effort to try and convince them not to secede from the republic during the date that’s listed on the page when you’re scheduled for your vaccinations.

Earlier this morning, master Skywalker had asked if you had wanted to join this mission, saying that it would give you a break from being on the frontlines, and it would be easy enough to arrange, as master Secura would rendezvous with the 501st before she departed.

This morning, you had turned him down, listing several reasons as to why you needed to stay with the 501st. Your troops needed you, diplomatic missions were boring anyways, and you didn’t think that you would be of much help to the experienced and capable master Secura, who was a formidable diplomat in her own right. You didn’t think you would be able to add anything of particular value to the conversation, at least nothing that master Secura wouldn’t be able to say much more eloquently and better.

Now though, the only thing that’s running through your mind is the fear of needles and the dread of going into the medbay and that’s enough to make you reconsider everything you had said.

When you tell master Skywalker that you’ve changed your mind, and would actually like to accompany Aayla on her mission, he’s slightly confused considering you had been so adamant that you were needed here only just a few hours ago. 

But, he knows that as a Jedi, you need diplomatic experience. Experience that, before the war, would be very easy for Padawan’s to come by. He knows that you don’t have nearly as much as you should.

These are unprecedented times, though, and Padawan’s being trained during an active war is not ideal. He wants for you to be well-rounded. He has hope that your future won’t always involve war at the centre of it, and any opportunity that you get to learn how to be a keeper of peace should always be encouraged, especially during these times.

 So he gives in pretty easily, and when master Secura arrives, you happily join her. When the ramp of the ship seals behind you and you’re sitting with her in the cockpit, the warm relief that flows through your bones is palpable. 

“Success,” you think to yourself triumphantly.

*

Your triumph, however glorious it might have felt in the moment, is short-lived.

In spite of the fact that some old injuries, that you honestly thought you had done a pretty good job at taking care of yourself, were starting to aggravate you again, the unexpected joy and relief that weaved itself through the force, openly shared between you and master Secura, surrounded you like a warm blanket, protecting you from feeling the things that hurt you.

The planet you had just visited had agreed to stay with the republic, after a tense three days of debate between its political factions. The victory Was a surprise, considering how vehemently the opposition pushed to secede, but it was not unwelcome.

Aayla’s T-6 shuttle docks in the hanger bay of the much larger 501st transport. As you wait for the doors to open and the ramp to fold down before you, you’re still riding on that high, feeling, for the first time in a long time, the thrill of a success. One that you are unable to feel on the frontlines, because even when your battles result in a victory, you are surrounded by so much death and violence that in the end, you don’t really feel like celebrating. 

You’ll never admit it to your master, but privately, you think to yourself that maybe diplomatic missions aren’t as boring as you thought they were. You were able to help resolve a conflict, peacefully, without even having to brush your fingers against the hilt of your lightsaber, which, nowadays, is becoming more and more of a rare occurrence. But it’s what Jedi do, or at least, what they’re supposed to do, so you have to embrace the gratitude of the experience you just had, and try and take it with you going forward.

Your thoughts are preoccupied with these ideas swirling around your head, so you don’t see him until you’re stepping out onto the ramp of the T-6, descending into the hectic and busy as usual crowds of the hanger bay.

When you do, though, you stop dead, and your heart begins to race. 

Shit.

Directly in front of you, at the bottom of the ramp, stands Kix.

One look at his expression, and your stomach flips.

His lips are set in a thin, unreadable line, his brow creased as he observes you with pinpoint focus. Stern, brown eyes observe your every movement. There’s no question that the second you step off the ramp, he’s going to pounce on you like a cat seizing a mouse. 

He stands at attention, body forced into an unbending straight line, such positions you mostly see on the shiny’s, new troopers who are freshly trained during their first days out on the field. His hands are placed on his hips, the position that he assumes before he’s about to give someone, it’s usually your master who you’ve seen it directed at, the lecture of their life.

“Keep moving,” your brain supplies. “Act nonchalant, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be fine.”

You feel your feet hit solid ground, and your speed picks up, all along, your brain is screaming at you to move. It’s weird how now that he’s standing in front of you, every injury you’ve accumulated over the past weeks is beginning to hit you, all comfort and protection that the force has been giving you to keep you going rapidly vanishing with each step you take.

The uncomfortable angle that your shoulder is sitting at, the pulling of stitches in your leg as you increase your speed. It throbs and aches with sudden abandon. But your fists clench, and you do your best not to falter under Kix’s unwavering scrutiny, just knowing that he’s looking for any flicker of weakness, any sign of pain that registers on your face.

“Just keep going, and maybe, you’ll be able to slip past...”

He steps in front of you, reaching an arm out to easily intercept your path. He says your name, in a tone that breaches absolutely no room for trying to ignore it.

You jump, startled in spite of yourself. He’s effectively got you cornered, and seeing that there’s no way out of this, Your nerves begin to skyrocket, raising like the sound of alarm bells in your head. You look up, eyes meeting his unwaveringly stern expression, And suddenly, you wish that the floor would open up and swallow you whole.

He looks down at you, and he must see something in your disposition that belies your true feelings, because though his face remains set, his eyes somewhat soften, and when he next speaks, his voice is quiet but firm.

“Come with me, please. I need to see you in the medbay.” Though he’s phrased it as a request, you know that it is an order, and one that you must follow.

As a medic for the GAR, and this is something that you’ve heard him say to many a complaining troopers being escorted to the medbay when they don’t want to go, it is well within his rights to exercise such authority and make these orders. Because when it comes to the health and safety of every 501st personnel, whether you’re a Jedi general, commander, or Padawan, Kix immediately outranks you.

You look down at the floor, suddenly finding the marks that are speckled across it very interesting, and mumble a defeated and quiet “Yes sir.” 

When he turns, and you hesitate to follow, he lets out a gentle sigh, moving to place a hand on the small of your back. His voice is low, but reassuring as he ushers you forward.

“Come on, kid, you’re okay,” he breathes, and in spite of the fact that you’re still thinking that jumping out of an airlock would be better than this, your feet, still unwilling, but the slightest bit reassured, begin to move.

*

Coric giving you a subtle pitying glance as he’s reading over a patient’s chart when Kix escorts you into the medbay makes you want to vomit.

Between the two medics,  Kix has the reputation of being a hardass because he’s the CMO. Make no mistake, you do not want to get on either of their bad sides. But, given the choice between the two right now, you think you’re more equipped to handle Coric, who can usually be counted on to soften the blow a bit, with enough pleading glances and apologies.

Your eyes flit to the door that you’ve just passed through, because stupidly, your brain is still trying to make the calculations that if you can just duck out of Kix’s grasp for two seconds, you’d be able to make a run for it.

Unbeknownst to you, however, both medics have been carefully observing your every movement since you’ve entered. Coric, remaining completely calm and at ease, rises to his feet, moving swiftly to stand in the doorway in several long strides. He casually leans against the frame, arms folded.

“Don’t even think about it, baby Jedi. Your master has attempted the same thing you are considering, and he has always failed,” he says, keeping his voice light and non-threatening, making it clear that you need to give up on your fantasy of bolting out of here, but also not trying to scare you off..

You’re just beginning to wonder how the kriff they were able to read you so easily, with one covert glance determining that you were about to bolt when Kix removes his hand from the small of your back, instead, fingers coming to gently grip your shoulder.

The change in his hold is obvious. He is fully prepared for if you try to run. He gives your shoulder a squeeze, in what you interpret as a warning not to. 

Unfortunately, he’s just touched on an injury, you’re not entirely sure what you did, but you messed up your shoulder the last time you were on the field, and even the slight pressure elicits a sharp intake of breath that you’re unable to stop from escaping your lips, and that immediately has the attention of both medics laser focussed on you.

Kix’s anticipation evaporates and quickly melts into concern. Carefully, so carefully, he turns you to face him, keen eyes sharp as they analyze your face.

“Hey,” he calls softly, waiting for you to look at him. “Tell me where it hurts,” he says, so gently that it makes your eyes burn with shame. You look down at your feet.

“That’s uh... that’s, a loaded question,” you admit sheepishly, trying to keep your tone light and joking, in spite of the fact that now that you’re thinking about it, the list of injuries you’ve sustained without reporting to the medbay is a lengthy one, and might make Kix have a stroke.

Kix lets out a controlled, slow breath, eyes momentarily finding the ceiling as he silently begs the stars to give him strength. 

“Kaysh Mirsh solus,” he mutters to himself.

You’ve heard Kix toss that phrase around the medbay on multiple occasions, and though you’re uncertain of what it actually means, he usually brings it out when one of his brothers has done something that he would consider incredibly stupid, which is often.

Coric makes a noise of agreement. “It appears that our stupidly self-sacrificing general has passed on his stupid self sacrificing behaviour onto his apprentice,” he groans. “Will we ever know a day of peace?” 

Kix looks back down at you, his expression calm and restrained. “Come on, then, let’s see what we’re dealing with here,” moving his hand to your uninjured shoulder, he steers you both further into the medbay.

*

Your eyes don’t leave the ground, but you can hear the sound of a privacy curtain being pulled shut around the cubicle that Kix has brought you to. 

When an eerily familiar pink slip of paper is being held up in front of your downcast eyes, you cringe, Arms wrapping around yourself in defence

You can’t even pretend that you haven’t seen it before, because the words mandatory vaccination updates have been circling around your brain the whole time you were out on your last mission.

“Do you know why the GAR enforces these?” Kix begins, and his voice is too measured and calm. 

You lift a brow, questioning. Does he seriously expect you to answer this? Isn’t the answer obvious? 

“Uh... so that we don’t get sick?” You answer, uncertain as to what he’s getting at.

He nods, his face displaying a slight flicker of approval. “Yes, that is one reason as to why, and it’s an acceptable one,” he acknowledges. His frown deepens as he continues. “However, one must look at the much larger picture, at every personnel aboard this ship. The most important reason why mandatory vaccinations are enforced is so that we can avoid many people getting sick and spreading illness to the rest of the crew, so that we may remain fully functional and operational, continuing to serve and protect the people of the republic.”

You squirm beneath the scrutiny of his gaze. You’re starting to see where he’s going with this, and it’s incredibly discomforting.

“I would’ve thought, that as a Jedi, you would be able to more easily see this bigger picture than most others,” he observes mildly. “After all, I know, and I’m sure everyone who spends a considerable amount of time with you can see that there is so much compassion and care for others within your very nature.”

His voice is so genuine, laced with such real kindness in his tone that it makes your eyes sting. Your heart constricts, because he’s just pointed out something that you hadn’t even considered in your selfish haste to avoid this.

By avoiding your vaccinations, you have put every member of the 501st who works with you in danger.

Your arms wrap  tighter around yourself, and you can’t bring yourself to look anywhere but at the pristine white floor beneath your feet.

Kix senses that he’s hit a mark, and his voice gentles considerably. “I also understand that you are young, and still learning to see the bigger picture and how your actions can affect those around you.”

“I, I didn’t, I was scared and I just I didn’t think about...” your voice trembles as you try to answer, tumbling out in a rush of words that race as quickly as your heart. 

“I understand, and it is perfectly reasonable for you to feel that way,” he keeps his voice level and measured. “However,” he continues, and you know what he’s about to say even before he says it. “We still have to face the things that scare us. If you had simply told me how you were feeling, we would have figured out a way to navigate it.” His face is reassuring when you dare to glance up from the floor that you’ve been resolutely staring at for this whole conversation.

“We still will figure out the best way to proceed. However, these vaccination updates are very low on my priority list of concerns when it comes to you, compared to this,” and he holds up a datapad, displaying medical records with your name typed neatly across the top.

The last several appointment entries are highlighted in red, indicating that you did not attend any of them. 

“Do I need to remind you that these appointments are not optional. Any member of Torrent Company who goes out on the field must report to the medbay upon return for examination, as well as attend our regular medical checks to ensure that you are fit for active duty.” It’s clear from the tone of his voice that this is a lecture that he is very practised in delivering.

You lift your head, finally looking directly at him. He’s already made you admit a fear that you desperately wanted to keep to yourself. You try and summon what remains of your dignity. 

“What do you want me to say, Kix?” There’s a hint of defiance in your voice. 

“Do you want me to admit that I avoided these because I had injuries that I didn’t want you to know about? Because yes, the truth is that I did.” Your eyes level with his as you try to make him understand. 

“I was scared of the medical procedures, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?” You snap, not particularly annoyed with him, but more annoyed at the fact that your answers sound so stupid out loud. 

“But I was more scared of the fact that you were probably going to take me off the field, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t let that happen. My master was relying on me. Everyone was relying on me, and I couldn’t let them down.” You try to shrug off his concern with a dismissive wave of your hand. “Besides, I’ve been doing fine,” you say evasively.

Kix does not rise to the bate of your seeming anger. He’s much too practised and controlled to let it affect him. He also has the uncanny ability to look at someone, and see everything, read through their feelings, whether they’ve been acknowledged or not, and understand them. So, even though you’re trying to push him away, with what at first glance appears to be frustration, underneath it all, he can tell that it’s just as plainly  fear.

He meets your storm filled eyes unflinchingly, levelling you with a look that is equal parts stern and unwavering, and equal parts concerned and filled with compassion. It makes your insides twist with guilt, and you want to look away, but you can’t bring yourself to as he speaks, his voice calm but steely.

“Are you fine?” he asks, an eyebrow raising as he tilts his head to look at you, his gaze clinical, assessing, even as you just stand there in front of him.

. “I already know that there’s something wrong with your shoulder. But aside from that, I’ve been observing you since you got off your transport. The way you move is slow and careful, not at all like the usual way you dash around the ship. Even now, you’re hesitating to put much weight on your right leg.” He ticks off the things he’s noticed on his fingers like a list.

“Apart from the fact that skipping these mandatory appointments have consequences. If you had kept this up, I would’ve had to bring this to our superiors, that includes the Jedi council,” he gives you a pointed look, even the mention of the high Council makes you shiver. in your experience, whenever you and your master have been summoned to speak with the council, it’s always to be reprimanded, and never good.

. “You could have been Court-martialed,” he says, knowing that his words will hit the severity of the situation home.  

You falter, stepping back as you feel your eyes go wide. “Court-martialed?” you breathe, feeling the blood draining from your face. 

He gently takes your arm, guiding you to sit on a bed as he continues, voice softening. “It is very clear that you are hiding injuries, and though I can understand why, in premise, You did this, the reality is that this will begin to affect your performance in battle. It will not just affect you. You will put yourself, as well as the entirety of the people you are leading, in danger. People could get hurt.  You could get hurt. Because you would be putting not just yourself, but others, in unnecessary danger, your ability to be in the position of a commander could be called into serious  question by your superiors, and for good reason” 

As much as he keeps his voice low and calm, you can sense that he’s disappointed in the way that you’ve handled yourself. Your teeth sink into the inside of your cheek, forcing the tears that prick at the back of your eyes to not fall. You hate disappointing people, and the fact that you’ve managed to disappoint Kix, one of the kindest people you know, makes you want to curl up into a ball and never show your face in public again.

“And that, the safety of yourself, and everyone aboard this ship, is my priority. It is much more important to me than having to report to any superior. The fact that you hold your safety, and by extension, the safety of  those around you, with such blatant disregard, is what concerns me the most, and that is what I need you to understand.” 

There’s a certain gravity in his voice that you’ve never heard before, but it slams into your chest and hits you like a ton of bricks. The implications of what you’ve been doing, of what could have happened to those around you, to his brothers, because of your inability to face your fears begin to swirl around your head with a rapidity that makes your heart race. 

These thoughts come unbidden, and too fast for you to process. The tears, that you’ve been so desperately trying to push back, spring free and begin to fall down your cheeks, unprompted, slowly, and silently. You don’t have time to stop them from coming.

Kix knows that he’s been very direct, and very blunt with you, deciding that this would be the only way to get through to you. He hates having to do it, though. Kix considers himself to be a fairly good judge of character, and he knows that you have such a caring, gentle heart and strong presence wherever you go. So, watching you break in front of him like this pains him.

Your breath hitches in an unsteady gasp as you look up at him, tears blurring your vision. 

“I’m sorry, Ori’vod,” your lip trembles as your voice breaks, wanting to curl in on yourself. “Ni ceta,” you get out in barely a choked whisper.

But he hears you, and it breaks him. 

You’ve never referred to him as ori’vod before, and the idea that you consider him as such, as a big brother, awakens his protective, instinctive nature to gather you close and keep you safe from harm. 

His Vod, mostly his batchmate, Jesse, calls it his mother hen instincts.

He can’t help it, though. Your voice, sounding so much smaller than he’s ever heard it, trembling and filled with tears, has broken what’s left of his resolve, and gently, very gently, mindful of the fact that you’re injured, he takes you into his arms, holding you close to him. Your head buries against his shoulder, and he easily cradles you there, feeling every sharp intake of breath as you cry.

“Oh, adika, shh,” he soothes, hand coming up to gently stroke your hair as he continues to speak softly to you. “You’re okay, I promise, everything is going to be alright. I’ve got you, we are going to sort this out.”

*

“Well,” he says, reading over the results of the medical scan he’s just performed. Would you believe me if I told you that a dislocated shoulder is the least of your concerns?” 

Your eyes find the ceiling, and you exhale a slow breath before asking, “how bad?”

He keeps his voice neutral as he relays the results of the scan to you. “According to your last medical check, you were diagnosed with Iron deficiency anemia, not incredibly uncommon, what with our limited access to rations and food with the proper nutrients,” his brow creases as he continues. “However, preliminary scans indicate that your haemoglobin levels haven’t much improved.”

He gives you a look.“You have been taking the supplement you were prescribed?” he asks, in a way that makes you suspicious that he already knows that the answer is no.

You avoid looking at him. “I was, but they kept making my stomach feel queasy all day, so I stopped.”  

Kix Lets out a long suffering sigh. “An issue that we easily could have rectified by changing your treatment plan if you had just let us know,” he scolds. “Nonetheless, I’d like to do a blood test to get exact confirmation of those levels and see how bad the numbers are so that we can Start getting them back up to baseline.” 

Your stomach does a flip and you cringe silently at the mention of a blood test.

Kix continues, consulting the scan results that are displayed on a datapad. “You’ve got untreated burns on your fingers.” He raises a curious eyebrow at you and your cheeks flush.

“They weren’t entirely untreated, I put them under running water,” you try to argue. The unimpressed look he gives you stops you dead in your tracks.

“It wasn’t entirely my fault,” you defend. “I was fixing one of the starfighters that got hit during our last airstrike. I got R2 to help me with the repairs but he wasn’t listening to my instructions. He crossed two of the wrong wires and caused the circuitboard to spark.”

“And that is why you should never ask R2 for help,” he says with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Those burns weren’t given time to heal, and the fact that you’re constantly wielding a lightsaber has exacerbated them. I will apply a burn ointment to them that should take away the pain and speed the process of healing.” 

He fixes you with a look.  

“The most concerning thing is The blaster wound on the front of your right  calf. Really, vod, you should know that injuries being treated and stitched up on the field, especially when not done by a medic, always should be looked over by a medic as soon as possible, due to the unsanitary environment that they were performed in.”

“Tup did his best to stitch it,” you say, feeling the need to defend the brother who, in spite of the fact that he was not a medic, sutured you up as you took cover from separatist battle droids.

“I don’t doubt that he did. I was the instructor who took every single one of the troopers on this ship through their mandatory medical courses, and I did not let them pass without proving that they were adequately able to handle emergency first aid on the field. However, it still remains that you’ve picked up an infection, and to treat it, the sutures will have to be removed, the wound reopened, and extraction of the infected tissue, as well as a course of both IV and oral antibiotics to clear up anything that remains.”

You stare at him, your eyes growing wide with horror as he explains. “How?” You ask, alarmed.

He senses your nerves and leans forward, taking your hand and running his thumb along the back of it reassuringly. “This is a surgical procedure, performed under general anesthesia.” 

You flinch at his words, and your fingers tighten around his with anxiety, needing something to hold onto. 

“I know that sounds scary, especially if you’ve never been put under before. But I promise, this is a fairly common operation. Me and Coric will both be here making sure that you’re okay the whole time.” he continues to stroke his thumb along the backs of your knuckles.

“Let’s take this one step at a time, though. We’ll take care of the things that are manageable, first,” he says, giving you an encouraging smile.

*

“Hey uh...” you say nervously, watching with anxiety fluttering in your stomach as Kix ties a band just above your elbow, prepping you for the blood draw. The way the band tightens, restricts  and squeezes around your arm Makes you feel trapped. You hate it.

“I have... I’ve had, issues in the past when it comes to these,” you say awkwardly, not knowing how to explain.

Kix only looks up at you, raising a perceptive brow. “Are you referring to your predisposition of fainting whenever a blood draw is performed?” he asks, completely unfazed. 

It’s your turn to raise your eyebrows in questioning. “Don’t worry, Coric already has this listed in your file. I’m going to get you to lie down when we do it.”

He has the sensitivity and grace not to mention the fact that he also knows this because he walked into the medbay to find Coric absolutely tearing into a junior medic for letting you leave too soon after you had gotten a blood draw, resulting in you crumpling to the floor in a faint right outside of the medbay doors. 

At your continued staring, he adds, his voice softening. “It’s a normal reaction, that likely is exacerbated because of your low haemoglobin levels. There’s nothing wrong with you, Vod’ika.” he reassures, gently guiding you to lay down on the bed. “Now, just lay down for me, and we’ll get this over with quickly, and if you faint, you faint. It happens, no big deal, I’ll be right here regardless.”  

And because you’re you, you do faint.

The needle itself is always not as bad as you anticipate it being. The Sting, though prominent,  is small and quick and over before you have time to fixate on it. 

It’s only when he’s pressing a cotton swab into the crook of your arm, encouraging you to keep it in place while he puts a Band-Aid over top, that you register the familiar feeling of drowsiness, vision blurring and ears beginning to ring, that always comes before you pass out.

You think that you might give him some indication, some warning, because he’s removing your hand from where it’s been pressing against the cotton round, replacing it with his own, much more steady one. Everything around you is muffled, and it’s jarring, but in a way that is too far away from your immediate concerns to really react to it.

When you come to, he’s pressing a cool, damp cloth to the back of your neck, other hand gently stroking hair away from your forehead. His voice fades back into your consciousness, a stream of gentle, soothing words as your eyes flutter open.

The feeling of the cloth cools your heated skin, and the hand gently running through your hair brings your senses back to focus, grounding you.

“Easy, adika, i’m right here, you’re safe,” he brushes his fingers against your cheek, and when you react, leaning into his touch, he gives you a small smile. “That’s it, there we go, you’re back. Everything’s good,” he soothes, gently stalling your movement when you attempt to sit up.

“Not right now, vod, stay down for a few more minutes. I’ve already got the blood work running through the scanner, and we should have its results quickly, okay.” You give him a small nod, still not really having the energy to do much else. You close your eyes, taking deep breaths as you come back to yourself, and when the scanner beeps, indicating that it completed its diagnostics, you jump slightly.

Kix moves over to check it as you slowly sit up. “Okay, so, your numbers are definitely not nearly where they should be he says, clearly unimpressed.

“But, Once we have taken care of your more serious injuries, will start you with an iron infusion delivered through an IV before transitioning back to pills. Don’t worry, we’ll have you on a much smaller dosage so that we can hopefully circumvent the discomfort you had in your stomach,” he says with optimism, which makes you feel slightly better about the fact that he’s just mentioned an IV. You’re not given much time to fixate on it, though, because he’s already turning away from the scanner, moving back to you.

“Let’s not worry about that right now, though. We have enough problems having to deal with the mess That you’ve made of yourself. I will do my best to resist calling you a di’kut as much as possible,” he says, hands on his hips, and in spite of yourself, it actually makes you laugh.

*

You didn’t realize how sore and irritated the burns on your hands were until you couldn’t hold back the audible sigh of relief that fell from your lips as soon as Kix began applying the burn cream to them. The pain instantly vanished, leaving a pleasant, cooling sensation behind. He wrapped small bacta patches around your injured fingers, explaining that it would make sure that the healing process was unimpeded by the outside environment.

That was easy, quick, painless. 

Your shoulder, on the other hand, is a completely different matter. As soon as Kix touches it, as gentle as he can be, it flares with pain, and your muscles tense, which just makes it worse. 

“I don’t know how you’ve been functioning with this for as long as you have,” he comments dryly. When his fingers press against the bone, assessing the damage with a practised familiarity, you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.

“Haar’chak,” you grit out, as behind you, Kix preps a syringe with local anesthetic. 

“Which one of my di’kut brothers taught you curse words in Mandoa?” he asks, beginning to disinfect the injection site.

You flinch at the cold and your cheeks flush. “Shit, you weren’t supposed to hear that. I can’t tell you that, I made a promise.” 

“Did you now?” he asks, fighting the amused smirk that plays on his lips. “Well, whoever it was, you might as well put your skills that they taught you to use.”

You look at him from over your shoulder, eyebrows raising in confusion.

He explains, “I need to give you an injection of local anaesthetic so that it takes the edge off of resetting your shoulder correctly. I know those aren’t your favourite , so, I am making a deal with you. Let me do this, and I give you free rein to throw whatever Mandoa insult my brothers have taught you at me, no consequences. Is that fair?”

The unimpressed look you’re giving at the syringe turns to surprise, then, slowly, a smile spreads across your face and you nod, quickly looking away from it. “Deal,” you accept, your voice still shaky with nerves but determined.

“Okay, deep breath for me,” He waits for you to inhale. “Perfect, now, on the exhale, give me that insult with all of your might. Ready?”

He waits for you to nod, then prompts you to exhale as he administers the anaesthetic into the back of your shoulder.

“Osi’yaim, that hurt, you di’kut,” what should be just a little pinch to your already injured shoulder makes you cry out the words, and you swear you can hear the familiar sound of Coric laughing from the other side of the medbay.

Your cheeks flush, you did not intend to be that loud. But you don’t apologize, either, and Kix only gives you a rueful grin, nodding in understanding.  

As you wait for the anaesthetic to settle, Kix warns, “I’m gonna be honest, kid, because of how long you’ve left this injury to sit, even with the anesthetic, setting it is still going to hurt.” 

You close your eyes, grimacing, before nodding with a sigh. “Do your worst,” you say, bracing yourself.

He lays a reassuring hand on your uninjured shoulder. “I need you relaxed, adika,” he says gently. “Trust me, it will only hurt more if you tense like that,” he continues, gently encouraging your shoulder downward with his hand.

“Easy, now. I want you to give me some good deep breath’s. In,” he inhales deeply, holding for a few seconds, “and out,” he lets his breath go in a controlled, slow stream of air.

He waits for you to copy, giving you a few breaths to settle into it as he prepares himself. “Perfect, just like that, keep it up, you’ve got this,” he keeps up the stream of encouraging words as carefully, but firmly, he rotates your arm, guiding your dislocated shoulder back into its proper place with one precise movement.

The sudden flare of pain, even dulled as it is by the anesthetic, takes your breath away momentarily, your vision instantly blurring with tears. When it clears,Kix has shifted to standing in front of you, gently wiping them away with his thumbs.

“Well done, vod’ika, you were so brave,” his words make you want to cry more, because you didn’t think you were brave. You thought that being brave meant confidence, at all times, and not letting other people see your vulnerability. You can’t fully understand it, but, now, you’re beginning to think that maybe your initial idea of bravery was wrong.

Your lip wobbles as you speak, “W what now?” you look up at him with wide, still watery eyes.

He gently strokes your hair. “Now, I’m going to get Coric, and you,” he playfully taps your nose, “are going to take a much-needed nap, if the bags under your eyes are any indication, while we take care of that leg wound.” 

*

It sounds simple enough. 

Kix explains the procedure while Coric preps you for surgery, making sure all your vitals are stable. As he wraps a blood pressure cuff around your arm, he tells you that that’s essentially his job while he’s in here. Throughout the surgery, he will monitor your vitals and make sure that they remain at safe levels. 

“I’m going to remove the sutures, clean the wound, remove the infected tissue, pack the wound with saline soaked dressings, then bandage it back up so that it can heal. It goes without saying that you’re going to be off the field for at least a week. You’ll need to stay here so that we can continue to monitor your recovery as well as change the dressings often. You will also need to undergo a course of IV antibiotics to kill off any lingering infection. This will also give us time to get your haemoglobin levels back up with an infusion.”

Your eyes close tightly as anxiety knots your stomach. “Oh, force, a week? But, my master needs me,” you protest.

When your eyes open again, both medics are fixing you with equally stern looks. “Your master needs you to be safe, and healthy,” says Coric, frowning, as he carefully attaches a pulse oximeter to one of your fingers. 

“If you want to be back on the field as soon as possible, you will take this week of recovery. If you want to argue with me about it, I will make it longer. A week is the absolute minimum,” Kix says, arms folded across his chest, wearing his signature “i’m the chief medical officer, you have no authority here,” expression.

You visibly deflate, reminding yourself that you pick and choose your battles, and picking and choosing a battle with two medics who are very competent at dealing with very stubborn Jedi would be a very stupid idea. 

You can’t help yourself, and in spite of the fact that you shouldn’t, you stare as Kix preps your wrist for an IV line.

Sensing you’re mounting anxiety as your eyes nervously flit around, watching  Kix’s Every move, Coric gently takes your other hand, squeezing when your eyes don’t immediately look at him. When you finally tear your eyes away from what Kix is doing, Coric is wearing a mischievous smile on his face. “So, Vod’ika, who taught you how to curse in Mandoa?” he asks, raising a curious brow.

You only scoff, rolling your eyes. “Kix already tried to find out. What makes you think that I’m going to tell that secret to you?”

“I’ve already got my suspicions. My moneys on Echo or Fives.” he gives you a wounded look, “I thought you would tell me, because I’m obviously your favourite.”

Kix uses this conversation to quickly insert the IV into a vein on your wrist. Reacting to the small pinch, your fingers instinctively tighten around Coric’s hand, squeezing it tightly.

“You’re definitely my favourite now,” you grumble, giving Kix a sidelong glare.

He gives you an apologetic look. “Sorry, Vod, i’m going to run the medication through the line now. It will act quickly, and when you wake up, this will be all done with.” 

You nod, biting your lip nervously. Coric notices, giving your hand another gentle squeeze. “Hey, kid, I know you’ve heard Kix say kaysh mirsh solus all the time. Do you know what it means?” 

You look at him with curiosity, shaking your head.

“Well, essentially it means they are stupid or foolish. But, the literal translation is even more direct .” Coric gives you a conspiratorial smile.

“What is it?” You ask as he leans forward. 

“The literal translation means their braincell is lonely,” he says, completely serious.

You feel a smile pulling up the corners of your lips and a surprised laugh falls from them. 

You feel the medication beginning to enter your system, but you’re so busy laughing that you can’t bring yourself to care. “You better not be bullshitting me,” you threaten,“or I...” you let out a yawn.

“I swear to the force, I,” your eyes begin to flutter and you yawn again, shrugging.

“I’ll think about it later,” you mumble sleepily, before promptly passing out, smile still lighting up your face.

*

Your leg hurts.

That’s the first thing you become aware of as Kix is gently encouraging you to open your eyes.

“Come on, adika, open your eyes for me,” he says  softly, fingers gently brushing against your cheek to bring you back to awareness.

“But it hurts, and I wanna go back to sleep,” you wine, blinking sleepily up at him. 

“Ni ceta, vod’ika,” he soothes, fingers gently caressing your forehead in an apology. “I know it hurts, and you can go back to sleep soon, I promise,” 

He glances at something that you can’t see, giving a small nod,“Vitals look good, the anaesthesia is wearing off nicely, and it doesn’t appear to have affected them too much. Let’s up that IV dosage,” Kix speaks to Coric, who moves to adjust your IV out of your eyeline.

Your leg throbs, and you let out a stifled whimper, hand reaching down, trying to at least find the source of your pain when Kix catches it in his, gently stalling your movements. “Let’s leave that alone for now, vod’ika. Coric is just increasing your pain med intake, that will make it better. Then you can sleep,” 

At the continued expression of pain on your face, he lets go of your hand, fingers gently playing with your hair as he instructs, “nice and easy, adika, deep breath‘s for me, everything’s okay.” 

You don’t believe him at first, but slowly, things become okay. The pain quickly fades and dulls , breathing becomes easier, and your eyes begin to flutter. All the while, Kix continues holding his vigil at your bedside, fingers continuing to gently run through your hair until you fall into a natural sleep.

*

When you properly wake up next, the first thing you notice is that your leg doesn’t hurt anymore.

Whatever pain meds Kix has got you hooked up to are very effective, and your lips pull into a relieved smile. 

The second thing you notice, when you glance around to get your bearings, is the face of your very concerned captain, Rex, at your bedside. You blink slowly, yawning. Although the anaesthetic has worn off, the pain meds still have you feeling like you’re in a fog, and your brain is working pretty slowly.

“When did you get here?” you ask, confused.

“I came straight here after you never reported to the bridge for today’s debriefing. The general said that you would be back today, and it’s unlike you to miss or forget about meetings,” he explains, looking at you, relieved to see you awake, but a flicker of concern still lingering in his eyes.

“Osik, sorry, Rex, I got myself into a bit of a bind over here,” you gesture to the IV that you’re hooked up to, chuckling a little.

“So I heard, don’t worry about it, kid. There wasn’t much to report, anyways.” His head tilts, and he raises a questioning eyebrow.“Who taught you how to curse in Mandoa, vod’ika?” he asks, keeping his voice light.

If you weren’t under the influence of pretty heavy duty pain medication‘s, you would have restraint, you would have thought before you opened your mouth. But for Rex, it was his lucky day.

you smirk, “good old Hardcase taught me everything I know,” you say with pride, smiling fondly at the memory.

Rex carefully files that information away so that he can scold Hardcase for that once he leaves. But he carefully keeps his face neutral.

His face grows serious. “Kix told me about all the medical appointments you’ve missed and the injuries that you’ve been covering up,” his voice is stern, every bit the commanding officer that he is in front of the troops. It makes you nervous, and you swallow, looking away from him.

“I swear to the force, if you ever pull something like that again, I will find out about it, and I’ll drag you to the medbay myself, even if it means chasing you around the ship and stunning you if I have to. do you realize how much danger you were in? How much danger you put others in? That was extremely reckless of you, commander. I’m very disappointed in your actions,  and it will not happen again, do you understand?”

Your hazy memory recalls the conversation you had with Kix earlier, about this very thing, and for some reason, it hits even harder seeing the disappointment, worry and concern etched on the face of the normally composed captain.

Without prompting, you find yourself bursting into tears. 

Later, you’ll blame the pain meds on your inability to keep a grip on your emotions. But right now, all you can do is think about the people, the brothers, you could have hurt, the things that could’ve happened because of you, and the tears just fall down your face, streaming from your eyes, falling down your cheeks, into your ears, dampening your hair.

.“I I’m sorry Captain I I didn’t I,” you gasp out, trying to explain, but your brain is still foggy, only clinging onto the hazy images of loss and pain due to your inability to act fast enough.

There’s a reason why people are convinced that Kix has eyes on the back of his head. Working as the highest ranking medic in the 501st has trained him to be hyper observant of all of his patients, even if he isn’t at their bedside. 

So, even though he’s been taking the time to update your file on a datapad, unbeknownst to either you or Rex, he’s also been watching you like a hawk, and the minute you begin to show that you’re overwhelmed, he’s swooping in on the two of you, protective mother hen mode fully activated by the tears falling down your cheeks.

He steps in front of you, broad shoulders immediately blocking your view of your commanding officer. “Captain,” he says, and his voice is still respectful, but there’s a hard edge beneath it, something stern that you haven’t heard before, even during the worst of him lecturing you.

“You are causing undue stress to my patient, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir,” he continues, physically ushering Rex to the door.

More quietly, out of your earshot, he says,“I have already harshly reprimanded the commander. Trust me, this experience will ensure that the lesson will not be forgotten.  Now, if you want to be of use, get the general and bring him to me, please. I need to speak with him. Between you and me, Rex, I’m blaming this ordeal on him.” 

Rex begins to make an objection, but  Kix is already turning away, folding his arms. “I don’t care if you have to drag him out of council meetings. His Padawan is more important,” he shoots back, before quickly moving back to your side, all of his hard lines instantly fading at the sight of your tear streaked face.

He’s all gentleness and soft reassurances uttered as he cups your face, wiping away your tears. When you struggle into a sitting position, falling against his chest as your arms clumsily reach for him, his arms easily pull you close to him and you sob, trying to explain.

“Kix, I, I didn’t mean to, I never wanted to hurt anyone,” you whisper, clutching at him, burying your face into the crook of his neck, wanting to disappear, feeling his body shift, one hand splayed out, rubbing your back in slow, soothing circles, the other coming up to cradle your head, holding you against his warmth, sheltering you.

“Oh, adika, shh, I know. You didn’t hurt anyone, vod’ika, nothing happened,” he coos, tightening his arms around you. Lips press against your hair briefly, and you continue to cry, letting your emotions run their course as he cradles you to him, gently rocking you back-and-forth, as if you were a much smaller child.  

In this moment, you certainly feel like you are, and it’s comforting, the way he holds and settles you against him , making gentle shushing noises and speaking in low, soothing tones, the words eventually losing their meaning as sleep, yet again, gently pulls at your consciousness.

The last thing you’re aware of is him gently guiding you to lie back down, another medic, you think it’s Coric, passing him a freshly warmed blanket that he tucks around you, and a hand gently brushing through your hair as you drift back to sleep, your storm settled and calmed by his words and his presence.

*

Anakin Skywalker had been in meetings with the Jedi high Council all day, was running on his 3rd cup of caff, and still found himself stifling a yawn every five minutes. So, when Rex silently slipped into the room, politely interrupting the meeting to request that Anakin report to the medbay, he instinctively rolled his eyes, grumbling that he would go later. 

But when Rex stated that this wasn’t actually about him, and was in regards to his Padawan, Anakin was out of his seat in an instant, hastily making his excuses to the council before leaving the room, legs carrying him to the medbay faster than he ever had moved there before.

He doesn’t even stop to look as behind him, Rex calls to a group of troopers in a booming voice, “Hardcase, get Over here right now,  you di’kut, I need to talk to you regarding professionalism when it comes to working with young Padawan’s .”

When he’s escorted into a cubicle, his eyes grow wide with alarm at the sight of you, peacefully asleep, but your face looks exhausted and worn out. You’re hooked up to an IV and monitors, there’s a thick bandage that’s been secured to the bottom half of your right leg.

Kix keeps his voice low and quiet, so as not to disturb you, but he fixes your master with a hard look as he takes him through an overview of your current health status.

“Iron deficiency anemia, burns, a dislocated shoulder, a blaster wound that had to be surgically operated on due to an untreated infection that had grown quite severe and needed to be manually removed, as well as several muscle strains and bruised ribs that can be healed with proper rest.” 

His mouth falls open at the growing list, but Kix only folds his arms, continuing to speak. “General, sir, your Padawan looks to you with the highest regard, and you lead the way by example. All of these issues could have been caught much earlier and treated without having to deal with all this,” he gestures at everything you’re hooked up to.

“This behaviour was learned, and when I pressed, I found that at the root of the problem was fear of disappointing you and letting you down,” he waits for these words to sink in, and when they do, Anakin Skywalker, Jedi general who is known for his strength and recklessness on the field, hangs his head with shame, eyes finding the floor and refusing to look at Kix directly.

His meaning is clear, you are his Padawan, and as your master, it’s his responsibility to set a good example for you, and in this regard, watching pain medication flow through the IV line attached to your wrist, he knows he has failed to do so.

“So, just maybe, the next time you decide that are mandatory medical checks are optional and you can manage on your own, maybe just, consider this,” Kix gestures to you, still deeply asleep.

Before your master can respond, not that he really has any words to do so, Kix turns on his heel, quickly exiting the room before he can be reprimanded for speaking to his superior that way, not that he really cares, anyway.

If he had stayed, though, he would have seen Anakin tentatively move to your side, gently sitting on the edge of your bed as he strokes back your hair and adjusts the blankets that are tucked around you, properly shamefaced as he looks down at you and says in a voice that is soft and rarely heard coming out of him, “I’m sorry, kiddo, this one’s on me.”

*

“And this,” says Kix, quickly injecting the third and final mandatory vaccination into your arm, “is your ticket out of here.”

The week of recovery has come and gone, And you have finally been cleared to head back onto the field, as long as you continue to follow a regimen of oral antibiotics for the next week, and, more excitingly in your opinion, get out of the medbay.

“There you go, you did it,” Fives, who’s been sitting across from you, happily agreeing to be your emotional support/cheerleader, ready with a damp cloth if you need it, does a little celebratory dance that makes you laugh, even as Kix, sensing that you’re feeling unsteady, gets you to lay down.

Fives gently places the cool cloth against your skin, and it’s enough to ground you, pulling you back from the edge.

“That’s it, Vod’ika, well done, you did great,” Kix says encouragingly, giving your shoulder a warm squeeze. “Now, wait 15 minutes, and as long as you’re feeling back to normal, you can get out of here,” he smiles down at you, patting your head affectionately before moving out of the cubicle.

As soon as he’s gone, Fives liens in conspiratorially, face lighting up with mischievousness sparkling in his eyes. “Hey, kid, I bet you 10 credits that I could easily sneak you out right now and we could make this 15 minutes go a lot faster,” he grins.

In spite of the fact that you smile back at him and laugh lightly, you give your head a small shake and throw a cautious look over your shoulder.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been here for a whole week, and the biggest thing I’ve learned is that  Kix and Coric do, in fact, have eyes in the back of their heads. We wouldn’t even make it out of the door.” 

It’s true, you’ve seen several different troopers trying to carefully sneak out of the medbay when they think that no one is watching. 

What you’ve learned, though, is that the medics of Torrent Company are always watching. Nothing gets past their keen eyes or ears, and no one successfully sneaks out undetected. 

You grimace, “besides, I’ve just gotten off of Kix’s bad side, and I have no desire to go back there.”

“So,” Fives says, resignedly coming to sit on the edge of your bed with a sigh. “We’re waiting the 15 minutes?”

You carefully sit up, giving him a nod and a decisive look as you lean your head against his shoulder..

“Yes, Fives,” you affirm, letting out a small sigh of your own. “We are waiting the 15 minutes.”

************************* thank you so much for reading. Comments and re-blogs are always appreciated here.are always appreciated here.

Mandoa translations. Kaysh mirsh solus, they are stupid/foolish. Ori’vod: Big Brother (in this instance) can also be used as big sister or big sibling. Ni ceta: i’m sorry. Vod: Brother/ sister/ sibling. Adika: little one. Vod’ika: Little sister, little brother, or little sibling Haar’chak: damm it. Di’kut: Fool (literal translation is underwear forgeter) which kills me. Osi’yaim: shithead. Osik: shit.

#star wars x reader #kix x reader #platonic #reader insert #gn reader #padawan reader #fives x reader #anakin x reader #rex x reader #kix #clone medic kix #arc trooper fives #captain rex #Anakin Skywalker #the clone wars fanfiction #platonic imagine #tcw fanfiction #star wars fanfiction

[flan-tasma]

HOLA DE NUEVOOO, cmo andas? q pena ya agarré confianza☹️☹️ pero me acorde de esa bromita q se hacían entre novios donde uno se limpiaba los besos del otro y quería saber como reaccionarian algunillos, nomas pido a tighnari y chongyun, pero si queres agregar a alguno(o quitarlo, no tengo problemas la vrdd!!) por favor y graciasss i lov tu escrituraa

~💖 Con confianza, aquí todos somos amixes 👍🏻

Diosmio- Me tardé más de la cuenta porque no estaba segura si me gustaban los banners o si los cambiaba ;;;; Pero aquí está, finalmente ✨

Warning: Nope now💖, GN!Reader | English is not my native language, so if I have made any mistakes in the translation, I am open to corrections | Content in spanish and english!

Spanish:

A este hombre no le hace la más mínima gracia, puedo verlo aplanar sus orejas mientras su confusión pasa a molestia.

Se queda con la boca abierta y el ceño fruncido porque no encuentra lo divertido.

Se aleja, resentido, y puedes verlo de mal humor el resto del día cada vez que te ve.

Probablemente en algún momento del día decida ser un adulto y habla contigo acerca de lo que hiciste, pero en el momento se comporta un poco malcriado.

¿Por qué te limpiarías un beso de tu novio? Él jamás haría algo así contigo, entonces no le cabe en la cabeza que lo hagas.

Ambos resuelven las cosas, pero no piensa besarte nuevamente hasta que tú lo hagas primero y dejes las bromas tontas para otro momento.

Otro que está confundido.

Literalmente se queda quieto mientras sigues caminando, lo tomaste por sorpresa de mala manera.

Es un perrito que parece que lo abandonaron en la calle, se ve triste y confundido porque él te quiere mucho y te ama y le cuesta expresar ese amor por la vergüenza, pero lo hizo finalmente y tú le haces esto.

Es una cosita triste hasta que le aclaras que es una broma y que no querías hacerlo sentir mal.

Él entiende, pero no sé queda tranquilo hasta que le des el afecto que quería, luego lo deja pasar.

Pero no lo olvida, jamás lo olvidará, creo que lo usará en algún otro momento cuando ustedes estén bromeando.

Te mira confuso y se molesta, pero no le importa, te besará de nuevo.

Si te quitas ese otro beso, te besará otra vez, y otra vez y otra vez.

Bienvenido a un bucle temporal en el que Nobile te besa cuántas veces sea necesario mientras se queja de que te borras su marca de amor.

Creo que en algún punto, si no lo detienes, él solo te mirará y pensará en si hizo algo que te hizo enojar, pero eso no es razón suficiente para que borres sus besos.

Incluso si le revelas que es una broma, él vuelve a besarte mil veces para asegurarse de que esta vez no te vas a quitar nada.

No entiende los motivos, pero empezarás a escuchar pequeñas gotas de lluvia golpeando la ventana.

Si están en público es peor porque él se queda parado mientras la lluvia lo moja y sus ojos te gritan que expliques por qué pareces rechazar su amor.

Discúlpate lo antes posible y explícale que es una broma. Él dirá que es de mal gusto, pero la lluvia se irá poco a poco.

Ya no te quiere dejar ir, solo piensa en que te parecía gracioso pretender que no querías sus besos y se pone triste otra vez.

Necesita que lo valides y que le recuerdes que lo amas o no podrá dormir bien en un mes.

No entiende por qué es divertido, pero no quiere que lo hagas de nuevo, por favor, no lo hagas de nuevo.

English:

This man is not amused in the slightest, I can see him flatten his ears as his confusion turns to annoyance.

He's left with his mouth open and his brow furrowed because he doesn't find it funny.

He walks away, resentful, and you can see him sulking the rest of the day whenever he sees you.

Probably at some point during the day he decides to be an adult and talks to you about what you did, but at the moment he acts a little bratty.

Why would you wipe away a kiss from your boyfriend? He would never do something like that with you, so he can't imagine you doing it.

You both work things out, but he doesn't plan on kissing you again until you do it first and leave the silly jokes for another time.

Another one who is confused.

He literally stands still as you continue walking, you took him by surprise in a bad way.

He is a little dog who seems to have been abandoned on the street, he looks sad and confused because he loves you very much and loves you, and it is difficult for him to express that love because of his shame, but he finally did it and you do this to him.

He's a sad little thing until you clarify that it's a joke and you didn't want to make him feel bad.

He understands, but he doesn't stay calm until you give him the affection he wanted, then he lets it go.

But he doesn't forget it, he will never forget it, I think he will use it some other time when you guys are joking around.

He looks at you confused and gets upset, but he doesn't care, he will kiss you again.

If you take away that other kiss, he will kiss you again, and again, and again.

Welcome to a time loop in which Childe kisses you as many times as necessary while he complains about you erasing his love mark.

I think at some point, if you don't stop him, he'll just look at you, and he'll think about whether he did something to make you angry, but that's not enough of a reason for him to erase kisses from him.

Even if you reveal to him that it's a joke, he kisses you a thousand times again to make sure you're not going to take anything away this time.

He doesn't understand the reasons, but you will start to hear small raindrops hitting the window.

If you're in public, it's worse because he stands there while the rain soaks him and his eyes scream at you to explain why you seem to reject his love.

Apologize as soon as possible and explain that it is a joke. He will say it is in bad taste, but the rain will go away little by little.

He doesn't want to let you go anymore, he just thinks about how funny you thought it was to pretend that you didn't want his kisses and he gets sad again.

He needs you to validate him and remind him that you love him, or he won't be able to sleep well for a month.

He doesn't understand why it's funny, but he doesn't want you to do it again, please don't do it again.

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #x reader #genshin x y/n #genshin x you #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x y/n #genshin impact tighnari #genshin tighnari #tighnari #tighnari genshin #tighnari x reader #genshin chongyun #chongyun x reader #chongyun genshin impact #genshin impact chongyun #chongyun #chongyun x you #genshin tartagalia #childe x reader #genshin childe #genshin impact childe #childe tartaglia ajax #genshin impact neuvillette #neuvillette genshin #neuvilette x reader #genshin neuvillette #neuvillette x reader #genshin headcanons #genshin impact headcanons

[callsign-relic]

HI RELIC I’M GLAD YOU’RE BACK!!!!

If requests are open, might I suggest a sequel to the first contact Shockwave fic or the ‘Drift and Ratchet find an injured human’ fic?

Alternatively, if you’re feeling it, a sfw tasty AU Rodimus fic in which he finds a human hiding in the walls or wherever, takes them, and keeps it a secret from everyone else?

Thank you Tripleglitch!!! You’re my first request after literal months, and I’m happy to have written this for you :) For this request I’ve decided to make a sequel to the first contact Drift and Ratchet fic, which you can find here!

Warnings: SFW, GN!Human!Reader, First Contact AU

The next few moments passed by like a blur to your weary head. You weren’t sure if your lack of vision was from your pounding headache, or from how the giant white mech held you cupped against his chest. The beat of his heart (or whatever his equivalent to a heart was) thudded against you in a gentle rhythm— it seemed to be the only thing keeping you aware enough from passing out entirely.

The only place you could look was up, and all you were met with was the chin of the titan who held you. Occasionally, he would glance down at you with furrowed brows, cooing at you softly in alien tones, but you tore your head away before you could lock eyes. The white mech was kinder than the red one who held you before, sure, but you still felt a pit in your stomach form each time you looked into his piercing blue eyes.

There’s a sound of shifting metal, and suddenly you’re squinting from the intruding light. No longer are you wrapped in the radiating warmth of Drift’s big servos, but you’re placed down onto a cool, stainless steel rolling desk. You fold your legs underneath you and rub at your arms at the sudden drop in temperature, sucking in air through your teeth with each touch to your bruised skin.

Above you, Drift watches. You try not to look.

“Poor thing must be freezing,” Drift’s dermas pout to the side.

“Really?” Ratchet asks, too busy pressing buttons and configuring settings on a scanning machine to look for himself. “How can you tell?”

“It’s shivering,” the samurai gestures a hand towards you, causing you to flinch back, but the mech hardly notices as he addresses the CMO. “Maybe it’s trying to warm itself up.”

“It would make sense,” Ratchet hums from behind the console. “Some organics, the energon that runs through them— it flows at a temperature warm enough that keeps their whole frames warm. If they’re in cold enough conditions, that natural warmth from inside them isn’t enough to keep them warm.”

Drift lets out a small gasp at that. “Then we should hurry! We don’t want it freezing to death.” The samurai hurries to Ratchet’s side, examining the screen the medic was working on. Ratchet lifts his arms at Drift’s sudden intrusion, staring at him bewilderedly— but Drift’s too focused on the console to notice. “Is the scanner ready yet??”

“It would be if you didn’t butt in the way—“ The medic shoves his white plated partner to the side— not very roughly, but still enough to get him out of the way. With a last few swipes to the screen, the scanning machine hums to life. You jump back at the sudden noise, scrambling as far back as you can from the alien mechanism.

Drift notices, moving away from behind the scanner to reach a servo out behind you— prepared to catch you if you happened to make a fall off of the rolling table. But thankfully, you stop just a few relative feet away from the edge. Still, you don’t budge.

“Come on, little one, it’s alright,” Drift urges sweetly, slowly bringing one of his hands up from behind you to push you forwards. You gasp at the sudden contact, a scream tearing through your throat as you push back against the massive hand. You may have been injured, sure, but there was no way you were going to let two gigantic aliens push you into a machine that you had no idea of it what it could do. For all you knew, you were being ferried into your death.

“What’s the matter?” Ratchet asks, peeking his helm out from behind the screen. “Just get it in there, already.”

“I’m trying,” Drift insists, “but it’s fighting back. It doesn’t want to go inside.”

“What does it matter how it’s reacting? Just get it in and it’ll see for itself that it’s fine.”

“Ratchet, we’re trying to gain its trust! Forcing it to do something it doesn’t want to do, safe or not, isn’t the way to do that.”

As the two titans debated above you, the samurai’s white servo inched you ever closer into the machine. You try pushing back, but all of your weight combined isn’t enough to even budge the force of the mech’s hand. The eerie blue glow of the machine rapidly approaching, you close your eyes as you’re pushed inside, bracing for impact.

“Oh,” Drift realizes, pulling his hand away. “They’re inside.”

Blue light washes over you once, then twice, then a third time. Agonizingly slow, with a low, droning hum— you close your eyes, expecting the worst. Only, after those few swipes of the machine’s light… nothing happens. You dare to crack open an eye, and are only met with the lights of the medbay.

“Well, Ratchet? What does it say?” Drift comes to Ratchet’s side once more, optics scanning the scanner’s screen impatiently.

“Just give it a second, there are countless organic species this thing could be, after all.” Ratchet steps to the side a bit, allowing the samurai more space to stand. Or, more accurately, allowing the medic more room for himself to breathe. After a few moments, awaiting in bated breath, the scanner chirps out a beep. The results had come in.

Ratchet leans in, studying the text as it all pours in. “‘Species: human’… ‘planet of origin: earth’… hm, and just how far is that from Cybertr— WHAT?!” The medic’s jaw drops as the scanner answers the question for him— thousands upon thousands of lightyears.

“That far…?” Drift repeats Ratchet’s sentiment, he could hardly believe it himself.

“Then how could it ended up on the ship??” Ratchet continues, looking to you, hugging your knees on the steel table. “I doubt we could have picked it up before our initial launch, but on all the planets we’ve visited this far, I don’t recall seeing any humans…”

“How hardly matters anymore, doc,” Drift replies, stepping out from behind the scanner to approach you once more. You look up at the massive white mech, hesitant still. The samurai gazes down at you with soft optics and furrowed brows, but tries to offer you a little smile all the same. “We have to return it home. The poor thing must be terrified, so far away from its home.”

Ratchet grunts, “Well, I suppose that’s one thing we can agree on. But I’m not certain the other two captains want to change trajectory all for a single human.” Raising a servo to his temple as he steps forward too, the red bot huffs out a small sigh. “We’d go way off course, we’d get further behind on our mission than we already are.”

As Ratchet spoke, Drift lowered his hands down— not grabbing you, only offering them down for you to inspect. Your gaze flicks between Drift’s hands and his face, as if you were waiting for him to jump out at you any moment. But he doesn’t. The spectralist simply waits, watching your every move with patience. Maybe he wanted you to climb on of your own accord, this time?

Despite how every instinct in your body told you no, you swallowed it all down and moved forward anyway. You raise one of your feet, placing it down onto the platform of Drift’s hand. Then you did the same with your other foot. All the way until you were centered in the mech’s palm. Above you, Drift smiles, bringing his other hand beside you to give you a wider platform.

“Well, we’ll just have to try,” Drift declares. Slowly, he starts to raise you up towards his chest, to where Ratchet leans in a little to get a better look at you as well. You back away from the red mech— with how roughly he handled you, you still weren’t sure if you could trust him. “I’m a captain on the ship too, you know. I’m certain Rodimus and Megatron would at least be willing to hear me out.”

Ratchet responds with an unsure hum, focusing his optics down on the little creature Drift carried within his servos. Your eyes widen at the sudden attention, and you quickly turn your head, hoping the medic takes the hint and pulls away his burning gaze. “If they say no, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Drift snorts, “C’mon, doc, who do you take me for? Besides,” and his free servo is raising up again, this time extending a single digit to you. You lean away, staring at it cautiously. You weren’t sure what this meant… but if offering your finger meant the same thing as it did on earth, then, you might as well be polite to the alien who was kindest to you. Tentatively, you place your comparatively tiny hands atop the top of the offered digit, shaking it a little. Drift beams. “We’ll take care of it as long as it’s on the ship.”

“Wha— what do you mean, ‘we’?!” Ratchet leans back, incredulous. But when Drift doesn’t reply, his attention solely focused on you in his hand, the medic’s dermas straighten out to a thin line. “Ugh… you’re killin’ me, kid. Fine. We’ll both watch it.”

Finally, Drift turns his helm, ecstatic. “Really?! Oh, thank you, doc!”

“Yeah, yeah, only cause I wouldn’t trust this thing under anyone else’s watch.” As Drift coos at you, excited to be able to keep you safe, Ratchet’s own gaze flits lazily to you. You notice, looking back up at him, and trying not to squirm away. The medic only sighs, offering you a slight, albeit tired, smile.

“Looks like you’re stuck with us for now, little one.”

#relic writes #transformers #transformers x reader #transformers mtmte #mtmte x reader #more than meets the eye #tf x reader #tf mtmte #transformers ratchet #ratchet transformers #ratchet x reader #tf ratchet x reader #transformers drift #drift transformers #drift x reader #tf drift x reader #transformers ratchet x reader #transformers drift x reader #first contact au #transformers first contact au #tf first contact au #maccadam #maccadams

[vodika-vibes]

I had a thought! You'd said you liked to write for Bacara but he was sorta niche... what if reader needed to learn Bacara - as *he* wants to be known. Let's say that Reader catches his attention (do we want to do medic!Reader?) and whether it's Bacara coming in with a brother or himself as the patient, he develops Feelings for Reader. He wants Reader to know what makes him unique from his brothers, his best qualities... allllllll that stuff, but I'm also trying to utilize this as an intro to Bacara because I don't know a thing about him! *the truth comes out* So like Bacara's Best Sides, According To Him or something? If this isn't hitting, feel free to ignore! Thank you 🌑

Best Of Me

Summary: You're a Doctor attached to the Nova Corps, and Commander Bacara is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Luckily, he wants to be more open with you.

Pairing: Commander Bacara x F!Reader

Word Count: 1821

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni

A/N: I couldn't quite make your request work as written based on Bacara's personality, but I hope that this is okay too!

“How are you holding up?” You look up from where you’re checking your kit, and it takes you a moment to recognize Commander Bacara under all of the muck covering his armor.

“Oh, Commander,” You straighten, “I’m okay. This isn’t really what I was expecting when I was sent to the Nova Corps, though.”

You watch as he removes his helmet and sets it on a chair, and you frown when you see a bruise over his eye, not to mention the dark circles under his eyes. 

You fight the urge to force him to sit down to give him a full exam. Commander Bacara only allows his brothers to give him medical attention. You know this.

“You’re not doing terribly,” Bacara says, high praise coming from him honestly, “I half expected you to complain about being forced to leave the ship.”

You frown at him, slightly hurt, “I wasn’t aware that you had such a low opinion of me, Commander.”

He blinks at you, seemingly surprised by your words, “I…no. That’s not what I meant.”

You squint at him. Commander Bacara is a loner, the other men in the Nova Corps were all very careful about making sure that you knew that. They warned you that he, likely, wasn’t going to talk to you much, and when he did, he was going to insult you.

And, in the year that you’ve been assigned to this battalion, you’ve come to recognize that he is something of a loner. And a perfectionist. But never rude, and in fact, this is the closest he’s ever come to insulting you at all.

“Are you alright, Commander?” You ask, “Did you take a hit to the head?”

He frowns at you, “I don’t have a concussion.”

“I think you should let me be the judge of that, don’t you?” You ask gently, though you don’t move closer to him. If he doesn’t want you to treat him, then you won’t. But if he leaves, then you will shoot a message to Syringe, the CMO of the Nova Corps.

Bacara doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then he sighs, “Fine, but make it quick. I need to get back to General Mundi.”

You smile at him warmly, “Of course, Commander.”

He sinks into one of the chairs, and you walk over to give him a quick exam. You keep your touch gentle, not wanting to give him any reason to now want to come back to you for medical attention, “This is really unnecessary,” he grumbles.

“Better safe than sorry, right Commander?” You ask with a bright smile as you tilt his head back slightly, “Any nausea?”

“None.”

“Headache? Dizziness?”

“No, and no.”

You move your fingers to his jaw to tilt his head a little bit, but his hands come up and wrap around your wrists. Firmly, but not roughly, “I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Worrying is what I do, Commander. It’s part of my job. But you seem fine, so I’ll let you get back to work.”

“I appreciate it.” He releases your wrists and gets to his feet.

Bacara towers over you, but you’ve never been intimidated by him. Instead you smile at him, warm and soft, and then you step away to go back to your project.

Bacara grabs his helmet and he hesitates for a moment, “Hey, Doc-?”

“Hm? Is something wrong, Commander?”

He absently passes his helmet from one hand to the other, “No. Not wrong.” Bacara finally says, before he flashes the smallest smile in your direction, “I’d like to get to know you better, when we have the time.” He admits, “I know what my brothers told you about me…and I’d like you to meet the real me.”

You blink at him, and then you flash a bright smile, “I look forward to it, Commander.”

His small smile widens a little bit, and then he pulls his helmet on and he’s gone. Back to the fighting. Back to the war.

You turn back to your work, a small grin on your lips. 

You’re not unused to the men in the Nova Corps flirting with you. For some of them it comes as easily as breathing. But Bacara has always been a little different.

Honestly, you’re not even sure if he was flirting with you. But hey, a girl can dream, right?

Bacara sighs as he walks through the darkened halls of the ship. It’s late enough that he should be in bed, just like the majority of his brothers, but he can’t seem to settle his mind enough to actually get some rest.

The Nova Corps has been fighting on this planet for four months now, and he’s long since moved past tired and onto full on exhausted.

But, since he can’t sleep, he might as well get some work done…or maybe just work out some of the energy on the training mats.

He pauses as he passes the medbay. The light is still on, which is strange, since he knows that there’s no patients at the moment. Lightly he raps on the door, and then slides the door open.

And the moment he sees her, his breath catches.

To be completely frank, his crush on the pretty doctor is humiliating. Especially since he knows he’s one of over a dozen men who are crushing on her. One of over a dozen identical men, many of whom are more approachable than he is.

She lifts her gaze from her datapad, and her pretty eyes zero in on him, before a brilliant smile crosses her lips.

Bacara feels his heart skip a beat, she really is unfairly pretty. And that smile of hers should be classified as a weapon with how much it affects him. 

“Commander!” Even her voice is unfairly pretty.

He’s so kriffed.

“You’re up late,” Bacara notes as he glances around the room, and sees that all of the beds are empty, “Shouldn’t you be taking a break?”

She laughs, “I laid down and ended up just tossing and turning, so I thought I’d just bore myself to sleep.”

He pauses, “Want some company?”

“I would love some company.” 

He steps into the room and allows the door to slide shut behind him as he crosses the room and sinks into the chair across from her with a sigh. 

She’s still smiling at him, all warm and pretty, “So, why are you awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Bacara admits as he tilts his head back, “I’m so kriffing tired, but I can’t sleep.”

Her smile is sympathetic, “I have something I can give you to help you sleep, if you like.”

“That’s nice of you, but no thanks.” He glances at you, “So, what are you working on?”

“Just making my notes in the files of the men who saw me today,” She rests her chin on the palm of her hand, her gaze locked on his face, “It’s a shame that we’re always jumping from one battle to another. I have some ideas that I wanted to try to work on-” 

“Yeah?”

She shrugs, “I’m a medical doctor, yeah, but I started off as a medical researcher.”

“Researching what?”

“Viruses, bacteria, cancers,” She shrugs one shoulder, “Honestly, I find your enhanced aging fascinating, and with enough time I’m sure I could reverse it.”

Bacara stares at her, “Why would you do that?”

“Because you all deserve a chance at a regular life when the war is over,” And then she laughs softly, “I haven’t actually started doing any research yet though.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t sure anyone would agree. And I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.”

“You should. I’ll let you take blood or whatever from me,” Bacara offers.

“I might just take you up on that offer,” She replies with a small smile, “You know, I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”

“Yeah, well…” He shrugs, “I know my brothers told stories about me.”

“They did.” Her voice is soft, “I haven’t found any of the stories to be true, though. I think you’re very likable.”

Bacara’s heart flips again, “...how likable?” He can’t stop himself from asking.

She laughs, though there’s nothing cruel about it, “Very likable.”

“Oh, good.”

She pauses and twirls her pen between her fingers, “Actually, Bacara,” She says slowly, and he jolts as she says his name rather than his rank, “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you…that is, do you have any interest in dating?” She asks as she doesn’t meet his gaze.

“I suppose,” Bacara says slowly, his mouth slightly dry, “That depends on who the other person is.”

“If it was, say, me?”

“I’d be very interested.” He replies immediately.

A small smile lifts her lips, “In that case, would you like to go on a date with me? There’s not a lot we can do on the ship, but we can still have a movie night or something.”

“Yes!” Bacara blurts, and then his face heats, “Ah…I mean, yes. I would like that.”

She giggles and Bacara’s even more smitten, “Then it’s a plan.” She pauses for a moment and sets her pen on the table, before she gets to her feet and walks over to him.

Slowly she ducks her head and presses her lips against his temple.

Her lips are warm and soft and it takes every ounce of his will power to stop from wrapping his arms around her and pulling her onto his lap and kissing her like how he’s been dreaming of for months.

“Was that okay?” She asks softly.

“Yes.” He replies hoarsely, “It’s more than okay.”

Some of the worry fades from her face, and she smiles at him warmly. And then she gently takes his hand and pulls him to his feet. “Why don’t you lay down on one of the beds here?” She offers.

Bacara frowns, “I’m not sick-”

“No, but you are tired. Maybe you’ll sleep better with me in the room with you?”

The offer is a kind one, and, really, there’s no harm in trying. So he settles on one of the beds. She dims the lights and then returns to his side, and lightly trails her fingers through his hair, “Goodnight, Bacara.”

“Hm…night.” He replies as he drifts off to sleep.

And an hour later, he stirs when he feels a gentle weight on the bed. He blinks, blearily, trying to get his bearings. And then a small smile crosses his face when he sees the Doc with her head resting on her arms, fast asleep while sitting in a chair.

Slowly, he eases her into the bed next to him, and he wraps an arm around her as she tucks her head under his chin, already mostly asleep.

Sure, he’ll have to deal with his brothers’ teasing in the morning, but it’s worth it to have her in his arms.

#star wars #tcw #commander bacara x reader #bacara x reader #star wars fanfiction #x reader fanfiction #f!reader fic #answered asks

[cybrsan]

Can I request a smut with dom Seonghwa with prompts 106 and 107. He’s a ceo and while at work his gf suddenly decides to visit him. She realizes he’s busy so in order to get his attention she makes him jealous by flirting with Hwa’s coworker and he gets angry and then they end up fucking 😋

Prompts: 106. "I'm going to fuck you until you forget that asshole's name." + 107. "Bend over the desk, love." Pairing: CEO!Seonghwa x F!Reader Genre: Smut Word Count: 1.6k Tags/warnings: Possessiveness, unsafe sex, semi-public sex, jealous sex, creampie, spanking, subtle sir kink

Rules for requesting can be found here and my masterlist can be found here.

“Mr. Park is busy at the moment. You can take a seat in the waiting room, and I’ll call for you when he’s ready.” 

You close your eyes and take a deep breath, counting backward from 5. It is taking all of your willpower not to throw a tantrum like a spoiled child. It has already been a rough day, and all you want is to enjoy your lunch with your boyfriend. Yet, here you are, essentially being told to go to the back of the metaphorical line. It is for this reason that you’ve never liked Seunghee—she knows who you are, yet she still insists on giving you the runaround. 

“He and I have a lunch date scheduled. If you would just call up to him, I’m sure—” 

“I’m sorry, but he’s in a meeting. You can take a seat and wait for him, or I can have him call you at his earliest convenience.” 

“You know what? No. I’m heading up to his office, and if you have a problem with that, you can call security. But have fun explaining that to Mr. Park.”

She gapes at you as you walk away, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. You find a sick kind of satisfaction in it and, to further rub salt in the wound, give her a dainty wave and smile as the elevator doors close. You head all the way up to the 19th floor and are fully prepared to wait in Seonghwa’s office until he’s free, expecting that he would be in one of the conference rooms. However, to your surprise, he’s already in his office—but not alone. 

One of the most beautiful women you have ever seen sits across from him, her image reflected in the abstract mirror hanging behind his desk. Her long, dark hair cascades in rivulets down her back, her lips both similar in shape and color to a peach. Her eyes are foxlike, sharp and alluring, intense even through the reflection. You bristle with envy, though you try not to make it a habit to compare yourself to others.

Then there’s Seonghwa. He looks as stunning as ever, every detail of his appearance meticulously perfected despite his long work day. His dark hair sweeps across his forehead, each strand seeming to fall effortlessly into place in a way that accentuates his beauty. The dark blue suit you helped him pick out hugs his torso nicely, just form-fitting enough to show off his best features. His slender hands are folded on the desk in front of him, mere centimeters away from her dainty, well-manicured ones. And, god, those big, brown doe eyes of his that you love so much are watching her so intently. 

You know that she is probably the representative of a company that wants to merge or some up-and-coming actress that is looking for representation. You know that Seonghwa is just doing his job and that he has a bad habit of looking at everyone with stars in his eyes. But, despite yourself, you can’t fight back the jealousy that you feel. So, indulging in one of your own bad habits, you sidestep his office and head into his CMO’s office instead. The two offices are connected only by a glass window and the blinds are currently open, so you know that he will be able to see you. 

Surely enough, he notices you not long after Minho does, and both of their eyes widen in surprise. Unlike Minho, however, he has a meeting to focus on and quickly returns his focus to the woman.

“Y/N!” Minho says, getting up to greet you. “What a pleasant surprise. Are you here to see Seonghwa?” 

He holds out his hand, but you move forward and hug him instead. There’s nothing about it he would find odd—it’s quick, friendly, not unusual for a greeting. Yet you know, and Seonghwa knows, there’s more to it than that. Speaking of your boyfriend, he must have noticed your movement out of the corner of his vision if his stiff posture is any indication. You watch with satisfaction as he tongues the inside of his cheek, knowing he tends to do that whenever he’s upset. 

“Hey, Minho. I was, but he seems busy at the moment. Have you eaten yet? I’m not in the mood to eat alone.” 

“I was just about to go on my lunch break, so your timing couldn’t have been any more perfect. Please, join me.” 

He pulls out a seat for you—what a gentleman—before quickly excusing himself to the kitchens so he can grab his own food. You make yourself comfortable, clearing some room on his desk, and are just about to start eating when you hear the door to his office open. 

“That was fast,” you say without looking up. “What do you have to eat?” 

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” 

You jump in your seat, taken aback as you expected to hear Minho’s voice. Instead, you’re met with a frustrated Seonghwa, his tone laced with annoyance. He strides over to you and spins your chair around so that you’re forced to look up at him. 

Grabbing your chin between his thumb and pointer finger, he continues, “Well? I thought you were here for me, but apparently, I was mistaken.” 

You shake yourself out of his grasp, standing up to fix the imbalance of power. “I was, but it looks like you were busy. Funny how you didn’t mention anything about a meeting this morning.” 

“You’re jealous? Is that it? So the first thing you do is turn to one of my coworkers, one of my friends, for attention.” His eyes darken and he moves forward, forcing you to back up until the back of your legs hit Minho’s desk. “What, exactly, were you hoping to get out of this?” 

Before you can answer, someone clears their throat. The two of you turn to face a confused Minho standing in the doorway, a fork in one hand and his food in the other. “Oh, Hwa, will you be joining us for lunch?” 

“Sorry, but I was promised a lunch date. Why don’t you go eat in the cafeteria with the others?” 

Minho narrows his eyes, obviously catching onto the fact that Seonghwa wants him to vacate his office. “Sure… Just eat in your own office, if you don’t mind.” The hint is almost as subtle as Seonghwa’s, but it’s there. 

“Of course. I’ll talk to you later.” 

With a nod, Minho walks away, leaving you and Seonghwa with total privacy. Without sparing you a glance, Seonghwa turns and heads into his own office.

“Bring the food,” he says. “Or don’t. I don’t think we’ll have time to eat anyway.” 

His words send a jolt straight to your core, the hidden promise of what’s to come enough to excite you. You grab the food only to haphazardly discard it on one of the chairs in Seonghwa’s room. You watch as he grabs the remote control for the blinds and closes them so that the two of you will be hidden from any prying eyes. Then, he sits at his desk, crossing one leg over the other as he looks at you expectantly. When you make no move to do anything, he sighs.

“Bend over the desk, love, before I lose my patience.” 

You immediately do as he asks, not minding the way the various stationary supplies littering his desk press into you uncomfortably. You know that if you make a mess of his desk, you’ll only receive more of a punishment. Your dress rides up your thighs, and Seonghwa stands, pushing it up further so that the whole of your ass is exposed to him. He rubs the skin gently, caressing it with his palms, before bringing one of his hands down with a resounding smack. Your body ricochets forward with the force, and you bite back a moan, watching as some of his papers flutter to the ground. 

“Is this what you wanted? To be punished like the little slut you are?” He smacks you again, and this time you can’t help the strangled noise that escapes your lips. “Flirting with another man right in front of me, just because I was meeting with a woman.” He tsks. “She’s the owner of a perfume company, by the way. She wants to make a signature scent for the movie we just released that has gained a bit of a cult following—she thinks it is a good mutual investment.” 

You look back at him, cheek pressed to the hardwood of his desk, your words a bit muffled due to the position. “I would barely call a hug flirting.” 

“I don’t care what you would call it—I’m going to fuck you until you forget that asshole’s name. And if you talk back to me one more time, you can expect a lot worse than a spanking.” 

His threat is enough to shut you up. “Okay, sir.” 

“Oh, now you’re obedient? All pliant and ready for me to use you?”

“Yessir.” 

He lovingly trails a hand down your spine, his light touch enough to make you squirm. “Good.” 

Next thing you know, he’s grabbing your hips with a bruising force, plowing into you from behind, panting into your ear about how you belong to him and only him. All you can do is whine and moan, barely able to grasp reality except to cry over how good he’s making you feel. He brings you to the edge again and again, not caring about how overstimulated you get as he chases his own pleasure. He comes inside you and doesn’t allow you to do anything about the mess; instead, he helps you slip back into your thong and orders you to keep it inside of you until you get home. 

The walk out of his building is awkward, to say the least.

#park seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa smut #park seonghwa smut #seonghwa imagines #ateez imagines #ateez smut #ateez x reader #park seonghwa imagines #ateez fic #ateez requests #my fic #100 followers #kpop fic #kpop smut #kpop requests #seonghwa drabbles #park seonghwa drabbles #michi.req #anon

[luvly-writer]

XOXO💋

Ch. 1: They Don’t Need an Introduction

-•-

Tim Drake x Reader

Fic + Social Media Au

Warnings: none

Series: Ongoing

Author’s note:The last 3 or so chapter of Oh Cara Mia will be coming this winter break. University really is kicking my ass. You may be wondering why i’m posting the new story and the answer is to keep you guys on your toes. I am so excited for this new series and before everything I do want to apologize for a few things. Out of all the boys, Tim is the least I and familiar with so I will be trying to do my absolute best to bring him to justice. Hope you all enjoy this new series!

Please feel free to reblog and comment. I love hearing what you all have to say about the stories I bring you.

Taglist: Since it’s a new story, I will be needing you all to let me know if you would like your be added to the taglist.

Masterlist:

-•-

Youngest of 2 sisters

Bitch with a good heart

Old money

way too intelligent for her own good

plays tennis // tennis partner is Clara

normally is the scandal fixer

ambitious

future CMO to Vanderbilt Hotels

Model

goes to the tennis court for the cute fits and guys

can range from dumb blonde to evil mastermind

walked from VS Angels

Main Scandal creator

New Money and owns it

heart of gold, but her morals are flexible

think Crazy Rich Asians

Gossip Queen

Unhinged

Heiress to Dupont Desings

Only Child

Spoiled but not a brat

Fun Aunt energy

Old money

#batfamily #tim drake #dick grayson #jason todd #batman #batfam #cassandra cain #alfred pennyworth #stephanie brown #damian wayne #duke thomas #barbara gordon #bruce wayne #tim drake x reader #tim drake x you #tim drake x y/n #tim drake x fem!reader #red robin #red hood #batfamily x you #batfamily social media #batfam x you #batfam socialmedia au #batfamily x reader #batfam x reader #batfam imagine #batfam dc #dc social media au #dc reader insert #dcau

[mlm-writer]

Chocolate Milk (GN!Reader)

Pairing: Spock (AOS) x Gender Neutral Ensign Reader (platonic) Rating: General Audience Words: 1320 POV: Second Summary: Your childhood trauma left you near-emotionless. While most find it unsettling, there are some crew members appreciating you just the way you are. Note: Trauma not described, reader's physical traits also not described. I want to say ft. my OC, but he is deadass more present than Spock in this so ft. Spock I guess. Tags: mentioned trauma, platonic/professional appreciation, Ensign Michael Gabe the empath, alcohol mentions but no consumption, red alert and Kirk & Bones have a cameo

One moment the white hallways were too bright for the early hour and the next they were bathed in crimson. ‘Red Alert again?’ You wondered as you broke into a sprint. Red Alert happened at least once a month with captain Kirk looking for trouble left and right, but as far as times of crisis went, you had experienced far more distressing situations in your youth. At least, they felt more distressing as a child still figuring out who you are and why you were put into a world that was described as a utopia and yet so so full of suffering. 

You arrived at your station not a moment too soon. You were gasping for air, just like your colleagues at the stations adjacent to you. Michael’s fingers trembled with every jolt of the ship. “Ensign Gabe, we need a read on their defences. Any weak spot would be appreciated,” the captain urged the man next to you. His blond hair started sticking to his forehead as he calibrated the scanners to adjust for the shields. You focused on your own task, but from the corners of your vision, you could see Michael making mistakes that were uncharacteristic to his intelligence.

You placed a hand on his shoulder. “Michael, deep breaths. You got this.” You spoke softly to him, trying to make sure he was the only one hearing your reassurance. You felt him inhale deeply, holding the air for a few seconds and then releasing it evenly. You were aware the empath could feel everyone's distress. With the physical contact you hoped your calmness stood out in the ocean of unease. The blond muttered a brief expression of gratitude. You occasionally touched his shoulder again, trying to focus his gifts on you so he could stay level-headed. Sure, you could die today, but you knew your task like the back of your hand and you knew Michael did as well, in spite of his nerves giving the wrong idea and his abilities nearly crippling him. 

Things looked dire for a second, but hardly an hour later, you were at warp 4 en route to a space station for repairs. You stayed at your station monitoring repairs to the systems, while Michael left to get a ‘stiff drink’ as he called it. He could probably use it. You noticed how even lieutenant Chua seemed tense as he checked upon the injured on the bridge, calling over the CMO when he thought they might need a trip to sick bay. You watched how he carried the yeoman with a possible broken leg out to the turbolifts. “Ensign?” You realised you had been daydreaming a little. You whipped your head around, worried the SIC was about to scold you. 

“Yes, commander?” Spock was the ever-intimidating presence on the bridge. Very little scared you, but the idea of disappointing your superiors and commander Spock particularly “All repairs are going as expected. We will make it to Sindku station in three hours at our current velocity.” You added your status report after a short pause, hoping that was what commander Spock wanted to hear. 

He did not seem pleased with the answer. Some people would argue there was not a single expression to read on that half-Vulcan face, but you would disagree. You knew the subtle changes too well, have seen them in the mirror plenty of times to recognise them on another. You watched his thought progress, then breathed out a small sigh of relief when Spock seemed to have calculated his next words. “I am aware you have been called to duty during your leisure time. I will assign an on-duty officer to relieve you shortly.” You gave him a curt nod of comprehension. He then left. 

And just as foretold, on-duty officers arrived to relieve the bridge staff that had their leisure time interrupted by the red alert. You decided to check on Michael. He was in the lounge, as expected. You had expected him to be drinking alcohol, but spotted him with a big glass of chocolate milk. “Is that your stiff drink?” You greeted him with those words when you stood next to him. 

Michael looked up at you, a friendly smile plastered on his face. “What can I say? I prefer calories over alcohol.” He raised his half-empty glass as if he was toasting. “By the way, thanks for getting me through that red alert today. I…” he let out a breathy chuckle, “I really don’t get how you can always keep your cool, but I’m really glad to have someone like you around when all I am feeling from everyone else is the looming dread of death.” You gave him a nod and patted him on the back. 

What you wanted to say was ‘you’re welcome, it’s the trauma’, but those jokes have not been funny since the early 21st century, so you opted for a more modern response. “We all have our virtues.” Michael raised his glass again, as if saying ‘I’ll drink to that’. You decided to join him with a chocolate milk of your own. Michael always knew how to get the small talk going. He started off with the latest gossip, then asked your opinion on a personal or a ship matter and after some time, you always ended up talking mathematics. You seemed like total opposites at the bar, one person emoting like a cartoon character, the other virtually a statue. If Michael was not an empath, he would probably assume you never felt a thing in your life, just like everyone else.

The doors behind you slid open and you noticed the surprise on Michael’s face. He tried to hide it, but was doing a piss poor job at it. You turned to see what got him worked up, only to see commander Spock waltz in. The man was only here when he wished to speak to someone privately and he was heading straight for your chocolate milk hang out. Michael whispered he was worried Spock noticed his small panic today, but then you were the one requested to follow him to a less populated corner of the lounge. 

You had no idea what you did, but you left your chocolate milk at the bar and joined Spock near the windows. “I meant to say this on the bridge, but it seemed inappropriate with the company present,” Spock started. You hummed, eyes locked together like you were having a stare-down. “I would like to commemorate you for your attitude during crisis response, both on the bridge as we have seen today and in the field as we have seen last week on Unico IV. I will put in a request to have you promoted to lieutenant junior grade. Should you remain equally level headed with more responsibilities thrust upon you, I believe you will, in time, make an excellent captain.” 

You were quiet for a moment, trying to take in the unexpected compliments. “Thank you, sir.” It was all you could really say. Spock responded with a polite nod and then made his leave. You blinked as you stood there momentarily. When you were ready, you returned to Michael at the bar. He was chatting up one of the red shirts again, the ever sucker for muscular men. When he saw you though, he slipped off his seat, taking the two glasses with him. 

“What did he say?” Michael asked as soon as he was in front of you, handing you your leftover chocolate milk. You paraphrased Spock’s words, leaving Michael gasping and squealing. “That is so amazing! Slay mama!” He somehow managed to make air come out of your nose at a high velocity. You tapped your glasses together. He seemed happier than you, but you let him celebrate for you. Captain? You? You could hardly imagine it right now. Meanwhile Michael was already planning on being your SIC. 

—————

REBLOG TO SUPPORT YOUR FANFIC WRITERS

Likes do not help exposure!A comment in tags or replies can sustain a writer for months!

#star trek #gender neutral reader #male reader #star trek x reader #spock x reader #spock #s'chn t'gai spock #spock x male reader #spock x gender neutral reader #star trek x male reader #star trek x gender neutral reader #aos #aos x reader #aos x male reader #aos x gender neutral reader

[angrycmo]

not to out myself but i just wanna read some decently plotted reader inserts. why the fuck is there so much smut everywhere. like i just wanna have some cool superpowers or be a badass assassin and fall in love with a comfort character not get tied up and railed seventeen ways to sunday

#reader inserts #everything i see is like daddy kink! spanking! bdsm! public sex! unprotected sex! #where are the slow burns where im a hero and i get to fall in love and be loved #cmo log

[hetalianskywalker]

The Bad Batch Prompt Event!

End of Avoidence

Summary: You find Commander Wolffe asleep on your couch after a night at 79s.

Authors Note: Thank you @arctrooper69 making this event. I did the SFW prompt with Commander Wolffe x reader. The prompt is in bold. I had wanted to do the NSFW prompt, but the anxiety won out. Hope you all enjoy this instead.

Nickname for reader: Corvid-meaning a crow/raven. Partly based of the special relationship Ravens and Wolves have in the wild.

Warnings: Cursing and I’m pretty sure that’s it.

Word Count: 1225

Thank you for reading!

“Commander Wolffe?” You lean against the door frame in between your bedroom and the living room of your Coruscant apartment. You blink, making sure that you weren’t imagining things. Low and behold, your commanding officer was still half asleep on the couch.

His mismatched eyes give you a half glare as he sits up. You quickly glance him over, noticing the top half of his armor resting on the chair next to him. You both remain at this weird stand off before you sigh and head to the kitchen.

“Caf?” You call over your shoulder. You begin making the pot before you get an answer from him. You had seen the amount of caf Wolffe could go through when he had flimsiwork to do after a large battle or rescue mission.

You are the head engineer for the 104th. Usually your job would go to a clone, but after most of the battalion had been lost near the start of the war you had been recruited instead. Something or other about the Kaminoans at the time needing to train more engineers.

It had been weird at first being the only natural born on an entire Star Destroyer other than General Plo Koon and an occasional visit from Admiral Coburn. However, you grew to enjoy the company of the clones around you and they all seemed to get along with you. Apart from two that is and one of those was a recent development.

You can see Wolffe walk into your kitchen and sit down at your small table. While he doesn’t say anything, you turn just in time to see him take in a whiff of your brewing high grade caf. He almost smiles.

“I’ll take that as a yes on the caf than, Commander.” You state, unable to stop the smug smile from spreading across your face. Falling back on the jabs and glares that were the foundation for the majority of the conversations you had with him before whatever falling out had happened.

The trance of good smelling caf is broken as he now focuses his eyes on you and fully frowns, but still nods. You turn back to the caf, reminded once again that something had happened to change his opinion of you. You had no idea what though. At first he seemed to enjoy the banter with you until he started out right avoiding you a few months back. At least with the battalion’s CMO, you knew exactly why you two didn’t get along; you had a tendency of trying to take care of your own wounds yourself.

Actually for someone who can’t seem to stand me, how the hell did he end up on my couch? The thought hits you like a tidal wave as the caf machine beeps and you pour the two cups. You take them to the table and hand Wolffe his. You quietly add your extras in, once again trying to figure out why Wolffe was in your apartment, as he quietly enjoys his caf black.

“I don’t dislike you.” He breaks through your spiraling thoughts as you look up at him from your now much lighter caf.

“Since when?” You want to smack yourself when the unfiltered response reaches the open air.

“Since we met,” Wolffe snaps back. “Alright, Corvid.” You didn’t know how to respond to that. Both with the confession and the nickname most of the Wolfpack referred to you as. You were often perched in high places on the Star Destroyer when troops found you during any off time, wore mostly black when not in uniform, and you had somehow become a kind of safe house for Wolfpack contraband, which were mostly harmless things. Since most of your conversations recently had been unavoidable and professional, you hadn’t heard him call you that in months.

“You go down a different hall the moment you see me, how exactly am I supposed to take that, Wolffe?” It comes out far more resigned than the anger you wanted and he doesn’t deny it. “What brought this on anyway?”

“I overheard you tell a batch of shinies at 79’s that I hated you.” It’s the wrong answer to the wrong question, but it gives you information you wanted none the less. The heat rushes to your face and you watch him smirk. Fuck. You resist a very powerful urge to bang your head against the table. Cause if he heard that then he probably heard what your tipsy ass had said after that. At least you hadn’t been completely drunk and totally made a fool of yourself.

When he doesn’t say anything, your shoulders relax in relief. No hangover and he didn’t hear the more embarrassing half of that conversation. Today might actually be an okay day.

“Still doesn’t explain why you are on my couch.” You grumble as you take a sip of your slowly cooling drink.

“I came by to check that you got home alright and I wanted to talk to you. And you invited me in.” You nearly spit out your caf.

“I did not.”

“You were half asleep. You told me to spend the night with how late it was and waved at the couch.” Wolffe pauses before giving you a sharp smirk. “Besides, you wouldn’t rat out your favorite.”

“I totally play favorites. Mine just so happens to also hate me. Kriff, I’m fucking pathetic and toxic as hell, but oh well. You only live once.” You had raised a glass and the shinies had seemed to get a good laugh out of your self deprecating jokes. The memory makes your stomach churn.

No, he definitely heard the entire conversation with the shinies. Great, just fucking great.

“You’re the worst.” You growl.

“Yeah well you still like me.” The smug response makes you want to scream. But you're suddenly hit with the fact that he’s not rejecting you.

You inspect him for a moment; your mind trying to put together some other explanation for this situation. Wolffe smirks again as he sets his now empty cup down. Your thoughts take a carnal turn for a moment, having never seen his top half with just his blacks on up close. You shake them away as a new surge of anger comes through.

“Why did you avoid me then? I was trying to figure out for mouths why the fuck…”

“I thought avoiding you would end it. But it seemed to just make it worse for both of us apparently.” He cuts you off and you take a second to digest the words. It’s quiet for too long.

“And that was a mistake.” It’s not quite an apology, but he says it like it’s one. You open your mouth to except the peace offering.

“I’m sorry.” The genuineness of it soothes your remaining anger.

“Thank you.” As you say it, most of the tension finally leaves your kitchen.

“So what happens now?” Wolffe smirks again at the question as he leans in close.

“Well Corvid, you said we only live once.” You blush and stare at one another a quick moment before his hands gently rest on the sides of your face. He glances at your mouth and back at your eyes. A silent question.

You nod. A silent response earns you a kiss you have wanted and waited to long for.

#tbbpromptevent #star wars #tcw #commander wolffe #commander wolffe x reader

[wifetomegatron]

you flare, you flicker, you fade (and in the end, all your tomorrows become yesterdays) [ megatron / reader ]

" I don't have a heartbeat,” She sighed sadly.

He regarded her, standing by the window. Under the half-light, her limbs look almost translucent, pale if not a little blue. That's what happens to organic skin when it oxidises to rot: tearing at the seams.

" Neither do I."

In which Megatron believes the personification of his guilt against humanity has come to haunt him in the late hours of the night.

rating: not rated, sfw! + themes & mentions of death relationship : megatron / f!reader fandoms: transformers (idw generation one) / idw 2005 / mtmte & lost light characters: megatron (transformers), ratchet (transformers), terminus (transformers), rodimus | rodimus prime, minimus ambus (transformers), rung (transformers) additional tags: angst, tangst with a happy ending, pov third person, idk how to tag this, refrences to edgar allan poe, references to ancient greek religion & lore, inspired by corpse bride by tim burton, the reader is referred as she and there's no usage of you but she/her , mentions of myth & folklore, euthanasia warning, death warning This is reposted from ao3 as it’s quite long (3,171 words)

" She said: when will we meet? I said: A year after the war ends. She said: When will the war end? I said: When we meet" — Mahmoud Darwish

01. After Trepan — after everything — Megatron doesn't dream. He can feel his processor spin and think during recharge, but he never dreams. And so when he dreamt for the first time, he almost forgot it was possible. Almost. 

His dream was a kaleidoscope of images, a flurry, a blur. His body was moving, but he remained still, watching a memory that didn't belong to him. And he knew this because he could hear the sea.

The universal translator is too gentle. There wasn't a word to describe the great ‘seas’ of Cybertron. Back when he toiled under Nova Point, he assumed — like everybody else —that liquid water was a rumour. And then he saw it, deep, silver mercury, unlike anything, roaring beneath the horizon. Yet he dreams of a sea he never saw, dark and vacuum, sealed under a storm.

Rodimus banged on his door. He was forcibly woken. Even when they were talking by his doorway, Megatron could taste salt in his denta: so foreign his intake nearly rejects it. 

02. It started with the humming. It was so quiet that Megatron wouldn't have registered it if it wasn't for how foreign it sounded: non-mechanical and soft. Too soft. A glitch in his audials was likely, with the fool's energon slowing his processor. Yet he remained sharp, vigilant the moment the sound rang from down the hall. As he tried to listen to the silence, the ship thrummed underneath his pedes. Everything else was in the right place: electric, electronic, the usual clicks from the coolers, the vents drumming above. And yet the tune remains, faint if not fading. Drift was soundless. And he was trying to focus. So when the mech asked him what was wrong, Megatron blamed the startle on the fool's energon.

03. She watches him from the corner of his peripheral. Playful. Shy. His optics drifted from the PADD — carefully, to not alarm Minimus — to make sense of her. Ratchet said internal hemorrhaging of the wires could lead to hallucinations, where the cyberium that lined his cables would inflate and leak; poisoning the Energon.

Behind him, she waved, wrist and elbow sharp and jutting, in contrast to the smooth, metal backdrop of the office. He diverted his attention to the conversation just in time. And when Megatron raised his helm again, she was gone.

Ratchet gave him the clear; he wasn't in any way incapacitated. And when he tells the CMO about tasting salt in the back of his intake, all he gets is a funny look. 

04. Cybertronians don't have taste receptors for sodium chloride: ‘salty’ doesn't exist in their vernacular, only recently introduced through the translator. The closest word they have to describing Energon is that it burns. Just a little bit. Alkali and acid dissolving against the dentae: bubbling like sea foam against the sand.

05. She is the name of the unknown. She died in Cybertron many, many years ago — in a time before him, in a time before the war. So those who walked after her used the pronoun to describe the unfounded. Those without dichotomy, those without truth. The Lost Light is she, and so is the vastness of space. Nautica — who is she, herself — refers to her unsolved equations as her, and so does Perceptor. She is the graveyard of hypotheses, waiting to be kissed alive.

So it’s only natural for Megatron to think she 's lab-made. An experiment went wrong, a failed refraction of light. Brainstorm did say he was experimenting with holoforms. And yet the scientist never recharges in his room down the hallway: always too busy and never wanting to be alone. So Megatron observes her like she is a creature out of a petri dish.

The ghost blinks. Once. Twice — eyelashes, batting against her rotting cheeks. 

It's rude to stare. She laughed. The sound was an airy, feathered thing. 

She doesn't seem perturbed by the fact that the left side of her jaw is hanging by the threads of a torn muscle. With the epidermis of her chin loose and gorged, he could inside her anatomy.

Dark red and wet, not even Brainstorm would replicate something like this.

Forgive me.

She held the wilted bouquet in her hands a little bit tighter.

It's usually bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. Do you believe in that?

Megatron doesn't know what he believes. He lies on his slab with her sitting by his window, and he thinks of the question as recharge swallows him whole. He was on a ship, lightyears away, and all he could think of was the texture of her throat as it flakes and cracks.

He doesn't believe in bad luck, yet humans have many names for it: karma, kismet. Megatron wonders by which name he should call her.

06. It takes him milliseconds to learn. Everything he needed to know about humans was handed to him on a silver platter, convenient and superior. Is this why he had thought of himself so high compared to them? Self-fulfilling prophecies who were so Darwinian and slow and stuck in their ways.

 (Yet, in the end, weren't they like that as well? Eons to live for, and yet they waste it on killing one another. He wasted it.)

He has lived through the birth of her first rivers, the christening of her people, and the rise and fall of empires as they pile atop one another. The passing of thousands of eclipses that humans can only dream of witnessing once within their finite lifespans — and yet here he was.

The humans would call him Icarian; held together by wax and pretending it was metal, plunging to his hypocrisy as he strays further from the sun.

07. Why a thing so innocuous? So naive and so docile.

A girl in a wedding gown. 

Even when his mind tries to conjure up something beautiful, he still finds a way to corrupt it. Maybe that's why she's undead, ribcages peeking out of the tear of her dress yet never heaving to breathe. He buried his guilt, and she decayed. It's perverse and he loathes himself for it.

Megatron tells himself that's why she's here. To make him answer for corrupting her soil, and even if his pillage on Earth felt like a lifetime ago, he remembers.

The only bride that he could think of was a dead one. What does that say about him?

Without Soundwave, at least not directly, he was safe in the knowledge that no one aboard the ship could spy into his thoughts. They would find him appalling — more than they already did.It was a good thing that she very rarely approaches him when he’s outside his quarters. And in the rare instances she did, no one would acknowledge her.

The end of her dress, dragging across the floor.

Ravage tries to convince him he’s been tampered with, that it’s shadowplay. He threatens to tell Soundwave and Megatron lets him. He tells him to do whatever he wants, as long as he leaves them alone — unless, of course, he’s content with listening to an invisible orator. And so the panther slinks back into the dark resentfully, muttering to himself about how the mighty Megatron’s gone mad.

He has, hasn’t he? 

08. She remembers nothing except the ocean, cold and majestic. Where she emerged from the tides — and he notes that her predecessor, their goddess of love, was also born out of foam — flush with the sheen of the sea. 

Then is grief born out of the sea? Megatron thinks. Did the Olympian create it at the same time she created love?

No. But people fight for love and love to fight. So love married war. She explained. The dyads then became synonymous.

And is that what we are? He asked her. A sequence of two, bind together to marry?

She smiled at him — bright enough to distract Megatron from the bone of her jaw that shifted from the movement. Until death do us part.

He wanted to laugh.

09. Terminus told him the ancient world was pitch black, and if anyone from today were to travel back in time to witness it, the emptiness would blind their optics if not drive them mad. A shadow so greedy that it crowds the air with its emptiness. That time, Megatron had briefly wondered if such nothingness existed. Yet, the same darkness had forged Solus: intelligent and beautiful, she was one of the first, flares of light. 

He thinks of the Prime as she offlines at the hilt of Megatronus' Star Saber. And even in her death, the last words she spoke were about love. Was that the start of the chain reactions that lit up Cybertron? Which of the two sparked the lucidity that charged life into the millions of dormant sparks? Her death or her love? 

(He has to remind himself that the same love killed her.)

10. The truth is symmetrical, cogs in the right places. Perceptor argued. 

Nautica rubs the side of her helm with both servos. Her tools, messy on top of the table.

Yes, but you see, we won’t be travelling in linear time. We’re planning to break free from that. If symmetry is your truth then where will that leave us once we go on a loop?

Something inside him hitched. Oh.

All optics were on him.

What? Rodimus urged.

Nothing. He lied. I didn't know we could get stuck in time.

That’s what happens when you don’t move on. Brainstorm shrugs. Time freezes you. So you have to learn how to melt it.

11. She says she feels cold. He assumed she felt nothing, numb as she fluttered her fingers experimentally on the shell of his armor. Numb with the same indifference she had with the lack of oxygen aboard the ship.

He didn’t stop her, trying to etch the feel of her curious touch. It felt like nothing, feather-like and ghosting across the surface like a stray draft of wind. He has to mentally fill in the gaps himself, and if Megatron thinks hard enough, he can pretend the warmth exists. That it lingers and clings to him.

Her fingers run along the ridge of his chin and the underside of his palm. Yet he's still not enough to chase away the cold. 

No matter how hard she tries, her kindness has no source in his stout and unyielding world. And so he is left to wonder what it would be like if she didn’t oscillate in and out of time and space. To feel her, whole and alive, would be mercy. That would be unfair.

Time and time again, he'd ask her: why are you here?

I'm waiting for my husband. She'd tell him, small against his open palms. We're going home.

Megatron feels as if the air compresses when she speaks.

Where is home? He'd ask her. Intake dry as he swallows salt.

The darkness of his habsuite doesn’t seem to touch her features, which appear bright, as if a private sun were hanging above her brow. She'd motion for him to come closer and brush her tiny lips against his. It felt like nothing. She was a shadow that had casted herself across his face.

The sea.

12. Megatron observes the little trinkets littered across Rung's office. They were tidy and upright, great big ships, each marking well-known voyages and exoduses. He imagines them cutting through the galaxy's undercurrent, great, metallic sails, reeling through the vortex of nothing.

Then he catches it, the small, black figure tucked away at the top-right corner of his shelf. 

Rung turns around in his chair to follow his line of vision.

The humans call it a raven. Of course, they don't come in the same size. They're small, as are all things Earth.

Laserbeak is sleek and sharp. Sentio-Metallico down to his core. Yet this bird — the real one — is a void with shadows. Slender beaks made of meat, and bone for claws.

Humans called them omens. 

And who would gift you a warning?

The psychiatrist looks out the window, round-rimmed glasses, clever under the light.

I don't remember. He lies, and the next time Megatron enters his office two days later, the bird is nowhere to be seen.

13. If she is born out of the sea, then that must make her a siren. She still hums a tune he’s never heard before. And it did lure him. And when Megatron tells her this, she shakes her head.

But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.

Cybertronians don’t cry either. He told her. And the look she gave him was withering as if he had trapped all the light and left her to sit in the dark. He was, after all, empty if not made of black holes. Is that why his spark feels heavy all the time, dense with the magnitude of his sins? And when the weight becomes unbearable, he tears himself apart, and with it he cuts through the fabric of space. The anti-matter was now leaking out of his optics, crawling past the sutures, wringing him iode by iode. 

Someone was calling him, but he couldn’t hear. The forcefield was cracking, shattering with him.

It was excruciating. Yet amidst the throes, he feels it, the light-headedness, the gradual rise and lull — in a way, he was crying. Maybe he was also made of oceans.

14. Megatron found a flaw in her story. Love didn’t marry War, and before they eloped, Love had married Creation; Solus has always been fond of metallurgy. That was her alchemy. And Venus used to seek refuge in the fire of her husband’s forge. Yet she was unhappy — why is that?

Why was he?

You could have been a creator. His corpse bride mused. That’s why you wrote.

I still do .

Do goddesses feel remorse? He thought maybe she didn't. War seduced her. And she had let him corrupt and penetrate and ravish. Megatron reminds himself it was symbiotic; she loved his wrath and his power. The Sun was their witness, and he claims she was unhappy because Creation was unkind to her. So she stared into the abyss.

And Megatron understood.

He thought of staying idle and evanesce under the mines, private and forgotten, without having dented the surface of his homeland. Now they tell stories of him, and his name is forever carved into the macrocosm. If not by words through wounds. And as the universe ages into senescence, will the pain — which echoes and expands like the gases under Croteus 12 — continue to bleed through generations to come? 

Outside, he could see the field of flowers. Ebullient blue, swaying gently with the wind. With the sun on the horizon and dusk to chase away the chaos of the night, Megatron stared at Terminus, worn and confused — and refused.

This won't be my legacy .

15. In another life, she promised, you could be a creator .

And what will I create ?

She was small, so small that he had to lift her up to his face, where she could make a motion to hug the side of his cheek with her body.

(Destiny had always made him feel small, she even more so.)

Love. You will love me.

He supposed that’s possible. He wanted, once a very long time ago, to be a medic. And maybe he could even be an explorer as he was aboard the Lost Light. Searching for lost things. Searching for her.

The blue, luminescent light above him flickered. And even higher above — two, three levels up in the sentencing chamber — the jury was deciding his fate. Footfalls chased away the sound of the sea. And so he pulled out his Rodimus star, crumpled and yellow, sitting in the middle of his palm. 

She smiled sadly at that.

And will I love you well ? He asked.

You know you will. 

16. It’s like falling asleep. She promises.

He was falling into recharge, but the word sounded garish, rough. Sleep sounded more like drifting. Sinking. She was there when he laid across the slab, where the monitors beeped and chirped as they pumped fluids into his cable — and he let them, drawing the curtains close.

She tells him to inhale, teaching him how to breathe. (The juxtaposition of it all made him smile inwards.) And when the air rushes past his intake, he could taste it again. The pull, the push, the hum of the great, big tides. They roll and crash into the sand, disappearing into froth. He dreams of standing across her, now at the same height, face to face.

No longer was he her resting ground to haunt. 

On the branch of a tree that appeared above him, a raven swooped down. The beating of her wings, tumbling through the mist.

My dear , the creature spoke.  He belongs to the gardens with the rest of my brother's creations . You belong to the sea. With me.

His bride was pleading, telling her that life has parted them, so it would only be right for them to be joined here.

And as if pausing to give her words a thought, the Raven turned to the west and crowed. Though you may not remember it, we have been here before. It will only be fair if I would send you both back. But know that the end stays the same. What is mine is mine, and what is my brother's is his.

Megatron doesn’t dream, but now he lives in one — where reality is no more than a distant memory, an echo from another, linear time. And so the ferryman lets Megatron guide his bride atop the boat, so they can sail out together, into the sea. 

17. De ja vu , she called it. A memory she had lived through before, even if it wasn't hers.

We are traveling in a loop. It's true. The quantum jump had worked, and now they all live in a forever dream, conjured up by Brainstorm and Perceptor's simpatico. The Earthling ran a nervous hand down the creases of her clothes, hesitant with her next question. Yet, Megatron was patient. (Waiting, it was as if they were both used to that.)

I think we met in a previous life. 

The glass atop the tabletop gleamed, and in the space of Swerve's bar — where the bartender was too far away to intrude — Megatron could hear the song of the ocean. There was no point in lying. He did come looking for her. And here she was, whole.

I think we did.

"And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea." — Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe

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[sprite-writes]

all I want for christmas (is you)

Leonard “Bones” McCoy/Reader (Original Female Character)

Summary: McCoy finds himself wrapped up in the Enterprise annual gift exchange, and for some reason, this Christmas gift feels a hell of a lot more important than just a Christmas gift. 

Maybe it’s got something to do with who it’s for. 

Word Count: 6,463

A/N: guys I swear this was suppose to be a 2000 word drabble for the holidays but its a whole chapter now idk, I hope you enjoy! as always special thanks to @lightning-writes

“Lieutenant, is there a reason you haven’t drawn a name yet?” 

“I need to feel all the papers! That’s how you pick the best one– duh.” She swirls her hand around the bowl once more, rubbing the notes between her fingers. Spock stares patiently. 

“Is there a best one to be picked? My understanding of the secret Santa tradition was to be given a random partner.” 

“There sure is, and it’s... this one!” she says as she finally plucks the blue sticky note. “It was calling to me.” She unfolds the paper like it's about to self-destruct, and it reveals its neat loopy handwriting.  

 CMO McCoy 

She blinks. 

Oh. Leonard. 

She blinks again. 

It’s Leonard! 

She laughs to herself, and Spock raises an eyebrow. 

“I assume you’re happy with your choice?” 

Her heart beats a little quicker. “Oh, definitely.  I told you I had to feel all the papers.” She smiles and rocks on her heels. 

I’m Leonards's secret Santa!

Spock nods politely and returns the bowl back to himself.  “Thank you for your participation, Lieutenant. I hope your exchange goes well.” 

“You too, Spock! Merry Christmas.” 

She pats his shoulder and returns her gaze to the piece of paper. Spock makes his way back to his station when something settles in the pit of her stomach. 

Oh god, I’m Leonards's secret Santa.

-

“I’m not doing a gift exchange.” 

“Bones, hear me out.” 

“No.”

“All the other senior officers are doing it, Even Spock!” 

“And? Good for them.”  

Leonard doesn’t look up from his PADD, and Kirk fitfully shakes the bowl of papers. 

“What will it take for you to do this?” he pleads.  Leonard halts, his eyes narrowing, and his hands folding on his desk. 

“What are you offering?” 

When Kirk sighs, “I mean, whatever if it’s reasonable,” he knows he’s got Kirk right where he wants him. 

“You show up for your next two physicals, get up to date on your vaccines, stop flirting with Nurse Walker – then I’ll buy someone a candle or something.”

 Kirk glare,s but it does nothing to deter his friend. 

“ I think Walker really likes me—“ 

“Jim.” 

“Fine! Fine, you win, just pick a name.” 

The doctor rolls his eyes and plucks the first paper off the top of the pile. It’s yellow, and he hopes to god it doesn’t say Spock.

 It doesn’t; its pristine sharpie work stains the paper. 

Operations Manager A. Sunshine 

He stares and squints, all while Kirk watches him intently. A tight, nervous feeling begins to bloom in his chest. 

Sunshine. Christ. 

“Well?” Kirk prompts. Leonard folds the paper again and shoves it in his uniform pocket. 

“Yeah, I got it,” he waves Kirk off. “You can leave my office now. Not like I got patients to attend to or anything.” 

Kirk laughs, and it’s blindingly bright. 

“I’ll leave you to it, Bones. Remember - two weeks until the exchange!” 

Two weeks until the exchange. God help me. 

-

“Okay, what about a jacket? Or a sweater?” 

“Nyota, we wear a uniform every day. When is he gonna wear a sweater?” 

Sunshine paces back and forth on the sidewalk, chewing on her nails. They’re an hour into their recreational shore leave, with four stores under her belt, and she’s no closer to a gift. 

“You want my help or not?” Nyota crosses her arms and stops Sunshine in her path. 

“Sorry, I’m being mean, aren’t I?” She receives a pointed look. “I don’t mean to, I just really want this to be…”

“Perfect?” Nyota finishes.

 “Perfect?” Sunshine repeats the word, rolling it over in her mouth. “No, not exactly. I just want it to be…  right? I guess? I feel like there's an answer, and I’m just not seeing it.”

She sighs. The entire endeavor begins to feel a bit hopeless, and she wonders if she's doomed to just be the shittiest secret Santa the enterprise's annual gift exchange has ever seen. She imagines Leonard's face opening a sweater he’ll never wear, feigning appreciation, and her stomach flips. 

Nyota locks her arm with Sunshine’s and gives her all the seriousness she would a Starfleet mission. “If there's an answer on this starbase, we’re gonna find it.” 

“You think so?” 

She smiles, “Not a doubt in my mind.” 

-

“Bones, you can’t just get a woman makeup, you have to know her shade,” he plucks the tube of lipstick from Leonard's hands, whose eye twitches. 

“She wears this color every day, Kirk.” 

“She does?” He examines the tube. “Oh, yeah, I guess she does. Still shouldn't get it for her though, what if it’s not her brand?”

“Her brand?” 

Kirk looks at Leonard like he’s a child asking perpetually asking why. 

“Yes, Bones, her brand. This stuff is very elaborate.”

“Well, I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas,” he hisses, shoving the lipstick back into its holder like it offended him. Kirk shrugs. 

Leonard wants to scream. From the moment he unwrapped that damn yellow paper he knew this would be a disaster. Why couldn't he have gotten Chapel? Or Sulu? Or Chekov? Or even Kirk? Instead, he gets Sunshine, who he can't bear to disappoint with the candle that's been sitting in his bedside drawer since two Christmases ago. She deserves more, a lot more… he just has no idea what more looks like. 

“This is impossible.” he concedes, his hope having run dry after four stores and three makeup departments. 

“It is not, we just need to get creative. I think you’re looking at this wrong, Bones,” Kirk begins to weave his way through the retail-maze. “You’ve got to think more… Sunshine. Not just some generic Christmas gift.” 

Kirk's words make their way around his head, and unfortunately, he has a great point. Perhaps, maybe, there is a tiny chance that he was carried away by the daunting expectation of what a holiday gift should be. The answer is staring him in the face now - he isn’t getting a Christmas gift, he is getting a Sunshine gift. This, he could work with. 

“You might be onto something, Jim.” He snaps his fingers. “With me–I’ve got an idea.” 

-

 Sunshine has always been partial to mint chocolate chip, and it's not like there's much of it in space. So, the cone in her hand is indeed a necessity and not a distraction. 

“No more pit stops after this,” Nyota says,  sweet yet stern, as she holds the door open for Sunshine. 

“I completely agree, so quit trying to get us sidetracked,” she quips and takes a long lick of her mint chip. 

Ever the patient one, Nyota rolls her eyes with a smile. “So sorry, Lieutenant. I'll try to stay on task.”

Sunshine laughs,  links their arms, and they walk down the strip. The impending sugar rush raises her spirits, and she is more than ready for the next bout of stores. 

“Okay, so I'm thinking we stop up here and try--”

“Oh, look, It's Jim and Leonard,” Nyota says casually, and nervousness shoots through Sunshine.

“It's what!?”  Sunshine hisses, her head shooting left and right for a store to dive into. It’s too late, Jim is already waving, and nudging Leonard, who does his polite little half-wave—awww.

“Shit, it’s too late, we were seen,” she sucks in a breath. “Okay, okay, act natural, Nyota. Don’t give anything away!” 

She lobs the rest of her ice cream in the nearest trash, straightens her clothes, and skirts backward until her back is against the nearest wall. She has just enough time to pull Nyota next to her and prop her foot against the wall before the pair approach—and just like that, she’s as natural as ever. 

“Hello boys,” she hums. She doesn’t even spare them a glance at first, choosing to stare at her nails, and be incredibly casual. She’s met with silence and the prickling feeling of someone  staring at her. 

They all are. 

“Er—hi, Sunshine,” Kirk says slowly, like it's a question. She inches her gaze away from her hand. Kirk has that crease between his brows that he gets when he’s thinking, and Leonards's arms are crossed over his chest, and suddenly this interaction is anything but natural. She plants her foot back on the ground. 

“Everythin’ alright?” Leonard asks, in his concerned doctor voice that she knows all too well. She prays the interaction is salvageable.

“Of course it is, everything is normal, as it usually is – right, Nyota?” She juts her elbow into her friend's side, who does not take the gesture kindly. With a hard glare, Nyota nods. 

“Just enjoying the day off,” she says tightly, and Sunshine envies her talent for socializing. 

There's a suffocatingly awkward pause, where Sunshine sweats and looks at anything other than Leonard – who, in turn, stares at her like he’s trying to solve a math problem. 

“Well, uh, we should get back to it, I guess,” Kirk breaks the silence, still confused as ever. 

“Yeah! Yeah, of course, us too,” she blurts, and pushes herself off of the wall, “Have fun! Be safe! See you at work!” And with that, she's locking her arm with Nyota once more and hauling ass away from the two. She walks so fast, they’re out of earshot in seconds. 

“You know that went terribly, right?” Nyota says flatly.

“I do, and I’m willing to take some of the blame.”

“Some?”

“Most of the blame, maybe,” Sunshine cringes. “It really was that bad, wasn’t it?” 

She knows the answer already, but instead of a hearty yes, Nyota bursts into laughter, and keeps laughing until Sunshine joins her. 

“It was terrible, awful,” she says, trying to catch her breath. “You’ve really got it bad, huh?” 

Sunshine giggles, and leans on her friend. “Ha, got what bad?”

Nyota pauses, curiously observing her friend's seriousness.  “Nothing. Here, I’ve heard good things about this store.” 

--

Leonard stares at Sunshine's back as she retreats, thinking about what the hell he just watched unfold.

“Any idea what that was?” Kirk asks, his head tilted so far, he could hurt his neck. 

“Not a damn clue.” 

--

Another hour passes, and Sunshine is close to hysterics, and the shopkeeper is hearing all about it. 

“So, I pick the name out of the bowl,” she brandishes the crumpled blue paper, “and I’m like, ‘oh, perfect’ because, like I said, we’re great friends, like super close, but now, I actually have to get the gift. And it’s impossible! Everything is too ordinary or not thoughtful enough or just useless! We’ve been at this for hours, and I’m at my wits end here.” Sunshine’s legs swing from her place perched on the countertop. 

“So, this friend of yours,” the assistant manager, Tina, begins, “he doesn’t have any hobbies? Or interests?” Customers pass, and Sunshine sighs.

“Hobbies? Not really. I mean, all we do is work, and he works a lot– did I mention he’s CMO? Yeah, I mean, he’s passionate about his work! He loves being a doctor, he acts all jaded about it, but he’s actually a huge softie, loves helping people.” She pauses and sucks in a breath, while Tina nods like she’s keeping up. “He doesn’t love doing it in space, though. That’s what he’s mostly jaded about. I mean, he did his dissertation in med school on deep space diseases, so it makes sense but –” 

“Well, where’s he from?” Tina interrupts. 

“Oh, he’s from Earth; I am too.” Sunshine points to Nyota, who is rifling through the cologne section in her stead, “So is my friend.” 

“You know, there’s a little earth-themed shop just around the corner…” 

This piques Sunshine’s interest, and it fills her with hope. 

“Earth-themed?” she repeats. Tina nods while she restocks the shelf behind the counter. 

“It’s an antique shop; they have trinkets from everywhere but mostly earth. Maybe you’ll find something there?” 

Sunshine grins, and she feels a weight being lifted off her chest. “Tina, you’re a godsend, thank you so much,” she hops off the counter with renewed vigor. “C’mon, Nyota! I think we’ve got our answer!” Nyota is halfway through the stack of samples in her hand when she’s rushed out of the store. She fleetingly wonders why she puts up with this. 

—

Leonard barely looks up from his PADD the entire way back to the ship. It takes Kirk, attached to his side, to weave him through crowds and assure no accidents or injuries. The enterprise is quiet upon arriving, and Kirk is ushered into Leonard's office.

“Alright! Game time, Bones, tell me whatcha got,” Kirk claps his hand on Leonard’s shoulder—it reminds him of a high school football coach. 

“Right, we’re gonna need to abuse your authority. “ 

“…for a Christmas gift?” 

Leonard rifles through his drawers. 

“Well, what else would it be for? Listen, go ask the head nurse–should be Nurse Bennet– tell her you need access to the medical imaging equipment, and grab the camera in Drawer B, got it?” 

“Uh, yeah, I guess?” 

Leonard shoos him out of the room. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he uses the moment of solitude to clear his head. 

He really hopes this isn't a stupid idea. 

—

In the antique store, Sunshine elects to not sit on any of the countertops. 

The entire place seems fragile to her, with shelves lined high with old-world things she didn't recognize and floors littered with boxes. It was eclectic, to say the least. To say the most, it was downright cramped. And tiny. 

Definitely no countertop sitting for her. 

Her eyes trail across the room, and she gets an odd nostalgic feeling, like she isn’t quite in space anymore. It feels like her mom's old house.  The feeling sweeps her up like a hug, and she almost forgets why she’s there as her eyes roam. Nyota recenters her with a nudge and points to the back of the store. 

“Hello!” Sunshine calls and catches the attention of the man behind the register. He’s older, with deep smile lines, and an overly large coat. He looks kind, she thinks. He waves in return for her hello. 

Nyota slips between two shelves, already scouring for ideas, while Sunshine approaches the shopkeep. 

“Somethin’ I can do for you?” he asks, his accent familiar, and strikes her with a sudden longing feeling. 

“If it's not too much trouble, I really need some help finding a gift for my friend,”she says, uncharacteristically beginning to feel shy. “And there's a bit of a story to it too, if you have the time.” 

He stares at her curiously, and she hopes she hasn't overstepped. 

“Sure.” He shrugs. 

He gestures for her to come around the counter, and she can see a wooden chair peeking from behind it. She accepts his invitation and makes herself comfortable in the old-looking wooden rocking chair. Dust flies from it when she sits.  He continues counting the register and waits for her to begin. 

“So,” she fiddles with the blue sticky note that has lost its stickiness, “I joined Starfleet like, a little over a year ago, and there's this Doctor…” 

—

The captain clears his throat and clears it again, running a hand through his hair because he’s just not sure what to say. 

“So, I gathered you both here for a reason, which is very important… but I also cannot provide much information about why it’s important - very… classified stuff,  but I assure you-” 

Leonard is too impatient for his own good, and he’s rolling his eyes and grumbling mere seconds into the captain's fake speech. 

“I’ll take it from here, Jim,” he interjects, “I can’t watch you flounder like a fish out of water anymore.”

The captain's patience wavers, but Leonard takes no mind to this. 

“Henly, Donavan, stand next to each other and smile. We’re doing a Starfleet scrapbook or something,” he says, voice filled to the brim with sarcasm. He brings the camera to his face, and the two girls look at one another with confused, pinched faces.

“We don't have all day, Ensigns,” he mumbles. Henley and Donavan turn their confused frowns into tentative smiles, and he snaps the picture. He throws a thumbs up their way. 

“Great. You’re dismissed.” Leonard turns around, sights set on their next stop already. Kirk, however, scrambles to leave this interaction on a politer note.

Kirk calls, “What he means is thank you so much for participating ladies, and you look great by the way, can’t wait for you to see the scrapbook!” but they were already retreating, whispering and giggling to one another.  He sighs. 

“So, now that I’ve abused my authority for the sake of a Christmas gift, do I get to know what the gift is?” he demands. 

“We’re not done abusing your authority, just so you’re aware,” Leonard says pointedly, “and fine, but we walk and talk.” 

That’s fine with Jim, he’ll walk wherever, talk to whoever,  if he finally gets to know what’s going on. 

“One year, for Pam and I’s anniversary, she got me this holoframe, piled high with a bunch of pictures of us. The thing’d flip through them all day, like a highlight reel while our marriage fell apart.” Leonard stays five steps ahead and doesn’t look back at Kirk. It’s an odd place to be vulnerable, the enterprise hallways, and Kirk has no idea how this fits into anything. 

“Okay…”

“I hated the damn thing. Not the sentimental type, but what you said, about getting a more, Sunshine gift, somethin’ clicked,” he snaps his fingers. “Can’t think of anything she likes more than the crew, and I’ll go out on a limb and say she’s the sentimental type.” 

Kirk pauses thoughtfully and suddenly feels touched by the gesture that isn't even for him. 

“So, we are making a Starfleet scrapbook? But of all Sunshine's favorite people?” 

“Do not go around saying we’re making a scrapbook like we’re a couple of grade schoolers.” 

Kirk catches up with his friend with a newfound dedication to this endeavor. 

“Sorry, holoframe,” he grins. 

—

Sunshine and Nyota are both perched behind the shop counter now. Sunshine slumped down into the rocking chair, Nyota rested on the arm of it. 

“...after I told Tina all of this, she sent me here and said maybe you could help—oh, well, actually, she never said that, I just sort of roped you into this on my own accord, sorry about that– but, on the way here, I wrote down this list of facts about Leonard to maybe help find him something?” She pulls out a crumpled receipt with sharpie on the back. 

“You brought…a list?” the shopkeep drawls, and it makes her blush. 

“Yeah it’s—I thought it might help,” she says sheepishly.

“She is very prepared,” Nyota supplies with a comforting pat on her shoulder.

“Alright, then let's see it.” He holds out his hand, and she lays the receipt flat on his palm. It feels like she's handing something over much more important than the record of her ice cream purchase, but she doesn't put her finger on why. 

She waits as the man reads, and she rocks in the chair. She thinks about what a whirlwind of a day it's been but still feels at ease. 

“He’s from Georgia?” the shopkeep finally says. She perks up. 

“Yeah! He’s, like, a country boy,” she cringes. “Well, like, he's from the country, he grew up on a farm, I just don't know what the actual word for it is.” 

Thankfully, the man just chuckles and doesn’t correct her. It's a win in her book. 

“He ever miss home?” he asks, eyes still on the paper. 

“Oh, only all the time,” she scoffs, “ he’s really not a fan of space.” She buzzes with excitement— she can tell he’s onto something. When he finally speaks, Sunshine has to restrain herself from leaping up and hugging him right there in the store. 

“Yeah, I think I got a few things he’d be interested in… Georgians ought to help each other out anyways.”

—

Three fake emergencies and six photos later, both men are exhausted. 

Leonard hopes no one enters the rec room for the next hour. He fears the image of him and the captain sprawled on the couch looking through photos of various crew members may be hard to explain. 

“Are we done now? Please tell me we’re done.” Kirk shifts, really he wiggles, to prop his feet on the chair beside him. Leonard fiddles with the camera as he replies. 

“Just waiting for Uhura to be back from shopping, and that should be it.” Kirk sighs and sinks lower into the couch. Since starting this whole thing, Leonard's anxiety has grown steadily, like a snowball rolling down a hill. Aside from the task of wrangling crew members, and then inventing explanations for his actions, the real challenge is convincing himself that this is even a good idea in the first place. He thinks about that tube of lipstick, and if it was her brand, and wishes this whole thing could be simpler. 

“Do you think Spock’s still mad?” Kirk asks, and Leonard barely hears it over his own thoughts. 

“He’s forgiven you for a lot worse, I wouldn't get too wound up about it,” he replies absently, hands still fidgeting. “Y’know, Jim, I appreciate you running all over hell's half acre for me. God knows you didn't have to.” 

“Bones, I have no idea what that means, but you’re welcome.” His friend smiles, and it quells some deep nervousness. “Totally gonna be worth it, anyway,” Kirk adds.

Leonard isn’t all that sure what he means, but still, he agrees.

“Yeah, I think it will.”  

 Leonard doesn't see the smirk on Kirk’s face, nor does he pick up on the mischievous cadence of his voice, or even the way they're on completely different pages. Kirk thinks perhaps that's for the best.

—

The gift sits on her desk for three days before she wraps it. 

She carefully maneuvers her work around it, avoiding touching the object like it was some precious gem. On occasion, her eyes would drift to it while she sits in her quarters, and her cheeks would heat without reason. She makes an effort not to think about it too much or get too excited, and to definitely not touch it. She finds lately that a bit of effort is required to get her mind off of many things related to the CMO, and it takes even more effort not to think about why that was. 

She wraps the gift on the day of the exchange—because it's the easiest way to avoid thinking about it.

—

Leonard gets the damn thing out of his sight as soon as possible. 

The gift had been finished – pictures uploaded, running on a ten-second loop – hidden away in a gift bag, out of sight out of mind. He is protecting his peace—leaving it out in the open will only restart the cycle of doubt in his head. So, he pulls doubles, up until the holiday party, if only just to get his goddamn mind off of this stupid exchange he shouldn’t have ever done in the first place—

He works until Chapel won't let him in the medbay anymore, and when she doesn't, he slots his time with other tasks. Hell, he even wonders if he should’ve gone back for the lipstick, the day after they leave the port. He goes as far as to bother Nyota about it, who waves him off and tells him she's sure Sunshine will love her gift—her reassurance helps more than he anticipated. 

He almost gets himself to forget the whole thing, lost in the medbay chaos, until he feels the scrap paper crushed in his pocket.

The gift stays hidden away until just a few minutes before he has to meet her, and his palms sweat when he picks it up. 

—

Lieutenant Jameson calls out the day of the holiday party— Dakitoan Flu. 

Without much choice, Sunshine takes his rounds. She doesn’t think she’s ever completed a task faster in her life. Complete is even a strong word—it's more like half-ass. She’s all too aware of how she’ll have to repeat most of the work again tomorrow, correcting her own mistakes. But she doesn't care. She’s been stressing out about this party for two entire weeks, she’d be damned if she misses it. 

When she does finally rush to the rec room, the blue-wrapped gift in hand, there are few people left, and her heart sinks a bit. 

There's a Christmas tree in the corner of the room, with only one present left beneath it, and a few red and green ribbons are strewn about. She spots Spock first, already wiping down tables and cleaning up the festivities. He catches her eye, and he must see how her posture is wound tight with nervousness—or her pink cheeks, or her frazzled hair, or the way she obviously ran here. Spock doesn’t quite smile, but his gaze softens in some way she doesn’t see often, and he nods toward a table in the far corner. She follows, and—

Oh! It’s Leonard!

Spock gets a double thumbs up for his help. 

Leonard sits with Jim, both of them with glasses of some dark liquid in hand. She wishes she could have had a drink before this. She smoothes down her hair before she approaches. 

Kirk notices her first and smiles — it reminds her how nice it is to have someone in her corner.

“Sunny! You made it!” He cheers. She grins back and lets it sink in, yeah I did make it, and the thing she’d been fussing over for weeks is finally coming to an end.   

 Leonard is much more reserved, he always is. He sees her, and his posture relaxes—he does that a lot. Almost like he’s holding his breath for some reason. 

“Captain, Doctor,” she greets the two, still catching her breath. “I’m sorry I missed the party, you have no idea how insane my shift has been —I mean, no idea, but it's over now, and I’m so glad I caught you guys.”  

“We had to convince Spock to leave the Christmas tree up until you got here, he’s been cleaning damn near since the party started,” Leonard tuts, and she laughs. 

“Aw, I’m glad he did…” She looks at the pine tree, which is bare of ornaments and lights, and raises her eyebrows. 

“Well, he sort of did,” Leonard amends. “It was a compromise.” 

“A compromise that leaves me with putting the decorations back in storage, so I’d call it more of a trade,” Kirk complains. 

“Master negotiator, huh?” she teases and has every intention of teasing him more, maybe even calling Christmas his new Kobayashi Maru, but she waits a beat too long.

“Anyways, Jim, don’t you think you should be getting to it?” Leonard says, as if the conversation didn’t just start. 

Jim doesn't say anything at first, just stares at Leonard while Leonard stares at him. It’s all very… intense, she thinks. They exchange pointed looks like they’re engaged in a silent conversation– actually, she’s pretty positive they are. Awkwardness begins to prick at her skin. 

“Is there something—”

“Wow, I didn't even notice the time, better get to it, just like you said,” he springs to his feet with alarming speed. 

“Oh, do you have to go?” she asks with disappointment.

“I do, duty calls, or something.” He holds her by the shoulders looking at her with enough intensity to make her squint. “Have fun,” he says meaningfully, and smiles, and then, he's gone, leaving with a friendly pat on her back. 

She hesitates a moment before taking Kirk's seat. 

“Is he…okay?” 

“That's a loaded question,” Leonard deadpans, and despite her confusion, she laughs. 

“So I have something-”

“Anyways, there's this-” 

Their sentences crash into each other,  and they both freeze. 

“You first,” she offers. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just purses his lips and avoids eye contact. 

“Just—Don’t move, I’ll be right back,” he grits out and leaves her at the table. It's abrupt and leaves her wondering why this interaction is going like this. She wraps her arms around herself and waits. 

Behind her, he picks up the last present left under the tree, which has been waiting there for her all day.  Yellow bag with yellow paper stuffed inside.  He places it on the table, and sits back down, hands wringing together. She wants to ask what's got him so worked up. 

“I’m your secret… Christmas person or whatever the hell it is,” he grumbles and doesn’t meet her gaze. Not until he hears her stifle a giggle, which then bubbles into a laugh.  She doesn’t mean to, but the whole thing just comes together too perfectly for her to contain herself. 

“You’re my Secret Santa?” she asks, alight with excitement, and he nods at her slowly. 

“Yeah, if that’s the name—” He’s cut off with another laugh, and she eagerly puts her gift in front of him—blue paper with a blue bow. 

“Leonard, I’m your Secret Santa!” She beams, “We picked each other! What are the odds?”

He stares at her, then at the gift, and says quietly, bewildered, “What are the odds?” 

She doesn’t catch what he means, but she’s too excited to harp on it. 

“Well?” she prompts and inches the blue box towards him. “Are you gonna open it?” 

Curiously enough, she’s not nearly as nervous anymore. 

He blinks and shakes his head like he’s clearing his thoughts. “Yeah, yeah of course,” he says distractedly. 

He opens the box carefully, it's like he’s doing an operation. When he looks down at the gift, the gift, he pauses and gets this expression that Sunshine doesn’t think she's ever seen on him. 

“Len?” 

“Sunshine, is this…?” 

“It’s a postcard! From Georgia!” She grins, “A real one from Earth, It’s an antique.” She reaches over the table and taps on the glass of the frame in his hand. “See? There's a little stamp of authenticity. Isn’t that neat?”  

Neat. It’s about the neatest thing Leonard’s ever seen. 

She settles back in her seat. “I thought it might make you a little less homesick,” she adds, much quieter, as if the statement itself needed privacy. 

Leonard stares at the postcard. It's got a picture of a peach orchard, on a perfect summer day, he can tell by the blossoms that line the trees. Greetings from Georgia! it reads.  It looks like something he would have seen hanging in his Ma’s house. He thinks of the red door of his childhood home, and how the branches of his family's own peach tree framed it. The smell of his Ma’s cooking and the feeling of coming home— his chest fills with familiarity and longing. He stares for a while and doesn't say anything for even longer. 

He doesn’t realize he’s been silent until Sunshine clears her throat. It feels like he forgot he was on the Enterprise for a moment. 

“Sunshine this is…” Damn near perfect. “Nice. Thank you.” He says it and cringes. There's so many more feelings and thoughts under the surface. He wishes he could make a sentence out of them. But Sunshine, like she knows his inner thoughts, accepts the weak compliment like it's the best thing she's ever heard. 

“Aw, Leonard!” She tucks her hair behind her ear and flushes – or maybe it's the lighting. “I'm so  glad you like it. You have no idea the hell I put Nyota through to find it.” 

He’s not sure what Nyota had to do with it, and he doesn't ask either. “I’ll thank her too then,” he says weakly, but he definitely won’t. With a deep breath to quell his nerves, he pushes her gift toward her. 

“Your turn,” he says with bated breath. 

Being so wrapped up in her own Christmas shopping, she almost forgot she gets a gift too. She tears through the tissue paper with the same unrestrained excitement she had picking her secret Santa just a few weeks ago. 

“I still think it's so crazy we got each other, this makes the gift-giving thing like, ten times better,” she tells him. He nods curtly, and she can tell he’s wound tighter than a spring–or at least that’s how he would say it. 

“Relax, Len, I’ll like whatever’s in the bag– heck, I’d like it even if you gave me a rock.” 

She dives her hand into the bag, the tips of her fingers touching cool metal. At first, she has no idea what she’s looking at. A… little screen? A flat little screen with a cool blue border? She opens her mouth, a question on her tongue, when— 

“The power buttons on the side,” Leonard says. He doesn’t give her a chance to move, leaning over the table and clicking the button for her. 

The screen comes to life with a picture of Sulu and Chekov, both donning awkward thumbs up… and is that in Kirk’s room? She blinks, and it changes again, this time to Scotty and Keenser sitting among a mess of wires in engineering but smiling brightly nonetheless. Another second passes, and she's looking at Spock and Nyota, sitting beside each other in the rec room loveseat looking equally poised yet annoyed. Sunshine laughs before she can stop herself. 

“Len is this—?” The picture flickers again, and the sight of it stops Sunshine's words in their tracks. It's Leonard and Jim, on that same rec room loveseat. Jim’s practically beaming—face lit up and an arm looped tightly around Leonard’s shoulders. Leonard, shit. He’s got that soft and reserved smile on his face—like the one he has when he talks about home or his friends, where his eyes are just filled with this warm something. 

Sunshine’s face turns hot, and her chest becomes unbearably heavy with emotions. 

“Leonard, this is so fucking sweet—” She cuts herself off with a wet laugh, and she realizes she’s got tears in her eyes. 

Leonard, however, looks mortified, as he watches her face become red and tears fall down her cheeks. 

“Shit—Damn it, I’m sorry—You weren't supposed to cry!” he stutters in a panic. Sunshine laughs again and hiccups over it with a sob. 

“They’re happy tears, Len!” she insists, wiping her cheeks. “This… I think this is the nicest gift I've ever gotten.” She can’t bring herself to look away. The pictures are just the slightest bit grainy—like the camera her mom used to take pictures of her. The thought starts the waterworks all over again. 

“It is?” 

She sniffles, scrubbing her tears with her sleeve. As Sunshine traces the edges of the frame, and watches the photos loop again, she knows for certain this is the sweetest, most thoughtful gift she's ever gotten. She thinks about how curious it is that it's from someone she’s known only a year—a coworker, no less. 

Then, she thinks, maybe, it's not all that curious at all. 

“We should do this every year,” she tells him. She’s positive, actually, that, as much of a headache as this exchange has been, she would do it again in a heartbeat. 

“Secret Santa?”

“Yeah, but not so…secret next time, and… just us, maybe.” 

She doesn’t look at him when she says it, for both their sakes. 

“Sure,” he says, and she can hear the tightness in his voice. “I’ll try not to make you cry next time.” 

She laughs, “No, do it! It’s more fun that way. Maybe I’ll make you cry.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

He seems less nervous now, like his smile is coming a bit easier. 

“We should get going before Spock sticks us with the rest of the cleaning,” he says, gathering the discarded paper from the table, “and I know you had a long day, Jameson told me you covered for him.” 

She doesn’t want to leave, but she knows he’s right. She wonders if he feels the same pull to stay.

“Yeah, but it’s fine,” she tries to say casually.  She leaves her chair as he does. “You know me, I don't mind.” 

“Doesn’t make it a good thing, you pull about as many doubles as—”

“As you?” she interrupts cheekily, and he rolls his eyes with a smile. 

“Yeah, as me.” 

The paper goes in the trash, and they’re left with nothing to do but bid each other goodnight. It’s the last thing she wants to do. 

“Thank you again, Len. The pictures—It’s perfect. I love it.” She tries not to cry again, mostly for his sake. 

“No problem, and you too,” he tells her simply. His cheeks are still tinged pink, and seeing him hold the present she labored over in his hands, with all that warmth in his eyes, it's almost more than she can stand. 

Fuck it. She thinks to herself, and before her nerves can stop her, she wraps her arms around Leonard's neck. It's an awkward angle, and she has to pull him down to her height a bit—and she’s still got the frame in her hand and everything. As far as hugs go, it's not great, but in other ways, it's perfect. Leonard doesn’t react for a moment, but finally, his arms encircle her waist, after a fair bit of hesitation. 

It’s really nice, she thinks. 

“No, really, thank you,” she says into his shoulder. The fabric of his uniform is soft, and she can smell his apple shampoo. 

“You too, Sunshine,” he mutters. The sincerity in his voice feels nearly tangible. Leonard pats her back, maybe because he feels awkward or maybe because it's time for the hug to end; either way, she lets him go. 

“Have a good night,” he says, and he can't quite meet her eyes. 

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she answers softly.

They share a long parting glance, as they head in opposite directions to their quarters. 

Unbeknownst to the pair, their senior officers are perched just around the corner. 

“...and he knew her shade, Spock. The exact shade of lipstick she wears. He was so… dedicated to the whole thing. I half-thought he might give her a candle or a necklace or something but this?” 

Spock nods thoughtfully. “She treated the exchange with similar enthusiasm, from what Nyota has told me.” 

“You’re a genius for setting this thing up,” Kirk shakes his head, “even if I did have to copy Sunshine’s signature on 20 different sticky notes.” 

“Well, it was your influence that caused me to—”

Kirk waves him off. 

“You don’t have to justify it, Spock. Hell, everyone can see how bad they’ve got it for each other. Can’t blame you for wanting to move it along.” 

“Indeed they do, Captain.”

#leonard mccoy x reader #Leonard McCoy #james t kirk #star trek #star trek alternate original series #reader insert #on a cloudy day #bones x reader #original female character #star trek imagine #Idc that they dont celebrate christmas in space #they do now #spirk