#even when his entire body was literally ready to give out. recognized that in those moments buck chose christopher and he chose eddie??
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I'm Where You Left Me
Rowaelin Month 2021, Day 29
A/N: I really hope that anon who's been sending me anons for the past literal year is somewhat happier in their life now that they have this. I cannot stress this enough, this is for you, whoever you are.
This is the fourth part to the hockey au, part one, part two, part three are here for you if you can't remember what this was about (my fault, oopsie)
A huge ass thank you goes to @starksravings for beta reading for me and making me hyped for this and to @thewayshedreamed for helping magnify the angst-level in this baby, love you both to the moon and back
Word count: 2,574
“Rowan?”
He assumed he was ready. He'd thought he could do it, hear her say his name. See those lips, which he knew every square millimeter of, move without feeling the overwhelming urge to brush against them, touch them, kiss them.
He thought he would find her and say what he had to the second he saw her. Scream about how much she had hurt him, how she had destroyed, killed him. But he couldn't speak. It was as if his body was rebelling against itself, fighting against every instinct that screamed at him to step forward, take her in his arms and run.
He felt like he was dying all over again.
Because Aelin stood before him after years, and he still remembered the exact shade of her eyes. The way her hair fell over her shoulders. The sharp line of her jaw, the kisses he left under her ear, where kisses never failed to make her smile.
Aelin looked exactly the same as the day she had ripped his heart out.
“How did you… how do you know where we live?"
The second the words left her mouth, she flinched, as if she realized she had just done something irreparable.
We.
She diverted her gaze, looking over her shoulder inside the house she now shared with her soon-to-be husband. Rowan felt his chest cave in at the thought while she stepped forward and closed the door behind her. Aelin was to be married to someone else.
He wondered if Chaol Westfall was there, only a few meters away. Rowan had seen the rookie play a couple of times in the past year. He’d played against his team just a few weeks into the championship.
He’d gone head-to-head with the man, and Westfall had to have known what Aelin had meant to him when they had almost hit it out on the ice.
Now, Rowan couldn’t get a word out. Not a single sound.
He kept staring at her like he had never seen something so beautiful in his entire life.
“Rowan, I-” she whispered. Her chin trembled and he recognized that look. He saw the words in her eyes. I’m sorry. She stepped back, her shoulders hitting the wood, and she looked down as if she couldn’t bear the sight of the broken man in front of her. Then, with a voice he’d never heard her use, she said, “I have to go back inside now, we’re,” she trailed off, her brows furrowing, “I have something to do. It was nice seeing you though.”
And just like that, the rope that was turning taut around him snapped, unleashing years of pent-up rage and misery.
“The fuck you are.” Rowan burst, his eyes reddening. His face scrunched up, and he let out a rasped laugh, “You’re not going back inside to him. You’re staying here.”
His ribs constricted as a tear slid down her cheek. She turned her head right and swept her face on her sweater.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, the words just a mere murmur. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “I shouldn’t have done what I did. I should-”
He couldn’t bear to listen to another single word coming from her. He had gone there, finding their location thanks to Westfall’s lax social media, willing to let her explain. But the way she was talking, from even just those few sentences… She thought he was here to talk about the two of them. But he didn’t want that. No, he needed to know what Chaol had that Rowan couldn’t give her.
“You shouldn’t?” he whispered in disbelief, “Aelin, you’re living our life with him!”
It only lasted a moment until the pain on her face morphed into something else.
She went down a couple of steps, closing the space between them. Pointing a finger at him.
“You have no right coming here and starting screaming at me like this. You have no idea what it did to me! Leaving you.” Her tears fell shamelessly, Aelin didn’t try to hide them. “It broke me.”
He felt breathless.
“And I know I did that to myself. I know what I did to you.”
She was sobbing now, her face red as she kept descending the final steps separating them.
“You think I don’t know what happened to you all this time? You think I didn’t call Elide every single day for a whole year, asking where you were, what you were doing, hoping, praying that I didn’t break the last of your goodness?” Her voice broke as her eyes closed, tears dripping down her chin like rain.
“She stopped telling me anything exactly a year after I left. After that, Aedion moved in with me for a month because everyone was scared I was going to do something reckless.”
Rowan slowly closed his eyes, keeping them like that for a long, infinite moment. He remembered that period. Everyone had told him Aedion had to leave the city for work, but he had suspected the move had a deeper meaning.
And this… this wasn’t how Rowan had imagined their first meeting would go after so many years. This was the furthest thing he could have hoped for, but reality had always had the upper hand with them.
He was about to reply, but words failed him again when he heard her whisper the one thing he had forbidden himself from dreaming about.
“I wanted to come back.”
His eyes snapped to her, and her shoulders sagged as she let out a breath, as if she had waited centuries to admit it.
Aelin pulled her lips together and shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest, like she was in pain. No, like she was pain, and was trying to hold herself together, not letting him see what the distance had caused her.
“I’m sorry, Rowan, I’m so sorry.” She whimpered. “The moment I realised I’d made the greatest mistake of my life I wanted to come to you. I tried.”
He felt like he was going to throw up. She looked him straight in the eyes, and what she said next almost brought him to his knees.
“I tried to get to you that night. And I did.”
He started shaking his head, bringing a hand to his hair. “Stop.”
“You were in Washington, at the Capital One Arena. I told Aedion I was going for a walk, and I went to the station, caught the first train to the arena and got there right after the end of the game.” She smiled sadly, remembering that day, “You won your second Stanley cup. Those last shots had your team win. I saw you come out of the lockers. I saw you take pictures with your fans, I saw you happy and fulfilled and living the life you had always dreamed of, and I couldn’t take that from you.”
Aelin grimaced like she was tasting something sour, “I had made my decision years prior and I couldn’t risk hurting you again the way I’d already done.” She paused for a moment, clenching her fists. “So I left and I came back here. Two weeks later I met Chaol.”
The sound of his name on her lips made his nose flare.
“And I’m not living our life with him.” She murmured.
Rowan looked at her, nodding once, saying with the same placid tone, “You may not realise it yet, but you are.”
Sure, Westfall was a rookie and he did not have the college background Rowan had had when they had gotten engaged, but it was only a matter of time before fame caught up with him.
She snorted, shaking her head. “He could never live up to you. Not even if he tried.”
He felt a pang of love at that, his chest warming somehow. But concern started growing alongside it.
Did she intend to marry a man she did not love?
He went to move closer to her, but stopped, not trusting himself in such proximity.
“Do you love him?”
Aelin kept silent at that, staring at him, and Rowan suddenly felt worn out. .
She visibly swallowed and then bent her head back, looking up at the darkening sky and Rowan knew whatever she was about to ask would hurt them both.
“Whose heart are you breaking by standing in front of me?”
Rowan frowned, his voice hoarser than intended. “I’m not following you.”
“You came here tonight, and you came at me for living our life with someone else. I wanna know who’s standing where I stood. I wanna know whose heart you broke by getting on a plane with this late as fuck grand gesture.”
He couldn't believe his ears and his lips parted slightly, his eyes turning glassy at the torment in her posture, in her features. He'd seen that exact same reaction in the mirror the times he thought of her with someone else. He'd cried himself to sleep picturing another man holding her at night.
He could feel his anger bubble up, wanting out. He wished he could yell at her, remind Aelin that this was on her. That she was the one who cut him off. But when he spoke, nothing but a tender whisper came out.
“No one, Aelin. No one since you.”
She closed her eyes again, releasing a shuddering breath as her lips curled in a silent cry.
“We’ve been apart for years. I don’t believe it for a second.”
At this point, it was starting to get hard to push words out for both of them, exhaustion wearing them down.
“I tried.” He said.
Her face crumpled and she sobbed, stepping back as if he physically hit her.
Rowan started crying, “I tried to forget you. I tried fucking other women. There was no tender feelings, no love for them. Nothing even scratched the surface of of what we had. And whenever we got to the actual thing…” he took a deep breath, remembering all those nights, trying to feel something. “When I was fucking them, I could only think of you. I stopped after I called one of them with your name. I felt sick right after. Never touched anyone else following that episode.
“Only the thought of doing something like that made me ill. It disgusted me.”
And since Aelin wasn’t speaking yet, trying to recover from what she’d just learned, he kept on going.
“I slept at Lorcan’s for weeks after you left, and your perfume still hit me when I went into our room. I had to move out.” He wasn’t going to unload the drinking stuff on her right now. He didn’t think he was able to unpack that yet. “I almost quit hockey right after I found a place to stay on my own, but I couldn't go through with it, because that was the only thing you’d left me with.” He cleared his throat, cracking his fingers, preparing for a fight that wouldn’t come. “But you were wrong. Hockey is nothing to me without you.”
Aelin looked at him, her chin quivering with restrain, “I’m sorry.”
The resignation in her voice felt like a punch to his stomach. Real. Lasting.
And then it hit him. Ten times stronger. Her fiancé was waiting for her in the house at her back.
She was someone else’s future wife.
She didn’t belong with him anymore.
He started inching back, putting his hands in front of him.
“I- what the fuck am I doing?” he whispered more to himself than to her. Rowan felt like air wasn’t reaching his lungs, “I shouldn’t have come all the way here. You’re getting married, and this is out of line. I’m sorry, I’ll never bother you ever again.”
He didn’t dare look at her one last time, he just turned and started walking down her pathway, picking up speed every step he took. He was just about to exit her courtyard when he felt a hand grip his wrist.
Rowan spun to her, feeling how cold her fingers were. How soft her skin still was.
Her eyes were watery, wide open, mirroring his.
“Don’t leave me here.” She rasped out.
His stomach went tight, “Aelin.”
“Please, let me come with you.”
He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. She was asking for his permission to go with him. It came as a shock to Rowan, as a slap across the face. Aelin wanted him to get her back. That’s what she was asking of him.
It sounded too good to be true, but he saw it on her face. The utter fear she was feeling, just at the idea of him leaving again.
He had waited years for this moment, had came here with no expectations. Not even in his wildest dreams had he let himself hope for something so beautiful. And yet here they were.
It was as if he could hear her heart cracking at his hesitance. So he moved.
It was an instant and then he wrapped his arms around her. Her chest collapsed against his as she started crying, sobbing for his forgiveness. Her hands went around his torso and his hand behind her neck, holding her head closer to him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She kept saying. Rowan was crying along with her, holding her tight, feeling like her body would crumble beneath his fingers.
“I’m right where you left me, Fireheart.” He whispered right into her hair, leaning down. “I never stopped waiting for you.”
The cry seemed to tear through her. Her fingers clutched his shirt tighter, “I need you, please don’t leave me.”
Rowan could only pull her closer as her words shredded his heart, “I’m here.”
And as they held onto each other for what seemed hours, he finally felt at home.
When she pushed back from him and looked up at his face, his cheeks were wet like hers and his lips were turned up, in a weak smile.
“I missed you.” She breathed out.
He laughed faintly, “God, I never thought I’d hold you again.”
She pushed up on her tiptoes and pressed her forehead to his, breathing in his smell, closing her eyes, “I’m sorry.”
Rowan wondered how many times she would need to say it before she would begin to make peace with what she had done to them almost four years before. It would take a long time, but by the same token he knew they would be together, and even if it took them another four years to heal from the wounds they had inflicted on themselves in the days apart, they would face it together.
He brushed their noses, his lips grazed hers and then he said something he’d waited eons to say again, “I love you. I quit hockey.”
“I know,” Aelin shuddered and kissed him.
Whatever had been broken inside of him started to adjust, every bit of his shattered soul was coming together once again, every piece falling in place.
They didn’t care that her fiancé might come out at any given moment, or that her neighbours could see her kiss a stranger just inside her yard. They couldn’t care less about anything else that wasn’t the other.
So without having a worry in the whole wide world, Rowan kissed Aelin deeper and brought them home at last.
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The Assignment
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4
eddie munson x female!reader
notes/warnings: none! just cuteness
not my gif
Eddie pulls away from your kisses before he loses all sense and control in his body. "As much as I'd love and i mean love to continue this sweetheart, we have an assignment to work on. C'mere I wanna show you something." He says as he gently picks you up from the couch, carrying you bridal style to his bedroom.
"I thought we weren't continuing." You smirk, seeing his face turn red as you enter the room.
He looks down at you, eyeing the reddish-purple mark he left on your neck for a moment before he spoke, "Tempted, but no, I wanted to show you my pride and joy."
As he lets you down on your feet, he strides to his wall and that's when you notice it. There on display was the infamous electric guitar he always spoke about in class, hung up as if it was priceless. He gently took it off the wall and plugged it into the amp next to his bed, motioning for you to come sit next to him.
"Wanna hear what i've been learning the last few weeks?" It's as if he's been waiting to show someone this, like a proud little kid wanting to show their parents something they just drew. You nod yes, excited to see what he's about to play for you.
As he plays the first few chords you recognize it immediately. Master of Puppets. Your face lights up with excitement as you watch him play. He is so in his element as his fingers effortlessly strum away, head unconsciously moving to the rhythm. He makes it looks so easy. You'd be lying if you said this didn't turn you on. You're so infatuated with the sight in front of you that you didn't notice him stop.
"That's all I got right now, gonna learn the whole thing eventually." He smiles confidently.
"That was amazing! Really Eddie it was. Everything about that was so sick, you're a rockstar."
He chuckles at the compliment you give as he gets up to put the guitar back on the wall, "Sort of I guess, I'm actually in a band, Corroded Coffin with some of the Hellfire guys. You should come see us play one day." His heart fluttering as he gives the verbal invitation.
As if he couldn't get any more perfect. "I'd love to!! Also, we should really eat that pizza now, it's probably cold." You giggle.
As the both of you go back into the small living room, he grabs a pen and paper off the kitchen counter and sits next to you on the couch. He begins a sweet conversation about your hobbies, life and personality and takes notes as it goes on. You find it so sweet that he's taking so much interest in you just for this silly little assignment. He is genuinely so fascinated with you, a beautiful, popular cheerleader that took the time to get to know and understand him instead of picking on him. You are an absolute angel to him. The pizza was definitely cold, but neither of you cared as you were both so infatuated by each other and the comfortable company of the moment. That and you were both still kinda high and had the munchies and would eat literally anything right now.
Throughout the afternoon you both found yourselves unconsciously falling in love with each fun fact and story you told about each other. The comfort you both felt in each others presence was different than you've both ever felt with anybody else whether in your case that be a friend and his being a romantic interest. You made it so easy for him to open up and he felt like he could gush to you about his entire life. But he didn't wanna scare you off with those stories, so he decided to save them for hopefully another day. A few hours have gone by at this point.
"I think I should get going, dinner should be ready soon at home and I wouldn't want my parents to be on my ass about missing it." You sighed, not wanting to leave just yet.
"Yeah no problem, I'll take you." He smiles as he gets up and walks towards the door.
The ride was unfortunately quick, and you were already missing him despite not even getting out of the van yet. You're caught off guard when he leans over and gives you a kiss on the cheek.
"See ya tomorrow sweetheart."
Your heart nearly beating out of your chest as you look at him blushing. "See ya."
As you got inside your house, you brought your hair to the front to cover the hickey on your neck. In the dining room, your plate was set on the table for you and you ate as fast as you could so you could get to your room and begin writing about Eddie. Your parents were confused by you scarfing down your food, but your sister was holding back a giggle, knowing exactly what was going on. You zoomed up to your room and immediately got out your notebook to figure out a good 'intro' to Eddie. The assignment was due next week, so you really shouldn't be in any rush, but you were too excited and wanted a head start.
——————
A couple of days have passed, and with each day and each english period your crush on Eddie is definitely more than solidified. He can say the same. You haven't told anybody about the little makeout sesh you had back at his trailer, except Chrissy, and she was floored. She nearly fell off the locker room bench as you were getting ready for the basketball game tonight. Her already being on edge because of her little plan to break up with Jason after the game. Part of you believed she wouldn't go through with it which is sad to say, but she was afraid of him, so it made the odds very unlikely.
"So are you still gonna go through with that plan of yours?" You ask as you tie your sneaker.
"Y-Yeah I think so. I've really had enough of him to be quite honest. If he tells my parents what he said he'd tell them, then so be it, I will deal with it." You could tell she was definitely nervous. Usually before games she was so pumped up and excited to cheer, but that spark wasn't there today.
"If you need backup, I'll be right by your side." You smile and give her a quick hug before you guys walk out the locker room to go and practice the cheer routine for a bit.
——————
"You wanna do what instead of Hellfire tonight? Is this even Eddie i'm talking to?" Mike Wheeler said angrily in response to Eddie telling the group he wants to go to the game for an...assignment.
"He just wants to see his girlfriend dance around in a short skirt." Dustin said while rolling his eyes, pissing Mike off even more.
"You're canceling for a GIRL? What the—"
"Enough, Wheeler. It's not that, well it is, but I want to....observe how she cheers. And she's not my girlfriend. Yet."
"Yeah you wanna observe alright." Dustin laughs earning a slight smack to the head from Eddie.
"We're going and that's it. Plus you guys can see Sinclair." Eddie was looking for every excuse at this point.
"You mean see him sit on the bench the entire time? Count me out I'm going home." Mike stormed out of the room cursing to himself under his breath.
——————
The crowd starts growing in the gymnasium, bleachers getting filled by the second. You look around and see the usual familiar faces, but you're immediately caught off guard when that tall, lanky figure you knew all too well strides through those big wooden double doors.
"Ohmygod." You say to yourself pretty much frozen in place.
"Y/n are you oka— oooooh I see now." Chrissy laughs as she spots Eddie and the Hellfire kids taking seats on the bottom bleachers front and center, exactly where you'll be in front of for most of the cheer routine. He spots you and sends you a sweet smile along with a wave. You giggle nervously and wave back.
It was time for the opening routine, you and the rest of the cheer squad skip into the gym clapping and doing whatever you can to amp up the crowd. Eddie watching you intensely. He loves how excited you are, causing his heart to skip as he watches you in your element. The routine starts and he's completely mesmerized by you and the way that you move. To him it feels like you are the only two people in the room. You both make eye contact and you smile and send a wink his way as you roll your hips during part of the routine. He nearly faints onto Dustin. As the routine is over, the basketball team jogs in, the crowd roaring for you all. Throughout the game all Eddie could do was focus on you. Every time you got up to cheer he was stuck in a trance. You looked so happy and that made him even happier.
The game is almost over, and Hawkins was down by two. Very unlikely when they're playing against this opponent. They suddenly put Lucas Sinclair in and he scores, winning the game for Hawkins. The crowd yelling as the team lifts him onto their shoulders celebrating the win. As everyone is moving around socializing, you immediately run over to Eddie causing his face to light up brighter than the sun on a hot summer day.
"Eddie!" you squeal hugging his frame. "I wasn't expecting you to be here!"
"Yeah, I thought it'd be good for our um...assignment, wanted to observe how you were during cheer." He smiles as he scratched the back of his neck blushing. You suddenly hear a commotion behind you, Eddie's smile dropping.
"Well what do we have here? Thought I told you to stay away from her freak. You two hookin' up or somethin'?"
Eddie opened his mouth to retaliate but you do it for him, grabbing him by the arms and bringing him down to kiss you. Several people gasping and the gym going silent seeing the beloved cheer captain locking lips with the 'freak' Eddie Munson.
Jason was absolutely speechless and enraged, nearly about to pounce at Eddie. But not before he's stopped by Chrissy yelling and running over, your kiss with Eddie breaking.
"Jason!" He turns around and is met with a cooler full of milk being poured on him.
No fucking way. She's about to do it.
"We're over." Chrissy says proudly as she throws the cooler to the side and walks out the gym.
The crowd now begins to laugh at Jason, taking the focus off of you and Eddie. He is boiling and to make matters worse, his english assignment partner Nancy Wheeler snaps a photo with her camera for the school newspaper. Both you and Eddie are hysterically laughing as you run out the school after Chrissy hand in hand, meeting her in the parking lot.
"Chrissy! I'm so proud of you!" You say letting go of Eddie's hand to engulf her in a hug.
"I was so nervous. But I couldn't let him continue you bother you guys. Eddie, I apologize for every time i've stood next to him as he said nasty things to you over the years and didn't scold him for it. I should've and I'm sorry."
"No hard feelings." He smiles giving her a friendly hug. "You guys need rides?"
"Yea please actually, I came to school with Jason this morning, would rather not have him take me home".
"My sister brought me today, so count me in too." You laugh
The three of you walk towards his van and hop in. You up front of course and Chrissy in the back. She gets dropped off first, you telling her to call your house if she needs anything. As you're on the way to your place, Eddie began to speak.
"Y'know, you looked great out there cheering." He blushes as he tries to hide his smile.
You feel all warm and fuzzy from the compliment, thinking back at the moment where you winked at him.
"Thank you, it was so much fun. It's honestly my favorite thing to do. I love going to every practice and game, I get such a boost of happiness from it."
"It shows. Happiness looks great on you sweetheart. Can't wait to see your reaction to my essay about you."
"I can't wait to see yours either." You smile, the car stopping as he pulls up in front of your house. "Tommorow will definitely be interesting, but i'm excited. Thank you for the ride."
"Thanks for the kiss." He smirks as you get out.
"There's more where that came from." You wink, giggling and going inside.
Internally, he is melting, not believing the sentence that just came out of your mouth. For the last few days you guys have hung out after your respective school activities and he's fallen hard. The flirting was pretty much normal now and you both definitely had more than enough notes to write about each other. With both of your essays being done, you two definitely hung out now just to be with one another. God he wants you so bad. He just wants to show you the gentle and sweet love that you deserve. You weren't a trophy to him, you were so much more than a pretty face and high status. You were kind, intelligent and bubbly and he adored that about you. He couldn't wait for tomorrow.
You got into bed after showering and brushing your teeth, holding your pillow close to you. Oh how you wished it was Eddie. His hugs made you feel so safe and warm. All you could think about is how much you love being around him.
The next morning you woke up with extreme butterflies, excited for the day that this will be. You did your usual morning routine and went downstairs, grabbing some toast before you left the house and hopped into Chrissy's car. As you approach the school you could feel your stomach twisting in knots and your head spinning. Never in a million years did you think you'd be head over heels like this for Eddie Munson. Your legs bounced with anxiety during each class, anticipating the later part of the school day. By lunchtime it was at its worst as you realize you definitely couldn't sit at the jock table anymore with Jason being there and neither could Chrissy. As you both enter the cafeteria you could feel the piercing stares from Jason and the rest of the guys at the table, the girls just avoiding eye contact.
As you try to focus on something else, your eyes meet Eddie's and he notices something is wrong. He immediately waves the both of you over and you sigh with relief, thanking the universe for having him distract you.
"If you guys need somewhere to sit you're more than welcome to be with us, right boys?" Eddie says looking at his group.
They all nod or hum in agreement while Mike Wheeler rolls his eyes. Kid's definitely got a stick up his ass for no reason, but you choose to ignore it. Dustin nudges him to move over to make room.
"Are you sure? We don't wanna be a bother." Chrissy says nervously.
"Considering your ex boyfriend is pretty much murdering us all with his eyes right now, I think it'd be for the best."
She nods quickly and takes a seat next to Dustin, not wanting to even look at Jason. You on the other hand send him a death glare, catching him off guard and making him uncomfortable to the point where he chokes on whatever he was eating. You laugh and sit next to Chrissy with Eddie on your right at the end of the table as if he were a king. It suited him very well. As the group does small talk, you notice Eddie is silent as he focuses on Jason throughout the lunch period. As you look over you notice Jason eyeing you guys again, but this time smirking with his arm around one of the new cheer girls. Of course none of the other girls had the balls to do this, as you and Chrissy were captain and co-captain and could easily kick them off the squad if you wanted to, so made sense for him to do this with the newbie.
You decide to keep Chrissy distracted as lunch went on and finished. But Jason purposely walked by your table, arm still around this girl.
"Nice new table, freaks."
"Fuck you." you mutter.
At this point you were ready for English. Your next two classes went by excruciatingly slow and you could barely focus. As the bell rang for English, you darted out of your current class and into Mrs. O'Donnell's. You take a few deeps breaths as you enter and realize you were the first one in. As you took your seat, you rummage through your backpack and take out your assignment, rereading it over and over again making sure it was perfect. In reality you just wanted something to calm your nerves and as if the universe once again listened, Eddie walked into the room and took his seat next to you.
"Hey pretty girl, you excited." He smiles at you while taking out his essay.
"Over the moon." you giggle.
The class began to fill up and the bell rang, signaling the beginning of what is about to be a core memory for the rest of your life. Mrs. O'Donnell gets up from her desk to explain the procedure for today.
"Now ladies and gentleman, as you know, your assignments are due today and we will begin presentations momentarily. Do we have any volunteers to go first?"
The class silently looking around avoiding eye co fact with her, no one raised their hands.
"Alright then I see how this is going to go. Eddie Munson and Y/N, Y/L/N I'd like you two to go first."
Your heart sank to your stomach.
Part 5 soon <3
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All This Time — Armin Arlert (3)
series masterlist
Pairing: Armin Arlert x Reader
Word Count: 7.6k
Series Summary: Reader messages her best friend Armin late one night while she's drunk and needy, but will she remember the things she said to him in the morning, and if she does... will she regret it?
Part Summary: A friendship has been destroyed, but in exchange for something more
Content: Smut / Nsfw 18+
Content Warnings: Oral (M and F Receiving), Fingering, Unprotected Sex
Armin wasn’t a virgin. He lost his virginity his senior year of high school, and since then, he’s been with only one other girl. You were a little different though, you had a few more people under your belt… literally.
But none of those people mattered right now, neither of your amount of experience mattered; because you were with him, and he was with you. And both of you were fucking dizzy with the way you were kissing each other like it was your first kisses all over again.
Armin couldn’t keep his mouth off of you once he latched himself on. He had his hands holding your face against his, sucking on your lips and licking into your mouth as he stumbles forward into your body and backing you up to God knows where.
And you had your hands fisting his stupid white tee-shirt and pulling him closer and closer, being the cause of his stumbling forward. But you just couldn’t get enough of him, you couldn’t get enough of the feeling of having his soft lips against your own or his hands on your body.
You were whimpering into his mouth, gasping against his lips, kissing him back with so much desire and so much pent-up emotion that little noises of arousal escaped his own lips.
He was so desperate for you, so desperate for this moment right here. His entire fucking relationship with you he’s wanted to have you as his, wanted to taste you and feel you and make you cry out for him. He was so stupid in his fantasy that he couldn’t even see that you wanted the same.
You tasted so softly of mint toothpaste, mint toothpaste, and the sweetest sugar, and Armin couldn’t get enough. His tongue was sliding over yours so sensually, kissing each other with open mouths and swallowing the other’s pretty moans.
Fucking hell, you were moaning and wet over him kissing you, how pathetic were you?
“Armin, my room — please,” You whimper, dropping his shirt and occupying your hands with sliding under the recently dropped fabric to feel up the taut skin of his abdomen.
“Shit, okay,” He breathes, “C’mere.”
Armin leans into you a little to be able to get a good grip on the backs of your thighs before lifting you up and wrapping them around his waist. You audibly gasp as he does so, finally realizing the amount of strength he truly has.
You remember him lifting you last night, or did you jump into his arms? You don’t remember. But you do remember being in his arms, in a position quite similar to now, but you were too drunk to notice and admire the way his biceps flex as he holds you up, the way his fingers dig into the plush fat of your ass, and thighs, the feeling of his hard cock pressing into your needy cunt.
You were too fucking drunk to realize any of it, but now you’re sober… and you do. And you feel him pressing and grinding against you as he continues kissing you so roughly that you’re surprised it’s actually Armin.
You never knew he could get like this. You never knew he could be so unintentionally dominating, or so sensual with his actions. And now you never want him to stop.
He carries you, just like last night, to your room and lays you gently on the bed. He never takes his lips off of yours, he’s too afraid to, he has you now and he never wants to pull himself away.
He keeps his hips between your thighs as he brings both of you down to the bed and rests your head on your pillow, taking his hands off your thighs and moving them to brace himself upright on either side of your head. And your hands slide up his chest, under his shirt, feeling over his warm and tense skin and sighing at the way his muscles dip under your fingers.
You’ve seen Armin shirtless before, and you’ve lingered your glances over his lean muscles and milky skin, you’ve gotten lost and dizzy in the way his arms and stomach flexed while the two of you played beach volleyball or water polo on family trips. But feeling over his skin, and feeling his stomach ripple under your fingertips was far more intense than watching them.
“I — I always forget how strong you are,” You breathe, keeping your eyes closed and lips parted as Armin rests his forehead against yours.
He laughs softly as he pants equally so, trying to catch his breath in the few seconds you give him away from your lips. He felt like you were trying to empty his lungs from all their air, trying to fucking kill him with the way you were touching him.
“Yeah?” He asks, not trying to tease, but genuinely curious to hear more.
“Mhm. ‘always forget that you… are built like this…” Your voice goes a little quieter as you’ve suddenly gone shy with what you’re saying. But your nimble fingers keep exploring his skin, keep sliding over his abdomen and sides, and getting lost in his skin.
“Take — take this off, please,” You whisper, grabbing ahold of the hem of his shirt and pulling it up to his torso until he aids you, lifting up off of you and back onto his calves as he grabs the back neckline and tugs the white tee off of his body.
And the moment he does so, you only melt further into the sheets. Your eyes scan over the broad expanse of silky smooth skin of his chest, over the curves of his shoulders and biceps, taking in the freckle or two that you recognize on his collarbones and forearms.
He’s so beautiful, so fucking beautiful. You hate yourself for never telling him that you believed so until last night.
“I meant it… last night… when I said that you’re really attractive.” You reach out to him, his distance becoming too far, and he listens to your silent request and brings his body back over you, “I don’t — don't know why I never told you…”
Armin was blushing now, his face turning hot and red and the blush is seeping down into his neck and chest as you continue to stare over his body. And he only heats up more when you look up into his eyes with your own. It’s like you're staring into the depths of his soul and reading into his insecurity.
“Thank you,” Armin would continue and say the same for you, but he knows you already know that. He knows that you know that he thinks you're beautiful, he tells you all the time.
When he’s watching you get ready for a party or a gathering, he always makes sure to tell you that you’re stunning… even before you even ask him in confirmation.
Armin swallows before he brings his head back down to kiss you once more, this time with a little less energy. His lips meet yours softly, sensually, and you allow his tongue to slip in equally as so. It makes your heart swell and stomach turn as he kisses you slowly, almost seductively. And somehow, when it was like this, it made you far more buzzed than before had.
You were already whimpering into his mouth, hips stuttering and circling around nothing as you try and get any kind of friction between the two of you. But Armin was seated just a little too high up off of you to where you were pathetically grinding against air and not him.
As you were struggling for a release of tension, Armin was enjoying your little struggle. He savored the way you were getting so needy and desperate with your movements; the way your hands were sliding over his shoulders so shakily, the way you were already struggling to kiss him back, or how you wrapped your legs around him to try and bring him closer. He felt so wanted, so needed… by you.
His cock was so hard in his sweats, throbbing and aching and only getting any sort of relief when your hips bucked high enough against his. So, eventually, despite his nerves and in your favor, Armin brings himself closer between your hips and allows himself to grind his cock against your barely clothed cunt.
And he’s so glad he chose so because the pretty little noise that leaves your lips and the sweet sexual friction he gets as you reactively grind against his cock is almost too much for him to handle.
You’re moaning in his mouth, getting sloppy with your kisses because the head of his cock is rutting itself up against your needy clit so nicely and his tongue is sliding against yours so smoothly. And His body is such a nice weight above you, even though he won’t let himself drop nearly his full weight.
He holds himself up by bracketing his elbows by your head, his lips now close enough to yours that he doesn’t need to crane his neck down to kiss you. He can kiss you steadily now that his arms aren’t shaking from holding his cock off of you, and his legs aren't shaking from not receiving any relief. And even though you're having trouble giving anything back due to how overwhelming it is, Armin’s keeping the kiss fluid.
He doesn’t want this to be quick, he doesn’t want it rushed. He doesn’t mind if it's with fervor or with energy, but he wants this to be drawn out and long. He wants to take his time with you, and he wants you to take your time with him; to be able to savor the feeling of your skin and your lips and your touch, to have enough time to memorize it in case he never gets it again. He wants to fuck you good and slow until you're both lightheaded from the lazy tempo and are swallowing down each other's whimpers and whines.
Armin trails his kisses down your jaw, letting his tongue be guided by his lips and peak out to get little tastes of your skin. He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck as he savors your skin, his ear next to your mouth as he’s able to hear every hitch on your breath or little whimper that escapes your throat as he nips and sucks at the fragile flesh.
Your fingers snake their way into his hair as his mouth latches onto your pulse point, and you tug on the pretty blonde strands, nails scratching his scalp and drawing out little groans from him as you do so. Your back is sent into a cute arch as goosebumps freckle over your skin and Armin can feel your entire body shaking beneath him.
Armin keeps going down, down, down, satisfying his need to feel your skin between his teeth, until he reaches the low swooping neckline of your tank top. And when he finally feels his chin hitting fabric, he pulls away, but only to look up to you and take the hem of your top in his right hand.
“Can I take this off?” He asks, keeping eye contact as he shimmies further down your body so his face is comfortably in line with your chest.
“Yeah,” You nod with your voice breathy.
The moment you give him an answer, he’s lifting the thin fabric up to your stomach and pressing kisses against the soft skin as he does so. He continues pulling it upwards until your bare chest is revealed to him and you take your own liberty to slide the shirt off your head.
Armin almost groans at the sight of your exposed chest and is suddenly very thankful that you hadn’t put on anything more to cover yourself this morning. Your nipples were pebbled by arousal and your chest and stomach had a glowing sheen of perspiration over the top that made the entire situation ten times more alluring.
“Do you remember… that day we were at the beach?” He speaks softly like he’s lost in the way the flesh of your chest gives as his hands come. His eyes are glued to you, and if you weren’t as equally lost in him, you almost could have laughed at his expression.
“And you were wearing that stupid baby blue bikini,” He continues, speaking breathily.
“Yeah, did you — did you like it?” You ask him, looking up at him through your lashes as he continues to play with your tits.
“Yeah,” He nods, “I… got off to you that night. 'couldn't get you out of my head.”
He doesn't give you a chance to respond before he's kissing you again, only your lips a few times before he's trailing back down your neck and to your chest.
He attaches his lips to the underside of your left breast, the other one being taken in his right hand. And he wasn’t rough with bites or sucks, but he was lazy with it like he was trying to ingrain the feeling of the soft supple flesh in his mouth into his brain. He was running his tongue over what he's taken into his mouth, sending shivers and shakes down your entire body while his other hand softly, so very softly, massages your other breast between his nimble fingers.
He was so incredibly gentle with you, but the effect that gentleness had was so great and was hitting you so hard that by the time he had finally ran his tongue over your nipple, you were softly moaning and grinding your hips up against his abdomen with the same amount of desperation that you were before.
Armin could tell that you wanted more from him, you wanted his mouth and hands over your entire body and not just your chest. But he needs to make up for all the time he’s lost by waiting for himself and for you. He has to draw this out and be able to do everything he’s ever dreamed of doing with you, to you, for you.
So, he’s going to play with your pretty tits and slide his tongue over your chest until he’s content and thinks he’s equated it to the time he’s lost. He won't stop unless you tell him to, or you're verbally begging him for more.
“Armin —” You breathe as your fingers take a tighter hold on his hair.
He looks up to you for a moment, watching your saliva sheened lips part as he releases your nipple from his mouth before tending to the other one the same as before. He leaves your left breast covered in his slick saliva, nipple almost sore from the way he was teasing you, and lets his cute little tongue escape his lips again to slide over and wet the other as he looks up to you with those big blue eyes.
And you were pathetically wet underneath your panties from that stimulation alone.
You knew Armin had at least a little bit of experience, but you didn't know he would be so damn attentive to your body and so skilled with the way he’s doing so. It isn’t a surprise though, it’s Armin for christ's sake, of course, he’s going to go out of his way to drive you crazy and he’s going to do it to the best of his abilities.
His fingers of his left-hand slide up your saliva-slicked breast to take your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it between the two quite gently as he continues to flick over the other with his tongue.
“Armin, oh my God. I — fuck,” You whimper, completely in awe that you could feel this way through nipple stimulation.
God, if you weren't careful, you were pretty sure you might be able to cum from this.
Your cunt was dripping and clenching around nothing beneath your panties as he continued, and it was driving you insane. You needed more, you needed to feel his stupid tongue inside you, needed his fingers inside you, needed his cock inside you.
“I — fuck, Armin, more, need — fuck — need you to touch me,” You pant, sitting up on your elbows as he finally takes his mouth off your chest.
“What do you need?” He asks, but he seems to already know the answer, for his hands slide down from your chest and to your hips before sneaking his fingers under your waistband.
You gasp softly at the tugging feeling you get from him pulling on your panties, instinctually lifting your hips slightly to allow him to continue. You look down to him with your lips parted open, nodding slightly to encourage him.
“Is this okay?” He says, a little softer, stopping his movements before he fully exposes you.
“Yeah, please.”
Armin can feel his stomach lurch and cock twitch in his pants at the little whimpering beg you let out. And it only does it again when he slides himself further down the bed and gets a good look at the cute little darkened patch that’s formed in your grey boy-short panties from the wetness leaking from your cunt. And, once again, Armin’s so glad you hadn’t chosen to put on any more clothes before he returned.
Then, he’s pulling them down, completely stripping you bare to him. But you don’t feel vulnerable like you usually do, well maybe a little, but with Armin it’s different. With Armin, you feel safe and homely, you feel like it’s always supposed to have been like this. Because not only does he look at you like you’re something to ravish, but something to cherish.
Armin can’t stop himself from muttering a soft “Fuck,” at the sight of you so wet and needy for him.
You knew you were going to be aroused, but from his reaction, you didn’t know you were going to be to such an extent.
Armin presses a few soft kisses up your legs, skipping over your center, as he makes his way back up to your face. He takes you by surprise by catching your lips in his again, cupping your face in his left hand, and caressing your jaw as he steals your breath away once more. He comes to your right side, bringing the arm that’s attached to the hand on your face down with him until his elbow braces him up and his hand cups the back of your head. His right-hand slides and skims over your stomach before dipping down your navel and fingers hovering over you.
He can feel your breathing jump as his fingers brush over your clit, can feel your hips jerk against his arm once he makes that sweet contact. And it’s almost pathetic how you choke back a whimper at such soft touches, but it was like everything was oversensitized to the max.
He lets his fingers apply the lightest of pressure, almost waiting for you to lift your hips and meet him halfway as he begins to circle your clit slowly. He’s bordering teasing with his touches, even though it’s unintentional; just using the pads of his fingertips to massage you gently.
Your mouth is dropped open ever so slightly while Armin rests his forehead against your temple as he plays with your clit. You’re sucking in little pants of air as your eyes flutter shut at the waves of pleasure that wash over you. Your right arm comes up to wrap around his and grab ahold of his bicep on the outside, feeling the muscle flex under your fingertips as he continues to please you.
“Shit, more. Want them inside,” You whisper, opening your eyes to only see his as he looks over the way your pretty face twists in pleasure.
Armin looks into your eyes as his fingers slide a little lower, feeling over the slick that’s gathered at your cunt, cursing softly, then keeping eye contact as he slides two fingers inside you. He groans softly as his digits are engulfed by your slick warmth, and you do the same as you feel his long fingers fill you up so nicely.
Your entire body goes weak at the sensation, and your hips helplessly grind against his palm as his fingers reach their hilt. You’re gasping and choking on your breath while he dips his head into your neck and resumes kissing the skin there.
He fingers you nice and slow like he’s once again trying to memorize the way your pussy clenches around him, the feeling of the wet heat of your cunt consuming him and sucking him in, so desperate for more, more, more. He loves the way your thighs clamp around his wrist as he curls the tips of his fingers up against you, realizing he’s found your sweet spot and continuing to curl against it every so often to hear the sweet little mewl that leaves your lips as he does so.
He can feel your little nails pressing into the skin of his bicep as you squeeze tighter. And then you’re grabbing his hair with your other hand, tugging him up from your neck to face you, and taking his lips in yours. You’re moaning into his mouth, barely able to kiss him back again. He can feel your chest pressing up against his whenever you arch your back, silently begging him for more.
Armin pulls away from you, using the elbow he was bracing himself on to lift himself away, “Can — fuck — can I go down on you?”
You look up to him as he waits for an answer.
Of course, Armin would want to go down on you, of course, he would. He’s Armin.
“Yes, please,” You nod.
He wastes no time to continue kissing down your body, keeping his fingers inside you and only pulling them out once he’s laying out on the bed with his face in line with your cunt. He’s conveniently bent at the hips, his legs able to hand off the bed so he can kneel on the floor.
He slowly pulls his fingers out of you, keeping his eyes on the way your pussy clenches and stretches around his knuckles as he does so. And he has to hold in a groan as he sees the way his fingers are shiny and glistening with your arousal once they’re fully out of you.
“I always knew that… that you would be the kinda guy to go down on girls.” You chuckle softly as you rise to your elbows, able to see him kneel before you.
Armin looks up to you from between your legs. His hair is slightly disheveled, and there’s a cute pink flush over his nose and cheeks. His pupils are blown wide with lust. He looks absolutely alluring.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He brings his head closer to your center like he’s waiting for your answer before he slides his tongue through you.
“I just — not a lot of guys are willing to actually do it…” You say, now able to feel his breath fanning over your cunt. Armin can see the way your legs twitch with every little breath he takes, he can feel them beginning to squeeze his shoulders.
“Why not?” And he wasn’t teasing you, he seemed genuinely curious.
“I don’t — I don’t know,” You whisper, practically trembling with anticipation
He seems satisfied with your answer and keeps his eyes on you as he grips your thighs and brings his face forward to slide his tongue through your slit. You’re warm against his tongue, and he can taste your slick arousal on it. His tongue feels like silk as he slides over you, dipping the tip of his tongue into your hole before gliding up to flick over your clit.
“Oh god,” Your head falls back on your shoulders, hands clenching into fists as you buck your hips up against his face.
He wasn’t confident with his movements, but he was in no way unsure of them either. He seemed to have at least some experience with what he was doing, but you weren’t anywhere near upset with that. You were his, and he was yours. And you could even say you were glad that he knew what he was doing because it was only making the experience that much better for you.
You could feel your entire body quivering as the pleasure courses through you, stemming from the pit of your stomach. You were getting warmer by the moment, not from physical exertion but from the overwhelming sensations that were flowing through your whole body. Your stomach was contracting and your chest was jerking before you with every little circle of his tongue over your clit.
You let out an audible choked-out moan as you feel his two fingers slide back inside you. You don’t notice how much tighter you’re squeezing them now that his mouth is on you as well. Your little cunt is fluttering around his digits, almost making it hard for him to shirt them around inside you. And every little squeeze he gets translates itself back to his cock, sending it twitching and leaking precum in his sweatpants. And he’s wishing his dick was pushed all the way inside you and it was his length that your little pussy was squeezing so nicely and not his fingers.
Soon, Armin, soon.
“I’m so close, please don’t stop. Armin please, please,” You whine, your back arching and legs trembling and squeezing his shoulders.
Before he allows you to cum, he uses his free hand to lift both of your legs so they rest over his shoulders, your heels digging into the muscles in his back. And that little change in angle has his fingers hitting your sweet spot over and over as his mouth suckles around your clit. And you’re cumming and creaming all over his fingers, cunt spasming around them as he fucks them into you and lets you ride out your orgasm.
“Oh God — Armin,” You shift your weight to one elbow and bring up your right hand to reach out and lace your fingers through his hair once more.
He’s lost himself in the way you gush all over his tongue, the way he flickers his pretty blue eyes up to see your eyebrows furrow together as you keep grinding against his mouth and hand.
Armin can only rut his hips into the side of your bed, wishing that he was fucking his cock into you rather than his fingers, but all good things take time.
Once you’ve come down from your high and Armin’s slipped his fingers out of you, you shift your legs off of his shoulder and let your hand fall from his head and down his arm.
“Want to — wanna suck you off, please.” You say, looking into his eyes as he lifts himself from the floor and hovers back over your body.
“You don’t have to,” He shakes his head softly, leaning over you and cupping your cheek with his left hand… the one that isn’t covered in his spit and your cum.
“Want to — so bad,” You plea, sliding a hand down his chest until you reach the waistband of his sweats. Then, you continue a little further, cupping his length through the fabric, sliding your hand over him gently.
You take your bottom lip between your teeth as you look up at him. His lips are parted as he drops his head slightly to watch your hand palm at his cock. He’s not very convincing when he repeats ‘you don’t have to’ because he’s subtly grinding into your hand and letting out soft moans at the feeling.
“Wanna make you feel good,” You say quietly, looking over his pretty face.
“Fuck, please,” He whimpers… whimpers.
And so you pull your hand away from his cock, push against his chest with both hands until he’s bringing himself up off the edge of the bed, and push him a little farther so you can kneel in front of him. The hardwood hurts your knees, and you know it’ll probably hurt equally as bad later, but you need to feel the weight of him in your mouth.
You hook your fingers around his waistband, tugging both his boxers and his sweatpants down until his cock springs free and slaps against his stomach. And Armin’s just as big as you had expected, nice and long, and his tip a pretty pink; leaking precum down the length of him.
His breath hitches as you take ahold of the base of him in your hand, holding him gently and sizing him up. He’s heavy in your hand, skin warm and slickened with his own arousal that’s dripped down his shaft.
You look into his pretty blue eyes as you jerk him softly, sliding over him and twisting your wrist once you reach his tip. He looks back down to you, burning the image of you knelt in front of him, completely nude, with his cock on your hands into his mind. Your lips swollen and slick with saliva from kissing, your hair askew and so prettily messy.
He’s cursing quietly, his breathing getting all ragged and choked up as you continue. And he finally lets out an audible groan once you close your lips around the head of his cock.
His precum is slightly salty on your tongue, and you suckle on his tip real gently as you swirl your tongue over him.
“Fuck —” He hisses, the sensation building up far too quickly for his liking, but he doesn’t want you to stop just yet.
You take your mouth off of him, but only to lick up the underside of his cock, making sure to slobber on it real nicely until a string of spit connects from the head of him to your lips. And then you allow yourself to slide the length of him into your mouth, taking as much of him as you can and jerking the rest with your hand. He’s heavy on your tongue, and you have to keep yourself from gagging as his tip hits the back of your throat.
“Oh God, oh God — fuck,” He groans, restraining himself from bucking his hips against you and fucking your throat, “Stop, stop, I’m gonna cum,”
But you don’t stop, you keep your mouth on his cock with your lips wrapped tight and cheeks hollowed.
Armin grabs ahold of your hair, completely disregarding his gentle nature, and pulls you back and off of him. You cough on your own spit, sending it dripping down your chin as you look up to him through swelling tears.
He’s panting heavily, looking down at you as he breathes, his cock hovering just in front of your face and dripping with your saliva.
“Can — can I fuck you,” He asks, loosening his grip on your hair and sliding his hand down the side of your head to cup your cheek.
You lean into his touch, savoring the warmth, and nodding your head softly as you close your mouth and swallow the accumulated spit, “Yeah,”
Armin’s gentle once more as he leans down, taking your hands in his to help you stand before he guides you back onto the mattress, crawling over your body and kissing you gently once you’re fully on the bed.
You can feel his cock situated in the crease of your leg, resting right next to your cunt. And you’re clenching around nothing at the sensation of his cock being so close.
“Do you have a condom?” He asks, pulling away from you.
You swallow hard, subconsciously grinding against the length of him as the idea of him filling you raw floods your mind. You look up to him with your bottom lip taken innocently between your teeth as you shake your head.
“I want you raw,” You decide, sliding your hands up his warm chest until they reach the base of his neck.
You don’t speak as if you’re trying to convince him, more so just telling him exactly what you want. You hadn’t planned for it to end up this way, but now that it’s come across, you don’t want anything else.
“You — you don’t want a condom?” Armin asks, and you can feel him twitch against your thigh at your revelation.
“No,”
He nods, slowly and uncertainly at first, but then confidently as if he realized he wanted it equally as much. And then he leans back, sitting back on his calves as he takes his cock in his hand, his other hand gripping your thigh and holding you open for him. He looks to where the two of you are inches away from meeting as he lazily slides his hand over himself.
He shimmies his hips forward slightly so the head of his cock comes in line with your entrance, but he doesn’t push in just yet. Armin slides his cockhead through your slit, savoring the way your cunt clenches against him as he skims over your hole.
“I need — need to know how bad you’ve wanted this,” He says, almost a whisper.
He speaks for a few reasons. He wants to know that this is okay, and that fucking you is okay; but he also needs to hear you beg for him, even though he doesn’t explicitly state that he wants you to bed. He wants to know if it’s true, that all this time you’ve wanted him.
“You’re all I could think about… ever. Ever since I kissed you all that time ago, you were all I ever wanted — all I needed.” You say, your hips jerking against him every time his cock slides over your clit.
Armin nods shakily, swallowing hard as if he’s taking in what you’re saying word by word and trying to process it.
“And… how bad you’ve wanted this,” He enunciates what he’s insinuating by tapping his tip against your clit so very softly. You whine softly at the sensation and can feel your throat tense up.
“God so, so bad. I’ve dreamed about you — about you filling me up, ‘wished it was you and not my fingers. I need it — need you,” You whimper, grinding against him.
Armin lets out a shaky exhale at your confession, slowing down the rate at which he slides his cock through your slit, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this. I wanted you so bad last night but I couldn’t — couldn’t have you.”
He pauses his cock as it’s perfectly in line with your entrance, looking up from where the two of you meet and to you where you’re laid back on the mattress, spread open for him and so needy for more. You’re shaking in anticipation, and for a moment, Armin feels bad for unintentionally teasing you for so long.
And then you feel him pressing himself inside, you feel him breaching you and stretching you out as he fills you so slowly. His hand that was at your leg drops down to your side as he comes to lean over you again, and the hand that was guiding his cock inside does the same once he’s enough of the way in to not have to guide himself anymore.
You’re a gasping and whimpering mess as he fills you up, and he the same. He’s groaning softly at the sensation of you squeezing his tip, massaging his cock with every clench. You’re so wet and warm around him, so soft and slick, and he uses every last bit of his restraint to keep himself from sheathing the entirety of his cock inside you.
“Oh God,” You cry, your legs coming up to wrap themselves around his waist, heels pressing into the base of his spine to encourage him to keep going.
But Armin doesn’t think he could stop even if he wanted to — even if he tried. You were pulling him in, both your cunt and your legs. He swears you wouldn’t dare to let him stop.
“You’re — you’re so big,” You whisper, unable to give your voice enough power to speak any louder.
He continues pushing into you slowly until his hips meet yours and the base of him is fully engulfed by your pussy. You can feel him twitching against the deepest parts of you, in your stomach, and the way he’s stretching you out is so painfully pleasant.
Armin has to take a moment from continuing, afraid he’ll cum prematurely. So, he hovers over you, bringing himself down to his elbows to where your noses bump together and takes your lips in his. He kisses you tenderly, slowly, trying to stop himself from getting too overwhelmed. But it’s truly no help because he can feel his cock twitch inside you when you moan into his mouth.
“Please, please. Please fuck me,” You whimper against his lips, your hands coming up to his neck and holding it gently to keep him as close to you as you can.
Armin slowly uses the strength in his core to lift his hips off yours, shuddering at the way your cunt keeps trying to suck him in, and pulls his cock out of you. It’s so slow, so fucking slow, but the pleasure is so immense that you’re trembling underneath him and begging for more.
“Shit, you feel so good,” He breathes, pulling himself out until only his tip remains inside, then slowly pushing himself back in and splitting you in two once more, “So, so good,”
Once Armin’s able to get ahold of his restraint, he eases himself out again then sheathes his cock back inside a little harsher. His hips slap against you, not making an audible noise just yet, but hard enough to where your pretty tits are sent bouncing against his chest.
Your moan gets caught in your throat at the feeling of him filling you up so quickly and his cock hitting so deep.
You’ve never felt like this before… ever. You don’t know it’s from how big he is or how steadily he’s fucking you or if it’s just the fact that it’s Armin, and you’ve wanted and wished and pretended it was him all this time.
“‘wanted you for so long and now I got you,” He rests his forehead against yours, “You’re mine right? Tell me your mine, please.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m yours, Armin, I’m yours,” You whimper, nodding quickly and looking into his eyes.
He refused to look away from you as he pumped his cock inside you over and over, he was lost in your lust-blown eyes and the way your whole face was twisting in pleasure. Your bottom lip quivers as you hiccup out little sobbing moans as he begins to fuck into you harder.
His biceps are flexing as he continues to use them to brace himself up as he brings his hips up before slapping them back down. It was audible now, a wet slapping sound filling the room along with both of your pathetic gasps and cries.
“Fuck — you’re so deep, so deep. ‘m gonna cum,” You choke, sliding your hands into his hair and holding onto it, tugging softly until Armin’s groaning from the pain that spreads over his scalp.
You knew it was quick, and that you weren’t lasting long at all. But you were the farthest thing from embarrassed. And Armin was glad to hear that you were close because he was far too close to his own orgasm as well.
“Need to feel it, please. Cum on my cock, please,” He begs.
And you do what you’re told. Your entire body jerks and spasms beneath him, back arching sharply and legs squeezing his hips so tight it almost hurts. You’re clenching around his cock over and over again, trying to milk him of his cum… but Armin’s not done… not yet.
“Fuck, fuck — Armin!” You cry, your lifting hips only getting slapped back down into the mattress by his.
Your brain is fuzzy with your orgasm and all your senses are on overdrive as he continues to fill you with his cock. It’s a white-hot pleasure that’s surging through your entire being, and you feel like you’re floating.
You’re choking on your moans, stuttering out his name and pulling on his hair; and Armin doesn’t let up on you.
“Again, please, ‘wanna feel it again,” He pants, kissing you again with an open mouth.
He drinks down your cries and moans as he brings you to another high. And you’re thrashing around beneath him, entire body twitching again and head pushing into the mattress as he fucks you through your orgasm once more.
And then, as you’re coming down, Armin pulls himself off of you so quickly that it takes you a moment to realize what’s happening. He’s back on his calves again with his cock in his hand, jerking himself quickly until he’s groaning and releasing all over your stomach.
“Fuck, fuck,” He seethes, eyes squeezing shut and his stomach flexing as he lets his head drop back onto his shoulders.
He can feel his whole body tensing and his muscles contracting. You can see his chest rising and falling quickly as he brings himself back down from his high. He keeps jerking his cock, squeezing at the tip, until it’s stopped its twitching and he’s got nothing left. He keeps breathing hard, bringing his head up slowly as he keeps the base of him in his hand like he’s somehow anchoring himself.
“I love you,” You say, so quietly that Armin almost missed it.
You’ve told each other so many times before. You both know that you love each other so dearly, but it was never before said as if you’ve been in love with each other.
Armin looks to you, his breathing still a little shaky, and he smiles softly, “I love you.”
He leans down and hovers over you for a moment, kissing you tenderly, before getting up off the bed. You let your eyes shut and breathe deeply as he goes to do whatever an Armin does after sex.
And you assumed it would be to get a towel of some sort so he can properly clean his release off of your stomach, and you assumed correctly because you’re opening your eyes at the sensation of something warm and wet sliding over your stomach.
He’s put his boxers back on and kneels beside you. One hand wipes at the mess while the other comes to your forearm, holding it carefully while his thumb traces over little circles. Both actions send little shivers over your cooling body, but it’s comforting and makes you feel safe. You give him a soft smile.
He’s gentle and kind as he continues to clean you up, careful with your limbs like he believes they’ll break; even though he was just plowing himself into not a few minutes ago.
You aren’t able to see him, but if you could you’d see the boy’s face turning pink at the sight of you exposed for him. And his lips are turned into a smile as well as he admires you before him.
“What clothes do you want?” He asks, discarding the towel to the floor and cupping your face in his hand.
You open your eyes to see him leaning over you, your bathroom light cascading behind him as his figure blocks it out of your eyes. He looks like a greek god.
“You pick,” You smile, shutting your eyes once more.
You feel his weight shift around then leave the bed, followed by the sound of opening and closing of your dresser drawers. His weight returns, along with the light feeling of clothes resting atop your stomach. You peek out at him again.
On your torso lays one of his tee-shirts that you had stolen from him a year or two back, along with a pair of maroon panties.
“Scandalous,” You giggle, sitting up and taking the shirt off of your stomach.
“You told me to pick,” He says shyly, another wash of blush smearing across his cheeks as he sits down beside you. You pull the shirt over your head and maneuver the panties onto you as well.
Armin leaves only momentarily to flick off the bathroom light. And once you’re clothed to the extent that it seems he wants you at, he pushes you down by your shoulders until your head is hitting your pillow. He kisses you softly, only a few pecks to your lips before shifting up to kiss your forehead.
You giggle at his ministrations. You can feel your heart swelling in your chest at the realization that you can now finally be intimate with each other in romantic ways. It didn’t feel odd. It was new, yes, but it felt nothing but right.
It felt so right for him to lay down next to you and pull you under the sheets he had just taken you on. It felt so right to be curdled up next to him, pulled against his warm body, and held in his arms as you rest your head on his bare chest; able to hear his heartbeat.
You slept with him in your bed for two days in a row, but how different those two days were.
#armin arlert smut#armin x reader smut#armin arlert x reader smut#armin arlert x reader#armin x reader#armin smut#all this time#1k
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Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)
The counterpart to Uncle Ben and Little Luke (Original Post, Chrono)
Listen. You all knew this was coming.
This got... very long and detailed and I’m going to have to clean it up and post to AO3. As in, this was supposed to be 2-3k and is literally ten times that long. It crossed 25k. And the initial section actually glosses over a bunch, actual fic-style writing starts at “That, of course, is when things get interesting.”
Warnings: discussion of various canon traumas (most relating to being child soldiers), general PTSD, several scenes featuring dissociation or panic attacks upon being triggered, and canon-typical violence.
Rated T, gen.
I still want there to be de-aging nonsense involved so Ahsoka is physically a late teenager despite having a solid two decades of field experience behind her (we’re pulling her from Malachor).
Leia, much like Luke, is now six. She just came from being a rebellion general. She is not happy about being a child. She was already short, this is just mean. She’s a human espresso.
UNLIKE BEN, Ahsoka is not happy about this turn of events. Being seventeen-ish is not helpful in the outer rim. She’s a female togruta, young and healthy, and in the Outer Rim, caring for a small human child. Sure, she has her lightsabers and plenty of combat experience, and she can keep them safe, but she’s just one person, and a major target for those looking to make some quick cash. It doesn’t matter how good she is; she needs sleep at some point.
It makes my heart happy to treat Ahsoka and Rex as two halves of the same black ops specialist so you know what, he’s there too! He’s physically like... 10-12 in natborn, maybe. They’re not sure, because clones age weird. He’s moderately more useful than Leia (who is very competent but also physically six, and short for that age), but he’s still... very small.
Reminder that none of them have been born yet.
Ahsoka has a harder time explaining WHY she has children with her, since she's barely more than a kid herself, and clearly unrelated by species. She sometimes just says “Oh, my adoptive brother’s kids” since it’s kind of the truth for Leia and she’s not touching the actual truth about Rex with a ten foot pole.
Ahsoka definitely knows about Leia being a Skywalker, or at least has suspicions that Bail never outright confirmed but was conspicuously quiet about. She does tell Leia about it, but it’s not like that means anything, right? Just, you know, your dad was my teacher! I don’t have to tell you he became Va--oh shit, you already knew that part. Well, fuck. What do you mean he had a son? OH SHIT, PADME HAD TWINS.
Alt take for explaining why she’s got kids: She’s my foundling, I know her name as my child (Leia shut up!!!)
(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)
That said, there is... significantly less gambling and significantly more theft to get to Coruscant.
As previously stated, Ahsoka is a black ops kinda gal, and more importantly, she looks like a fairly attractive young woman in the Outer Rim, with two children in good health. She’s a target, and also not the kind of person one generally gambles with. If she does gamble, people get upset when she doesn’t lose, in ways they don’t get upset about Ben doing the same, because she’s, again, a cute teenage girl. It’s exhausting.
As things go, she largely ends up stealing from people who deserve it and/or smuggling herself and her charges into someone else’s ship. They’re small, they can hide. Sometimes she can get them all passage by working as a mechanic, she’s good at that.
Once they’ve got a handle on when they are, they have to decide on Names. None of them have been born yet, so technically they could use their own names without anyone Knowing. Rex and Leia might not even be born, depending on how successful they are at, you know, stopping the war and everything. Ahsoka, though, she’s going be born in two years, and there’s no reason to prevent it, so... she doesn’t want to steal baby-her’s name. That would be mean.
Leia is already calling her “Auntie ‘Soka” when she can for reasons like “selling the bit” and “manipulating adults” and “making us both feel better after we had a mutual breakdown about Anakin being Vader.” Ergo, she decides that whatever new name she picks better include that in some way, and decides on “Sokari” because it sounds pretty.
Overall, they don’t... they don’t actually make it very far before there’s an Incident. Again, teenager with small children. They spend a lot of time hiding out in space ports looking for an opportunity.
That, of course, is when things get interesting.
Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.
She doesn’t recognize the armor. She does recognize the sigil, and thinks ‘well, they’re more likely to help than some,’ because from what she’s heard, the Haat Mando’ade are Decent People Overall. Her view is a little biased, mostly on account of the sheer level of grudge she has against Kyr’tsad. It’s fine! The True Mandalorians have the same grudge, right? And Mandalorians like kids and Ahsoka hasn’t slept in five days and it’s fine. It’s fine! IT’S FINE.
“Oh shit,” Rex whispers, before she can suggest anything. “Oh fuck.”
“Stop cursing,” Leia hisses, elbowing him. “People are going to notice.”
“That’s the Prime,” Rex panics, mostly quiet. Ahsoka’s heart drops, because fuck is right. “That’s Fett.”
Leia isn’t impressed. Ahsoka just angles herself between Fett and Rex and hopes that he doesn’t see them. That’s just asking for trouble.
Unfortunately, Ahsoka is in fact running on none sleep with left trauma, and doesn’t notice Fett walking up and dropping into a seat across from them until he’s actually done so, removing his helmet to glare a little more efficiently.
“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”
Ahsoka later tells herself that he’s killed Jedi and that’s why he can sneak up on her, and that she can be forgiven some slip-ups with the exhaustion being what it is, and that she’s obviously going to be dealing with some emotional instability in light of the sudden return of teenage hormones and new forms of anxiety that are markedly different from those she was dealing with a few weeks ago.
What Ahsoka wants to say is “that’s kind of a long story,” or “maybe he’s a cousin,” or “kriff off, I don’t know you,” or maybe even “he’s a clone.”
What Ahsoka actually does is burst into tears, which is embarrassing for her, for Fett, for the kids, and for the entire rest of the bar.
It really is the straw that broke the eopie’s back. Even when she was actually this age, she didn’t exactly cry much. Objectively, Fett quasi-aggressively asking a valid question shouldn’t send her into a panic. She’s been through torture and worse. She shouldn’t be crying.
But she is, sobbing her eyes out with no control, and he’s just sitting across from her and looking uncomfortable while Rex wraps his little arms--oh Force he’s so small--around her, and both ‘children’ glare at Fett.
“So, I’m going to take it she didn’t kidnap you from a loving family or do something illicit with a blood sample,” Fett says, after it becomes obvious that Ahsoka’s not going to be ready to talk any time soon.
“She didn’t,” Rex says stiffly, with just the right emphasis for Fett to catch what’s implied. Ahsoka just keeps her head down, eyes pressed against the heels of her palms, trying to get her body to stop rebelling against her.
Fett’s eyes dart to Leia, who folds her arms and draws herself up, every bit the unimpressed princess. “My father claimed her as a sister, so she’s my Auntie ‘Soka.”
The man dithers a bit, the conversation clearly not going where he’d expected. “Right,” he says. “You--you’re all kids. I thought she was a little older, at least, but I didn’t have a good look at her face before.”
She is older, but actually admitting that is only going to make this worse, both for her pride and for her chances of making it out alive.
“Where are you staying?”
“What?” Leia bites out.
“You’re kids, you’re alone, and you’re clearly not okay if you were trying to hide the one with my face as blatantly as you did, and then... whatever this is, when I confronted you,” Fett explains. Ahsoka lifts her head to glare at him, but it’s probably not doing much with the way her eyes are rimmed with red and still wet. “Don’t give me that look, ad’ika, your kids looked as confused and horrified by that as the bartender did. They obviously didn’t think it was normal either.”
Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.
“And what do you mean by ‘blatantly,’ here?” Leia challenges. It’s adorable, but Ahsoka watched this tiny girl shoot a man last week, and wonders when people are going to start taking that seriously.
“There’s a lot of people in this galaxy, and I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of what I looked like at that age,” Fett says, slow and careful like he thinks they’re dumb. Ahsoka decides to chalk it up as being because Leia’s visibly six. “I would have thought it was just a coincidence if you hadn’t put in effort to hide him.”
Leia huffs, and Rex glares harder. Fett just sighs, like they’re all going to give him grey hairs.
“You can explain whatever the hell’s going on,” Fett says. “I’ll let you stay on my ship, there’s a spare bunk and you’re small.”
“For free?” Rex demands.
“A night on a bunk in exchange for information,” Fett clarifies. “We can negotiate from there.”
Ahsoka takes a few moments, notes that both of the others are waiting on her for the decision, and cringes. She doesn’t feel steady enough to carry that. She has to anyway.
“Rex?” she asks, voice rasping after the breakdown of the past few minutes.
“Yeah?”
“How much?”
He looks up at her, eyes calculating, and grimaces. “We don’t want Order 66. A warning is better, even if we... share information.”
She nods, and turns to Leia. “Any premonitions, princess?”
Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”
“No, don’t tell, or no, you aren’t getting any vibes about sharing info one way or the other?”
“The latter,” Leia clarifies, huffy to the last.
“Right,” Ahsoka says, and then just... hesitates. “Fett...”
“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.
She bares her teeth in what could have, through a squint and perhaps a few drinks, been called an apologetic smile. “Just one, really.”
“Yeah?”
“No hurting, killing, or turning us in for bounties,” she says. “Any of us.”
“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”
She blinks at him, slow and careful. She hesitates. She reaches down, out of sight, sees him stiffen.
She unclips her sabers from her belt and puts them on the table.
His eyes are fixed on the weapons the second they enter his line of sight, and don’t move as he clearly realizes why she made the condition she did.
“I left years ago, because I couldn’t stay without it ruining me,” she says. Still slow. Still careful. She’s so tired. “But if I want to keep Leia safe, I have to get back to Coruscant.”
His eyes finally lift from the sabers, expression blank. “Just her?”
“Rex doesn’t have the same monsters coming after him,” she says. “If it were just me and him, I’d worry less. Leia’s a different kind of target.”
“You’re putting a lot of faith on the table by telling me that,” Fett says, voice flat and toneless. “Considering my occupation.”
“She’s a child,” Ahsoka says, feeling heavy and boneless. “Even with what I was and will be, even with what money you would get from the right buyer, you wouldn’t.”
“There are other risks.”
“There are.”
They stare at each other for too long, probably, and then Fett jerks as Rex kicks him under the table. The boys glare for a moment, and then Rex says, “If she weren’t good, I’d still be a slave to those who grew me.”
Fett blinks, and then nearly growls the word, “What?”
“She freed me,” Rex reiterates. “While I was trying to shoot her.”
Ahsoka lifts a hand and puts it on his far shoulder, pulling him into her side. She doesn’t meet Fett’s eyes again, because part of her is back on Mandalore, dodging her own soldiers and crying out as her family dies across the galaxy.
Fett breathes in. Breathes out. He puts a hand to his head, visibly frustrated. “Fine. A good Jedi kid, and two smaller kids, one of which is apparently in some way mine.”
Rex makes a face, which is fair, but also not helping.
“To the ship,” Ahsoka says, putting her sabers back on her belt and sliding out of the seat. “I’m... I’m Sokari.”
“You already know my name.”
“I do.”
---------------------------
Fett watches her like she’s a predator, which has the benefit of being accurate and slightly flattering. She lets other two take care of most of talking, and then Fett tells her to sleep first, and talk in the morning.
“You’re dead on your feet, jetii,” he snorts. “And that crying jag didn’t do you any favors. Sleep.”
So she does, and Fett doesn’t even wake her. He just lets her sleep. He watches her in the way of a guard. She sees him when she gets up to use the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even comment when she collapses right back into the mediocre cot she’s borrowed for the cycle.
Rex and Leia are safe, her hindbrain tells her, even in the depths of sleep. Her mind curls around theirs in the Force, and she trusts that they are here. They are not happy, but they are alive and unharmed, and that has to be enough.
When she stumbles her way to true wakefulness, groggy and loose-limbed, Fett greets her with caf.
“The kids wouldn’t let me near you,” he tells her.
“They’re good,” she says, cupping her hands around the mug. She feels wobbly, in every sense. Her body, her mind, her emotions, her connection to the Force. Nothing is on-kilter right now. “Did they tell you anything?”
“They waited for you,” he says. “But the little miss needed a nap of her own. They’re down in the other bunk.”
“I didn’t notice,” she admits. She should have. She’s Fulcrum. She’s a veteran of the Clone Wars. She’s... she’s supposed to be better than this.
“How long?” he asks, and then when she squints up at him, he clarifies. “How long did you fight?”
“My last fight--”
“No, whatever war you came out of,” he says. Her chest twists cold. “I don’t know if the Jedi sent you into it or if you waded in yourself once you left, but you move like a soldier.”
“I was,” she confirms. “But... but I don’t want to talk about the details. Not until the other two are here.”
He frowns at her. “Is there anything you can talk about?”
She shrugs and looks away, trying to take solace in the warmth of the caff she holds above the table, as if it can hide her, guard her, from the disgraced Mand’alor across the table.
“Jedi?”
“I’m not officially a Jedi,” she says, voice quiet. “Not anymore.”
“Then what do I call you?” he asks. “We’re not exactly close enough for names.”
“Torrent,” she says. “It’s not--I can’t claim my family name anymore. But I can claim Torrent, so I will. And if you want a title, I was a commander.”
“Bit young for that.”
“I got the rank when I was fourteen,” she says, and watches his face do something complicated and unpleasant. “Don’t. I know your own culture puts children on the field that young.”
“Not in command.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, well... the soldiers were technically younger. Adults, but...”
Ahsoka can see the way he casts about to figure out what species grows at that rate. He guesses a few, and she shoots all of it down.
She won’t tell him. Not until Rex is awake.
This part of the story is his.
--------------------------
When Leia tries to sit alone, a foot away on the bench like a proper adult, Ahsoka refuses to let it happen. She pulls the younger girl to her side and quells protests with a glance. It’s a decent skill, but she’s not sure how long it’s going to work on her niece-in-spirit.
“Your body needs the chemical release of skinship,” she says, and Leia glares at her. “I spent way too much time with the boys to not know about this. Deal.”
Rex sits close enough to knock their knees together under the table, and his warmth is the old comfort she needs.
“Do you want the story you’ll believe, or the truth?” Ahsoka asks.
“What’s the difference?”
“One of them involves something so impossible that even most Jedi wouldn’t believe it,” she tells him.
Fett folds his arms and leans forward to rest them on the table, challenging but oddly open. “Try me.”
“Time travel.”
He blinks, just once, fully controlled. “That’s a tough one.”
“There were only three Jedi left alive when I died,” she says. “Or... whatever it is that happened to me. I think I died. All I know is that one moment, I was thirty-two and dying, and the next, I was... seventeen again, and had these two with me. All of us younger than we were. None of us have even been born yet.”
She refuses to look him in the eye. “They both outlived me by... six years, maybe. Got caught up while traveling instead of dying. Leia was twenty-two. Rex was thirty-five. I’m not technically the oldest anymore. I mean, physically I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not exactly doing us any good, and--”
Rex bumps his shoulder to her arm. “I dunno, Commander. I’ve spent a long time looking older than I should. Nice to look younger for once.”
She shoots him a small, pained grin. “Could be worse, yeah.”
“Let’s say I believe you.”
Her attention snaps back to Fett, who’s looking damnably blank, and is showing even less in the Force.
He waits a second for her to relax back into her seat.
“Let’s say I believe you,” he repeats. “How’s ‘Rex’ connected to me? What’s so special about Leia there? And what war did you fight in that has you acting like a veteran?”
“Three years in the clone wars,” she whispers, glancing to Rex and forcing herself to not go for her sabers to defend against an attack that her paranoia says is coming and the Force says is not. “Then almost all the Jedi were wiped out at once, and I spent a year... drifting. Then black ops for the next fifteen.”
“Black ops,” he repeats, still damnably flat.
“There was a Sith Empire,” she says, and she can hear her own tone growing somehow emptier. “Glassing planets. Enslaving entire species. Committing genocides all over. Of course, there was a rebellion, and of course I joined it. I was one of the only people left with Jedi training. For all that I’d left the Order, I still had a duty to the universe.”
His eyes flit to Leia, who shrugs and tries to look prim. “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”
“That why you’re special?”
Leia smiles, thin and patronizing. It doesn’t fit on her little face. “I’m special because my biological father was one of the most powerful Force users in history, and his Fall to the dark side and choice to become a Sith is why the Emperor’s rise was nearly uncontested. I do not like power, but it’s in my veins and I can’t change that. Force users are... a lucrative trade, and I’m still the size of a child, so I can’t fight back. I’ll be safer in the Jedi Temple, even if I don’t want to be a Jedi.”
Fett looks to Ahsoka, makes to ask a question, and then shakes his head. Not the time, maybe.
“So, that’s all... very complicated and I don’t know how much of it I believe, but it doesn’t explain...” he trails off, and sighs. “My kid, or whatever you are. I heard you mention clones.”
Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.
“Let me tell you about Kamino.”
---------------------------
Ahsoka has no idea if Fett believes them. Either he thinks they’re telling the truth, or he thinks their delusional kids. Whatever the case, he offers to take them closer to the Core. Ahsoka quietly offers to take a look at his engine in return, and then pretends not to notice when Fett awkwardly drifts to and away from Rex.
“They put chips in our brains to make us kill the Jedi we respected, cared for, even loved. I tried to shoot ‘Soka, Fett. She was seventeen and risked her life to get that chip out of my head while I was trying to kill her. I have never hated myself more than when I woke up and realized what I’d almost done, and I was one of the few that were able to fight it. I heard the stories of dozens of brothers who woke with their chips having degraded and chose to eat their blaster rather than live with the guilt of the orders they’d followed without question because of a thrice-damned Sith slave chip in their head.”
“So no, I won’t call you father or acknowledge you as clan until you do something to prove you’re worth it, shared blood or not.”
What Ahsoka does get out of the arrangement, for all that Fett’s route mostly takes them on a meandering path that isn’t faster than their previous system, is sleep. She gets to rest. She gets to trust that Fett won’t kill Rex, out of guilt for something he hasn’t done, that he won’t kill Leia out of a worry that she’s just a delusional child, a real child, that he won’t kill ‘Sokari’ because it would ruin any chance of gaining Rex’s favor, ever.
She’s not safe, won’t believe she can be until she’s in the Temple and Sidious is dead dead dead, but she’s safer than she’s been in a long time.
Every night, Ahsoka wakes up and stumbles to the little galley, deaths and torture sparkling behind her eyes with the energy of a thousand lost Jedi, ten thousand mourned brothers and sisters.
She is not the only one of their little group to be a survivor of a near-total genocide, but Rex could not feel his brothers die in the Force, even if his nightmares featured what they heard of suicide missions by the emperor’s favored shock troopers, and Leia had... Alderaan had more off-world survivors than there had been Jedi at all.
It’s not worth comparing their pain. It’s stupid to even think it. Part of her can’t help but do it anyway.
“Caf?”
She feels a lek twitch in response to the voice of the only other person on board who can reach the top shelf. “I probably shouldn’t.”
“Whiskey?”
“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”
“Hoth chocolate?”
“...please.”
She doesn’t lift her head from her arms until the mug clicks down in front of her, ceramic on plastisteel.
“Do I ask what it was this time?”
She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain to non-sensitives.”
“Try me anyway.”
Ahsoka twists the Hoth chocolate in her hands, takes a sip as she thinks. “The Force isn’t just one thing. It’s... energy and philosophy and spirit, a sense of being that ties the entire universe together. Sentient and inanimate and living and dead, empty space and lush forests and stifled cities. For those of us who are sensitive to it, it’s possible to feel the life of everyone around you, theoretically possible to feel entire systems. If you have a Force bond, like a master and padawan, that can stretch across planets, even systems if one or both are particularly powerful.
“So just... just imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to feel the screaming of all those Jedi in the Force as their trusted men shot them down.
“Some of them were close enough that I could feel them die,” she manages. “I... it’s horrible. It’s horrific. It’s not something I can ever forget, and I want to. I want to forget what that moment was like. Not that it happened, but...”
She can feel the tears. Fuck..
“You want to dull the edges.”
“Don’t we all?” she asks, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Leia lost her entire planet, billions of people, and she was forced to watch. Rex... Force, I can barely imagine, and I was there for most of it.”
Fett watches her, measuring. “From what he said, they were as much your brothers as his, by the end.”
“No,” she immediately denies. “They could have been, maybe, but the ones I was closest to died earlier, and then I left, and by the time the Empire rose, all but a handful were... no. Rex, I will claim as a brother in all the ways that matter, but I don’t get to do that with the rest. I don’t have the right.”
“You’re hard on yourself.”
“Fate of the galaxy, my good bitch. Guess who’s got it on her shoulders.”
He snorts at her, and nods at the mug. “Drink your Hoth chocolate. We’re landing in eight hours, and you’ve got kids to look out for.”
---------------------------
There’s a twitch in the Force when they land, something pulling at her in a way she barely feels. She’s had her shields up so fully for so long that it’s natural to hide away what she is to the point where she can hardly tell what anyone else is, either. It takes more than a moment to remember how to let herself spread out across the world.
“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”
She doesn’t have an answer to Leia’s prodding question. “I don’t know.”
It’s almost familiar. Old and half-forgotten, not the same as what she remembers, but--
“This way,” she says, and wanders off into the crowd. Leia and Rex follow without question. Fett curses and rushes through the rest of his transaction with the docking attendant. The sound of him jogging after them is almost funny, with the armor, but she can’t focus on that.
Ahsoka slips between people with the ease of a career built on such a habit, children trailing like ducklings. She knows this feeling, she knows this person, what is she missi--
“Oh,” she breathes, going stock still. She knows that face. She knows those braids. She even knows the presence.
Younger than Ahsoka had ever seen her, but unmistakably Master Billaba.
“Torrent, what the hell?” Fett demands, finally catching up. “You can’t just run off like that!”
“It’s Depa,” she says, eyes still fixed on the woman parsing through a datapad with an irritated vendor. She has a padawan braid. It doesn’t feel like Master Windu is on-planet, so this might be a solo mission, a... oh. Senior Padawan, Knight Elect. This is the kind of mission taken to test if she’s ready to be promoted.
Ahsoka feels light-headed.
Fett waits for her to elaborate, but she can’t. This was Kanan’s master. This was a member of the High Council. This was a woman who died and--
“You need to sit down,” Fett says, not a touch gruff. He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her off the main walkway. “I’m... going to talk to the woman in the Jedi robes. You three just stay there and don’t get kidnapped.”
Ahsoka nods, feeling like she’s not quite inhabiting her own body.
It’s Depa.
Her eyes track Fett without conscious control, and her montrals pick up the sound.
Depa looks up when the armor comes close enough, free hand tensed in a way that says she’s preventing herself from reaching for a saber in reaction to the heavily-armored individual standing several feet away.
“Mando,” the woman says. “May I help you?”
“Are you Depa?”
Depa doesn’t do anything so dramatic as gape or step back, but she does blink rapidly for a moment. She then folds her hands down in front of her, drawing her spine up ramrod straight. “I am Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, yes. May I ask why it is that you need to know?”
Ahsoka imagines Fett grimacing, or rolling his eyes, or maybe dithering. She can’t tell from this angle, and he has a helmet on besides. It turns his awkward silences into judgmental ones.
“I’ve had some Jedi kids on my ship, hitching a ride,” he says at length. “One of them recognized you and then just... froze.”
“You have our younglings in your care,” Depa says, carefully not accusatory, but close enough to be a warning.
“Not quite,” he says. “The one that actually came from the temple is seventeen. One of ‘em isn’t Force Sensitive, and the last one is but hasn’t been to Coruscant before. They’re trying to get the little one to the Temple for her own safety.”
Depa considers that, and then passes the datapad to the vendor. “Lead on.”
It’s surprisingly simple, really. Fett did all the talking.
And then Depa is standing right in front of her.
“Like I said,” Fett sighs. “She froze up.”
“Hello,” Depa says, hands laced together inside her sleeves. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Ahsoka shakes her head. “I know of you. I’ve seen you spar. You’ve never spoken to me.”
All true. A little misleading, but it’s fine, it’s all fine.
Depa waits a moment, and then says, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“Sokari T-Torrent,” she manages. The words feel clunky in her mouth, the sound abrasive for all that it’s just her own voice, no different from usual. A little shaky, maybe. She can feel a cool breeze on her upper arms. Shouldn’t she have armor? She should have armor. “It... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen another Jedi. I’m having a hard time believing you’re real.”
“I see,” Depa says. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private? You seem a little unsteady.”
Ahsoka lets herself be led back to the ship, in the company of Mand’alor Jango Fett, Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, Princess-General Leia Organa, and good old Captain Rex.
It’s like the start of a sick joke.
---------------------------
Fett and Depa talk where she can hear, but they rarely address her directly. Both seem to realize that she’s not particularly useful right now. Leia and Rex are pressing up against her at the little table in the galley, and Ahsoka lets them.
This is real. She can feel Depa in the Force, recognizes her energy even if it’s not quite what it will-was-could-have-been. This is happening.
It’s a textbook Traumatic Stress Response case, one of them says.
Fett has his helmet off. Ahsoka’s sure that’s wrong for some reason. She thinks he might already be on wanted lists. Should she worry about Depa trying to arrest him?
Depa asks about Rex at one point. Fett tells her that someone cloned him without his knowing, but the kid is more comfortable with Ahsoka so they’re still working on what that means for him.
It’s more or less true. Rex squeezes her hand the one time someone suggests separating them. She’s not letting that happen unless Rex wants to leave for whatever reason. They’ve worked apart before. They can do it again.
“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”
Is she?
Leia cuddles in closer, and Ahsoka runs a hand over her hair. It’s an absentminded motion, and for all that she knows Leia’s hair is fine as silk, it feels like plastic in the moment.
“I don’t think I’m okay,” Ahsoka announces. The words hang in the air like lead balloons, and she can feel Depa staring at her. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”
“Yeah, we noticed,” Fett says. “Do you need to lay down, Torrent?”
Does she?
“No,” she says. “I... I don’t know what I need.”
“The spicy drink,” Rex tells them. “It’s grounding.”
Right. That.
Fett goes to grab it, and Depa continues to watch.
“How long ago did you leave your master?” Depa asks. “Or... did he die?”
Ahsoka closes her eyes and shakes her head. She can feel the shivers now, tremors in her biceps and a shudder she can’t control in the height of her ribcage. Her teeth grind together, jaw like stone.
“You don’t have to answer that,” Depa assures her. “I’m... going to recommend you see a mind healer on Coruscant.”
That was a forgone conclusion.
A cup clinks onto the table. Fett’s back. “Drink.”
She does.
Depa and Fett continue discussing it as “the adults” at the table. She’s older than both of them. Rex is older than all of them. Ahsoka follows about half of what they say. She agrees with most of it. Rex bullies his way into speaking when she doesn’t, without her even asking, because he knows her mind as well as she does. Fett rolls with it. Depa lets him.
She’s going to reach out to the Temple and see about getting them a ride back to Imperial Center Coruscant.
Fett makes Soka go to bed, taking Leia with her.
---------------------------
She feels more like a person come morning.
Depa’s sitting at the table, datapad in her hands and caff on the table in front of her.
“Good morning,” Ahsoka says, rough and croaking, and Depa’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She nods a shallow hello.
“Feeling better?”
“Much,” Ahsoka says, and goes about gathering a breakfast. There’s definitely some dried meat in here. She can get something fresh when they stop by the market later.
“I was hoping to speak with you about your options,” Depa tells her, once she’s sat at the table. “Fett and your friend Rex took care of most of the negotiation, and I feel like I have an idea of what would work best for you.”
Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”
“There is a Master-Padawan pair a few planets away,” Depa says. “The Council informed me when I spoke with them about you and your wards. They’d be headed back to the Temple in a few days anyway, and the Council has agreed to extend an offer to Fett to handle the transportation. The presence of a Jedi Master on board will allow for him to get in and out of the Core unmolested, and we’d like for you and yours to have a Jedi escort, given what happened yesterday afternoon.”
Her complete spiral into nonbeing?
“I understand,” she says instead. “I suppose Fett agreed because he’s still trying to get Rex to like him?”
Depa shrugs. “That part isn’t my business.”
Of course it isn’t.
“Rex can stay with me for a while, right?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but I’m...”
“In need of a support system until you’ve seen a mind healer, and against all odds, the child is part of it,” Depa summarizes. “Yes, I recognized as much. I think the Council will be able to allow some leeway there. I don’t know if he’ll enjoy it, given that all the others his age are Initiates, but we can adjust as necessary. On that note... Do you know Leia’s midichlorian count?”
“No,” Ahsoka says, and hesitantly adds, “But her biological father was my Jedi Master, and I’m told his count broke records even as a child. Given what Leia’s shown so far... it’s why I’ve been in a hurry to get her to the Temple.”
Depa frowns at her, clearly working through the implications of a Jedi having a daughter and still teaching... and then visibly dismisses the situation, eyes closing to breathe in the steam of her caff.
Biological father certainly implies a child that was raised by her mother or adopted out so the Jedi father could remain in their chosen career without a conflict of interest or duty.
She’ll tell the council the truth, or... at least Master Koon. Master Kenobi is still a padawan, but she can tell Master Koon.
She already told Jango Fett, of all people.
“Padawan Torrent?”
Her head snaps up. She hasn’t been a padawan in over fifteen years. It’s weird to hear. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I asked if you wanted some time to think it over before I presented the offer to Fett,” Depa says.
Ahsoka gets the distinct feeling that Depa is planning a report to the Council that has ‘needs a mind healer’ underlined at least three times.
“No, I’m--I’m fine. That sounds like a good plan.”
“I’ll speak with him, then. Would you like to come with?”
"No, thank you.”
---------------------------
Fett agrees. Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s all to do with Rex and maybe Leia. It’s probably nothing to do with ‘Sokari.’ She’s a Jedi, an adult in mind and in body, or at least close enough to count. She’s a damn sight more ‘enemy’ to Fett than the other two are. Not as much as Depa, maybe, but Fett’s been playing nice with her for Leia’s sake.
He plays nice with Ahsoka for Rex’s. That’s all.
They’re only a few planets over from the meeting point, and they have a few days to hang around before the escort meets them. Depa hadn’t given them a name--apparently it could have compromised the opsec for the Jedi team--but Ahsoka’s pretty sure she’ll be able to identify almost anyone. She gets the feeling that the Force is going to send her a familiar face, just as it did Master Padawan Billaba.
Ahsoka lets herself feel the world around her. It’s dark and dreary, in the sense that the beaten-down port is full of petty crimes and less petty horrors, but it’s still lighter than most of the Empire had been. She sneaks away from the ship at night, ignoring Fett at her back, and performs a bit of vigilante justice while she can. She’ll be banned from doing so as soon as she’s reinstated as a Jedi, probably, but for now... for now, she can look at the drug cartels and ‘they’re not slaves, really’ workers and do something to help.
She doesn’t use her sabers. She doesn’t need to. It’s been a long time since she has, for small fry like these.
“What are you doing?” Fett asks her, landing heavily behind her back.
“Chip removal,” she says, hand pressed to the slave’s leg. Her eyes are closed, but she can hear him shifting. “Let me concentrate, I don’t have a meddroid for this.”
He’s silent until she finishes, and waits until the people she’s helped are on their way to the planet’s freedom routes. He doesn’t ask what she did with the owners.
“You’ve done this before.”
“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”
He doesn’t answer that, just ambles over to the the chains and stares down at them.
“Fett?”
“You go through this like it’s as easy as breathing,” he says. “It’s... impressive.”
“I guess?” she hesitates to continue. “I’m... I don’t think of it that way. This is the easy stuff. A time-waster that helps people. If I wanted to help for real, I’d been going after Jabba or Sidious or--”
“How old were you?” he asks, turning on his heel to face her dead-on. The vocoder of his helmet pulls the emotion from his voice. “When did this... these missions, the slavery battles, when did that start for you?”
“Fourteen,” she says. She’s not entirely sure, really, what counted as a mission for ending slavery and what counted as just a part of war, but she can round down. “Maybe fifteen. It’s a bit of a blur.”
“And you just kept doing it.”
“Of course,” she says. “If I have the time and the energy, if I need to do something and there’s nothing official on my hands, why not?”
He doesn’t answer her.
---------------------------
Rex greets them before she does.
Ahsoka, in her defense, is asleep at the time. It’s a restless sleep, but it’s enough that she doesn’t sense the nearing Force signatures until they’re almost at the ship.
She recognizes one of them.
“Auntie ‘Soka?” Leia questions, when she lurches to her feet and starts pulling on her boots with all the energy of a zombie. “Where are you going?”
“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”
“I see.”
Leia dresses to follow her, in a little coat that’ll withstand the chill of the outside air, and Ahsoka makes it to the cargo hold just in time to hear Rex saying, “I’m not shaking your hand until you put your gloves on, Vos.”
She laughs to herself, breathless with the knowledge of what she’s about to find. She jumps the railing of the upper walkway, drops down just in front of the Master-Padawan team, and keeps her back to Fett and Rex. “Hello, there.”
One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.
“Would you be Sokari Torrent?” the Master asks.
“I am,” she says, with a slight bow. She can tell there’s a bit of judgement for how she’s dressed, but they’re covering it well. A Shadow and his trainee know the value of armor better than most Jedi bother with. “I’m afraid Padawan Billaba didn’t inform me of your names before we met.”
“And yet your friend knew my padawan,” the Master says.
“By reputation,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “I’ve encountered Quinlan Vos before, though I doubt he remembers--”
“I’d remember someone like you,” Quinlan interrupts, with a grin she’s sure is meant to be charming and rogueish.
He’s... very young for her, and not her type. Mostly, she wants to pat him on the head, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well. She still looks like she’s younger than him.
“Anyway,” she says, turning back to the master, “I’m afraid I still don’t know who you are, Master.”
“I am Tholme,” he says, with the bow that a Master gives a Padawan. She feels a little slighted, but it’s fine. She looks the right age, it’s fine.
It’s not like they know.
“It’s nice to meet you, Master Tholme,” she says. “My charges are Rex Torrent, the young man behind me, and currently coming down the ladder is Leia Antilles. I’m sure you’re aware of Jango Fett.”
“The Mand’alor,” Quinlan volunteers, and Ahsoka can almost hear Fett’s teeth grinding.
“Don’t call me that,” he says. She’s sure he’s got a hand drifting for his blaster.
“There isn’t a whole lot of room on the ship,” she says before the men can get into whatever weird contest she’s sure someone might start. Her bet’s on Fett. “But Leia and Rex are small enough to share with me, so I’m sure we can make it work.”
“There’s spare rolls for anyone comfortable with sleeping in the hold,” Fett grunts. “Or on the floor in the passenger room.”
“Well, I guess I could ask for a little help fi--”
“Vos,” Ahsoka snaps, letting her voice take on the kind of ‘obey me or get fresher duty’ irritation that she’d perfected back when the rebellion still had her managing people, before they’d realized she was more use in the field. “Do not.”
There’s a moment’s pause, and Tholme looks unimpressed with that raised eyebrow, but the kind of unimpressed that’s split between his own padawan and the stranger before him.
“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”
“No,” she cuts him off. “No flirting.”
It’s weird and uncomfortable and she’d have maybe been okay with it if she was actually the seventeen-or-eighteen-ish(?) that she looked, but she’s not. She’s in her thirties and Vos is... what, twenty? Twenty-one? No.
He stares at her, and she wonders momentarily if she’d gone too far in the direction of judging his intentions in the Force and preempted actual flirtations.
“I’m sorry?” He offers, looking confused, but ashamed. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”
She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.
Fuck.
Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes in. Breathes out. Opens her eyes. “Right. That was... I’m not sure how much Padawan Billaba told you about me.”
“Enough,” Tholme says. He moves forward and puts a hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. Ahsoka has no idea if it’s to comfort him or hold him back. “I didn’t share most of it with my padawan, but I have a general understanding of what’s going on.”
Quinlan darts a look at his teacher, but Ahsoka doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.
“Thank you for your understanding,” she says, and bows, and stiffly turns away to walk to the galley.
---------------------------
Leia squirms into the bench seat, shoving her way under Ahsoka’s arm like a particularly wriggly tooka.
“What was that?” Leia demands, the authority of a rebellion general rather useless in the squeaky voice of a child.
“What was what?”
“The whole thing with Padawan Vos,” Leia says. “You blew up at him before he even did anything.”
That’s pretty true.
“I felt the flirtation coming before it happened and reacted inappropriately because I panicked. I’m significantly older than him, but I can’t tell him that, so it’s just awkward and uncomfortable and... I’m not okay, Princess. I haven’t been for a long time.”
“Yeah, we can tell.”
“Leia.”
“What? I need therapy too! Captain Rex needs therapy! I’m pretty sure Fett needs therapy! You, Fulcrum, you really need therapy. None of us are okay.” She huffs, wiggling impossibly closer. “I don’t like it, but it’s true.”
“I know,” Ahsoka groans. “I just... I just need to hold out until the Temple.”
“Will you be able to hold it together if you see someone you actually care about?” Leia demands. “What are you going to do when you see Kenobi?”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious, you--”
“Leia, that’s enough,” she snaps. “I was fighting that war before you were even born, and I’ve dealt with the consequences since. I know the risks and I’ll thank you to remember who taught you to control your own mind.”
Leia stiffens, sucking in a sharp breath. “That was uncalled for.”
“You’re not the child you appear to be,” Ahsoka reminds her, not a little sharply. “You want to dish it out, be ready to take it. What will you do when we see Bail Organa? When we see the toddler that is Anakin Skywalker?”
“I get it.”
“I’m not sure you do,” Ahsoka mutters. She isn’t surprised when Leia ducks out of the embrace and leaves the galley. She lets the girl go, guilt warring with the memory of how Master Kenobi had more than once spoken that way to Anakin at the height of the war. The fact that she’s an adult in the body of a child isn’t an excuse for poking at Ahsoka’s open wounds. It was cruel and unnecessary, and unbecoming of a... not a Jedi. A princess. A politician.
She rests her head on her arms and zones out. She should meditate, but that seems like... too much effort.
She can feel Vos and Tholme setting up in the room they’ve been assigned. Neither seems particularly angry. Most likely, Tholme’s given the absolute shortest explanation of ‘child soldier, dead master, highly traumatized and emotionally unstable’ to Vos to smooth over the incident in the cargo hold. Rex is with Leia; he’s agitated, but less so than Leia herself. Fett’s annoyed, in the cockpit, but he seems annoyed as often as not. There’s a shudder at lift-off, and a few minutes later, they’re in hyperspace, headed for the Core.
Fett finds her, falls into the other bench in full armor, and drops his elbows onto the table. The helmet clunks down a moment later.
She doesn’t lift her head. “What do you want?”
“Do I need to keep Vos away from you?”
“What?”
“Vos. He made you uncomfortable. Was that him being someone that hurt you in the future, or just the interaction being awkward?”
She lifts her head. She stares at him. “What?”
He leans back and crosses his arms. “Do you need me to tell Vos to stay the hell away from you?”
She’s gaping. “You realize I’m thirty-two, right? I can handle my own battles.”
“You’re also traumatized as hell and everyone can see it,” Fett argues back. “If Vos himself is a trigger, I can handle it.”
“He’s not,” she tells him. This is strange. Fett’s being strange. “He was actually a friend of my grandmaster’s. I’m just uncomfortable with the flirting because I’m a lot older than he realizes, and I can’t tell him that.”
He nods sharply, and then looks away. The silence sits.
“Thanks for asking?” Ahsoka says, well aware of how her confusion over the offer turns it into a question. “I mean, thank you for... caring.”
I guess, she finishes in the privacy of her own head. Or at least pretending to.
Fett makes a face, still not facing her. He eyes the galley instead. She can guess where his thoughts are going. The galley is... not very big, especially with six people on board instead of one, but she’s sure they’ve stocked up enough. On the off chance they do go through more than expected, because of how many growing bodies are in residence, they can stop off and buy more. They have those resources now.
Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.
“Who’s going to cry if I spice things properly?” he asks.
“Probably Leia,” she says immediately. “Vos will try to power through it even though he’s going to be overwhelmed. No idea about Tholme, but I think he’ll keep a straight face whether he likes it or not. Rex and I are fine, ‘hot’ was pretty much the only flavor of seasoning the GAR had.”
“GAR?”
“Grand Army of the Republic.”
He finally looks at her.
“You already knew I was a child soldier, Fett; don’t act surprised.”
“That doesn’t mean I like hearing about it.”
“I was fourteen. That’s old enough by Mando standards, Fett. Just think back, when did you get on the battlefield?”
“I take your point,” he says, lip curling unpleasantly. “It just hits different now that I’m old enough to look back and think of how damned young fourteen really is.”
Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”
“You said the clones were ten.”
There’s the rub, isn’t it?
Of course it was about the clones.
“...closer to seven, by the end. Kamino was just making speedies at that point. Triple growth on the average instead of double, but averages in that case meant they’d been growing at double rates for six years and then got forced through four growth cycles in a single year to beef up the army when we kept losing men.” She looks down at the table, picking at a scratch in the plastipaint with her nail. “Rex and the rest of the ones from the beginning were basically twenty in mind and body, even if they’d only been decanted ten years earlier. The speedies... I always wondered. They’d gone from functionally twelve to functionally twenty in a year. That’s not... even in Kamino, that can’t have been normal. They didn’t act like adults, not the way the originals did.”
Fett rubs at his face, groaning. He swears under his breath in three different languages.
She pities him, if only because he hasn’t actually done any of this yet. He’s paying for the crimes of a man he likely won’t ever become.
She kicks him under the table. “Wanna make tiingilar and see how long it takes Vos to start crying while he insists it’s fine?”
---------------------------
Dinner is when the questions start. Some are relatively easy. Others, not so much.
“My Master was Leia’s biological father,” is an easy truth to share. “She inherited his power, so I need to get her to the temple for her own safety, because home no longer is.”
“Yes, her adoptive parents were unfortunately killed rather recently. We’d prefer not to talk about it.”
“Rex is with me. Where he goes, I go, and vice versa.”
That one gets her an odd look.
“I thought...” Quinlan trails off, gesturing between Rex and Fett.
Fett keeps his face impassive, but his discomfort and guilt leak into the Force. “I didn’t know Rex existed until I ran into these three in a spaceport cantina a few weeks ago.”
Quinlan blinks at him, looks at Rex again, and then turns back to Fett with a grin that might have been described as ‘saucy’ if he were less smug about it. “Wild oats, huh?”
“Are you shitting me right now,” Leia whispers, and Ahsoka elbows her.
“That was inappropriate, padawan.”
Quinlan’s grin fades as Fett just continues to eye him.
“Um, so--”
“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.
Darting eyes answer him, as Quinlan tries to gauge Rex. “Ten? Maybe twelve?”
“And how old am I?”
“...early thirties?”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
Quinlan’s grin fades further as he does the math.
“I’d have been between fifteen and seventeen when he was born,” Fett says, tone flat. “Between fourteen and sixteen at conception. I know damn well I wasn’t doing anything that could have resulted in a kid at that age.”
Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”
Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.
“I’m a clone,” Rex says, and Ahsoka can feel the amusement he gets out of Quinlan’s confused shock. They’d both had plenty of respect for Master Vos, but Padawan Vos was nothing but trouble. “Harvested genetic material, grown in a tube, inconsistent aging meaning I don’t even know how old I am for sure.”
“I broke him out,” Ahsoka adds, which is half true.
“There was a chip in my head,” Rex adds, with a bright smile. Quinlan’s discomfort grows. “She got it out. Also, lots of brothers. None of them are... around anymore. The creators were trying to make an army.”
Vos and Tholme have no response. Fett looks like he’s been carved out of stone. Leia’s just ignoring them and picking at her food.
Ahsoka lifts a hand and, without looking, Rex high-fives her.
---------------------------
“Drop your elbow.”
Ahsoka tries to cover her smile at the dirty look that Leia shoots Fett. Fett remains unimpressed by the glare of royalty, just gestures for the girl to do as he said.
“I know how to fight,” Leia grumbles. “I took lessons. I was good at them.”
“And I’m better,” Fett says, leaving no room for argument. “You want the Torrents to take over?”
The Torrents. Rex and Soka. She likes being referred to that way. Like they’re a team that never got split up.
Force, she wished they’d never gotten split up.
“Again,” Fett orders, and Leia moves through the Mandalorian kata with ill grace in her emotions and all grace in her sweeping limbs.
Well, as much grace as an undersized six-year-old can, at any rate.
“Think he’ll ask me to spar her again?” Rex asks, dropping down into the seat next to Ahsoka and passing her a drink.
“Maybe,” she acknowledges. “I think he’s wondering if it’s worth asking Vos to spar with her, so she gets more experience with size differences.”
“Hm?”
“She flinched at his face again,” she tells him. “The whole... thing with Boba, I guess. She still won’t tell me why Fett triggers her sometimes, but he’s not pressing her to spar with him, and there’s only so much she can get out of fighting me. Asking Tholme would be presumptuous, but Vos is just a padawan. I think it’d work out.”
“And you?”
She looks at him, already feeling a cresting wave of bullshit she doesn’t want to deal with. “What about me?”
“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”
She should. She hasn’t sparred with a saber since she got tossed back into a body only half-familiar to her. She’s let Leia borrow the shorter one to learn some basic blocking moves, Shii-Cho and then, with hesitance, the first Soresu form. Another time, she loaned it to Rex to practice some attacks; they both know that the next time he picks up her saber in battle, having lost his weapons or she her grip, it will be neither the first or last time he wields a sword of light. None of that, however, is... sparring.
None of that is against someone who knows what they’re doing.
How long has it been since she sparred with anyone other than Kanan and Ezra?
How long has it been since she sparred without the looming specter of Darth Vader in the back of her mind, without fear of the Inquisitors, without the knowledge that any saber held by someone other than her two friends would be red as blood and twice as drenched.
Would she be able to hold back as she fought?
“I should,” she acknowledges, eyes on where Fett is nudging Leia’s feet into position for some kind of leveraging flip. She’s so small. “It would probably be a good idea to spar against a master at some point.”
“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.
“I never knew him,” she says. “And he isn’t Dark. It should be fine.”
Rex nods, taking her word for it. They watch as Leia stumbles on a final move, and Fett gestures for her to sit down and get a drink.
“That man is a terror,” she informs them.
(She’d once described him as a slave-driver. She had not made that mistake twice.)
“Least it’s not Kamino!” Rex tells her cheerfully. When Leia refuses to look impressed, he laughs at her.
Ahsoka has a half-second’s warning before heavy boots thud to the ground next to her. “What’s Kamino?”
“Hello, Vos, it’s nice to see you too,” she drawls. “I’m good, thanks for asking, and yourself?”
The boy-not-quite-man rolls his eyes. “Hi, Torrents; hi, tiny one.”
Leia glares at him next.
“So, Kamino?”
“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.
“Why were you there?”
“They specialize in cloning.”
Ahsoka covers her mouth as the conversation drops into the same awkward gap that always happens when Quinlan stumbles into a subject he didn’t know to avoid.
“Like... you were made there, or you were researching how it works for your own--”
Ahsoka slaps a hand over his mouth. “Now’s a great time to stop talking.”
He licks her palm.
She bares her teeth and arches her fingers just enough to press nails into his cheek.
He bites at her palm, and she yanks her hand away.
“You’re all children,” Leia accuses, conveniently forgetting that Ahsoka and Rex are both over a decade older than her.
“I can throw you the length of a swimming pool,” Ahsoka tells her. “One of the fancy competition-ready ones that would make a Tatooinian cry. You are absolutely the child here.”
“Using the Force is cheating, sir,” Rex informs her.
“Only if there’s a competition,” Ahsoka shoots back. “And proving that a certain princess is a small child is not a competition. It’s a declarative fact.”
“I’m going to rip open the seams on all your tops except the ugliest one,” Leia decides.
“Try me,” Ahsoka challenges. “Adi’ka.”
A low, rough cough interrupts them. “Are you done?”
Fett has his arms crossed, and an eyebrow raised. He knows they’re all adults here, and is entirely unamused. As the silence drags, the eyebrow climbs a little higher.
“Done with what?” Quinlan finally asks, thereby volunteering himself to spar in hand-to-hand with Jango Fett, as one does.
“Poor, poor Vos,” Rex laughs, watching as Fett barks out orders at Quinlan every five seconds to fix his footwork, to stop dropping his guard, to stop wasting energy on flips instead of just dodging the easy way.
“Throw him!” Ahsoka calls. To her delight, Fett obliges.
The thing is, Quinlan isn’t bad at brawling. He’s got training, endurance, skill. The man knows what he’s doing, objectively. He’s just not a match for Fett, and is used enough to relying on his saber that his hand-to-hand skills are rusty. They are perhaps less rusty than those Jedi who don’t take questionable jobs in the Mid-Outer Rim, and Ahsoka’s got a suspicion that Vos regularly gets into bar fights in his downtime, but none of that is enough for him to actually do more than survive against Fett without his saber.
Even the saber wouldn’t help, if Fett had his armor.
“Whose idea was this?”
Ahsoka cranes her head back and smiles. “Hello, Master Tholme. Vos... volunteered.”
“Did he know he was volunteering?”
“No comment.”
Tholme snorts, crossing his arms and eyeing the spar in front of him. “I thought Fett hated Jedi. Giving us a ride for the sake of you three is one thing, but why is he teaching my padawan?”
Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”
There’s a small twitch of a smile, quickly gone. “He said something wrong, I’m guessing?”
“There was no way he could have known,” she dismisses. “We’re just, like, ninety-percent tragic backstories.”
“You’d think the Force would warn him,” Rex notes.
“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia chides.
“No, no, he’s right,” Ahsoka corrects. “The Force does sometimes step in to stop a person from saying something stupid. However, Padawan Vos is at an age where people think they are very rational while being more irrational than they likely ever will be again.”
“Do I want to ask what you were doing at that age?” Tholme asks.
“Running bla...” she trails off, then whips around to gape at him.
He smiles, bland and unassuming. “Does Fett know?”
“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.
“That you’re significantly older than you look,” he says, voice just low enough that the sparring duo can’t hear him. “All three of you.”
Ahsoka turns back to the spar, only catching Tholme out of the corner of her eye. “He knows.”
“Mm. Were you planning on telling the Council?”
“Yes.” That part was never in question. “How did you figure it out?”
“I am a good investigator,” he says. “And you rely a little too heavily on your physical forms to obfuscate. Were it just one of you, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the pattern repeated across three is a little easier to discern.”
“I hoped the whole ‘child soldiers’ thing would be a bigger distraction,” Ahsoka mutters. She glances at Leia and Rex. Both of them are used to being in charge to some degree, giving orders and making contingency plans, but in this... in this, Ahsoka is in charge. They’d decided that at the very start. It didn’t matter that Rex had lived longer and had more experience, or that Leia had held the highest Rebellion rank of the three of them. Ahsoka had been agreed as leader, and they were relying on her.
They’re waiting on her orders. Stiff and unhappy, in Leia’s case, but they trust her.
“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.
“No,” Tholme says. “Your secrets remain your own unless they endanger us, and I’ve a feeling they won’t be.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Rex jokes, smile not reaching his eyes. “I’ve been working with this family for too long to trust that trouble won’t find them around the next corner.”
“This family?” Tholme repeats.
“Sokari was telling the truth about her master being Leia’s biological father,” Rex says. He shrugs. “I worked with him, with his wife, with both of his kids, with his master and his padawan. All of them, to a one, are trouble magnets.”
“Ah, but that’s not the secret that’s putting us in danger,” Tholme points out. “Simply existence as a Jedi.”
Rex shrugs. “Fair enough. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”
Ahsoka lurches to her feet, turning with a smile and dancing backward into the the stretch of empty cargo hold they used for such things. “A spar, Master Tholme?”
He looks past her, to Quinlan, and raises a brow. “Would you not prefer to spar with someone a little closer to your level first?”
She barks out a laugh. “Master Tholme, I’m afraid I’ve spent more of my life fighting to survive than having normal friendly spars. My style is more lethal than the average, and you’ve already seen what war’s done to my mind. I ask to spar with you because, if I lose control, if I slip in time or react on an instinct that isn’t appropriate, I trust that you’ll be more able to stop me than a senior padawan.”
He smiles. “Yes, I gathered as much. Still, better to ask. Shall we wait for them to finish up?”
Ahsoka shrugs, turns, and yells. “Clear the deck!”
Rex snorts behind her, and lowly mutters, “Sir, yes, sir.”
She smirks at him over her shoulder. “At ease, Captain.”
“That’s ‘Commander’ to you, I got promoted,” he sniffs, chin held high.
Heavy steps herald Fett’s arrival at their little group. “The hells are you doing?”
“I’m going to have a spar with a Jedi Master, and I want you and Vos to not get stabbed.”
“I’m not that easy to injure in an actual fight, let alone by accident,” Fett grouses. He looks up and over at Vos, who is already significantly taller, if a fair shot less built. “This one, on the other hand...”
“Hey!”
Ahsoka laughs and backs into the center of the cargo hold, drawing her sabers. “Don’t worry, Vos, I won’t play dirty. You’ll probably get your master back in one piece.”
He wrinkles his nose at her. “Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, aren’t you? He’s a Jedi Master and former Watchman. You’re... what, eighteen?”
Ahsoka raises a brow and activates her sabers, tapping the blades together and watching as more than one person winces. “Wanna bet on how long I last?”
“No,” he says immediately, stepping back to join Rex on the bench. “You’ve already blindsided me enough. I’m not dumb enough to fall for whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.”
“I don’t have sleeves.”
“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”
“Greaves go on the legs, these are vambraces.”
He throws his hands up in the air. “I’m just going to stop talking now!”
“Good plan,” Leia snarks, and then literally hisses when Rex ruffles her hair.
Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.
Ahsoka mirrors him.
---------------------------
She wins, but barely. She's had a few weeks to practice her forms, has sparred hands-only with Rex and Fett, but this is her first real try at using her sabers against a person, instead of a blaster or thin air, since she arrived in the past. She’s only mostly adjusted to her body.
But Tholme is a healer and a watchman, not a duelist. Ahsoka held her own against Ventress, against Grievous, against Maul when she was this age. Still adjusting to her body or not, her lineage is one of battle, and it bled true.
“You’re terrifying,” Quinlan tells her after they’re done, smiling like the sun as he hands her a towel. “Please never turn that on me.”
She laughs at him. “Would you believe that I’m out of practice?”
“Out of practice with what?” he asks, horrified and fascinated. “Fighting Sith Lords?”
“Among other things,” she says, and smirks when he chokes on his drink. “Multiple darkside users who claimed to be Sith, at least. One being a full Lord, one that was disowned by his master, and one that was apprenticed to a Banite apprentice, so she wasn’t technically allowed to be a Darth because of the rule of two.”
Tholme meets her eyes past Quinlan’s shoulder, head tilted and eyes half-shut in consideration. He’s taking her seriously. He knows what she’s not saying.
“How...” Quinlan trails off and shakes his head. “You know what, no. Asking you people questions never ends well.”
“Good plan,” Ahsoka says, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Also, you need to spar with Fett more. Your footwork is shit.”
“It is not,” Quinlan gripes. “You’re all just scary good at this stuff.”
“You mean surviving?” Leia pipes up, and smiles innocently when Quinlan turns to pout at her.
“You’re getting bullied by a six-year-old,” Rex informs him.
“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”
Ahsoka laughs, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. For a week, everything is honestly great. She trains, she laughs, she works through the nightmares.
Then fucking Denon happens.
---------------------------
Denon is a city-planet on the intersection of two major hyperlanes. It’s the kind of place where they stop for two things:
Fuel.
Paperwork.
Technically, there’s a whole mess of paperwork they have to fill out to continue along this specific hyperlane, since they aren’t official Republic ships, and don’t have the licenses to just pass along like ships that are pre-registered to the Trade Federation or the like. They could sneak past--literally all of them know smuggler’s routes--but it’s honestly less of a pain to do things legally. They have a Jedi Master. They have cash. Some of that cash wasn’t quite legally acquired, but nobody needs to know that.
It’s supposed to be a pit stop. That’s all.
It’s just a pit stop.
But no, the galaxy isn’t that kind and Ahsoka’s luck is currently being compounded with a Skywalker, two Fetts, and Vos, which means that of course they run into trouble. Of course they do. There was never any other option, was there?
“Motherfucker,” Ahsoka snaps, lifting her head up and slamming her drink on the table.
The glass is empty. That’s good. They’re in a restaurant right now, a little splurging after weeks with only each others’ company, and spilling the sugary child-friendly juice with that move would have drawn way too much attention from the servers.
“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.
“Sir?” Rex asks, kicking Ahsoka under the table. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wr--that jackass,” she hisses, getting to her feet. “Rex, grab a blaster, I’ve got shebs to kick.”
“Okay,” Rex says, grabbing one out of Fett’s holster and scooting out of the booth before anyone can tell him not to. “Whose?”
“I didn’t even know that he was... osik, I don’t have jurisdiction,” she realizes. “I don’t have any record of wrongdoing. I can’t arrest him since we don’t have evidence of criminal wrongdoing...”
“Are you two going to explain what’s going on?” Vos asks. “Or sit down, maybe?”
Ahsoka makes her decision. She eyes the window--the restaurant in question is a little dingy, but it’s also several dozen stories in the air. “Rex, remember the thing we did on Geonosis that you hated?”
He pauses, and then sighs heavily. “Yes, sir. I remember the... yeeting.”
Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.
“Great. With me!”
It’s a good thing the windows are forcefields instead of transparisteel. A bit of a twist to the energy and they’re gone.
She only hears a little screaming before the wind tears all noises away while they plummet.
They land lightly--of course--and Ahsoka wraps them both in a don’t notice me aura. Nobody even notices that they’ve just come from above. It’s great that she can just Do These Things again, and get brushed off as Weird Jedi Shit, instead of worrying about the Empire. She’s missed being able to jump out of windows without fear.
Rex follows her as she starts running through the city. They don’t have comms, and he’s still so small, which means he can’t keep up with her even if she runs at normal speeds without Force enhancement.
“Should you carry me?” he asks, before she can figure out if it’s worth suggesting. She did it a few times before they joined up with Jango.
“It’s not... urgent, I think,” she says. She hesitates to speak, even as she keeps jogging with Rex at her heels. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can ding him for so we can attack him. It’s all well and good that I can beat him right now, but all the crimes I know about haven’t happened yet, so it wouldn’t be legal...”
“Commander?”
“Hm?”
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
She scrolls the conversation back mentally, considers, and says, “Oh.”
“Who’s getting steamrolled?”
“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.
“Ah,” Rex says. He makes a face. “I understand the desire to jump out a window, now. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.”
Ahsoka laughs. “I mean, I just... every time I’ve seen him for almost twenty years, it’s been like... on sight, you know? We’ve never not attacked each other, except when I needed him to cause problems on Mandalore. But I always knew I was in the right, then.”
“So... what do we arrest him for?” Rex prompts.
“Um... carrying a lightsaber without a license?” she hazards. “We’ll need Tholme there. Hopefully I can just shout at him and he’ll attack me, but I think he only went full nutjob after Master Kenobi cut his legs off. He might be too controlled to try to kill me just for yelling at him.”
“...do we have to stalk him?” Rex asks, sounding like he’d most likely sigh if he weren’t mid-run.
She scoops him up and swings him around onto her back before she answers. “I think we have to stalk him, Rex’ika.”
“Don’t call me that.”
---------------------------
Maul is... exceptionally sneaky, actually. Either that, or he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Ahsoka’s betting on the former, because she’s seen this particular skocha kung take over a planet before anyone realized he was the most dangerous person around.
Or maybe he’s just not committing crimes, and is in fact just here to buy groceries.
He’s examining a papaya.
She fantasizes about jumping across the market and greeting him with a heel to the cheekbone.
“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”
“Yeah...”
“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”
“I know...”
“Does he know we’re here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? Do you think I should go hit him?”
“No.”
“Should I hit on him?”
“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”
“He’s looking at the neloms.”
“I can see that.”
“Why does he have to be so bo--did he just fucking bite a nelom?”
“It appears so, Sir.”
“Like... like rind and all. Just bit the little fucker.”
“Seems it.”
A scuff of metal. “What the fuck are you two doing?”
Ahsoka tips her head around to peer through the grate. “We’re spying, Fett, what does it look like we’re doing?”
Rex cranes his head. “We’re hanging upside-down from a fire escape to get a look at a suspected Sith Apprentice that is currently shopping for various fruits, Mand’alor.”
Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”
“Sokari,” the master greets. “This seems a very conspicuous way to spy.”
She shrugs as well as she can from this angle. “Yes, but you see, this way’s more fun.”
“Is it now.”
Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”
“To kill someone?!”
“No, to the deli meats.”
“Kriff.”
---------------------------
Apparently, Tholme and Fett had told Quinlan to take care of Leia, as Leia had wanted to finish her juice and refused to get involved in the Torrents’ nonsense. According to her, if they couldn’t be bothered to explain the nonsense, they didn’t need her.
This was true and accurate.
Quinlan shows up while they’re still stalking Maul, having moved to a low rooftop for a decent vantage point with less likelihood of being spotted. He’s giving Leia an eopie-back ride, and the pout on her face at needing it is adorable. She pouts harder when she sees them.
“Are you even trying to hide?” Leia scoffs.
“Not really,” Ahsoka admits. She’s got Fett’s binoculars out. “I’m not sure he’s caught wind of the fact that we’re here yet.”
“Or he has and he’s just biding his time to escape while we’re distracted,” Tholme points out.
“Meh,” Ahsoka says, avidly devouring the visual that is a teenage Maul glaring at leafy vegetables. “I just want him to do something so I have an excuse to beat his ass.”
“Do I get to know who?” Quinlan asks, setting Leia down on the roof. “Or are we going to keep being completely unwilling to share information?”
“Baby Sith Lord,” Ahsoka says. “He’s fifteen. A child.”
“A baby,” Rex agrees.
“You’re... that’s... ugh,” Quinlan groans as loudly and as dramatically as he dares, flopping down to the rooftop. “Master Tholme, please tell me this isn’t a real Sith.”
“He’s Dark,” Tholme confirms. “Sith is... up for debate until we have evidence.”
“He’s a bitch is what he is,” Ahsoka mutters. She observes the teenager in question stop to poke at some pink tomatoes. “E chu ta, break the law, already!”
“Does he have a lightsaber?” Quinlan asks. “If he has a lightsaber and no Jedi ID or specialty license, we can probably arrest him.”
“Auntie Soka doesn’t have a license or ID,” Leia points out.
“She’s got a Jedi escort,” Tholme says. “And if our supposed Sith is polite and plays nice, we can probably escort him to the Temple as well.”
Rex snorts derisively.
“Do you know why he’s on Denon?” Fett asks.
“No clue,” Ahsoka admits. “Evil reasons, probably.”
“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.
“Thanks, princess, how’s that attempt to open the jam jar by yourself coming?”
Leia says something very inappropriate for a princess, for a child, and for a lady. It’s fairly appropriate for a soldier, which is admittedly what she’s been for a few years now. Ahsoka sticks her tongue out at the girl like the mature operative she is.
“I wish we could still get him to lose his osik by just showing up and insulting him,” Rex mutters, low enough that Quinlan probably can’t hear.
“I wanna punch him in the face,” Ahsoka confesses. “I want him to try to punch me in the face, and fail.”
“Don’t bully the baby Sith,” Rex admonishes.
“He’s a Sith.”
“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”
“But it’s Maul.”
“I know, but you’re tw--significantly older than him.”
“But... but it’s the motherfucker himself.”
“...you can bully him a little, but only because he’s a Sith.”
Fett steals the binoculars. “You can borrow them again when you stop acting like children.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Rex says, dry as Ryloth. “I’m ten.”
“Pretty tall for your age,” Ahsoka mutters, and then giggles.
“Don’t steal my jokes,” Rex says. He elbows her, hard.
“You know,” Quinlan says, slow and tired. “Master Tholme and I are trained investigators.”
Ahsoka and Rex look at each other, and then up at him.
“Okay?”
“...do you want me to find actual evidence of this guy doing something criminal?”
“Oh, yes please.”
---------------------------
Quinlan, as it turns out, is not overselling his skills. He does catch Maul doing something illegal later that day. It’s a little more ‘stealing corporate secrets in the dead of night’ and less ‘torturing people for kicks,’ but it’s still enough to legally arrest him. Quinlan attempts to do so.
Quinlan does not succeed, and is forced to jump out a window to avoid getting cut in half. Maul follows, steals a passing speeder by throwing out the driver, and takes off. Someone--looks like Tholme--drops back to save the driver, but the rest of them give chase. Ahsoka gleefully takes point on that, of course. She’s the best pilot.
(Rex looks bored, but someone is likely to puke by the end of the night. She hopes it’s not Leia, who insisted on coming for some fucking reason.)
“How the kriff is a teenager that good?!” Quinlan yells, clinging to the edge of the speeder to avoid getting tipped out as Ahsoka swerves around a corner with a wild laugh.
“He’s a Sith!” Leia shouts over the wind. “What do you think?”
Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.
Ahsoka screeches as she drifts across four lanes of traffic and into an alleyway to pursue Maul. He’s pretty good at dodging cross-building walkways, but she’s better. She bares her teeth, hissing, and tries to pick a plan.
“Vos, how’s your aim with Force throws?” She calls to the backseat.
“Uh, decent?”
“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”
Vos takes a second longer to process that than Jango does.
“I’m wh--”
He cuts off, screaming, and is flung forward by Quinlan to crash headfirst into a teenage Sith.
“Take the wheel!” Ahsoka commands, not waiting to see who follows the order, because Fett and Maul are both getting to their feet, the other speeder is about to crash, and she’s not sure who’s going to win that fight.
She jumps from the speeder they’ve been violently dragging around Denon, and lands feet-first on Maul’s... shoulder.
Hm.
That definitely dislocated something.
“You should wear armor!” she chirps at him, drawing both sabers and grinning as he whirls to face her, eyes wide with hate.
He’s utterly silent.
That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.
“Did you just throw me?” Fett demands, higher pitched than she’d normally expect.
“No, Vos threw you.”
“Because you told him to!”
“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”
“It is not!”
“Why not? Throwing people was standard practice in the GAR.”
She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s about ready to strangle her.
Ahsoka cannot, at that point, continue snarking with the father of her best friend, because there’s a red lightsaber coming for her throat, and she should probably worry about that. Maul’s very good at killing people and she’d like to avoid becoming part of that statistic.
As she is quickly reminded, he is... fifteen. And shorter than she’s used to. And already injured.
It’s really, really easy to take him out, actually.
At some point, the other speeder was safely recovered before it caused property damage, and their own is landing a few meters away with Vos and the kids.
“You have Force-negating cuffs, right?” Ahsoka asks.
“No, Master Tholme has them.”
“Oh,” she says, and grimaces. “I guess I’ll just... keep sitting on him then.”
Maul snarls, and she raps him on the skull. “Stop that, it’s uncivilized.”
Rex snorts.
Jango makes a noise that is incredibly frustrated with the lot of them, and turns on Rex. “Was she telling the truth?”
“About?”
“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”
Rex’s face goes pained. “It was in the five-oh-first. And a few others.”
“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.
“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.
Quinlan throws his hands up in the air again. “Come on! I just proved I know what I’m doing!”
“And their tragic backstory is none of your business, prudii!”
Quinlan blinks at him, and then glances at Ahsoka. “Um.”
“He called you a shadow since your training, um, seems to be pointing in that direction,” she says as carefully as she can. “We were theorizing.”
“Wh... you actually paid attention?” Quinlan asks, looking horribly confused. “I thought I was just annoying you.”
Ahsoka laughs at him. “Oh, Vos... I’ve been running black ops for... much longer than most would guess. Trust me, I know another spy when I see them.”
She smiles as kindly as she can, because she hadn’t actually meant to make him feel left out or unwanted or... well, she’d been pretty patronizing, especially for someone seemingly younger than him. The smile does not work. Quinlan just looks kind of horrified about how young she just implied she started spy work.
Granted, she’d been sixteen for Zygerria...
Deciding to ignore him for a bit, she shifts on Maul’s back and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby Sith. We’re going to get you lots of nice therapy. Mind healers, no Sith tortures, all that fun stuff. Maybe some plushies.”
“You’re also getting therapy, right?” Quinlan asks. “Please say you are. I’m required for the specifics of my training and if anything you’ve said is true, I feel like you really need it and I’m scared of what’ll happen if you don’t.”
Ahsoka laughs, knowing exactly how empty it sounds. “Oh hell, if I didn’t get therapy, I imagine Kix would rise from the grave to force me into it.”
The name means nothing to anyone except Rex, and... ah, yeah, she told Fett about Kix a few weeks ago.
“No more throwing me without warning,” Fett grumbles, dropping to sit on the ground next to her. “Especially not at baby Sith Lords.”
“I am not a child!” Maul spits.
“He speaks!” Ahsoka cheers. “Aw, I knew you could do it.”
“’Soka, I told you not to bully him,” Rex complains. “It’s tacky. You’re being tacky.”
“I’m allowed to be tacky,” Ahsoka declares. “I’ve died twice, that’s, like, permission from the universe.”
“You’ve died twice?” Quinlan asks, back in ‘fascinated horror’ territory. “Wait, no, I shouldn’t ask--”
“Too late! The first time was on a planet that doesn’t exist and my Master lost his mind, killed a god, and used the good favor of another god to have me brought back to life at her expense. Not in that order.”
“I--what? No, that’s--what?”
Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”
Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.
---------------------------
“You should eat something.”
He glares at her.
“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”
He keeps glaring at her.
“Maul, you’ll never get big and strong and ready to kill if you don’t eat your vegetables.”
He bares his teeth.
“No, I don’t eat my veggies, but I’m a Togruta, so if I eat too many vegetables I throw up.”
Rex kicks her thigh, right on the faulds. “What did I say about bullying the Sith Lord?”
“Not to.”
“And what are you doing?”
“Making him eat his vegetables.”
“Soka.”
“Rex’ika.”
He kicks at her again. “Get up, we’re swapping out the watch.”
“But I wanted to hang out with my favorite little criminal mastermind.”
Rex drops to the floor and presses his forehead to her shoulder. “How the hell is being around this guy the first thing to make you cheer up in weeks?”
“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”
“He’s going to bite you.”
“I’ll bite back.”
Rex jabs a finger into her ribs, and she squeaks. “Go get something to eat, Commander.”
“Fine,” she huffs, rolling to her feet and moseying along to the galley. She walks in on Tholme and Fett having an argument about the ways in which Jedi and Mandalorians differ. Quinlan’s on the side, watching with wide eyes, and little Leia’s drinking a juice box at his side, tucked up under his arm and occasionally saying things to fan the flames. Ahsoka assumes she’s enjoying herself.
She opens the cooling unit, looks over the contents, and pulls out a raw leg of eopie mutton. She leans against the counter, bites into the chilled-but-not-frozen meat, and uses the back of one hand to wipe the blood off her chin. The ‘real adults’ don’t notice.
“I’m like ninety percent sure you’re doing this to mess with me but also...” Quinlan trails off, staring at her with horror. “Why?”
“A girl’s gotta eat.”
“Yeah, but all the obligate carnivores I know are like... generally holding to basic rules of courtesy when it comes to not grossing people out,” Quinlan says. “Like, I don’t chew with my mouth open. You don’t... eat in the most intimidating--did you just crack the bone with your teeth?!”
Ahsoka smirks at him, using her free hand to take away the shard of bone so she can suck out the marrow without eating the bones themselves. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t polite society. We’re in a galley on a bounty hunter’s ship, and I’ve been living on the run or in an army for most of my life. Table manners are optional.”
“No, they’re not,” Leia orders. “Fett, it’s your ship, tell her to--”
“--and another thing!” Fett snaps at Tholme, clearly paying less than no attention to the food argument.
Ahsoka keeps on eating, trying to catch wind of where the discussion’s at. Mostly, it seems to be at ‘talking past each other.’ Neither of them seems to have fully grasped more than the absolute most basic parts of the other culture, and that’s only enough to insult each other, not actually have a constructive conversation. She’d have expected more out of Tholme, at least. He’s not exactly young.
“Hey, quick question,” she says, in a moment where both of them have paused for breath and the opportunity to seethe. “Fett, when’s the last time you worked with a Jedi, or any member of a Force-based religion, before I popped into your life?”
His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.
“And Tholme, when’s the last time you worked with anyone from the Mandalorian system?”
Tholme’s reaction isn’t any more gracious than Fett’s.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says. “Vos, were either of them actually interested in that conversation, or just looking for an excuse to yell?”
“Now listen here, jetiika--”
“Fett,” she snaps. “I am not a child.”
“And neither am I,” he growls right back. “This is my ship, and I damn well don’t need you treating me like a misbehaving youngling. You’ve got a problem, you bring it to my face, not get all smug about people’s tempers blowing over.”
Well, then.
She smiles thinly. “Of course.”
He stands with his arms crossed, in full armor save for the helmet. She puts aside the eopie meat and wipes her hands, smiling until she can put her hands on her hips and let it drop to a challenge.
“You know, I’m just--I’m just gonna go,” Quinlan mutters, pulling Leia out with him, the girl hanging from under one of his arms. “This, uh, this looks like a problem for... you folks. Um. Yeah.”
He sidles out.
Tholme doesn’t.
Fett rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then gestures at the table. “Sit.”
“I’d prefer not to.”
He drops his hand and glares at her. “We have another week on this ship together. We are going to have this conversation. Sit.”
She sits, right on the warm spot left behind by Quinlan and Leia. She crosses her arms, lifts a brow, and waits.
Fett takes the seat across from her. Tholme leans against the counter.
“We all know you’re older than you look,” Fett says. “I heard Tholme mention it, I know that much has been shared. You’re acting like an actual teenager, and I’ve... I’ve put up with a lot. I am trying to keep things civil, particularly with you. I’ve tried to be friendly. You’ve been fucked up since we met, fine, everyone’s got trauma. The thing where you’ve started talking shit to our faces for what seems like your own amusement? That has to stop. You’re older than me, Torrent. Fucking act like it.”
She blinks at him, slow and not exactly happy, and turns to Tholme.
The man shrugs. “I was planning to put up with it until we arrived to the temple and handed you over to some mind healers. Fett doesn’t have that kind of time.”
There’s a curdle in her stomach, defensive and angry and guilty.
“You’ve been... a bitch,” Fett finally says. “You know that. I’m not going to mince words. You’ve been holier-than-thou and rude and condescending, and aiming that at Antilles is one thing, when you’ve apparently known her since she was a toddler and taught her things. Aiming at the rest of us isn’t going to fly. We’re all adults trying to share a space. Stop acting like... just like you have been.”
There is no defense to be made that they aren’t both already aware of.
She closes her eyes and tries to strangle the burst of irrational rage.
Their accusations aren’t unfounded.
They deserve an apology.
She is in the wrong.
She’s felt freer than she had in years, and in that freedom allowed herself too much rein, let herself lace her words with barbed wires and poison instead of sparks and spices, comments that were cruel instead of just joking. Too familiar. Too comfortable.
“My behavior’s been inappropriate,” she finally says, the words clumsy and too big in her mouth. “You’re right about that. I’m sorry, and I’ll endeavor to keep a tighter rein on my less pleasant behaviors in the future.”
At least she only lashes out with words. It could be worse.
She opens her eyes, fixes her gaze on the wall behind Fett, wrestles her expression into stiff neutrality. “Am I dismissed?”
“...uh, no, not after that,” Fett says, sounding just a little horrified. “What the hell was that?”
Tholme hisses out a breath. “Let her go.”
“No, this needs to be discussed, that’s not a healthy rea--”
“Fett, let her go,” Tholme insists, low and heavy.
Fett looks between the two for a moment, seems to come to a realization he doesn’t like, and then gestures almost violently towards the door. “Fine. Go.”
She walks out, doesn’t sprint. She’s stiff. She’s controlled. She’s the one that fucked up, so it’s fine if she doesn’t feel great right now. Getting called out on one’s own failings as a person isn’t something to get upset about if the failings are real. The feelings are real and normal, but this was her fault, and so it’s up to her to fix it, and she can’t let them know it hurt her, because this was her mistake.
She goes to the cargo hold.
---------------------------
Ahsoka works out her frustrations on Fett’s punching bag. She does not augment herself with the Force, just uses raw strength and technique, ignoring the tears that press at her eyes.
She’s fine.
It’s not weird. It’s not odd. It’s not strange to not notice she’s been kind of a bitch since her mood came up with the whole Depa thing, and then Maul. She’s been mean, mostly to Vos and Fett, and nobody’s confronted her about it until now. They let her have room for her trauma, and she hadn’t reined it in. She’s just gotten worse.
‘Snippy’ she’d always been, but age apparently hadn’t fucking tempered it.
“Um.”
She catches the punching bag, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. She hasn’t worked out all the twitchy, nervous energy yet.
“Vos,” she greets, once she’s caught herself enough that her voice won’t waver. He’s on the other side of the bag, but she knows his voice. “Do you need something?”
“You’re kind of... projecting,” he tells her, drifting to where she can actually see him. “Not self-loathing, but, um, recrimination? You just don’t feel very good and I was hoping to help”
Why in all the Sith hells does he have to be nice.
“I got called out on my behavior and wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d kriffed up,” she tells him. “I’ll be fine. And I’m... sorry. I haven’t been fair to you and was using you as an easy target for some of my ruder comments.”
“I mean, I kind of figured,” he admits, coming closer. “I’ve been tutored by Shadows before, and a lot of them act like you. I just assumed it was more of that.”
“I still shouldn’t have let myself run loose like that,” she says. “I’m... it wasn’t appropriate. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” she says. “Not with... not with you. Or anyone other than Rex and a mind healer, really. Most of it is...”
She trails off, distantly noticing that her eyes are tearing up enough to blur her vision, and her nails are digging into the bag in a way Fett won’t appreciate.
There’s so much that beat her down, never quite breaking her, that she doesn’t even know what made her act the way she does.
“Want to spar?”
She looks over at him, wonders what he sees that makes him want to fight her when she’s visibly unstable.
He smiles, kind and easy, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s genuine in intent, if not in energy. He wants to help. “You all keep saying I could work on my hand-to-hand. Just take off the armor so I don’t break a finger, maybe.”
“You’re serious.”
“No, I’m Quinlan.”
She’s going to wipe the floor with this boy. “You sure you wanna fight me?”
“You won’t be able to meditate until you do,” he says. He’s right, damn him. “The other option is that I go get your... vod, I think? I go get Rex and you two can talk it out since you trust him with more. I don’t want to do that, though, he’s still a kid.”
She eyes him, lips pressed together and mind awhirl with emotions and thoughts she’d tried to beat out of her head and into the bag. “Ever fought someone without the Force?”
“...yes?”
“Was it cuffs?”
“Oh, you meant me not having the Force,” he realizes. “Er, no. Is... is that something you’ve done a lot?”
She smiles at him. “You’re planning on Shadow work. That means getting captured and stripped of everything you are at some point, Force included. Unfortunately, the cuffs are in use on a very annoying Dathomirian right now, so we’ll have to make do with you shielding like your mind’s a Kessel Spice Mine.”
“...do I want to know how often you’ve been captured?”
“No, you don’t.”
When he comes at her, it’s easy to dodge. It’s easy to tap him on target points, little pokes that show she could take him out, but isn’t going to until he’s learned something. He stays grinning throughout, letting her take the lead, and he treats her like... like a knight. Like a teacher. He’s stepped back and gone from trying to impress her as a fellow padawan, to proving himself to a full knight.
She’s not sure when that change happened, or why or how, but it makes things much smoother. She wants to think that it would have even if she hadn’t gotten a wakeup call from Fett.
So she treats him the way she treated Ezra, for the year she’d spent traveling with Kanan. She treats him as a student that’s willing to learn, good but not yet great, competent but not yet ready to survive. She draws him into the kind of chest-heaving exhaustion that tells a fighter just how much energy they waste.
(Ahsoka may have had her own style, but her grandmaster had been the pinnacle of a Soresu user. She’d spent years on the frontlines of a war. She knew the worth of conserving energy, and she’d teach it to any who stepped in to challenge her.)
“Who taught you to fight like this?” He asks, when they’ve taken a handful of moments to circle each other. His steps are heavy, sure, planted. Her own are light and ready.
“Soldiers,” she says. It’s true enough.
“Not your Master?” he asks, just as he tries to kick for her upper arm. It’s a safe question. For anyone else, it would be a safe question.
But for Ahsoka, it’s another chink in the armor, after a maelstrom of emotion, a storm of self-loathing, a dervish of instability.
She doesn’t break right away.
She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--
She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.
“Sokari?”
She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.
Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner
Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.
She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.
She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.
Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--
“COMMANDER!”
Rex.
Rex is here.
Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.
Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.
“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--
“Commander.”
No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.
“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”
Right, sparring.
“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.
“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”
She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.
“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”
“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.
“And where were you?”
His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...
“Soka.”
Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.
Her breath hitches, and she wails.
“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.
Our long awaited meeting.
I destroyed him.
Then you will die.
She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--
“Soka?”
“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”
“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.
“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”
“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”
“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”
“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”
“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”
“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”
Of course he does.
---------------------------
“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.
“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.
“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”
“He’s--”
“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”
Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.
Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.
“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...
She’s in need of a lot of therapy.
“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”
Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”
There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.
“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”
They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.
“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.
“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.
She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.
“Thank you, Princess.”
She sips.
She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.
I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...
She shivers.
“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...”
She probably should.
She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.
“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.
“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.
She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”
“Of course.”
---------------------------
Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.
She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.
Again. Again. Again.
She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.
Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.
Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.
Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.
“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”
She just stares at him.
He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”
She can’t.
Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--
Then you will die, her memory growls.
She flinches.
“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”
She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.
---------------------------
“Tell me something good.”
Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.
Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.
The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”
Good things.
About Anakin.
“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”
Did they?
Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...
Wait.
“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”
Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”
“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”
Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)
Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”
He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.
“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”
“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”
“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”
She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.
She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.
“Soka.” Rex.
“Hm?”
“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”
She does.
He’s right, that’s a good story.
“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”
---------------------------
“Tholme’s hiding something.”
Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.
“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”
“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”
The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.
“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”
“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”
“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”
“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”
Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”
“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”
“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”
Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.
“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”
“You... want to be sedated?”
“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”
“So he should tell me or Rex.”
“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”
“You don’t know that.”
Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”
Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.
She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.
It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”
She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”
“Yes.”
“...why?”
“Viszla.”
“I see.”
She does.
Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.
“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”
“You’ll help me achieve it.”
“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”
“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”
“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”
“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”
She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.
“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.
“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”
He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”
“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”
“Not the beskad?”
She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”
He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.
(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)
(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)
(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)
---------------------------
Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.
Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.
Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.
“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”
Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.
Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.
They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.
“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”
“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”
“He’s not even trying!”
“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”
“I’m not a--”
“Teeth.”
It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.
Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.
Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...
Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.
It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.
“Do Jedi believe in souls?”
His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.
“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”
“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”
“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“What about those not yet born?”
Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.
“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”
It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”
“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”
There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.
“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.
“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”
“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”
“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”
Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”
“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”
“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”
“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”
He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.
A Jedi does not hate.
I am no Jedi.
“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”
“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”
“You’d build an army of slaves.”
“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”
She holds his gaze. She looks away first.
“Torrent?”
“I’m thinking.”
He lets her.
“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”
“Understandable.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”
“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”
“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”
She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.
Great. Just what she needed.
---------------------------
Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”
“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”
“I don’t care.”
“What did Fett say?”
“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”
“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”
He knows all of this.
“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”
“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”
He clings to her and shudders.
“Rex?”
“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”
“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”
“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”
She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.
“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”
“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”
“He’s not vod.”
“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”
Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”
“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”
He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”
“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”
“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”
“Bantha poodoo.”
Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”
“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”
“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”
“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”
“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”
She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.
“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”
“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”
“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”
“That’s what makes the decision for you?”
“Well something had to!”
They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.
He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.
(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)
(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)
(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)
---------------------------
“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”
The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.
“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.
“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.
“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”
“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.
“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”
She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.
“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”
“Good enough,” he’d sighed.
What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.
For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.
And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.
A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.
“Stable?” Fett grunts.
“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.
“I meant you.”
Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”
She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”
“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”
“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”
“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”
She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.
Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”
“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.
“Leia’s crying.”
Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”
Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.
“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”
Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.
“What name.”
“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”
Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.
This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.
“Captain, sitrep.”
“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”
“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”
“Torre--”
“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.
“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”
“Luke.”
From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.
“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”
Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.
Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.
He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.
Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.
Why would Luke?
Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.
“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”
Rex steps closer. “Commander?”
“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”
He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”
“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.
“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.
“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.
Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.
“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”
“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.
“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”
“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”
“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”
“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”
Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”
We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.
“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”
He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.
“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”
“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”
“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”
Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.
She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.
Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.
There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.
Attachment, they’ll say.
What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’
They won’t be entirely wrong.
She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.
This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.
---------------------------
The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.
Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.
Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.
It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.
It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.
“The hell’s wrong with you?”
Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.
She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.
She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--
The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.
He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.
And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.
She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.
“Master!”
She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.
It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.
“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.
(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)
(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)
(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)
(“You could have just warned me.”)
(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)
(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)
She ignores everything.
“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”
He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.
“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”
She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.
He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.
“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”
She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.
Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...
“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”
He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.
There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.
Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.
She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.
They can save the galaxy this time.
She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.
She’s okay.
Everything’s going to be okay.
#Ahsoka Tano#Captain Rex#Leia Organa#Jango Fett#rex and ahsoka#Quinlan Vos#Tholme#Depa Billaba#Obi Wan Kenobi#Ben Kenobi#Maul#Darth Maul#time travel#de aging#ptsd#trauma#child soldiers#Phoenix Files#Uncle Ben and Little Luke#Auntie Soka and Little Leia#disaster lineage
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The Right Approach
One-shot: Tech x gn!reader
Words: 2K
Summary: Tech hasn't slept for a few days, and you're worried about him. No one has been able to convince him to a bunk, but Hunter thinks you might be able to get through to the goggled trooper.
AN: This week has been kicking my ass, and I've not had much time to focus on Derecho. Part 4 is almost done and will come soon, but I felt bad because I haven't posted in a while. So, have this kinda cute fluff with Tech that I wrote trying to get my mind into writing.
(I am also shite at titling things 😅 )
Warnings: None, only fluff and snuggles.
It had been four days, and Tech had not slept. With the repairs needed for the console in the cockpit, he had been working endlessly to be sure that the Havoc Marauder would be at 100% working capacity before they next took off from Kamino. The rest of the Batch did what they could to help, but much of it was intricate - more than one hand would not help.
Currently you were standing outside the ship, staring up the steps ready to stomp inside and give Tech a piece of your mind. How did he think he would get you all off the ground if he ran headlong into it himself?
You heard a clunk and a curse from inside, coming from Tech. You frowned, and were about to take the first step into the Marauder when a hand firmly grasped your shoulder.
“Y/N,” came Hunter's voice, and you sighed heavily before turning your head to face him. “You know he won’t stop. Especially if you’re just going to just tell him outright ‘get your ass to bed’.”
“Well what the kriff are we supposed to do then?” you asked with a slight hiss, frustration getting the best of you.
Hunter fixed you with a sympathetic gaze, and shrugged sadly. “Eventually he’ll just pass out in there-”
“And break something while he’s at it? Hurt himself?”
“There was a 'but' in that sentence, Y/N,” Hunter said, smiling a little and giving you a push towards the steps. “You might be able to get through to him.”
You looked at him incredulously, causing him to actually chuckle.
“Tech likes having you around. He’d probably listen to you if you approach it the right way. And based on how much you also seem to care about him, I figure you’re stubborn enough to get him to a bunk,” he said, as if he were just talking about the clouds passing through the sky. You could feel heat rising up your cheeks. “And yes, before you ask, I’ve known for a bit. Heightened senses, remember?”
You cursed internally. When you had joined the squad as their combat medic, you had taken an immediate liking to Tech. And with time, it just grew. Certainly he could talk for hours, and sometimes it was difficult to keep up with his excited chatter, but he was an amazing man. Strong, insatiably curious - and even with his oftentimes hard, matter-of-fact tone - incredibly caring. You had flirted with him from time to time, sometimes not even recognizing it yourself until afterwards. But the trooper seemed to be none the wiser to your actions. Never stopped your heart from racing whenever your hands accidentally touched though, or if he gave you one of those rare Tech smiles. That must be how Hunter knew; he could literally hear the thunder of your heart when the two of you were together.
“You really think I can get through to him?” you asked quietly.
“Worth a try,” Hunter said. “Besides, the rest of the squad are also getting antsy. If I have to listen to Crosshair go on about knocking Tech out with Gonky anymore, I might have to hide the droid.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Crosshair likes to sleep in his bunk,” Hunter replied. “At this point he’d go to whatever lengths, I would imagine.”
You laughed, and nodded to the sergeant. He waved you on before turning away, likely to head back to the others. Turning and looking into the ship, you steeled yourself before going up the steps and stopping outside the cockpit.
“Tech?” you called.
“Yes, Y/N?” came his voice, seemingly bright as if he was actually still getting a regular amount of sleep.
“How… How’s it going in there?”
Another loud clunking sound and dropping equipment had you stepping inside, looking to find Tech on the ground under the console. The plastoid that normally covered his chest and back was gone, propped up against the wall next to the console.
“It’s going fine!” Tech growled, tossing something out of the compartment he was in giving you just enough time to skirt out of the way before it clanged against the wall opposite of him.
“Hmm, sounds it…” you muttered, before squatting down. He continued on whatever he was working with while you thought for a moment. “Hey Tech-”
“Y/N, please, I am attempting to get the comm frequencies on this damnedable thing working in proper order,” he said, and you could see him turn to look at you for a moment with a reflection of his goggles. “While the Marauder still has functional comm capabilities, the extensive damage from our last encounter with the Separatists has weakened the signal strength, which poses a threat to us while in the field which as you can understand-”
“I have a question,” you interrupted. He stuttered to a halt, and there was silence for a few moments before his hands appeared at the lip of the console and he pulled himself out. The words “sleep deprivation” practically screamed at you from the features of his face.
“Yes?” He seemed intent to answer whatever it was that you were going to ask, even if he had been frustrated a moment ago. Maybe Hunter had been right, and you could get through to him.
You swallowed a little, his tired face filling you with resolve. “What happens to someone when they do not sleep for 4 or more days?”
Tech frowned a little, before going into his answer. “Typically after 3 days of no rest, a person’s urge to sleep will get worse and they will begin to experience microsleeps. Perception is also significantly impaired, and reaching 4 days without adequate rest will continue to distort it. In some, the urge to sleep will become unbearable. It can result in sleep deprivation psychosis.”
You nodded along throughout his entire explanation without saying anything. When he finished, the two of you stared at one another for a few moments of silence.
“Oh,” Tech said with quiet understanding.
“C’mon,” you said warmly, standing up and holding a hand out to him.
Tech shook his head, and you briefly considered going to find Gonky. “I understand your concern, and though it is appreciated, I just need to complete one last thing with the comms before I believe they will be properly functional,” he said. Tech began looking around before his eyes fell on his datapad behind you on one of the seats, and pointed to it. “Could you pass that to me?”
You took the datapad in your hand, but didn’t hand it to Tech. He looked at you with confusion as you began to step away.
“If you want the datapad, Tech,” you began, stepping out of the cockpit, “you’re going to need to come and get it.”
You smiled a little when you heard him getting up from the cockpit floor behind you. “Please, Y/N, I need to calibrate it.” You ignored him, continuing to the bunks before crawling up into the one you usually slept in. You sat back on the bunk, back leaning against the wall, holding the datapad up next to your head.
Tech entered the room, looking even more tired as he stared up at you. “I’m unsure what you are attempting to accomplish here other than getting on my nerves.” You just smiled in response, waving the datapad at him. With a big sigh from him, you watched as Tech pulled himself slowly up to the bunk, and then knelt in front of you between your feet.
“Give it,” he said, losing any formality. You shook your head, waving the datapad again.
In any other circumstance, Tech literally crawling into your lap with a determined expression like he currently had, would have left you breathless. But your intent to get him exactly where he was now, reaching for the datapad and face so very close to your own, helped you keep focus. When Tech’s fingers firmly grasped around the datapad, you let go and leaned forward. Your arms wrapped around his torso and your legs around his, pulling him directly into your embrace, his chin hitting your shoulder.
“Y/N?” Tech tentatively asked, a bit breathless against you.
“You need to sleep, Tech,” you whispered against his ear, arms squeezing just a little tighter as he tried to move. You felt his sharp intake of breath and he completely stilled in your arms, tensely holding himself up. “Relax.”
“I… I need to-” he began, but his sentence was broken by a soft groan as one of your hands began to run up and down his back. A soothing motion, fingertips ghosting over his side as your palm ran along his spine. Your other arm moved under his, your hand reaching up to the back of his neck and gently running through the short hair found at the base of his skull.
You leaned your head gently to the side, pressing against his. “Please, Tech,” you pleaded, and you felt him begin to relax in your arms.
“Cyar’ika...” he sighed, and his voice was thick with sleep. His resolve gone due to your ministrations, he finally let his whole body slump against you, and he turned his face into your neck. You could feel his warm breath and cool goggles against your skin and you couldn’t help the small shiver that spread through your body.
“That’s it, Tech,” you cooed, loosening the grip of your legs so he could settle more between them. In doing so he slid down your chest a little, making you glad that at some point he had decided to discard his chest plate. You heard the datapad hit the bunk’s thin mattress as Tech's arms wrapped around you, pressing his face more firmly into your chest with a deep breath.
You felt a gentle warmth spread through you as you both embraced one another. You couldn’t help but smile down at Tech, and you gently reached up to carefully slide the goggles from his face before setting them down on the bunk near the datapad. It was mere moments before you could tell Tech was asleep against you. Moving carefully, you pressed your lips against the top of his head and leaned back again.
“Comms will still be there when you get up,” you said to his sleeping form, before closing your eyes and feeling a bit drowsy yourself.
It was a while later that you woke to the sound of someone entering the Marauder. You had no idea how long you had been asleep, and you opened your eyes slowly, looking about the compartment to find Crosshair standing there. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was looking at you with a smirk. He just nodded when he saw your attention was on him, and climbed into the bunk below the one you currently occupied with Tech.
Speaking of, the usually goggled clone was still sleeping soundly against you. You smiled before gently running your fingers through his hair, feeling him sigh and snuggle more into your body.
“Hey Cross?” you called out, careful not to be too loud.
A grunt of acknowledgement was the sniper’s response.
“...what does ‘cyar’ika’ mean?” you asked after a moment’s pause. Tech had said it earlier, but you didn’t know what it was.
You were met with silence, and you were beginning to wonder if Crosshair was actually going to answer you. You resigned yourself to mystery when he finally spoke:
“It’s Mando’an. It means ‘darling,’ ‘beloved,’ or ‘sweetheart’.”
You froze. Tech had called you that? A blush creeped up your skin, and you knew if Crosshair had been looking at you he’d see just how red you were in the semi-darkness of the Marauder.
“Th-thanks,” you said back, before looking down at Tech. You didn’t think you had ever seen the trooper look as relaxed as peaceful as you did right now, and you couldn’t help but smile. Leaning down just a little, you hugged him a little tighter.
“Cyar’ika,” you soothed, and smiled more as Tech’s arms squeezed you tighter as well in response.
#the bad batch#tbb tech#tbb hunter#tbb crosshair#the bad batch x reader#gn!reader#tech x reader#tech x gn!reader#star wars#star wars the bad batch
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Bakugou Katsuki - Rising
So I told someone a while ago I’d be writing an essay on Bakugou’s lines from 284, and I’m keeping true to my word. If you’re wondering which lines, well my friend, these lines;
So this, to me, is one of the most emotionally packed pages of these recent chapters. For one, it shows us that Bakugou has always been watching Deku, the same as Deku has been watching him. Since they were kids, probably from the age of 4, Bakugou was able to tell Deku never thought of himself first, it was always what he could do to help and protect other people with no regard to his own safety or well-being.
“He’s always been like that.”
How would Bakugou know Deku has always been this way if he wasn’t paying attention to him? It goes beyond his bullying in Middle School, because he’s watched Deku stand up for other’s his entire life. The very first scene of the manga is Deku protecting a child from Bakugou and his group of misfits, despite being quirkless, and essentially helpless.
Despite being scared, and knowing he didn’t have the strength to take on those boys, he still stood his ground and did what he could to protect the other kid. Bakugou witnessed that first hand, since he was the aggressor. He was the one Deku was protecting someone from.
There was no way Bakugou wouldn’t remember something like that.
We know he remembered how Deku extended his hand to him when he fell in the stream, even though Bakugou was fine and didn’t need any help. Deku still waded through that water and even risked possibly getting himself hurt, to reach out to Bakugou and make sure he was alright.
Now, I am going to point out that the stream incident definitely happened before the scene of Deku protecting that boy since it’s evident they’re older in that scene, but it was presented first (literally the first panel of the entire manga), so it takes precedent.
Then we have the big one, which is the Sludge Villain incident, and Deku’s biggest show of self-sacrifice probably to date within the manga, since he was quirkless and would have certainly ended up dead if All Might hadn’t managed to power up. Even with the times he’s wrecked his body using OfA, he at least had some kind of fighting chance because of the power, but with the Sludge Villain, he had nothing. He was just throwing himself out there in hopes, by some miracle, he could do something to save his friend, even if it meant losing his life in the process.
Another instance of Bakugou witnessing firsthand the self sacrificial nature of Deku. Throughout the manga we’re given these instances, and the next big one is Bakugou’s kidnapping. Now, he didn’t see Deku’s fight with Muscular, but he did see the aftermath, he saw that ruined body running at him full force with no care to the damage done to himself, and even before that, he saw Shoji carrying him while Deku continued to plan out their plan of rescue, like his entire body wasn’t a crumpled mess.
Time and time again, Bakugou has been witness to Deku’s behavior, to this self sacrificial nature. The scene above is the first real time we see Bakugou acknowledge it. He tells Deku to stay back, he knows if he continues trying to fight looking like that, he’s going to die. I’ve seen other translations and I believe in the anime he says something to the context of “Don’t come, Deku.” Which, either way you look at it, it gives the same impression of Bakugou trying to protect Deku in that moment. Because he knew if there was an opportunity for Deku to reach, he would have fought until there was nothing left of him.
“And now that he can do so much more...”
This line is important because it is Bakugou acknowledging Deku’s current strength with OfA, but it is also his confession of worry because he knows who Deku is, and what this means for him. If Deku was reckless and willing to sacrifice himself when he was a 4 year old child with no quirk, well now that he has the strongest power essentially in existence, that means certain death. There is nothing stopping him from completely destroying himself, and we saw a brief example of that when Deku fought Muscular, though not even close to the level he was going at Shigaraki, and what Bakugou was actually getting to witness during this chapter and 285/286.
I use the above image because it kind of shows how bad off Deku was, which is far worse than when he fought Muscular, let me remind you. That scene is in chapter 285, after he’s essentially destroyed both of his arms hitting Shigaraki probably upwards of 10 times with 100% OfA.
Remember, Bakugou has been watching all of this from the ground.
“Something doesn’t feel right, it makes me wanna keep him at arms length.”
Well ya know, I don’t really blame you for feeling that way, Bakugou, I wouldn’t feel right if the kid I knew my entire life was willing to die at literally every turn without thinking for a split second about himself, either. It’s a little strange, but that’s what makes Deku the unstoppable force that he is, because he has the drive to save people no matter what. Now if he could master his power and depend on other’s, it would be even better, because then maybe he wouldn’t have to kill himself trying to protect people.
But seriously, that line shows Bakugou's uncertainty about getting close to Deku, because that kind of behavior is scary. It's intimidating. To just...throw your life away for the sake of someone else, that's gotta be scary to see someone do, and Bakugou has witnessed it over and over because of his closeness to Deku.
Now for the big one.
"Back then, I ignored my own weakness...so I ended up bullying him."
There's the kicker, folks. The real development we've all been waiting for.
I do want to point out that when Bakugo was 4, he didn't realize he had weaknesses like that. He was honest to God just a bratty kid that probably thought Deku was weird for caring so much about people despite, essentially, being useless to them. Because what could Deku do? Nothing. He couldn't help anyone because he was quirkless, but he still tried, and that's what affected Bakugou so strongly.
So strongly, in fact, that he never forgot it for a single second.
From 4 years old all the way up to 16 years old. 12 years. 12 years Bakugou Katsuki was witnessing Deku's self sacrificial nature. Again and again he watched as this boy who had nothing, continued to fight for something, and then he was granted power, terrifying power, and now Bakugou is left to wonder how the fuck any of this could have happened. Because if Deku had just stayed quirkless and accepted it, maybe, just maybe, he would stop that self sacrifical bullshit. Maybe he would see himself a bit more.
But then he was given OfA, and all of that hope was gone. Now he was given a power meant to take on the greatest evils and every person before Deku had died for the cause, so why would it stop with Deku, who was already ready to get himself killed to protect someone else when he was like 14 years old?
The scenes we have of Bakugou acknowledging Deku's behavior, and acknowledging his own behavior, it's such a raw scene. It takes a lot to acknowledge you've done wrong by someone else. It takes a lot of strength to sit back and recognize those ugly parts of you, and here Bakugou is, doing just that. And he isn't doing it for some self righteous get me off, either. He's doing it because he genuinely cares about Deku's well being, and he always has.
It never came out the right way, and he sees that now, but that doesn't mean the concern wasn't there. He just didn't know the right ways to express it, but as things have gotten more serious and now Deku is truly risking his life for this cause, he's come face to face with it. He can't hide from it anymore. The more OfA develops, the more Deku is going to put himself out there, and Bakugou isn't going to sit around while he kills himself when he could just learn to ask for help.
This stretches all the way into 285 and Bakugou's sacrifice, because he saw Deku about to end up seriously hurt or worse, and he knew he couldn't let that happen. Of all the years spent endlessly tearing himself apart for other people, Bakugou knew he needed to show the other in some way he didn't have to do it like that. He didn't have to fight alone.
That, and it was part of his atonement. It was a piece of his apology to Deku, to show him that he valued him, and he was willing to put his life on the line for someone, for him.
Bakugou didn't think when he rushed out to save Deku. It was instinctual, like breathing. He saw someone he cared about in danger, and his body moved on it's own. That, from the angry brat we get in chapter 1, is a beautiful showcase of perfect character development and growth. If you take into account everything I've discussed throughout this, it should be easy to realize or at least see a bit of Bakugou's perspective, and his thought process when dealing with Deku.
It never justifies any of his past behavior, but it gives us clarification, and then allows us to appreciate his thoughts and actions in 284 and 285 even more.
#bnha spoilers#bnha meta#bnha#mha#bkdk#my hero academia#boku no hero academia#kacchan#deku#midoriya izuku#bakugou katsuki#bnha analysis#bnha manga#mha manga
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.:Time and Time Again:. (Marauders Era x Reader) Ch 6
You continue the tale of how you, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter became known as The Marauders.
LINKS: CH 1 CH 2 CH 3 CH 4 CH 5 CH 6 CH 7 CH 8
___________________________________________________________
Ch 6 .:The Making of the Marauders:.
~Previously~
“That was when they were first starting to put the map together,” you continued, “but that wasn't even the biggest secret they had. Of course, I wouldn't find out about that for another year. . .”
“So at this point I knew that they were hiding something else, but not what it was,” you told Harry, continuing on with your story, “But one night we had planned to meet up and use the invisibility cloak to map out the underground tunnels that ran through the storage cellars, and they never showed up. So I snuck into the Gryffindor common room through the secret passage and found their dorm completely empty. But what was there was our work in progress map. . .”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1975 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“This isn't going to work,” Peter said flatly, watching James and Sirius draw a large circle in chalk on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.
“Not with that attitude it's not,” James said, “if there's a way we can speed up this process I'm willing to give it a go. I don't know how long I can go on with this bloody leaf in my mouth.”
“Is this even real?” Peter sighed, “it looks like what muggles think magic is.”
“It's real all right,” Sirius said, “old, but real. I mean, Transfiguration was founded on the principles of magic circles! I'm not really sure what these runes on the side mean, but it's probably not important.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Peter retorted, “Remus, back me up here.”
He turned towards Lupin, but he had long since dozed off, arms crossed as he leaned against one of the nearly decaying walls in the corner. Peter sighed, taking a piece of paper from the ground and crumpling it into a ball before promptly throwing it in the sleeping boy's face. Lupin jolted awake, realizing what had happened and chucking the paper back at Peter in annoyance.
“Not a moment of peace,” he huffed under his breath.
“Sounds awfully boring,” James said over his shoulder.
“Blimey, what time is it?” Remus said, panicked as he noticed the light had completely gone from the sky, “It's long past sundown.”
“So?” Sirius shrugged.
“So, we told (Y/n) we'd meet them to work on the map at dusk,” Remus said, “They're probably looking for us right now!”
“Oh, they are,” you announced your presence, an unimpressed look on your face as they jumped, whipping around to look at you.
“(Y-Y/n)!” Sirius stuttered, “how did you—”
You held up the map, raising a brow at the four guilty looking boys.
“Right. . .”
“You snuck into our rooms?!” James said incredulously as he saw the map, which he was sure he had left on his bedside table, in your hands.
“You've snuck into my shower before, Potter,” you glared lightly at him.
“Point taken.”
“Okay, look, I'm sorry we didn't show tonight, and I know we've been acting weird,” Sirius sighed, “the truth is—”
“Lupin's a werewolf.”
The color drained from Remus' face, slightly mortified that you already knew.
“Come on, guys,” you said, “the claw marks and you lot disappearing whenever there's a full moon kind of gave it away. You aren't exactly subtle about it.”
You could sense the intense nervousness in the room, especially from Remus. Ok, so maybe coming right out with it wasn't the best course of action.
“Look,” you said, “if you're worried about anyone else finding out, they won't. I mean, the only reason I even knew you were here is because I'm literally helping you make a magical map that details all the secret passages and shows where everyone is. I won't tell anyone, I swear.”
They still seemed a little unsure, and you bit the inside of your lip slightly.
“If it'll make us even, I'll let you know a secret of my own,” you said, “it can even be future blackmail me if you really don't trust me.”
“No, it's not that, (Y/n),” Remus said as he stepped forward, his throat feeling dry, “it's just, well, I've never really told anyone except the people in this room. Having someone else know. . . it's just a lot to process, but if had to be anyone I'm glad it's you.” He paused for a moment, feeling oddly self-conscious as he regarded you. “When I turn into a werewolf I can't recognize any human as someone I know. I have no control over myself in that state. In the worst case scenario, I could injure or even kill someone I didn't mean to. We originally started taking note of the secret passages and rooms to find a place where I could turn safely and not hurt anyone, and we settled on here. I don't remember much when I come out of it, but. . . I do feel this painful sense of separation each time. Werewolves are pack creatures by nature, so being isolated in that state is. . . agony, if I must be honest. They all figured, I can't recognize humans, but perhaps I could recognize other animals, so. . .”
“They're trying to become animagi,” you finished, “so you won't have to be alone. That's. . . that's actually really sweet,” you said, a breathy laugh escaping you.
Remus thanked Merlin the Shrieking Shack was as dimly lit as it was so his beet red face was at least somewhat less noticeable.
“I agree,” Remus said, turning to his friends and sharing a rare, genuine moment with them. “And, you don't have to tell us your secret,” he said, turning back to you, “it's okay.”
“Hey, I wanted to know,” Sirius said, Peter swiftly elbowing him in the ribs.
“I was actually planning on telling you anyways,” you said, “If you guys are trying to become animagi, I can help you.”
You took a few steps back, bracing yourself against the wall.
“Promise me you won't freak out.”
After receiving a few quick nods, you kicked off the wall. Your body seemed to morph in mid-air, shrinking and re-configuring so fast that by the time you landed on the floor you had been entirely replaced by a large, (e/c)-eyed wolf with fur reminiscent of your hair.
Peter yelped, instinctively putting Sirius in front of him who was gawking at the sight. Remus was in complete shock and you could have sworn you saw James' glasses slip down his face.
In your animal form your heightened senses could sense their fear, and you tried your best to assuage it. You padded around in a circle, sitting down and blinking up at them to try and show them you were in control of your actions. After you figured they'd seen enough, you crawled back into your robes, which had pooled on the floor when you'd transfigured, and willed your body to turn back.
James, Sirius, and Peter looked somewhere in the intersection of shocked and terrified, but Remus looked nothing less than impressed.
“That's amazing, (Y/n),” he said breathlessly, “your transformation was seamless, how long have you had this ability?”
“My aunt had me go through the process when I was nine,” you said, a bitter edge to your voice as you fastened your clothes back around you, “it's not fun, but obviously useful. And thank you, but trust me, it didn't come at all naturally to me. I spent a good part of my winter break stuck with a wolf's hind legs, which is just as inconvenient as it sounds.”
“But this proves that it's possible!” James said, a new rush of energy invigorating him, “we can actually pull this off.”
“If I can manage to keep this sodding leaf from choking me every ten minutes,” Peter grumbled.
“Here, this should help with that,” you said, drawing your wand and pointing it at Peter's mouth. With a simple sticking charm, he suddenly felt the odd sensation of the leaf in his mouth disappearing, only to find it had melded with the flesh on the underside of his tongue.
“It's a long process, but yes, it's possible,” you said to James. Your eyes drifted to the floor where the magic circle and pages of runes were still scattered about, “if you were thinking of taking shortcuts, you might have wanted to read the warning about this spell requiring a blood sacrifice.”
The quartet paled and you laughed at their dumbstruck expressions.
“Kidding,” you grinned, “but seriously, there's no shortcuts. Now look alive, boys. We have a lot of work to do.”
_________________________________________________________
From then on, you helped the four wizards along on their quest to become fully fledged shifters.
“In order to become an animagus, a wizard must keep a Mandrake leaf in their mouth for an entire month, even when eating and sleeping,” Peter read aloud from the book they'd snatched from the restricted section, “Next, under a full moon, the wizard must place the leaf in a vial full of dew that has neither been stepped on nor exposed to the sun. The resulting potion must be stored in a dark place, and the following incantation: Amato Animo Animato Animagus, must be recited every morning until an electrical storm arrives, at which point the potion can be taken.”
“Blimey, all that to turn into a bloody cat?” Sirius said, exasperated.
“Well we have the first part almost done,” James said, feeling the faintest outline of the leaf still under his tongue, “Next full moon we'll have to go dew-hunting, I suppose. Looks like you'll have to stick it out for a few more cycles, Moony,” he said to Remus.
“That's alright,” he said, “I've made it this far.”
“He won't be alone for those,” you said, “I'll spend the full moons with him until you guys are ready.”
“What?” James said, looking at you like you'd just told him you were off to join Voldemort, “not a chance, that's way too dangerous.”
“Aw, don't act like you're all concerned about me all of a sudden, Potter,” you smirked. When his expression didn't change it took you aback slightly. He was actually worried about you. “Look, I'm probably the best suited for it anyways,” you said, coughing a bit to coast through the awkward tension, “Remus and I are both wolves, or at least partly. If one of you end up turning into a sheep or something you might be dead meat, not to freak you out or anything.”
“That's reassuring,” Sirius said under his breath.
____________________________________________________________
“You really don't have to do this,” Lupin insisted as you sat on the floor together in the Shrieking Shack later that month.
“I want to,” you assured him, “take it as a thanks for helping me pass Arithmancy. Besides, it's a perfectly fine excuse for me to practice interacting with other animals in my animagus form.”
The boy beside you was quiet for a moment, shoulders tense and jaw set tight. It wasn't that he wasn't happy you were here, he was more grateful than you could know, but he was terrified that he was going to end up hurting you. On top of that was the fact that he didn't want you to see him as he transformed. It wasn't pretty, and it was visibly painful. He didn't want you to think any lower of him, though he knew that fear was irrational.
The calming jazz record that spun on the other side of the room was the only noise between you two for quite some time, but you understood that he needed time to gather his thoughts. This was something so deeply personal you were surprised and a bit honored he allowed you to be here at all. You noticed the photograph that he held in his hands; it was of Hogwarts, taken from the very edge of the forest. The sun was peeking over the horizon, spilling out between the complexly constructed towers that made up the castle's exterior, and casting a warm, golden hue over the landscape.
“It's beautiful,” you said, “the picture.”
“It is,” Remus smiled to himself and nodded, “James gave it to me, as a reminder. He said that matter what happens during the full moon, the sun will always rise on us again.”
“Huh,” you mused softly, “perhaps he isn't such an insufferable jerk after all.”
“Oh, no, he is,” Lupin chuckled, “but he is also a very good friend, and endlessly thoughtful even if he denies it.”
You let that sink in for a moment. You supposed he was.
“Well,” you said, laughing a bit as you shifted in your seat, “this isn't as deep and meaningful as the photo, but I brought something for you.” You reached into your bag, retrieving something that made Remus' eyes widen.
“Where did you get that?” he said, elated as you held out his favorite chocolate bar which had been out of stock at Hogsmeade for weeks now.
“You guys have a secret tunnel that goes right to the Honeydukes cellar and you've never taken advantage of their storage?” you grinned.
Lupin hesitated as he held the bar in his hands.
“So you stole it?”
“I left five dracma in the tip jar,” you rolled your eyes, “I'm not a death eater.”
His smiled returned at that, and he ripped open the familiar foil gratefully.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“It's the least I could do,” you said.
“It's really not,” he said, turning to face you fully. You were left a bit breathless as the unexpected intensity of his eyes. “None of this is the least you could do, because the least you could do is nothing,” he continued, rambling, “we were so horrible to someone you consider a dear friend, and you were willing to look past that. You're risking your life by even being with me right now, (Y/n).”
“You don't—”
“I do know that,” Remus said sharply, “I've never been in contact with anyone as a werewolf. The one time I was, I. . .” he trailed off, and it hurt you to see his pained expression, “I just don't know how I'll react.”
“You're saying that as if something bad's already happened,” you said gently, “it'll be okay.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked quietly, equally full of frustration and admiration.
“I'm willing to put my trust in you, Remus. I think it's time you put some trust in yourself.”
Lupin's heart pounded a little harder in his chest. Had you ever called him by his first name before? You looked at him so reassuringly, so confidently. He couldn't understand it, but your words reached him to his core.
“(Y/n). . .” he trailed off, blinking rapidly. A shaky breath escaped him, and your stomach dropped.
“Remus?”
Suddenly you saw something shift in him. His breathing became heavy and his pupils dilated, completely filling his irises in a matter of seconds. He braced himself against the wall as he stumbled to his feet, his skin slowly taking on a gray hue.
“It's happening,” he said, voice deeper and strained, his neck convulsing, “you have to transform, now!”
You didn't waste any time, taking the shape of your wolf form and padding away a cautionary distance. Your stomach churned as you watched Remus yell out, his expression full of pain as his body grew in size, his cries slowly becoming reminiscent of howls. His face contorted in agony as his head morphed into a more animalistic shape, ears growing from his scalp and fur appearing as if his werewolf was fully formed inside him, physically escaping through his skin. You've seen werewolves before, but seeing someone you know actually turn into one, it was completely different. Nothing could have prepared you for this. Seeing anyone in this much pain made your chest tighten harshly.
At last it seemed the transformation was complete. Remus Lupin was gone, and in front of you stood a creature of at least eight feet, perched on his hind legs and towering over you especially in your animal form. You could hear how ragged his breathing had become, his body convulsing with the motion; growing and retracting like a beating heart. You heard a whimper escape his throat, and you could tell he was still recovering from the pain.
You steeled yourself, making the decision to alert him to your presence subtly. You tilted your head upwards, releasing a similar sounding whimper to his. Immediately the werewolf across from you was on high alert, his head snapping towards you and his lips pulling back into a snarl as his ears lowered. You took an instinctive step back, lowering your head slowly. He seemed puzzled by your behavior, which made sense seeing as Lupin told you he never interacted with any other animals during the full moon. His head tilted inquisitively and he took a heavy step forward. You forced yourself to not back away, testing the waters. His eyes narrowed again as he saw you standing your ground, but you quickly sat down, your head tilting to expose your neck slightly. You made doubly sure not to show any signs of aggression; you knew you had no chance against a werewolf at full strength.
However, he seemed to take your queues well. His tail seemed to relax a bit, his eyes returning to their full, round shape as he looked at you with curiosity. You sniffed up at him and he hesitated, but eventually circled around you and did the same. You could almost see the turmoil in him, as a werewolf you doubted anyone he came across treated him with anything less than terror in their eyes, but you were completely relaxed.
He whimpered again, and you were shocked at the sign of submission. You rose to your feet, and he didn't back away. You let out a friendly yip, which he returned, and you felt the weight lift off your chest. You leaped to the side, and he followed you, running alongside you as you bounded across the room, practically leaping off the walls. You jumped at each other playfully, rolling across the floor in a mess of fur. You smiled inwardly as this continued throughout the night, no longer seeing fear or pain or aggression in his eyes when you looked into them. Even if he wouldn't remember most of this, you hoped he would at least feel better in the morning than all the times he had to go through it alone.
Exhausted from all the playing around, you padded softly back to your robes, crawling inside yours and and gesturing over to him with your head. He followed you, coming down to all fours before laying beside you. You weren't sure when sleep came over you, but it was like the world's most comfortable blanket had been thrown over your shoulders, and your eyes drifted closed of their own volition. . .
“Merlin's beard, just what were you two doing last night?!”
You and Remus both jolted awake at the sound of James Potter's aggravatingly loud voice but quickly came to your senses. Remus' arms were wrapped around you, your back facing him. You were just barely covered by your robes with nothing underneath as a result of your transformation. As you scrambled to get decent your face heated even more as you saw Remus was currently without a shirt, his pants ripped considerably. You scrambled away from each other, trying to make yourselves decent.
Peter was howling with laughter, James looking smug as ever. Sirius was oddly quiet, but you were too wrapped up in the embarrassment to notice his behavior.
“What was that about being 'endlessly thoughtful'?” you grumbled to Remus.
“Right, I completely take back what I said,” he scoffed, “ 'insufferable jerk' is much more accurate.”
“Close your eyes, you perverted git!” you yelled at James, who was blatantly staring at you, “toss me my clothes at least, would you?”
James bit back a smirk as he grabbed your bag that was sitting in the corner of the room— clothes you had brought with the intention of changing into after returning to your human form when Lupin fell asleep. He tossed it over to you and you began to change under your robes. As his back was turned to you his mind began to wander. You'd always been attractive, sure, but since you'd always been his rival he hadn't really given you a second thought, especially when he'd been trying to get Lily's attention for ages. But just now, thinking about how downright adorable you looked when you'd yelled at him, something in him shifted. He shook it off quickly, turning to Lupin with a grin he'd managed to put on concernedly fast.
“You cheeky bastard,” he said to Remus, who was furiously changing into a new shirt, “you just wanted her alone, didn't you? Do you really need us to become animagi after all?”
“You're the worst, Potter,” the werewolf glared at him.
“Don't listen to him, Remus,” you grumbled, straightening out your tie as you slipped it on over your shirt, “he's an even bigger idiot than he looks.”
“Are you implying I look stupid?”
“Implying may not be a strong enough word.”
__________________________________________________________
It had taken months of brewing the potion and getting all the necessary preparations in order, but they were finally ready. Remus sat with you in the grass, wand at the ready to undo any untoward transfiguration that happened on accident. Peter, Sirius, and James stood across from you, standing at the edge of a stone ledge about five feet off the ground. You'd said that a leap of faith is what would best trigger their first transformation. They looked nervous, but they were prepared as they'd ever be. Over the last year you had grown considerably closer to the four boys you had miraculously come to know as friends.
“Remember, focus on your emotions,” you said, “you need to pick a strong one, let it fill your body and flow through you. If you block the magic off from any part of your body, it's not going to be pretty.”
“Right, but how do I—”
“James, I swear, I'm really rooting for you to be a mute animal.”
“But how do you choose-”
“Just do it already!”
“Oh, sod it,” James squeezed his eyes shut, not giving himself time to second guess before jumping off the ledge. For a moment he was certain he was about to land face first in the dirt, but then it happened— a moment where time seemed to freeze and his body felt completely weightless. He felt this sensation where his arms and legs vibrated with an intense, foreign energy. Images flashed through his mind in that brief moment in the air; Sirius manically laughing as they ran away from Filch, Remus snapping off a piece of chocolate to offer him after he'd lost Gryffindor a Quidditch match, and, unexpectedly, you. A feeling of warmth spread through his chest, and he grasped onto it, letting it flow through his body like you said. In an instant he felt torso shift, his shoulders narrow, his neck elongate; and when he landed on the ground he still landed face-first as he predicted, but in a completely different form.
He could see you and Lupin in front of him, mouths agape. He was about to say something when he found his vocal chords only allowed him a gruff whine. Shocked, he lifted his head, which felt much heavier than he'd last recalled, and as he looked down at himself he was taken aback to be met with a pair of hooves right beneath him. He staggered to his feet on wobbly legs, of which he now had four. As he tilted his head he could see the shadow of a pair of antlers twisting into brilliant shadows on the grass.
“Potter, you did it!” you exclaimed, “you actually did it!”
“Well how about that,” Remus chuckled, “a stag.”
“It fits him, I think,” you grinned, looking over at Sirius and Peter who looked determined and terrified respectively. “Well go on, it's your turn now!”
Sirius braced himself for the jump, but somehow he found no fear in his system. After seeing James shift in the air right before his eyes, he knew he could do it. He looked over at Peter who was nearly shaking.
“Come on, Peter,” he said, “we'll go together.”
“I-I don't know about this, Sirius,” Peter said, “I'm not ready, I don't think I can do this.”
“It's just a little jump,” Sirius said encouragingly, “you can do this.”
After a few nerve wracking deep breaths Peter gave him the smallest nod one could manage.
“We'll go on three,” Sirius said, “Ready? One—”
“AaHH!”
Sirius shoved Peter off the ledge, knowing he wouldn't jump on his own, before taking the plunge himself. Peter's screams became higher and higher pitched as he shrank at an alarming speed, almost an undetectable size by the time he hit the grass. A small brown rat scurried across the field towards you and Lupin.
The stag in front of you made a sound, dragging his hooves across the grass in what you could imagine as James' unadulterated laughter at his friend.
Sirius began to morph almost as soon as he left the ground, something you were surprised by. He landed on his hind legs, landing gracefully as his front two followed, and a shaggy black dog looked back at you with mischief in its eyes.
You couldn't help but go over and pet him. You laughed as he nudged you with his nose, a resistance that was quickly halted as soon as you started scratching him behind the ears.
“I have to say, I didn't think you would actually manage that on your first try,” you said, secretly prouder than they could have known, “but if anyone could have done it, it's you three stubborn goons.”
James huffed as he saw you continue to pet Sirius, using his antlers to prod the dog out of the way. Sirius barked, lunging at him playfully. It was quite a scene to see the two interact.
“Honestly, this is a pretty solid group,” you said, “you've got James who blends perfectly with the surrounding wildlife so he wouldn't be suspicions, Sirius who could probably do a fair bit of damage as a dog if he needed, and Peter who can fit through small spaces and snoop around the castle virtually undetected.”
“Quite an odd pack,” Remus chuckled.
“Definitely,” you agreed, “but a pack nonetheless.”
And that very week, Remus Lupin was able to spend his first night as a werewolf with his four friends by his side.
__________________________________________________________
“So, how did we choose which animals we turn into?” James had asked you the next day at breakfast, “I specifically tried for a dragon.”
“You don't get to choose,” you rolled your eyes, “You're a stag, that's the end of it. It's pretty much up to chance.”
“I'm sorry, you're telling me I could have turned into a fish and died right there on the ground?!”
“If only,” you sighed dreamily, earning you a playful shove from James. “Alright, it's not completely random, but you're definitely in the unknown the first time you turn,” you went on to explain, “and once you turn for the first time, that's it. That's your animal. A wizard takes on the animagus form of whatever animal most closely resembles their personality. So, a horny bastard for James, a loyal little puppy for Sirius—”
“A bitch for you,” Sirius quipped.
“Never heard that one before,” you scoffed, purposefully messing up his hair.
“Hey, watch it!” he shoved you off him, twisting each of his curls back into form.
“Well, look who's a high maintenance pup,” you chuckled.
Around the same time that year, you finally completed the map. It came together beautifully, each different way of folding the paper revealing a different level of the castle for easy navigation. You'd included the surrounding forests as well as the parts of Hogsmeade that applied for the secret passageways, all of which were marked with symbols and the unique names you'd all come up with. Every student and staff member at Hogwarts had a tiny scroll with their name that appeared in their location. Remus had added the nice detail of including footprints at the last second, so you could see which way they were facing and walking as well. It was fireproof, rip proof, and prone to insulting anyone else who tried to read it. It was the pinnacle of your magical (and slightly illegal) achievement.
“We should write our names on it,” James said, looking down proudly at the finished map, “it belongs to us, after all. We don't want anyone else taking the credit.”
“Yeah, fantastic way to get caught,” Sirius rolled his eyes, “what if Filch comes across it? That's like leaving your signature at a murder scene.”
“You should use code names, then,” you suggested, “I know you guys call Remus 'Moony' as a joke, but I kind of like it.”
The scarred boy blushed lightly at the compliment, a brow raised to his other three friends.
“Alright then, I guess you should all say hi to Rudolph over here,” Sirius said, jutting his thumb in James' direction. The bespectacled boy narrowed his eyes before shooting back.
“Right! And this is my good friend, Snuffles.”
Sirius lunged at him and James swatted him away in laughter.
“Come on, you two,” Remus said, “or we won't put anything down for you at all.”
“I've got an idea for Peter,” you piped in, “When my mom used to garden she said she didn't mind having rats there because their tails resembled worms, which were an old a sign of healthy soil, I know it's odd, but I think Wormtail sounds pretty cool.”
Peter seemed to perk up at your acknowledgment and nodded. It suited him somehow.
“Should we pick animal features too, then?” James mused, “I guess Antlers doesn't really sound that cool. What's another word? Horns? Give me some analogies, guys. What else do they look like?”
“Yours honestly kind of look like a couple of bent forks,” you snickered.
“Prongs?” Sirius snorted, the laughter that followed nearly splitting his sides.
“Oh, go on, what have you got then?” James scoffed.
“I was thinking Padfoot,” Sirius said, “like a dog's paw prints.”
“You know, for someone who was just making fun of code names a second ago you sure have given a lot of thought to yours,” you teased.
“Shove it,” he smirked, “What about you? Can't very well have a second Moony.”
You stared at him in momentary disbelief.
“Me?”
“Well, yeah,” Sirius chuckled.
“We couldn't have done any of this without you,” Remus reminded you with a smile.
“I think you've more than earned an honorary title as one of us,” James said.
“That is, if you want to,” Peter said timidly.
You looked at the four of them, genuinely touched.
“I. . . I don't know what to say,” you smiled.
“You could say 'yes',” James piped up.
“Alright, you loons,” you laughed, “if you leave Severus alone for good, then yes.”
“Hey, I think we've been pretty good about that lately,” James pouted.
“Yes you have,” you admitted, “It's the only reason I bothered to give you the time of day, but this time it's a promise.”
James rolled his eyes, but the smile on his face was undeniable. He'd never admit it out loud, but being friends with you was more fun than messing with Snape ever was.
“Alright, fine. (Y/n) (L/n), I solemnly swear that I will leave tormenting our dear old friend Snivelus behind us forever,” he said dramatically, putting a hand up at his pledge.
“Oh, bother,” you laughed, “the only thing you'll 'solemnly swear' to is that you're up to no good.”
“I'll take that as a compliment.”
“Then that's settled,” Remus smiled, “you'll need a code name too.”
“Let's see,” Sirius hummed in thought, “What other defining features do wolves have besides. . . well, their. . . fangs?”
“They're canines, you numbnut,” you huffed.
“Close enough, I'm writing Fangs.”
“Oi, I didn't agree to that!”
“Too bad, I'm already writing it~”
“Okay, well if that's the stupid name I'm getting saddled with them I'm going to write it myself,” you said stubbornly. You actually didn't mind the name at all.
“Well that's it, then,” James said, “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs, and Fangs. We could join the bloody circus.”
“All we need is a group name,” you said, half joking.
“We've already got one,” James said proudly.
“Oh? Let's hear it, then.”
“The Marauders.”
“. . .”
You kept your face straight for exactly three seconds before you burst out laughing. The four boys flushed with embarrassment.
“The Marauders?” you chortled, “what are you, pirates?”
“It's what McGonnagall called us the first time we got ourselves into proper trouble,” James defended himself, his cheeks reddening, “You rowdy mob of marauders, she'd said.”
“Huh,” you chuckled, coming down from your laughing fit, “Well, then I suppose that would make this The Marauders Map. I'll admit, it actually kinda has a ring to it.”
And despite your group's joking quips and bickering, they couldn't agree more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Wait,” Harry said, eyes wide at your story, “So, my dad was an animagus too?”
“Sure was,” you smiled warmly.
“This whole time I thought 'Prongs' was just because his patronus was a stag.”
“Your animagus form is usually the same animal as your patronus,” you explained, “In some very rare cases they can be different, but they work in the same emotionally driven vein of magical ability, so it would make sense that they'd be linked. Your father was extraordinary at both, because as much as he would deny it, he felt everything very deeply.”
Your eyes drifted to the wall opposite you in the living room, and a small but sad smile graced your features.
“Love is often the most powerful emotion a witch or wizard can draw from,” you said softly, “but you already know that.”
Harry followed your gaze over his shoulder. There, posted on the wall among a collage of photographs from the Order was a picture of his mother and father. It was one he'd seen a hundred times, and one he had his own copy of: them in each others' arms in a London park, autumn leaves swirling around them as they danced without any music. Even from this distance he could see the emotion in their eyes as they looked at one another— like they were the only two people in the world.
“Yeah,” Harry said, wiping a stray tear from his eyes, “I do.”
Read chapter 7 here!
Taglist: @sleep-i-ness, @blackpinkdolan, @parker-natasha, @ornella0910 @undertaker1827 @thatwierdo-koemi @nxstalgicnxbxdy @calaryssia @aleksanderwh0r3 @juggysgirlfriend @beautifulsweetschaos @kattirin @mialupin1
#Harry Potter#the marauders#harry potter x reader#marauders x reader#severus snape x reader#sirius black x reader#remus lupin x reader#regulus black x reader#james potter x reader#marauders#marauders era#marauders fanfiction#sirius black#remus lupin#regulus black#james potter#severus snape#snape x reader#snape x y/n#harry potter fanfiction#reader insert#harry potter reader insert#maraduers reader insert#marauders x you#marauders x y/n#snape x you#multi chapter#love triangle#remus lupin x you
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Beautifully reckless - Dean Winchester x Reader
Title: Beautifully reckless
Pairing: Michael!Dean Winchester x Reader
Warnings: None
Prompt: lately i just felt like reading a michael!dean fic, and since you're an amazing writer, I'd love to see you write a one shot/imagine with him. so here you go, reader is sam's and dean's friend who is a psychic, and after michael possesses dean, he starts feeling something for her that he never felt before? just some soft michael!dean, please? i love ur fics, they are truly unique and awesome to read
“Took you long enough, you bastard.”
The voice tone, to some extent, took Michael by surprise, to the point he jumped on the spot. Though he would never admit to that. He was used to respect, well, fear actually and he was used to hearing calculated and careful words. It wasn't like he had not been called that many more times before, but that was mostly in his face, and not behind his back (literally) and in such a tone. Not when everyone around him knew better than to push their luck. The fact that he really wasn't still around the people who used to tremble in fear when he was facing them, or not actually, and that he, Michael himself, wasn't entirely the same person as when he was in the Apocalypse world.
“I- Excuse me?” he couldn't stop the words from leaving his lips before he stopped in his steps and turned around to face the source of the voice that was so bold.
Within barely the span of a minute, he found himself being stunned twice... or maybe thrice, but there was barely any time to duel on that. Not in those first few seconds. Not when the sudden giddiness overwhelmed him and his breath came out shakily, as if somebody had just knocked it out of him. What was it that had just happened to him made him frown but his attention was instantly back on you.
The smile on the face of the person standing before him was not a surprise on it's own, seeing how much the sparkling and warm eyes told him that smiling was not a rare occurrence, but rather the fact that he had not expected such a friendly and caring, if the words were even enough to explain it, smile on your face after the way the words had sounded. Or perhaps it had indeed been all him and there had not been a real threat behind those words. He, after all, still kept forgetting that things had changed drastically.
“Let me guess-” the smile turned into a smirk, the teasing kind, the friendly and familiar kind of teasing he had truthfully never been on the receiving end and that sent him off balance “This is payback for those three weeks I stood you up in a row huh? Fair enough, fair enough. You had the right to not show up today either so I suppose I should be grateful you're here. And we're perfectly timed too.”
“Perfectly timed?” he repeated “I actually-” but before he could get to complete his sentence, he felt a pair of arms wrapping around him in what could clearly and very easily be described as a quick hug. It wasn't the long, tight and longing one he might have expected, probably because it hadn't been long since you had last been in touch, however that was not what he really dueled on at that moment. Not something he could duel on that is, not when he had to stop himself from returning the hug himself.
It was an impulse which he could again easily recognize, and even more easily blame on you. Because you had to be the one to blame, there was no other explanation. There was no other way to describe the way his body had just straight up frozen, not in shock but rather eager no less than a puppy (he could never admit to that) to turn to face you, eager to close the distance and eager to take everything in, whether it be by just getting to look at you or by, hopefully (why really?), getting to have you melt in his arms. Though shockingly enough he found himself doing the latter, feelings his muscles relax and a soft breath leave his lips when you were wrapped around him. It was strange, in a frightening way, and he had to push back all those feelings despite how he realized that it was easier to breathe with you there, without any weight resting on his chest. It was you who was responsible, that was easy to understand. What wasn't easy was the why. Why all of a sudden he felt this way with you?
“Gosh, Winchester-” ah yes, how did he not realize it? He was indeed the reason why and Michael hadn't even given his vessel a second thought, not until your eyes locked with his and his heart skipped a beat or two “I'll be able to see an angel's true form before you ever get rid of the green plaid huh?”
“I-” he looked down at himself, well aware that he hadn't had the chance to change Dean's clothes just yet “Funny enough, it was exactly what I had in mind too. Was actually planning on it.”
“Oh finally ready to dress to impress? Hm I wonder how I will be able to spot you next in the crowd. Was lucky this time I suppose.” you pulled away, playful smile ever present.
His eyes narrowed slightly in a way that must have scared his enemies in the past but that held no real threat this time, and maybe that was the most scary part: that he didn't meant it to be, especially to you “And... what makes you think I was actually heading this way?”
“Oh I see.” you placed your hand on your hips, nodding your head with a growing smirk “Feeling bold today. We haven't seen each other in quiet some time and here you come, ready to take me by surprise. I must warn you, though you already know, so I better say remind you-” you took a step closer to him and although he didn't let it show on his face, well, on Dean's face (or so he hoped) that didn't mean he didn't feel the flutter in his chest and the sudden weakness of his knees “You-” you poked his chest with your pointer and he could swear he felt the skin of his vessel start burning there, as if a fire was there that was only spreading “Would find it hard to surprise me, Dean. Not many people can, it's a tough challenge.”
“Well, you might have just done it there. It's time you finally found the right person because I was never one to say no to a challenge.” he felt his own lips form into a smirk, even though he was unable to believe how much he enjoyed seeing the sparkle of excitement in your eyes. Soon followed by the very familiar playfulness he could grow used to. And why shouldn't he? He had his sword, his perfect vessel, and nobody could take that away. He was in full control over Deans body and you clearly had not realized any difference, because apparently for what it mattered, maybe he was a lot like Dean after all- or at least could be, and that was more than enough.
“Bold of you to assume-” you pulled away and he had to stop himself- his vessel from taking a step forward to still be close with you “That it's a game with only one player. Let's see just how easily surprise you can be, Winchester. Feels like after years of friendship I might still be able to learn something new about you.”
“Then it would only be right to warn you I am not that easily taken by su-”
His words would have certainly held more value and determination, if not a chance at convincing you, if his voice had not wavered and, halfway through the sentence, they hadn't been cut off by a far-from-manly yelp that broke through his lips.
Well, if that wasn't a first. Again.
“Yeah, I get it. I get it. You macho man.” you scoffed, but the smirk on your lips was so playful that it almost made him forget what had just happened. Almost. Or maybe just for the moment, because he was sure he had a lot of thinking to do afterwards and maybe a much-needed conversation with his vessel about it.
“I- I didn't-” he blinked, more stunned with himself for reacting this way than anything else.
“'S alright-” you grinned at him in the end “Just, enough talking. Come on, this is no place for that kind of stuff.” you giggled and he got the impression that this wasn't a first for you, so really he ought to be prepared to be surprised in more ways than he could ever imagine.
“Wha- what a-are you-” it was so unlike him but everything about this situation was unlike anything he'd experienced before, he didn't really know what he should consider a normal reaction at this point.
“Wha- what?” you teased, mimicking him “Cat got your tongue, Winchester? Come on, move your pretty ass before they give our table away if we keep talking here.”
And just because he was such a fool for you already, or perhaps out of some inexplicable fear that your table would indeed be given away and you would have to part ways before he got enough of it, he didn't need to be told twice. He followed after you no better than a lost puppy, even if he'd deny it for the rest of his existence, not paying an ounce of attention as he should to the rest of his surroundings. And so, he didn't know what should alarm him more out of the two. The fact that it was easy to let go and relax so easily around you or the fact that he couldn't bring himself to be too far away from you.
Michael was confused. And whenever he was confused, as with anything in his entire existence ever since he was in heaven, he was intrigued. And whenever he was intrigued, he followed the one that interested him. Admittedly it had been centuries, if not ever before in his life, since the one to interest him in this way had been a person, and no less a woman like you.
“Feels like forever, doesn't it?” you breathed out as you both settled into your seats “I shouldn't tell you this but gosh... You're making me so sentimental and weak, Winchester, I'll have to change that somehow. But I have no idea how you do it in the first place, so...” you huffed with, narrowing your eyes at him.
“Good to know.” the easy smile on his lips felt both like his own and not “So I have to keep it up then.” and when he realized he too too much pleasure in your being playful with him, rolling your eyes, he didn't feel like questioning whose pleasure it was.
Your lips parted, and truth was he would have loved nothing more than to hear you tease him again, but he was also thankful for the interruption from the waitress and the moment of silence that followed afterwards, because at least then he had some time to gather his own thoughts, replay any moments that should have struck more than how beautiful your smile was or the way you looked at him.
Well, not him, Dean. But maybe-
“You said...” he started just as you'd given your orders, though he had barely cared about that when the thought crossed his mind “See an angel's true form?”
“Wha- Oh that.” you laughed, shaking your head “I'm not even close to that yet, I'm afraid. Not as much as I'd like but that's only because you're to blame, Winchester. I'm being as careful as I can so as expected things are going slow.”
“You've been... trying?” the confusion, if not the worry, was evident on his face much as he tried to hide it.
“If you say one more time that us psychics are too curious for our own good then I will kick you.” you said and proceeded to do just that under the table with your foot, managing to earn a small groan followed by a warm laugh from Dean.
“You said if. But I didn't say a damn thing!” he protested, still laughing and enjoying (far too much) the innocent shrug you gave him.
“Just taking precautions.” you grinned before you paused for a second too long and looked back up at him again with a softer smile, if he could even call it that, because it didn't reach your eyes not the way it should as he had observed the past couple minutes “I just...” you let a soft sigh “I'm sorry. I've- I know I've made you worry far too many times in the past. Scared you even. And well, you're no better sure, but I'm supposed to be the friend who has the functioning brain cells here and I haven't really lived up to that. I know-” another sigh and he was really starting to feel bothered by how much this seemed to stress you out, more than it stressed him out to keep up the act “I know how much you worry you. I really do. So I promise, even if it's hard for me, that I will hold back if I see things getting out of hand and I'm in danger again.”
The words rang in his ears louder than actual sirens ever could.
“Again?” he repeated with a raised eyebrow. He knew he probably looking more accusing than concerned, if not what he felt even more deep down: terrified. And he didn't even know what was more alarming anymore. The way his heart squeezed inside his chest or his palms clenched in order for his body to cope with the fact that his blood had ran cold and the shivers were far too unpleasant.
He didn't like it, he didn't like it one bit and he knew something had to be done about it.
“Figure of speech, I promise. There haven't been any close calls. At least- You know, ever since we last saw each other that is. But that too has been quiet some time. Speaking of which-” the smile returned on your lips and he had almost not realized it was not there until he understood how the uneasiness in his chest was also due to how you looked so distraught “How have things been for you hm? I haven't the slightest idea about what my two idiots have been up to lately. Is Sam alright?”
“Well, he's been... keeping busy, to say the least. Same goes for me. I wouldn't even know where to begin. Think of it as... a multiverse of madness being out there that needs the Winchesters to deal with.” he forced a small smile on his lips but he barely felt it to begin with, even if you were trying to stir the conversation away from any dangerous endeavors you might's recently had. And, truth be told, he couldn't even begin to think of all the times you might've gotten in trouble that weren't because of your own actions. The mere realization of that fact brought another unpleasant shiver down his spine.
“Ah, makes sense. We've been meeting up in this place at least once every week. 'S good though, I suppose, to take a break once in a while.” you gave a soft shrug, resting your chin on your palm and looked at him through your lashes “I am afraid we were both turning into two very sentimental fools, after all. Coming here, in the place we first met, after all these years.” a small laugh escaped your lips but he could hear the nervousness behind it, see how shy you were about it and deep down he loved seeing this side of you as well, if not wonder what else he could possibly do to evoke it “What are we anyway?”
The question did something to him and he soon realized it wasn't really him, but Dean. He couldn't always tell the difference, what with the Winchester being his perfect vessel, but in that moment he could, crystal clear. And once again it piqued his interest.
“Well, I don't know about you but I for one-” he paused to look into your eyes, to try and read some sort of emotion on your eyes that he might miss otherwise “Don't think I mind so much. Hell, I'll take pride in being always a fool for you.”
To see the way your eyes widened and your back straightened in surprise. Surprise that the words were said out loud or that they were said and were straight to the point, he couldn't tell. What he could tell was that you were not used to this and it was a good thing because things were changing and in a way this should too.
“Ah Dean, whatever happened to you these past months?” you looked away from him when you snapped out of the shock you were in, not that the small forced laugh was any indicator but the fact that you still felt stunned if not shy. You shook your head “Have some mercy on my poor heart, will you? Don't say things like that so carelessly.”
“I'm not being careless. If anything... I'm being honest.” and doing an incredible job at not showing how much that scares me but he couldn't really say that out loud and he knew “Besides, you were the one who started it.”
“Well, yes but actually no. This is what we do, Dean, you can't just go and- and be so... open about it. We-” a nervous laugh that he found too adorable for his poor heart's sake, well Dean's actually but it felt all the same at that moment “What was it that Sam called it? Uh yes, we're both too emotionally constipated to function like proper humans.”
“We don't talk about it remember?” you added in almost a whisper voice, making Michael wonder what was really there more than your playful banter and the way his vessel's heart couldn't rest for a minute “Besides, I know you're not as cool about it as you'd like to think. I can see it all over your face, so stop pretending Winchester.” you huffed, leaning back in your seat with your arms crossed over your chest, and he realized maybe he had underestimated you.
“And that is supposed to mean... what exactly?” he couldn't help the edge his voice took, too many years, centuries that felt an eternity, had taken their toll on him.
“Well, many things actually. But what matters most right now is one...” you tilted your head to the side, a soft expression on your face which stunned him momentarily “There's something on your mind.” it was a statement the left no room for debate “Wanna talk about it?”
The mere sincerity and care in your words were too much to believe in this entirely unprecedented event, and so it was no surprise when the words got stuck in his throat and his mind went entirely bank. Despite the lump that was stuck in his throat, despite how hard it was to swallow it over, the words in the very end formed before he could even comprehend it. And they were some of the most honest ones he'd spoke in a long time “Do I?” he questioned, mostly himself without any expectations for an answer “Funny...”
“What's funny about it?” naturally, though, you didn't hold back. It was clear that no matter how well you could read him, no matter how he was an open book to you, you wanted to know more of him. But which him was the real question.
Michael couldn't even remember when it was the last time that someone cared to know about him. Him, and not whoever had granted him access to wear around. Him, and not whatever face he had. Him, and how he felt. Him, and how he he thought. Him, and why he had done everything he did, what had led him to it and how he felt about it. It was a scary thought and feeling. Scary to hope there could be someone that would look past all of those layers, all that the eyes could see, and try to understand him. Scary that he wanted it, even more. Scary that after all this time, at the most tumultuous time and as he was in the right path to his goals, he felt the need for something so deep. Scary that it could lead him away from said path.
Who was even that reckless to try any of it though? Who could so carelessly approach him and-
“Nothing.” the question answered itself “It's just amusing how... strange it sounds to hear someone ask me if I wanna talk about what troubles me, after all this time. But-” he said as fast as he could, the second he saw you frown in worry “We have plenty of time to talk about that and I promise we will. Later. For now-” he grinned, leaning back in his seat “Seeing an angel's true form huh? That's quiet reckless, you know. If not stupid and careless...”
“Yeah, I know, I was just throwing out the idea that I might-”
“But also fun.” he added before you could get to complete your sentence, enjoying the way that after your frown a smile light up your face once he added with a smirk “Want any help with that?”
#supernatural#supernatural imagine#supernatural fanfiction#supernatural one shot#supernatural x reader#dean#dean winchester#dean x reader#dean winchester x reader#dean imagine#dean winchester imagine#dean fanfiction#dean winchester fanfiction#dean one shot#dean winchester one shot#michael!dean#michael!dean imagine#michael!dean x reader
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The Swan
pairing: levi x reader
word count: 2398
themes: musician!reader, v soft levi, just fluff, Levi’s POV
requested by anon
The day Historia was crowned was important to Levi for two reasons. One was that, of course, he felt a surge of pride at one of his cadets rising to her full potential and becoming queen. He had always been slightly concerned about Historia; she was small - even smaller than him - and admittedly, he’d always viewed her as the weakest of them.
The second reason that day was so important to him was a reason he wasn’t quite ready to come to terms with.
That day was the day he’d noticed you. Noticed you fully.
You had always kept to yourself and Levi hadn’t chosen you to be on his squad. He barely had time to keep track of his own squad, let alone remember all the other scouts. Not that there were many scouts left. Still, you’d joined right before this entire mess had happened. Most of those who had been around before knowledge of titans being humans were dwindling off now. Except for you.
But you being a survivor wasn’t what had caught Levi’s attention. In fact, you hadn’t even been the one to catch his attention. Not literally, not physically.
After the coronation, Levi had stepped away, just for a breather and to take a break from socializing. It was exhausting, being around so many people, and being around so much celebration.
He walked down this hall and that one, turning corners and essentially losing himself in a maze. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
And that’s when he heard it. Very soft and faint at first, and growing stronger as he made his way down the empty hallway. Someone was playing notes on a piano, and beautifully so. Levi couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard music like this, where it wasn’t being played by some drunk outside at the markets, or being played in jest on base by slapping pots and pans and bringing out a worn out guitar.
Soldiers didn’t get to hear refined music like this. So, Levi stopped. He stopped walking once he was right outside the door to the room where the music was. He stopped and he listened. It was so...rejuvenating. The exhaustion and stress he felt seeped away just the slightest bit, but it was enough.
Out of curiosity, he leaned in just the slightest bit to peek his head into the room and figure out who was playing the piano like that. To his complete and utter surprise, he knew who you were immediately, even though you looked...different.
There was the you that he had seen in passing at base. The you who saluted him and carried an air of respectfulness. The you who gave respect and followed orders and did what a soldier did.
And then there was this you. The you Levi would have never thought you to be. The you that demanded respect instead of gave it, just from the way you poised yourself over the black and white keys and moved purposefully, eyes closed and face peaceful but concentrated. He barely recognized you and yet he knew exactly who you were.
He shrunk back into the shadows and leaned against the stone wall, his head resting against it as he let himself, for once, relax.
Each time you stopped playing, letting the last notes die out and fade away, Levi felt his heart sink in an unfamiliar way, only to swell in his chest when a new song began playing from your fingertips. He stayed like that all night, slumped against a wall and out of view while you played song after song as the night wore on.
Even though he understood that eventually you had to stop and everyone had to leave, it still pained him when you stopped for good, the dying song accompanied by the scraping of the bench you sat on moving on the wood floors as you shifted to stand up. Levi sighed to himself and let reality creep back into his mind. The stress that had melted away was slowly weighing back on his shoulders, and made him feel heavy again.
He was gone before you left the room.
-
After that, Levi couldn’t stop watching you. It was like you made music with everything you did. He noticed how you’d hum a tune to your horse. He noticed how you even managed to form some sort of gentle melody just tapping your fingers against a table.
You were constantly making music. He heard music whenever he was around you now. It was starting to get ridiculous, because it wasn’t like anything had changed, really. You still greeted him the same way, treated him the same way, acted and performed the same way. You had absolutely no idea that Levi had changed towards you.
He was good at keeping his distance, at masking all of his inner thoughts and feelings. That’s what he was good at. And he was good at convincing himself that his choices were sound. Maybe he’d just been a little drunk that night and your music had moved him because of that. There was nothing different about you. You were just another soldier. He didn’t know you.
But why did it feel like he knew you? Why was he catching himself being more observant? The tune you hummed to your horse never changed. When you’d been put on stable duty, that was when another tune escaped you. He’d only caught it while passing by the stables, but he immediately noticed it was different.
He also noticed how you stopped and listened to the musicians at the markets when you’d all ridden into town for some supplies. He saw the way you eyed the man with the fiddle, your eyes watching the way his hands produced music from it in an almost careless fashion. The music Levi once thought was atrocious was of course still not as good as the music you had brought into his life, these drunken fools were still atrocious in some sense, but now he listened to it differently. It wasn’t that bad. Not when it had you smiling.
-
It drove Levi crazy that you still looked at him the same way when he was bursting at the seams with wanting to tell you his big secret. You looked at him the same, you talked to him the same. All surface level. Levi often caught himself staring at you. And, when he had a few minutes of spare time, he filled those few precious minutes with thoughts of you and what it would be like for you to look at him so serenely, the way you did when you made all that music.
He hoped he wasn’t being too obvious. He had honestly convinced himself that he was the same as always and nobody knew his little secret. It didn’t matter that he was gentler with you, went out of his way sometimes just to say hello to you, made sure you were eating enough and sleeping enough. You didn’t notice, which calmed him down and also made him a little crazy. Although it was better, easier this way, he still hated that he couldn’t tell you what was happening to him. How could he tell you that he was constantly thinking about you, even when he wasn’t supposed to? How could he tell you that those songs you hummed were stuck in his mind? How could he tell you that he loved music now because of you?
There was an irrational part of his brain that screamed at him to tell you, but it was not as strong as his rational parts that told him to never even take the opportunity should it arise.
Levi was sure his rational brain was winning. Until the day he sat down next to you in the mess hall and handed you his bread when he saw you giving half of yours to Sasha.
“Don’t starve yourself,” was all he said, and fought the twitch in his lips when you replied with, “I could say the same to you, Captain.”
He ate quietly beside you, heart thumping wildly in his chest the entire time. He’d never said so many words to you all in one breath.
-
It had taken so much work and, truth be told, he almost didn’t give it to you. Levi felt the rational part of him slowly succumbing to...hope? And he understood why so many people clung to this feeling.
He hoped that if he gave you this gift, you would see. You would be able to understand what he was feeling and thinking and fighting himself about. And maybe, just maybe, you would be flattered. Maybe you would be willing to reciprocate.
But Levi found himself not caring about what the endgame would be as he walked to your room, gift clutched tightly and clumsily in one hand as he knocked on your door. After a moment of waiting, he deflated, wondering where you could be right now. It was evening, after supper, and there was some down time to be had tonight. Could you have gone out, were you with someone els-
Then suddenly, you were there, surprise etched on your face at the sight in front of you. Levi hid his gift behind his back just in time, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever been this nervous. Had he ever been this nervous?
“Captain,” you greeted him, voice trailing off so it sounded more like a question. And then a real question. “Can I help you with something?”
A real conversation. Levi hadn’t really prepared himself for this. Whatever he’d planned on saying was suddenly forgotten and he cursed his now completely irrational brain.
“I got you something,” he managed to say, shifting uncomfortably and no longer able to meet your eyes. He pulled out his gift from behind his back to show you, eyes snapping to your face at the gasp that came from your mouth.
The look in your eyes was enough to make the whole endeavor worth it. But the way you were so gentle with taking it from his hands and examining it closely, it made any regret, any hesitance, leave his body.
You scrunched up your nose and looked at him, violin close to your chest as you almost cradled it.
“Captain, this looks expensive...I can’t accept it. Where did you get it?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he assured you almost instantly, panicked at the thought of you not keeping his gift to you. “Really, nobody wanted the damn thing. I thought you’d like it.”
“How did you know I could play the violin?” you asked him, genuinely curious.
Levi gulped. He hadn’t known for sure, had only guessed based on one encounter, and hoped that you’d at least just like the gift. So, he told the truth as best as he could without incriminating himself.
“I saw you eyeing one of those musicians at the market once, the one that always plays that goddamn fiddle,” Levi explained, voice as stiff as his body. “Figured maybe you knew a thing or two…”
You broke out into a smile then, though it was bashful, and Levi looked away again before his face got too hot and he flushed in a way that gave him away. If you noticed anything amiss, you said nothing.
“Thank you...this is the best gift,” you said earnestly, then paused, voice growing soft as you asked, “Would you like to hear a little something? I haven’t played in years so I can’t promise it’ll be any good. But maybe you could critique me.”
“I’d love to.” The words came out of his mouth before you could even finish what you were saying.
You let him in your room and closed the door behind him, and suddenly, the atmosphere was much more intimate. Levi tugged at his collar, wondering why it was so hot all of a sudden, but kept a polite distance as he settled into a chair by the corner and you surprisingly got comfortable in the middle of your room. Levi didn’t know much about music, but figured it would have been more comfortable to sit down or something.
When you started playing, it was a song he’d never heard before. Hadn’t heard you play it on the piano before, hadn’t heard you hum it or drum it with your fingers before. It was new. And it was beautiful.
This was the song that told him he was in love. How silly was that?
But he listened, enraptured by the way you put your heart into every note. He took note of how your eyes closed in that way that was somehow familiar to him now and how your brows furrowed slightly in concentration. But you still managed to look so serene.
He never took your eyes off you. Levi watched you play out the entire song, feeling his heart move with the strings. You played his heart like you played the violin, in the most purposeful and melodic way. It was pure music.
Even when you stopped playing and got a little shy, the confidence in the musician version of yourself slipping away, Levi didn’t look away. He was in awe and didn’t care if it showed on his face.
“You’re not rusty,” he promised you. “You’re incredible.” He meant it in more than one way.
He wouldn’t have been able to know the way your heart swelled at the sweet words of praise.
“Thank you,” you whispered.
He stood up slowly, not wanting to invade your privacy any longer, but stopped at your door and turned to look at you, that damned nervousness seeping back into his veins.
“Do you think...do you think I could hear you play more often?” he asked you, the words forcing themselves out before he could catch them. But who was he kidding? He didn’t want to stop himself from asking.
He didn’t fail to notice the way you brightened at his question. He was relieved at the eager nod.
“Anytime,” you replied. Then you held up the violin; you held it so gracefully, and knew exactly how to handle it. Levi warmed at the sight. “And thanks again for this gift...I love it, Captain.”
“Levi. Just Levi,” he corrected you. And you gave him a grin.
“I love it...Levi.”
It was music to his ears.
#levi x reader#levi ackerman x reader#levi ackerman x you#levi ackerman oneshot#levi one shot#levi fanfiction#levi fluff#levi fic#levi ackerman fic#levi ackerman fanfiction#levi ackerman#levi#aot fanfiction#aot oneshots#aot#snk fanfiction#snk
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delicate -- Hotch x Reader one-shot
Here’s that one-shot I’ve been holding for a while! Named her delicate after Taylor Swift’s song, purely because of the whole “dive bar on the east side/where you at?” imagery. I listened to the Spotify Singles (acoustic) version of the song while writing this, if you wanna listen while you read! Enjoy!! xx.
Summary: Hotch doesn’t go to bars very often. Until he meets you at one.
Warnings: age gap (reader is somewhere around 24-25), mentioning of being safe at a bar (so alluding to date rape drugs), harassment from one drunk dickhead
Hotch Masterlist
Hotch doesn’t go to bars.
When he’s not on a case, working on paperwork for a case, or caring for his son, he’s normally asleep.
Not at a bar.
But some nights, the memories are too much. Some nights, the cases take a toll on him — especially the children that never made it back home to their parents.
He doesn’t know why he’s in a bar. The only time he comes is when the team goes out and wants to drag him with. It’s normally Dave who manages to get him to agree to a beer or two.
But Aaron is alone this time.
You, on the other hand, know exactly why you’re in a bar.
You’re bored, you’ve just finished your masters degree, you need a drink and some time to yourself to people-watch.
It’s fun, really. Observing people while they’re drunk. You usually have one drink and switch over to water, wanting to remember the things you see while also staying safe.
But occasionally— or, well, more than occasionally by the sheer unfortunate fact of you being a woman alone in a bar, you get the typical man sliding into the seat next to you before he’s even all the way through his rehearsed, “Is this seat taken?”
You never answer. There is no point in trying because their ass already hits the chair before you can say, “Yes, it’s taken, by my foot, now move before I kick it up your ass.”
You never say that, not often. Sometimes the guys can be pretty big assholes, but the bartender, Vanessa, knows you well, so she usually threatens security before you get yourself in trouble.
Unfortunately, tonight looks like it’s going to be one of those nights.
The bar is packed for a reason you aren’t privy too until you see (and hear) the random band start a new song. Great. Performance.
Still, you snag the last seat at the bar, waving to the bartender when she sees you. You barely get the seat warm before she’s sliding your usual in front of you.
“It’s on the house tonight,” she yells.
“What?” You shake your head. “No the fuck it’s not.”
She leans closer so she doesn’t have to yell as loud. “You are my saving grace in this sea of assholes, so yes it is. We can fight about it later.”
“Fine,” you roll your eyes. You dip your hands underneath the bar to switch your diamond ring from your right to left hand.
Tonight, you’re married.
You got this ring when your last relationship ended so badly. It was a long time coming, and once you were finally able to see the other side, you went out and bought yourself an engagement ring. Just for you. A promise to yourself to start loving yourself harder, and going out with dickheads less.
So far, it’s been wonderful. You’re loving being alone. It was exhausting going on so many first dates, trying to love someone else instead of letting yourself heal.
It’s been two years of singleness for you now, and you’ve loved almost every day.
The “wedding” ring usually makes most of the guys turn the other way. A few that are oblivious will try talking to you, but once they glance at your hand, they excuse themselves.
It’s hysterical, if you’re honest.
But some, unfortunately, don’t give a damn.
Like the guy who has just squeezed his way into the seat next to you.
You roll your eyes and prepare yourself for the shallow conversations because, for some ungodly reason, the band decided now was a good time for a break.
“You come here often?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Nope.”
“It’s a pretty good place,” the guy says, waving down the other bartender, his name is Nick. “You should come here more often.”
“Should I, now?”
“Yeah,” the guy grins. “You’ll see me.”
You roll your eyes so hard it nearly hurts.
“Wanna dance?”
“Not in the mood.”
“Can I buy you another drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“Why, do you work here?”
“Look, I’m just trying to be nice.” Ah, there it is. The “nice guy” line.
You turn your head, raising an eyebrow. “Good for you. I’m not interested.”
“Ooh,” he feigns hurt, holding an open hand to his chest. “Ouch.”
You shrug. “You’ll get over it.”
“Damn.”
“Mm.”
“You sure you don’t wanna dance?”
“I’m married,” you say easily, picking your glass up with your left hand to show off your ring. You don’t drink from your glass because you made the mistake of looking away for only a moment, so now you’re paranoid that he might’ve slipped something in it.
The guy looks around, then back to you. “I don’t see a husband.” Oh, he sounds so smug. Like he’s pulled one over on you. Moron.
“He’s on a work trip.”
“Well, he’s not here.”
“You don’t want to get on his bad side, dude.”
“Oh really? What’s he do for a living?”
“He works for the FBI.” The lie slips from your mouth before you can stop it, and you almost laugh.
It’s something you’ve pulled from the countless guys that have said they work for the FBI, but have no badge to show for it. It’s always cracked you up. You’re aware there’s an FBI office around here, but you doubt a greasy, blackout drunk works for them. Let alone more than five greasy, blackout drunks in one night.
“The FBI, huh?” The guy says, just taking it in stride. “What’s his name?”
Right as you’re about to make one up until Vanessa can get back over here to threaten security, two arms slip around your waist.
You’re ready to throw caution to the wind along with your fists, but the owner of the arms says, “Just go with it, I’m Aaron.”
You turn your head to see a very handsome older man peering down at you, a smile on his lips that you can’t help but mirror. Something about his face has your gut screaming that you can trust him, so you play along.
“Honey! I thought you were in Texas!” You throw your arms around his neck for good measure, and also for a moment to casually get a good whiff of his cologne. Goddamn. You’ll gladly be his fake-wife. Any day. Forever.
“I was,” Aaron says, squeezing you before letting you go. He moves to stand next to you, his arm around your waist in a protective manner. “We landed early, wanted to surprise you.” He kisses your knuckles to keep up the act, and then settles his eyes on the man who was bothering you.
“You must be the husband,” the guy mutters bitterly. “You really work for the FBI?”
Oh, fuck, you think. This guy just doesn’t give up. A few future scenarios flash before your eyes, but the one most alarming is a fight erupting, which isn’t all that far-fetched. You’d never be able to come back if you caused something like that.
But before you can stumble through some excuse, Aaron is pulling out a badge. An actual badge.
“Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner. I’m the unit chief of the BAU,” he says easily, holding his badge out for as long as it takes the guy to inspect it. You have no clue what BAU stands for, but you’re just thanking whatever Gods might be real that this is happening.
The idiot is scowling by the time Aaron puts his badge away. He leaves without a word.
Your jaw nearly drops as you watch the guy go, and literally leave the bar. You had hopes that he’d leave you alone, but leaving the bar entirely is even better.
Aaron’s arm slips from around your waist as he moves to take the now empty seat next to you. All the while you’re gawking at him like you’re in some fever dream.
When he catches your eyes, he says, “What?”
“Am I dreaming?” You blurt. “Do you really work for the FBI?”
He chuckles and pulls out his badge again, holding it out to you where you can read it. And sure as shit, he’s an actual FBI agent. What the fuck.
You look up as he pulls his badge away. “Did you hear me tell the guy my husband worked for the FBI?”
Aaron shakes his head. “That was pure luck. By the way,” he holds his hand out to you. “I’m Aaron.”
“Y/N,” you shake his hand, smiling at the fact that Aaron wanted to go through the official pleasantries and that you got to feel how soft his hand is again. “Thank you for that. I thought he’d never leave.”
“No worries. And it’s best he did, I really didn’t feel like arresting anyone tonight.”
“Arresting him? For what?”
“Well for starters, harassment. But since that usually doesn’t hold up very well, I’d have to say it was for his cocaine addiction.”
Your eyes widen. “He was doing coke?”
“Well, not out in the open, of course, but there were traces of it on his nose and his eyes had that look to them. Addicts are easy to spot when you run into them enough.”
Who the hell is this guy?
“Oh, and forgive me, what’s your husband’s name?” Aaron gestures down at your left hand. “I might know him, but I can’t say that I recognize you.”
“Oh,” you move the ring back to your right hand, much to Aaron’s surprise. “I’m not married. I only put it on the left hand to try to avoid assholes like that.”
“I see,” Aaron nods, and if you’re not mistaken, he almost looks pleased.
Vanessa returns to get Aaron’s drink, and then gives you a look.
You want to scream, yes, I’m well aware he is dangerously attractive and that he’s talking to me but don’t you dare say a word to embarrass me.
Instead, you say, “Can you make me another?”
She nods in understanding and pours out your drink, setting off to make a second after sliding Aaron his beer.
“So,” you turn your body and prop your head in your palm. “What’s got an FBI agent in a bar on a Tuesday night?”
He takes a long swig of his beer before answering. “What’s the real story behind that ring on your hand?”
“Answer for an answer,” you sing, smiling at Vanessa when she brings you your drink. She leaves without a word, raising her eyebrows at you.
“The cases can be rough,” Aaron says vaguely, bringing your attention back to him. “You?”
“Got it as a promise to myself to never date another prick ever again,” you chuckle, gazing down at the ring. “It’s worked its magic, so far.”
“So far?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
He smiles through his next swig of beer.
+++
It becomes a routine, you and Aaron sharing a drink at the bar.
To your surprise, he has the same views as you about alcohol. It’s fun to have one drink, but getting wasted and blacking out isn’t.
It’s refreshing, if you’re honest. Everyone your age wants to get absolutely shitfaced every time they go out, and that’s just never been for you.
It helps that Aaron is older. Well— You’re not sure if it helps or not. Because he is significantly older, the farthest you two have gone is sharing a drink at the bar. He usually leaves first, needing to get home to his son, to do more case work, or there was one time when he actually got a call about a case mid-drink. He was gone for two weeks after that.
But he always comes back, and he always finds you here, at this bar.
You mostly come every night to keep Vanessa company for an hour or two. To give yourself a break from the chaos of reality and to give her a familiar face in the sea of drunken customers.
Every night that Aaron isn’t here, Vanessa asks you where he is. Like you would know (you only do if he tells you of a possible up and coming case). Like you have his number (you don’t). Like you care (you don’t want to admit that you do).
“No Daddy tonight?” Vanessa teases, sliding you your drink.
“If you don’t stop calling him Daddy, I swear to God.”
“Oh, don’t swear to Him. He doesn’t need to get involved.”
You send a glare her way, but you’re holding back a laugh.
“Is he still on a case?” She asks, trying to be serious again.
You shrug. “Who knows. They can last pretty long. He was gone two weeks for the last one.”
“Keeping track, are we?” She raises an eyebrow.
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying, you two are killing me here, sharing drinks and not saying how you feel. It’s torture to watch you every week, you know.”
“He’s like...twenty years older than me. Or something.”
“And?” She scoffs. “Age is but a number. You’re an adult. He’s an adult. It’s fine.”
You shrug. “He probably just sees me as a friend. He would’ve given me his number or something by now, right?”
“I dunno, men are weird. But he’s older, he’s probably scared to make a move, scared he’ll make you uncomfortable.”
You shrug again. You appreciate her trying to show you the possibilities, the logical reasons for why the two of you haven’t gone any further from the bar, but you aren’t sure what to believe. Plus, it’s been a week since you’ve seen him. The last time you two shared a drink, he didn’t say anything about a case.
So, he’s either on a case again, or has stopped coming.
The latter thought has you debating getting shitfaced wasted for the first time in years. Being blackout drunk would probably hurt you less than if it’s true that he’s just suddenly ditched you.
But what stops you is when Vanessa runs back over, eyes wide. “Just spotted your hottie.”
Oh, now he’s my hottie? “What?” You inwardly scold yourself for sounding a little too giddy at the prospect of him being here.
But if he’s here, why isn’t he sitting next to you?
Vanessa answers that one for you. “At a table in the back. He’s with friends I think.”
Friends? Never mind then on sharing a drink with him. “Oh, cool.”
Vanessa looks like she wants to say something, but is called away to another customer.
You don’t want to butt in with Aaron’s time with friends, so you stay at the bar, facing forward, nursing your one drink. Your mind conjures a plan in two seconds flat: finish your drink, head out for the night and discreetly look in Aaron’s direction, hopefully catch his eye, but if not, just go home and...shower and go to sleep.
Because if he wants to see you, he will. If he doesn’t, then he won’t.
Good plan.
Or at least, it is, until Aaron is sliding up beside you.
Your heart launches itself into your throat. You don’t say anything because you have no idea what to say. You were too busy assuming he’d rather be with his friends (which is...fine because it’s not like the two of you are...dating) to notice him walking up.
He says something for you, though. “Hey.”
Well, he might as well have stayed silent. What are you supposed to do with that?
“Hey,” you return casually, then offer a small smile. “Thought you’d be gone longer.” You operate on the assumption that he was on a case.
And he was. “This one actually worked in our favor.” He leans his elbows onto the bar, and naturally your eyes follow the movement. He’s not in a stuffy suit like the last few times, but he’s still in a dress shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Arms. You’re a complete sucker for arms, and he’s practically teasing you like this.
“That’s good,” you comment, taking a sip from your drink. “Here to celebrate?”
“Yeah, we are.”
Nick brings Aaron his beer, thankfully, because you know Vanessa would’ve made some not-so-vague comment about Aaron being up here -- and maybe let an “accidental” Daddy comment slip.
To your surprise, Aaron sits down.
Your eyebrows furrow. “I thought you’re here with friends?”
Aaron looks over his shoulder and shrugs. “Just my team, yeah. I imagine they’re tired of me, though.”
You doubt that’s the case, but you know that if you say that, he’ll just brush it off.
“Not even gonna introduce me?” You tease instead, but you honestly want to smack yourself. You need to get a better hold on your word vomit. Inviting yourself is insanely rude.
Aaron’s eyebrows raise slightly, clearly not expecting you to say that — or to even want to be introduced to his team. “They’re a lot,” he says. “They’ll make a big deal out of this.”
“This?” You question, gesturing shortly between the two of you. “What is this?”
“What do you want it to be?” He asks carefully, averting his eyes shyly.
“Well,” you exhale dramatically, swirling your drink. “I think when you’ve shared a drink with a woman more than...twenty times, it should at least be considered dating.” You cut your eyes in his direction, your chest swelling as you see a grin breaking out on his face.
“I think I’m a bad date,” he says, confusing you. He chuckles, adding, “You don’t even have my number!”
“I’ll get it at the end of tonight,” you say, touching his arm gently for reassurance. “Come on, I think the back of my head is burning from how hard they’re staring.”
He looks through the corner of his eyes and sighs. “I’m sorry in advance for them.”
“No need to apologize,” you shrug. “Friends can be the worst. Vanessa has already started asking questions about you.” You nod toward the bartender that is feigning interest in clearing a space behind the bar.
“I figured,” Aaron murmurs. “Okay.” He slides off the stool, grabbing his beer in one hand, and holding his other one out to you.
Your heart jumps harshly when you take his hand. It’s warm and soft and secure, everything you want and need. You grab your drink in your free hand, giving Aaron’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
As soon as you and Aaron approach the table, the older gentleman is punching the one with tattoos. “Pay up.”
Aaron witnesses the cash exchange and stares at them tiredly. “Seriously, guys?”
Meanwhile, you’re holding back a giggle.
“Well, hello,” the woman with the colorful fashion sense says. “Introduce us!”
Aaron looks ready to pretend like he doesn’t know any of them, so you step up and say, “He told me you guys would be like this.”
That gets him laughing, and he finally says, “Y/N, this is Penelope, Emily, JJ, Spencer, Derek, and Dave.” Each person nods, waves, or smiles when their name is called.
“I’ll try to remember,” you joke. “But no promises.”
You squeeze Aaron’s hand in yours, trying to get him to loosen up. He does, barely, so when he tugs on your hand, silently asking you to step closer to him so his arm can fit around your waist, you oblige.
“What was the bet about?” You ask, nodding toward the men who exchanged cash a bit ago. It was Dave and Derek if you’re remembering names correctly.
“Rossi thought Hotch was going to bring you back over here, but I didn’t agree,” Derek says, nudging Dave’s arm. “I didn’t think you’d go for him.”
“Well, that’d be embarrassing if I went for someone else, considering we’re dating,” you chuckle, leaning your head back to look up at Aaron.
“Dating? So it’s official?” Emily asks, looking a little more excited than you thought any of them would.
“I think it was official the first time we met,” you snicker. “He pretended to be my husband so some dickhead would leave me alone.”
Aaron’s arm tightens around your waist at the memory.
“Okay,” Penelope grabs her drink, then moves over next to you, linking your arm with hers. “Hotch, we’re stealing her. We need details.”
Aaron doesn’t look like he wants to let go at all, but you press a kiss to his cheek. “Told you it’d be fine,” you whisper to him.
He surprises you by pressing a kiss on your lips. Midway through, your brain reminds you that this is technically your first kiss with him. And it’s in front of his friends. Swoon.
After so many dates with guys who were ashamed to be showing any sort of affection toward a woman, it’s nice to find a man who doesn’t care who sees his affection.
What can you say? After dating so many boys, it’s nice to finally find a man.
#aaron hotchner#aaron hotchner x reader#aaron hotchner x you#hotch#aaron hotchner fanfic#aaron hotchner fanfiction#aaron hotchner one shot#hotch x reader#hotch x you#criminal minds#criminal minds fanfic#criminal minds fanfiction#aaron hotchner fluff#hotch fluff#fluff#cm#delicate songfic#because i can't NOT think of taylor swift when i write
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Fast and Slow - Harry Styles smut
The one where your dom lent you to Harry and he’s very eager to have you.
Warnings: smut, oral sex (m), p in v, overstimulation, sex bench, sex fluids, cursing, bdsm, restraints, sharing kink?, Harry is a soft dom and calls you “little one” a lot.
A/N: Day 12 of kinktober and the prompts were being lent to another dom and “say my name + louder”. I’m actually really proud of this one because I managed to incorporate another prompt that I never thought I’d be able to use on my fics, so I guess this idea of doing kinktober to explore some kinks is really working for me. As always (for kinktober fics), unrevised because I literally just finished it and I’m already dead inside.
Harry’s P.O.V.
I did my best to close the door behind me making as little noise as possible. Still, I noticed by the way her muscles tensed up that she’d heard me approach, and the anticipation was visibly affecting her.
Clicking my tongue, I allowed myself this first moment to explore her naked body with my eyes as she remained knelt by the foot of the bed, her head lowered to avoid meeting my gaze. She’d followed my orders perfectly, as I’d come to expect by what her dom explained of her, and I could feel my cock already hardening on my pants, the only piece of clothing I still wore.
There was nothing I appreciated more than a good, obedient little girl. I already knew she’d be perfect for me. But I’d known that long before, the first time I laid my eyes on her, even. It was an immediate attraction, one that I couldn’t act on simply because she already belonged to someone else.
So when her dom announced that they were up to experiment with sharing, I was quick to jump on the opportunity to have her, at least for one night. “You really are beautiful, aren’t you?” I asked, running a single finger under her chin so I could raise her eyes to meet mine, and I lost my breath at that simple connection.
She just had this thing about her, such sensuality seemed to lie just beneath the surface of her gaze. I felt it deep in my bones every time we were out for drinks and I had the hardest time trying to keep my hands to myself, trying to remember that she was with my friend.
And as much as the outings proved difficult to me, I couldn’t find it in myself to care. Not when my friendship with her dom meant that I got to see her at least once a week. Not when it allowed me the chance of being here with her, in this situation.
Well, first things first, I knew we had communicated pretty extensively prior to this session, but I felt like I should run over the most basic rule once more. Even though all I wanted to do was to jam my cock in her pretty little throat.
“What’s your safe word?” I asked, still holding her jaw so she’d look me in the eyes and see just how seriously I actually took this. I thought I saw the shadow of a smile pass over her face, but it was gone as quickly as it came, and she was back to the picture perfect submissive front.
“Red for stopping, yellow for slowing down and three taps when I need to stop and can’t speak.” I did smile at her answer, satisfied at how thorough she’d been. It was clear too, by the way she ran over her words and the glint in her eye, that she was just as eager as I was to get this started.
I wouldn’t keep her waiting much longer. We did have only one night, after all. “Good job, little one.” I acknowledged as I straightened up, keeping my crotch on her eye level before nodding to her. “Take me off my trousers.”
Her hands trembled slightly as she worked on my belt before going for the zipper, but it was clear by the way she bit on her lower lip that it was from excitement. I licked my lips at the prospect of the night that we had ahead of us, knowing she was right in getting anxious for it. I had a lot planned for us.
I watched with clear amusement as her breath bitched at the sight of my cock, almost hard already, and it was obvious that she was entranced by it. “Go ahead,” I signaled, once again nodding towards her. “Lick it. Give it a taste.”
She looked up at me with those bright, wide eyes and I had to bite on my inner cheek to contain a groan of desire that threatened to make its way into our one-person conversation. But then, she stuck out her tongue, running it over the length of my member and I was a goner, a loud moan escaping my lips.
I’d always been a vocal person in bed.
“Okay, stop. Hands behind your back. Open your mouth for me.” Her mouth fell open to obey my request easily, her tongue sticking out once more like she couldn’t get enough of my taste already. It was hard to keep the smile off my face, and I could see that she appreciated the sight of my dimples as she couldn’t take her eyes off of it.
Once, she’d been wine drunk in one of our friendly outings, and she admitted she thought they were extremely cute. I’d started to smile even more around her after that, always keeping an attentive eye to watch her fascination with my dimples whenever they appeared.
“‘M gonna fuck your face now, okay, love?” She nodded, mouth still open, eyes connected to mine. I had to chuckle at the pure image of compliant enthusiasm that she portrayed. I, too, couldn’t wait to have her mouth wrapped around my cock.
Y/N’s P.O.V.
His hand curled around my nape and he pulled me to meet his member by it, the other one coming to cradle my cheek as he slowly penetrated my open mouth. The hiss he let out as he fed me inch by inch of his beautiful cock was like music to my ears.
God, he was beautiful. I couldn’t believe he actually wanted to dom me and now here I was, with his cock halfway down my throat. I felt so unbelievably lucky, and even more incredibly horny. How could it be that he didn’t have a sub anymore? I would drop to my knees instantly, any time he asked me to.
I knew I should feel bad about thinking like that when it was only a loan - I was with another dom, I wouldn’t be with Harry again after tonight. But I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t how I felt.
Specially when he threw his head back after I managed to swallow his entire length, his curls bouncing from the action and the sweetest little moans escaping from his beautiful pink lips. God, he was beautiful.
“Fuck, you’re precious,” he complimented, suddenly looking down at me with those incredible green eyes. A shiver ran down my spine at the connection, and the most predatory smirk painted his lips, making me whine around the cock on my lips. “Ready?” He asked, running his thumb over my cheekbones, his hands making my already hot face feel even warmer. When I managed to slightly nod, he did too, immediately pulling almost completely out of my mouth before thrusting back in.
The instinctive reaction to gag was undeniable, but despite the tears that immediately appeared on my eyes, I forced myself to breathe deeply through my nose and focus on the symphony that Harry was creating, with his moans and gasps and the wet sounds of gurgling and spit from his thrusts.
“You’re a little cockslut, aren’t you, sweetheart? So eager to please, I could see it in your eyes just how much you wanted my cock, huh?” I moaned around his member at the dirty words he so effortlessly threw around. I’d never thought Harry would be this vocal during sex, but god if it didn’t make me horny. In fact, I was so fucking wet that it was dripping down onto the floor of his bedroom, running down my thighs and ankles.
It was so damn filthy, and I loved every second of it. He pulled me by my hair so I could lick his balls while I gathered my breath, and I immediately put one in my mouth, rolling it before doing the same with the other. By the way he whined, I could see he loved it.
“Come back here, I wanna cum down your throat.” The prospect was one that I very much ached for, since my pussy was throbbing at the perspective. I didn’t even feel any hurt from the way he forcefully thrusted into my mouth before he started to roughly facefuck me, I was just too ecstatic about bringing him this much pleasure.
“I’m gonna cum, love. I’m cumming.” I loved that he kept the same nickname that he usually called me in social situations. It had always made me feel tingly, but when he was filling my mouth with his warm liquid, it was a different experience entirely.
Harry’s P.O.V.
It took a lot of strength and control not to fall down on my knees after cumming on her lips. She made me weak, it was ridiculous and dangerous but I was already addicted to the feeling.
I took some minutes to catch my breath before offering my hand to help her up, and when she accepted it, I couldn’t help but to trail my eyes down her body, appreciating each inch of skin available for my gaze to explore. But there was another way in which I wanted to survey her body.
“Come here, little one.” I took her to the edge of the room where I’d prepared the sex bench, observing her reactions to see how she would take it. She didn’t look like she recognized it, but she also didn’t seem repelled by it, which I took as a win.
“I take it you haven’t used this before.” She nodded, glancing at me before averting her eyes. “You can look at me when I’m talking to you, sweetheart.” The look of surprise she gave me left me with an unpleasant feeling. I knew it was common in bdsm, especially with more stricter doms, to train their subs so that they’re always visibly submissive. But the idea of someone missing the chance of having her beautiful eyes on them left me in despair. It left me feeling like she wasn’t properly appreciated, and that didn’t sit well with me at all.
“Are you comfortable with exploring this with me?” When she immediately nodded, an easy smile appeared on my lips, and I allowed her to see it flourish. “Then hop on it, sweetheart. I can’t wait to see you spread open for my viewing pleasure.”
She bit her lip at my admission, and I helped her settle on the bench before strapping the restraints over her ankles and arms. Then, after a quick caress of her cheek, I assumed my position behind her, biting my own lip at the sight that welcomed me.
Her wetness was already dripping over her pussy lips, and I instinctively raised my hand to open her for me, checking her weeping hole before quickly plunging two fingers inside of her, making her gasp.
“You’re drenched, love.” She agreed with me, albeit a little breathlessly, and I chuckled before wrapping my lips around the two fingers that had been inside of her, tasting her wetness. She was so sweet, it tasted heavenly in my mouth.
Humming in appreciation, I collected some more of her juices before sticking my fingers inside of her again, this time in search of her sweet spot. When I heard her gasp again, I knew I’d reached my goal.
“Does it feel good when I touch you like this?” I asked, thrusting my fingers in and out of her, making sure to hit that special spongy place every time my digits were deep within her pussy.
Y/N’s P.O.V.
I cried out at the feeling of Harry’s fingers inside of me, after spending so long with this burning arousal inside of me, taking care of him without being touched. He fucked me so furiously, it barely seemed like he retreated his fingers at all, and soon enough, I was cumming with his digits pressing inside that spot that had my eyes rolling to the back of my head, my legs spasming as I felt the urge to close them, stop him from continuing to stimulate me, but I couldn’t. Not when I was tied to this bench, vulnerable to whatever wish he wanted to express with my body.
I finally understood the reason for the chair.
When he didn’t stop thrusting his fingers in and out of me, another orgasm quickly rolled in, making me spasm against the leather seat, begging him for something - to keep fucking me or to stop, I couldn’t say.
Still, it seemed like he knew just what I wanted to say, or at the very least, what I needed in that moment, because even though he didn’t remove his fingers - or even stopped moving whatsoever - he drastically slowed down the movement, opting to insert them in me at a snail’s pace.
“You like it here, don’t you?” He asked, clearly laughing at my agony, and if I could, I would have laughed too. “You know, I like having you here, like this, too. It’s been so long since I had a sub, I didn’t remember how much I missed it until I saw you knelt down by my bed.”
I was trying very hard to focus on what he was saying, but it was getting harder by the second, since despite the brutality of the last two orgasms he collected from me, the calm pace with which he kept on fucking me with my fingers was very quickly reigniting the fire of desire within me.
“Of course, it could just be you. You know, I had no idea you were into this kind of thing, when we met. If I’d known…” He didn’t continue, but I understood what he wanted to say nonetheless. If we’d known about this aspect of our personalities, perhaps I’d be his sub now.
The idea of being Harry’s, of having this every single day paired with the feeling of his digits still pressing against my sweet spot incited another release from me, and now I could hear just how wet I’d become.
“Feeling a tad overstimulated, love?” He teased, finally pulling his fingers from me and granting me some relief. I heard a sucking sound that brought shivers down my spine at the realisation that he had sucked my wetness from his digits, but before I could focus too much on that, I felt the blunt head of his cock against my hole, just slightly rubbing it in.
“Think you can handle just one more orgasm? Wanna feel you clench around my cock, sweetheart. Think you can do this for me?” I don’t think I’d ever nodded as quickly for anything in my entire life, but I felt plenty compensated for my enthusiasm when I felt him pushing inside of me, stretching me open to accept his long cock.
“Fuck,” he groaned when he finally bottomed out, the position I was in due to the sex bench assuring that he was perfectly nested against my sweet spot and I think the sensation was overwhelming for him too, by the way he inadvertently jerked his hips, hitting my g-spot after he was finally completely in.
I didn’t think I could feel better than I felt in that moment, impaled on his cock, but that was before he started thrusting in and out of me. The overstimulation had my nerves on fire, every single one of my cells screaming out for me, as I was too, and then his voice pierced through my senses, begging me to say his name, scream his name, until I did just so, exactly when I felt that warm pit of arousal explode inside of me.
“Louder,” he ordered, his fingers burying themselves on the flesh of my ass, and I couldn’t disobey him. All I knew was his name, all I could do was to scream it from the top of my lungs, desperate to release some of the astounding sensations I felt travel through me.
Harry moaned my name when he came, too. It was the first thing I remember focusing on when I stopped hearing the beat of my own heart on my ears, followed suit by the feeling of his warm cum dripping from my abused pussy lips and running down my legs.
He scooped some of it up, careful not to overwhelm me, before feeding it to me, and I was more than glad to wrap my lips around his fingers and suck them just how I’d done to his cock.
“You know…” He started after he’d released me and helped me put on a robe, and was now massaging some lotion on my wrists. He looked nervous, almost unsure of himself, and the idea made me curious. “Call me crazy all you want, we can pretend I never even asked it after you get out of here.”
He took a deep breath before continuing and I felt my heartbeat pick up as I realised what he could be about to ask. “Would you consider becoming mine? My sub, I mean? We can talk to…”
I interrupted him by throwing myself at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulder as I buried my face on his neck. “I’d love to, Harry.” He didn’t immediately react, but then, I felt him reciprocate my hug before feeling his warm hands rubbing over my back.
“I’d love to too, sweetheart.”
#harry styles#smut#harry styles smut#kinktober#kinktober 2020#harry styles imagine#harry styles imagines#harry styles reader#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles wrinting#harry styles writings#harry styles dom
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If it’s not too much to ask but 🥺 can we get (y/n) sinking her nails into Harry’s back, leaving deep marks and scratches from his shoulder down to his mid back during sex. So the next day, she notices Harry is winces a bit and when she goes to lift up his shirt. She shocked to see so many bruises so now she feels terrible and offer to give him a soothing massage with some cream to make up for hurting him please 🥺🥺🥺🥺
Scratches
A/N: I was clearing out my inbox when i stumbled across this concept. I thought that this was so cute and a lil bit spicy. So I decided to do something with it...Enjoy🙃
Things got a little bit crazy last night. After a long day for both you and Harry, a night of being tangled up in each other was extremely welcomed. The two of you just went back and forth all night long, taking each other in just about every position imaginable. The only break in between you two going at it was to eat dinner. And even in the process of making it, Harry took you right against the counter. To put it simply, it was a great night for the two of you. And despite the fact that you both were exerting energy moving your bodies against each other’s, you and Harry had no complaints whatsoever. Especially you. Throughout the night you made countless offers to take control and focus in on Harry and pleasuring him. Now he did give in, but that was only once. The other offers you made were met with really sharp and deep thrusts, along grunts from him telling you to shush. Which you did in fact do, just with your offers to focus on him a bit; not your moans. Those, you simply could not control.
There was literally no way that you could possibly hold back the screams, whimpers, and moans that left your mouth as a result of Harry’s relentless thrusts into you. It didn’t matter what position you were in either. You could’ve been on your back or on your front, you never failed to scream your lungs out, squirm, and claw at whatever was in your reach from the pleasure Harry was slamming into you. The only difference between the two would be what you dug your nails into. When you were lying on your front, taking Harry’s cock from behind, you always clung to the sheets around you if your arms weren’t pinned to your lower back and used as leverage to sharpen his thrusts even more. But when you’re on your back, you cling to Harry. Unless your arms are pinned above your head, your arms are around him and your nails are subconsciously digging into his shoulders and back. You didn’t mean to, it just happened.
Harry was on top of you giving you one of the best (even though every time made that list) poundings you’d ever received from him. Not only was it deep rough and fast, it was also hard. As he shoved his cock down into you, he was quick with the movements and he made sure to push himself as deep as possible with every thrust. When doing so, Harry was lifting as much of his body as possible up just to slam all the way back down into you. This meant that he was pounding his cock into your stomach and his lower body, particularly his thighs, down into yours. He was also doing this while you were positioned in a way below him that had your legs pushed up towards your chest, resulting in your cunt being lifted a bit from the bed, which allowed him to slam down to you even better.
As he did this you were losing any shred of composure you had left in your body. You loved the incredibly balanced mixture of pain and pleasure Harry was giving to you. Your thighs were practically being torn apart as he slammed himself down into you and tore your walls apart with his cock. To make it even better, while he was showing zero mercy to your cunt and entire body for that matter, Harry was simultaneously moaning into your ear about how good it felt to pound into your perfect walls, and he even went on and on about how much he loved you (and your pussy of course). And believe it or not, it was really nice to know that he loved you to pieces while he was actively fucking you like he hated you and tearing the area below your waist to pieces.
Fast forward to this morning and you were unsurprisingly sore from you guys’ late night activities. But before you can even recognize or acknowledge your soreness, Harry wakes up before you do. When he does, he also feels a level of soreness in his thighs and his back. But instead of fretting about it, a pretty smug smirk spreads across his face and his mind begins to wander back to everything that transpired last night. And judging by the little bit of soreness he’s feeling, he could only imagine how sore you were feeling. He did go pretty hard if he had to assess the the entire night.
After about 10 more minuets of in your words “being a stalker” (he considers it admiring) and watching you sleep while recalling the bits and pieces of last night, Harry finally decides to wake you up. It starts off with little kisses and coos into your ear, but seeing as you were knocked out, he was going to have to amp up his tactics. His gentle strokes to your back through your t-shirt turn into shakes and his voice gets a little louder. Eventually you do wake up with a couple grumbles of course before directing your attention to Harry.
“Good morning beautiful.” Harry hums, reaching his hand out to cradle the side of your head that wasn’t nestled into the pillow below.
“I’m not the one who looks like a literal god first thing in the morning but good morning to you too babe.” You reply, sending him a wide close lipped smile.
“I strongly beg to differ on that one. But in other news, last night was fun.” Harry hums, sending a wide and smug grin your way.
“Yeah, so much fun that i’ll be slowly regaining feeling from the waist down for the rest of the day.” You reply matter of factly. Even though you were trying to be smart, you did have an amazing time with Harry last night. It was so good that you could guarantee that it would be imprinted in your brain for a very long time, like forever. But even though you were still on cloud nine a little bit, you were also coming to grips with the soreness down there. Harry really did a number on you.
“Want a painkiller?” Harry pouts towards you.
“Please?” You whisper back softly. You’d take just about anything right now. Once you respond, Harry stokes your cheek one last time before moving to sit up and grab your painkillers. When he does this though, you notice that a wince leaves his mouth. Your mind instantly leaves your impending pain killers and goes right to Harry, you needed to figure out what was going on. When you see him reach towards his back, your first instinct is to lift up his shirt. And when you do, you’re met with red scratches littering his skin. “Oh my goodness babe!” You gasp, taking in all of the red scratches you’d left. Apparently you did a number on Harry too. “M’so sorry, I didn’t mean to scratch you up. It just felt so good I couldn’t help myself.” You apologize sorrowful behind him.
“S’fine babe, at least I know that m’doing my job.” Harry chuckles, shuffling around the edge of the bed to face you.
“I feel so bad though.” You sigh softly back to him. You liked a little bit of pain, but you didn’t want Harry to go through it if he didn’t ask.
“Consider us even now. I always leave bruises and marks whenever we go at it and I always leave you a bit sore down there, even more so now.” Harry tries to reassure you, bringing his hand below the covers to softly wrap his hand around one of your thighs.
“But you didn’t ask for it.” You reiterate. “At least let me give you a little massage.” You offer.
“Well I’m telling you now that I don’t mind you scratching and biting one bit. I actually like it.” He continues to reassure, giving you a light squeeze in the process. But that wasn’t going to cut it. “But if you wanna make it up to me, I guess you can rub me down with some of the soothing lotion we have in the bathroom.” Harry concedes before getting up and heading to the bathroom to grab the painkillers and the tube of soothing cream. When he comes back with the items, you promptly begin to sit up and get yourself ready to take care of him.
“Alright, how do you want me?” Harry asks, sitting the pill bottle on the bedside table and handing you the ointment.
“On your front please. And take off your shirt too” You instruct as you slowly maneuver yourself around on the bed. Per your instruction, Harry tugs his shirt up and off of his body, leaving him completely naked before getting back onto the bed and lying flat on his front with his head burrowed into the pillows. After he’s all situated, you scoot in closer to him before lifting yourself to sit back on your calves. Normally you would straddle his waist but you were just too sore for that.
You then pick the tube of ointment from the bed, twisting the cap off before squeezing a good amount into your hand and placing the ointment back down. Now before you bring your hands down to Harry’s skin, you move the cream back and forth between your hands to warm it up a little bit. You wanted Harry to be as comfortable as possible. Once your palms are completely covered, you bring your hands to his shoulders and you begin working the product into his skin. As soon as your hands begin moving around on his shoulders, Harry instantly relaxes. Whenever you gave him little massages like this, he always felt good. Your hands were like magic when it came to his body. You knew exactly how much pressure to put on him and where to apply it. Like right now, you were expertly digging your palms into his shoulders and neck as you spread the ointment out.
“Feel good baby?” You coo down to him, continuing to spread the ointment across his skin.
“So good.” Harry mumbles incoherently, being too engrossed in how good your hands felt on him to give you an understandable answer. As your hands continue on their journey down and across his back, Harry can feel himself awakening in other parts of his body. As if he didn’t get enough action the previous night, Harry’s cock begins to stir a bit against the bed. He wasn’t trying to get Hard, it’s just that your hands felt beyond amazing against him. After a couple more minuets of working your way down, your hands get closer to the dip in his back.
“Are there any other places where you’re sore?” You ask, stopping your movements to wait for an answer.
“Can you get the backs of my thighs a little?” He asks, his tone a little on the timid side. He knew that you were sore as well, so he didn’t want to ask for much because of that.
“Of course!” You reply, continuing to squeeze and dig your hands into his skin. You do this all the way down, paying attention to everything. You even spend a little time on his backside, which inevitably causes a few moans to fall from his mouth. When you get to his thighs, you really focus in on easing some of the tension in that area and relaxing him. And you did just that. Harry was on fire…but in a relaxed way. You were driving his cock crazy with the way your worked those hands of yours into him, but he was also very relaxed and ready to fall back asleep.
“Feels so good.” Harry slurs, enjoying every last drop of your massage.
“M’glad baby. Now flip over so I can get the front.” You instruct, softly tapping his backside to get him going.
“You don’t have to baby, we can just cuddle now. Know you’re sore too.” He offers. Harry was perfectly fine with what you gave him, which was way more than what he needed right now considering the fact that you were sorer than him.
“Just let me get your chest then.” You bargain. You just wanted to make him feel good. When he turns over to face you, your eyes are immediately drawn to his cock that was swelling in his lap.
“S’just that your hands feel so good.” Harry explains once he sees you staring down towards his cock.
“M’just glad you’re enjoying it babe.” You hum. You liked seeing the good results of your work. “How about I suck you off after we take a nap.” You suggest, bringing your hands up to his shoulders to massage them a bit.
“Only if you let me massage you once we wake up.” He barters back.
“You have a deal.” You agree.
“Good, now c’mere.” Harry says, lifting the sides of your face to pull you down to his.
How could you not love a little pain mixed with pleasure?!
Masterlist
#Harry Styles#harry styles smut#harry smut#harry styles one shot#harry styles one shots#harry styles imagine#harry styles imagines#harry styles blurb#harry styles x reader#harry x reader#harry styles x you#harry styles fic#harry styles fanfic#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles writing#my harry writing#harry styles x y/n#concepts of h#harrywritingsbyme
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feelings are fatal (17/24)
pairing: bucky barnes x reader, past steve rogers x reader
word count: 3,346
summary: After the events of Endgame, you struggle to come to terms with what you’ve lost, though you’re learning that you still have something to gain.
chapter warnings: swearing, violence, creepy men
masterlist
a/n: HEYYYYY HAPPY TWO YEAR BLOG BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!
Bucky’s heart was pounding as he finally shook the last of the Hydra goons that had been chasing him, glancing every which way just to double check.
He didn’t feel good about this.
It hadn’t even been ten minutes since the two of you had gotten separated, and he hated it. Granted, he always hated being away from you, had since you were fifteen.
Back then it was because he didn’t trust the Red Room instructors. Now it was because he was in love with you and being away from you made him feel like a part of his heart was missing.
Speed walking towards the entrance of Coney Island, he dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed Pepper’s number.
“Oh, my god, thank god. What the hell is wrong with you?” Pepper demanded angrily of him. “Do neither of you know how to answer your phones? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He could hear his blood pumping in his ears. “We had to separate so I could try to lead the bad guys away, but they just… disappeared. I’m heading for our meeting spot now.”
Morgan and a few other kids were babbling in the background about how their day had gotten cut short, but he knew that the littlest Stark would understand better than anyone else once they explained to her.
Pepper was suspiciously quiet for… a long time. A long, long time.
“Pepper?” Bucky whispered, his voice cracking.
There was an unspoken question between them.
What if he’d fucked up?
Should he have stayed with her?
What if they’d gotten to her?
And one that was looming over his head, heavier than ever.
What if he never got to tell you how he felt?
“I’m here,” she said reassuringly.
“What if…” Bucky’s heart cracked inside of his chest. His throat was closing up with each passing second, his flesh palm sweaty. Keeping his grip on his cell phone was becoming a challenge. “What if I n-never g-get to tell her h-how I feel?”
“Don’t think like that.”
“God, I’m so fucking stupid,” he cursed as he made his way to the aquarium. His eyes flickered around the crowd, almost hoping he’d see the two women from earlier. They would’ve recognized you and might’ve seen you.
But there was no sign of them.
“Those fucking special skills or whatever would really come in fucking handy right now,” he cursed. With the way people were parting like the Red Sea in front of him, he knew he probably had his less-than-friendly expression on.
His Murder Face, as you called it.
Or his Resting Bitch Face, according to Sam.
Bucky ran his vibranium hand over his face as he tried not to panic. For one, he hadn’t even gotten to the meeting spot yet. Most likely, you were there waiting for him and he was worrying over nothing. “Tony and Natasha will haunt me forever if I let something happen to her.”
A sigh resounded over the phone. “You didn’t let something happen to her, Bucky. Hell, we don’t even know if something is wrong with her yet. But they both know that you have… you have literally devoted your entire being to taking care of her, protecting her. You did what you thought was the best option in the moment. And maybe… Maybe there was no getting out of that ambush without something happening to one of you.”
Rounding the corner to the tunnel, his heart stopped inside his chest.
You weren’t there.
“Bucky? Bucky? What’s going on? You there? What’s happening?”
It was like the world around him had gone fuzzy, and all he could hear was a ringing in his ears.
You weren’t there.
You weren’t there, and it was all his fault.
He told you to go to the tunnel.
How fucking stupid was he? The tunnel was possibly the worst place he could’ve told you to go to. It’s closed off, a literal tube with water all around you except two very small exits that were easily blocked.
What had he done?
Slumber had come easy for you for once. You were so exhausted, even your bones weary, from dancing all day. And by all day, that meant for over twelve hours because of your sadistic new instructor.
The last one had been… disposed of.
You’d woken at sunrise as usual and gone straight to ballet, only for the instructor to not let you go after the normal three hour class.
The rest of the girls filed out of the dance studio, some glancing back at you in curiosity.
There was no worry in their eyes. It was every girl for themselves these days.
If you thought real hard, you could remember a time when you all looked out for each other. You would braid each other’s hair, give a warning if any of the instructors or Madame B were near. If someone didn’t wake up when they were supposed to, the girls would shake her awake and help her get ready on time.
But that time was no more.
Those that ran the infamous Red Room didn’t like when their… students banded together. Things were better for them when you all hated each other and sought ways to sabotage the others.
It made you more likely to kill during a sparring session, and they only wanted girls who were willing to go all the way.
“Is there something you needed from me, madam?” You asked, your hands folded behind your back, spine straight, your chin high.
Good posture had been beaten into you within a week of arrival.
You didn’t forget a lesson like that anytime soon.
The instructor was new to you girls, though you had been told she wasn’t new to the Red Room. She’d been one of you, once upon a time.
One of the few who had survived to graduation, and then lived long enough after to be brought back as an instructor.
“I’m told you’re a prodigy,” she drawled as she slowly walked towards you, her platinum blonde hair pulled into a tight ballerina bun much like your own. While all of you girls wore black leotards, hers was a pale lilac, a shimmering rehearsal skirt tied around her waist that swished around her thighs. “That you are Madame B’s new pride and joy… Though, just based on your dancing, there is absolutely nothing to be prideful of. It is a surprise to me that you haven’t been… taken care of.”
The implication was clear.
Just based on that morning’s class, she thought you were bad enough at ballet to be killed.
Was it possible she just wanted you executed now? Was she about to do so?
Even though Madame B would be pissed, there were more girls that they could train. She’d only be upset for so long before she’d have a new prodigy, a new pride and joy.
Before the Soldat would have a new trainee.
Before your Soldat would have a new trainee. All the other Soldats could have all the trainees they wanted, but your Soldat, your Seven… The thought of him training another girl made bile rise up in your throat.
“Do you have pointers for things I could work on, madame?” You asked, shoulders tensing as she circled you. Like a vulture ready to scavenge a dying animal.
“I simply thought I could lend you some extra practice time,” she said, a sickly sweet smile spreading over her lips as she looked you up and down. “And don’t worry about Madame B and your other instructors. I already let them know that I wanted extra time with you today.”
The way she was speaking was setting off alarms in your mind.
“Perfect,” you said clearly, not letting your fear show. The instructors could smell fear and would use it against you until your heart stopped beating.
“Do you know the role of Aurora in the Sleeping Beauty ballet?” She asked, eyes cold. When you nodded, she chuckled. “Good. You’ll be dancing it on pointe, start to finish. Now.”
You were shocked when she then turned and started the music, but you did as she said.
Now, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty is his longest ballet ever, at almost four hours long.
And you danced all of it.
“Below average,” the instructor said, glaring daggers at you. “Again.”
You needed water desperately, your lungs fighting for air as you pretended to be unbothered by having done that by taking slow, even breaths.
But you had to do it again.
And again.
Every time you finished, she gave some comment about how your dancing was shit, how you’d never be good enough.
At this point, you wished she would simply kill you and get it over with. You were exhausted and your muscles felt like they were going to give out at any moment.
“MALEN’KAYA!”
You fell out of your pirouette in your shock, gasping as your ankle twisted and you fell to the ground. “Fuck!”
Your Soldat stormed into the dance studio as you looked up, eyes wide.
When had he gotten back? He’d been on a mission for the past few days, and fuck, you’d missed him something fierce.
“Soldat,” the instructor breathed out as she stopped moving, staring up at him with blue eyes. “Remember me?”
“Yes,” he said, glaring at her like she was a pile of dog shit he’d stepped in.
She moved towards him, her hand coming to rest on his chest. “I was hoping to see—” She was cut off as he raised his hands to hold her face. The harsh woman looked so… soft for him. “I missed you. Did you miss me?”
“No,” he snarled, his voice dropping almost an octave. “You should’ve thought twice before touching my malen’kaya.”
The light that had been in her eyes when she first saw him quickly disappeared as she realized she was totally, and utterly, fucked.
Your heart caught in your throat as he so easily twisted her head, a loud snap ringing through the air. He let her limp, lifeless body fall to the ground with a thump before turning and rushing to you. The darkness that had been in his face was long gone as he pulled you close, his hands running over you to try to find sources of injuries.
It took you a moment to realize he was speaking, your ears ringing as you stared at the dead woman on the ground.
“—you okay? What the hell happened? Who allowed this?” He asked, talking a mile a minute as he checked over you. Once he finally got to your pointe shoes, he took in a shaky breath. “I have to check,” he said as he reached for the pink ribbons tied around your ankles.
In the two years since you’d known him, you’d never seen his hands shake like they were.
Your eyes locked in on his face, his brows furrowed and his cheeks flushed, as he tentatively untied one of your pointe shoes. He slowly slipped it off, his breath catching in his throat as he looked at your foot. It was only when the second one came off that you finally looked at the damage.
Well… You were sure your feet could have looked much worse after dancing for over twelve hours, but… It still wasn’t pretty.
“I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt that bad,” you lied, trying to soothe him.
He was usually much more composed than this, his face harder.
Even when he was feeling a bit nicer, a bit softer, it was nothing like this.
The Soldat shook his head, looking absolutely pissed. “You don’t have to lie. Never lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” you insisted. “But that might be because right now, they’re numb, so I can’t feel anything at all from about my ankles down. But that does mean I didn’t lie.”
You were attempting to joke with him, lighten up the mood a bit. However, he definitely didn’t seem to be taking the bait.
When you glanced over at the windows, for some reason you were surprised to see how late it was. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” he drawled as he scooped you up, leaving your pointe shoes behind as he carried you to the locker room. The man was somehow almost completely silent as he set you on a bench and grabbed a first aid kit out of what seemed to be thin air, before gently cleaning away the blood.
Water was dripping somewhere in the locker room, the droplets hitting the tiled floor with soft clinks.
“You were gone,” you whispered, eyes trained on his face. He was still so handsome, even with the frown lines that were starting to appear. Not that you could blame him, everything he’d been through would more than warrant a few wrinkles. “You were gone so long…”
The Soldat’s eyes were soft, despite being the color of the ice that coated the windows. “I know… I can’t stand being away from you, but if I didn’t go… They’d find some way to punish me.” His rough flesh hand cupped your cheek. “And I think they’re starting to catch on that the best way to punish me would be through you, malen’kaya.”
For a second, you thought he was gonna kiss you. From the way his eyes flicked down to your lips and back up again, you could’ve sworn on your life.
But then he took in a deep breath.
And his hand left your cheek.
You tried to push down the disappointment that welled up in your throat, biting your lip.
“Come on, malen’kaya,” he said as he finished wrapping up your poor feet. “Let’s get you to bed.”
The other girls were already sleeping when he carried you into your room, each one of them with a single wrist handcuffed to the bed frame.
“Hate knowing that you’re locked here all night,” Soldat said, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear as he approached the only empty bed in the room. “It’s like… putting a lark in a cage. I don’t like it.”
“I know,” you said. “But… It’s just how it is.” You looked up at him with bright eyes as he laid you down and tucked the blanket in around you, making sure you were nice and cozy before he took your left wrist and cuffed it to the metal frame.
“Get some sleep,” he murmured, brushing his metal fingers along your cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Oh, God…
Everything hurt…
Why did everything hurt?
It was like your head had been shoved under water, but your eyes were too heavy to open.
“—gotta take the video and send it.”
“How do we know he’ll come?”
“Oh, he’ll come. He’ll always come for her.”
Who was that? The voices sounded vaguely familiar, but not quite.
“His precious malen’kaya.”
You slipped back into unconsciousness even as you fought the darkness coming over you, slumping down again.
The clock ticked obnoxiously loud as you sat in the diner booth, your knee pulled up to your chest. A cold cup of half-drank coffee was sitting on the table in front of you.
You’d been waiting over an hour for him to show.
The lunch rush had come and gone, and the waitresses—in their rockabilly uniforms and roller skates—were shooting you pitying looks.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” you huffed as you got to your feet and slammed a crisp twenty dollar bill on the vinyl table top. “He asks me on a fucking date and then doesn’t fucking show. How fucking typical.”
It had only been two days since the mission where he’d asked you out on a date. Your ankle was wrapped, and you were under strict orders to rest.
So, of course, you’d dragged yourself out to this diner that he insisted on taking you to.
Well, meeting you at since you really, really didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness of riding in the same car.
If you were being honest, it hurt. A lot. You’d gotten your hopes up over the past two days, tossing and turning at night as you dreamed of what would happen on your date. Would it go anywhere? Would he end up being the love of your life?
You hadn’t had a crush on anyone since…
Well… Since your Soldat.
You missed him so fucking much.
And he wouldn’t have stood you up.
“Fuck Steve Rogers.”
Your face was flushed as you headed home, storming through the streets of Manhattan to the Avengers Tower. You needed time to stew, and the subway would be too fast.
“I should’ve just stayed home and taken that fucking bubble bath,” you huffed as you got in the elevator and rode up to the residential floors. Even if it had been meant to be a casual first date, you’d done your hair and stressed over your makeup, wearing your nicest pair of leggings and sneakers that didn’t have mud on the bottoms.
And even if the plan had been for it to be casual, you’d been looking forward to flowers and a kiss on the cheek, stealing a fry from his plate and maybe playing footsie under the table.
Just a little.
Like other girls got to do.
The elevator music was getting into your head, and there was no doubt it’d be haunting your dreams. But when the doors opened onto the common area floor, you were just about ready to burst into tears.
Because Steven Grant Rogers was sitting at the kitchen island and eating a sandwich as he laughed at some joke Rhodey made.
You couldn’t believe him. Was this his plan all along?
Steeling yourself, you straightened your spine and walked with purpose, planning on walking right by without even acknowledging him.
But of course, that wouldn’t be your luck.
As soon as Steve caught sight of you, he froze, his blue eyes going wide. Breathing out your name, he quickly scrambled to his feet. “Wait! Wait! Please! I’m so fucking sorry, I completely forgot!”
“It’s fucking fine, Rogers. It’s clearly a sign that this is was a bad idea in the first place,” you said, your voice cold enough to freeze him again.
“What?! No! Please, I’m just…” He groaned as he followed you onto the elevator that would take you up to the other residential floors. “I just had three meetings before noon and completely forgot! That doesn’t mean I don’t want this date with you!”
Taking a breath, you turned on him, glaring at him like he was a piece of dog shit on your shoe. “You know what the cherry on top of this is?” You asked with a laugh. “My first fucking date of my entire fucking life, and I get stood up. Fuck you, Rogers. Fuck. You.”
You’d successfully shocked him, and left him looking like a guppy, his mouth hanging open as he watched you leave him standing there.
When you came to again, you actually found the strength to open your eyes.
The room around you was like every stereotypical hostage room you’d ever seen in real life, and in movies.
Almost like the one Olivia Pope had been in on Scandal.
Though, you had a feeling that this one was real and wasn’t just a fancy set in a warehouse.
“Where am I?” You asked yourself, trying to take stock of everything. “Okay. Head hurts. Expected that. Don’t feel any sharp pains… so he probably shot me with a tranquilizer and not a bullet… Which is probably better for my chances of escape.” It was so fucking cold, your entire body was trembling. “No phone, so no way for the others to track me. Same clothing I was in… so at least there’s that.”
Your voice died as you heard movement beyond the black steel door in front of you, watching as it slowly opened. Your heart sank as you realized who was standing in front of you.
“It’s been too long, malen’kaya.”
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When Gon’s anger becomes a protective mechanism for Killua
IMPORTANT: The text is long, plus, I do not support Gon hate. He’s a human being and a kid, so don’t worry, none of my analysis will put him as a monster.
You know the theory that one of the reasons Gon shuts Killua out from Pitou’s fight, besides proving himself and erasing his guilt, is also to keep Killua safe? I didn’t understand at first, but I kinda agree with that now.
Remember the “YES I AM AN IDIOT” iconic scene, Greed Island arc?
Let’s talk about that and link it all.
They’ve spent half of the chapter 158 arguing because Gon kept insisting on meeting this “Chrollo Lucilfer” person inside the game, while Killua was trying to be logical, saying that this person wouldn’t clarify their reasons only by asking them. Killua eventually gives in, and after Gon uses the card, they travel to met not Chrollo, but Hisoka, who asks if they went all that way just to ask him a question (implying how dumb it was).
Gon says that’s pretty much their reason and Killua kept teasing Gon on his dumb choice.
But after some ping-pong teasing between them, the reason Gon was being stubborn is, actually, a concern that lights up on his mind with memories of his journey to rescue Killua from Kukuroo Mountain. Even blushing, Gon says that he was reminded of Gotoh’s words and was worried that both of them were being deceived.
Gotoh’s words were, exactly:
Be careful. And protect Killua.
This also adds to the character analysis - one that is very on point - that Gon being outgoing doesn’t mean he puts depth to analyzing his feelings. He speaks his mind, the problem is not to talk per se - but to put effort into understand his intentions behind those actions. He could say he was worried about them, but he doesn’t, because he speaks first and doesn’t think through what he feels. He’s yes outgoing, but impulsive, and very immersive into acting first, think later - or even thinking only when questioned, because it didn’t even crossed his mind. That’s why we see him talking but yet... it’s hard to know what is happening inside him aside from Killua’s common inner monologues. But maybe protecting Killua it’s so natural that he doesn’t even bother to explain. To think that he keeps Gotoh’s words and even mentions it after all this time, such a nice and gentle touch of how much he respects his bond with Killua.
Now, let’s get back to the CAA events. Specifically chapter 222.
A very shocked and distressed Gon was learning through Kite's attacks, but not to defend himself or parry. His painful attempts were all leading to dodge the punches and faints, so he could give puppet Kite a hug, and an apology.
Yes, he said terrible things to Killua - and of course wanting to protect him wasn’t the only reason. But he knew from the moment they first met Pitou, that they were dangerous. He wanted to deal with that alone, because it was “his mess”, so he shouldn’t endanger his most beloved one.
We know that this is a turning point for Gon’s development in this arc, because it is the moment where his resolve becomes tainted with all the guilt he is facing. It’s when he starts to lose himself, and Killua knows that, probably, nothing he says or do will convince Gon otherwise.
But what contrasts with the well-known harsh words towards his best friend, is that he never meant to exclude Killua from the whole situation. That's why he says "OUR fault".
Then, right after, he addresses Killua directly. Visibly starting to lose himself, he takes the responsibility to prove he's strong to fix it, but I think that due to his communication pattern, he might also mean that he’s want to fix it without endangering who he wanted to fight by his side under normal circumstances.
It’s an act that can hold both guilt and protection. He addresses only that one person in the room because he needs Killua to know that this isn't a normal situation, and that's why he can't bring him to this fight. It isn’t normal because someone dear to him got hurt really bad. It isn’t normal because his best friend, someone who would not think before putting his life at risk for Gon, shouldn’t endanger himself to the point he could face the same destiny, specially because this is Gon’s way to show he cares. Again, Gon just speaks his mind without much thought, with his intentions between the lines. His effort to put his feelings into words mixed with the suffering he is handling are, on his mind, overwhelming enough - but still he cared to speak directly to Killua. Could this be, again, another demonstration of not-so-well-thought feelings spoken with the first words that come to his mouth?
Wouldn’t make sense, after all of those demonstrations of Gon’s behavior when someone is endangered and he desperately wants to take control of the situation because he thinks this is the best way to protect them and to be useful, and with that, deserving of their company?
As Gon's communication is both simple (in words) and complex (behind the words), since he doesn't think through his feelings and he’s a stubborn child, it makes hard for others to catch his intentions, specially if they're already struggling to understand that they are not a burden. Because Killua’s mindset on making friends also includes the need to feel useful, just like Gon’s, but expressed through different means - and by being casted away fro Gon’s decision and later saving the boy in order to push him forward once again to his goal (alone this time), Killua thinks Gon has cut ties with him. as he couldn’t play a helpful role within Gon’s life anymore. So, this is how he reaches the rejective conclusion.
But the connection that I'm trying to make is that even thought Gon’s words were awful as the boy himself recognized, I truly believe Gon still wouldn't want Killua to fight even if he knew how his friend felt. But not because he rejected Killua or meant to cut ties with his “no longer useful” best friend.
Because Gon has stated already: Killua doesn’t have to earn his friendship.
Those harsh words during the Palace Invasion were an attempt to regain control of the situation, prove his worth in the middle of a mental chaos that he wasn’t ready to face. But still, what if he kept reminding himself that he must protect his best friend in the entire world and just couldn’t find a better way to say it? Because he knows Killua is capable of self-sacrificing, Gon tried to stop him before, and Pitou is terribly strong. If it’s hard for him to translate his feelings when he is calm and collected, the extreme condition he found himself dragged in would’ve just made this communication face more obstacles. Fighting his own pain - another thing he couldn’t translate for the sake of his own mental health - led to the words to come out like they were: heartbreaking.
So, I’m not saying that it was solely to protect Killua, but I think that makes sense for Gon’s character. And again, I don’t think he would agree that Killua would fight what he thinks it’s his battle alone. But, with his mind cleared and the right questions, he would've given Killua an answer. He would say that this is not about taking Killua out of the special place Gon has put him, but about Gon taking the the responsibility based on what he thinks it’s best for everyone. His feelings, either protective or hurtful, are only explained when he’s asked, because action speaks volume for him and he needs this trigger question to make him translate his intentions.
Just like in the Hunter Exam, he only tells Kurapika about how he felt with Hisoka because he questioned.
And in the Yorknew Arc, Gon didn’t let Killua hurt himself and was really trying to understand how the other boy felt. Gon doesn't communicate well but not because he rejects his feelings, and still, he cares about others’ feelings too. He was just literally out of his mind. So yeah, I think he cared for Killua safety, and if after all this time he made a connection between his stubborn acts and Gotoh’s words, it’s because - on his mind - these words and thoughts never leave his head. He’s constantly worrying about Killua, in his own way. But he couldn't explain something that he didn't put a second thought even for himself to understand. And it's not the first time, he acts very similar in these mentioned situations.
What all these stubborn oriented situations that I’ve mentioned, except for the one regarding Hisoka, have in common? He wanted to protect Killua.
He was undeniably wrong in saying those words to Killua, but it’s something acknowledged by himself already. He IS, by his nature, a protective kid, and under normal circumstances, Killua would be allowed to fight by his side because it has to be him. If it’s not going to be him, it won’t be anyone else. He can’t risk to lose him for something that he feels overly responsible. His words were rooted in pain, but the moment he addresses Killua that he would fight alone - a moment recollected by the latter in the hospital scene - shows respect for the one he has just lost, Kite, and the one he doesn’t want to lose.
Killua is the one who never left him, never discredited him and is irreplaceable. Killua is the first thing that comes up to his mind when thinking about meeting Ging. Who would have thought that Gon’s mind would reach so far into memories and hold so deeply someone’s words like Gotoh’s?
He was selfish. But it’s a childish selfishness, built on such empty expectations about himself that he ends up forcing on others what he believes that is the right thing to do, in order to keep others safe, no matter how bad he hurts his body... because when it comes to protect those he care, he loses respect on his self-care due to this low self-esteem of his. So, he didn’t ask Killua to “please, let me fight alone”, because he’s decided to not drag Killua into a fight he knows he might lose, and then Killua couldn’t be protected.
And makes sense, again, that Killua couldn’t read between these lines, because he also blames himself for everything that happened, and thinks his feelings and desires would only keep in Gon’s way - that’s why those words hit him so deeply, but the thing that hurts him the most was the sole fact that Gon fought alone. He can’t help but compare to the dodgeball, and like Gon, Killua has his own unhealthy patterns: since he only knows love through pain, when he’s prevented from getting hurt against his will, he fails to understand it as an act of love.
The bond they’ve established while playing Greed Island was expressed through dozens of symbolisms already well discussed among the fandom (Killua’s badge, the rainbow diamond, the famous line during the dodgeball game). And I don’t doubt that their encounter with Pitou held traces of the same protective pattern, but messed up by Gon’s internal struggle.
For the times Gon showed concern before, we can mention more expressive moments like the whole Zoldyck arc, when they were escaping from the Troupe, when Tzeseguerra said he’d endangered Killua or even when Killua got caught by some spell, etc, or we can even analyze his body language. Like here:
Before the date, Gon is indirectly protecting Killua in here, through his body language (Killua entered the room first, but Gon puts himself between them):
And after the date, while being punished for hurting her feelings, Gon screams at Palm when she tried to stab Killua, probably implying that he was observing and only interveins when she tries to hurt anyone other than himself - because he is, again, being stubborn and taking all the blame and control in order to redeem his actions and prove his capacity to fix things. I think it’s possible that Gon talked to her about Killua off curtains, or at least made an agreement about not involving Killua in her madness, but it it’s open to interpretation.
So, yeah, I can’t help but link everything to his pattern. He responds to the fear of losing those he loves with the same impactful devotion that is given to him, but it is so impactful that fails vocabulary and second thoughts. He knows Killua will be the first to risk his life if something happens or to prevent Gon from getting hurt during his tasks. Killua tends to sacrifice a lot and never complains while doing it, so I think it’s pretty much plausible that even when he can’t express himself at all, he’s worrying about Killua in the corner of his mind. Sometimes, just before our eyes.
Anyways, I love re-reading Greed Island arc and linking to their development through CAA because pretty much anything they do, they’re doing together, and they were bonding so beautifully. Their relationship was never so well-detailed before, but mostly for us, when they didn’t get much time to put in the balance how rushed their training was, and how fast they got attached to the point they can’t even stop thinking about each other while distant.
They look at each other like this:
They inspire this kind of reaction from others:
And there’s this one... nothing big, I just love it hahahaha
They’re in love each others’ top priority. It’s not impossible that Gon took Killua’s safety into matter, but his mind and words failed him, as he himself acknowledges that the only explanation to say those things to Killua is that “he doesn’t know what he was thinking”. Because, under normal circumstances, just like about letting Killua fight by his side, he would NEVER hurt Killua’s feelings. He IS protective. He didn’t have to rescue Killua from his own home - since Killua left for himself - but he still does it, instead of sticking to his main journey. And did not budge until Killua was safe by his side.
It’s a badly worded protection, because he doesn’t even know self-protection and puts action before everything. To figure a better way out of this pattern, he will now have plenty of time to find new ways to protect Killua and himself from the flaws of their dynamic. Their emotional attachment didn’t grow as fast as their fighting skills, but it doesn’t mean Gon is a monster, was malicious towards Killua or wanted to break his heart. I don’t even think he would reject Killua, but would explain the reason behind his decision in a reassuring way.
And finally, it’s so symbolic how Gotoh died and got replaced by a Kiriko - the same creature that translates Gon’s perceptiveness and how the boys are close. This way, they are still linked by Gotoh’s words through someone that mimics Gotoh’s appearance and also understands their relationship like the long gone butler. His words will never die.
And not to mention... how shoujo and romantic it is that Gon remembers the promise he made to Gotoh before he takes Killua with him? It is almost like a marriage proposal. That he didn’t forget, not even after all this time.
Do I think he would’ve change his mind on letting Killua fight? Not at all, and Killua couldn’t change his mind even if he begged, at least not without some patient mental work. This is Gon’s mindset on protecting someone. But like that time in Greed Island, under normal circumstances, Gon would’ve ease Killua’s worries directly or indirectly after some talking. And of course, it is not his job to guess Killua’s feelings, communication must be a two-way path. Killua waited for too long, and at that point, Gon was too lost in his grief and wasn’t able to measure his words. But I truly believe that, deep inside his mind, those words and that promise were still there, waiting to resonate if necessary.
And as @gallyl added so perfectly: Killua is alive and well, grieving on the hospital’s bench, trying to get a grip of everything he just experienced. Decided to give Gon a second chance, he’s now able to understand this message of love Gon has left for him: there’s so much he can do in life, that Gon simply doesn’t want him to die because Killua’s whole life was surrounded by death - and Killua’s greatest wish was to live like a normal kid. And this speaks louder to Gon than having Killua to himself in death. A love that is not selfish, and does not envy. Killua’s life is validated, and in return, he saves Gon and his sister, the ones he loves the most, and validate back their right to exist, to grow, to try again. Unconditional love. At first, he’s hurt and demands an apology. But it’s Alluka who reminds him of how love must be free to give and to receive - he should let his heart open for whenever Gon is ready to reach him again.
But now, the apology will matter.
And this is absurdly romantic. Not every sacrifice ends up in dying together to prove a relationship. They’ve made promises similar to marital vows, and not everything happened like they wanted, but they made clear to us that they’re not done with each other - as they refuse to say goodbye, and keep grammatical constructions like “for a while”, indicating a break, an interlude.
Their song is still playing, and their promises still exist as their split was never mentioned as something definitive, because preventing the other one to get physically hurt on your behalf and taking some time to think before you take the risk to accidentally emotionally hurt them too are both ways to show protection. Ways that they’re learning now, two boys who think they should get hurt to love and be loved.
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Falling for you ( Falling from Grace) Jungkookx OC ( Complete)
Chapter 1
[ Read the rest here : Chapter 8 ( Final)
]
Rated : 18 +
Warning : . Fuck buddies? Or rather enemies that have sex. They just really hate each other but also can’t keep their hands off each other.
Sweat dotted the edge of my hairline and I felt like my entire body was on fire. I was wet, so fucking wet and the sound of him ramming into me, over and over again was absolutely obscene in the quiet of the bedroom. I was on my back, a thin black tie cutting off my vision and all I could feel was the steady staccato of his dick pounding into me.
“Oh fuck.. Fuck...Just like that Jungkook fuck....”
I could barely recognize my own voice. Wrecked and ruined, breathy and almost a whine.
My shoulders ached from being stretched up, wrists almost numb from the handcuffs that held my body up to the head board. I felt like my shoulders were gonna pop out and I panted, fuming at him internally because he’d done it on purpose, locked the handcuffs a rung higher than usual which meant that I wasn’t lying comfortably on the bed as usual .
“Look at you.... look so fucking filthy like this angel....” He smirked down at me, fingers like a vice around my waist holding me up and almost off the bed as he pounded into me, each thrust carrying the entire weight of his muscled body. It hurt so bad it felt good. My thighs ached from where they stayed wrapped around his slim waist.
“Fuck...don’t stop...” I felt my head fall back, the ache in my back intensifying. I was so close....so fucking close, I could feel the heat as it built up, licking its way up my spine, The angle was perfect, his cock had a slight curve to it when he was fully hard and that just meant that he managed to hit my sweet spot every time he pistoned in.
And God we’d been at this for so long now... almost a whole damn hour and my senses were frayed, my body so sensitive and wrung out that all I wanted to do was cum.
So, of course Jungkook being the supreme asshole that he was, chose that moment to stop moving completely.
My heart jumped to my throat in panic, my body lifting off the bed, chasing friction and his hold on my waist tightened, so much that I was sure he had bruised me.
“Hmm.... Don’t think you’re in any position to be telling me what to do, baby....” He drawled, voice husky in a way that made my ache worse.
“What- no..wait you fucking asshole ...” I screamed knowing what was coming and refusing to accept it. Fuck i hated him... Fuck Fuck....
He gripped my waist and slid forward again , but instead of sliding in he slotted his cock between my thighs, pulling my legs together so he could fuck into the gap and yes, it was really fucking hot but I was so close....I needed him inside me ......
“Please....Jungkook please don’t...” I begged, dignity forgotten because I was not a fan of delayed gratification.
“Shush shush.....What’d I say about taking what I give you.....and to be fucking honest, I’m not sure you really like my dick all that much...” He said, sounding thoughtful and my head swam in confusing. What the fuck was he even on about?
“What? Are you kidding me? I let you fuck me almost every damn night why would you-”
“So why’d you go have dinner with Namjoon hyung?” He pinched my nipples', both at the same time, twisting and pulling till I whines, eyes watering enough to soak the silk of his tie.
“What -- That’s... We’re not fucking dating....I can have dinner with who I want....” I snarled in disbelief, tugging fruitlessly on the handcuffs. Why the fuck had I agreed to this??
“Not after cancelling on me, you can’t... And certainly not with my brother, angel..” Jungkook snarled right back and I flinched when I felt his hand come down near my face. For one horrifying moment I thought he was going to slap me but what he did was rip the blindfold off me. Momentarily still blinded, I blinked till he came into focus and felt that familiar and unwelcome swooping sense of attraction.
Jeon Jungkook with his long midnight hair and ivory skin. Doe eyes that carried entire galaxies in them and those soft, thin lips that smirked at the drop of a hat.
Fuck him... Fuck him for being so fucking attractive that my heart stopped every time I saw him.
He was staring at me and the raging anger on his face really shouldn’t make me wetter but it did. I wanted to sob as my entire body clenched, aching empty and desperate to be filled again.
“You sent me a fucking dick pic... “ I whined in despair. “ You were literally in the office when I was at dinner with him , how the fuck was I supposed to know you wanted to see me....!!!?”
Jungkook reached down and began stroking himself and I felt my eyes widen in disbelief.
“Jungkook....” I warned, feeling the desperation morph into genuine anger now.
“I wanted you to suck me off in my office. Isn’t that part of what my dad pays you for?” He drawled and I felt fury bloom. Jungkook knew just the right words to say, whether he wanted to turn me on or make me feel murderous....
He scooted forward , straddling my chest and I bucked hard, trying to throw him off but it was fucking impossible. I flinched when he slipped a palm under my head, gripping my hair and yanking my head up till his cock pressed up against my lips.
“You owe me a blow job, princess.....gonna open up?” He gripped my hair harder and the pain made me keen.
“If you stick your dick in my mouth I will bite it off....” I growled, resisting the urge to thrash because it only made my scalp hurt more. He laughed at that and I stared at him, the pink of his dick right on my lips and for a moment I almost had a pavlovian response to it. Almost opened my mouth and took the hard delicious length of it into my warm mouth.
Shaking my head just enough to dislodge the head off my lips, I glared at him , my stomach clenching as he stared down at me, wicked dark eyes gleaming with satisfaction and pretty red lips parted in that sexy infuriating smirk of his. He gripped himself harder, groaning as his eyes rolled back a bit at the stimulation. I stared at how his long fingers wrapped around his length , the way he was so shameless in chasing his pleasure. His thumb traced the head, finger dipping lightly into his slit and he moaned, almost shuddering at the sensation. I wanted nothing more to touch myself, at least relieve some of the excruciating pressure between my legs but Jungkook had planned this, had put me in handcuffs fully intending to leave me high and dry .
I stared at him and he glanced back, his face momentarily open in pleasure, lips spit slicked and parted and tongue poking out as he let out a breathy, ‘ fuck’ and i knew he was close.
He always looked like a fallen angel when he was close to his orgasm. Fucking beautiful son of a bitch.
But no matter how gorgeous he was, Jeon Jungkook was an incorrigible jerk and I knew exactly what he was gonna do,.
I pursed my lips shut and turned my head away when he came , snarling when the hot wetness coated my face. Jungkook always came like a fucking hose and I could feel globs of it cling to my face, even my fucking eyelashes.
When I turned back , snarling and ready to unload on him, he was already crawling away, but not before scooping up the last of his release on his fingers and reaching down to grip my cheeks with enough force to get my mouth open.
I whimpered when he stuck his finger in, the familiar taste of his cum only making my body thrum in desperation. I hated him. Hated him so fucking much.
“Taste good, baby?” He drawled softly, chasing his fingers with his tongue and licking into my mouth, swirling his cum all over my tongue with his.
“My filthy little slut...” He whispered against my lips, voice tinged with so much feigned fondness that I nearly bit his lip.
“Take the handcuffs off, you fucker.” I growled, watching as he slipped on his boxer brief and his jeans. I fully intended to grab the vibrator on my desk and get myself off the minute he let me out of the handcuffs.
And next time....
oh, boy next time Jungkook was going to be on his knees begging me to let him cum....
He was sweaty and looked like a mess but he never stayed around long enough to even take a shower. Now that I knew I wasn’t getting fucked my attraction for him was gone, replaced by homicidal fury.
“Hmm.... I’ll think about it.” He shrugged, reaching for the white button down on the floor.
My eyes nearly bugged out.
“What the fuck do you mean you’ll think about it?” I snarled.
“Your sister told me she’ll be dropping by at around five today..... I’ll leave the key on the dining tanle. She’ll help you out...” He grinned at me wide and I felt my heart drop through my throat.
I spluttered as he dangled the key tauntingly , whistling as he moved to the door.
“THAT’S A WHOLE TWO HOURS AWAY JEON JUNGKOOK YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Do I even want to know?” My sister stared at me in honest disgust and I knew I must’ve looked a sight , with dried cum all over my face. But i was barely listening to her. I knew exactly what I had to do....Knew exactly what I could do to have Jeon Jungkook frothing at the mouth.
“Areum? Are you listening..?” She called out when I raced to the bathroom. I quickly turned on the hot water , grabbing a washcloth to scrub at my face. Jungkook was going to regret this.
When I finished taking a shower, scrubbing myself clean and stepped back out, my sister was airing out the room.
“Mom has been talking about setting you up with people and here you are , whoring around with that Jeon brat....” She rolled her eyes at me but I ignored her, moving to the closet with my lingerie.
My mother had high hopes for me. After blowing through my dad’s entire legacy with her fancy clothes and expensive bags, she was now panicking. She wanted me to marry big and granted, Jeon Jungkook came from a filthy rich family but he was still the prodigal son and his father made it plenty clear that unless he danced to the older man’s tune, he would be out without a penny to his name.
But that was none of my business. I wasn’t going to marry the dude. I didn’t even like him.
All i really cared about was getting him back for leaving me unsatisfied today.
I grabbed the most scandalous piece I had, black and completely sheer. It left absolutely nothing to the imagination and I felt saliva pooling at the back of my throat just thinking about how Jungkook would react to this. The first time I had worn it, he had held me up against the wall and fucked me senseless.
“Why are you here anyway?” I asked my sister as she began picking up the different pieces of clothing scattered all over the room, dropping them in the laundry basket on her hip.
“Can’t I just come check on my beautiful baby sister? “ She smiled and I rolled my eyes .
Hana was the perfect daughter in every way. She was a professional artist, married to the gorgeously successful surgeon, Dr. Kim Seokjin who happened to own the largest hospital in the country.
And it was hard to hate her because she had endless patience for my shenanigans'. Because to be honest, this wasn’t the first time she had walked in on me lying debauched, courtesy Jeon fucking Jungkook.
Which brought me to my current mission.
“Okay. I’m fine. I’m actually on my way out so you can either crash here for a while or you can leave...” i waved dismissively, running to the bathroom to slip the dress on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I rang the door bell again, feeling my body thrum with impatience. Why the fuck wasn’t he answering the damned door? I was wearing simple summer dress. The fastest thing I could take off.
“Areum?” Namjoon’s surprised face barely registered on my face. He was in his sweatpants with a glass bowl filled with chips and he looked completely thrown by my presence.
I shouldered past him, moving to stand in the middle of the living room.
“Is everything okay? What’s wro-”
I grabbed the hem of the dress pulling it over my head and tossing it away on the couch.
Namjoon dropped the bowl and if it weren't for the ridiculously thick fur rug underneath us, the thing would have shattered to a million pieces.
His eyes were wide in disbelief, mouth slack in shock as he stared at me and i could actually see his dick swelling in hi sweatpants as I stood in the completely see through babydoll.
“Where’s the bedroom?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
‘Fuck, yeah...that feels so fucking good...” Namjoon growled , gripping my waist as I rode him, his thick cock stretching me out so good that I moaned in relief. Stupid fucking Jeon Jungkook.... Namjoon wasn’t bad per se but he didn’t know the nuances of what I liked. Jungkook had this sinful way of rolling his hips up into mine when I rode him and it always made me see stars. But no matter....this wasn’t the main reason I was here.
“Don’t cum... I want you to come on my face .” I whispered softly and Namjoon shuddered, grip on my waist tightening.
“Fuck..yeah,.yeah,.,.,okay,,.,anything you say.,...” He stuttered.
I reached down to rub my clit because I wanted to cum too and I sighed in sweet blessed relief as my orgasm washed over me, my walls clenching around Namjoon as I rode it out.
“Fuck, I’m close...” Namjoon whispered and i clambered off him to kneel between his legs.
“Take a picture.” I grabbed my phone and turned on the camera , pressing it into his hands.
“Wh- What?” His pacing faltered and I didn’t let him think too much , lest he change his mind...
“I want a picture of me choking on your cock , Joon oppa.... A picture with you painting my face with cum..please...please...” I blinked up at him through my wet lashes and I could almost see his mind disintegrating at the visual.
“ Shit okay.... okay...”
I wrapped my lips around his cock, sucking quickly and taking him in deep, my mind swimming with glee as he clicked away.
“Fuck, I’m cumming...” Namjoon began and I pulled away, opening my mouth, sticking my tongue out just as he came , making sure I stared straight into the camera as the first few spurts hit me, right across my tongue. I stuck a finger in my mouth, making a show of sucking it and Namjoon groaned, clicking away more pictures.
“Fuck...tell me I can get these pictures...” He moaned and I laughed, crawling up to kiss him.
“Sure baby.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I called Jungkook first, simply to give him a chance to redeem himself.
The thing with Namjoon was impulsive and while i didn’t regret it per se , i didn’t want to drag Namjoon into this without just cause.
“what the fuck do you want?” Jungkook’s annoyed voice made my hackles rise.
“A fucking apology for starters.” I snarled into the phone. The fucking audacity!!!
“Listen , I’m on the way to Sana’s place.... So I don’t have time for your toddler tantrums. I’m hanging up”
And he actually hung up.
I stared at the phone, shaking in disbelief.
I quickly flipped through the photos I’d taken , trying to find the one that would make him furious enough to ditch his fuck for the night. Sana? Who the fuck was she anyway>?
I picked the one that was most obscene, you could see my sheer bodice, my nipples and the curve of my breasts, Namjoon’s cock resting against my tongue, spurts of his cum over my tongue and my cheek bones and the highlight- my eyes staring right at the camera in defiance.
Perfect.
Nothing riled Jungkook up more than defiance.
I opened snapchat , sending him the pic.
I stared at the caption in satisfaction.
Your brother tasted better.
I relaxed against the pillows, glancing at the clock over the door. It was a little past eleven but knowing Jungkook.... he’d be here within the hour. He had a key to my apartment so I locked the bedroom instead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Kim Areum!!!!!!!!” Jungkook’s voice rang through the apartment rousing me from my nap. I blinked groggily and stared at the mirror.
11.25 PM.
I felt a smile creep into my face. A new record.
The door into my bedroom shook on its hinges as he knocked on it. Hard. I moved to stand close to the door , reveling in the fact that Jungkook was on the other side, likely losing his everloving shit .
“I’m too tired, Jungkook...your brother really put me through the wringer...” I whined piteously and the knocking stopped.
“Open the motherfucking door, Areum or I’m gonna fuck you so hard its gonna put you in a fucking wheelchair .....” He growled.
I smiled.
“Good night Jungkook. Oh and you better leave soon...my sister is sleeping in the guest bedroom.”
Ignoring his frustrated snarl , I turned the lights off.
Kim Areum- 1.
Jeon Jungkook -0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author’s note : I was just really inspired by that pic of pic of Jungkook in the see through shirt. Lemme know what you thought :-*
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Last chapter of this volume! Can’t believe we’re already through four volumes, and we’re not even done with the second full arc yet. I mean, later arcs are gonna be even longer, but like. Yeah.
[No. 35 - Battle On, Challengers!]
We move on to the next match - Kaminari versus Shiozaki! I’m actually kind of marveled that they were able to thaw out that entire glacier in any sort of timely manner. That’s quirks for you!
Present Mic announces Shiozaki as class 1b’s assassin, and also reveals that he apparently either doesn’t know the full quote for ‘every rose has its thorns’ or started to say it, only to realize she didn’t have roses and scrambled to compensate. Kaminari, meanwhile, gets announced as a ‘sparking, killing boy.’ Really kind of morbid on this round, huh?
Shiozaki turns around to object to Present Mic’s descriptor as an ‘assassin’, stating that she’s merely come this far seeking victory. Present Mic apologises, and Kaminari just kind of watches while admiring her. He takes notes of her eyes, and then thinks about how strong she is. He then sort of counters his previous admiration of strength by asking himself if he really has to hit someone so pretty with a full discharge, then concludes his ‘battle plan’ by determining that he’ll ask her out once all this is over.
Present Mic starts the match while Shiozaki is still focused on talking to Mic - which means she’s facing away from Kaminari. Which is kind of a dick move on Mic’s part, but eh, I guess ‘heroes have to be ready for anything,’ yarda yarda etcetera.
Kaminari asks Shiozaki if she wants to grab something to eat when they’re done there, and that he’s happy to console her if she wants. She turns to stare at him in confusion, just in time to see him charging up his whole body with his quirk. Kaminari makes a quip about this match probably being over in an instant - and then we cut to the immediate aftermath, where Present Mic comments on how it’s already over while Kaminari wheys out in the grasp of Shiozaki’s vines. Shiozaki was both able to create a shield against the electricity and yank Kaminari into the air and away from her, thus causing him to short-circuit.
One on patrol, Mount Lady comments on Shiozaki being a promising one, and another plant user. Kamui Woods amits he wishes he could’ve seen her up close, but that they need to get back to work.
Back in the stadium, Midnight announces Shiozaki moving on to the second round. Shiozaki is relieved to have no wasted the opportunity bestowed upon her, and the narrative finally gives us an informational blurb on her quirk.
...A strange ending note there, but sure. Some of the crowd - or possibly Izuku? Since he’s sinking into a muttering fest right after - comments on the ‘match’ and the participants. Shiozaki’s ability to use her quirk is something else, between building walls, binding enemies… Kaminari’s quirk was no use against her. She countered him well. He might’ve had a chance if he could maneuver better, but he panicked and short-circuited after one attack.
Ochako hears muttering besides her and is a bit alarmed, looking over to see Izuku in the middle of an analysis fugue. Izuku mutters about thinking Kaminari’s quirk would be stronger, but Shiozaki got fourth in the entrance exam, and she’s the real deal. The vine moves are similar to Kamui Wood’s binding attacks, and binding types are always strong, to the point where you almost never see someone break out. It’s pretty much impossible to dodge all the vine attacks, so the only counter is to rip them apart with brute strength - ah, but to prevent that, they tend to go for the hands first.
(...and I just NOW realized that this specific commentary about binding-type quirks and the counter being brute strength is literally something that comes into play when Best Jeanist binds Gigantomachia with those steel cables during the Jakku arc. Holy shit, I don’t think Hori intended it, but what a callback. Or it’s just good worldbuilding, which would also be neat!)
Ochako eventually cuts into Izuku’s muttering - startling him in the process - by commenting on how his match just ended, but he’s already thinking ahead strategy-wise. Izuku denies it, saying that it’s just a hobby of his, and that they finally have a chance to see the quirks of people outside their class in action. He then eagerly shows her his open notebook, stating that he has everything she’d need to know about class A in there - even her ‘zero gravity’.
Me, staring down the people who have the class unaware of the contents of Izuku’s notebooks when writing suspected traitor fics:
Anyways! Ochako is kind of impressed despite herself, stating that she thought Izuku was amazing from the day they met, but this sports festival has brought him to a whole other level. Izuku is confused by the complement, but there’s no time to ask, since Present Mic is announcing the participants of the next battle: Tenya versus Hatsume.
Some of the students are chattering about how the match is going to go, with one asking what is that - which seems to be referring to the support items Tenya is wearing? Midnight comments on it as well, noting that they’re forbidden for hero course students, and that a special request has to be put in for those things beforehand. Tenya admits he forgot, seeing as Aoyama was wearing that belt of his. Midnight reminds him that Aoyama applied for an exception.
Tenya apologies, stating that he’d been touched by Hatsuma’s sense of sportsmanship. Although she’s a member of the support course, she came to him and said that if they’re to be seen as equals, then they should fight on equal footing. She gave those items to him; her earnest spirit… he could never look down on it. That was his thinking.
Midnight apparently is now all for this, calling Tenya naive. Mic says that it’s good enough for him, and Aizawa says that if both parties are fine with it, he supposes it can be allowed… right? Izuku, up in the stands, is looking concerned, wondering if Hatsume is really the type to offer that. Hatsume, of course, is chuckling as she flips down a microphone right as the match starts.
Mei immediately starts going into her spiel, commenting on Tenya’s speed - much to the confusion of both Mic and Tenya. She then points out how Tenya’s legs should feel lighter than usual, and that that’s what one can expect with her custom leg parts, which keep up with their user’s speed! However, dodging is no problem for her with her hydraulic attachment bars! Which she deploys just before Tenya reaches her, causing him to trip over one of the bars and flail.
Mei checks for where the support companies were seated, her quirk zeroing in on the faces she’s looking for - which, to her pleasure, are eating her words up.
Tenya catches himself and spins on his heels, wondering what she’s going. Hatsume complements it, noting how her auto-balancer makes those sorts of tight movements possible. Meanwhile, up in the announcement booth, Mic and Aizawa are both so put out, with Aizawa facepalming and calling her a born saleswoman.
The game of tag, along with a completely play-by-play sales pitch, goes on for another ten minutes. Eventually, however, Hatsume steps over the line, sweating but proud of managing to get through everything she wants to show off. Midnight states that Tenya’s moving on to the second round, while Tenya is just in despair at the deception.
Ah, the face of someone with zero shame. Hatsume gives a completely insincere apology for using Tenya, which Tenya replies to by stating his extreme dislike of her.
Izuku is also a bit dismayed as he notes that Tenya is just too serious, so it wasn’t hard for her to get him to play her game, and that at least she’s honest about her under-handed methods to get what she wants. Ochako herself is looking a bit down as she gets up, quietly noting to Izuku that she should get to the prep room. Izuku notes that she left her still-full drink behind, glancing back to her in concern as she walks away.
As other matches run in the background, we shift over to prep room two, which Tenya is just entering. Ochako, already waiting in there, tells him good which, which startles him out of his funk as he recognizes her. Of course, the first thing he notes is her furrowed brows, which Ochako admits is probably from her being a bit nervous, and how it’s probably showing on her face. Tenya remembers her match is against Katsuki, and Ochako admits that she’s really scared. But, seeing Tenya out there, she…
Well, before she can finish her thought, Izuku bursts into the room. Ochako is confused, since he should be out there watching the other matches. Tenya to the side asks about the story behind the support girl. Izuku ignores the latter, telling Ochako that another two matches are already over, and now Kirishima and some class 1b guy are duking it out. Mina managed to damage Aoyama’s belt, he panicked, and she knocked him out with an uppercut to the chin. Then Tokoyami won his match in a flash - he didn’t give Momo the time to use the objects she made… he’s one of the strongest guys here in a one-on-one. Ochako realizes this means her match is up soon, her heart pounding in her chest.
Tenya can’t imagine that Katsuki would give it his explosive all against a female opponent, but Izuku cuts in, staring very firmly that Katsuki will. Everyone is competing here with the dream of becoming number one. No one’s holding back - Katsuki least of all. However, Ochako’s already helped Izuku so much, so he thought he might return the favor…
He really just stores his notebooks anywhere he can. What a legend. He offers the notebook, stating that Ochako needs a counter-strategy against Katsuki - one that uses her quirk. He came up with it on the fly, but it might work! Tenya is relief, stating how fortunate Ochako is. Ochako thanks Izuku, but says that it’s okay. Both Izuku and Tenya are startled by the reply.
Ochako states how amazing Izuku is, and how he does amazing stuff all the time. During the cavalry battle, she thought the easiest strategy woul be to team up with friends. But when she thinks about it, she was just putting her faith in Izuku. That’s why Tenya said ‘I challenge you’ and all that, which left her feeling a little embarrassed about herself.
She pushes herself to her feet, moving past them to get to her match as she says thanks, but no thanks. Everyone here is fighting for their futures, so doesn’t that make them all rivals? That’s why she’ll see him in the finals!
Ochako, sweetie…
Kirishima and Tetsutetsu knock each other out at the same time. Present Mic comments on the mirror image quirk matchup, and how the winner is… neither! They have a tie, since both are down. Midnight clarifies that in the event of a tie, they’ll determine the winner after the two recover, probably with an arm wrestling match or the like. The crowds comment on how they’re equal in strength, and how that was great though. They kind of hotbloodedness would be a great morale boost, and how they’re desirable as sidekicks.
Shouto watches on as the final two contestants of the first round enter the arena. Tsuyu states her worries about the match, and Jirou addson how she doesn’t want to watch it. Izuku quietly hopes for Ochako to do her best.
And so the final match is announced: Ochako versus Katsuki.
And with that, volume four is done! I’ll be getting up the character sheet first, and then digging into the bonus material. Hopefully y’all enjoy!
#chapter 35#sports festival arc#readthrough#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#midoriya izuku#Iida Tenya#uraraka ochako#kayama nemuri#aizawa shouta#yamada hizashi#Hatsume Mei#Kaminari Denki#shiozaki ibara#not related to this post or anything#but happy birthday tenya#what a good bean#he gets so betrayed in this chapter
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