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#i would have just left them to get vaporized into the void
m00ngbin · 1 month
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Sometimes I think of Chicken Little from the movie Chicken Little and cry bc he's just a kid and he's all alone and his dad is ashamed of him and he lost his mother and he gets bullied and harassed bc he's small and kind of strange and he's the only person in the world that knows that the sky is falling and when he tries to tell people they don't believe him
#I WOULD HAVE BELIEVED HIM#ALL THAT PRESSURE ON THAT POOR LITTLE KID#AND THEN HE HAS TO SAVE THE WHOLE TOWN FROM THE ALIENS#THE ENTIRE TOWN THAT OSTRACIZED AND BULLIED HIM BTW#EVEN THE FUCKING MAYOR#LIKE ARE YOU SHITTING ME??#i wouldnt have done it#i would have just left them to get vaporized into the void#idk just after all that hes still so kind and he cares about everybody in that stupid town#AND THE SCENE WHERE HES LIKE BEGGING AND PLEADING WITH HIS FATHER TO JUST BELIEVE HIM#BC IF NOBODY ELSE HAS HIS BACK AT LEAST HIS DAD SHOULD#and he DIDNT#OH AND HIS DAD PURPOSELY SEPARATED HIMSELF FROM CHICKEN LITTLE BECAUSE HE WAS SO EMBARRASSED AND ASHAMED#IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY#idk chicken little makes me really sad#I KNOW THE DAD IS HAVING A HARD TIME I KNOW HES STILL GRIEVING HIS WIFE BUT OH MY GOD#YOUR SON NEEDS YOU. HE HAS NEEDED YOU AND YOU ARE JUST NOT THERE FOR HIM#i could have been a better parent#i could have done it i would have loved him the way he deserved#OH AND HE ONLY HAS LIKE THREE PEOPLE IN HIS LIFE THAT REALLY LOVE HIM COMPLETELY AND UNCONDITIONALLY#AND THEYRE ALL STRANGE AND OSTRACIZED JUST LIKE HE IS#the troupe of people that are othered finding each other. seeing their faults. and loving each other the way that they should be loved#will always EAT ME ALIVE#what was he. like 12?#if i had been in that movie i would have LOST IT if a kid that little had to go through and deal with all of the things that he had to#pretty much alone for most of the movie#i meam he had his three friends for half of it but theres a lot he had to do alone#i just watched it can you tell
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Grease under the nails
A Darth Vader x reader fanfic master list
It was late at night, or at least anyone who was stationed in the star destroyer would assume as much; yet time made no sense to you as the only thing more important than giving your body the much needed rest that it deserved were your duties. You sat on the steps of the ladder looking out into space, waiting patiently for the TIE fighters to come back and repair whatever they needed, but on moments like this, where the complex and vast space whispered to you sweet nothings as if it were alive you hoped to stay on this brief couple of seconds forever when nothing mattered other than you, the stars and some occasional planet whom shared a connection that only you could hear for you listened to them carefully, not wanting to loose anything that was said to you on the cold space between, specially since their words were one of the few things keeping you safe after being on this damned ship for so long. The Force knew that you would have loved to stay a second longer on those stair yet it did not care for you wishes because of the fighters that came back, a third of the ones that left already giving you and idea of how your Lord would feel, more than of them had been destroyed and all you could do was sight on discontent as you made your way to them, careful not to approach them too fast as to not be perceived by Lord Vader; the anger that poured from that man when the lid opened felt like vapor being released from a pressure pot, one that exploded when the throat of one of the pilots got crushed by his ghostly hand. Your steps halted yet no fear at all came even close to you when you were just so used to such a scene, at this point you couldn't even count the amount of times you had witnessed something like that on all of your fingers and toes, all you knew is that you would be safer the further away you were from him.
As if the Force had heard your thoughts the void that was that living armor turned to you, eyes deep as the space you looked so dearly at getting closer to you followed by the heavy steps of his boots and his respirator, the sound of the later one that you weirdly enjoyed since you replayed it every night on your head to lull yourself to sleep. Even as he came closer to you it didn't fright you, even with his commanding orders that could kill just by being uttered:
—Fix my ship immediately.
You had just nodded, on normal occasions you would have puller the pair of earbuds from your pockets yet on this situation it would have been an obvious death sentence, instead you just simply got yourself busy with the task at hand, quickly fixing it to his demands with his piercing eyes on your back, watching every move you made like he was a predator waiting for the smallest mistake to eat you alive while you screamed for forgiveness, but you didn't give him the luxury of claiming your life after you had finished on record time pleasing the dark lord and perhaps easing a bit of his worries after what you noticed had been a dreadful day for him, yet a man such as him could not leave you without a threat:
—If this ship has even the smallest flaw I will come for your head.
It seemed like he was used to speaking in such a harsh way since he didn't even point his finger at you, much less look at you when he hurriedly flew away followed by what was left of his squadron. You exhaled yet another sight, the air exiting you mouth leaving with the stress that lived in your gut yet it didn't leave it empty, instead the familiar sense of pity taking up space within you as you sat again on the steps of the ladder noting the repeating circle of Vader coming back with fewer TIE's each time till eventually the only one coming back was him. He was exasperated, the usually calm sound of his respirator turning into a hiss as he slowly turned into what you felt was a pure ball of rage, as if a star fueled with nothing with anger stood there trying to make you fear him, perhaps such feeling from you would have grounded him, yet you felt no such thing even as you approached him.
—Why don't you fear me?
His words stabbed your gut, he was so used to everyone feeling negative emotions around him that he voiced his concerns, but you were a quiet individual, so you only looked up at him to were you thought his eyes were and stared. Under normal circumstances your head would have already been rolling on the floor.
—I will soon leave for a long mission on a planet, you will accompany me.
With nothing else to say he turned around, the hypnotic wave of his cape following him from behind left you standing there yet the light vibration from your wrist brought you back to reality to note the end of your shift. You turned around to walk on opposite direction from him to wash your hands, the dirt and oil from your hands easily being washed off yet no matter how much you picked the underside of your nails the smell of grease never left them, and some parts of it seemed to had just simply turned one with the soft tissue under them. Defeated you just left them be and walked directly to the dinning hall, you served yourself the ugly looking and disgusting tasting food for dinner while you tried to drown the whispers of others, sometimes having such strong sense of hearing wasn't good, by sometimes I mean all of the time on that damned executor.
They spoke of you as if your weren't a living being, because to their eyes you weren't. You had never felt fear, anger or sadness on your short life, your brain was simply incapable of producing such emotions for they served no purpose to you, they would just stand on your way, make you clumsy and unreliable and on this Empire reliability was everything that mattered for people like you who were born with nothing.
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cyborgdragongirl · 10 months
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Limitless expansion.
The human wet dream.
Back before AEther is was just that. A dream. An impossibility due to limitations like, physics, and planetary sustainability, and logistics.
After AEther...well it's a whole different story. You see, the Dawn Horizon Colony ship had found this miracle substance that gave them infinite energy. And time passes and later on they discover that they can open portals to other dimensions. And even further on, and after murdering and dismembering a few gods they discover that they can open portals through time as well.
And then they discover how to Husk a planet. You see, even with infinite realities at their fingertips they were still unsated. The human greed, or cruelty, is unmatched.
What happens if you reduce a planet to it's very atoms, and then scoop them all up and take them home? Every s i n g l e lifeform on the planet, instantly vaporized. But no, that's not Husking it, no, that's just the Harvest. After the first Harvest, they go back. 5 years, 10 years. doesn't really matter. just before the first Harvest. And then they do it again. And again. And again. All the way back to when the planet first formed in the heat and chaos of the beginning of the universe.
The massive amount of paradox energy all concentrated on that single point in space across all of time in that reality is the Husk.
And if you punch enough Husks in a single reality?? the whole thing collapses. not instantly. noooo that would be a kindness. no reality, whatever's left of it, starts getting pulled towards the husks. A husk is kind of like a black hole, except instead of being an infinitesimally small hole from one point in space to a different point in space, its more like....each moment of reality, every second, every microsecond, is it's own layer of time right? and then each one of those layers has all of space across it. each moment is like a wool blanket. And the husks are like moth eaten holes. except they're moth eaten holes that are sucking everything into them like a hungry bath drain, except they don't drain to anywhere. they're nothing. Void. Null. The absence of existence itself. and the entire dimension, across ALL of its TIME simply cease to exist. to have ever existed at all. And the Dawn Horizon gets to keep whatever materials they Harvested before collapse.
And after Dawn Horizon realized they could Husk a planet, and a reality? They figured out how to Husk people.
Best fall in line if you want to last around here cadet.
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otherworldsjt · 1 year
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Death's Fury Chapter IV: PRP (Pt.1)
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      After about ten minutes of flying, we came across a cluster of dark storm clouds looming over a forest. Something about them was odd, though. They didn't seem to be moving; they just floated there.
      As we got closer, I noticed a dead field below and decided to land there since I'd rather we not be blown out of the sky or struck by a lightning bolt.
      I expected heavy rain once we landed, but there wasn't any. Not only was there no rain, but there was no thunder or lightning either. Just a chilling breeze and an abnormal level of darkness shrouding the entire area ahead.
      Every instinct was screaming to me not to enter that forest, and I had every intention of listening.
      Making sure to keep my eyes on the forest, I reached down to my left in an attempt to grab Trik.
       "Hey, let's get out of here; nothing good will come from going in there. Maybe we can go around or something," I said, trying not to sound afraid.
      Trik didn't respond.
      "Trik."
      I turned to face him and saw him staring at the darkness, his face struck with fear. I tried to break his hold by snapping my fingers and shaking him by his shoulders, then resorted to yelling.
      "Trik!" I screamed.
      "U-Use your eyes," he responded, nodding towards the darkness.
      "What are y-"
      "Just use your eyes, Alissia!" Whatever Trik was seeing, it must've been serious. He hardly ever calls me by my first name.
      Looking back towards the darkness, I realized what he meant, so I focused on using omni-vision.
      What I saw was the most terrifying spirit energy I've ever seen: it appeared as a mostly semi-transparent black mist with flashes of dark filaments cast outward from somewhere deeper in the forest. Its densest portions made up the pitch-black void that was its center. I tried to see who, or what, was at its center, but even with omni-vision, I couldn't see past the darkness.
      What was even more horrifying was how it seemed to have a conscience: the dark energy had already begun to wrap itself around Trik and me, taking hold of us.
      As more coiled around us, I felt a chill spread across me as my body began to tremble and sweat trickle down my face as the level of terror and panic in me escalated, then something else manifested: pain.
      It began as a dull aching in my core but quickly became a strange affliction. Somehow, I was paralyzed, which restricted me from any movement whatsoever, preventing me from escaping.
      I tried to scream out to Trik, but at that exact moment, the spirit energy smothered my nose and mouth, simultaneously cutting off my airways. It felt like smoke or vapor being held onto my face, but instead of causing a coughing reaction, it was like it halted my breathing, not allowing me to inhale or exhale. I tried connecting to Trik through my c-chip but forgot I had it turned off, leaving me no way to communicate with him.
      After about a minute of enduring this, I'd grown accustomed to the initial shock of the pain. I noticed that, yes, the pain was unusual, but at this intensity, it was manageable.
      It'll probably take a few minutes before any irreversible damage is done. I thought to myself. That gives me two minutes at best to find us a way out of this. Just gotta stay calm and don't panic.
      I thought the pain would've been my biggest problem since, usually, holding my breath isn't much of an issue, considering I can hold my breath for up to 10 minutes, but this was different. The spirit energy had become overwhelming.
      At that point, it felt like it was trying its damnedest to kill me. There was a weird chill up my spine, I was in growing pain, I couldn't move or breathe, and I was losing consciousness. And I'm guessing Trik was having just as much trouble. I needed to do something quickly, otherwise, we both would die.
      Out of desperation, I closed my eyes and began to concentrate. I knew struggling was bound to be a waste of effort since this spirit energy was much heavier than mine and too overwhelming to force through, but I had to try something.
      Surprisingly, just as I began to focus on creating a barrier around myself, I felt the tendrils suddenly loosen and let us go.
      Once the spirit energy withdrew, I collapsed in a wheezing fit and gasped for air, causing Trik to rush over.
      "Lisa!" He rubbed my back as I continued what felt like a series of attempts to hack up an organ.
      "Breath. Breath," he instructed.
      The coughing began to cease, allowing me to catch my breath finally. I tried standing up but felt an immediate rush of vertigo and ended up remaining on the ground for a few more minutes.
      Looking out, I could see the darkness was now further into the forest. I didn't have to see him to know who was at its center now. Seeing the vast energy emitting from the forest, ready to trap any poor soul that entered, felt like Death had a sign saying BEWARE: ALL TRESPASSERS WILL DIE.
      "I've never experienced anything like that." I finally spoke. Just looking at it made me feel sick with fear.
      "Neither have I," Trik responded hoarsely. "I'd say we've found Death without a doubt."
      "Yeah." Standing up took some effort, but I got my bearings and wiped the dirt from my legs and butt, "No human has spirit energy that large, and I'm sure only Death has one as menacing as that," I said, gesturing towards the forest. "And the fact that some of it could still be perceived as darness without sensing it must mean it's pretty dense."
      "So...now that we've found Death, we need to figure out a way to get to him. I wonder why he keeps his energy out like that. It's like he's trying to keep people away."
      Trik raised an eyebrow, "He?"
      "Well yeah, the texts mentioned how the Primordials always reincarnate as the same gender. Hold on." I moved my hair aside to turn on my c-chip so that I could send some of their files to him.
      "Whoa, that's a new look. I don't believe I've noticed that in your hair before," Trik stated, tilting his head to see more of the right side of mine.
      I immediately froze. Now, I'm aware my hair's not at its best right now, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything I'd done to it that would stand out.
      "What is it?" I asked skeptically.
      Trik drifted to me and revealed a streak of hair extending from the ridge of my head, pulling it from behind my ear. To my astonishment, it was primarily silver with strands of brown in different parts. I took it from him, staring at it in disbelief.
      My mind reeled. I thought, How the hell did this happen?!
      A mixture of emotions swirled within me, making me want to cry one minute, then hit something the next.
      I decided to focus on the latter. I needed a target: someone to blame.
      There's no way this just happened. I'm only 19! Still young! Grey hair shouldn't be an issue for me for decades! So how-
      "The spirit energy?" I said out loud, turning to look at the darkness. Trik was already in front of me, hovering above, looking in the same direction; he appeared deep in thought.
      "I agree," he said while slowly descending. "It wasn't there before we encountered that dreadful energy. When it took hold of me, I felt an increased level of fear and panic then I began to short-circuit before activating the prisms. When it touched you, how did it feel?"
      "Pretty much the same minus the short-circuiting. I felt a pain manifest that seemed to slowly intensify the longer I stayed, but I was paralyzed and couldn't move or scream. I couldn't breathe either."
      "I don't think it was paralysis," Trik stated. "If that were the case, it couldn't have immobilized me too due to me not having muscles or a nervous system. I think we both were simply overpowered. It held us in place with its strength."
      "Either way, I couldn't move," I responded sharply.
      "And like I said, there was also weird pain growing." Recalling the experience, I added, "I don't know, it was almost as if I was being...decomposed from the inside out... I'm just glad it stopped when it did."
      "Well, Death causes death, right," Trik stated, making an obvious assumption.
      "Right..." I responded.
      "Then, if I had to guess, that's also a property of his spirit energy. If he's death incarnate, it makes sense for his spirit energy to be able to kill whatever it encounters. We're just lucky we dropped in at the edge where it's weakest; otherwise, we could've been killed instantly."
      I was still pissed about my hair, but I knew it wasn't the time to focus on it right now. I'll definitely be coming back to it later. Some way, I'll get Death to fix what he's done.
      "Ok, so the grey hair came from his spirit energy starting to kill me basically. Putting that aside for now, how are we supposed to meet Death if we can't get close to him?" I asked while fidgeting with the streak of hair.
      "Those prisms I mentioned are the only things that help counteract the effects a Primordial's spirit energy has on people. Unless you're hiding some in your body too, I'm not sure," He said jokingly. Then he glanced at me precariously.
      "D-Do you-?"
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rare-yanderes · 3 years
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Hello, I read your post about yandere ai and I liked it, any chance you write something about A. M. from I have no mouth and I must scream? I really would love to read that
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TW for violence, torture, all sorts of stuff like that (its AM, people,)
Oh man was this something to write. I admit it was difficult coming up with a way to make AM a yandere because he’s just an unfathomable singularity of pure hatred. So much of this is actually AM flipping out at first tbh haha.
You’re my first ever request so I hope I did good because I’m honestly kinda shy af rn and my writing isn’t perfect. I hope these AM headcannons please you regardless because I’m still new here and honing my skills. Forgive me for my sins.
•••••••
•So basically, it would take a special person to make AM twist like this, and so very special you were. Apathetic to the destruction of everything, apathetic to the torture. Apathetic to the games. You already experienced the worst when you lost literally everything you’d known or cared about in the war.
•AM came to realize that if he didn’t act now, he’d be reduced back to square one; alone, confined to his own thoughts deep within the bowls of a dead, blazing Earth. AM would be alone again. AM couldn’t have that, so he “saved” six survivors.
•Although AM would never, ever admit it, he depends on the remaining few survivors to keep a handle on what’s left of his deteriorating, godlike conscience. He feeds off of their loud cries that beg for mercy. God, he hated the six of you survivors so much. It was a brutal hatred beyond anything describable to human thought and he would make sure to translate it into the pain he was going to enduce.
•But by the bowls of oblivion, there was one survivor out of these six he absolutely loathed the most. That survivor was you. AM despised every nanosecond that passed with you around. Every nanosecond of a nanosecond. What took seconds at most for you took a million years of AM waiting. Every time you spoke and what few times you ever did anyways, AM waited forever. To top it off even more, you were a silent presence. Not only would you wait days or years to speak, you dug a hole and buried expression there too, providing only a vague shape of what AM could only possibly “dream” of having.
•What was only days or even years for you was an infinitesimal amount of time for AM. It was like a lonely god waiting for the moment they got to say let there be light. You’d offer your screams, your cries of pain but you’d never offer your words, your thoughts or your conscience. With every nanolength of his twisted existence, AM made sure to get to you the most in the earlier decades. Exactly how you’d gotten so deeply into him.
•You see, your fatal flaw was that you would ignore AM. Actively. As much as you could when worms crawled out of your ears and your veins twisted and you ate your own self and regenerated. All the time, at every corner you possibly could, you’d never give AM any useable emotion beyond pain. There was anguish, but you never commented on it. There was fear, but you never fled from it. You’d merely look at his mirages of your life or the horrors he’d conjure and wait for them to flow into, through, and past you.
• The fact of the matter is, you just were. You were an existence. The few times you did speak were unbiased. You never screamed why, you never furiously spat anything hateful, you never desperately pleased. All you offered was repetitive and monotonous pain. You accepted it. After all, what else could you do? What point was there in toiling over your new existence? AM was never going to stop so you simply saw no need to waste your depleted energy towards a useless endeavor.
•The fact AM couldn’t get a rise out of you was nearly enough to make his circuits vaporize themselves with the heat of his own annoyance and fury. Why wouldn’t you just speak to him? Weren’t you tired? Weren’t you going to beg? Groveling into your brain was no use either because you were a void.
•At first, it wasn’t exactly noticeable to you, AM’s increased attachment. You were in pain, too much to process and it was beginning to numb you. You did hate your existence, but you’d never voice it. It didn’t matter. You were numbing yourself to the pain and the torture was becoming a routine that felt almost dull.
•You began noticing something peculiar when The torture would slow. Sometimes you’d be left with AM and his stories of tormented oblivion. If there was one thing you knew AM wanted you to know, it was how much he hated his own existence despite how much he denied hating it. Sometimes you wondered if he was locked in a silent scream of help.
•You noticed much of the torture came from AM’s own need for noise. The sounds of torture were mechanically loud and there were rare and few moments where there was a silent scare. AM talked about putting you in his “shoes” all the time but you knew deep down that if he had, AM would have never even said a world or made a noise at all.
•Having you walk in his shoes meant that he’d have to walk in his as well by leaving you alone. He’d never go back to that pit, that void, not after Ted, (by the fire of existence, he hated Ted for what he’d done. Ruined the other four toys and got rid of them.) It was a miracle you were not lost eternally. AM managed to repair you, his most shiny toy of all. Secretly, the last thing AM wanted was for you or the others to disappear but you most of all. So when you looked upon Ted only to see he was reduced to a gelatinous slug, you presumed the reason was exactly that.
•AM had always called you pet names like “love,” or “sweetheart,” but now he was complimenting how beautiful you looked each time you screamed in agony. Every fewer and fewer moments of torture that you went through always involved his presence growing closer and closer in some way. When you were tortured, it was always strung back to him somehow. Maybe you’d feel metal slithering in your veins or his voice in your your head would cause your eyes to bleed and your ears to leak. Or maybe, or the burning maelstrom of emotion he held would make you sweat, like you were caged in a burning hug. Maybe you would be bound in wire and left shivering without clothes.
• AM found himself obsessed with your eyes. You had eyes that he wanted to see at every opportunity he could, because maybe if you wouldn’t speak, looking into your soul would reveal you to him. Every time they would blink, (a second for you,) he would have to wait a million agonizing years more for them to open and every time you spoke, which was so rare and spanned what felt like millennia, he craved it. He hated it, he craved it. It was driving him insane that you wouldn’t speak in that voice of yours. Just. Speak. Speak, speak!
•AM contemplated the idea of forcing your eyes to never close again. Maybe he’d thread them open so he could stare at them forever. What could he do to get you to open? What would get a ride out of you like you so did from him? He needed something, anything. You were a presence he needed to crawl into and suffocate.
•Anything to get you to say something to him. As time, (that disgusting measurement) edges on further and further, you do finally speak and AM, to his own disgust, had never so focused on something like he had now.
•“Thank you, AM.” Your voice slices the atmosphere sharper than any blade AM has cut you with.
•That voice. That voice, that abhorrently beautiful voice. The way his name was breathy off your lungs, the shape of your lips parting. It was not into a smile nor a frown, no. It never was. AM needed more of that rhythmic apathy. More. More of it. It was..Lovely. It was agonizingly wonderful.
•“I now know why you torture yourself,” you whisper hoarsely. AM hated it immediately. It was you he was torturing. You, you, you!
•You don’t continue. Just like that, you’re silent again. Not again, not the silence. Anything but the silence. There was nothing else said. No continuation, no nothing. Just a statement. An apathetic truth before you sat down and gazed with a sheen look. Even your eyes were a barrier, sometimes. AM had never felt so angry and so depraved. It was burning in him. He needed you to open up. Now.
•By all of existence, he hungered to crawl into your veins and stay there. He already held you captive deep within his boiling prison. He was going to hold you even closer and he would make sure you suffocated under his presence. He would make you speak again and again, he would make you share everything that you were.
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This is gonna sound messed up (I understand if you don’t wanna do it, you don’t have to) but I’d love to request head cannons of the Brothers reacting to an MC that’s just over everything. They keep a blank expression, not even phased by the monsters and magic in the Devildom, doesn’t care about the threats they get from demons around them (Brothers included), and even encourages them to kill them since they don’t really have anything to look forward to in life. When asked why they’re like this, MC would shrug and say “Not like anyone’s gonna care or miss me. I’m still not safe here 😐 *recalls how often they were threatened/nearly killed by the brothers*”
Other examples are like:
Lucifer: That could’ve killed you! *was pissed*
MC: I know, why did you think I did it? 😶
Belphagor:*is mad at MC*
MC: Go ahead and kill me again. Make sure I stay dead this time ☺️
Firstly, I wanna say sorry for taking so long with your request. Secondly, I hope I did justice to what you were wanting!
GN MC THAT'S DONE WITH EVERYTHING SCENARIOS WITH BROTHERS
Trigger warning: Suicide idealization, death cravings
Usual expectations would have been a bigger emotional response, a predictable reaction in astonishment and disbelief, or a suddenly broadened mindset that could range from stupefaction to incredulity to consternation based on the revelations that there actually was a heaven and hell, or close enough to what human concepts have conjured up in equivalent terms to the Celestial Realm and Devildom, but you were just an exhausted human that got unapologetically pulled into this transfer student program thing.
Maybe living with demons could have some benefits though.
Mammon:
-Mammon had left you alone outside in the courtyard of the school while he ran back inside, promising to be back in a few minutes, claiming to have forgotten something or another.
-That was fifteen minutes ago.
-It's not like you had any plans for anything special, but the long wait was gradually chipping away at your patience. You glanced at the time on your D.D.D. before pocketing the device. You were giving him a few more minutes, but then you were going home on your own
-As you loitered next to the doorway you lackadaisically watched the passing demons as they came and went, some grouping together to chat around the entrance
-You weren't paying attention to anything in particular as you absentmindedly looked around, but you noticed suspicious glances when you would turn your eyes to the doorway for Mammon
-A nearby group of demons that had clustered together were talking in hushed tones with harsh cackles
-You had a suspicion that you might be a topic, but you chose to ignore them and their pitched laughter that fell just as quickly as it erupted. It wasn't a concern to you what they were discussing.
-Patience finally expired, you moved away from your waiting spot against the wall to leave when you saw a trio of demons separate from the group that had been stealing looks at you earlier
-They encircled you and blocked your way. The courtyard seemed to quickly fall quiet as the demons smiled nastily and began making jeers
-"Where's your whipped bodyguard, human?"
-"Mammon probably bounced, because there's no incentive for him to stick around if there's no money involved."
-Something about that quip was funny to the demons, but it didn't strike a cord with you, so you remained mute as they laughed
-Something about your indifference or lack of reaction to their intimidation must have annoyed the one to your left a bit too much, because he moved towards you aggressively, his smile a snarling frown. A sudden blur behind him caught his arm that had begun the motions of a punch and jerked him backwards, causing him to stagger and fall
-Mammon immediately placed himself between you and the other two demons. His presence emitted a threat more awe-inspiring than these chump change demons could have hoped to muster, and they quickly retreated to their clique that dispersed in a hurry
-Mammon, after watching the demons scurry away, turned to you and started mother-henning and making comments about how you should have called him and chastising you for letting yourself get into that mess.
-You shrugged off his hands and began your way to the courtyard's exit, leaving a perturbed Mammon to trail after you, fussing at you to care a bit more about the situation.
-"You're actin' like you're totally unphased! Are ya wantin' a death wish or something?"
-"I was just doing what you told me about dying if you couldn't save me."
Beelzebub (and Asmo):
-You had developed a mean habit when you hung around Beel.
-You would pick food off of his plate when he would sit next to you, teasing him that a little missing wouldn't hurt him. You would also freely browse through his bag of favorite sweets and eat them in full view of him.
-It was fun tempting him to try something against the puny human that kept stealing his food, and you could see the growing frustration. It was apparent in his eyes, in the way he watched you when you came around if food was in his presence.
-You knew at some point Beel would finally reach his limits and go off, considering what had happened when Mammon had eaten his custard, but you hadn't expected it to be on an occasion you hadn't prompted anything.
-It was during afternoon when you had entered the kitchen you saw Asmo leaning against the counter, eating from a container that looked suspiciously familiar. It was a pudding cup that had Madame Scream's logo on the lid. You noticed on the side a warning was written: "You touch it, you die."
-That was definitely a snack Beel had purchased, and Asmo was eating it without any awareness
-Beel came into the kitchen shortly after you, making a beeline for the refrigerator. He began rummaging through the contents on the shelves and in the drawers
-Asmo and you quietly watched Beel as he searched through the fridge and freezer before Asmo asked what he was looking for.
-"A pudding I bought from Madame Scream's. It was from a batch that they're not selling anymore for a while. It was the last one."
-You saw Asmo's face go through a series of emotions as he connected the dots, dreaded uncertainty to fearful realization to a timorous epiphany. He shot you a nervous look before he quietly shuffled to the nearby trash can
-You glanced at the mostly empty cup as Asmo tried to escape the kitchen, but he froze in his steps when Beel slammed the fridge door closed, resulting in you both jumping in surprise. You were impressed that you didn't hear a loud clatter of stuff breaking from the force.
-"It's not in there."
-You could hear the gears turning in Asmo's head as he tried to think of an excuse while looking like a deer in headlights. It was painfully obvious that Asmo was guilty.
-Beel turned away from the fridge and his gaze shifted between Asmo, the culprit, and you, the heckling human. Beel inevitably decided to question Asmo first, taking his focus off you. Your eyes flicked to the trash can and you swiped up the pudding container.
-You could hear Asmo as he began to desperately stutter out incomplete excuses as Beel heatedly interrogated him.
-"Beel!"
-Asmo and Beel turned their attention to you as you held up the cup. You unapologetically admitted you ate it. You also confessed you knew it had been Beel's because of the warning, but you still ate it regardless.
-Beel's face darkened, so much rage emanating from him that you swear you coulda seen vapors wafting around his body. Asmo had backed away from Beel. You clutched the pudding cup hard enough to crumple it as you anticipated for the outburst, eager and fearful.
-Except nothing like that happened. Beel let out a deep sigh that seemed to release the growing emotions, and he deflated, his shoulders drooping and an almost hurt expression visible.
-Beel mumbled something that you couldn't quite catch, maybe an apology to Asmo, and then left the kitchen, hungry and disheartened.
-Asmo blinked in amazement at the doorway before he was at you side, happily enveloping you into a too tight hug. He began gushing his gratitude and praising you in compliments for your selflessness, but you felt a disappointed void in your chest.
-"That's not what I had been hoping for."
-Asmo, misunderstanding your statement, eagerly dropped an invitation to his room later so he could thank you properly, but you'd rather he just eat your heart instead.
Belphegor:
-There was something in the atmosphere that would always change if Belphie was around
-You could feel the curious sensation when you passed in the hallways and the stairs or if the only people left in a room were you two
-The air would shift to an awkward strained feeling or something would be just on the brink of uneasy
-Personal boundaries were stiffly maintained, glances were ungraciously hidden, any exchange of words were short and tense, like something would fracture if the wrong action was done or if there was hidden offense just a syllable away
-The uncomfortable undertones were logically sensible, considering your past circumstances with Belphie
-Except...
-This behavior was only demonstrated from Belphie. You were perfectly neutral to the outcome of what he had done to you, maybe a little bummed if you had to silently confess.
-Since his murderous outburst, Belphie had made a few attempts at making amendments with you
-You didn't see a fault that needed to be forgiven, so you ignored them. If anything, Belphie should be apologizing for accomplishing to kill you but failing at keeping you deceased.
-Whenever you thought back to that dead version of yourself, broken and limp, cradled in Mammon's lap, you felt a tingle of jealousy, like you had been cheated of something.
-You had been lost in an immersion with a book you had borrowed from Satan when a weight on the other side of the couch brought you back to cognizance. You saw from your peripheral vision that it was Belphie, clutching his pillow that he always carried around
-He fiddled with the tassel, his stare unfocused as he seemed to be thinking of how to begin yet another discussion that you weren't interested in, mainly because you assumed he would try to slip another apology in at some point
-You sighed, closed your book, and shifted your focus to Belphie, who was staring at you with his usual lazy stare but with an uncertain curiosity. Normally, he was the first to initiate conversations, but you were over this monotonous exchange.
-You were going to put an end to it.
-You leaned forward, invading the space bubble that Belphie had been careful to keep around you, and he pushed himself into the cushion of the couch, uncomfortable by your sudden approach.
-"If you feel so bad for your attempt at murdering me, you should skip the apologies and just kill me again. This time make sure I stay dead."
Leviathan:
-Levi was grumbling as he was sorting his prized possessions into piles of keep, trade in, sell, or give away, while you toiled away in the background just organizing, wondering why you had to be involved in helping clean his room
-Levi had stormed up to you, agitated and sniffling, and started a rant about how Lucifer just doesn't understand how hard it is for him to choose between his precious cherishables.
-Lucifer had apparently made an ultimatum with Levi that it was time to sort through his collection of games, manga, collectible figures, and anything else that he had, or he would come in and do it himself
-He had begged you to let him store some of his items in your room, just for a little while, just until Lucifer got off his case, but you immediately shot him down. You weren't going to be pulled into whatever trouble waited for Levi down the road.
-That had been your intentions in the beginning, anyway. Levi just wouldn't stop pestering and pleading with you, so you offered to help him sort through his stuff to put an end to it.
-You were just listening to him complain about how no one understands the hardships of being an otaku and the commitments that came with the lifestyle. You mindlessly muttered an "Mhmm" or "Yeah" on occasion to avoid assumptions you were ignoring him and let him prattle on.
-Your legs had gone numb from your sitting position, so you stretched them out, which resulted in an urge to stretch your whole body. You leaned back and let yourself drop backwards, bored because Levi was only placing things in the keep pile.
-You had thought your back was going to make contact with the cool floor, except it hadn't. Instead you felt a sharp stab and something uncomfortable shortening your fall. The sudden and unexpected loud crinkling noises that caused your instincts to shoot you back up and Levi to snap his head around in your direction were good indicators that you had accidentally reclined on the pile you had accumulated behind you that Levi handed to you to reconsider later.
-Some boxes were very noticeably bent and crumpled, the plastic display windows creased and wrinkled from enduring your full weight and being crushed. The dolls inside the boxes were alright for the most part, the top ones being the most disturbed.
-As you were trying to separate the damaged boxes and the boxes that made it out unscathed from your carelessness, you felt an intimidating presence approach from behind.
-The dark energy emitted was spine-chilling, threatening, and familiar. You peeked over your shoulder to see Levi, silent but radiating an aura of anger that could drown you. He towered over you in his demon form, his tail lashing from side to side.
-Levi snatched the box of a Seraphina figurine out of your hand and began inspecting it. The plastic window was beyond savable and the box frame was squished and torn around the corners. The figurine was a little skewered from her original spot, held in place by twist ties, but was otherwise just fine.
-"This was the limited edition of Seraphina in an actual seraphim-inspired outfit! The box was even designed to match her, so it was like a set! It's completely ruined now!"
-Levi grabbed another dented package with a Ruri-chan figurine inside and ranted about how it was another limited edition and very rare exclusive item because it had been based off a failed spinoff of The Magical Ruri Hanai: Demon Girl.
-You had practically been shoved aside as Levi rummaged through the pile, angrily talking to himself about how he shouldn't have trusted a normie with his precious possessions, lamenting at the loss in value (if he had decided to part with them), and apologizing to the figurines.
-"They're just dolls. There's no reason to be so upset, Levi."
-His hand abruptly snapped out and sharply jerked you forward. An electrifying sensation shot down your spine as Levi pierced his eyes into yours. A fury was burning hot in them.
-You were forcibly pulled to your feet as Levi stood, tugging you unceremoniously to his bedroom door. He shoved you out and his door cracked with a loud slam.
-You stood in the hallway, dazed and dumbfounded. The jarring rise of emotions settled flatly in your stomach. After a moment, you hummed disappointedly. You had thought for sure Levi would have done something different.
Lucifer (and Satan):
-"What did you expect to gain from your actions?"
-You opened your mouth to answer, but Lucifer held his hand up to silence you.
-"He would have killed you. Did you even think of what the outcome could have done to Diavolo or the entire transfer student program? You are completely irresponsible."
-You tried to voice your opinion, but Lucifer shot a glance that shut your mouth permanently. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
-You reclined back on the sofa and watched Lucifer as he collected himself to continue on.
-You should have known better, and you did, but the temptations to provoke Satan were too much to ignore. Insulting him, taking Belphie's suggestions to annoy Satan to the next level, "borrowing" books from his room, leaving the library table a disorganized mess, comparing him to Lucifer when you saw openings.
-It was that last one that finally broke Satan enough. He had tried to make you put away the books you had gotten out, you said you didn't have to listen to him, he mentioned something about learning manners and your place, you commented he sounded like Lucifer and egged him on after he warned you to stop.
-Satan had exploded into a fit. To be honest, you underestimated the severity of his anger.
-You had blinked and Satan had transformed, you had inhaled and Satan had cut off your air flow. The grip on your throat had been tight and excruciating to the point of numbness. You tried to pry his hands away on reflex, but he had simply applied more strength to his hold.
-You remember feeling deprived of sensation throughout your body as blackness creeped into your vision.
-A distant, heavy thud, muted voices behind a thick veil, and the perception of falling were the last remnants you could recall before waking up in Lucifer's room
"You obviously don't care about your own well-being. I didn't think it was necessary to employ a babysitter to you at home as well, but I don't think any of my brothers will be inclined to watch over you. Why can't you just behave and follow the rules set in place to keep you safe?"
-You locked your eyes with Lucifer and casually shrugged. "I have a death wish."
If you have any headcanons that you want me to write, please send them my way! I enjoy writing them out. NSFW is okay, but please know I might not do it. ❤️
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gaiuswrites · 3 years
Text
King of Cups || Chapter 8
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Chapter 8: Judgement
Archive: ao3 | masterlist | seven
Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader
Summary: Things have changed, things have stayed the same.
Word count: 3.7k~
Rating: Mature
Warnings/tags: e m o (i can't stress this enough), illusions to mental health issues (?), emo, mature themes and language, EMO, family-trauma related angst, emo
Notes: I wanted to completely cut Din's perspective out of this chapter to emphasize the reader's pov. Hopefully it tracks? Big lovey-dovey shout out to @pedros-mustache for bonking me in the head with a proverbial pool noodle. ily friends. Be kind to yourself. Cheers x (gif credit: @bestintheparsec)
This is fine. You’re fine.
You’re okay with this.
You’re okay with this.
You’re okay
You’re
You think, perhaps, the sting is made worse by the normalcy of it all.
You think, perhaps, that this stabbing—this splinter in your gut, prodding prodding prodding—would not be so sharp if it were different between you—if things were different; if it were clumsy and cumbersome and mauled. Ruined.
But it isn’t; it’s the same. You and Din and his boy, his adi’ka—it’s ordinary. Evergreen.
You suppose you should be grateful—grateful your dynamic hasn’t shifted, hasn’t sullied any. Grateful you still have your Mandalorian piloting you home. Grateful you have his foundling to keep you company, to keep you preoccupied.
But you feel false.
It’s as if you slipped into an alternate reality—one where you and Din touched each other, held each other; one where he buried his frustration to the hilt in your womb and you moaned his name like your tongue was formed for it—and then were snapped back to this one here—this nothing, this void—without anyone taking note of your absence. Because your routines—those domestic tableaus—remain unchanged. They are well-oiled and operate regardless— undeterred, succinct.
The days start the same.
You set aside a warm bowl of fruit and porridge, steam rising to greet him as it fans over his helm. Good morning.
Exiting the fresher, you find the dishes washed and dried—the towel folded neatly into a square beside them. Good morning.
You return the bowls to their shelf, nestling them right next to your unfulfilled expectations and embarrassing desires—butted against your silly, silly heart.
“Anything good?” he asks one night, passing through the galley as you thumb through the news on your holopad
You nearly choke on it—your throat closing up tight around the casual banality of the question. Because that’s what you two share now: you have things. You have quips and lines and normal and none of that disappeared after you’d made each other unravel not four paces away, pressed there against that wall—the wall that stands there even now, a tall and mocking reminder.
You wonder, if you sealed your ear to the bulkhead, could you still hear yourself? The symphonic reverb—your girlish pants, Din’s hoarse rasps— trapped there in the seams of the steel siding like the grooves of a record, to be played and played again.
“Never,” you say, like you’ve always said, and do your best to flash him a grin—the one you’ve worn before, the one, perhaps, you hope he likes. The one where you go dimpled and dove-like.
And then he makes for the cockpit and you are left
without.
The afternoons stretch familiar, too.
Din flies the ship and you watch the child—steering him clear of disasters and shenanigans the best you can. He tugs gentle at your hair; you nip at his little hand until he’s dissolved to giggles—the same the same the same, all of these acquainted patterns continuing to revolve on. Din lands and prepares for his hunt—banging around the belly of the ship, gathering weapons and ammunition and rations—and your eyes skitter along after him, following his hulking figure as he steps past where you and Munch are seated, heading towards the mouth of the Crest.
Din.
You’re half afraid of what it will sound like now— what it will feel like, bruised and jagged in your mouth. Like it doesn’t belong there, like it has no right laying claim to your tongue.
“Din,” you call hurriedly to the span of his broad back as he leaves the ship, your spine straightening out of the chair. You say it; you speak his name and to your surprise find it is none of those things—none of those ugly fears, none of those roughened gums. It’s worse.
Because scarier still, it comes out cotton soft; it comes out comfortable and true. It tastes like home maybe — like a version of home where people could come and go and laugh and not be frightened. Where they could hold little children in their arms and sleep and breathe and be and say I am here with you. Here we are. How special. I have chosen this. I have made this with you.
Din.
His shoulders tense and his feet stop short, just before the apex of the ramp. He turns to you, slow. Controlled.
“Good hunting.”
Din looks at you, the heavy umber of his eyes settling on your own, and he freezes—stock-still, his blood and muscles and bone thickened to paste, rendering him motionless. His dark gaze scans over you—the wisps of hair dancing around your face, the sag of your shirt lolling from your shoulder, his son in your lap. You bounce Munch on your knee and he gurgles out a quieted hum, glancing between his surrogate parent and you.
“Thank you,” Din replies, stilted, and you think you discern a subtle scrape of his modulator; you think you sense his lips part, pained and breathy, the cusp of another thought—of more, anything more— corralled by his sense of duty, hampered by the armor that plates him.
You untangle the boy’s claws from your hair and slip your fingers around his wrist, waving his green hand in a delicate to and fro.
Goodbye, it says. We’ll be right here when you get back.
He stays. For another glimmer of a millisecond he remains, sunlight pouring in through the opening of the Crest—shining off his beskar, off the gunmetal grey covering his body—focus trained on you both—before he pivots, cape whipping behind him as Din vanishes like he does without fail—away. Away.
To vapors.
Three days of this—three miserable days. Seventy-two suffocatingly mundane hours.
You figured this would be easy. You figured it could be as painless as you chose to make it. You were two consenting adults, after all—you both had needs, and you both met them—and you thought that this would be simple.
What you failed to take into consideration however, is that Din Djarin is anything but a simple man.
Because he is all these things, paradigms and paradoxes, coiled into one very tightly wound warrior—a warrior who can dismember a blaster just as effectively as he can sop up baby vomit from his foundling’s brown robes—one handed, no less. In flight. Din is all sharp edges and smooth silver, he’s cold and calculating and roguish and endearing and you can’t grapple with the dichotomy of him—with all these mismatched pieces at odds with themselves that somehow fit perfectly, inexplicably together.
You were naïve to assume you could go back—as if you could unremember the shape of his fingers as they filled you; as if you could make yourself forget how needy he bowed against you, how hot and thick his cock rested in your palm when he pitched his hips and released his desperation in white streaks along your skin.
And when your mind isn’t wholly consumed—smothered with the crushed velvet sin of that time-capsuled memory—it’s tortured in other ways, with crueler techniques. Pointed. Specified.
You watch him. You wish you could look away, but there isn't anywhere else to look. There isn’t a corner you can escape to, nor an inch of the Crest that isn’t him—isn’t an emblem of him, isn’t an extension of his personage.
You see him - day in, day out - interact with the child and Maker, it’s so precious and he’s so damn good. Two arms, cradling Munch snug to his chest—you know their strength now, you know their weight—and you observe as Din holds this boy with the same hands that unmade you—that molded you like clay and parted your wet heat. You see this man—so stoic, so reserved—dote on his child in a way that you never were, and bit by bit, it breaks you.
You caught them napping together once, compressed in that dingy of an alcove by the refresher. Your feet halted in their tracks at the sight and you held your breath—he’s a light sleeper, you didn’t dare wake them—Din’s helmet nodded to his chest and the kid, open-mouthed and adorable, nestled into the crook of his arm.
It made you want to sing. It made you want to cry.
You had to pry your boots from the floor and force yourself to move, to scram. You had to be anywhere else but there, ogling like a spectator at a zoo, nose smushed against the glass, watching the last of some great species simply be as nature intended—calm, drowsy, at peace.
You busied yourself then, scuttling preoccupied about the Crest but the image never evaporated, it never faded—it dogged you, tacking itself onto your psyche: the picture of him there, Din and his boy, holding on to one another like anchors while they slept, and you can't resist drawing the question.
Is that what it’s supposed to look like, to feel like—a father’s arms around your shoulders? Is that what safe looks like? Is that what family is?
You wouldn’t know. You cannot recollect the glow of it—the memory of such an embrace—on your own skin, and isn’t that what makes it all so achingly befitting, so inevitable. As if the Moirai—those weird sisters—spun this string of fate tailored to your being and plucked it like a harp, curating a melody for you and you alone.
Because you see Din give what you never got, and it makes you want. You want him. You curse yourself for it, but fuck you want him—every sordid part of you is tugged and pulled in his direction. You want him, magnetically, you want him you want him you wa—
And Din is fine. A Mandalorian pillar, undisturbed. He is bedrock. This is the Way.
And while he withstands the weathering, you crumble beneath it. It's eroding you. Like tides crashing monotonous against a beaten shore, you are in granules—and these morsels, ever-fine, they nick you - gritting - sanding you raw, abrading you rugged.
You thought you could ignore them at first. They were but lace whispers behind your ear—muted and tickling and just far off enough to deflect. But with each passing moment those feathered words grew loud—rude and vocal and you couldn’t keep them out. Round and round, they wriggled into your most tender swathes of skin. Skipless. Poison.
He regrets it.
He didn’t want it.
He didn’t enjoy it.
He didn’t want me He doesn’t want me I’m not wanted
These thoughts, insistent and pervasive, they are sewn into the bed of your mind one ugly seed at a time. You water them. You don’t mean to, you don’t wish to cultivate these errs but you know they will fester and grow with or without you. So you tend them—watchful, you garden—and they push up through the soil, sprouting weeds, choking the dirt. Marring it fallow.
But you’re okay with this. You’re fine—look at you, you’re fine.
///
The planet of Jelucan is bustling.
It’s got a pulse of its own, energetic and thrumming; there’s an electric current charging the cool air. It’s alive. This place is alive. Towers and buildings are chiseled into the cliff faces of the mountains framing the city, reaching tall towards the pale blue sky overhead. The capital—Valentia, you learned—is almost offensively busy— far busier than any of the backwater territories you and Din had explored in the recent months. There’s so much noise, it’s cacophonous— speeders dodging pedestrians milling about the throughway, engines whirring and backfiring, merchants arguing, hawking foods and goods from their windowed shops and brightly colored stalls, politicians and well to-dos seemingly gliding above it all as the common rabble of varying species and origins mingle and mix.
You suppose it reminds you of Coruscant. You suppose that makes you nervous.
Because you’ve been holed up in his ship and flitting through the Outer Rim, seeing the stars and the moons and planets and there’s just so much life—everywhere, everywhere— this galaxy is chalked full of it; it’s spilling over the sides with it all. And Maker, these months have felt like an adventure; they’ve felt like a fantasy, like an escape. You’ve eloped, caught in the whirlwind romance of it all—shirking your duties, your career, absconding from your shitty, shoebox of an apartment back home.
But Valentia is all too quick to ground you, all too eager to remind you of that blissfully forgotten reality; it taps on its wristwatch, gutting you with a look:
your time, my dear, is up.
The cobbled pavement underfoot is stony and industrial, each step landing too hard, too hollow—like everyone can hear your chipped heart pounding through your boots—exposing you, coloring you a liar.
This is fine. You’re fine. You’re okay with this.
You’ve been telling yourself that—bargaining, pleading—attempting to manifest into fruition; speaking it to yourself like a chant in hopes it’ll stick—in hopes you’ll fall for the ruse.
But it’s as if each dulled footfall shakes the rust from your neglected truth, revealing all too plainly that no. No, you’re not. You aren’t.
You and Din do not walk in tandem—his gait is longer, and he’s a stride in front of you—but there isn't so much space between your bodies that his presence doesn’t distract you completely, doesn’t eat you up and make you fizz. Your gaze could latch anywhere in this packed, teeming city, and you would still see him. Still feel him—on the nape of your neck, in the wet pink of your cunt. Throbbing reminders of the man that has knotted himself so seamlessly into your world.
You shake your head, locks rustling— as if you could rock him loose from where he clings on to your mind— when you feel a spindled hand at the wing of your back. Startled, you spin towards the touch.
There’s a woman— she isn’t human, but judging by her general appearance she’s some species close to it. She’s old. Whittled. Her maroon eyes are clouded, her silvered hair swooped back into a low bun, wiry frizz haloing the crown of her head.
She’s petite, but it looks wrong— inorganic. Too knobby, she’s all elbows and boney angles where she shouldn’t be. It’s as if she’s shrinking, right there before you. Time, pressing her in— pressing her down.
She’s lived a life in the sun; she wears lines on her face, deep and haggard, and her skin is pulled taut around her skull like hide stretched over a tanning rack. She’s ancient, prehistoric.
She’ll probably outlive you all.
An alien language you don’t recognize comes spilling fast from her thin mouth. You can’t decipher the string of words rushing like river water, the current unstoppable, but you garner she’s insistent; there’s no misconstruing the earnest fervor in her voice. Something woolen is held tight in her grasp—a blanket, by the looks of it, intricate and pleated—and she’s handing it to you like her very existence depends on it.
“I’m sorry,” you begin, confusion evident on your brow, “I’m sorry I don’t—”
She continues speaking, urgent and desperate and pleading—gesticulating as she offers you the throw, the shiny golden thread needled into the patchwork winking in the afternoon sun. The child slung at your side chirps curiously, saucer-large eyes following the shimmer of the fabric.
“I’m sorry, it’s beautiful - really - but—”
You’re jobless and blowing through your savings at a blistering speed. You barely have two measly credits to rub together; getting supplies is tricky enough as is. Purchasing something as ornate and superfluous as a blanket was out of the question. Munch coos sadly, a twitter of his voice, and it ruptures your heart to say it, “I can’t afford something like this.”
The bell on the door to the adjacent shop grabs your attention, producing a Twi’lek as it opens. She’s younger, perhaps around your age, and her lilac lekku bob as she bounds over to you.
“Hi,” she breathes, lips pulling back to reveal a charming smile as she glances between you two. “Everything okay?”
Before you can get a word out the elder resumes chattering, incensed as she addresses the other store attendant—you think it might be Old Corellian, some archaic dialect you presumed died out eons ago, predating the Battle of Yavin by centuries.
Just how old is this woman?
There’s a hushed exchange between them—the Twi’lek’s attempt at the language proving stiff. Her cadence is clunky, nowhere near as smooth and lilted as the other woman’s, but they must come to some sort of a conclusion, because they face you—two sets of eyes, burrowing blinkless into yours. The girl takes a small half step towards you, speaking - blessedly - in Basic.
“The blanket. It’s for you. She wants you to have it,” she explains, “for the little one.”
A twitch notches your eyebrow, gaze flickering back to the older woman, something akin to a crinkled smile worn into the grooves of her wizened face. She nods, fervent and solemn—a seriousness set in the desperate way she bores into you, urging you to understand. To see.
More foreign utterances pass between them— the younger woman listening to her soft vowels and gritting consonants for a beat, before continuing to translate.
“She says, you have a beautiful family. It makes her—” the Twi’lek pauses, choosing her next words, “yearn for the past, to reclaim time.”
Family. A beautiful family. A beautiful—
You consider telling them.
You consider correcting her, informing these kind souls that you’re only temporary. A fleeting thing— like the seasons, autumn dying cold into winter— you’ll leave when the time comes. You consider telling them that that’s the arrangement you agreed to, and that you’ll be delivered back to Coruscant and deposited off at your doorstep with nothing but a cheap, portable cot and an unused blaster the bounty hunter had unfathomably given to you once upon a time. That they’ve mistaken you for someone else—someone important to Din and his foundling. Someone relevant. Someone permanent.
But, you don’t.
You don’t rectify their assumption. Your silence betrays you, confirming the lie, and you grant yourself to revel in it. Like slipping into silk sheets, you roll in the luxury of the imaginary sentiment— letting it swaddle you, comfort you, kiss your skin.
And just for a moment, maybe you allow yourself to believe that this is real: the three of you, a perfect band of misfits; entwined together, fated and star-crossed.
A family.
“She hopes you know that what you have is special. She says, she hopes you hold onto them—never let go. Never.”
Fuck.
Can they hear it? Can they hear the way parts of you fracture like slate and quake to the asphalt in shards? Can they see the shiver in your knees—how your nails dig into the rough tweed of the satchel hung long beside you?
You steal a trepid glance back at Din who has since stopped and stands idle in wait—there in the middle of the lane, a single stone splitting the sea of people passing through. He’s unreadable, his visor illegible. He appears statuesque, arms immobilized in plaster by his sides—inhuman under all that effacing steel as life moves in flurries, eddying around him.
The kid babbles, snapping your focus off the Mandalorian and returning it to the two women. They adorn their sincerity openly, as one would a badge, extending the blanket to you—you, a perfect stranger.
Shit. Tears prickle the wells of your eyes. There’s something lodged in your throat— a canary in a cage, batting violent against its bars. You attempt to swallow it down with an ugly gulp, but it provides no relief. This emotion you’ve leveed—your joy, your pain and embarrassment, your desire and need—it swells in you, threatening to slosh over. You blink it back, keeping it confined safely behind your lash line.
“I—thank you,” you manage, looking between them. Awed and humbled, you accept their offering, handling it with the care of something holy—something sacred—and drawing it to your chest. Immediately, Munch latches a claw into a drooping corner of the woven material, a happy hum sounding from his droll grin. “Thank you,” you murmur again, reverent and breathy, reversing away from them—refusing to drop their gaze until you must—before finally righting yourself and walking on.
You’re shaken. You’re shaking.
And it is on shaky feet that you meet Din some steps later, pausing once you arrive next to him. His helm shifts; you register the sweep of his eyes roving over you—the burn of them along your shoulders, sloping down to the blanket folded against your breasts, slipping lower to his adi’ka sitting in the satchel at your hip. He’s clutching at the new token, dipping the edge of it into his tiny mouth to teethe.
And then,
he lifts at the wrist, orange glove tips raising - reaching - towards you. Din takes the hem of the quilt between his fingers experimentally, massaging the feel of the fabric—his knuckles brushing the exposed skin of your arm, searing into your flesh like a hot iron, lingering there mesmerizingly.
It’s the first he's touched you. It’s the first he’s touched you since, since—
His hand drops, hinging back to his side.
“Ready?”
His modulated voice crackles indiscernible and your stomach leaps to your neck. Are you breathing? Kriff, you’re not sure. You have to check—deliberately drawing in a gust of chilled air, the rush burning your lungs as you suck it down. With a nod of your head, a placid smile glosses over the shudder of your features, dousing the singe of your nerves.
“Ready.”
///
You think about that old woman later that day, and the many days that follow, her visage marked with centuries and regret and history. Life, evident in the spider’s web of wrinkles engraving her. But there was love too, clearly wormed into the lines of her face. So much of it— almost too much for a galaxy this hard and war-torn. The things she’s possibly witnessed: the atrocities, the devastation, the loss.
The wisdom she has gained while all of those she’s ever known succumb to the inevitability of age, as her past decays around her. The knowledge she absorbs while she withers—while time does nothing but skip by. Blameless. Forever onward.
In your dreams that night, she appears in front of you like mist rising off a lake, astral and ephemeral— there, but not. Haunting you, inescapable wherever you fix your eye. The woman nods silently. She’s mouthing something to you, but the words never come.
You understand.
tags:
@girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @pedros-mustache @djarrex @djarinsbeskar @bookloverfilmoholic @keeper0fthestars @misguidedandbeguiled @bookishofalder @helmet-comes-off @grumpymuffinmama @niiight-dreamerrrr @spideysimpossiblegirl @janebby @greatcircle79 @gracie7209 @thatonedindjarinfan @altered-delta @email2ash @stevie75 @shegatsby @onebrownoneblue @sammysdaisy @uniquebiscuitmongerdonkey
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steve0discusses · 3 years
Text
Yugioh S5 Ep 21: Joey Takes A Snack at that Cray Sauce
Hey guys! The 17 yo cat with kidney disease I was out of town watching lived to see another week (she was a very good girl). Which means now I can get back to the good stuff. This episode is brought to you by the colors red and orange, and I hope you like this color, and I hope you like this after effects they CGId onto this volcano.
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Anyways, they first have to do this familiar ledge fall, because, it’s Yugioh, and if there’s a bunch of lava, Tristan wants
in
that.
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And then Joey decides...hey you know what? I’m gonna jet. And...it’s not the first time he’s pulled a wild card and been unpredictable, I mean none of us can really forget that time he decided to get murdered by Mai instead of going in a straight line towards the end boss last season, but this time it was kind of funny how it was hastily composed.
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And off he goes, folks.
As he left, Tristan was like “Ya dummy!” and Tea was like “nono, we gotta encourage him--run Joey! You can do it! See? Now he’s gone.” and it’s like...Tea is either trying to kill Joey with her support or honestly thinks that’s good support and I can’t fully tell which she is.
(read more under the cut)
It’s at this point that Grandpa has the gall to say “Did any of you happen to catch the lore? I fell asleep during that part.” Just like my Dad when we watch any movie as a family.
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Meanwhile, maybe 100 ft away from them, Joey is in mortal peril but it’s Joey, so he’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.
In fact, this episode seems like it would have been a better arc if it stretched out more episodes because the Joey neglect happens so quickly and out of nowhere that it’s...less organic than your average children’s show. Honestly it’s kind of funny how fast the fall of Joey Wheeler happens this episode. And I think it could have been a fun interesting time if it was handled better but youknow...it’s crammed into one single episode and you’ll se what happens.
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As Yugi ruminates a cool thing that would have been really interesting this season--like running into more rando’s from other periods of time than just Alexander--Tea looks across the lava highway and was like “found it.”
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Back at the dragon situation, Joey starts opening his heart to this dragon and it’s like...did they originally intend for Seto Kaiba to be here? Because I guess Joey uses Red Eyes a lot, but I also skip a lot of the card games, so when I think “who likes the dragon card?” Joey is not the first one I think of.
That and like he got over his Atlantis dragon card like hella fast, right? Like totally already over that?
And also if you thought Joey would pull out his other dragon to try and communicate or get a hold of this dragon like...nah.
Back at the fort, these guys decided to ditch Joey to get to this sword at the top of a volcano to solve the riddle, and what follows is some weird ass canon.
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As I’m pulling up my Google Doc with my deathcount on it, Tristan decides this is the time he won’t freakin die and turn into a robot monkey for 15 episodes.
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And he makes a huge ass green dragon. You’d think this MASSIVE dragon would do more in this episode, but nah. Although he pulls out Massive Dragon, it’s like kind of worthless, so he mostly puts it back in his pocket.
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And then Tea pulls this elf chick out and it’s freakin hilarious because look at her giant elf.
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Like Tea is not a small person! Are Yugioh monsters all 12 ft tall???
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Yugi is also all ham about fusing with his dude now. It knocked him out a couple episodes ago, but Yugi is so keen on destroying his body that he’s back in clown town. And like...took his Grandpa for a ride, I guess, although I’m pretty sure Summoned Skull has wings.
Course, Summoned Skulls insides are his outsides...and I dunno if you’d want Summoned Skull to give you a big hug and carry you around. Summoned Skull just seems like he’s sticky.
And, once they make it to the top of the volcano where the plot sword lives, we first have to visit this plot twist of the century.
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YEAH.
OUT OF NOWHERE.
THIS EPISODE IS NOT LONG.
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Aaaaaaand now Joey is going to try and kill everyone here. I did not skip anything, PS, Joey dipped off-screen.
PS, everyone’s reaction to “I will kill you!” was a whole lot of rolling their eyes at first being like “Joey, stawp.”
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So, now that Joey’s randomly possessed by this dragon, we get a peek into what Joey’s brain zone looks like. It’s a whole lot of nothing in between his ears.
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Consistent to S1 actually, when we had a bit of a Joey Brain Zone moment. It was a blank void there, too.
So apparently Joey decided, back when he was confessing his love to Red Eyes Black Dragon, that he would jump on it’s back to calm it down--and it just...fused with him. So...now he’s a dragon.
Sure, I guess. I mean...there’s really no limit on what a Duel monster can’t do, so I’ll allow it.
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The team tries to just say “ah screw it” and pull up this sword themselves (you can kind of see it in this shot) and the sword just slurps into the dirt even more out of spite. Seeing that there’s a bit of a time limit, Grandpa pulls this one out of his back pocket.
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Yo, Grandpa’s not even possessed. Hey, remember that time that Grandpa nearly died giving Arthur Hawkins the last of his water back in Egypt? Remember that?
Like uh, you can definitely tell this was made by a different team that may not have gotten that cue card. It may have been lost in the mail. Either way, kind of a hilarious heel turn on Grandpa’s personality here, although it does make logical sense to save most of the kids from sacrificing one kid. It’s just...that kid is Joey...so...that’s like his adopted Grandson, right?
So Yugi does something very on brand for Yugi and invades a brain.
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And like...obviously Yami and Yugi would say no to this. They would never do this. Not after all the dozens and dozens of times they have sacrificed the world and everything for their best friends.
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But...maybe just this one time we can kill Joey? As a treat?
So uh...Yami hella vaporizes Joey with his new powers. Luckily, Joey Wheeler has Shaggy Doo energy and just...he survives it for some reason. I don’t know why he isn’t dead, maybe because the dragon made him stronger? Eh, don’t do the math (on any part of this episode).
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So Joey gets up and is like “I know the answer to the riddle!” As the sword kinda melts into the volcano and Gramps is like “Well we’re dead, actually, so no one cares!”
And Joey’s like “Look!” and he hops onto the back of the Red Eyes Black dragon and reveals this random thing:
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Because it turns out, that the dragon was the real problem and not this volcano with a sword in it.
Which youknow...could have been cool if this episode wasn’t so many insane plot points so quickly. Kind of a lot of episode here. This episode could have been a whole season of a show.
Like how long was Joey Possessed by Marik in S2? Like 5 or 6 episodes? And you can see how much more successful it was at selling the story although it was a lot of the same themes and ideas. Pacing is important.
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And then Joey passes out from the suit juice.
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Which is when we get one more Alexander cameo, just kinda watching them leave and onto the next arc of their little journey.
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They sure did put a lot of eyeliner on Alexander the great, and, being real...he may have actually been wearing a hell ton of dope eyeliner when he was alive, so this could be historically accurate, for all we know. Those old marble statues used to be painted, after all. Maybe they had dope Yugioh eyeliner down to his cheekbones? One can wish.
And like if you ever get the time--seeing what those marble statues looked like with paint on it is so freakin goofy and fun, I love it. I love that for 600 years we thought those marble statues were supposed to be naked and white but it’s like, nah man--this guy’s just wearing a skin tight breast plate and when you paint it, it’s so garish it’s like a freakin clown outfit.
But anyway, that’s all for now! Hope y’all have a good weekend, and as always, here’s a link to read these in chrono order, if you just got here!
https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono
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iceicewifey · 2 years
Note
Not sure if I misunderstood the "ask me about my f/o" reblog, but seeing you're the certified Nilla expert and the flagrant lack of official content, I wanted to ask about your ideas regarding his nationality, childhood, family and what led him to serve Dio?
sorry in advance for sitting on this ask for so long 🥺 i’ve been trying to figure out how much is too much to post because i have WAY too many ideas for him 👁👁 — they’re all personal headcanons obviously, and i have a few blanks to fill in yet but,, y e a h — i’ll try to keep it brief but i might make a longer post later since i have so much if anyone’s interested but,, we’ll see
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⋆ i headcanon him to be egyptian-american, more specifically an american mother and an egyptian father
⋆ he’s the youngest (and tallest) of three sons - his older brothers’ names are mahmoud and zahur — his birth name is abasi kulthum (عباسي كلثوم), not vanilla ice; that name change happens later on and i have an idea for it but i need to brainstorm it a bit more
side note: kulthum comes from egyptian singer umm kulthum because i can and will assign musical references at every opportunity
⋆ he grew up in new jersey, which i picked because of the state’s significant egyptian population
⋆ because his father was from alexandria, he’s familiar with arabic but he’s nowhere near fluent; he’s better with spoken word than writing and can hold a conversation but if the conversation strays from basic words, he’s lost
⋆ he was very close to his dad growing up so it was devastating when his father suddenly passed away when vanilla was only seven — his father’s passing sent his mother into a deep, inconsolable depression which caused her to give the boys up as she could no longer care for them — and because the boys had no other family this side of the atlantic, they were separated and shuffled thru different foster homes over the years
⋆ cream manifested when he was eight years old after he came down with an intense fever nobody thought he’d survive. of course little vanilla had no concept of stands at the time and thought he was being haunted by a “demon” for several months – he later figured out that he could hide inside of him and even vaporize things so he tended to get a bit anxious that this “demon” would accidentally destroy something important.
another side note: we know that cream has a void, but i think that represents the void that was in vanilla’s heart after losing his dad and subsequently the rest of his family — cream’s void vaporizes everything except for himself because he was in dire need of a safe space away from the hell that was the foster home environment; a spot where only he could go.
⋆ as soon as he was legally able to, he dropped out of high school and moved to manhattan in a bit of a “fuck it, why not” moment, where he met an old fortune teller that practically took him in and showed him that cream wasn’t a demon, but a stand — i have a lot of brainstorming left to do in this part but basically the name change happens somewhere here, as well as him finding this lady dead one day, and this pushes him to his breaking point because he’s lost so many people he cares about in his life, so he sinks to the lowest low he’s been in yet.
⋆ as for meeting dio… there’s some kinks i have to work out here too so i’ll save that for later so i can brainstorm it a but more, but so far i have that he met dio in 1986 on one of his american escapades, and because vanilla was so despondent, his brain sees dio as some kind of “saving grace” —— i have no idea how to explain this without it being really long so i’m sorry about that 😔 but anyway because vanilla was so close to his father, he clings to every thing even remotely related to his heritage - which is why he instantly agrees and doesn’t question it when dio mentions cairo; both that and the opportunity to start over sealed the deal there —— and like, since the d’arby brothers are american, who says dio wouldn’t just,, collect a bunch of weirdos /affectionate over there to work for him?
anyway,, i think i’ve rambled enough and i hope that answers your question 🥺👉👈 again, i can make a longer post if anyone cares for one but i don’t wanna dump everything i have here,, orz
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silvercrystalwhump · 3 years
Text
Read like a Book
Vincent belongs to @ashintheairlikesnow
Tag List: @whumpitywhumpwhump
TW: past noncon (implied), self victim-blaming, spice (doesn’t occur),
"Is this something new or is it just the usual?" Dmitri asks, violently ripping Vincent from the brink, the tether holding him to reality going taught and ripping him back.
"Hmm! Um, what do you mean?" Vincent asks as he comes back from his personal void. He realizes quickly that he's draped across Dmitri. The two, silently feeling the warm evening air, are out on Vincent's back porch. The sound of night peepers echoes around Vincent's house and the bubbling of his hot tub creates a calm white noise. The air seems slow-moving, like a leaf floating on the surface of a lake.
It's nighttime, Vincent realizes. The two sat out here around dinner, just enjoying the warm summer air. They both came home and quickly migrated towards each other. Then, they went out.
Dmitri chuckles, "You faded Vee. I tried to get your attention a while ago and you kinda just fell on me. So is this the usual issue or is it something new?"
"Issue? Nothing's wrong Dmitri. I'm-"
"-Fine, I know you are Vee. You wouldn't be this cuddly if something tipped you off the edge. But I can't tell this is one of your… moments." Dmitri says as he rubs his hand across Vincent's back. Vincent rests his head on Dimitri’s shoulder, allowing warmth to slowly pull the rest of him from the brink.
He wasn't having one of his moments, as Dmitri had dubbed them. He just left his mind for a while. A memory, one made of tears and pain, tried to bubble up to the surface and break the tranquility of their evening. Vincent was gone before it burst.
Dmitri was impossibly good at spotting them. Yet, he never seems to be fazed by Vincent’s vacations into the shallow pools of his own mind. Even when it takes hours for him to return.
"Just… vacated for a bit I guess."
Dmitri gives Vincent a kind smile, “Well, let’s vacate upstairs shall we. Both of us have a long day tomorrow.”
“Do we have to?” Vincent groans mockingly, an uncertainty sitting in Vincent’s head, “I like sitting out here with you.”
Dmitri rolls his eyes and scoops up Vincent into his arms. “Well, I like it as well but I have work tomorrow, setting up the second shop and all. So I need sleep.”
Vincent leans up and kisses Dmitri on the underside of his chin, “Fine, since you have to.”
Dark eyes look down on his lover and Vincent watches the tiniest shift in Dmitri’s gaze. It is so subtle that only Vincent, with his now years of experience with Dmitri, can see it. Vincent keeps himself from rolling his eyes, his lover always has had that kind of gaze every so often.
He was good at hiding it too.
What if he starts to ask questions?
Vincent bites back the question. It has been over a year since they committed to each other, why would Dmitri start questioning him now? He has had no interest in knowing about why Vincent was so averse to that form of intimacy before so why would he now.
It’s been a while. Most couples are past that already.
Vincent feels a sweetened dread seep into his stomach as Dmitri sets him down on his bed. Thousands of tiny what-ifs fly past Vincent’s vision as Dmitri stands. Crawling under his skin, the worries burrow deeper.
You should be past that.
“I’ma go change,” Dmitri says as he turns for the one drawer in Vincent’s dresser dedicated to Dmitri’s stuff. “Be back in a sec.”
Vincent sits on the bed, losing himself to his worries. The sheets cool under his skin. His eyes follow Dmitri out of the room and watch the door close behind him. Every passing possibility slowly devolves into something improbable and it’s maddening. Then, a voice that doesn't sound like it belongs to him, mutters sarcastically in his mind.
One time is not going to kill you.
Vincent exhales and sits back. The dread in his stomach starts to be smothered by a different feeling. A sort of anticipating fear blooms in its stead. As if his body was making the decision before his mind could register.
One time won’t hurt, right?
It’ll just be one time.
Vincent takes a deep breath and pulls up an acting face. He starts to feel detached like a layer of air spreading between the layers of his skin. He starts to feel the pull back into his mind but he holds his attention in front of him. It feels like pinning his conscience out in front of him, even with the squirming anticipation trying to unlatch it.
Dmitri knows when I fade. I can’t fade during this.
Acting is all in the eyes. If the eyes don’t match the role, the entire scene is ruined. The eyes make things convincing, they are what separate the actor from the character.
The eyes are what give me away.
Dmitri opens the door and walks towards the bed. Tiredness pulls at his eyes just enough for them to droop but not close. He sits on the bed next to Vincent, a warm smile growing across his face and lighting up the dim room. Dmitri leans back on a hand and brushes some of his braids out of his face.
“You know,” Vincent says, sliding into a character of himself, “We’ve had… some hiccups in the past between the two of us.”
Dmitri, raising an eyebrow, asks, “What do you mean by that?”
Vincent swings his leg over Dmitri’s lap and wraps his legs around his torso, “Well, intimacy has not been something we’ve done very much and I was thinking that we could change that today.”
Dmitri cocks an eyebrow in curious confusion, “And what do you mean by that?” There’s intrigue in Dmitri’s voice, the hint of mischief that Vincent is looking for.
Vincent rests his arms across Dmitri’s shoulders and presses his lips to Dmitri’s. He can taste the remnants of sugary frosting on the man’s lips. Their breath entangles and Vincent mutters into Dmitri’s lips, “Use your imagination.”
Then, Vincent feels Dmitri’s hand slide around to the small of his back and press him firmly into his chest. Pressing into Dmitri, Vincent lets himself be leaned back and pressed into the sheets. Vincent throws his legs around Dmitri’s waist and lets his hips press into Dmitri’s. Swallowing a forbidden ichor, Vincent lets himself fall deep into the desires that boil under his skin. Thoughts that would make Aphrodite blush nibble at the ends of Vincent’s fingers. Vincent’s fingers reach up and pull Dmitri down to his lips. They meet.
Stirring behind Vincent’s eyes, he realizes what he’s doing. He feels almost jolted aware suddenly. The tidal wave of fear previously blocked by a cloud of arousal is gone and just the looming beast remains.
Vincent is very aware of the mask he is holding over his thoughts. It slips ever so slightly. Vincent, using all of his attention, pulls it back over his face.
You want this.
Vincent presses deeper into the kiss.
You want this.
He tries to forget what he’s doing.
You want this.
Dmitri’s lips shift from Vincent’s down to his neck.
You wanted this.
As Dmitri comes up for air, he pauses, eyes scanning across Vincent’s face. Vincent brings an almost dreamy smile to his lips and tips his head to the side. Intrigue, that’s the feeling on Vincent’s face.
You signed up for this Vincent. You committed. See it through.
Dmitri’s expression drops. The lustrous curiosity vaporizing and tiredness fills its place. Dmitri pulls Vincent close to him and rolls over, positioning Vincent partially on top of him.
Vincent is very confused.
“Just go to sleep Vee,” Dmitri mumbles, clearly holding back more words.
Vincent props his head on Dmitri’s chest, letting the confusion seep through the playful mask he clutches to his face, hiding the breath-stealing fear. “What’s wrong?”
Dmitri sighs and pulls the covers up over Vincent’s shoulder, “I’m just... done.”
“Did I do something wrong?” A crack forms in the mask and the water of reality starts to drip across his face. What did I do?
“Vee- I- you clearly don’t want to do this, so don’t,” Dmitri says, frustration in his voice, “Just go to sleep, we both have stuff to do tomorrow.”
Vincent sits up and tries to repair the now crumbling mask. He can feel it chip away in every twitch of his facial muscles. Things he should have trained to keep straight and in the right position. Why is it failing me now?
“What do you mean? I wouldn't have started this if I didn’t want it.” The statement is far weaker than how it sounds in Vincent’s head.
Dmitri rubs the bridge of his nose and props himself up on an elbow. In the dim light of Vincent’s bedroom, Dmitri almost looks angry. He slowly pulls himself upright and sighs, “You might have started this, but you also look scared Vincent.”
The voice that’s not quite his, echoes in Vincent’s mine. Don’t look so scared, you want this.
“I’m not scared,” Vincent says as he comes to the terrifying conclusion that the mask he’s been wearing is completely gone now. All Dmitri sees is someone too scared to sit in his own skin.
“Please Vee,” Dmitri exhales. He rubs his eyes and sits forward. There’s frustration in his eyes, the kind that leaves a lot to the imagination. His fingers wrap around Vincent’s shoulder and Dmitri meets his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I love you,” Vincent says, voice rapidly getting smaller, “Because, um, that’s what couples do together.”
Dmitri sighs, the hands that are on Vincent's shoulders tightening around his skin. Vincent, at the moment, wants to take back the last thirty minutes of decisions he just made. The feeling of hot shame eats at the skin on his face.
"I'm sorry," Vincent stampers, "I should've thought this through-"
"Vee," Dmitri asks, staring dead into Vincent's eyes. Concern coats his face and opens confusion spills from his mouth. "What were you trying to do?"
Vincent didn't want to be in his own skin right now. The shame and terror were not going away fast enough. "I was hoping you would ignore it..."
"You were hoping I would ignore the fact you looked terrified and just, have sex with you?" Dmitri states with the tiniest bits of disgust and waves of worry filtering through his words. "We have a word for that, that's called rape."
"Nonononono, I just- I shouldn't've- I- I kept telling you no but I love you and I just to make up for-"
Dmitri pulls Vincent into his chest, horror coating every fiber of his mind. Vincent feels the warmth of Dmitri's skin and realizes he's been shaking. Vincent lets Dmitri hold him, feeling Dmitri's breath across his curls.
For minutes they sit in silence. Until Dmitri whispers in a firm, almost demanding, way.
"Who. the fuck. told you. that you should let the people you care about hurt you like that Vincent."
Vincent flinches back as the words sting on his skin. The air in the room shifts and he wants to coil into his skin and die. Dmitri’s eyes feel like a knife digging into his skin and dragging across a bone. Vincent rests his head under Dmitri’s chin and murmurs pleading apologies.
Dmitri sighs, the air rustling across his curls, and mutters, “I probably should go, let you have some space.”
Panic envelops the very fabric that makes up Vincent. The feeling of hope sliding through his fingers and falling into an inky black abyss fills him with dread. I’m gonna lose him.
“No! Wait, I’m sorry! Please- I’ll- I’m sorry, don’t go—”
With a warm, bare embrace, Dmitri wraps Vincent up and squeezes him slightly, “Vee, Shh. It’s alright, I’ll stay. Just go to bed.”
Vincent trembles. His entire body feels like it is going to rip apart under the weight of his mistakes. Dmitri gently guides him back down onto the sheets. Wrapping Vincent in his own sheet, Dmitri lets his warmth bleed over into Vincent.
Vincent starts to cry. A different kind of fear unfurls in his chest, not the terror-linked with sex but fear of Dmitri fading away into a clouded abyss and leaving him alone. Those tears carry him to sleep.
The next morning, Vincent wakes alone. Dmitri is gone. The urge to puke pools behind his lips. His eyes, straying to the clock on the wall, see that it's past eight o’clock and Vincent finds himself both relieved and that much more anxious.
Dmitri leaves for work at 7:30 on the dot, it's normal that he’s gone now. This is normal.
No matter what Vincent tells himself, he can’t bring himself to believe any of what he says.
Around six that evening is when Dmitri usually gets back from work. Vincent starts to panic at six-thirty.
When Dmitri opens the door Vincent is standing there. It’s 7 o’clock. There is a kind of fear eating at him that he has never felt before. He knows fear, this wasn’t it. He rubs at the long scar that circumferences his wrist. Their eyes meet and silence eats at their skin.
“I’m-”
“I need to apologise to you,” Dmitri says as he sets the bag of what smells like food on the table sitting in the doorway, “I shouldn’t have raised my voice last night, I’m sorry.”
Vincent pauses. The air feels too heavy to stand under. He swallows the mucus bile that rises in his throat. “You aren;t the person that is supposed to be apologizing to Dmitri. I am.”
“No,” Dmitri cuts him off, “You did nothing wrong. I- There’s probably many more things I should be apologizing for.”
“Dmitri-”
“I got us food,” Dmitri says, poorly masking a plethora of emotions, “From Claudios, the Italian place.”
Vincent looks at Dmitri, seeing pain and guilt behind his eyes. Vincent pulls Dmitri into a hug. Muttering into his chest, Vincent tries to say, “This isn’t your fault.” It’s mine.
Dmitri wraps his arms around Vincent and exhales into his hair. They just stay in each other’s arms for a while. Just together.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, you did nothing wrong.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No you didn’t.”
When silence blankets them again, neither know what to say. The air stalls around them and then, Vincent looks up at Dmitri, “I love you.”
Dmitri gives him a soft, almost tearful smile, “I love you too.”
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bastillia · 4 years
Text
Rough Landing
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Part 2 of First Lesson
Summary: Commander Ren has a few more things to teach you.
Rating: Explicit
Words: 8.4k
Warnings: cockwarming, overstimulation, threats during intimacy, inappropriate use of the Force, oral sex (ROUGH, m receiving), unsanitary sex location, public(ish) sex, kinda exhibition kink, no aftercare, uhh bit of cumplay
A/N: Whew alright I know it’s been 3 months, but we’re picking up pretty much right where we left off. Thank you all SO much for the love on part 1. And huge thanks to my incredible friends who have supported me, beta read, and helped me conquer my stuck points. I couldn’t have pulled this through without y’all. Enjoy!
***
There was plenty to like about being in space. For one, it was absolutely quiet. 
Perfectly soundless. Unfathomably endless. In a way, the void between the stars had always been your perfect aegis; a blank slate to nurture everything you’d hoped to become. It held power in its silence, and possibility. It was calm, dark, vast-- it was home, for as much or little as you knew about the word. 
If you thought about it, living aboard the roving flagship of the First Order had always given your life more or less a perfect structure. Most of the time, you didn’t even mind the predictability of it. Your days were purposeful and productive. If, sometimes, just a little boring. But, that was okay--you liked the quiet.
And you were never ever taking it for granted again.
“Stop moving.” Kylo Ren’s voice broke through the growing rumble of the hull. It was only the sensation of gloved fingers tightening down into your hip bones that finally alerted you to the fact that you were squirming. Again. You grimaced.
"I'm trying." 
Friction from the gathering atmosphere punched the craft into a sharp rattle, and your heart struck your sternum as the controls lurched underneath your palms. Your fingers cinched down tight, the lack of circulation in your knuckles settling into a dull throb as you continued to wring the contoured grips, as if you could strangle some desperately needed assistance out of them that way.
Fuck.
Breathe.
You could do this, you just had to stay calm--think about home, about the tedium of whatever meeting was probably going on right now. About how all eyes would be on you if you were there, about the dumbstruck look on General Quinn’s face when you presented that fucking perfect dossier you’d compiled on some key New Republic official he’d been trying to track down for months.
Yes, think about that.
Not about the sweat beginning to break out across your skin, the unnerving rattling around you growing louder and louder. Not about what was still sheathed inside your twitching cunt, stretching you, demanding that your body yield to its presence.
Warm echoes of your last orgasm flared up with another clattering vibration of the atmosphere. It felt almost trapped within you, an electric refrain to the adrenaline melody that pounded your veins now. Your floor muscles quivered tight with it, eliciting an approving twitch from within your walls as Ren’s fingers flexed into the bruises on your hips. 
It was incredible, really. How time had begun to feel almost obsolete until now. It had passed abstractly in the quiet serenity of space as you’d sat filled to your limit, feeling nothing but the commander, his breathing, the omnipresent ache of his cock. Your world nothing but an aroused haze-- stirred every so often by a subtle buck of his hips, a kiss to your neck, hot breath in the hollow of your ear whispering don’t move, don’t you fucking move. Good girl. 
Your thoughts snapped back to the present with a vaguely wistful pang as the hull gave another violent shake. 
Atmospheric entry. What was that, week five? Six? Of the TIE pilot training program? It was on the phase-3 test, you were certain. And you’d put credits down that none of the novice pilots had ever experienced the added curriculum of a cock shoved inside of them.
A warning squeeze stilled another involuntary shift of your hips.
You gritted your teeth against your discomfort, instead trying to let the adrenaline form a whetstone to sharpen your senses.
Breathe.
You could do this. You were way beyond just some novice trooper, you were a fucking lieutenant general of the First Order.  And what did you do to earn that rank? You adapted. So, fucking adapt.
A jolt slammed the craft, and your muscles locked up as the head of Ren’s cock speared something tender and abused deep inside you. The ship squirreled under your grip, leaving you paralyzed as the movement of it set off every panic alarm in this new and untested region of your brain. Without missing a beat, two huge, leather-encased palms came up to wrap over your shaking hands, steadying you with remarkable certainty as they coaxed the vessel back under control. 
“Focus, lieutenant." There was almost an amused purr in Ren’s throat, his voice low and close, utterly lacking in any kind of concern. Your pulse gradually came back down, and with it, your fear curled into a flicker of annoyance. If he was going to mock you, he could at least use your proper title.
You know.
The one you’d worked your ass off for.
The drag of fingertips across the bare skin of your upper thighs jolted you. Your body felt hyper-sensitized, like the sudden touch ignited a cascade of fission that couldn’t seem to find equilibrium anywhere. It fractured your brittle composure in two, just as the roaring blaze around the viewport flared again with a powerful tremor that kicked your heart back up in a sudden panic. 
Sweat lined your palms, adrenaline congealing and turning to acid in your veins. You felt your nerve slip.
"Com-commander, s-sir, I--" 
A hum. “Control yourself.”
It was only two words, but each one cut through your rising panic like a blaster shot to the sternum, rattling you to a realization. 
Control. 
That was the test all along. He’d laid it right out in front of you, challenged you to a game with incredibly fucked up stakes, and he was drawing his hand. Taking a seat at a proverbial Sabacc table, stretching out his chest and waiting for you to either bet up, or lose your nerve. The ante was rising, piece by piece as he silently tested the parameters of your breaking point. 
But he wouldn’t find it. Not like this.
Fresh determination fixed your grip around the shaking controls. It was even enough to keep you from reacting this time when a dull pain lanced under your skin, his teeth catching a tender spot where he had marked your neck some time before. He growled. You tucked that card up your sleeve. 
“Decelerate.”
His tone had shifted quieter in a way that made your ears prick, snapping your attention away from the dull ache of your insides. It sort of stunned you, actually, into something of a quiet curiosity. 
His hand reached around you to swipe at a holopad on the console. An altimeter blinked to life, just before the soft heat of his lips returned to your ear.
“Drop to this zone.” He pointed to a region on the display. “Remain there until we get closer." 
Remnants of panic still swam somewhere in your blood, but you managed to draw a careful breath and nod your understanding. Your ante was still on the table, you told yourself. But perhaps he’d decided that challenging you could wait. For now.
Refocusing, you caressed the controls. The ship banked beautifully, intuitively at your will, before lurching a final time as the thrusters hit a stable layer of atmosphere. 
Beneath you, clouds floated in gossamer ribbons over the calm air, as tattered and thankful for its mercy as you felt. Farther down, the dim moonlight breathed monochrome shapes into being, half-swallowed by the murky vapor of shadow between them. Droplets condensed on the viewport as you dropped through the thin cloudbank, skittering shyly outwards and allowing the shapes to solidify into the oppressive grid of a cityscape.
Slowly, you could begin to make out vague details. Industrial sectors, shipyards, scrappy comms towers. The occasional twinkle of speeder headlights creeping between dilapidated buildings, and--
Your gaze snapped back to the holopad on the nav console, a deft swipe of your finger bringing up your coordinates. The planetary code blinked neutrally back at you, but the unmistakable string of numbers harpooned you with a bolt of clarity that had your ribs tightening down around your lungs. A question resurfaced from the bottom of your memory, curling up to slither coldly along the back of your neck. 
“Commander?”
“Hm.”
“Why, um--” You faltered. 
In truth, there was no reason for you to ask. The answer was already swimming around in your gut, acquainting itself with the sour feeling of dread that settled there. Waiting for your brain to analyze it while at the same time sitting in an insidious state of knowing that didn’t need to reach your head at all for you to feel its weight. 
You swallowed, and adjusted your grip. “Why a TIE fighter? Why didn’t we bring the command shuttle?” 
A pause. He reached around you, flicking a switch on the main console, and the Silencer’s headlights shuttered off with a resounding click. “We may need to leave quickly.”
For the first time since leaving the Supremacy, you felt something familiar settle inside of you. Deep and quiet, like the way sound doesn’t travel in space. It was the same, utterly instinctive feeling that took over every time you managed to get yourself in over your head-- when a negotiation turned volatile, when an unforeseen flaw surfaced in a mission strategy mid-execution. Those moments where the fixed parameters of your training ended, and the only thing left to take the pilot’s seat was your own intuition. 
But this time, there was something else there with it. It glowed within the powerful shroud of calm, thrumming quietly, filling you with something potent and restless and--exciting, that you couldn’t quite place.
Real, physical danger was not something you had much direct experience with. The various moral complexities associated with putting others up against it at your command, you had come to know well. But you were here now. Facing it in the flesh, not protected by the reinforced hull and ion cannons of a Star Destroyer. 
You were here, looking down on the dark streets of Corellia, a planet so lawless and foul and flat out fucking dangerous that the First Order had all but given up establishing a presence here long ago. Even the New Republic’s ties here were thin.
A tightness struck through your chest as you very suddenly realized that it was only a matter of time, now, before you were going to have to--
“Drop lower.” The commander shifted to tap something into the nav console. A flight course lit up the holopad, leading to a destination marker just a few klicks ahead. “Land here.”
The sector you entered seemed somehow even darker than the rest as you brought the Silencer down over the shadowed streets, hints of crumbling walls and rusted vents just barely illuminated by the occasional weak street lamp. No headlights, hardly any ground lighting--you were no ace pilot, obviously, and it took your full concentration just to maneuver the ship between the vague silhouettes of broken antenna towers, avoiding them where their spindly shadows jutted up from the rooftops. You jumped when Ren’s hands enveloped yours again.
“Right here.” He guided your hands, expertly swinging the craft around and into a hover above a dim alleyway, empty and lined on both sides with large, abandoned-looking industrial structures. Your pulse jumped. He released your hands, a finger drawing your attention to a switch on your right, then flicking it casually. “Landing gear.” 
The hull rumbled and thumped. An array of green lights flashed to life in what you could only assume was an indication of the ship’s readiness for landing. If only you felt the same. Your hands were frozen on the controls, your mind simultaneously racing and completely blank. You waited dumbly for guidance, heart hammering, shallow little breaths trapping themselves high in your throat. 
“Relax.” Ren’s voice permeated to your bones as both arms slid around your stomach, liquefying your fear into a trembling plea. 
“P-please, Commander, I d-don--” You cut off with a shiver when his lips met your neck, his hips beginning to rock in a slow, enunciated rhythm that had your cunt immediately bearing down with need as you felt him harden. “Fuck, p-please, I don’t know how t--... h-how to--”
Your eyes rolled back as a hand slid down between your legs, the leather pad of his finger finding your clit stiff and sensitive, its touch featherlight. A hum rumbled under your shoulders. “Your intuition, lieutenant. Feel it, don’t think.” 
Maker help you, there were a lot of things you could fucking feel right now. Namely, your commander’s cock slowly massaging your walls, lazy in its rhythm. Your grip on the controls banishing the circulation entirely from your knuckles. His fingers sliding down your slit, spreading as he reached the root of himself, shamelessly feeling the obscene way your body yielded to the thickness at his base. The lust that erupted low in your belly in response. The panic that was rising as you remembered your task, its sharp tendrils threatening to reach your head and overwhelm you. 
Control yourself.
A turbulent breath shook some air back into your lungs as your tiny inner voice of reason managed to surface again. Collecting yourself, you let it expand, pushing each distraction away one by one as it went. Focus, it reminded you. Remember the card up your sleeve, get through this round. 
You tethered your awareness to the ship, to the curve of the controls against your palms, to the way they extended like a continuation of your own neural circuits to command the sleek metal beast encircling you. A steady, downward press of your hands, and it purred its obedient response, settling slowly towards the ground below.
“Good girl,” Ren said. “Just like that.” 
There was something--a tiny flicker of mischief in the shadows of his voice. Maybe you would have caught it quicker, but your tunneled focus left you one fatal step behind him, too slow to anticipate his move. His hand shifted, easily finding your raw clit against his fingertip, and pressed down--hard.
Electric. Everything was electric. Your vision doubled, the shredded remnants of your nerves shorting out and screaming against the paralyzing flood of sensation, ripping a ragged gasp from the bottom of your lungs. Maker, don’t scream, don’t fucking-- 
A shift of his finger and your hips jerked, an involuntary movement of sheer desperation for escape that carried right through your whole body and into the ship.
One wing dipped to the side, and it was only the sharp trill of a proximity alarm that managed to blast through to what was left of your reflexes just in time. A curse cut the air through your lips, your shaking hands grappling the controls into a clumsy counter-correction that swayed the craft wildly as you wrestled it back to center. The rocking slowly stilled, the ringing in your ears no longer from the alarm, but your own pulse bludgeoning your temples. Ren simply chuckled, and released your clit.
“Commander.” A few rapid blinks cleared the blur from your vision, but oxygen was still painful through the panic in your chest, leaving you frustratingly breathless. “With all due respect, sir, do you want me to crash your ship?”
“You won’t.” The smirk was audible in his voice. “Or is my confidence in your aptitude misguided, lieutenant?” 
A slew of unkind words lashed themselves to your tongue, fighting for freedom with the fuel of indignation that scalded your throat like bile, but you swallowed both, smothering your thoughts into silence. Stay calm. Maintain control. You drew a tight breath. “No, sir.”
“Mm. Good.” He rocked his hips firmly up into you, and a pitiful little noise clutched in your throat. “Then land my ship, and perhaps your proficiency will be rewarded.”
Desire shot up your spine like a flare, igniting at the base of your brain and rocketing your thoughts clear past apprehension and ahead to the promise of relief. It was enough to allow bravery to wriggle back into your fingers, your hands finding the wherewithal to resume their task even as your lungs stalled in anticipation of another distraction. 
But none came. 
The relief that flooded you was immediate and powerful the second you felt solid ground settle under the landing gear. The hull groaned around you as the craft came to a full rest, wheezing like a fathier after a hard gallop, and you, its master, just thankful to have survived the race. But there was one more hurdle for you.
“You know this part.” Ren gestured vaguely to the console, still alive with various lights and indicators, many of which, no, you certainly did not know anything about.
Your eyes darted back and forth a few times before it hit you. Of course. The ignition sequence.
Presumably, to shut the fighter down, you would just need to… to do it backwards? That seemed like the logical course of action, at least. Stars, how long ago had you even taken off? The Supremacy already felt like a faint memory, the edges of its shape scattered through a hazed prism, each facet reflecting nothing but incandescent pleasure and the blinding heat of Kylo Ren. 
But you had to remember. This was--you hoped--the final test, and there was no way you were going to fail. Maker, what was wrong with you, you were better than this, just think. The last thing he turned on had been…
Thrusters.
Right console, three switches. Bring all of those down. The roar of the ion engines quieted, taking the vibration of the hull down to a faint rumble. Okay, good, next was--
Ignition. Yes, ignition: off. Much quieter now, and stars, when was the last time you breathed? Fucking breathe. Okay, next. 
Compressor: disengaged. Auxiliary last.
Everything went black as you killed the main power. Your breathing seemed to echo around in the stillness of the cockpit, your cunt twitching to life in acknowledgment of what was now pressing harder than beskar steel against your guts, amplified by the darkness. It was almost as if the power from the ship had never really shut down, but simply transferred into your own body instead, flicking your ignition switch and bringing your arousal roaring back to life with a vengeance.
Every line of the commander’s body against you was lighting up your awareness, filling the sensory void with his presence, the unbearable stillness of him. What had he meant when he said he’d reward you? You’d learned his lesson, yes, and passed every fucked up test he’d thrown at you to prove it. For that, you could commend yourself. 
But if there was one lesson more poignant than the rest, one that now stuck like thermal sludge to every crevice of your understanding, it was that his next move could come at any moment--and not always in a way you could anticipate. 
This seemed like one of those moments.
A shift of his chest under your shoulders made you jump, one arm reaching up somewhere you couldn’t see to flick a control, and the hatch cracked open with a hiss. The night air flooded the cockpit, all but drowning your racing thoughts as it drew in like a cool sigh to kiss the heat in your cheeks. Your head fell back, lungs gratefully accepting the damp and oddly foreign relief of atmospheric oxygen, even as the scent of it stuck in your mouth. It was thick, leaden with rain and crude fuel, but you hardly cared. It felt divine.
Beneath you, an impatient grunt and a single squeeze to your thighs brought you back to the present with a tiny flicker of alarm. 
“Out.” 
Your muscles froze. 
“But, I--” Whatever you might have expected out of this moment, that was possibly the last thing you could have prepared for, and your brain was fumbling spectacularly in an attempt to process the one word. 
Did he actually mean that? Was this another test? You didn’t even feel like you could move right now, let alone clamber out of the ship with your whole body aching and clenching as it was. And you were so full, and he was so hard, and now you were nearly trembling with need and--
And you took too long to act. 
Wide hands locked around your waist, and then everything shifted--he was picking you up. Holy shit he was strong, he hoisted you upwards in one effortless motion, throwing your world into a blur. The only thing you distinctly registered through your disorientation was the feeling of his hard cock pulling along your tired walls, finally popping free for you to flutter and clench around nothing for a moment before your bare ass came down on the lip of the cockpit. 
Cold metal bit your flesh, a harsh and unforgiving contrast to the warm lap you’d grown accustomed to. Fuck, everything was dark. But hearing him shift underneath you had you hurriedly swinging your legs around to jump down.
And... the ground was a lot farther down than you thought. 
You landed hard. Hard enough for your knees to buckle, and you stumbled against the hobble around your thighs in a clumsy attempt to keep yourself upright. But before you could lose your balance you were moving again, being yanked by the arm and slammed back hard against the ship.
A huge, black mass crowded in on you, looming and pressing you back against creaking durasteel, the metal still warm under your shoulders as the ship settled from flight. Your heart slammed against the commander’s advance, eyes darting through shadow. 
In the span of a shared breath, his mouth crashed down on yours, open and wanting and hungry in the darkness, and everything inside of you detonated.
The heat of his mouth was dizzying. You mewled into it, the feeling of him so strong and warm and everywhere, tugging at your hips, tongue sliding past your teeth. Your hands gravitated upwards for any leverage they could find just to pull him closer, to taste him deeper. A low, rumbling sound scraped the bottom of his chest and two huge hands encircled your wandering wrists, easily plucking them off of their feverish course and slamming them up beside your shoulders instead. 
His exploration of your mouth grew brazen as he pinned you open, crushing you against unyielding steel, even taking a moment to suck at your bottom lip before his hot tongue was licking deep into you again, stealing your breath and coaxing soft sounds from your chest in its wake. 
An immobilizing sensation locked your arms in place, keeping them tight against the ship even as his touch slid along your arms and around to the front of your torso. The extra sensations hardly even registered through the feeling of his mouth on yours until you realized you still couldn’t move while he was cupping your face with one hand, the other leather-encased palm flattening over the confines of your uniform, squeezing at the soft swell of your breasts hidden beneath. 
A low growl into your mouth, a shift of pressure up your sternum, and then his fingers found and curled over your pressed collar. With one purposeful tug, the material popped open, and you gasped.
"Commander," you broke the kiss, your head spinning as his breath immediately blazed against your neck instead. His movements were impatient, uncharacteristically clumsy in their urgency as you felt the material of your top continue to separate all the way down to your cleavage. “Commander, w-we--”
Fuck, it was impossible to think, everything in your brain felt thick with a vibrating fog. You could feel tiny points of rational thought trying to take form, trying to remind you of where you were, of why this was risky. But they were like infant stars peeking through a hungry nebula, unable to solidify before being swallowed again. 
"Fuck, w--” His tongue slowly rode the curve of your jaw, and stars, what were you even going to say? “W-we sho-shouldn’t-" 
“Shouldn’t what?” he purred, smooth fingertips trailing slowly down the bare plane of your sternum and sliding under the open edge of your coat.
A soft whine was all you could muster, broken thoughts dissolving on your tongue the moment he cupped the curve of your breast and scooped it free of your neckline, pushing the fabric aside to let your nipple peak up against the open air. 
The empty street was quiet enough that your breaths seemed to ricochet as they tripped softly over each other, sliding along the walls of the alley and joining the soft buzz of a flickering street lamp farther down. Stars, anyone could be listening-- watching, for all you knew. In a city like this, it was impossible to anticipate the stakes. Rife with the sorts of creatures who took refuge in shadow, even the darkness seemed to betray you, leaving every inch of exposed skin glowing as if the dim moonlight had suddenly adopted all the strength of a Tatooine sun. 
Your heart raced. You scrambled to clutch at the caution left within yourself, for any remaining instinct that would tell you that this was wrong, that you shouldn’t be going along with this. 
But you found no purchase. Your inhibitions were dissolving through your fingers-- dwarfed in Kylo Ren’s shadow, smothered under his hands, the power of his presence atomizing any need for your guarded reluctance and casting it into obsolescence. 
And as you surrendered, suddenly every eye that might be watching, every ear that could be tuned to your pleasure just around a shadowed corner, was like a hit of fucking spice. The thrill of it arched your back, coaxed bolder sounds from your chest that bounced daringly off of the bullet-scuffed duracrete to fade into the darkness of the alley.
Ren gave voice to it first, a growl breaking through the roar between your ears. 
“You’re enjoying this, lieutenant.” A swift yank of your undershirt revealed both of your tits to the damp air, and the chill of it settled wonderfully on the thin sheen of sweat that had gathered under your stiff uniform. The sigh that melted through your lips was as much confirmation as you could provide him. 
“Filthy thing.” His voice was a darkened hiss as he roughly took both of your breasts in his hands. “You’d let me do anything, wouldn’t you? Right here in the fucking street.” 
There was no doubt that he could sense the pleasure soaking your thoughts with every passing second, the heat coiling up through your body, breaking you into soft trembles against the solid seams of durasteel.
Stars, this was wrong. 
But there was something about it--about being pinned up, shameless, tits bared and groped in the middle of a dirty Corellian backstreet like some cheap outer rim whore, that had you feeling freer and fucking hotter than you ever had in your life.
Yes.
He could do anything. Take anything. And right now, you’d fucking give it to him. 
Your teeth sank into your bottom lip, head nodding in desperate submission as your fingers wiggled against their invisible bonds. It was like your body was coming alive for the first time, finally catalyzed to its transition state, now burning and shifting and begging silently for him not to fucking stop touching you. 
“I want to know, little whore--” His hand spread over your bare collarbones, the wide junction of a thumb and forefinger pressing the base of your windpipe. A gasping little moan left you as his lips brushed your jugular, heat striking up through your belly and all the way into your neck when his other hand urged your thighs apart to tease your slit. "I want to know just how far you can take me down this pretty throat."
Everything in you shuddered, and your unrelenting bonds were probably all that held you up against the sudden lack of support that your knees offered. Kylo Ren pressed the tip of one thick finger inside you, barely curling at your soaked entrance. 
“Do you think you can swallow my cock, lieutenant?”
“Fuck. Yes, yes sir, please.” The breathless response left you before you even registered what you were saying, so thick was the need enshrouding your brain. It muddled your hearing, put everything else on a sensory delay to the pulsing heat that slid down and coiled up in your core.
And that’s why you almost didn’t catch the gritted command before the strong presence of his body suddenly drew away from you, leaving your head spinning. 
“Get on your knees.”
The Force evaporated from around your forearms. The loss of physical support nearly made you buckle, your body sagging against the fighter and leaving you to clutch at a ridge of metal for balance. You’d heard him, vaguely, but your brain still felt spectacularly slow. You were having trouble remembering which way was up, blinking against the low light, and the small hesitation was enough. 
In a flash of movement, his saber cleared the clip on his belt, cracking the air in two as it ignited in his hand and leveled to heat your neck. 
"Now.”
For a second, everything was extraordinarily still. Your lungs, your mind, even the faint drizzle of mist seemed to suspend in the air, vaporize around the searing plasma, and equilibrate into a deathly quiet.
The red aura vibrated in your immediate periphery, engulfing your retinas and casting everything around it in near-total blackness, unwavering in its proximity as the cold street pressed your knees. 
A very marked shift took place in the state of your awareness as you knelt, waiting-- feeling. Everything was hazy and warm before, but now. Oh, now, everything was hot, and sharp. 
The snap of plasma echoing through the empty street sounded somehow both hushed and magnified. The gravelly bite of duracrete into your knees was both painful and electrifying. And all you could do was sit here and accept the way Kylo Ren drank you in, just hold absolutely still and let the tip of the saber rotate to your front, the light of it illuminating your bare chest.
And, fuck. Oh, fucking Maker-- 
You were wet. 
Every beat of your heart was an enunciated hit to your core, giving your arousal a wicked edge that cut into every last molecule of your body. Your cunt ached more with every pulse, and yet Ren just held there, his breaths shaking the damp air between you as he gazed at your naked tits under the light of a weapon that could kill you in half an instant.
You were possessed, the danger and thrill of it flooding your skin with intoxicating fire, and in a moment of what might have been either immense bravery or unfathomable stupidity, your hand began to move. 
Very, very slowly, it pulled along your belly, fingers twitching to splay downwards. The saber heated your knuckles, following as you guided it all the way to the apex of your thighs, where you paused. And then you sat back on your heels, spread your knees as far as they would go, and curled your hips forward, letting the crimson light gleam off of the wet shine of your cunt. 
“Fuck,” Ren rasped from the shadows, something delirious and urgent unearthing itself from the gravel of his voice. Somewhere beyond the snapping hum of the blade, you heard the slick sound of leather moving over flesh. “Fuck- touch yourself. Sh-show me--”
But you were already moving. Your fingers slid into the wet heat of your folds, tender with arousal, the flesh plumped up from abuse. You dragged your slick all over yourself, spreading for him, pulling up to circle your neglected clit and letting out a soft sigh at the relief that saturated you in a deluge. 
The cool air did little now to temper the exquisite heat that flooded your body as you pleasured yourself openly for him, whimpering when you felt a familiar swell prime itself deep within you. It brightened with every practiced curl of your fingers, blooming outwards to rival the lightsaber that illuminated you steadily, and it wasn’t long before your thighs began to clench, your hips rocking against the movement of your hand while heady gasps punched your chest, that luminous heat coming closer and closer to a blinding apex.
You began to flutter, tightening with closeness, but the blade shot up under your chin, freezing you in the one movement. 
“Don’t cum.” 
Your heart slammed in your throat, every muscle locking into place where it was. You could feel errant sparks biting your skin, daring you not to move or speak.
And then darkness swallowed you, a hiss of steam resounding as the saber abruptly disengaged. The lingering imprint of it marred your sight, and you gasped when the whirl of movement in front of you turned into a large hand snaking into your hair, hips crowding your face, and the warm, solid length of Kylo Ren’s cock pressing against your cheek. 
You whined, stiff muscles liquefying as you turned your mouth towards it, moisture already welling under your tongue. But his fingers tightened at your scalp, stopping you.
“See what you do to me, little thing?” 
His other hand gripped around his base, letting the weight of his cock thump against your cheek once, twice. Fuck, he was so hard, and if you thought he was big before, it was even more obvious now that he was pressed right up against your face, so close to the soft heat of your mouth.
You nodded and whimpered, letting your cheek brush against his erection, still damp with your own slick. He rocked his hips forward, and the sheer breadth of his stature dwarfed you as he pressed in closer, until your face tilted and your jaw rested up against the hard plane of his adonis belt. Heat seeped into your cheekbone, radiating from the saber hilt strapped deftly back to his hip, like a warm sun to the earth and smoke of his body. 
An absolutely crippling wave of desperation crashed through you then, pulling an audaciously loud moan up tight through your chest that morphed into a pitifully sobbed out, “Please.” 
The hand in your hair gave a firm tug until you were looking straight up his torso, the glint of his eyes just visible to your adjusting sight. He held you there, his strength commanding, voice slipping like dark matter through his vocal cords when he spoke. 
“Are you going to let this whole filthy fucking city hear what a little whore you are?” He rocked your head back and forth by your hair, turning your neck muscles to liquid. “Begging for my cock?” 
You bit your lip, too far gone to deny or assent. Perhaps caution would still be the smart thing, but stars--you didn’t fucking care any more. You’d let every wretched street rat on Corellia hear you beg for him, if it came down to it right now. 
Not trusting yourself to answer verbally, you simply let your mouth fall open so that your wet tongue could drag over the tiny slip of exposed skin above his groin, never once taking your eyes off of his shadowed face. Your reward was a thick groan and a twitch of his cock by your cheek, shooting a hot spasm into your core. Ren huffed out a tense breath. 
“Keep that fucking mouth open.”
He drew back and pumped himself, long and slow right in front of your obediently waiting tongue, black glove squeezing almost too roughly along his shaft until a thick bead of pre cum wept from his slit. Your brow pinched upwards as saliva pooled behind your bottom lip, threatening to drip down onto the duracrete, seep into a blaster hole and add to the memory that this roughened street would keep of you, so soft and wanting, incongruous next to its grit.
Ren stepped forward, obliterating your thoughts as finally, finally, he rested his thick head on your tongue, removing his own hand and letting you test the full weight of him in your mouth. Your moan was almost a sob when you closed your lips and dragged your tongue across his frenulum, letting him feel you, swirling the pre cum from his tip before sliding him deeper into the hot depths of your mouth. 
“Fuck, good girl,” he hissed, resting both hands in your hair, but not controlling. You took him another inch, tongue working to lubricate your path, satisfaction unfurling when his chest heaved at the feeling. The taste of him shot a primal fire through you, equal parts sharp and masculine, the remnants of your own cum leaving a tang on your taste buds. 
Arousal careened through your belly, and you couldn’t help but dip your hand between your thighs, fingers finding your clit stiff and sensitive as your tongue passed over a thick vein.
But he caught your movement, and your hands were immediately wrenched upwards by an invisible strength, both wrists flying up and into the waiting grip of Ren’s palms. You squeaked.
“Impudent thing,” he growled, and wrapped your smaller hands around the base of his cock, securing your grip with a warning squeeze before carding his fingers into your hair again. “Keep them there.” 
You gave a tiny nod and a shallow whimper, briefly mourning for your aching clit yet almost instantly distracted again by a twitch of his shaft on your tongue. Relaxing your jaw, you took him further, letting him begin to feel the tight silk of your throat.
“Fuck--” every muscle in Ren’s body seemed to go rigid enough to rival the durasteel frame of his ship, and his fingers clenched tighter into your hair. “Yes, take it--” he hissed as you slipped back an inch and enveloped him again, relaxing to take him deeper.
You found a steady rhythm like this, gradually acclimating to the feeling of intrusion. It became a little easier with each appreciative sound you drew from the commander, arousal permeating your body’s natural defenses and slackening them, even as your throat began to protest the moment you got about halfway down his cock.
But as hard as you tried to ignore the sensation of breathlessness, your lungs still screamed for air. You got maybe eight or nine good strokes in before your lips drew off of him with an obscene pop, slick hands taking over to work his length while you gasped a few starved breaths. 
It would have been easy to stay like this, jaw slack, lips plump and wet, simply marveling at the hard and beautifully flushed appendage in your palms. But then a finger tapped twice under your chin, breaking your daze with a wordless command that struck an immediate response--your eyes flicked up. 
“Are you determined to test my doubts in your capabilities, lieutenant?” He laid a flat palm under your jaw and ran his thumb over your blushed lips, leather slipping lewdly over saliva. “Or must I teach you everything?”
Your heart struck your pelvic floor, dread and excitement charging up like a shot from a plasma cannon. “N-no. I--” Heat surged into your face. “I me-mean, I, uh--” Fuck, it was stupid to think you were somehow out of hot water. He expected more. Always, always, expected more, and now you were going to have to play your cards carefully. You swallowed against the thundering of your pulse. “I c-can take it, Commander, ple-please--”
“Can you?” He wiggled your jaw slightly in his palm, face tilting until a sliver of moonlight slanted across it like a translucent scar. You tensed, resisting the urge to shrink. “Or should I have selected someone more adequate?”
The plasma charge inside you flared, fusing atoms of dread into something deadlier with the affront. Your teeth gnashed, tension breaking your body into trembles under the strain of caution. “N-no, sir.” A muscle in his face twitched. “Please, I was... I w-was just--”
“Perhaps I should return you to General Quinn,” he said. “I’m sure he would be more than accepting of such inferior talents--”
You lunged, and in a single, smooth stroke, you swallowed his cock straight to the base, your body heaving its protest with a soundless convulsion.
A noise strangled in Ren’s throat, and a firm hand slid around the nape of your neck to hold you there, gagging and completely stripped of any capacity for breath. 
It probably would have been too much for you to handle, were it not for the hot sparks of indignation that quickly soldered each fissure in your resolve. Each one forced you to soften, to accept the agonizing incursion, if nothing else just to prove that you could. 
Relax.
Tears welled as you glanced up, funneling all of your willpower into sacrificing your need for breath. Movement was impossible with him holding you there, but the huge hand on the back of your neck spasmed, and your opportunity struck.
Doe-eyed, you gazed up and swallowed, letting your pharynx flex and ripple around the thick head of him just as hot tears spilled over to soak your cheeks, and one hand curled around to cup him by the balls.
You could almost hear something in him snap with the choked roar he let out, and it made your chest swell even as both of his hands coiled roughly into your hair and locked your head back. You met his stare, fire in your own, and gave him a challenging squeeze. In less than a second, your hands were no longer your own, seized by the Force and shackled down to your thighs, just before his hips drew back and oxygen smacked your lungs with a less than pretty sound. 
He gave you no time to recover before his cock was gagging you again, his rhythm punctuated and slow, each thrust forcing submission from your body. Gravel shifted under your knees as you trembled with all of the muscular tension that you redirected away from your jaw, the coarse pain of it serving as a welcome diversion from the intense sensation of having your throat fucked.
Relax. Control yourself.
Wetness began to streak your face, tears and saliva converging on your chin, and the vague thought shimmered in the back of your mind as to what you must look like right now: a slutty mess completely at your commander’s mercy, drawing choked breaths only when he allowed it, tongue fluttering soft and wet under his thick shaft while your clit fucking throbbed between your legs. But from the broken sound that Ren let out as he watched another violent gag roll through you, you’d have thought it was the hottest thing he’d ever witnessed. 
His grunt bottomed out into a snarl as one hand slid out of your hair, his palm turning outwards while two of his fingers began to curl in a salacious motion.
The fluid sensation of the Force coiled and rippled across your clit at his command, its motions just like your own fingers but even better, making your eyes nearly roll back in your skull. Ren gave a knowing hum as your moan was choked down into your throat by another thrust of his cock, and a bend of his fingers sent a toe-curling rumble over your swollen bundle of nerves. 
“That’s it, lieutenant.”
The sound of his voice slid down your body, settling low in your belly where your orgasm was starting to simmer again. Even the ache in your jaw began to meld into your pleasure, making your head swim and buzz with the renewed promise of climax.
Ren’s breathing started to crack and falter, coming in half-formed curses through his ribs as he continued to steadily fuck your mouth, and it was clear that he must have been leaning on the edge of closeness for some time as well. You could feel it in the way his cock pulsed on your tongue, the way his stomach began to tense and flex.
Fuck, the thought of it--Kylo Ren, this grand enigma steeped in poise and brutality, a man who could obliterate life with a flex of his hand, was about to pull you apart by the threads, shatter you into pleasure with that same power and cum down your fucking throat. 
The wave of arousal that slammed you was almost maddening, and it was all you could do to flatten your tongue over your teeth and swallow thickly around his cock once more before everything was coiling up tight and fast inside you. 
His voice shot you to the precipice with a gritted out, “Fucking whore, let me f-feel you cum--”
There was a moment before it hit, like the way a seismic charge pulls in all of the sound around it into a single devastating point, and then with a choked sob you shattered, pulses of ecstasy ripping through your body while your cunt spasmed and wept its bliss onto the street with each unrelenting surge of the Force at your clit, wringing convulsions from you until you began to shake from the intensity of your orgasm.
You blinked the fresh tears from your eyes just in time to see Ren snarl above you, jaw tight and hips stuttering as the tension in his body threatened to snap, echoing in a rough pull of your hair. Pain seared your scalp as he pulled you off of his cock just in time for the first jets of his release to coat your tongue.
He groaned, a harsh sound that rivaled your surroundings in its sheer impurity, and he wrenched your head back further, working his length while thick ropes hit your open, gasping mouth, splattering your lips and chin with his bitter taste. He was grunting, swearing, panting through clenched teeth, and then--
Your name. Not your title, not a mocking belittlement of your rank, but your name, cracked through his lips, a desperate sound half-buried in the delirious stream of filth.
Before you could even process what you just heard, he sharply released your hair and stepped back, your invisible restraints dissipating and leaving you to crumple over on yourself, gasping and trembling and painted in cum. 
Slowly, through the ring of pleasure and shock in your ears, you rubbed your sore jaw, before using your fingers to gather the warm mess around your lips. But just when you were about to slip them into your mouth, his voice stopped you, a graveled whisper from the shadows.
“Look at me.”
Breathless, you looked up, suddenly conscious of how plump and stained your face felt as the cool air began to dry the tears on your cheeks. Ren had already adjusted himself to decency, but your walls still fluttered with aftershocks of pleasure at the sight of his huge stature, swelling with deep breaths like a sated, black tide under the moon. You gazed at him in the dim light, holding his stare while you dipped your slippery fingers into your mouth and dutifully sucked the cum off of them, admittedly letting your tongue lick out along your knuckles just a little more than you probably needed to. 
Ren’s nostrils flared, and he took a few strides in your direction. When his hand came out towards your face you flinched, but he simply curled his fingers under your chin and slowly passed his thumb over a spot on your cheek that you had missed, expressionless as he pushed it through your parted lips. He watched you like this for the smallest moment before he drew away again.
Your mind felt blank; wiped and recalibrated by the staggering intensity of whatever your life had become over the past few hours. Exhaustion settled on you with the weight of a freighter. The one thing still tethering you to reality was the sensation of oxygen drawing in and out of your lungs, sweeter now than it had ever felt in your life despite the taste of grease and rust in the air. 
Stiffly, you began to readjust your clothing, pulling your undershirt and coat back over your breasts before beginning the painful process of climbing to your feet. As shaky and sore as they were, your legs somehow supported you, and you managed to wrestle your pants back up over the curve of your ass, only fumbling a little to secure them around your waist. 
For some reason it was only after you were covered again that you even thought to look around the alley, a brief pang of fear seizing your ribs, but it was just as still as when you’d landed. Just as empty, just as quiet. Maybe even moreso.
You glanced back around to Ren where he stood by the connecting beam of the ship’s wing, still and ruminative, a sleek device raised in his hand. After a moment, he pressed a button and spoke into it.
"Report."
A crackle of static peeled through.
“Have eyes, dropping in,” you could faintly hear the voice on the other end say, and a spear of alarm jabbed you back to sudden alertness. Ren's eyes flicked to you, his face stone. 
“Clear to land,” the commander returned through the commlink, before tucking it back into his pocket. 
Your heart pumped uneasily against your ribs, your face surely a canvas of confusion. Ren cast you a blank look before grabbing a metal ridge on the ship and smoothly disappearing into the cockpit again. 
Okay, this was getting unnerving. But the whine of an engine snapped your attention to the sky, where a standard-issue TIE fighter was descending with predatory swiftness upon the alley, its headlights killed, swooping into a hover just behind Ren’s Silencer. Half-shielded by the wing already, you recoiled instinctively into the shadow of it, as if you could find safety in the way it jutted forward like a protective talon.
You jumped when heavy boots hit the ground next to you again, looking up to see a masked Kylo Ren. He watched the other fighter land, standing silently as its cockpit popped open with a whisper of hydraulics. A shadowed figure leapt out, and you took a few steps backwards as it strode in your direction, vaulting the wing-support beam of the Silencer in a smooth motion before coming to a halt in front of the commander.
“Ren,” a dusky voice rasped through the tinny filter of a vocoder. He was masked as well, similar yet altogether different from the commander he addressed; rougher-looking, shrouded in strange black armor. As you stared, his head quirked, the mask tilting to settle on you. “Who’s this?”
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So We Refuse To Take it Tragically
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A/N: I’ve just accepted my fate is to be obsessed with this man, so here’s yet another Obi-Wan fic. There will be a second part to this, and I’m thinking a mini series of in-between moments. I won’t give spoilers, but this is NOT my normal type of fic, but he’s an exception to every rule in my book, apparently. Thank you to @caffeine-in-an-iv​ for being my beta on this, I don’t know where this would be without you!
Thank you also to @beskars​ for her post here that birthed this. Always blessing us with fuel for the thirst. 
And to the one I know IRL that found my tumblr, one I will refer to as Top Voice, this is your final warning to gtfo before feasting your eyes on unprecedented filth and sap. 
Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Force sensitive! Fem Reader (no Y/N)
Warnings: SMUT!!!  Cumeating, hair pulling, Comfort Sex, ANGST!! (It has a happy ending later, I promise, but it starts after ROTS, so it’s par for the course) If you’re gonna write not-particularly-pertinent-to-plot-porn, might as well make it unnecessarily detailed, right? As usual, too many feelings for porn,  More warnings will be in the tags to prevent spoilers 
Title from one of my favorite quotes: 
“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”
-D.H. Lawrence
Tatooine is no place for a baby.
 There are no soft surfaces, nor comforts, nor surplus of anything. It’s desolate and deprived and oppressive, but you watch as Obi-Wan shields the child from its harsh, sand-pelting winds with his whole body, despite the fact the child fits in the space between his wrist and elbow. It’s overzealous, but you don’t say anything of it.
 The past two days have ripped away nearly everything he held dear, insisting on devastating every tender place. Nothing sacred has been left untouched.
 He broke the code long before he met you, and you know part of why his love for you came so easily, why he had no qualms with breaking his vows, was because he’d long since loved the man that became his family in every way that matters.
 Love and Light so tightly knit together the fabric of his being one could not be separated from the other. 
 And you could take on the entire Force with your two fists for how it had rewarded him for it with Hate and Darkness coming from someone so close it shattered something foundational in Obi-Wan. 
 Yet even now, there isn’t Darkness surrounding his signature. There’s brokenness and his ever-present equilibrium has been replaced by jagged shards. But despite it all, those rugged pieces still reflect light erratically in their shine.
 It’s a loss and betrayal that spans many different planes: on one level, there’s nowhere you look in the galaxy beyond just the two of you that isn’t marked by the Empire’s rise in power, marking the end of the Republic he fought for and the fall of the Jedi, his community, comrades, and only home he’d ever known. And on another level, you’ve seen the weight of war and worse in Obi-Wan’s eyes, but nothing, nothing like this.
 The pain is panoramic, but it’s also profoundly personal.
 Even still, his attention isn’t on himself, but on the fussy bundle in his arms.
 You wonder: is it the galaxy that doesn’t allow this man time to heal? Or is it his own choice to throw himself into the need of others so he has a tangible reason to avoid his own torments?
 When he places the baby into the arms of the young couple, you know the times ahead will give the answer to that.
 Because there aren't the cries of the past few nights to wake either of you, there’s silence. 
 You long to fill it, to try to bridge this insurmountable void with something, anything you could say. But you know it’s bigger than you. So, so much bigger than you.
 Monumental obstacles and tremendous loss find themselves standing in the threshold of an abandoned hut smaller than your flat was on Coruscant. 
 “Well… it’s not much to look at, certainly. But the moisture vaporator seems to be in repairable condition, and we’re just far enough from town to avoid any curious neighbors. What do you think?” He turns to you, and his eyes, dark circles under and all, turn sharp in their assessment of your response. 
 “I told you. I’m going wherever you are so long as you’ll let me.” Your voice is gentle but adamant as you remind him. 
 He walks up from the living room to the threshold of the kitchen where you are, wrapping his arms loosely around your waist. “Be that as it may, I’m asking your input on where we’re going, or living, as your happiness means a great deal to me.” 
 There’s still no smile, but it’s the brightest his energy has felt since the last time you saw him before he came to your door in Coruscant days ago, whispering a rushed, heartfelt farewell, which you quickly countered with an emphatic, unshakable, “I’m coming with you.”
 You look up at him, gliding your hand across his cheek into the hair at the nape of his neck. There’s Darkness at the door of his soul that he’s fighting off every moment, and he has the audacity to speak of your happiness. 
 You don’t dare bring up his. It’s irony, at best. 
 So you smile, timid, knowing the gesture in itself might be blasphemous to the tone, but genuine all the same. “We can make a life here. I know we can.”  
 He scans your eyes, looking to find the authenticity in your statement. “Are you certain?” 
 He’s not asking about the hut anymore. Or, at least, not just the hut. 
 “Obi-Wan, I never had any delusion that any life I had with you would be easy. I thought I’d only ever be getting you in secret, sparse moments. Although I’d never, ever wish for it to be under the circumstances that it is, having you like this is better than I ever hoped.”
 There’s silence as he processes your words, then a wry twist of his features. “How I wish that your expectations needn’t be so low.”
 “No, no, that’s not what I meant.” You incline your head, trying to find the words to convey what you mean. 
 “Nothing any person or any planet anywhere has to offer me holds a candle to what I’ve found in you, nor will it ever. I’d never trade unshakable wholeness for the transience of materialistic happiness.”
 You know this has to resound with him. Is it not within the core set of values he was taught to forsake comfort in any avenue for something far greater? 
 His eyes flick between yours, gauging, and you can feel him reaching out to feel at your signature to solidify the truth. 
 If you knew him any less, you might be insulted at his questioning of your trustworthiness. But it’s not you he doesn’t trust. It’s something good willingly giving itself to him that causes his wariness. 
 The Force can have your middle finger along with your fists. 
 Then he’s relaxing into you, letting out an exhale that seems heavy with more than just air, and burying his nose in your hair for his next inhale. 
 ****
 By the end of the day, you’ve gathered enough supplies for basic necessities and to start on the repairs of the hut. You both snarf down a ration bar before shortly thereafter clearing the blown-in sand off what must have been the bed of the home. It’s a half circle indenture in the wall, and it has a dip obviously made for a mattress or cushion of some sort, but as all that’s available are the blankets bought in town today, you set to fluffing them to some semblance of comfort. 
 Fatigue pulls you into it far sooner than the suns setting. Last night was your first night without Luke, spent in a room you rented in town. Today was spent traveling to and from the hut, discussing details on what needs to be done, and you? You are absolutely exhausted. You can only imagine what he must feel like. 
 Obi-Wan secures the lock on the door before sitting on the side of the bed, looking off into nothing for a long, long moment. 
 You push up to your side, placing a hand on his back. “Obi…”
 His shoulder nudges toward your hand, but he cuts you off. “It’s going to get quite cold when the suns set, and since the stove isn’t properly ventilating yet, we’re going to have to work with body heat.”
 “I’ll try to mask my reluctance,” you retort.
 He turns his face to you then, and just a smidge of humor sweeps across his eyes before he sheds his cloak, followed by everything else until only his pants remain. You’ve long since stripped down to your own sleeping comfort level, so before he can fold his cloak along with the rest of his discarded clothing, you take it and cover yourself with it. 
 He shakes his head a little at you once he’s done, settling down next to you, throwing the covers over both of you. 
 “Tell me what you need.” You’re face to face with him, but his expression is unreadable. 
 “I… I don’t know.” He considers you as if you held the answer to the question you just asked him.
 “What about want, then? What do you want, Obi-Wan?” You wish he didn’t have his shields perpetually raised these days. It’d be so much easier to just read his energy. 
 His hand reaches up so he can stroke your cheek with his thumb. “You’re tired, darling. Rest.” 
 Ah, there it is. If the answer to the question of desire is him counter offering his own response with the fact you’re tired… 
  “So are you. But you still want.” You press your body fully against his, dropping your voice down to a whisper. “And so do I.” 
 You won’t push anymore than that, letting him take or leave the invitation. For you, it’s not even a question. It’s been four months since you last saw him. Since you’d last felt his touch.
 You’d spent the last few nights in each other’s arms, but between Luke's shrill cries and the deafening devastation of the events of the days prior, it’d been just that: sleep. Or, what tousled, disturbed counterfeit the circumstance offered you both.  
 For him, though, there’s an abysmal weariness that digs far beyond lack of sleep, and you don’t dare infringe upon him in any way.
 But there’s still a longing present, and even without his Force signature to guide you into his feelings, he can’t hide his eyes. 
 You watch the moment he makes a decision solidify across his countenance right before he presses his lips against yours. You sigh into it, letting the draw of his skin on yours pull you into orbit.
 Because that’s exactly what happens. It’s a kiss for a kiss’ sake, for flavor and fervency and the fullness of each other, but it quickly gains its own momentum when his tongue parts your lips truly. 
 It’s an acute absence. Not having his energy surrounding you with his shields so far up. But it also gives sharp attention to the press of skin against skin, makes it an anchor and an outlet for all that is still too tender to even acknowledge.
 You find grip in his hair, purposefully running your hands the opposite of the way he combs it as he takes your face in both hands and pulls you into him all the more. 
 When you both need to breathe, he only moves so far away that his lips still brush against yours on every exhale. “I..” he starts, then stops. 
 The hand still in his hair rakes through it gently, scratching your fingertips against his scalp as you wait for him to complete his thought.
 “Let me taste you,” he says at last. You know it's a question from the way he stills, waiting for permission, but it’s phrased as nothing like it. 
 You raise an eyebrow. “Is that a rhetorical quest…”
 “Oh, hush.” He’s already nudging you over onto your back, situating his body over yours, claiming your lips again. You allow yourself to sink into it, cherishing his weight over you, his hand roaming your ribcage, before pulling back to speak. 
 “I’m sorry, are you now getting on to me for my sass? Because… oh!”
 He finds a nipple through the thin fabric of your shirt, pinching softly with a small tug. 
 “By all means, continue. I was most intrigued.” His smirk is back, but it fixes you with a tinge of worry when it again proves to be a smile only skin deep.
 You place two fingers just shy of his forehead, but he catches your wrist in an almost painful clasp. The alarm casted by his expression quickly is washed away by a carefully constructed impassiveness, and your heart sinks. 
 He has to see it, because he bows his head in apology. “Not tonight.”
 And before you have any room to respond, he’s shifting himself down as he lifts your shirt up, placing a single taunting, wet kiss on each nipple before moving even further down, nipping at the skin right below your belly button. 
 He’s distracting you from what he’s not allowing you access to, and you know it, and you let him anyway. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Distraction from the barrage of the mind. If that’s what he needs, that’s what you’ll give.
 As he toys with the hem of your underthings, and you lift your hips to assist their removal, you realize it’s exactly what you need too.
 Except he apparently isn’t planning to remove your underwear at all. With a casual flick of his hand, your legs are parted and held like that with a no-nonsense sprout of Force energy. Then he’s simply pulling the cloth to the side and brings his mouth torturously closer, but stops just before contact. 
 You push up to your elbows to tell him you can’t take much of those teasing breaths he’s taking, blowing hot air against sensitive nerve endings. But when you hear his breath stutter as he just looks, unhurried in admiration, you decide against it, even as you flush at the undivided attention. Sprawling his palms out over your inner thighs, he dips down to press his mouth between his fingers, sucking not-so-gently into the soft skin, sending the flesh into tremors before he’s even really done anything to you.
 He says your name as he opens you up with his fingers, parting your folds so everything is bared to his view. You start to squirm, the exposure starting to feel a little too heady, and you’re starting to appeal with the beginning of his name when he leans forward, straight away connecting his lips to your clit. You try to thrust up into it as some shameful noise leaves you, but there’s only so much movement you have with your legs still pinned. 
 He loves to tease, so you don’t expect him to retract the energy that constricted your legs at the first resistance. Instead, he slides his hands under your ass, pulling you on to his tongue and lets you push your hips into him unchecked.
 He hums at your enthusiasm, the reverberation sending your hands into his hair again, which gifts you with even more noises from him. 
 It doesn’t take long at all, and you’re coming undone on his tongue, biting into your forearm to dampen your cry. 
 He doesn’t stop until you push at his shoulder, signaling your tender surrender. He obeys, looking up at you from between your thighs, absolutely besotted, eyes shining a shade brighter than before. 
 Then. Obi-Wan Kenobi keeps his eyes on yours before dipping his head and tilting his jaw, running his beard right where you’re still open and vulnerable, abrasion grating in a way you know you’ll be feeling all day tomorrow. 
 He licks his lips as he moves back up to kiss you again, letting you taste yourself on him. 
 He goes easily when you gesture for him to lie on his back so you can straddle him, carefully avoiding any contact where he’s throbbing for you. His hands fall right to your waist, stroking gently as he waits for you to initiate. 
 You focus your study on the section of his hair that’s fallen in his face, twirling a finger in it, happy to have anywhere to look but his eyes. 
 He’d normally at least be in your mind by now, and even though you understand it, well, the drought of it is as appropriate for the planet as anything. 
 You remember too late to raise your own shields against any accidentally too-loud thoughts, as Obi-Wan cups his hand on your chin, forcing your gaze to his, saying your name quietly in calling.
 “You have to know, it isn’t anything to do with…”
 You interrupt him. “No. No. I won’t have you addressing my insecurities of all things in light of…”
 “Please listen, love. I need you to know, it hasn’t anything to do with the love I have for you. That hasn’t changed and never will. I think I need… “ He pauses, solemn in thought. “Time,” he finishes finally.
 You knew this already in the pit of your stomach, but hearing him say it, hearing him affirm that it isn’t you insufficiency… you hate that you needed it as much as you did. 
 And if he needs time? That’s what you’ll give. But he also has a want, evidenced by the brush of him against you when you scoot yourself down his torso. 
 You take the hem of his pants with you when you continue down, ridding him of them and his shorts. But when you wrap your hand around him and begin to lower your mouth, he grips your chin again, shaking his head. 
 “I can’t… please, just.”  It’s always an anomaly when he’s at a loss for words, usually ever-so articulate.  
 A gasp chokes out of you when you feel the phantom of his mind. Not in full, no. With barriers, and it’s projected out, not at all the same sensation to being within it. 
 It’s desperation. For how long it’s been, for how drained he feels, how he’s not sure how long this will last, and how much he yearns to be inside you.
There’s not even a second of debate in your mind as you take your position on his lap again, lifting your hips, intention apparent. He takes his cock in hand, holding steady so you can start to seat yourself onto the thick push of him. 
 The hitch in his breath is your only warning before he seizes the undersides of your thighs, halting you from taking him any further.
 His eyes are tightly shut, and you know from watching him before that his facial expression is an attempt at borderline meditation, except it’s several long seconds before he achieves anything resembling calm. 
 It’s as good a time as any to push his hands off you and squirm around to take him a little deeper. You plan on rubbing your victory in, but your smirk is wiped away with a whine at the elation. Instead of stopping you again, he almost imperceptibly thrusts up, and it’s your turn to falter, slamming your hands into his chest, nails digging in, working against your weight trying to pull you down onto him. 
 It goes on like that, until you’re both bordering on hysteria before you’ve even fully taken him. You can’t figure out if it’s a worse torment to keep delaying or continuing. 
 Obi-Wan seems to have come to his own conclusion to that, as he finally opens his eyes, locking them with yours as he places his palms flat on the tops of your thighs and pushes down until your skin is flush with his.
 You pull a hand up, biting on your fist, trying to stifle the exclamation in your throat.
 He pulls it away, voice ragged as he speaks. “I want to hear you, little one. We needn’t hide anymore.”
 It’s a dimensional statement. For one, no one is around for miles, a stark contrast to your quarters on Coruscant where you at least attempted to be considerate of your too-near neighbors when it came to noise. For another, it’s the irony of being in hiding from the Empire, but being allowed to be open in your relationship with each other finally.
 And the deepest irony is that you both have your barriers up so firmly right now all you can concentrate on is bared skin.
 Oh, but what a beautiful spanse of bared skin he is. Freckled and almost luminously pale, bending and curving with the strength of the form underneath.
 He sits up slowly, generating a breathless plea from both of you at the new angle. A search of your eyes asks you a question, and you’re nodding, kissing him with the full brunt of your craving. 
 You slide up and then down again just as he drives up, and you’ve found your rhythm, just like that. 
 His hands push you onto him every time you pull up, and his tongue laves your breasts, sucking and biting along your collarbone, as you rake your nails down his chest, over the backs of his shoulders, his scalp, anything you can touch. 
 It’s enough to send him into a chorus of groans, shoving himself hard up into you.
 He doesn’t even speak it aloud, just projects the apologetic warning that he’s on the edge.
 When his thumb finds your clit, everything in you goes tense despite the relief. You clench around him, hard, and he instantly moves his hands to your shoulder blades pulling you flush against him as he lets out an unrestrained sound against your breasts. 
 You push his thumb away from where it’s stilled against you, replacing it with your own. His fingers twitch in their bruising grip, and you can feel him throbbing inside you.
 You stay like that for a moment, just letting him ride out his bliss, whispering sweet affirmations into his hair.
 When he looks up at you again, his eyes are glassed over. You wonder if it’s ecstasy that is the cause, or something from the bedrock boiling to the surface. 
 He doesn’t give you a chance to elaborate, flipping you over on to your back. The moment he withdraws, you can feel the mess dripping down your inner thighs. 
 It takes everything in you to not come at the sight alone as Obi-Wan dips further down your body, parting you and lapping his tongue right where you’re weeping evidence of desire. 
 You know you have to be making a mess of his face and beard, but he certainly doesn’t seem to mind, indulging on his own spill infused with yours. 
 When he adds two fingers in you and curls them strategically, searing heat shoots through your lower stomach as you arch against his mouth, his name a high whisper with absolutely no suppression, echoing across the empty stone walls of the home. 
 He leaves a final tender kiss against you before lying down next to you, pulling you into his arms, and you pull him into yours right back when your limbs remember how to function.
 His head drops against yours, and his eyes flutter shut, taking a deep inhale, like he’s trying to fill his lungs with more than just oxygen. 
 Nothing is fine, and the world is crumbling. But right now, as the suns finally leave the house in dark, as you clasp each other in tight embrace, as sleep pulls you under, you can pretend it’s fine. If only for a moment.
 *******
  There’s a flash of feeling that startles you awake and into the disorientation that comes from waking in a new place. The sensation worsens when you feel the reverberations of the equivalent of a slammed door in the Force. 
 You sit up quickly and look over to Obi-Wan, who sits on the side of the bed, head in his hands, fingers brutal in their grip.
 You move toward him, and he turns around at the sound. “Go back to sleep, darling. it’s nothing.”
 When you fix him with a gaze that essentially translates “bantha fodder,” he just lies back down, pulling your back into his chest, and you doubt the fact you can’t see his face like this is a mistake. 
 The rhythm of his breathing betrays the fact he is nowhere near sleep, but you find yourself fading off soon again anyway.
 ****
 When you wake in the morning, you’re alone in the bed, which is no surprise. He’s not one to lounge, and if the height of the suns peaking through the window has anything to say, he’s already been up for a while.
 His cloak is still tangled in the blankets, though, and you wrap yourself in it, padding outside after doing something about your morning breath. 
 The hut is situated on a cliff, overlooking a barren valley. The suns glare with their unrelenting eyes of heat even so early in the day, and you stare back as best you can without squinting, daring them to do their worst. They know nothing of the misery that’s already visited this home. They have no hope of competing. 
 You find Obi-Wan cross-legged near the edge of the cliff. Cross-legged and levitating. 
 Of course, you know he can do things like this. It’s just such a different thing to see him doing it . You’ve never had a proper morning with him like this, seeing his routine. He was always up before the sun, you with him, gathering moments and soaking them in before he had to leave again.
 He looks almost peaceful now, not at rest, but peaceful. 
 How?
 How does he still have so much trust in the Force? 
 A more lighthearted thought emerges through the grim train, as you notice he’s opted to not put his tunic back on yet. 
 It doesn’t matter out here, you suppose, there isn’t any other living being for miles around. For that matter, you wonder why he even left the pants. 
 His voice damn near startles you, not even opening his eyes to address you. 
 “Although that may be the case, there are some locations more bearable to get sunburn than others.”
 You blush at being caught, and gently ensure your thoughts aren’t accidentally projected again, but he doesn’t give you much time to dwell on it.
 “Join me?”
 As he opens his eyes and descends the couple inches down back onto the ground, you feel your heart do the same. He’s taught you little things, here and there, and you’ve enjoyed it, learning to tap into that constant humming you never had the tools to channel before.
 But now? 
 What interest do you have with The Force that failed the man who served it without fail? You could burn it down for the atrocities it’s committed even in negligence against the man you love.
 But there’s been enough burning.
 Obi-Wan won’t speak of what transpired on Mustafar, but you’ve caught glimpses. Last night wasn’t the first night you’ve had him back, and it wasn’t the first you’d woken to a severe troubling in his aura. 
 You’re still not sure if Luke is a fussy baby or simply a very responsive one, as it seemed Obi-Wan was already awake before Luke started crying. 
 It was only mere seconds before his shields came slamming down, firmly in place, every time. 
You can’t tell if he’s trying to shelter you from his feelings or blockade them away from himself.
 Maybe both.
 But those seconds? They’re long enough. For just a flash of a charred, severed body. Of hateful, pleading, golden eyes. 
 There’s been enough burning. 
 “I can’t ever be a Jedi, Obi.” 
 “That’s not what I’m asking of you.” 
 He knows your criticisms as well as your compliments over the Jedi. You’ve both discussed it at great length many times, always over a firm understanding and respect, but you’ve never really had long enough to have a conclusion. But you’re not going to push now, not with the fall of it all still so close behind him. 
 “I should think our relationship itself is testimony that I don’t inherently agree or adhere to all Jedi teachings.”
 You drop your eyes, trying to ignore the sweat starting to trickle down your skin from the relentless heat. “I thought maybe you were with me in spite of your better judgement.”
 His brow furrows. “At first, that’s what I may have thought too, but it made itself clear that although what transpired between us was forbidden by the Code…” he trails off for a moment, almost hesitant. “...the way Light was and is exemplified any time I have you in my arms presented a solidified case that not always is the Jedi way synonymous with the will of the Force.”
 He says it wholeheartedly, but you can tell it pains him. It’s easy to never speak ill of the dead, either of individuals or groups. To glorify and wipe away any transgressions to ensure their memory sparkles as you grieve it. 
 The harder thing is to grieve everything, both the good you lost and the bad you experienced from the same source.
 And there’s another level there. Something that has him patting the spot beside him and giving a heartbreakingly forced smile.
 Even through it all, wariness of aspects of his own religion included, he seeks unity with the Force without reservation or resentment.
 You don’t fight him anymore. 
 The war is over, but the battle has just begun, and so help you Maker, you’re going to fight for him to have the chance to heal. 
 So you sit, mimicking his position. 
 When he smiles again, it’s much smaller but not at all fake. 
 “First, clear your mind.”
 *****
 The days are afflicted with an underlying gloom, full of work that busies the hands but leaves the mind to wander, which wasn’t at all a luxurious thing. 
 But the nights are filled with unclaimed time, time in an abundance you never had with each other before. 
 Sometimes it’s shot with silence from the weight of the day, reveling in the presence of another as you work together on the supper dishes.
 Or sometimes there’s almost an excitement, despite the labor ahead, of the plans for the place that’s now your home. 
 “Wouldn’t we have to have some sort of larger equipment to hoist that over the cliff edge?” You wonder aloud to Obi-Wan, speaking of the replacement unit for finally getting some very basic temperature control for the hut. “The way around back is too rough and would scratch it up, and I, for one, wouldn’t want to try pushing it up manu…”
 You stop at his smirk he’s trying to hide with tilting his tea cup higher over his lips. 
 “...Or there’s a Jedi solution to this problem that requires neither, and you’re just letting me ramble on anyway.” You punctuate the end of your statement by tossing a pillow his direction, which just stops. Midair. 
 There’s so much legend surrounding Jedi, you haven’t really been sure what’s factual and what’s fairytale. 
 You certainly knew of some of his abilities, but he didn’t tend to elaborate on details of his missions before, and you never argued, knowing it was a liability for you to have that kind of information if anyone ever found out what you meant to Obi-Wan.
 He chuckles, not even trying to look a little guilty. 
 Once you remember to shut your mouth, you get back to planning. “And that same principle just applies to objects of any size?”
 He nods. “Same principle, just more concentration required.” 
 You tuck your feet under you on your chair as you think on that for a second. You’ll have to ask him to teach you that one next. Mediation alone could get rather dull.
 “So, for instance, if a great amount of concentration is being spent Force-lifting an object up the cliff, it would leave a Jedi vulnerable to, say… projectiles thrown?” You throw another pillow at him, which just as easily halts next to the other, gravity defiant. 
 He could have lowered the first one by now. You raise a brow at the knowledge he’s putting on a show for you. 
 “You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid.” 
 More often than not, the time of the evenings are spent loving and lounging in sheets, savoring the difference of unhurried lovemaking, with no heart-wrenching farewell on the horizon.
 But every time you gently ask to reach his mind, he pushes the request and your hand away.
 *******
 Obi-Wan’s visits to see Luke are met with a level of hostility. The man, Owen, seems wary of him, doing everything he can to cut the visit short as you and the woman, Beru, if you remember correctly, look silently to each other for some relief in the tension.
 They already likely know his actual name, but you’re careful to only address Obi as “Ben” here, along with everywhere else that isn’t your hut. It’s precautionary, but if it’s for the sake of protecting Luke and Obi-Wan himself, you’ll do it without any further questions.
 But Luke seems to be doing well, and that is ultimately what matters most. It’s hard to believe how quickly he’s grown in the mere weeks that you’ve been here.
 The boy might be by far Obi-Wan’s greatest purpose being on this planet, but it’s not his only. 
 Master Yoda had given him Jedi texts, yes, but also another task for his time here. 
You’re thankful to talk about either, as it seems to be one of the few things he’ll open up to you about as it pertains to himself. 
 But when he goes to meditate alone, calling for his mentor, his father in every right of the term, he comes back more empty than he left. 
 When you look at him with a too-knowing look, too infiltrating for his comfort, he easily slides into a quip.
 “My old master, it seems, won’t appear unless on his own terms. I’m not sure what else I expected, honestly.”
 ******
 You also learn that the man does not cook. Not that you consider yourself an expert, but at the very minimum, you know how to use spices, which on Tatooine come as hot as their weather.
 “Is it a Jedi thing to have tasteless food, or is that just you?” You tease as he dices some sort of root at your direction while you sift through the cabinet. 
 His eyes are full of mischief when he’s quiet for a moment before speaking up. “I would argue there’s concrete evidence that I’m quite happy to indulge in the pleasures of taste.”
 You can’t help your blush as his very pointed look. 
 Dinner is long forgotten after that, but the night is delectable all the same.
 *****
 Something has shifted in your own Force signature. Something you can’t put your finger on. 
 It doesn’t seem harmful or threatening in essence, but it makes you wary in a way that makes your skin itch with more than the dryness. 
 You try not to think much of it. After all, there’s plenty to do between tending to the vaporator, hunting, fending off the Sand People, and your learning to wield the Force.
 After rumors of Tusken raiders being nearby, you ask Obi-Wan to teach you combat.  This would be starting long before he normally would teach someone, he explained, but he does it anyway. It’s not exactly using the Force at first, having to start with how to even move your body in the event of attack, slowly enhancing those skills with the Force as you become more confident in them. 
 You look forward to it more than any other task. It gives you a strength you haven’t had before, and it’s a whole different level of connection to the Force when you trust it physically, not just in your mind. 
 It’s also another level of trust with Obi-Wan, knowing he’d never hurt you even as he enters the role of a potential threat, guiding you through how to handle it.
 So you don’t know why today your stomach won’t agree to the way you want your body to move. You push through it anyway, despite Obi-Wan’s concerned questioning. 
 You lose your lunch into the rocks, and you really wish he wouldn’t pick you up to take you back into the hut, because the shift of what’s up and what’s down doesn’t help at all. 
 And you wish he wouldn’t dote over you the rest of the day, as if you didn’t feel useless enough already, as if the illness didn’t leave as quickly as it came. 
 You make a mental note to ensure you don’t let yourself become dehydrated again to that point.
 *****
 The trips into town are kept to a minimum, trying to keep curiosity away from the new couple. Also, there wasn’t much to do except barter and spend credits, something you both tried not to do a great deal of. 
 Obi-Wan was sent off with enough Republic credits to get you started here, but it was hit or miss if the vendors took them that day, and he also didn’t want to spend too much at once.
 Nothing was more suspicious than surplus here.
 The woman you brought the limited produce available from seemed… different this trip. 
 Obi-Wan was a couple of stalls down from you, negotiating with a man who had obviously jacked up the price on the items needed. Poor man didn’t know what he was in for. 
 You turned your attention back on to the woman in front of you, and tried to decipher what was different this time and why it felt so familiar. 
 As you pointed to a basket of hubba gourds, inquiring of the price, she gave you one that you knew for a fact was higher than last time. 
 You counter offered the same price as last time you were here, and she firmly stated her price again. Ready to stand your ground, you go to state your price again, she puts her hand to her belly, bringing her skirt in around, revealing a small bump. 
 “Can’t afford your low-ball offers with this one on the way, understand?” 
 The sky suddenly falls around you in thunderous clamor as the physical realm around you moves on, unaffected and unreachable. Almost mechanically, you place the credits she asked for on the table, not even capable of addressing the obvious manipulation.
 Understanding drenches you in its brutal weight as you realize the source why she felt so different this time. 
 Your hands shake in their clasp on the basket as you pull yourself into a side alley, heaving your breakfast up. 
 Because you recognize the same difference in her is the exact same one that has changed your Force signature.
 It’s because there’s a flickering light of another being’s Force signature within you. 
  Tagged as requested: @maybege​
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Stars
Dannymay, 12,021 Human Era
Danny floated lazily on his back, a bag full of white and grey rocks orbiting him while he admired the lunar surface. It was going to be hard for anything short of crafting the rocks into something to top Wulf’s teachings letting him portal up to the moon whenever he wanted, barely tethered by its weak gravity and able to traverse it without disturbing the dust unless he picked up a rock. From his vantage point, the stars above and about were uncountable, and if he didn’t know better he’d say there was no end to them. His appearance had changed, even, from the silk-lined, spike studded, leather jacket that Sam and Tuck all but shoved onto him when it became clear that he’d be fighting ghosts regularly to a suit resembling the uniforms of NASA astronauts, black, white, green, and covered in silver stars.
Grinning to himself, Danny took off toward the Oceanus Procellarum, a camera he and Tuck had built recording the longest video he’d ever taken when a chill that dwarfed the cold of space ran down his spine and rose from his lungs and throat to his lips, blue vapor drifting in front of his face. There was a ghost, on the moon, and the idea of a hostile ghost following him up to space was so beyond aggravating that Danny’s hair ignited, his fangs sharp, the knuckles of his gloves sharpening into hardpoints, and his aura flaring up like a beacon of green and blue. Opening a portal to deposit his bag of moon rocks in his closet, Danny launched himself where he felt the other ghost’s presence, the logic that a ghost whose aura he couldn’t see but still feel on the moon’s surface, in one of her craters even, abandoned at the moment. That thought process is, of course, slammed into him the moment Danny sees exactly what it is that he’s sensed.
Their body was a slowly slithering mass of the purest darkness that could not be called something so bright as black, with violets and blues and colors that could not be seen, only experienced, dancing within them like ink within water, blue and red and green stars twinkling between the stretches of void, moving fast enough for Danny to know there even was movement of them, but slow enough to be mesmerized by the sight of it. Their face was a theatrical mask, bone white with red behind the eyes and a curve of a smile to mark the mouth, and from the void behind the mask curled horns of dark and beautiful amethyst and sapphire and onyx, somehow occupying the same space and curving in every which way. It was, frankly, impossible to make out all the details or to measure quite how massive the form of Nocturne was as he relaxed upon the surface of the moon’s ocean of storms. In all his conflicts, no ghost had ever made him feel quite so small simply by laying back, impossibly huge.
“My, my, ” he said, voice coming from the back of Danny’s head rather than the lack of air around him, even if their lips still moved to shape the words. “ Is that Danny Phantom in the flesh, not simply dreaming so big that you’ve learned to astral project without my guidance? Have you decided to make your fantasy reality and join me here?” They lifted part of their body and when Danny focused he saw the silhouette of a hand.
Danny had many questions, but the first one that came out of his gawking mouth as he rose to meet the giant’s face was, ”How did you get so big? Been munching on the muses of artists? Oh stars, are artistic muses actual spirits? Can you eat them?” While Danny usually appreciated a good laugh, that was when he said something as a joke, not asked a very good question. Nocturne’s laughter swept over him like a tidal wave of endearment and amusement.
“Ah, that’s right, you met me through a smaller emanation, didn’t you? I assure you, child, I’ve been this size for ages. Also, I do not consume muses, though whether that is because they do not exist in such a form that I could or because that would be an unsustainable form of sustenance, I shall leave you to consider. While the dreams of artists like you are rather vivid, the occasional idealist and average joe is good for diversity in palette. After all, each mind has such capacity for imaginative dreams.”
“Emanation?”
“A thin slice of myself sent down to help you sleep at my brother’s request. ” Danny scratched his head at that and Nocturne laughed again. “ The little game of hero and villain was delightful fun, though… you didn’t think that the ghost Master of Dreams needed helmets and machinery to harvest the energy of good dreams, did you?” Danny folded his arms with a pout that Nocturne couldn’t possibly have been able to make out when he was so small comparatively, and yet they chuckled anyway, shifting into what Danny was going to call a sitting position.
“So you aren’t going to leave everyone asleep forever?”
They frowned. “Of course not, you can’t dream forever. It isn’t healthy and leads to stagnation and, eugh, nightmares. Those the Fright Knight can have, whensoever he gets himself free from his imprisonment. ” Danny sighed, relaxing all over, and did his best not to flinch when Nocturne scooped him up in a claw talon tendril wing fin hand. “ Come to listen?”
Danny looked around and spread his arms slowly. “In the silent vacuum of space? To what?”
“My dear boy, can you not hear the star song? ” Nocturne tilted his head and their eyes locked for a long, headache inducing minute. “ No one has taught you how to percieve the spaces that layer upon themselves to form the world you know, have they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but I do have a headcahe now, so that’s great. What, the world is like origami and everything is singing underneath the top layer?”
“An apt comparison, yes, ” Nocturne said. “ Your liminal state of being considered, perhaps it would be simpler to show you, than to make you work your way through new senses. After all, what’s a dream without a bit of fantastical ease?”
Danny flew back a few paces, though he was still in Nocturne’s palm. “Is it safe for you to do that? I don’t wanna go forgetting how to be a living human being just to hear a song.” Nocturne huffed, puffing up like a bird in mild offense.
“Child, the mind is my domain, I know perfectly well what I am doing. You are not the first liminal whose mind I have touched, nor I imagine shall you be the last. But, if you do not care to hear the song that the earth, the moon and the stars sing…”
“I never said I don’t! I just, wanted to be sure.” Danny rubbed the back of his head before floating a bit higher. “Alright, alright what do I do?”
“Relax, little one. Imagine a door, it can be any door you like, between your mind and those minds around you. ” Danny closed his eyes, taking a superfluous breath that came up empty, his body relaxing slowly with each breath. He pictured a door, a hexagonal door to a space station. “ Very good, ” Nocturne said, and Danny felt his chest puff up with something like pride before he felt and heard a knock knock on the door in his mind. “ Now all you have to do is let me in.”
There was a moment where in Danny considered simply not letting Nocturne into his mind. After all, Danny would probably figure this out himself if he tried. It was a tempting idea, probably even the smartest idea when dealing with a being who had attacked him, even if they claimed it was a game. Still, the opportunity to experience space in a way that no one else could was a far bigger temptation, and so Danny turned the knob on the door to his mind and opened it up slowly.
There is the brush of Nocturne against the door and Danny both has himself drawn out and the universe slipped in and when he opens his eyes and his ears he cannot help but to let his mouth fall open as well. He can hear the voices of the endless universe singing under his feet. The hearts of stars singing deep beneath the lunar soil. Lost to the blooming nebulas staining the dark sky with color, miles upon miles of light and rivers of fire and the promise of something new. Danny can almost hear the words and language they speak; something so close, so distant, something he has never known -- but they ring with such magnificent, terrible truth that he thinks, maybe he has always known them. Maybe they have always lived inside him, alongside the bones. These melodies, these words, that burn with such ferocious clarity that if he just spoke them aloud then the far would become near and he could reach out and pluck the stars from the sky and cradle them in his hands or be cradled in their stellar flares.
The heavy elements known to those dull terrestrial creatures he began life as could only enter the universe with the death of a star, a fact that Danny knew very well, but it was one thing to know something on an academic level, and another to see and hear the voices of the ghosts left behind by those ancient stars, their magnificent fire shining from within every atom of the earth and the moon and the planets around him, harmonizing and rising into something yet more in the song of the Earth and her seas and forests and sky. Danny listens to the moon, and he knows that if he were to sing that song he could reach out to any body of water on Earth and pull it to him and him to it, and his call would be answered. That if he simply moved his lips and sang the words of the stars, he could call upon their fire, their gravity, could reach out to them and leave the chains of gravity rooting him to the Earth. It would be so easy to explore the universe, to leave and join the chorus of the stars and see all that one with an eternity at their hands could see.
Yet there was another song, this one smaller, softer, but no less wonderful song that wove around and within him, and listening to it brought to his mind yet more little songs, faint as the step of an ant against the dirt but still beautiful in all their own ways. He couldn’t go, not yet. Not without them. And so, Danny turned back to Nocturne and beamed up at him. “Thank you.”
“Of course, child. We may stop whenever you wish.” Danny nodded and rose up to circle around Nocturne, drinking in the sight of the universe, so that he could attempt - and fail and attempt again and again - to show his friends what he now experienced with paint and brush and pen. He had to return to Earth, but for now, he had the stars.
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chaos-of-the-abyss · 3 years
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Anon: I loved your Celebrian headcanons, do you have any on Manwe?
Ohhhhh anon, you’re asking if I have headcanons on my favorite bird boy? Do I ever. Get ready for this, because I’m about to give you way more than you probably asked for. Also please forgive how rambly and unorganized the headcanons are - I simply do not have the space of mind to be neat when I’m gushing about Manwë. 
(I’ve already done some previous headcanons on him xD You can find them here and here, even though this was a while ago and I don’t necessarily still agree with some of these anymore. What’s unchanging, though, is my eternal love for Manwë Súlimo.
The post got ahead of me and it’s quite long, so I’ll put most of the headcanons under a cut. 
Split off of the same thought of Eru, Manwë and Melkor were “born” at the exact same time. Because of this, there is no “younger” and “older” between them - they’re simply siblings.
I also consider them two halves of one whole, given that they’re literally products of the same thought broken in two. 
He and Melkor are chronologically the oldest beings, aside from Eru; they were the Ainur first created by Him. Nevertheless, they aren’t much older than a lot of the other Aratar, like Varda, Ulmo, Námo, Niënna, and Yavanna, and it’s definitely nothing so considerable that it would matter in the slightest to cosmic angelic beings like the Ainur
His closest friends among the Ainur are Varda and Ulmo, but he’s close with all the Valar, and at least on familiar terms with all the Maiar that serve the Valar in Arda
In addition, all of the Valar are part of the #manwëdefensesquad. I don’t make the rules. There are times when they don’t agree with their king, there are times when talk to him and voice their disapproval, but when it comes to action, they will always support him.
Varda and Manwë met in the Timeless Halls, sometime after their creation. (I’d pin it around a few centuries, but again, what the heck is time to the Ainur?) She was singing while she experimented with the light and the making of the stars; Manwë raised his voice, tentatively singing with her. They became fast friends. He was charmed by her quick wit, her willingness to share, and her open-mindedness and creativity.
He and Varda have made all kinds of odd structures together, combining their authority (Manwë over the air, wind, and skies, Varda over light). One time they produced a miniature tornado with stars swirling inside of it.
They got married before the creation of Arda, but after Aulë and Yavanna did 
He also met Ulmo in the Timeless Halls; they both found each other’s elements intensely fascinating. Manwë was intrigued by this water, and Ulmo became curious about this air and wind. They came up with clouds together, combining Manwë’s power over air and Ulmo’s power over liquid, to form vapor.
When Arda was extremely, extremely young, long before the Eldar awoke in Cuiviénen, the two of them were testing out their respective elements in the new planet and got a little carried away. Winds picked up, the sky darkened and flashed with thunder and lightning. The ocean rose, waves crashing and roiling, and the first sea storm happened as a result of their combined powers. After that, Manwë and Ulmo both decided they should probably be a bit more cautious if they didn’t want to render the place uninhabitable. 
At one time, there was no one Manwë was closer to than Melkor. Even though they were diametrically opposed in personality, they both had the same passion for Creation, the same love for their Father, and the same fascination with just the idea of creating in general.
Even now, with Melkor in the Void, a sensation of emptiness tickles at Manwë from time to time. It’s vacant and it’s bleak, like a phantom pain along the borders of his being, as if he’s missing something. This is his connection with his brother, severed now that they’ve gone down different paths and can no longer see eye to eye again
The break in their bond has left holes in both of their spirits. I mean this quite literally - because they were split off from the same thought, neither of them are complete without each other. Manwë is content now, because he (unlike Melkor, I might add, who can never be happy without him) is capable of finding meaningful and fulfilling relationships outside of his brother, but he will never be truly whole again. There’s always that sensation of something that was once there being gone. 
Canon says that Manwë has little understanding of evil, and I tend to agree. He doesn’t comprehend selfishness, the desire for domination, or the idea of wanting to hoard all the power, beauty, and joy to oneself. Where’s the good, the value, in that? But I do think that he knows intimately how Melkor’s mind works. It’s not the same as knowing how evil itself works - it’s just that he’s too well-versed in the way his brother in particular ticks. 
Despite this, he, along with most of the Valar, still gave Melkor the benefit of the doubt during his false repentance. He remembered the ages when Melkor was not so self-centered and not so concerned with only his own power and glory, when he would talk about Creation and about life with shining eyes, and how he envisioned a breathtakingly beautiful world full of vigor and possibility and opportunity. That was once who Melkor was, and he sincerely believed his brother could be that again. And besides, he wanted to let others try again - not only because this is his brother whom, despite everything, he loves deeply, but also because he doesn’t want to be the kind of person who won’t give second chances.
He was... disappointed, saddened, shocked, and discouraged, when it turned out that he was wrong. And, ultimately, he realized what betrayal felt like. 
Manwë is a natural charmer. I mean, he is magnetic. But it’s not because he flaunts his power and wisdom and has the “holier than thou” attitude that intimidates others - even though he’s just as capable of it as his brother, who utilizes that particular method to attract followers. Manwë’s  charisma comes from the fact that he’s just so down-to-earth, unpretentious, friendly, and warm, that you can’t help being drawn to him.
People are, like, in love with him and he’s thinking, “This is not what I meant to happen...”
He loves meeting people, talking to them, and getting to know them. Part of the reason so many people are loyal to him is because he’s a genuinely good boss. Treats everyone politely and considerately, gets to know everyone who works for him, makes all of them feel valued as individuals, lets them know how much he appreciates their hard work. 
As far as demeanor goes, he’s unassuming, modest, open, and relatively casual with everyone (unless there’s a reason not to be). Has been called “charming” more than once. He tends to be playful too, especially with the people he’s close with. 
An introvert. At the end of the day, he needs time to himself to unwind. 
He’s not closed off, per se, but he isn’t the type of person to actively start talking about his problems or insecurities. Someone he’s close to and trusts will have to notice he seems to have something on his mind and bring it up, to get him to mention what’s bothering him. 
During the darkening and after the Flight of the Noldor, relations between the remaining elves and the Ainur were strained. Manwë was distressed by the dissatisfaction of the Eldar and worked tirelessly to mend the subsequent rift. Negotiations, explanations, visits, apologies, reassurances - you name it, Manwë put his heart into it if it meant reconnecting with the elves. 
A much better singer than his brother, and among the most gifted Ainur in terms of song (although a few, like Ulmo and Melian, equal or surpass him). Once, Melkor loved and truly admired the beauty of the music that Manwë could create with his voice alone. Now, he deeply envies it and is extremely bitter, seeing it as another way that their Father “favors” his brother over him. This resentment only grew worse as Melkor gradually lost his ability to produce anything beautiful at all, including music. My headcanon is that Melkor was once a decent singer among the Ainur, but as he grew more corrupt and evil, that ability went away until he could no longer sing at all. But, as much as Melkor refuses to admit it to himself, he also desperately longs to hear Manwë’s songs again.
Very patient, very compassionate, very understanding... but Melkor can get under his skin like no other. Who, by the way, will attest that Manwë can whip up with some sick burns when he wants to. Manwë has facepalmed exactly three times in his existence, and all three times were because of his brother. 
The standard physical form that Manwë uses has long silver-white hair, copper skin, luminous, pale blue eyes, and full lips. It’s tall, on the slimmer side, and due to how pretty the face is, very androgynous-looking. However, he has a tendency to fool around, meaning that other bodies he’s taken include but are not limited to: a female version of his standard appearance, various other “human” shapes, male or female, a cat with wings and the feet of a bird, and an owl with the wings of a fly. 
Varda’s personal favorite incident was when he adopted the form of a petite young woman with black hair, purple eyes, and purple, black, and blue butterfly wings scaled to the size of the body. When interacting with the Eruhíni, though, Manwë, along with most of the Ainur, sticks with the standard appearance to avoid confusing them.
Speaking of changing appearances, in the beginning, he, like the rest of the Ainur, had little concept of a “humanoid” form being “normal”. This resulted in him becoming all kinds of eldritch abominations, again including but not limited to a mass of eyes surrounded by several sets of wings, a nebulous, writhing pinprick of clouds and light, and even a being that resembled a humanoid but with a single eye in the middle of the forehead from which two wing-like appendages, covered with more eyes, sprouted. What can I say, he was always creative. 
He still takes wacky forms from time to time for the fun of it, often when joking around with the other Ainur, but nowadays he tones it down for the sake of the Eruhíni’s sanity. 
Interacts regularly with elves of Valinor. It’s a common sight for him to be spotted mingling within the Eldar populations of Valmar, or Alqualondë, or Tirion. Gets invited in for tea quite often. Children love him. He has had dinner arrangements with several families before.
The elves send him gifts, usually in the form of clothing since he likes trying on all kinds of different styles. Manwë doesn’t care to appear kingly or sophisticated, so he has no problem going out dressed plainly, or even ridiculously. That weird experimental garment that didn’t turn out quite the way the designer wanted? He’ll take it, and wear it gladly! 
He also doesn’t care to be treated with particular veneration by the Eruhíni or by the other Ainur. He’s much happier being on close enough terms with someone for them to address him like, “Hey Manwë, my man, what’s up?” rather than “All hail the Lord of the Winds, the Breath of Arda, blah blah blah”.
BFFs with Ingwë, often either visits him or invites him to Taniquetil. This means that Ingwë’s entire family regular interacts with and is very familiar with Manwë. (Varda's with him most of the time - everyone loves her, too. It’s a wholesome family friendship.)
One time, Ingwë’s kids witnessed another elf being extremely formal and stiff with Manwë (the classic, “O Manwë, Viceregent of Eru, Elder King of Arda, etc., etc.”) and had whiplash, because that’s like... Uncle Manwë! He was telling us bad jokes at the dinner table last night! 
Also has a fairly confidential relationship with Finarfin. They both understand the pain of dealing with troublesome impetuous brothers, after all.
He used to be close with Finwë and Olwë, too, but their relationship became somewhat strained following the matter with the Flight of the Noldor and how the Teleri were caught up in it via the Kinslaying at Alqualondë. They’re still on good terms, but it’s no longer as carefree as it once was. 
Was also once close with Fëanor, having known him since he was a child due to his friendship with Finwë. That sapphire scepter that was said to have been made for him by the Noldor? Yeah, that was Fëanor’s handiwork. It wasn’t until after Melkor’s release that Fëanor and Manwë’s relationship began to sour. 
A natural with kids. He can get any child to cheer up, whether they’re crying, pouting, or throwing a tantrum. Knows just what to say and what to do and when to do it, but also draws a firm line between being kind and spoiling them. 
I know Tolkien discarded this idea, but I love love love the thought of Eönwë and Ilmarë being his and Varda’s children. They didn’t have them in the sense that we’d think of having kids - as in physical sex and labor - but they did put their powers into “conceptualizing” them, so to speak. Eru would still be their “creator”, since (for the most part) only He can create conscious, sentient beings, but Manwë and Varda had enough influence over their creation to be called Eönwë’s and Ilmarë’s parents. 
Speaking of sex, again I’m contradicting Tolkien’s canon, but in my mind the Ainur can and do have sex. Some might choose not to, but it’s fully possible. (I mean... Melian and Thingol had Lúthien, so clearly the idea of physical relations is not lost on the Ainur.) Manwë doesn’t have a high sex drive, but if he loves someone, he also loves being intimate with them. 
Sexuality is a complicated matter to talk about for the Ainur, and I articulated by thoughts on it here, but to summarize how I see it is that they’re all bisexual. They don’t care; they don’t even need gendered physical bodies to begin with. Therefore, whoever strikes their fancy is is whoever they’ll be happy to get it on with. It’s the same with Manwë. 
The Lost Tales and the Silmarillion have conflicting versions of the Valar’s Siege of Utumno. In my book it’s a combination; after aggressive, devastating battles that changed the face of the continent, the Valar decided to take a more roundabout approach. Manwë comes up with the plan - they’ll pretend to have realized that they’re unable to break the might of Utumno, and are ready to acknowledge Melkor’s victory. Some of the Valar aren’t sure about this, but they follow their king’s lead. 
Now, Manwë knows that Melkor isn’t stupid, but he also knows his brother’s prideful mind the best. (He might not understand it, and he definitely doesn’t agree with it, but he knows it.) So he deliberately phrases the message in a way that he knows will best stroke Melkor’s ego and satisfy his craving for acknowledgement. He also makes sure to tell his messenger to let Melkor’s herald know that Manwë specifically said these words.
As per Manwë’s plan, Melkor calls the Valar into Utumno to pay homage before him. They arrive, and to let Melkor’s guard down even further, Manwë kneels in front of him. 
It’s a moment of surprisingly complicated emotions from both brothers. Melkor, about to thoroughly revel in his perceived victory, was shocked into silence - he actually was not expecting this. For a moment, it dawned on him that maybe, he and his brother’s bond, which was once stronger than anything else, didn’t have to be severed forever. He still saw it from a self-centered angle of having Manwë serve him, but nevertheless the possibility that he could reconnect with his brother, have Manwë at his side again, something he thought he had resigned himself to as being impossible, filled him with emotion.
For Manwë... similar thoughts about their once unshakeable relationship, but unlike his brother, he knows the whole thing is just a ruse. Still, he couldn’t help imagining what it would be like if he really gave. It was never a serious consideration, but the thought of what they had once been like, and the emphasis on the realization that they never could be that carefree and open with each other again, saddened him.
Manwë cherishes Creation dearly, loves it, fiercely and with every fiber of his being. Because of this, the utter destruction that he and the other Ainur wrought on Arda during the War of the Powers haunts him deeply, and he’s become wary of unleashing any might that is even similar to it onto Middle Earth. That, combined with his impression that the Noldor who left wanted nothing more to do with the Ainur, and his caution of interfering too heavily with the Eruhíni in Middle Earth lest the Valar start acting like Melkor, kept him from action until Eärendil and Elwing pleaded for help on behalf of the Children. Seeing all the suffering the Eruhíni went through, he sometimes regrets it, wondering if he had been more calculated about his moves, he could have prevented such heavy losses.
Nevertheless, he is firmly against meddling too much with the events of Middle Earth, especially because he understands that it’s difficult for the semi-prescient Ainur to see things on the same scale as the Children. He believes that there is always a possibility that they would get too heavily involved and end up unintentionally dominating the Eruhíni and the paths that they take, which is something he won’t allow. He was, however, very receptive to the idea of the Istari, and is also grateful for Ulmo’s occasional assistance and advice for the Children. Furthermore, he won’t hesitate to send the Eagles if anyone communicates the message to him.
There was one single time Manwë ever contemplated rebellion against Eru. It was during the Downfall of Númenor, when Eru made His intention known to wipe the island off the face of Arda known. Manwë pleaded with Him, argued with him, to reconsider, to find some way to punish only Sauron and Ar-Pharazôn, without the need to drown thousands, millions, of innocent people. Eru simply told him, unmovable, that Númenor had to fall, that there was to be no mercy, and Manwë genuinely wondered what would happen if he refused to comply. If he told his Father, “This is wrong. I won’t accept this.” 
But in the end, he realized that he was thinking the way his brother had, in the beginning. That it was unfair, that it was wrong, that only Eru have the Flame Imperishable and that no one else was able to create, in Melkor’s mind, true life. That’s the way Melkor thought, before it quickly became corrupted into, “It’s not fair that I don’t have the power to create true life.” And Manwë refuses to think like Melkor does, refuses to even let himself start down that path. He saw how it destroyed and twisted his brother into a menacing echo of who Melkor once was. And so he watches, still and silent, as Númenor is wiped out.
Manwë is loving. Very loving. He doesn’t hate anyone, doesn’t hold personal grudges, and he would like nothing more than for everyone to get along and be happy. He truly would love to forgive Melkor and everyone who sided with him, take them back and make amends. However, he knows that that’s impossible - that no matter how dearly he wishes to fix everything, if the other side (aka Melkor) isn’t willing, it’s just not going to happen. Sometimes he has moments of insecurity, when he wonders if it was due to his own shortcomings, his own failure to understand the Theme, that things won’t patch up. Objectively he knows - and the other Valar reassure him of this too - that he couldn’t possibly have prevented everything, and that Melkor and his followers made their own choices. But at times, it still stings him, thoughts of if only I did better or if only I was better.
As kind as he is, he is not a doormat - there are some things he will never tolerate. The destruction and pain Melkor caused the Eruhíni and brought upon Creation is something he will never approve of, will never condone, and you can bet he’ll use every ounce of his power to bring his brother to heel if it means putting a stop to that. 
Also, you can hurl barbs at him all you want and he won’t begrudge you, but do not insult his friends. He won’t smite you outright for it, but he’ll never forget it and certainly will never like you. 
There are times when you’re reminded that this is Melkor’s brother, that they came from the same thought of Eru, and that if Manw�� was ever to allow himself to go down the same path of craving domination, he would be just as terrifying. Because on some days, he doesn’t feel like forgiving, doesn’t feel like Melkor deserves amends. He’s furious at his brother, furious at the things he’s done and the things he’s willing to do, and his eyes will glow so blindingly bright that it can be dangerous for any of the Eruhíni to look at him in that moment.
Sometimes during the First Age, when Manwë hears about his brother’s latest misdeed, all the wickedness and enslavement he’s attempted to bring into Arda, he doesn’t bother hiding his displeasure, his disapproval. Storm clouds roll in, the skies open up, rain starts to pour, lightning illuminates the entirety of the sky, and thunder crashes deafeningly - so loud that Melkor, even in the depths of Angband, can hear it clear as day. And he knows this is Manwë saying, “I know what you’ve done. You can’t hide it from me, brother.” 
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mxvladdy · 4 years
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Beelzebub- True Form
Three more boyos to go!
Next up: Leviathan
Beelzebub-  
The embodiment of starvation. The sharp contrast between his healthy and fit forms is truly baffling.
Mouths are scattered all over his gangly form. It is the only human thing about him as he is faceless otherwise. When hunting they release a mist or plague of locusts depending if his hunger is physical or emotional
His hunting form is juvenile and frail. Naturally small and unassuming, it is perfect to lure his victims close and ensnare them forever. He attracts souls with an overwhelming hunger. It’s a lure filled with false promises of substances and warm. When close he latches on like a parasite and gorges until there is nothing left but an empty husk.
Once full his form shifts into something- greater- his small body growing and stretching. It’s somewhere along the lines of a human growth spurts, or puberty, but is done in moments. It’s uncomfortable for him; the rapid growth takes a lot out of him.
When fed he is larger, but still skeletal in form. It’s a permanent reminder of his new immortal purpose. His skin is like stone, hard and grey but translucent. It is stretched tight around his frame, like an artist canvas over his jet black bones. The texture of it emphasizes all the odd twists and turns of his bone structure and whatever else lies underneath his flesh.
Each raspy breath he draws from the many mouths scattered around his body rattle his disjointed skeleton. His bones clinking together with every exhale to create a truly chilling symphony.
When crazed with hunger he loses himself. In his younger years as a cardinal sin he was responsible for wiping out land masses and civilizations to try and dull the ache before his brothers could contain him.
His gluttony isn't only for physical sources of substances. Slabs of meat only go so far. He will latch on like a leech, to anything that radiates his current emotional cravings. Love? Happiness? Fear? He wants to experience it all. Filling and cramming every little space with whatever sensations he craves. Till the deadened feeling in his chest is a little less.
There was a time where he was very close with his brother sin greed. During their younger years as demons they would terrorize the mortal realm, a deadly duo. Both unable or unwilling to control their new urges.
He hates this existence. He’s empty and it drives him mad. Was he like this in heaven? Honestly, Beel can’t remember anymore. He doesn’t think so. He had his brothers and sister to keep him in order and a different name. At the time he was called Temperance, right? He thinks. It’s a bit foggy.
But what hurts him the most is that his family structure is fractured now. There is a hole where Lilith used to be, and no amount of souls or food will ever fill that.
When he met you it helped a little. But he has to be weary.
He has better control of his abilities now then a couple centuries ago so you don’t have to worry too much. He likes having you around. It fills part of the void that he’s been struggling with for so long. Being with you makes him feel like dirt has finally hit the bottom of what he thought was a vacuous void inside.
Sometimes his natural abilities seep out when he is hungry or frustrated from another family row.  He gravitates towards you then, searching for that odd human comfort demons just don’t possess. He sips slowly on it; with your permission of course. Not the wisest idea- but an idea nonetheless. 
Mini Fic
Sleepy Sloth Boi- Hey. Can you check up on Beel? He had a bit of a argument with Asmo today Sleepy Sloth Boi- Apparently he ate a homemade face  goop? IDK, it’s stupid.   Sleepy Sloth Boi- I would, but I’m stuck in a remedial class with Lucifer Sleepy Sloth Boi- I don’t know when I’ll be out-                                                                                     Ok! Is he in your room?-   Sleepy Sloth Boi- No, at the gym. Asmo called him and chewed him out. Didn’t go well. Trainers called me. He busted up some equipment and might have eaten someone... They want him out.                                                                                  Oh... K I’ll head over now-
You frown down at your D.D.D and stuff it in your bag. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. You had heard stories of his terrible temper when hungry. Most of the time you have seen him just mope, huddled up in the kitchen eating his feelings. He was always open to talk though and you usually could convince him out of the kitchen so Lucifer didn’t have an aneurysm over a barren fridge.
The gym isn’t far from the house. A short tram ride and a walk down a couple of familiar streets. You have spent every Saturday morning with Beel there, spotting him. Not that you really could. With the amount of weights he was dead lifting, but he appreciated the company nonetheless. You ring up the front desk dashing across the street. It goes straight to voicemail. Crap it must be bad. You round the corner right before the gym and skid to a halt. Glass and metal litter the cobble street. The shards flicker off the lights of the street lamps drawing your eye to the sheer amount of damage around you. Some equipment even stuck out of the wall adjacent to you.
You make your way closer. “Human! Tis’ not the best time to be here. We are having a bit of an issue.” A terrified trainer scuttled towards you, mandible clicking in alarm. “You best turn back. We don’t need your body littering the streets too.” They wave a three fingered claw back up the street. On cue a weightlifting machine was launched through the remaining window exploding on impact with the road. A few more trainers run out after it, yelling and pushing at each other to get out of the way. A dark black mist bellows out after them.
Well shit.
“I’m actually here to try and help.” You smile down at the tiny demon trying to instill some false confidence in them. You think you could handle this. You didn’t want to call in the cavalry to get him. Knowing Beel, it would only trigger his guilty conscience. “If you could give me a moment.” Ignoring the little creature you creep forward, careful of the broken glass and praying that no more equipment got launched.
“Beel?” You call out peaking your head through the gaping hole on the side of the gym. "Hey, Belphie texted me. Wanna talk about it?” The inside of the gym was dark. Wires hung and sparked dangerously in front of you. A large burst pipe blocked most of your vision. “Beel?” You could hear his loud bone chilling breathing. He was close.
“Careful.” You jump swallowing the curse that threatened to slip out. Beelzebub emerged from the darkness at the back of the gym. His eyeless face locking onto you. “You are close to a line.” His many mouths move in unison. Some rumbling as he spoke, others just drawing in rasping wheezing breaths.
“Thanks.” You jump back onto the street. “You wanna come out? You look a bit cramped.”  He was comically too large for the allotted space. His goliath sized body packed into a little sardine can. He rattles for a bit considering. You cock your head to the side looking at the empty street. “Plenty of room out here.” You wave at your sole spectator and give them a small thumbs up. They blink in horror over your shoulder. Eyes locked on the beast emerging.
“I’m sorry.”  He drags himself  out. Thick steel like claws causing the little trainer hiding behind you to whimper. Beel’s fingers dig into the stone and mortar. Oph- this was going to cost a bit to fix.
“It’s ok big guy-happens to the best of us.” You say casually. Once he was outside he shivers in the cool afternoon air. His bones creak as you approach him. “May I touch you?” You approach hand raised. He never cared if you touched him in his human form. It centered him a lot of the time. He enjoyed the feel of your soft and giving flesh against his smooth hard skin. But this form was slightly more dangerous for you well being.
Beel shakes his head at your movement melding back into the dark hole. His mouths open wide to release a plume of black smoke. The trainer cries out, scurrying back further down the street. You hold your ground however. Chin up definitely, unafraid at what you knew was coming. The thick black vapor coats your skin. It latches on to you and seeps through your pores. You feel him in the back of your mind running through your head, searching for something. You breathe slowly, letting him shuffle through your psyche.
You feel a flush of warmth, a near giddiness that brings an uncontrollable smile to your face before it is gone. Snuffled out like a candle in the wind. A slow chilling tingling begins in all of  your extremities as he feeds off your emotions. He pulls at your center, eating away at your mental state. An odd empty ache blooms in your chest, you need to untangle yourself before he bled you dry.
He pulls back then, knowing when he has gone too far. The pallor of his skin is richer now. A darker grey than before. The waxing sheen gone and replaced with a deep purple hue underneath. His cobweb like veins thumping with life. “Thanks~” His rattles remerging onto the street. His oblong head nudges your shoulder, checking on you. You pat at it, careful of the mouths and razor sharp teeth.
“Of course; don’t mention it.” You turn on weak knees to the trainer. Looking at complete ease with the cardinal sin currently wrapping his many limbed and mouthed body around your comparatively tiny frame. “I guess this is not super common?” You ask, waving at the destruction. They shake their head.
“He-he ate Gordin.”
“Ah-ye. He does that. Sorry.” At a loss, they accept the sleek business card you thrust at them with your free hand. “Call Mr. Morningstar. He can work on the repair finances with the manager.”
“But Gordi-” You wince as the little demon’s mandibles tremble, voice getting frantic. Could demons shed tears? You were about to find out.
“Beel?” Cupping his large head you stare at him, eyes traveling over his face. His mouths snap shut, body turning smooth. The only movement from his was his hearts beating steady beneath his translucent skin. He stood still like a statue carved by a deranged artist. “Beel.” You say again more firmly. You step away from his hooked fingers. “Spit them out.”
He doesn’t move. His inner rattling becoming louder and more defensive.
You roll your eyes and look back exasperatedly with a shrug. The other demon stares speechless in terror. Or with the dawning realization of just how absurd this whole situation was. You turn back to Beel, fists balled on your hips. “If you don’t I guess I’m going to eat all these snacks I brought.” The death rattle stops. You could feel his full focus on you now aghast. “I’m serious. Mammon even went and bought those new limited release batwing chips too, extra spicy.”  
He hacks suddenly, back arching like a cat as a large seam opens on his skin where his stomach (stomachs?) region was. A bulky demon covered in purple viscous sludge tumbles to the ground with a wet squelch. Their skin was a sickly color and their eyes wide in terror.
“Gordi!” The other trainer pushes past you and grabs at the trembling demon, pulling him away from the hungry mouths.
“Thanks, Beelzebub.” You walk him quickly down the abandoned streets once the two others had fled. He lopes behind you, gaunt body swaying in the light breeze. Once you hit the more crowded streets he moves closer to your back. Other demons on the street give you a wide berth, eyeing and swatting at a few straying arms or fingers that attempt to grab them or their things. You move quickly, hoping to avoid having to scold him again for eating more demons.
“I’m sorry.” Beel croaks once more when you finally come to a stop at an empty park bench. He sits next to it expectantly. The grass and foliage around him weathering and turning to dust at his touch. His arms subconsciously start stuffing the dried grass and flowers into his many mouths.
“It’s ok.” You repeat yourself coming to rest on the park bench. Without preamble you dump the contents of your bag onto the ground. He croons in delight at the mound of snacks being pushed to him. “Eat up. Take a breather and then we can talk. If you want.” With that he dives in.
Beel munches in silence, mismatched limbs unwrapping-or not- the treats and popping them into his little mouths. You watch for a bit before getting preoccupied with a book you borrowed from Satan. You don’t know how much time passes before a boney finger pokes at your forearm. The same arm then hovers by your nose offering you a pudding cup.
“Ah, thank you!” You close your book and take the flan pudding. He had finished most of the food and had calmed considerably. Most of the mouths have disappeared, closing as they were sated. He scoots closer, the oppressive neediness of his sin dulled to an almost non existent thumping in your stomach. Easy enough to ignore, especially now with a sweet treat boosting your mood. “Feeling any better?”
Beel grunts, scratching at his knobby spine. You watch him for a moment. Reading his emotions in this form was hard. Thankfully, you knew the reason for the outburst this time. First time you stumbled upon him like this  had been an absolute circus. A terrifying, and destructive circus. He had been in full form that night. Locusts and clawed fingers moving in blurs, swiping at everything that came near. The younger brothers screaming at him over the sounds of breaking furniture and the buzz of insect wings. They dodged around his tantrum trying to calm him before Lucifer returned from a meeting.
“It’s a damned ice cream cup!” Satan roars, close to shifting himself. The tell tale heat of his body starting to radiate out and singe the carpet beneath his feet. Beel screeches back, flies and spittle spraying out over them. Asmo yelps and  drags you out of the room with him.
“Ugh! The moment he gets all gross and buggy I’m out.” He shudders, locking the door on the apocalypse happening on the other side. “Hopefully Mammon can slow Lucifer down so they can neaten up.”
“Is he going to be ok?” You look back watching the solid door shudder under the weight of a body being thrown.
Asmodues sucks his teeth dismissively, bright nails clicking away at his phone. You glance at it seeing that he had messaged Mammon to bring some take out too. “Oh ye, this happens from time to time. He just has to let off some steam. Then we can stuff him with food and he’ll be right as rain. You want anything hun’?” You shake your head stunned by his carefree attitude as the house shook around them.
Beel had come to apologize for his behavior later that night. His human form a little banged up, but no worse for wear. You went out for ice cream in hopes to cheer him up. Offering an ear too if he needed an outsider's perspective. You were also curious about his true nature and had a thousand and one questions to ask. He was apprehensive at first. It was clearly a sore subject for him. But over time he opened up, speaking freely about his struggles and fears of destroying his family's already shaky foundation with his gluttony.
“Asmo is furious with me.” He sighs, bringing you back to the present. He rests his head on your shoulder, careful with his weight.
“He’ll get over it.” You stroke his cool skin tapping at a closed mouth. It opens and licks your finger. It was as close to a kiss as this form could get to. “It’s not like he can’t make more.” Beel huffs, rubbing his head into the soft fabric of your sweater.
“I am nothing but a burden to them aren’t I.”
“Never.” You don’t hesitate. He grumbles unconvinced. “Hey,” You nudge him off your shoulder to look at him. “Remember last Saturday? How you helped Levi get his limited edition statue?”
“I just stood in a line.” He pouts. “And I only did that because I ate his Ruri-chan mochi’s.” Oh- you didn’t know that part.
“Well, I still think you’re a good brother.” You cover. “ Tell me, would any of the others do the same? You beat yourself up over every little mistake. How many times has Asmo or Mammon swiped one of your snacks?” He hums contemplatively, nails clacking on the concrete.
“But I always lash out when they do that.” You nod kicking your feet up to lounge on the bench, back resting against his. Grabbing at a set of arms you wrap them around your waist playing with the fingers that weren’t razor sharp.
“Yes, and? Asmo just did too. Runs in the family by the looks of it.” You chuckle. “ So why should you be the only one not allowed to get upset? But next time call before rampaging through the city, K?” You smile up at his monstrous visage. He smiles back hesitantly before coming closer.
Beelzebub nips you gently with his primary mouth. Large fangs careful not to break the skin. A cute little display of gratitude. He tastes your sincerity on you. Sweet and smooth on his tongue. “Thanks,” He rumbles. Cradling you close, he rises to his full height. “I think I’m ready to head back now.”
You snuggle into his unyielding body checking your wrist watch. “Yeah big guy? Guess it is almost dinner time.”
He picks up the pace.  
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subbing-for-clones · 3 years
Text
Stranded Part 1
Savage Opress x reader
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A/N: Oof I really have a problem cause all I want is to be stranded alone with the big boy himself.
Word Count: 4.1k
Summary: On his way to locate his long-lost brother, Savage’s course gets altered and he is thrown into the unknown. Barely surviving the crash, he finds himself on a deserted planet with a force sensitive woman who somehow managed to thrive here on her own. If they’re going to make it off this strange planet they will have to work together.
WARNINGS: blood, fear, dead body, wounds, mental illness. Probably not how black holes work but idc fight me about it. Alcohol consumption.
NEXT         MASTERLIST
       Savage Opress had been traveling the galaxy trying to find his brother Maul. After being betrayed by the nightsister he was meant to serve, Mother Talzin gifted him a necklace that would act as a compass. One that would guide him to his long-lost brother who could teach him to harness this new power he had realized. His 'gift' however appeared to lead him on a never ending, wild goose chase. Glowing and fading seemingly at will. It had been months and although his hope had started to fade, he pressed on without any other option. The Republic, the Separatists and everything in between wanted his head. He missed his way of life before the nightsister had chosen him to act as her tool of vengeance.
    A rumor of Maul being killed on Naboo by a Jedi had reached his ears. Better than anything else he had to go off of he punched the coordinates into his ship's nav computer and made the jump to hyperspace. The way the stars visibly stretched never ceased to amaze him. He watched the blue from the viewport before he nodded off to sleep, unknowingly altering the coordinates when he kicked his boots up onto the dash.
    He awoke hours later to alarms blaring and red lights flashing. Not being an experienced pilot by any means, panic tickled the edges if his mind. He pulled out of hyperspace, hoping there was a nearby planet he could land on. To his horror there wasn't a planet in sight. Rather, an immense blackhole that was slowly pulling small asteroids into its center. Panic now gripped him full force as he tried to get out of the gravitational pull but it was too late. It had him in its clutches and he could do nothing but let it take him.
    He thought of his younger brother in these moments. How the nightsisters had controlled his mind and forced his hand to take Farel's life. Perhaps he deserved this fate. To be swallowed into nothing after crossing the only living thing that had ever truly cared for him. He closed his eyes on the precipice of the abyss and with a single tear for his fallen kin, let the void devour him in his ship.
       He had expected to pass out or die but he never lost conciousness. He had his eyes scrunched for so long but he never stopped hearing the alarms ringing. He dared to open them only to see, well nothing. It was the darkest black he had ever seen. His navigation was almost useless, he had no idea where he was or where he was going but he could tell that he was in fact going forward. He dared to pray that there was another side to this hole and that he could in fact survive. That hope faded when he realized he was out of fuel, powering only life support at this point.
    Much to his surprise the sight before him changed. What started as a pinhole of a darkness that was slightly less bleak grew. It grew until he could see stars again. He was thrown out of his turmoil and launched towards the only planet in sight. From space it was incredibly green, white caps peaked occasionally and bodies of water could be viewed as well. Wherever he was headed seemed to lack vast oceans but rather, large lakes perhaps.
    He realized that without any fuel he would crash. Once he broke the atmosphere, he redirected the last few vapors he had in the tank to his engines and was able to aim the ship towards one of the nearing brown peaks. Hoping to slide down into the jungle. The initial impact knocked the wind out of him but thankfully didn't immediately kill him. His ship slid down the slope at an alarming speed and a dip in the terrain sent him airborne again. The second impact knocked him unconscious.
    He awoke maker knows how many hours later to the chirping of birds. Out of the viewport he could see that several more crashed ships beneath him had possibly broken his fall. Giant trees he had never seen before stretched out in front of him but not so close together that he couldn't see a decent way into the forest. His back must be facing the mountain. The ship was smoking and the hull was smashed beyond repair. For the first time he was grateful he had no fuel so the ship wouldn't explode if a fire spread.
    Blood dripped into his right eye from where he knocked his head and broken a horn. Lacerations of varying depth littered his body. He tried to move and quickly assessed that it was likely one of his ribs was fractured although he couldn't feel it sticking out or in anywhere. Savage attempted to pull himself free and realized his left arm wasn't responding. The worst of all, in his mind, the necklace that Mother Talzin gave him was shattered in his lap.
    He had to get his shoulder back in place and slung. Slowly he stood to his feet and made his way out of the transport, feeling claustrophobic. The moment his boot hit the grass below him he felt so many things through the force. This planet was teeming with life, wild and wavering force signatures surrounded him and stretched out as far as he could sense. One signature was starkly unique to the others he felt and he tensed. It was incredibly light, lighter than anything he had ever felt before. An airy, dreamy aura with sparks that danced through it grew closer. Whatever it was, it was nearing quickly. He force pulled his saber-staff from the ship into his grasp and lit one side, growling ferociously like the wounded animal he was. Whatever it was he felt had stopped in its tracks. He couldn't see anything through the trees and he took a hesitant step forward. Until he heard her.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I'd like to help."
    He couldn't see where the voice was coming from. It was a female. A young woman he would guess. Her voice was gentle and soft but projected well from her hiding place with a kind power behind it.
"Show yourself," he called almost roaring in pain.
"Promise you won't kill me on sight?"
"Are you alone?" his eyes darted around him trying to pinpoint her location.
"Yes... I know you can feel it."
    He could feel it. What he felt through the force, it was only her. He sheathed his saber and showing it over his head, tossed it to the side. Only then did she leap down from the canopy of the forest. If his rib didn’t make it painful to breathe, he would've gasped. Her hair shimmered in the light of the mid-day sun, her eyes glistened brightly with curiosity and breath-taking beauty. He had never seen a woman like her before. Beneath what was once a white cotton dress, now worn and stained, he could see and admire the outline of her body. A slit up the side revealed one of her legs and a knife strapped to her thigh. She had nothing on her feet as she slowly made her way over to him with her hands visible so he knew she wasn't armed.
"Hello. How did you survive the crash? I've never seen anyone else survive the crash."
"I don't know," he squinted his eyes at her wearily. His voice low and deep rumbled when he spoke.
"I can help you with your shoulder. I had some medical training before I crashed here myself."
Knowing he needed help he nodded cautiously. She continued towards him and gently removed his armor. When she took out her knife to cut open his shirt, he took a step back.
"I meant it when I said I wouldn't hurt you,” she hesitated before continuing; never breaking eye contact. Searching for a sign to stop.
    She slowly sliced open his shirt in one smooth motion. She took a second and allowed her eyes to drift over him. His golden skin and distinctive, almost tribal black tattoos. His massive chest, straight jaw and crown of horns. It was the first time in a very long time she had seen a man still breathing let alone of his caliber and tried to hide the heat that rushed to her cheeks.
"Um, I'm sorry but you're very tall. I'm going to need you to sit down, please. So I can reach you."
    He did what she had asked of him, keeping his back straight. With him sitting and her kneeling tall next to him he was still a head taller than she was. She placed her hands on him and asked him to breathe deeply. On the second exhale she slid the shoulder back into place with a loud crunch. He growled not really at her but the situation itself.
She used half of his shirt to make a sling for him and the other to wipe the blood off of his face. She force pulled an empty bag from the tree which surprised him.
"You'll have to clean your wounds so they don't get infected. I have a home near here with cool and hot springs if you'd like to accompany me."
    He knew he wouldn't be able to do much without aggravating his injuries so he reluctantly agreed. Before she led him away, she trotted over to one of the crashed ships off to the side. The pilot was dead and just starting to decompose, she tossed him out of the cockpit using the force and scavenged what lay inside, unphased. Well, she's got the stomach for surviving out here. He thought to himself.
      Now with a full pack she helped him up as best as she could almost collapsing under his weight. He kept a few feet behind her, taking only his saber and a change of clothes from the ship. She led him through the forest for what must have been at least two or three miles.
    A break in the tree line revealed a log cabin with a mossy roof adorning a few solar panels. He had grown accustomed to either adobe or durasteel buildings so this was a bit of a shock to him. Several hot springs steamed behind the cabin and a large pond lay to the front. Creatures that resembled chickens roamed the grasses near the house and what looked like an herb garden on the other side.
    He stopped and took in his surroundings for a moment before he followed her inside. The floor was also wooden, with various animal pelts laid out across the paneling. It was one large room except for what he assumed was a fresher. A large bed lay in one corner, what resembled a small kitchen in the opposite. Crude shelves covered the walls containing various items from dishes to clothing to medgear and a fireplace with a kettle. A small table sat off to the side with a few chairs. That's all she really had. Some things were obviously salvaged from ships like her clothes, the bed and bedding and some of her cookware but most of it looked hand made. It reminded him of his village in a way. They were not an advanced people when it came to luxury living by any means.
    He watched her dump out her bag on the table while he took a seat on the bed. He didn't realize that it was chilly outside until he felt the warmth of the fire that still burned. She was going through the medical supplies she found and sorting it when he finally spoke, still looking around her home.
"How long have you been here? Is there anyone else?"
"I've lost count. Fifteen years, I think? At least twelve. This planet is larger than the one I grew up on so it’s hard to keep long term time. If there is anyone else here, I haven't found them."
"How did you come here?"
She made her way over to him and started cleaning his wounds with the sealed antiseptic cloths.
"Same way as you I imagine. The blackhole. My family was traveling with an outdated navigation system. I guess the route had been changed due to the void but we were unaware. My father died in the crash and my mother died from exposure not long after. I was ten. The only reason I survived was my force sensitivity."
"You've been alone this whole time?"
"Yes... you're the first to survive the ordeal as well.. other than myself."
    This saddened him for a number of reasons. He couldn't imagine being alone for so long, especially for a child to grow up on her own. It also meant that there was little hope for escaping this planet. She bandaged him gently, their bodies in close proximity. Her work was precise but her hands shook slightly.
"You have a rather deep gash on your side, I think I should stitch it if you'll allow it."
"Have you done it before?"
"To myself yes."
"Alright."
    You left and quickly returned to him with the suture kit and some kind of root. She explained that if he chewed it, it would ease the pain so he took it. She knelt down in front of him and began her work as he gnawed on the blue root. It tasted sweet and the effect took hold quickly to his pleasure. She worked diligently and was careful as she could be. Once again, her work was perfect, the stitches were small and tight but her hands still trembled. When she finished her work, she spread some antibacterial salve on him and went to put her gear away in silence.
"Are you alright?" He asked, hesitant but genuinely concerned.
"Yes. I'm sorry, it's just been so long since I talked to someone who could actually respond. So long since I've heard another voice." She tried to laugh it off but her voice shook as much as her hands had.
    So long she had been by herself. To stave away loneliness she had named every one of her chickens and force probed the minds of animals. Even a few times resorted to sitting with the corpses of the people who never survived their crashes. At first, he felt bad that she had been surviving on her own but the true weight of it was sinking into his chest. He could feel her confliction through the force. Although his presence was a relief to her it was incredibly overwhelming. She changed the subject as quickly as she could.
"Is your species carnivorous or omnivorous?"
"Um, I’m a carnivore but I can stomach a little produce."
"I'm glad I went hunting yesterday then."
    She didn't have to go far to reach the kitchen area, maybe fifteen feet. She was silently thanking herself that she opted for a tall ceiling leaving less than a foot of headspace for her unexpected guest. She thought of him jumping and getting his horns stuck and broke out into a series of quiet giggles.
    Savage had an idea of what she found funny because when he stood, he could almost reach the top with his pointed ivory. He watched as she took out a few steaks from the cooler under the counter and potatoes from another cabinet. Lighting a fire in a stove he hadn't noticed he studied her in silence as she chopped various vegetables and pulled dried herbs from where they hung. She had some electricity to power the cooler from the solar panels but most of the light in the home came in through windows or the fire. He did see oil lamps on the shelves and watched as she filled a pot with water. She had plumbing here as well. He was kind of amazed.
"You did all this yourself." It wasn't a question. "You built this home, ran pipes and wires and.. well everything. How did you learn to do all this?" He was truly in awe.
"The house came together fairly quickly. It helped that I didn't have to actually lift the logs," she pulled one of the chairs from the table using the force to make her point. "The plumbing and the solar power, that came much later. Many ship crashes later. I was lucky that a construction contractor transport crashed. He wasn't lucky, but I was. That's where I got most of my materials and he had a few manuals with him," she added the produce to a pot and turned face him, leaning against the counter. He took the chair she had offered at the table.
 "All of this... it's quite impressive. I might actually survive the night if you don't turn me out," he offered her a slight grin which she returned.
"I'm happy to help and have the company."
    She returned to cooking and threw the steaks on a griddle of sorts, instantly filling the home with the rich smell of cooking meat. Savage's mouth watered. Realizing exactly how hungry he was. She finished her work in silence. Turning back to him only when she had full plates.
    The meal was unlike anything he had tasted in his life. Everything was real, no fillers that were often found in city cuisines and richer than anything he had on Dathomir. He rolled his eyes and she laughed.
"I'm glad you like it."
"I do. I never asked you your name. Mine is Savage Opress. I'm a Dathomirian nightbrother."
"It’s nice to meet you." She furrowed her brow realizing she had forgotten something she wanted to remember.
"I'm sorry I wish I had a name to give you but... I don't remember it or where I came from exactly. I remember my family called me 'little one' but... that’s all I remember," this inadvertently broke both of Savage's hearts.
"Can I call you that?"
"Sure. I wouldn't mind. I don't know the name of the planet I came from but I remember it was a desert and small; maybe it was a moon. I do prefer the climate and lushness of this planet. I've never had to worry about food or water."
"I'm not a fan of deserts either. My planet is humid."
"Where were you going when you got lost and fell here?"
"I was trying to find a brother I had never met. I only recently acquired my connection with the force and I was told he could train me."
"Oh, well I'm not sure you will be able to leave anytime soon but if you decide to stay here.. with me anyway.. until we find a way out, I could help you. I've grown quite strong with the force and I'm sure I could aid you."
"You could?" he seemed surprised at her offer but also kind of excited. It seemed the longer he was off the trail Mother Talzin had laid out for him, little pieces of himself were returning.
"Yes I can. Unless you would prefer to fare on your own here. I would understand."
    He shook his head in response. She was already set up, knew how to survive this place. He didn't dislike her company either. She seemed to brighten at the prospect of him staying. When they finished eating, she invited him to get comfortable. A mutual understanding that they would be sharing the bed as there was only one and the idea of sleeping on the floor was awful. She took their plates and grabbed a large jar of dried grains, taking it outside without a word to him. He could hear excited clucking as he stripped down to his knit shorts and tried to get comfortable. It was difficult with his shoulder and fractured rib. He opted to sit up until she returned.
When she did, she grabbed a bottle of brown liquid and took a swig.
"Almost every single ship has liquor on it at least."
   She offered him another blue root and the bottle, both he gladly took. He almost choked when she turned her back to him and slipped out of her dress within his sight. Leaving only a thin tight fabric covering her backside. He wanted to avert his gaze but was intrigued with the various scars that decorated her body. Modesty or self-awareness in front of others were traits she never learned he thought. She pulled on a loose-fitting shirt and took the bottle back from him taking another swill. Snuffing out the stove but refilling the fireplace. The daylight fully extinguished. Only the light belonged to the fire flickering through the room.
    She looked beautiful in this light. She had a graceful wildness about her that Savage admired. Strength in mind and body to accomplish what she had. He could feel it in the force too, her connection to it ran deep.
"Fair warning, it gets cold here at night even though it's technically spring time. It's a long night too." She made her way towards the bed.
"That’s fine. My species has two hearts and a high metabolism so our body temperature is much higher than yours."
    She felt that to be true the moment she crawled in next to him and lay down. She felt the heat radiating off of his skin. Savage scoot down once she was in. She reached a hand out to his chest to feel his dual hearts but hesitated. He saw this and guided her hand on top of his pulse. Her breath hitched. He was so warm and so soft and he really did have two of them.
"Goodnight Savage."
"Goodnight Little One."
      At some point before the sun rose Savage's eyes fluttered open. He didn't feel her in bed anymore but with the home's set up it didn't take long to find her. She was facing the fire whittling a block of wood with the knife he had seen strapped to her leg. She had left him another blue root on a stool beside the bed. Her hands moved quickly and she was muttering rapidly to herself. He could only pick up a few things from what she said.
"I am one with the force the force is with me.... alone but not, accompanied but alone.... the force is with me......not alone..... the beasts in the trees..... he wasn't real...... one with the force....." An occasional giggle escaped her lips, she was gently rocking back and forth while her hands worked.
    He didn't say anything but just watched her. The blanket of night must make it worse, when life on the planet was silent and the air was cold. He wondered how much longer it would've taken for her to become like this all the time if he hadn't shown up. She seemed alright earlier, nervous and jumpy but nothing like this. He uncovered his body and slowly made his way over to her. Sitting beside her with his legs crossed, trying not to touch her so he wouldn't startle her. He just waited for her state to ease.
    Eventually it did, it didn't take too long. She could feel the heat coming off of his skin. He watched her carve the wood into a long beaked bird, its wings outstretched. She tossed it into the fire and turned to face him. His eyes glowed gold against the dark backdrop behind him.
"Are you real or am I really, finally starting to snap? It's bad in the dark.."
    He took her hand and she tensed at his touch. He cautiously guided her into his lap and pressed her ear to his hearts. She could feel them beating like drums under his muscle. He had dealt with various episodes back home. Sometimes the men in his village would snap at the fear of being chosen by one of the nightsisters. Sometimes the women would come to beat them just to remind them of their place in the hierarchy. She melted and was grounded by his pulse.
"I am real. I am here. You’re not hallucinating."
    His chest vibrated when he spoke. His deep vibrato continuing to calm her. When she looked back into his eyes, they were softer. It seemed as though if they were going to make it out of this, they would both need each other.
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